Regarding the political front, we’ve passed through an interesting time. Health care legislation was signed into law, but the noise goes on. The opposition to this tells us the vast majority of Americans do not want this bill, but just today a Gallup/USA Today poll says that 49% of the people think it is ok while 40% are opposed. A major argument that comes to my mind is something that I learned in Political Science 101: we do not have a pure democracy, we operate under a representative form of government and now a majority of our representatives voted for this change.
My Sunday paper made a couple of interesting points. One columnist, Timothy Egan, said, “None of the great bipartisan triumphs of the past - Social Security, Medicare, the Civil Rights Act - would have a prayer in the present environment. That’s not how we do politics in 2010. We talk, loudly, only to like-minded partisans, and everyone else be damned.” Another one I liked by Calvin Woodward, “ as much as Americans hate overbearing government and higher taxes, give them a federal benefit and then just try to take it away. Today’s hot potato becomes tomorrow’s cherished check.” Enough said from this keyboard.
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I took another trip to a hundred years ago and came up with a few gems from around the state. There was a row at Jamestown between some Russian Germans and one was hit in the head with an ax . . . There is a terrible drought at Bantry since the raid . . . Wahpeton’s pure water supply - the artesian well system - makes the city almost immune from typhoid . . . A man in the western part of the state advertised for a wife and finally landed a widow with three children. It pays to advertise . . . Despite the rapidly increasing number of autos, good equines still bring fancy prices . .. A large man with a trick animal which he claimed was a full blooded wolf spent part of Tuesday and Wednesday in town (Sheldon). The animal was mild mannered and seemed to be very intelligent and performed numerous tricks . . . Taft sworn in as President, raging blizzard casuses abandonment of customary outdoor activities, great inaugural parade moves through slush and mud, ball is brilliant.
