Posted under American history & Dolls & European history & Gender & art & book reviews & jobs & local news & unhappy endings & weirdness & women's history
Howdy! Hellsapoppin’ here. While some of you in the East may be shoveling yet more snow today, we in the West have got more than a few stalls to muck out today, and a lot of fences to mend. Here are some items for your delectation and consideration:
- National Politics: What’s up with our Transformational President? Well, not his approval numbers, that’s for sure. Jonathan Last offers an analysis that says it’s the Clinton primary voters who jumped off the bandwagon first, and looks at the recent election results in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts from that perspective. Michael Lind writes that the Republicans have nothin’–but that won’t stop them from winning because of Dem fecklessness, diffidence, and/or incompetence: “Buyer’s remorse is what the voters should feel when they vote for a party that promises a bold reform agenda and then acts between elections as though it were a lobby for the financial industry. But wait — which party are we talking about here?” Meanwhile–there are open rumblings about the incompetence of the Chicago bubble that appears to have been more effective at getting President Obama elected than they are at governing. (H/t RealClearPolitics.)
- Local Politics: Our new U.S. Senator, Michael “Never Won a Single Vote” Bennet is sinking like a stone against Republican front-runner Jane Norton, and even against Weld County D.A. Ken Buck. (OK, so they’re only Rasmussen and DailyKos polls, but wev–that’s all we’ve got.) Gee–who ever would have predicted that it might be a craptastic idea to crown this guy Senator? Meanwhile, a guy who actually ran a few successful campaigns and won a lot of votes is now in the lead to replace Gov. Bill “The Family Guy” Ritter. Go figure! Historiann might be voting Republican for the first time in her life come November–unless Andrew Romanoff wins the D primary, and even then, I might vote Republican anyway. Why should I reward bad behavior by all of the d00dly d00dz who think they run this state? (Of course, we’ll have to see how Norton and Buck play their hands, too.)
- Literature: Leonard Cassuto considers J.D. Salinger’s Bartleby-like retreat from literary celebrity, and predicts Continue Reading »



Here’s an
Baa Ram U. hit the front page of the Denver Post this morning with an
As I was running this morning, I thought to myself: how strange and unlikely that I now live and work in a location where I am in proximity to more large animals than to small animals. (I have two small animals myself, but cattle really are a big part of my life these days. This seems strange, since I work in a Liberal Arts college and not Animal Sciences–strange but not unwelcome. The big animals I run into (and next to) are penned or fenced, and well under control. The animals I encounter aren’t part of big agribusiness, but are clearly free-range herds under the care of a small farm.
(Sorry for the craptastic photos–they were taken literally on the run with a cell-phone camera. I wanted to get one that showed the mountains in the background, but the light and the cattle weren’t cooperating. Besides the fact of my craptastic cell-phone camera! But those of you who know me probably know me well enough to know that a new phone or digital camera is not going to be a priority on my Christmas list.)
Busy day here at the ranch! I thought I’d throw you few curves to help keep your day interesting:
I didn’t even bother posting photos or commenting on our pre-Halloween freak snowstorm of October 28-29 that left 8-10 inches of snow on the ground in my neighborhood. Well, here’s evidence of our second “freak” snowstorm this past weekend, another 8 inches or so. Wild!
Here you see the building that’s just across the parking lots where the Liberal Arts college (including the History department) is located at Baa Ram U. How many of you can boast a stock judging pavillion in your immediate environs? It’s just another charming detail of life on this High Plains Desert–like two feet of snow before Halloween, and then temperatures in November in the 70s. Go figure! (If only there were a rodeo ring there, too–now that would be fun. They do occasionally park some bulls at the Stock Judging Pavillion, usually towards the end of the spring semester.)
Take a look at the boys over here on the right: as Bill says to Jake in The Sun Also Rises: