Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel peace prize.
—Tom Lehrer
A useful little gadget that I got a little while ago is this strawberry huller.
It removes just the stem from the strawberry, no muss, no fuss. Much easier than messing with a paring knife.
Ever wonder where there’s a lightning storm going on in the world? Or if there’s one headed your way?
Then you might like this web site that shows, in real time, all the lightning flashes as they happen all over the world.
If you follow that link it takes you to a geographical location that the map names correctly. You can then navigate from there to any spot on the globe that interest you.
Finally, as far as I know all American history classes that cover the early 1700s spend at least a little bit of time on the trial of John Peter Zenger that sort of established the idea of the freedom of the press here in the colonies, as they were then.
Naturally, history teachers can’t spend too much time on the trial, so you might be able to name the defense lawyer in the case.
It was Philadelphia lawyer Andrew Hamilton, who forever more made Philadelphia lawyers famous.
But how many of you can name the corrupt governor who claimed that Zenger’s newspaper libeled him?
Would you believe that it was Bill Cosby? OK, William Cosby, but still.
Anyway, the entire Zenger affair is covered in great and fascinating detail in a recent episode of the Bowery Boys Podcast: The Trial of John Peter Zenger: New York and the Birth of the Freedom of the Press.
Everything was so corrupted in those days, when the chief justice didn’t rule in his favor Cosby had him replaced. When Zenger’s lawyers asked that the judges recuse themselves, the judges disbarred them! They were replaced with a barely competent lawyer named Chambers.
Here’s a brief excerpt from the episode to give you a taste.
I highly recommend giving the whole episode a listen: The Trial of John Peter Zenger: New York and the Birth of the Freedom of the Press.
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