Oh no! Don Ho!

Historical palindrome that could have been the headline of this account of the star ukulele player's passing.

So it's not a story from Palin's Alaska (state #49), it's from Obama's Hawai'i (#50; note the PC apostrophe, which my spell-checker doesn't recognize). McCain's Arizona is #48 and Biden's Delaware is #1. Interesting home states on the ticket, huh?

PS: When Delaware had ratified the Constitution and Pennsylvania had not yet done so, what was the country called? It couldn't be united, as there was no other state with which to claim unity. It couldn't be states (plural), as it was the only one. America is okay. The State of America? I dunno, but I think Joe Biden was representing Delaware in the Senate before PA ratified, so maybe I should ask him.

PPS: I spent the first 21 years of my life in Delaware County, bordering the state of Delaware to the south and the city of Philadelphia to the northeast. Joe Biden was, in my mind, "Delaware's Joe Biden", as the voice-over in his campaign commercials often referred to him. His goofy grin, bloviation, and fluctuating hairline were a fixture of the political scene throughout my youth. What did I not know about Joe Biden until a couple of weeks ago? That he was a PA native. Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but the idea that he is widely know as a son of Scranton strikes me as, at best, mythological.