In Which I Slightly Modify My Finnelson Guess

March 1, 1792 Dragging Canoe, the great Cherokee leader dies. John Watts takes over as leader for the Lower Cherokees. The September 1792 attacks were Watts’ first big direct action as leader and there’s evidence that the reason Bloody Fellow spoke against it was not that he was merely thinking that the Americans were too powerful (though he may have been looking to forge new trading opportunities with them), but he thought that the plan was too ill-conceived, that it was happening too quickly, just because the young men were eager to prove themselves in battle. He thought the USians settled along the Cumberland expected an attack.

So, I think Finnelson could have been somewhat ill-at-ease about the Creek. I think he also must have trusted Bloody Fellow’s interpretation that they were rushing into battle and been uncertain about John Watts’ leadership.

And here’s the other thing. If Finnelson had a wife and child at Running Water, he probably wanted to prevent the U.S. troops from attacking that town in a way that would kill his family.

In other words, it may not have been one big thing, but a bunch of little things that made him increasingly uneasy about the attack.

I’ll Admit, It Hurts My Feelings

How much would I have loved to see the capitol in the midst of renovations? And who in town is a bigger history nerd in public? And yet I never get invited to shit like this. And it does, just a little, hurt my feelings.

Because I am a baby.

Dick Measuring

You know that moment when you’re in a meeting or at some kind of public function where the dudes all get sucked into a dick measuring contest? You know what I mean? Some middle or lower status guy will say something kind of insightful and interesting–“I think we should all move into the shade, where it will be cooler.”–and for some reason that triggers not a compliance with his action, but a huge hullabaloo where all the guys who are higher in status than him or want to be higher in status than him have to go on for twenty minutes about how either it’s stupid to move into the shade and here are the eighteen reasons why, which suggester would have known if he’d only been as awesome as dude now speaking, or how they had the idea to move into the shade five hours ago, when, in fact, the shade was over here, because they’re just that cool. Everyone measures their dicks, rearranges social status based on dick size, and eventually they either move into the shade or the meeting mercifully ends.

If you don’t have a dick to wave, this aspect of male socialization is either hilarious or frustrating, depending on how much of the meeting time it’s eating into or how much you wish you’d brought a huge, but otherwise lifelike dildo to slam on the table in order to be permitted to talk and to get your idea in the mix.

My whole life, up until yesterday, I have always been one of the people without a metaphorical dick to swing.

But I woke up, bolt upright in bed in the middle of the night, after pondering how even my post on Timothy Demonbreun could have descended into “you’re not doing it right” in the comments (which, yes, I am failing to not read), realizing that posting at Pith is invoking a dick measuring dynamic for some folks. Since I’m not shutting up and deferring to their superior knowledge (which would be impossible, since I’m the poster. I literally couldn’t bring that dynamic into play unless I didn’t post but somehow made it apparent that I wasn’t posting because what they had to say was more important.), I’m not signaling “proper female.” And so I provoke the dick measuring.

The thing is that I always tend to tune out the dick measuring in real life, since I can’t participate in it. So, I don’t know if I won. I think I did. I mean, when someone is reduced to “what you’re saying is right, it’s just that I don’t like your tone” that’s winning, right?

Do I burp loudly now or what? Is there a prize?

Yes, I know, the true prize would be the piece of mind that comes from not reading the comments. I am trying to break myself.