Friday Snippets and Soundbites

It's Friday and that means "Snippets and Soundbites"! If today's edition isn't enough news of the weird for you, check out page 38 in the August (and every month) issue of ec.

Now, on with the show!

• Chester Arthur born in Canada? What?!
Have you heard about the so-called “birthers” who have been questioning the citizenship of President Obama? Well, apparently that isn’t a new trend. Because nearly 123 years after President Chester A. Arthur’s death, questions about his citizenship still linger. There’s a historical site in Fairfield, Vt., that’s reported to be the site of the cottage where Arthur was born, but the issue has been under scrutiny since the 1880 presidential campaign, when Arthur was James A. Garfield’s running mate. Back then, Arthur’s own party wanted him to provide proof of his birthplace and Democrats went as far to hire a lawyer to investigate Arthur’s background. That lawyer eventually concluded Arthur had been born in Canada, then appropriated the birth records of a baby brother who was born in Fairfield, Vt., but passed away shortly after birth. Officially, it’s believed Arthur was born in Vermont in 1829, though later in life, he lied about his age and said his birth year was 1830. He was the son of a Baptist minister and spent a lot of his growing up years in New York. To read more about the controversy, go here. Maybe you can solve the mystery!

• We hope you have a big appetite!
At least you would have needed one in Manchester, N.H., last weekend. That’s because the town revealed a 1,224-pound cupcake last weekend as part of a local car show. The triple vanilla cupcake with pink frosting set a world record for the biggest cupcake. The massive cupcake, made by Gourmetgiftbaskets.com, was more than eight times bigger than the previous record holder. It tipped the scales at an estimated 2 million calories and took 12 hours to bake. Residents and car show enthusiasts bought slices of the cupcake in exchange for donations to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast cancer organization. Read all about it (and see a picture) here.

• You have a story.
There’s still time (though it’s not very much, to be honest) for you to share your favorite Christmas memory or story with us. We’re looking for funny stories, but also heartwarming ones. You can submit it here or here. Many of the submissions we receive will end up on the December 2009 issue! Don’t you want to see your story in print?

Oh, yeah—have a good weekend! Rest up. School’s back in session. Don’t let it overwhelm you yet!