STRANGE BUT TRUE

* It was English novelist Eric Arthur Blair — better known by his pen name, George Orwell — who made the following sage observation: “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”

* While his wife, Abigail, was ill, President John Adams stayed with her for seven months at their home in Boston — that’s the longest any president has been away from the capital.

* Are you a cacographer? You may not be, but if you spend any time at all online you’ve certainly run across a few. A cacographer is someone who can’t quite grasp the rules of spelling.

* This might be a...