Black Hawk’s War

On this date in 1832, the fortunes of American Indians in Illinois, Iowa and Michigan Territory took a significant turn for the worse.  On August 1-2 of that year, the final confrontation of the Black Hawk War took place just south of the Bad Axe River in the western region of modern day Wisconsin.  The result was as decisive as the Battle of Fallen Timbers (1894) had been for the Indians of the Ohio River Valley, or the Battle of Horseshoe Bend (1814) had been for the Creeks.  Though it is often overshadowed by the drama of the Cherokee removal, the Black Hawk War was no loss [sic] critical to the history of Indian peoples east of the Mississippi.

The Edge of the American West tells the rest of the story.

The Battle of Fallen Timbers was in 1794.

Most unfair to the Oakland Raiders line of the day

“But I guess it’s useful for Democrats to get a reminder that the Republican Party plays presidential politics by the same moral code that guided the bad-boy Oakland Raiders in their heyday: ‘Just win, baby.'”

Eugene Robinson

Robinson continues: “The latest bit of snarling, mean-spirited nonsense to come out of the McCain camp was the accusation, leveled by campaign manager Rick Davis, that Obama had ‘played the race card.’ He did so, apparently, by being black.”

Civil discourse, what is this country coming to?

Obama eventually stopped speaking, turned around, and said, “Excuse me, young men. This is going to be a question-and-answer session, so you can ask a question later. Let me make my statement. Why don’t you all sit down? Then you can ask your question. That’s why we’re having a town hall meeting. Sit down. You’ll have a chance to answer your question. But you don’t want to disrupt the whole meeting. Just be courteous. That’s all. All you got to do is be courteous. That’s all. Just be courteous and you’ll have a chance to make your statement.”

MSNBC

And they got the chance and he responded.

Your assignment, contrast and compare with this and this.

Best Pierce line of the day

“On stories like these, I am reminded of a friend from Belfast who once, while walking in Boston, was confronted by a man who said, ‘Give me your wallet. I have a gun.’ My friend replied, ‘Sir, where I come from, if you have a gun, you produce it,’ and then went on his way. It is insupportable as journalism to write as fact that which you merely suspect, regardless of how many other people suspect it, too.”

Altercation

Gunning for you

NewMexiKen sold the revolver without incident — for a good price too, I think.

The shop was interesting — and very busy before 11 in the morning. I am not anti-gun by the way. I’d kind of like to own some authentic 19th century firearms if I knew what I was doing — as an investment. When I was curator of Richard Nixon’s musuem items (after he left office), I was impressed by the nice collection of firearms the firearm manufacturers had given him. I suspect most politicians — and at least five supreme court justices — have similar collections.

Two guys working in the gun shop wanted to talk about the election; how it worried them. I assured them not to worry, that the black liberal guy was sure to win.

Leave the driving to us

“As horrified travelers watched, a Greyhound Canada bus passenger repeatedly stabbed and then decapitated a young man who was sitting and sleeping beside him, a witness said Thursday.”

CNN.com

NewMexiKen took the bus from Orange County to San Francisco during the air traffic controllers strike. I always remember walking through the bus station and hearing one passenger to another, “Hey man, when did you get out?”

Most asinine line of the day

“Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck.’’

Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager, as reported at The Caucus.

At this rate, McCain’s crew will be using the “N’ word by September. When McCain lost Iraq as an issue, he had no issues, so now it’s all anti-Obama, all the time.

But then I have to acknowledge, the only reason to vote for McCain is to not vote for Obama.

Gunned down

Molly Ivins once wrote that she didn’t support gun control because she hated guns, but because she just liked to see knife fights.

Among the things Dad left behind when he died early last year was a loaded .38 revolver on his headboard, a Colt Cobra (3-inch barrel, not the stubby). NewMexiKen has never owned a gun — and never fired a pistol — so I just put it away (empty!) until I got around to selling it. Which is now.

The gun has no value beyond its use as a tool. Or as one firearm expert I talked to put it, “It’s a shooter, not a collector.” Even so, it has some value. Indeed, one of the places I may go to sell it is among the Brady Campaign’s list of Top 120 Gun Stores with the Most Guns Traced to Crime.

I’d better wipe the thing clean.

The dumbest elite

“But as we’ve told you many times: These people [the press corps] have only the dimmest sense of what a ‘fact’ (or a ‘quotation’) is. In their remarkably unimpressive minds—this may be our dumbest elite—there’s a very fuzzy line between a quotation and a paraphrase.”

Daily Howler

That would be — for the most part — NewMexiKen’s personal experience too. While reporters don’t always get it wrong, in my experience they almost never get it right. There’s something about seeing your byline in print or your image on the screen I guess that — for many — creates a sense of knowing more than they ever do.

Because we sure as hell don’t want a president who is popular around the world

Britney Spears, Paris Hilton … Barack Obama?

All three make cameo appearances in Senator John McCain’s newest television ad that refers to Mr. Obama as “the biggest celebrity in the world” and uses footage from his speech in Berlin, with sound bites of the throngs cheering “Obama, Obama.”

(The McCain campaign likes to call them Mr. Obama’s “adoring fans.”)

The Caucus

Stupidest line of the day, so far

“The Obama campaign has a woman problem. How big? How small? It’s not clear, but in a close election, small can be big.”

That’s Chicago Sun-Times columnist Carol Marin as reported at Daily Kos.

Except Ms. Marin is wrong. As kos reports, “Kerry won the female vote 51-48. … Obama leads that demographic by 22.”

So, umm, Ms. Marin, wouldn’t it have been more factually correct to say that the McCain campaign has a woman problem, being down 56 to 34 among women in a poll taken three days ago.

Elsewhere it’s been reported that Obama has a Latino problem, too. Except that he’s up 66-33 among Latinos according to Pew.

I’d say it’s the media that has a problem. But you knew that.