Recent Comments

1. over 12 years ago on Frog Applause

   BillThompson,

   Thanks so much. I’ve d/l’d the book (.pdf version much better than the Kindle version).

   I’m knowledgeable about much of the subject matter from study of the IWW and the slightly latter Palmer raids (Deportations of Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman and hundreds of others). I would have been a Debs man and they locked him up.

   Thanks again,Giap

2. over 12 years ago on Frog Applause

   More on McAdoo: [from Wikipedia]

   …McAdoo’s actions at the time were both bold and outrageous. The United States in 1914 was still a net debtor nation (i.e., Americans’ aggregate debt to foreigners was greater than foreigners’ aggregate debt to Americans). The nations of Europe and their financial institutions held far more in debt of the United States; of many of the states of the Union; and of American private institutions of all kinds, than investors in the United States held in the debt of Europe’s nations and institutions in all forms, both public and private.

   McAdoo kept the U.S. currency on the Gold Standard. He arranged the closing of the New York Stock Exchange for an unprecedented four months in 1914 to prevent Europeans from selling American securities and exchanging the proceeds for dollars, and then gold.

   Economist William L. Silber wrote that the wisdom and historical impact of this action cannot be overemphasized.10 McAdoo’s bold stroke, Silber writes, as a first consequence averted an immediate panic and collapse of the American financial and stock markets. But also, it laid the groundwork for an historic and decisive shift in the global balance of economic power, from Europe to the United States; a shift which occurred exactly at that time. More than this, McAdoo’s actions both saved the American economy and its future allies from economic defeat in the early stages of the war…

   And I thought I was well versed on world war one.

3. over 12 years ago on Frog Applause

   “My ears turned red at that awful whisper”

   http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/adaccess_BH0986/

   [the answer is body odor]

4. almost 13 years ago on Frog Applause

   I took the large ovals to be the shadows of the surface tension of the water where the feet of the wasp are touching; that’s how the wasp is standing on water.

5. almost 13 years ago on La Cucaracha

   George Romney, Mitt’s father, born in Mexico.

6. almost 13 years ago on Frog Applause

   Utrecht Goitre photographs illustrate goiter, but also illustrate other diseases and conditions unrelated to iodine deficiency. There’s one I would guess to be leprosy (Hansen’s disease).

7. over 13 years ago on Tim Eagan

   “They will tax us 35% on our donations to the homeless shelter so…”

   Jesus, you need a better tax accountant.

8. over 13 years ago on Frog Applause

   http://comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress/ CIDU Bill writes (Bill Bickel) writes for a newsletter “Crime – Justice & America” and has recently started linking from Comics I Don’t Understand to articles he’s written for CJ&A.