How The West Was Won? A dubious moment in history.

The following is from “Mike Fink: the Last of the Boatmen” by Timothy Field (1829), from an eyewitness account. ~sekanblogger

 Mike Fink was born in Pittsburgh, Pa. He served as a boatman on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and their tributary streams, which occupation he pursued until this sort of men were thrown out of employment by the general use of steam boats. When the Ohio was too low for navigation, Mike spent most of his time in the neighborhood of Pittsburgh, killing squirrels with his rifle, and shooting at a target for beef at the frequent Saturday shooting matches and company musters of the militia. He soon became famous as “the best shot in the country”.  

 He became fond of strong drink, but claimed he was never overpowered by its influence. He could drink a gallon of it in twenty-four hours without the effect being perceivable. Mike made proclamation-“I am a salt river roarer; and I love the wimming, and how I’m chock-full of fight”.  So he was in truth, for he had a chere amie in every port which he visited, and always had a circle of worshippers around him who would fight their deaths (as they called it) for him. Amongst these were two men, Carpenter and Talbot, Mike’s fast friends, and particular confidants. Each was a match for the other, in prowess, in fight, or skill in shooting, for Mike had diligently trained them to all these virtues and mysteries.   His particular friend, Carpenter, was also, a great shot; and he and Mike used to fill a tin cup with whiskey, and place it on their heads by turns, and shoot at it with a rifle at the distance of seventy yards. It was always bored through, without injury to the one on whose head it was placed. This was often performed; and they liked the feat the better because it showed their confidence in each other.

Is planting on your weekend agenda?

I wonder if they come in different colors.

I wonder about the fragrance?
I wonder if they’re cheaper by the dozen.
I wonder if it would help to put those
preservative packets in the water.
I wonder if they come in long-stemmed.
I wonder if they will bloom soon…………………………………

fnord

The Male Advantage is in Violence; Democracy is Female’s Best Chance

Cheney’s attempts to justify the unjustifiable plus the Republicans screams of “get Nancy,” kept this news hidden or covered only in the middle pages with mere mentions.  Women were elected to Kuwait parliament.

The victory marked the first time women have won parliamentary seats since given the right to vote and run for office in 2005. For the past 50 years Kuwait’s parliament has been the sole preserve of men.

Another article states “Democracy is the best chance for women.”  Men have a natural advantage when it comes to a physical battle and the jackboot of a dictatorship leaves women conceding that there really might be an intractable difference between the genders after all.

Author, Clive James, says, “Men will always monopolise the means of violence if they can. Women can learn to shoot guns, but there are no all-female armies, and even the Amazons were probably a myth. Women, on the whole, would naturally like to do something else, whereas an army, for too many men, is a home away from home, and often their only home.”

And he argues the battles America is fighting to bring democracy are worth it.  He says,

“Despair can coarsen one’s judgment. I knew enough about what Saddam Hussein and his talented son Uday were doing to women to want that regime toppled. The price of doing so might have seemed too high, but at least now, six years later, it is no longer official policy to rape a woman in front of her family. There may be unofficial forces still on the loose in Iraq who would like to do that, but the government no longer does it.

Fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan still seems worth it when you have read about what the Taliban want to do with any woman who seeks an education, but it’s easy to despair when you think of how hard it is to stop them.

Sometimes despair overwhelms us when we read of just a single so-called honour crime in which the men of a family have ruined the life of a daughter for what seems no reason at all, and the men walk free because that’s the culture, and the culture runs the government.”

fnord

Sunday, 05/24/09 Public Square

Just a little ho-hum, everyday sunset over the prairie.  No big deal, they happen all the time.  😉

How are you doing?  Is the long weekend bringing at least some of what you hoped for?

fnord