Woodward: April 23

In what is perhaps history's greatest display of advance planning, William Shakespeare arranged to get himself born on April 23, the feast day of St. George, the patron saint of England. That's a feat more or less equivalent to Abraham Lincoln having being born on the Fourth of July (which, of course, he wasn't).

It makes April 23 pretty much the greatest day on the English calendar. And it gives all of us -- Englishmen or not -- a chance to cleanse ourselves spiritually and intellectually from the neo-pagan slime of "Earth Day." (For the record, there was no singing of "earth songs" in the Woodward household today.)