Frazz by Jef Mallett for June 02, 2016

Misery not directly and deliberately cause by other people?How are you going to blame someone?

Plague is as much a human caused issue and anything. Humans encroaching on forest territory picked it up from animals and bad hygiene coupled sea travel led to it’s spread…. Or we could focus on how climate change preceded the worst breakouts by facilitating malnourishment due to crop failure and the subsequent cultural revolution known as the Renaissance was made possible by the lessened competition for resources since 1/3-1/2 of the population was now dead.

April 11, 1954.

We now know that plague is carried by fleas on rodents. What did the French do when faced by plague? Why, they killed all the cats because THEY thought they were being ‘cursed’ by cats who were witches familiars. One of the earlier examples ofDarwinian Selection!

If “nobody wrote about it,” how do you know it happened?

Without particular research, in 1836 there was an independence revolution in Texas and a Trail of Tears from Georgia to Oklahoma (then Indian Territory). I am sure others can fill in the enormous blanks remaining.

Life is pain, Princess. Anyone who tells you different is selling you something.

JP SteveThe Trail of Tears took up that year and a bit on both sides. But then, slamming Rebecca Roulfe is a revived political activity in certain disreputable circles these days.

All over St. Mary’s City in southern Maryland, the first city (now more of a town, really) settled in the state, there are plaques all over that read ON THIS SITE IN 1832, NOTHING HAPPENED.

The Golden Horde used the plague for biological warfare, catapulting infected people from their ranks into the sieged city of Kaffa, held by the Genoese Republic, thus spreading the disease because the Genoese fled back in a hurry once seen the extent and mortality of the plague, unknowingly carrying it right in the heart of Europe.