5 Feet of Fury

From my inbox…

Hi Kathy

I’m still impressed with the time in the early days when I emailed you to thank you for something wise you wrote, and you actually emailed a response. But your PJ Media “The ME in Social Media…” is one of the best things written on the current state of affairs on the web I have seen in a long time.

As a high school teacher, I am going to see how much of it I can get away with sharing with my classes.

As a kid in Alaska I was sometimes within a few yards of fighting sea lions, and their bellowing and posturing reminds me a great deal of the “comments section” in almost any web site today. So in plain English: thank you!

***

Hi Kathy!!

A Pox on All Your Blankets reaches even higher heights of greatness.

The analysis is wonderful; the clever writing; and the poetic justice at the end. I am so in awe!

Just don’t tell Arnie I declared my love. <Oh! drat! I copied him.>

This has brought me back to life after the Republicans once again won for the Democrats.

***

Hi Kathy,

Apropos of your latest Taki column, what do you think this hour of idiocy cost the taxpayers of Sask?

Love your work. You came back from Israel with an attitude! Take care.

 

***
I may have told you this before (my mind isn’t what it used to be).

First welcome back from the middle-east – looks like you got out just in time.

Now on to the smallpox.

My wife has a book written by James Audubon the famous artist whose paintings are adored by environmentalists and nature lovers everywhere.

The book is essentially a diary of his travels throughout the US and the adventures he had (it was still a pretty rough country at the time).

Two things stood out for me in the book:

1. Game was abundant everywhere on the continent that he went. So plentiful that I questioned the myth of the mighty Indian hunter. It seemed that you could throw a stick and hit an animal – especially on the plains.

2.  He took a riverboat up through the mid-west at one point and during a stop the boat was overran with Indians who came on board looking to “trade” but essentially to steal anything that wasn’t nailed down. [UPDATE: see here]

The captain told him that they had a case where they were carrying bodies/victims of small pox or something the previous year and they had implored the Indians to stay off the boat and not to steal the blankets as they were infected.

Regardless the Indians stole the blankets and there was a major epidemic of small pox in the area which killed many of them.

I never had heard such a tale before but you would have to figure that James Audubon wasn’t a historical revisionist.