One Can Only Smile

 Amusingly, I woke up at 5 this morning, and could NOT go back to bed.  This would not be a problem, save for this annoying cold (and the corresponding voice loss) which I cannot shake.  Two or three days of full rest would be just what the MD ordered to get this put aside.  Sigh.  Also amusing:  one of the local TV stations did a piece on the CSU men's hoops team and its potential to win the Horizon League... and they go and get blown out by an 8-15 UDM team.  To be sure, this is the life of mid-major basketball, but...

So, I started reading The Cotton Planter's Handbook, or at least one of the many iterations of it, today.  Yes, it is Black History Month, but I think we all know that I order a bunch of books from the library, they come in, and I put them -- in any order -- on the living room table.  I could have put it back or upturned the pile, but that would be cheating, in a way.  Anyways, the reason why I ordered it was because while the book about slave trading in the South the author noted that many people -- most of whom never had (or would) slaves -- owned copies of the book, despite being (at best) yeoman farmers.  According to the author, he said owning such a handbook was aspirational -- someone who felt they were one good crop away from buying land and slaves would have a copy, if you will, to indicate to their neighbors, or themselves, of what was possible.  Interesting (to me).  The handbook itself is... well, they talk a lot about manure, and whenever they discuss field work one can now laugh a bit knowing that the planters themselves would be miles away from such a task.

Is it me, or are the latest allegations against Hunter Biden -- the ones about his personal assistants at work -- being brushed under the rug?  I mean, these are serious allegations, and they bring to mind consent issues, and if a GOPer was accused of them, AOC would be slamming her notebooks on them.  But, it's Hunter, and there is so much other sleaze, so... under the rug.