States Rights

People have been arguing about states rights since before the Civil War.  Personally, I think that the southern states should have been allowed to peaceably secede from the union.  I know that slavery sucked but, since the states joined the union voluntarily, it seems logical that they should be able to leave the union voluntarily.  The Constitution doesn't say anything about it either way, which I find surprising.  Didn't it even occur to them that some states might want to leave someday?  Speaking of the Constitution, the Tenth Amendment says: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."  Some other parts of the Constitution and some court decisions over the years seem to contradict that, but I suppose it's all a matter of interpretation.

The new tractor is working fine.  All I've done with it so far is haul firewood, the real tests will be when I start mowing, tilling, and snow plowing, but I have no reason to believe it won't work well for those applications.  It has more horsepower than my old one, so it seemed a little jumpy at first, but I'm getting used to it.  They have made a lot of improvements since I bought my old one 19 years ago, and I like all of them so far.  The old one had several issues, and I wasn't willing to put any more money into it.  My old model had been discontinued long ago, and this was the closest thing to it that was available, but I have no regrets.

I have only been to Traverse City a few times in my life, and that was a long time ago.  My daughter lives in Charlevoix, about halfway between here and Traverse, and she goes there often.  That Slabtown place sounds familiar, although I'm sure I was never there, so maybe my daughter told me about it.

I have read before in National Geographic that firearms are way near the bottom of the statistical list of causes of death in this country. That didn't surprise me, but what did surprise me was that more people are killed accidently by firearms than on purpose.