Category Archive

On this day in 1942, Adolf Hitler signed an order requiring 120,000 Jews into to be forced from their homes and placed in remote, miltary-style camps throughout Germany. Except it wasn’t Hitler.  It was Franklin Roosevelt. Except it wasn’t Jews.  It was Japanese-Americans. Except it wasn’t Germany.  It was in America.  Right here.  No trial.  No hearings.  The Department of … Read More

The New York Times is reporting the discovery of several letters from and to Otto Frank, the father of Anne Frank, which reflect his desparate attempts to get his family out of the Netherlands after the Nazis invaded.  One of the countries he tried to escape to — unsuccessfully — was the United States. Interesting reading.

The Sullivan Ballou letter. Born March 28, 1829 in Smithfield, R.I., Sullivan Ballou was educated at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass.; Brown University in Providence, R.I. and the National Law School in Ballston, N.Y. He was admitted to the Rhode Island Bar in 1853. Ballou devoted his brief life to public service. He was elected in 1854 as clerk of … Read More

Guess who this is? Yes, you’ve heard of this person, and you’re familiar with his face.  It’s not someone obscure. Answer below the fold….

It was 25 years ago tomorrow, on a snowy cold day (remember those?) in Washington, D.C., when Air Florida Flight 90 took off from Washington National Airport with its wings ineffectively de-iced.  Moments later, it hit the 14th Street Bridge, crushing six cars, one truck, and killing four people, before it belly-flopped and sunk in the ice-covered Potomac River. All … Read More

Below is an actual excerpt from an FBI memo in 1947 (since declassified) which alerts the reader to the commie propaganda contained in — wait for it — It’s A Wonderful Life: To: The Director D.M. Ladd COMMUNIST INFILTRATION OF THE MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY (RUNNING MEMORANDUM) There is submitted herewith the running memorandum concerning Communist infiltration of the motion picture … Read More

Cool.  Free computer access at the Hampton Inn.  Get rid of those double posts. Contrary to my initial intention to listen to John Hodgman’s "The Area Of My Expertise", I ended up listening to the audiobook of Sarah Vowell’s "Assassination Vacation".  A very interesting book.  Vowell admits to a lifelong fascination with things related to presidential assassinations and, spurred on … Read More

CNN (12/10/06):  Report: Diana’s Driver Was Drunk LONDON, England (AP) — New DNA evidence proves the driver of Princess Diana’s car was drunk on the night of her fatal crash in a Paris underpass in 1997, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported Saturday. The tests confirm that original post-mortem blood samples were from driver Henri Paul and that he had three … Read More

A better video

I didn’t know this footage existed.  Interesting. He actually looks kind of happy to be going.  Of course, perhaps he was.

"That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind." When you think about it, those famous words — perhaps the most famous words spoken in the last century — don’t make sense. Clearly, Armstrong was trying to juxtapose an individual "man" with the greater "mankind".  But he left out the "a" before "man", so essentially, he said: "That’s … Read More

Believe it or not, the famous editorial appeared 109 years ago today. Yup, in the September 21 edition of the New York Sun.

[NOTE: John Dennis Levi Tribute here] Every New Yorker has a WTC connection.  During my ten years in New York, I had many. My first encounter with the towers was actually in 1976.  I was a teenager living in New Hampshire, but our family was visiting my uncle (who lived an hour upstate from NYC) so we could watch the … Read More