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Pastimes : Laughter is the Best Medicine - Tell us a joke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gersh Avery who wrote (32926)	1/17/2005 2:30:13 PM
From: Kenneth Kirk	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 62567

You guys are way off, according to World Wide Words. Powder monkeys were the boys who hauled the powder on ships back when cannons were used. Brass monkeys had nothing to do with piles of cannon balls, but comes from the old phrase "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey". Full story here: www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bra1.htm.

To: Gersh Avery who wrote (32926)	1/17/2005 2:31:42 PM
From: E. Charters	Respond to of 62567

DNAJ: More or less accurate. The expression came from British sailing ships, and the powder monkey carried powder from the magazine to the cannoneers during battle. It was a very dangerous job which require an agile small person to scamper along ladders and below decks. They usually used boys for the job, who were perhaps more oblivious of the danger. Peace Maker or Powder Monkey was written by journalist J.B. McGeachie in the 1960's about Canada's role in world affairs vis a vis the United States. It proposed a peaceful role being the better alternative to stoking the fires of war of our more powerful neighbour. SWOAJ: I am not sure if it is in that tome but McGeachie had an amusing comparison based on Karl Marx returning to see what had become of the modern nations and who had hewed to his socialistic principles more closely. His admiration was, in McGeachies treatise, for the US, as it had a better example of worker's say in running things than any communist country, and its socialistic patterns adn mecahnisms seemed a model of good communism. The burgeoning stock exchanges allowed the fairest ownership of the means of production available to the common man. Widespread powerful unions, who were political movers and shakers, and getting good wages for ordinary labour, swelled the spectral Marx's breast with pride. The US out-Marxed the Soviets hands down when it came to comparing his most righteous principles with the actual today. This piece of satirical heresy should be required reading for every would be socialistic firebrand who marches to a modern harricade demanding the mammon of modern nations be brought to heel. EC<:-}