Monthly Archives: September 2013

At the Humbug Tavern, the “scientists” had posited The Ether. The Ether helped explain many things, for instance why light waves could travel through a vacuum tube. The “scientists” had decided The Ether was a greatly tenuous gas having a … Continue reading →

The positivists, who call themselves “scientists,” are obsessed with measurements. As Isaac Asimov himself admitted, “If there is some phenomenon that can neither be observed nor measured under any conceivable circumstances, then, as far as the world of experimental science … Continue reading →

“O but we dreamed to mendWhatever mischief seemedTo afflict mankind, but nowThat winds of winter blowLearn that we were crack-pated when we dreamed.” (W.B. Yeats, “Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen”) The peace talks consequent to the November 11, 1918 armistice which … Continue reading →

Designated fall guys for the Great Depression are Herbert Hoover and the 1929 stock market crash. The true origin, though, of the bursting of the roaring ’20s was immense gold migration into, then out of, the United States. The “Federal” … Continue reading →

Following the surprise discovery of the unblemished tomb of the ancient Egyptian king, Tutankhamun, mysterious deaths occurred. Were persons who had violated the royal burial chamber punished by the curse of King Tut? Sometime between Tuesday, November 28, 1922, and … Continue reading →

The New Yorker magazine, in its August 9, 2010 issue, carried this gem: An Afghanistan police district commander was “reported to have had forcible sexual contact with a 16 ye[ar] old AC [Afghanistan Civilian] female.” When the 16-year-old female went … Continue reading →

In the Downtown Abbey (really “Downton Abbey” but I call it Downtown Abbey), the domestic staff can (hopefully) be seen above. In Thorstein Veblen’s account, the origins of such servants began with the ownership of women seized as trophies of … Continue reading →

There is a fancy lads show called “Downtown Abbey.” (Really it is “Downton Abbey” but I call it “Downtown Abbey” just to be an American.) The household of an aristocratic British lordship (i.e., a fancy lad) during roughly the time-frame … Continue reading →

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s native town of Salem, Massachusetts, at a bustling wharf, was a brick building. There, wrote Hawthorne, at a civil post of Uncle Sam’s government, the Custom House of the port, a row of venerable persons dozed away … Continue reading →

“War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.” – Ambrose Bierce A sort of “mini war” erupting at the Washington, DC Navy Yard on September 16, 2013, in which one Aaron Alexis is supposed to have been the “lone nut” … Continue reading →