The Richard Nixon Presidential Library is offering free cherry pie. Because...hey, it's pie?

Being president of the United States doesn't necessarily mean the person holding the office has a discerning palate.

Ronald Reagan cherished jelly beans, while Bill Clinton never met a cheeseburger on the campaign trail he could pass up. Dwight Eisenhower loved his wife's homemade fudge, John F. Kennedy adored New England clam chowder, and Woodrow Wilson enjoyed a good chicken salad.

Today being President's Day, this leads to curious deals and promotions, including the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum offering half-priced admission. And for the first 1,000 visitors, they'll also receive a free piece of cherry pie.

Why cherry pie? Why pie at all? One wonders. You might think the library would choose apple pie (you know, the whole "American as..."), or you might draw a logical conclusion that Nixon must have been obsessed with cherry pie. Except the library doesn't say.

Indeed, as noted on Business Insider, Nixon's favorite go-to food was something far more curious--so curious as to border on the bizarre. Apparently Nixon loved cottage cheese and ketchup. Together. Often as breakfast.

Ketchup. On. Cottage. Cheese.

Try to get that gelatinous culinary horror erased from your mind right now. You can't. That's a visual no one wants to have. And yet here we were thinking Nixon's worst behavior was about Watergate all along.

Glorified daycare is wildly expensive in Manhattan.

Glorified daycare (a.k.a. preschool) in Manhattan has become a wannabe caste system say experts, where the wealthiest of locals have taken the admittance of their 2-year old to private preschools as intensely as college applications.

"It was totally insane, but I live here, and I had to accept that it's part of the system if I wanted to send Zee to a private school," Canadian writer Judy Batalion tells CNN Money, apparently unaware how totally insane she sounds.

Indeed, CNN dives down the rabbit hole of private preschool in Manhattan, detailing a world of private school admissions consultants who charge $15,000-$30,000, tuitions up to $40,000, and parents requesting letters of recommendation from former President Bill Clinton, and one asking for the same from the Pope.

Says one adviser, "I've seen people tell the school they're Navaho (sic), when they're like 1/36th," she said. "It's a nuthouse."

Damn straight. Everyone knows to claim you're Cherokee first.




How would Clinton or the Pope write a letter of recommendation for a 2-year old? Where would they start? "This toddler has fine-tuned their motor skills to eat birthday cake like most 3-year olds--even better than some 4-year olds." Or "I was amazed at this toddler's ability to nap on cue like a narcoleptic on Ambien." Where, for example, would the Pope go with such a letter? Would he suggest Jesus recommends the toddler, too? "I think it's safe to say Jesus knows everything, and even Jesus knows this toddler was meant for this preschool."

By the way, apparently the Pope never answered that request. Because, you know, the Pope isn't insane.

Chelsea Clinton is possibly a spy for the Brits.

Or something or another.


For those not-so-politically inclined, Chelsea Clinton is the daughter of Bill & Hillary Clinton. She just had a lavish wedding, and when the rich and famous have lavish weddings they do things like have an official poem for their big day. Because, you know, the poetry industry can use a boost whenever they can get one.



The poem? "The Life That I Have," by British writer Leo Marks. In its entirety:

The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours

The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause

For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours
And yours

Give me a second, I'm getting a little misty here. Weddings have a way of doing this to me.

Except there's this back story to Marks and the poem. According to Yahoo, Marks wrote plenty of poetry as a device for sending cryptic messages during World War II. Then there's this little love nugget:

Marks wrote it on Christmas Eve 1943 in honor of a girlfriend who had just been killed in a plane crash. Yet Marks later passed it on to Violette Szabo, a French woman spying for Allied forces, hoping she would use the poem's rhythm and structure to construct future messages. She was captured and later died in a Nazi prison.

Szabo was also tortured and interrogated for four days by the Gestapo, and then later executed at a concentration camp, after generally being starved to near-death.

Well then, the karma surrounding this poem looks fantastic. A woman dying in a plane crash and a French spy being captured and tortured by Nazis before being executed--it's a one-two punch of blissful romance. Apparently Sylvia Plath's poetry back story isn't depressing enough to cut it for weddings these days.