Augh, did I post the wrong day yesterday? Jeez. Well, yesterday had lots of stuff, and it's here. Top part and a fun stoner's gala in the Products section.

So. The above. It would be nicer if we hadn’t had it three weeks ago. But ah well. I shoveled four inches of widowmaker snow, even though I have a snowblower, because the gas was bad.

"Why didn't you use the snowblower?" Wife asks.

"I have bad gas."

" _ _ _ _ "

"The gas is bad."

" _ _ _ _ "

"Never mind."

There's something about the scrape of the blade on the sidewalk in the dark, echoing down the block, that's instantly familiar, like cicadas. You forgot all about that sound, and then you hear it again. And then you swear, because the sound comes from a neighbor, and you'd best to get to it yourself.

So I suppose I’d better.

At first I thought Trump would lose, and then for a short while I thought he might win, and then he lost, and I was a bit curious about things that seemed called a bit early, and then I read some stuff that made me say hmm, but then I thought, nah. There were a lot of people who liked the results of Trump’s tenancy in office, but preferred a less exhausting political climate - especially since it had spilled into everything else, saturating the public sphere with wind and noise. That was partly the fault of his opponents - mostly, I think, because they’ve been shrieking Hitlerputinpuppet for years, and partly Trump’s fault for being all things people also loved. If you’re not involved in politics, if you’re not keen on the particulars of this policy or that, or why this approach - regardless of its author - is more effective at increasing liberty and prosperity than that policy, then you can see why some people would just want things to seem normal again.

That’s not me, but I understand how some might feel that way, just as I understand as some think that’s lax and lazy.

I snipped some tweets that seemed to make interesting or necessary points:

		Not being an expert hasn't stopped me before, of course, but I do not know enough about the Very Telling and Suspicious Number Charts and Stats. Just don't.
		The "little or no oversight" may not be accurate, but I am not in favor of switching to mail-in voting spread over time, because it's obviously more prone to abuse.
		Someone saying it was fair, based on their sincere understanding, is not brainwashing. Someone saying it's fair because only bad people question this or that incident is not brainwashing so much as arrogant intellectual bullying, and delegitimizes any inquiry. Which is wrong.

I'd like to see all the credible assertions of fraud investigated, and I think you'll find fraud. (Distrust but verify, as the axiom says.) I don't think you'll find enough give Trump a second term.

I also think that fixing on a narrative of a stolen election - as we had in 2000 and 2016 - creates deep personal unhappiness that alienates one from everything except other . . . believers? Adherents? I'm trying to think of a word that doesn't make them sound like nutjob cultists, because paints everyone who doesn't accept a certain set of received wisdom as delusional losers.

It's possible to believe lots of things that span various narratives. For example: I was Never Trump in 2016, when that term had meaning. I did not believe he was put in office by Putin. I did think there might have been dealings with Russian oligarchs, but meeting with some of those guys to get a hotel built somewhere is different than taking a huge payday for a "speech." So I believed that there had been spying on the campaign, and something that might have looked dodgy, depending on the spin, and the baselessness of the collusion charge, all the while not liking the man.

So there could have been fraud, and the election would still be legit, and focusing on a narrative of a great hidden plot that will be revealed now any moment! makes for unhappy, alienated people, and most the noisy actors in any situation should be dismissed.

There, I've satisfied no one. Well, you asked!

Well, no, you probably didn't.

It’s 1920. Rail stealing and plan foisting:

Yegg got smoked by a dry:

You have to feel bad for someone who lost his job in Chicago because he couldn’t suppress the drinking trade. Sorry I had to do it, chum. Here, have a belt, you’ll feel better.

		“He chose a cornfield.” There was a lot of that in the early days, I suspect. It took some steel to take to the skies.

		You do wonder if the Doc had anything to hide.

		Lucky Prize Dance could also be a dark way of trying to get out of the path of a car.

An absolute evergreen they could run every single year hence. Could've run it today.

He’s so big. And you wonder if he knows that whenever he finally arrives, it’s too soon, and whenever he finally leaves, it’s not soon enough.

		It rhymes . . . eventually.

Would you like to know about her?

Aline Triplette Michaelis, poet, was born in St. Louis in 1885. She was educated in St. Louis and Kansas City, and her early poems were published by the Kansas City Star. After marriage to F. G. Michaelis, she lived in Austin for several years before moving to Beaumont in 1919, where she worked as a staff member of the Beaumont Enterprise.

Writing under her own name and the pen name Susan Arnold Taylor, she published more than 10,000 poems. Her poem "Courage" was distributed to servicemen with the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I. Her column, "The Rhyming Optimist," was carried by King Features for some sixteen years and reached well over three million daily readers. Many of her poems dealt with nature; her work was characterized by its optimism.

She published a volume of her verse, Courage and Other Poems, in 1931. She was the first woman to be named Poet Laureate of Texas, an honor she held from 1934 to 1936. She was a Methodist. Aline Michaelis died on August 10, 1958, in Beaumont after a lengthy illness.

The Boston Evening Transcript said of her: "She knows well what manner of verse Mr. John Public and his wife, especially his wife, like to scan early in the morning -- something to face the day after a poor yesterday with courage.”

Forgotten, but not today.

For a while, quite desirable:

It’s a homeless shelter now, but the owners have restored the ballroom as an event destination.

A big takeout on Andy’s philanthropic effort to embiggen the brains of the people of this fine land:

Let’s take a look at two. Redwood Falls:

Still around. Most of them are.

Spring Valley - and oh ho, I know this one.

We saw it just a few weeks ago in the Main Streets section! Everything ties together here, eventually.

That'll do - time to head off to the 80s. See you around.