Maggie's Farm

Habu, I betcha you were trying to comment within one of the archived posts. You're getting the old software, with the security letters and all, and the comments don't appear because the archived articles are closed. I know this because I did the same thing sometime back (one of my >duh< moments, of which I have a sad surfeit).

"...Yankee is bad enough" LOL --jeez, habu --you take curmudgeon to dizzying heights--I laughing to tears--

Anyhoo, on the 'college degree' archive, whoever names the illo is offered a MF tee shirt. It is Trinity College in Cambridge. My address for the tee shirt is, the Dripping Springs Soup Kitchen, located at the corner of Easy Street and Haste Parkway.

mercy --how arcane a reference --but it's a nice thing to say. Being a peacemaker @ Burning Man has got to a highly interesting thing--wooo.

Re Civil War: this book mentions Montana. MF won't let me post the URL (big red "Invalid"), but search "How Few Remain" by Harry Turtledove.

(snip from website)

How Few Remain is a pure alternative history book as opposed to alternative history blended with science fiction as in Guns of the South. Turtledove assumes that several plausible events happened in the original Civil War, which allowed the Confederacy to win. How Few Remain takes place twenty years after the Civil War. The Confederacy buys Northern Mexico to enable the Confederate States of America to extend from coast to coast. This touches off a second war between the United States of America and The Confederate States of America. The Confederates are joined in the war by their allies England and France.

Turtledove follows the action by jumping around the country to various locales of the confrontation. Real and imagined historical figures are woven into the story. The action mainly focuses around:

General "Stonewall" Jackson defending the Yankee advance against Louisville
Jeb Stuart's cavalry (and camelry) launching attacks against the New Mexico territory from former Mexican provinces
Teddy Roosevelt defending Montana from a British invasion launched through Canada
Abraham Lincoln leading socialist rallies
Frederick Douglass' exploits as a war correspondent

Can the United States redeem themselves from the disgraceful loss of the first Civil War? Will the residents of Montana end up speaking with a British accent? Will Lincoln incite a Marxist revolt in Utah? I couldn't wait to find out. Turtledove weaves a fascinating "what if" scenario that is based on good research of the original Civil War. Anyone with an interest in the Civil War should find this book fascinating.

yep, we had Gen Benjamin Butler running Reconsruction in New Orleans. The people called him "Beast" Butler. He's the one who set up the prototype graft-DC-using-poor-people model. His handiwork, lo these many years later, was on display for all the world, when Katrina hit the Ninth Ward.