...are the still unresolved issues stemming from the financial crisis.  For example, the FDIC filed suit against three Washington Mutual executives last week seeking to recover $900 million that the government lost arranging for the bank's eventual sale to JPMorgan Chase.  I wrote about the suit and the absurd defense of the bankers in my column today.

I went to see The King's Speech, because it was nominated for all those awards and because Monday is Five Dollar Night. I like the actors in it a lot, but I'm glad I didn't spend more than five dollars. The King's Speech may well win the Oscar for Best Picture, but that just goes to show that you don't need originality, drama, artistic perception or a compelling story to win an Oscar.

Joanne Siegel has passed away. She was the model for the first sketches of Lois Lane and the wife of Superman's co-creator, Jerry Siegel. That gives her the best claim to being Lois Lane that any real person has ever had. In her later years, she was a fierce advocate for her husband's intellectual property claims. I've thought a lot about the Superman creators over the years, and part of me is tempted only to blog about intellectual property.

Williams College was never Berkeley. Founded in 1793 among the minor mountains of western Massachusetts, the red brick buildings of this tiny liberal arts college housed generations of white, Protestant elites from the East Coast. In 1961, the New York Times Magazine described Williams as "a gentleman's school -- fashionable, mildly snobbish, not too obtrusively intellectual."

My mother was born on this day in 1918.  It was the year the influenza epidemic spread across the world and became a pandemic.  By rights, and maybe in a more populous locale, my mother might have sickened and died before she ever had a chance at life.  She was a skinny, spindly little thing who always looked undernourished in early pictures.

Some of the folks who read me at Dagblog may have come to suspect over time that "Doctor Cleveland" may not be my actual name. Meanwhile, readers who have actually met me in three dimensions may have thought (but been too polite to say) that the name "Doctor Cleveland" is a pretty lame disguise.

Yes, it is. It is a ridiculously lame disguise. And while I've never blogged about why that is, I think this is as good a time as any to explain.

Daggers keep dropping hints that I should give a Southeast Asian expat perspective on what’s happening in Egypt. By dropping hints, I mean that they keep emailing me and telling me to write a Southeast Asian expat perspective on what’s happening in Egypt. I’ll think about that some more and get back to you.

Via Mark Thoma, I have learned that Maxine Udall, Girl Economist, (born Alison Snow Jones) has passed away.

She was one of my favorite people in the econ blogosphere because she combined very sharp economic accumen with deep thinking about the moral implications of economic policy.  Really, the best kind of economist.

She was a contributor to TPM Cafe and was linked to by Paul Krugman on a number of occasions.

TUPELO, MISS — Tim Johnson – a vital source to journalist and blogger William K. Wolfrum – has been declared missing after disappearing a week ago following a camping excursion. Johnson, 43, was last seen doing arm curls with a baby bear last Friday. His whereabouts are currently unknown.

Johnson has been a featured source in numerous blog posts by Wolfrum, including:

Sarge was an idealist, a man of boundless heart, and a hard-headed businessman who from the ground up built a government program—and he was never afraid to call it just that because he disdained anti-government stereotypes—that has become an enduring force for American purpose and compassion, vastly popular at home and around the globe.

In a righteous world, someone in control would watch this video and then use it as evidence in a courtroom.  Instead, because the victim is a child and the perpetrator is her mother and they're participants in a reality show, it is aired as a part of a segment and nothing happens.

I'm in the midst of unpacking bins and boxes and suitcases and looking for the cord for the printer and for the thingy that lets me plug in a bunch of USB cords.  That is, I should be in the midst of those things.  Instead, I'm thinking about my dad on the 100th anniversary of his birth and I'm thinking about a couple of memorable quotes from Mark Twain and Spongebob Squarepants.  (I thought about quoting Joe Scarborough, who couldn't think of Walter Reuther's name this AM while he was knocking the unions, but I want this to be a positive, maybe even fun blog and tomorrow's

December 25, Christmas Day, is reserved by Christians as the day they celebrate Jesus Christ's birth.  There is no real indication that the Christian Messiah was actually born on that day, but it was decided long ago, and there it is.   But little by little the reason for the season was crowded out; St.

So, in my last post, I talked more specifically about my Christian beliefs than is my blogging habit. I doubt I'll do it more often; I don't think that you should believe something just because I do, and so I try to write from the assumption that you don't. But I did mention my own beliefs, and it's Christmas, so let me come clean a bit, because it's an important holiday for me, and because it's such a bitter season:

Apparently, the dreaded "War on Christmas" now extends to having to work between the Christmas and New Year's holidays, at least if the taxpayers pay your salary and your job title is "Senator." According to Senator Jon Kyl, having work the week after the Christmas holiday would be "disrespectful" to Christians. Senator Jim DeMint called working the week before Christmas "sacrilegious." That's right.

Because I know you have been thinking of me, here I am ...

... hanging out next to the remains of Christopher Columbus ...

... shooting the bull ...

... and enjoying some local flavor.

Five years this month, I started my blog "William K. Wolfrum Chronicles" with the post “Climbing from the Hedge.” In that post, I wrote this:

I don't play now, but I have played a lot of tennis over the years, sometimes in leagues or clubs with people I didn't know well. I enjoyed playing with some of those guys so much that we arranged to play again, and became "tennis buddies." With others, I couldn't wait for the match to end.

So, the Beatles are finally available on iTunes, goo goo goo joob. And the news has been greeted with a resounding yawn; many people claim that the move is much, much too late to be hip, and too late to be hip, in the music business, means too late to make a sale. [UPDATE: Since the Beatles sold 2 million songs and 450,000 albums on iTunes this week, I was obviously completely wrong about this.