Day 981: The Double-Agent Of Staffordshire

originally published September 7, 2014 Every so often while sifting through the corrugated rubble of history, one lands upon a figure who is a trifle harder to figure out than the rest. Whatever may have spirited his soul this way or that gets lost in the grey ink of facts and dates, leaving (for those […]

Day 980: The Man In The Zoo

originally published September 6, 2014 Within the margins of human behavior, how is it possible for our hunger for self-awareness to coexist with our penchant for abandoning empathy and basic compassion? History’s most exquisite brains have combed the mines of knowledge and speculation in order to pilfer as much truth about ourselves as can be […]

Day 979: A (Football) Tale Of Three Cities

originally published September 5, 2014 Fans of American football are no doubt giddy with delight in the afterglow of last night’s victory by the Seattle Seahawks over the Green Bay Packers – the first actual game we have seen in seven months. Non-fans of American football most likely stopped reading this article after the headline, […]

Day 978: Doc Brinkley’s Magical Goat Balls

originally published September 4, 2014 It makes perfect sense. If a man is having a hard time encouraging his noble groin-soldier onto the battlefield, perhaps his problem is a lack of testicular fortitude. If only he could harness the power of nature’s potential through his impetuous manhood. If only he could possess the unflinching might […]

Day 977: The Last American Witch

originally published September 3, 2014 In the throes of one of America’s most delightfully absurd episodes of mass hysteria, twenty people were executed in 1692-93 for the crime of probably being witches. Maybe. The Salem Witch Trials – which were merely the American performance of a fad that had been lighting it up in Europe […]

Day 976: The Non-Medicinal Medicine

originally published September 2, 2014 Along with the oil industry, the communications industry and the elevator ‘Close Door’ button industry, the pharmaceutical industry is one of the least trusted clubhouses in the great corporate tree. “They want to keep us sick.” “They’d rather treat us than cure us.” “I don’t speak English.” These are all […]

Day 975: All Hail Norton I, Emperor Of The United States Of America

originally published September 1, 2014 For all her achievements and triumphs, America just hasn’t been the same since the good ol’ days when the Emperor ran the show. It was a brief sliver of eccentric history (or ‘eccentristory’ – I’m copyrighting that title) that should never be forgotten. And for some who live in San […]

Day 974: Punishing The Politicos – Worst Politicians Part 2

originally published August 31, 2014 Every few years – or sometimes sooner than that – those of us in democratic countries who feel compelled to do so will cast our vote in hopes that it might help to steer our nation from the cesspool in which it is presently mired toward a newer, less feces-laden […]

Day 973: Richard III’s Weird Goodbye

originally published August 30, 2014 A depressingly small amount of great historical tales end up in a parking lot. In the case of Richard III, King of England and the final monarch of the Plantagenet dynasty, that’s exactly where the conclusion was written. A public parking lot – probably the kind of place where young […]

Day 972: Missed It By That Much…

originally published August 29, 2014 “If you’re going to do something, do it right.” So sayeth the big book of unspoken laws – the same book that also condemns hack writers who open articles with unattributed clichés, tagged with stupid quotation marks that indicate that the words have been spoken, though in this case only […]