Saturday Evening Post-it.

A few odds and ends at the end of an odd week:

Clever as a Fox (i.e. Stupid) Dept.

Fox News, citadel of historical learning, was making fun of the lack of historical knowledge of an intern, who apparently got even. Just as you older summer campers used to send the younger ones out to get a smoke cutter for the campfire, Fox sent an intern out to get video of the Lincoln--Douglas debates. How droll. The still photos of the Lincoln Douglas debaters Fox then used in the segment (watch it here), were of Lincoln (the president, and not the Town Car) and Fredrick Douglass. Was that the work of the intern getting even?

They did not let ex-slaves debate the merits and demerits of slavery in 1859-1860--that would be like letting a blue collar worker tell us what blue collar workers want in the debate instead of candidates!

Many bloggers were quick to point out how stupid Fox is. I think they are more nefarious. Douglass had some Rev. Wright moments when speaking of Lincoln after the latter's death--including calling him "the white man's president" and criticizing him for waiting as long as he did to free the slaves! Was Fox trying to find yet another occasion to run the Rev. Wright clip until the magnetic particles wear off of the video tape? "We distort--you decide?"

And imagine Fredrick Douglass running for president in 1860--"ha, ha, ha" the bloggers note. He didn't run nationally until 1872, when he ran for vice president on a ticket with Victoria Woodhall. The idea of a woman and a black man on a national ticket seems to strike a familiar note, somehow. (In that election in 1872 the candidate from Illinois won, and the one from Chappaqua lost. Wooodhall, too young to serve as president and too female to be able to vote, was in jail on election day, anyhow).

P.S.--the videos of the Lincoln-and Judge S. Douglas debate are here.
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Side Effects Dept.

Yankee pitcher Phil Hughes has been pitching poorly, and the Yanks believe they have discovered why. He has a stress fracture of the bottom of the ninth rib on the right side. The Yanks were surprised because the bottom of the 9th is exclusively reserved for Mariano Rivera.

I have had a broken rib on the right side and it is very painful, although only when you breath in-- or roll over onto it in bed. The broken rib means that you can only lie on one side--which makes it difficult to pitch--or to be an expert witness.

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American Civil War Adds Another Victim Dept.

For those of you who are keeping score at home, the American Civil War has added another victim. In February a collector of Civil War relics was restoring a civil war cannon ball that had been buried on a battlefield when it exploded and the shrapnel killed him, according to this report.

Buried unexploded shells are why the experts say that World War I will not claim its last victim until five centuries from now.