Franklin wins on Election Day
Chris Feola
Author, Perfecting Equilibrium: For a brief, shining moment Web1 democratized data. Then Web2 came along and made George Orwell look like an optimist. Now Web3 is Perfecting John Nash’s Information Equilibrium.
I do believe you've laid a curse on
North America
A curse that we here now rehearse in
Philadelphia
A second flood, a simple famine
Plagues of locusts everywhere
Or a cataclysmic earthquake I'd accept with some despair
Good God, sir, was that fair?
It's a GREAT day to be an American!
Why? Well, My Guy Wins Today. You know-Ben Franklin. For more than two centuries, Americans have been peacefully going to the polls and deciding how their government will work. And the next day...the sun comes up, and life goes on. If you don't understand how rare that is, in this world, in human history...please reflect on your good fortune. (I covered an election in the Philippines that was called quiet because only 108 people were killed. Including a guy who was shot in the face while running against...his uncle.) Why Ben? When asked what kind of government we'd have under the new Constitution, Ben said "A republic, if you can keep it." We're hanging in, Ben, best we can. Oh, and PS: Don't worry, you election junkies. There's another election in a few years; I understand it will be The Most Important Election Of Our Lives!
Peace, my friends. And joy to you and yours.
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Comment of the Week
Are you sure you mean 25 years, for the measurement from 1914? That's only 1939, at which point the British Empire was still pretty stonking. It would be another 20-25 years before it shrunk back to the rump of a few island holdings here and there that mostly persist to this day.
You are correct that the Empire didn't finish disolving for another decade or so. But I respectfully disagree that the British Empire was still pretty stonking in 1939. Before World War I starts the British Empire rules the seven seas, and few would dare challenge the mighty battleships of the Royal Navy. Then the British lost 880,000 men in World War I; 6 percent of their male population. World War II in Europe starts in September 1939 with the German conquest of Poland. By May 1940 the British have been driven off the Continent and only saved worse disaster with the Miracle at Dunkirk, while at sea British shipping was suffering heavy losses to German U-Boats during the Battle of the Atlantic.
The dissolution of the Empire seems inevitable to me after that. Though I have long thought that in many ways the Brits lost their taste for Empire and the peerage as they endured the Blitz while learning about the Happy Valley shennanigans from the 1941 trial of Sir Henry John Delves Broughton, 11th Baronet, for the murder of Josslyn Hay, 22nd Earl of Erroll, after Broughton learned Hay was sleeping with Lady Diana Broughton. Broughton was acquited, largely because Hay was sleeping with pretty much the entire female population of Happy Valley; there were simply too many viable suspects. The murder remains unsolved. There's a terrific movie about this named White Mischief.
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I've given up on the Easter Egg roundups on LinkedIn. Ever since LinkedIn changed how it handles embeds almost all music videos fail. You can still see the roundup on Substack, if you like.
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