The Frontier in American History

C'mon who has a higher homicide rate than the USA?  Dollars to donuts it is not a first world country.  Maybe most firearms are in the hands of responsible citizens, but many are in the hands of irresponsible citizens.  See first sentence.

I don't take no truck in body language, but didn't I say that I thought the Russkies had dirt on Trump?  And increasingly the non tinfoil hat pundits are coming out and saying so.  I think it relates to the goo gobs of cash the Russkies lent him when nobody else would loan him any money, but that is just my guess.

I imagine he picked up Montenegro in his privy talks with Putin.  Hard to believe he would have known it existed without that.  I had a Montenegrin student when I was a student teacher. That was during the Balkan troubles when we were proud to be Americans and we let people in who would otherwise get killed.  I also had an ESL class with Ukrainian kids, nice kids, and I had a lot of classes where one of the kids had just crossed the border and knew hardly any English, but his fellow students translated for him and the kid caught on quick and they were all good kids.  It used to feel good to be an American.  Kind of like before we took to torturing.  It used to feel good to look down our noses at countries that torture, but that has gone by the by also.

I know about the caldera, probably going to kill us all before that asteroid with out  name on it.  Well, I may get hit by a truck crossing Irving and Ashland tonight on my way back from the Ten Cat.  Hopefully on my way back as opposed to my way to.

Way back in Gage Park High we had a history teacher who was an actual liberal, though we didn't realize it at the time because I don't think we even knew liberals existed.  He taught an advanced class on American history that you could take a test afterwards and get COLLEGE credit.  I'm ashamed to say that I didn't take the test, but the class was kind of eye-opening.  It wasn't the usual pantheon of American heroes.  It was kind of objective which was something that seemed radical at the time.

I don't know if it was in that class, or somewhere else that I heard of The Frontier in American
History by Fredrick Jackson Turner.  It seemed like it was a well-known book at the time, and it was in the back of my mind for like fifty years and last year I came across it at the Newberry Library book fair and picked it up for two bucks and fifty cents. 

It was fifty years old when I first heard of it, and it was still talked about, a hundred years later maybe not so much.  Just wondering if either of the Dawgs as read it or heard about it.  More on it next week, if there is any time left after discussing whatever Trump gets himself into over the weekend.


Nice bird pics Beagles.  I get doves up here sometimes.  I kind of thought it was morning, not mourning dove, though now that I think of it I have seen it spelled in the second way, but maybe i thought those people were in error.  They don't seem particularly morose to me, not as cheery as my finches, but then who is?