Robert Frost - The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Sam Janesch,"Pennsylvania’s far-right, Trump-endorsed candidate was nominated for governor. Is Maryland’s next?"
Sixteen miles north of the Mason-Dixon Line, Dan Cox was celebrating.The Maryland candidate for governor took the stage, basking in the victory of a campaign built on ultraconservative policies like strict anti-abortion laws and the outlawing of any kind of mask or vaccine mandates, of targeting transgender issues in schools and questioning the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
“I am so proud and privileged to be here tonight on the night when we take Pennsylvania back for freedom, when we take our country back for secure elections, for security in our own bodies — making sure that mandates are no more,” Cox told the Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, crowd on the night Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano won his state’s Republican gubernatorial nomination.
Maryland — Cox said in a tweet the following day — is next.
But in a state that elected moderate Republican Gov. Larry Hogan twice and went for Democratic President Joe Biden by huge margins, does an unconventional far-right candidate like Cox stand a chance?
“It would be difficult for me to believe that there are many Republican voters who have paid any real attention to Maryland politics who see a path for Cox to win statewide,” said Todd Eberly, a political science professor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. “That’s among the greatest things that weighs against Cox — the electability factor. It’s just not there.”
don't try it Anakin...
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/_GOhMhedJbA
ReplyDeleteI'm headed for the sopse of tree's at the edge of the angle. Meet me on the other side...
ReplyDeleteWell... My great-great grandfather was with the "Alabama Boys" and one of the few that survived Chamberlain's downhill bayonet charge. He said "fuck this shit" (or the late 19th Century equivalent) and walked barefoot missing fingers back home after that...
ReplyDeleteCould have been worse. He could have been stuck in Pickett's Charge...
Another branch of my family didn't fare much better at Vicksburg...
ReplyDelete...Grant and his Yankee bastards had the high ground at Vicksburg too...
ReplyDeleteVicksburg and Gettysburg happened at the same time...
ReplyDeleteLee had bad intel at Gettysburg... Pemberton was making a last stand before a Grant burning everything in his path
ReplyDeleteEarly could have taken Washington in 1862 and strung up Lincoln... had he not had faith that the Union army wasn't stupid enough to leave Washington undefended... like they did. Missed opportunity that never came again.
ReplyDeleteSherman's march to the sea... burning the homes of every little old lady in his way... Quite a hero!
ReplyDeleteI took a shit on his gravestone back in high school lol
...and Texas is talking about secession again. I guess you can do that if you have oil wealth to pay back crushing 100 year Reconstruction "loans" faster...
ReplyDeleteI have to go to Cleveland to see a monument to my Civil War ancestors. :(
ReplyDeleteAlthough there were a bunch that ended up in NC and SC in the late Eighteenth century that I never traced...
ReplyDeleteMy surname ancestors pioneered and settled what became Alabama...
ReplyDeleteWhen Grant made it to southern Mississippi he was so impressed with the (antebellum) architecture he couldn't bring himself to have his troops burn it down. Georgia, Atlanta to Savannah wasn't so "lucky." Once the Union army had control of the rail lines from Chattanooga (TN) into Atlanta the logistics of the North having no Appalachian hurdle to cross into the heart of the South was gone...
ReplyDelete"War is hell - follow me and see" Sherman gleefully obliterated Georgia after that. Those little old ladies didn't have a prayer.
Prior to his turn as shameless war criminal, Sherman had a mental breakdown commanding a fort in Kentucky sieged by 100k rebels. So, yeah, he was a little pissed off and bloodthirsty when Grant and Lincoln sicced him on Georgia with vengeance on his mind.
ReplyDeleteSherman did come up with some great quotes about newspapers and newsmen though... and that 40 acres and a mule (Special Order 15) thingy... couldn't have taken your grandpap's farm w/o it.
ReplyDeleteMy great great grandfathers farm was "in the way" lol when the Union army controlled the Mississippi River from Minnesota to Louisiana and could send forces across the plains of central Mississippi and Alabama to link up with Sherman in Georgia. The South was mutilated with western Tennessee being under Union occupation for most of the war.
ReplyDeleteOh but the glory.... guerrilla warfare in Tennessee and Missouri made the war last longer than it would have lol
ReplyDeleteMy kinfolk didn't take part in that but the history is interesting.
The North used cavalry for scouting, the South used cavalry for both scouting and terrorism ;)
ReplyDeleteRun, Forrest, run :P
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/pDEK4gJBKW0
ReplyDeleteJohn Mosby, the Grey Ghost used to hide-out in Harford County. There's a sign a few miles from my house where he captured a Union general. Of course John Wilkes Booth and Junius Brutus Booth/ father & siblings lived only a few miles from my house. There's a big mural of the Booth clan hanging in our local Post office. ;)
ReplyDeleteJesse James and his gang hid out in caves along the Meramec River near me - caves they knew about as raiders in the Civil War. I don't remember if they were with Quantrell's Raiders.
ReplyDelete*Quantrill
ReplyDeleteAnd yep, they were.