1783 George Washington

After winning the revolutionary war against the British, the American soldiers were treated shabbily by the Continental Congress and could not get paid for their service. They finally got together in prepartion to march on the Congress in rebellion. George Washington went to confront them on March 15.

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Washington sternly rebuked talk of rebellion, saying it would threaten the liberties for which they had fought. An insurrection would only “open the floodgates of civil discord and deluge our rising empire in blood.” He then staged the most famous coup de theatre of his career. He was about to read aloud a letter from a congressman when the words swam before his eyes. So he fished in his pockets for his glasses

“Gentlemen,” he said, “you will permit me to put on my spectacles for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in service to my country.” The mutinous soldiers, inexpressibly moved, were shamed by their opposition to Washington and restored to their senses.

-- Ron Chernow, “Alexander Hamilton”

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I cannot recall whether the soldiers ever did get paid. Perhaps not.

Kate Upton

Kate Upton not only took her place in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition history by appearing on its cover for the second consecutive year; she also may be the first model in the issue's 50-year history to almost get frostbite during a shoot.

The theme of this year’s issue, which hit newsstands Tuesday, put models in exotic settings on all seven continents. Upton was sent to the most forbidding one of them all, Antarctica, to endure with frigid temperatures in skimpy outfits, including the parka top and bikini bottom she is wearing on the magazine's cover. She joked on Twitter that it took her two months to thaw out after it was over, and that she almost got frostbite.

-- ONTD

And it looks like her little bikini bra was also working very hard to keep her covered at all.

Marco Rubio

Marco Rubio is still getting some real play as the Republicans' latino wonder, who may even get the presidential bid in 2016, sort of the Republican La Bamba -I mean, Obama! He was given the spotlight last night to give the Party's response to Obama's State of the Union speech, and he did as good a job as you can do when you are trying to convince people that the G.O.P. is really the Party that cares about the old and the sick and the poor. Though, he gummed it up with a maladroit grab for his water glass in the middle of the speech, which has since gotten most of the focus. Well, comedy will often get pride of place over hollow political sermonizing.

Maureen Dowd devoted her column to the latest Republican sensation. Apparently he even likes rap music. Wow, he sounds like the perfect president.

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But other Republicans are so frantic to make their party less white and more hip that Rubio’s exegeses on gangsta rap are music to their ears.

Right now, Marco is like a paper doll, trying on different outfits of style and substance as the party oohs and aahs. As Nicolle Wallace, the former adviser to Sarah Palin, gushed to George Stephanopoulos: “He’s modern. He knows who Tupac is. He is on social media.” And “he’s close to the younger Bushes.”

Who could ask for anything more?

-- Maureen Dowd at The New York Times

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Lo (1,5) Humbert's Enchanted Island of Nine and Fourteen

It is in Part one Chapter five that Nabokov gives us his poetic symphony of pedophiliac enchantment, this island paradise, as he has Humbert Humbert relate to the uninitiated the existence and the magic of nymphets, going all mythical and dreamy-eyed.

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Daily fun

A bike for the entire family... that also has a built in sewing machine. (USA, 1939)

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