So, as readers may have gathered from the screaming headlines in the Establishment Media Organs, we in Central Texas had a spot of rain this last weekend. What wasn’t in the mainstream news was the fact that we have had local warnings and alerts of rain and thunderstorms and the like, about every other day for the last two or three weeks, and most of those warnings amounted to just a piddling few drops – with one exception, about two weeks ago. My backyard rain gauge registered 6 and a half inches in the space of an hour and a half around 3 in the morning on that day. Such weather antics have kept my garden lush and green into midsummer, and the lawns of those of my neighbors who have them, similarly lush. Some of our summers are like that, alternated with summers that go three digit-temperatures without a drop of rain in sight for three months in a row.
The Battle of Monocacy
On this day in 1864, the Battle of Monocacy was fought just outside of Frederick, MD.
It is not a well-known battle, certainly not compared to that of Gettysburg 40 miles to the north or Antietam 25 miles to the west. In fact the thousands of commuters who pass the battlefield marker on I-270 probably don’t give it a second thought. Yet it was one of the pivotal battles of the Civil War.
In June 1864, Confederate General Jubal Early’s army of 18,000 men marched north down the Shenandoah Valley, invading first Maryland and then Pennsylvania. After burning Chambersburg and holding Frederick (MD) for ransom, Early turned southeast toward Washington, DC.
Washington lay undefended. Grant had pulled the garrison weeks earlier in order to make good losses the Army of the Potomac had suffered during the murderous Overland Campaign. Grant was now rushing forces back to reinforce the capital but he needed time as Early was only two days’ march from DC.
One of the mistakes of Civil War history is that we look back at the Battles of Vicksburg and Gettysburg as not only the turning point of the war, but the point at which the South could no longer win.
Heinlein and Independence Day
Today, three days after Independence Day, is the 37th anniversary of the death of Robert Heinlein, who would have a thing or two to say about revolution in our time.
For some years now I’ve thought civic holidays in the US should have, whenever possible, a specific conceptual focus, as Thanksgiving Day already does. MLK Jr Day should be devoted to game theory, Columbus Day to learning about discovery and exploration in general, and so on.
The question we should openly discuss every July 4th is: are there prices too high to save the United States? My formulation is from Heinlein’s Guest of Honor speech, “The Future Revisited,” to the XIXth World Science Fiction Convention in Seattle in 1961:
Misc Thoughts On July 4th
July 4, 2025
Several things converged to inspire me to this post. The first was reading Mike’s wonderful post today on this occasion. Yes, all the signers were not men who had nothing to lose, but everything to lose from the successful lives that they had built. That should they fail, a noose for them and poverty for their families awaited them all. They were indeed jumping into an abyss challenging the world’s superpower.
A Beautiful Day Spoiled
I am out in New Mexico for Independence Day weekend, checking on family. The small town where the folks live has a big public celebration every year with speeches, food, and booze – just the way the Founders intended, though I found the lack of rum punch disturbing.
Unfortunately, somebody let it be known that I spend time in the DC area, which led, wouldn’t you know it, several people from the settler-colonist crowd up by Santa Fe to come and introduce themselves. These are folks who move into the West from the blue coastal regions and decide their new home needs to be “modernized,” and start with all sorts of programs like bike lanes, lactation stations, and wanting to reintroduce wolves.