Best Posts of the Week of December 4, 2020

 And what a week it was.

I don't usually comment on "the week that was", but this week has been truly exceptional.  Over the past week a COVID 19 vaccine was approved by the FDA and the British National Health Service, the socialized medicine system that the British love and the Americans, who don't benefit from it, hate (the most hated health care system in the US next to the Canadian one, which Canadians love and Americans also hate) started vaccinations.  At least one 90+ year old British citizen stepped up to be vaccinated.

During the same week, the nation lived through another series of "surely this will be it" Trump moments as President Trump, unique for American Presidents, disputed the results of a national election to an extent not previously matched since Jefferson Davis was elected to head the collection of states that couldn't accept that Lincoln had been elected.  Indeed, the spectre of Jefferson Davis rose up, ironically in the form of a pronunciation from the Republican Party of Texas, suggesting that if the courts wouldn't assist Trump loyalist with a reading of the Constitution that no competent jurist and the vast plethora of lawyers would allow, that perhaps Texas ought to leave with the like minded and form a new union of states that "respect" the Constitution, which by definition would be the states that didn't join in a seditious or near seditious attempt to subvert the results of the election lead by Texas.  Lincoln, beyond these concerns now, must nonetheless be shaking his head a bit.

Elections are supposed to be the thing Americans do well, and respect for elections the thing that sets us apart.  We've defied, so far, Benjamin Franklin's gloomy "if you can keep it" declaration about the republic, but this week tends to demonstrate that Franklin may have been correct.

Democracy isn't about liking the results, after all, it's about respecting democracy.  A lot of us don't respect it anymore, or aren't right now anyhow.

So, here's the "best" post of a week the entire nation ought to be ashamed of in some ways.  Not because of what the courts didn't do, we ought to be proud of that, but because we can't seem to respect what our forefathers did.

Railhead: Burlington Northern Depot, Casper Wyoming

Our Pearl Harbor Day entry, a lot of men who died for American democracy.  I wonder what they think of their country right now:

Retroactive Counter Factual. Imagining yourself seventy-nine years ago.

Tempus fugit

An American hero who passed on December 7, right in the midst of our embarrassing episode:

Chuck Yeager passes at age 97.

Am I the only one who finds Korean boy bands to be super creepy?

Personal Retroactive Counterfactuals as an historical exercise.

Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming Myths. Sacagawea. An added footnote

Wyoming Myths. Jean Baptiste Charbonneau

Strange and Strained Observations.

Pandemic, Part 4

Sowing the wind.

December 11, 1920. The Burning of Cork.

We managed to be shocked by the obvious yet again, somehow:

Neanderthals buried their dead. Duh.

A Matter of Perception

2020 General Election, Part II