A CD company, Archeophone Records has released Debate '08. That's 1908, dear friends, the master debaters being Williams Jennings Bryan, Democrat, and William Howard Taft, Republican.

Ah, the Great Commoner. I have such an inexplicable fondness for William Jennings Bryan, the little toad.

They're keeping Mister Kitty tonight, and the vet will call me in the evening to go over what the tests turned up.

They're keeping Mister Kitty tonight, and the vet will call me in the evening to go over what the tests turned up.

Keeping fingers and toes crossed for your old man.

I have such an inexplicable fondness for William Jennings Bryan, the little toad.

Even though he palled around with terrorists? Or whatever Republicans accused Democrats of back then. I suppose "Communism" wasn't a big bugaboo then. Ooh, he "palled around with anarchists", right?

Didn't Eugene Debs run against Bryan and Roosevelt in '04 from his jail cell? He and Emma Goldman are the two anarchists I can think of from that time period. Unless you want to count Czolgosz, who was more a wanna-be anarchist who just happened to be able to get close enough to McKinley to shoot him.

Ooh, he "palled around with anarchists", right?

Populists.

Loved the zoo baby pictures. I think - unusually enough - that the grown-up red pandas are cuter than the babies ... at least until they have their eyes open. And awwwww.

William Jennings Bryan prosecuted the Scopes Monkey Trial, shortly before he passed away.

For the first time ever, the Chicago Tribune endorses a Democrat for president: [link]

eta:

This endorsement makes some history for the Chicago Tribune. This is the first time the newspaper has endorsed the Democratic Party's nominee for president.

The Tribune in its earliest days took up the abolition of slavery and linked itself to a powerful force for that cause--the Republican Party. The Tribune's first great leader, Joseph Medill, was a founder of the GOP. The editorial page has been a proponent of conservative principles. It believes that government has to serve people honestly and efficiently.

With that in mind, in 1872 we endorsed Horace Greeley, who ran as an independent against the corrupt administration of Republican President Ulysses S. Grant. (Greeley was later endorsed by the Democrats.) In 1912 we endorsed Theodore Roosevelt, who ran as the Progressive Party candidate against Republican President William Howard Taft.

The Tribune's decisions then were driven by outrage at inept and corrupt business and political leaders.

We see parallels today.

Goddamn that Evolution.