Bannockburn, Neighbor Dogs, and SPLC Polling on Political Assassination

Let's start off this episode with a selected reading from ‘The Poetry of Scotland,’ edited and introduced by Roderick Watson. Specifically, ‘The Bruce’ Book XII discusses the second day of the Battle of Bannockburn, and is part of a larger poem by John Barbour (1320-1395); written about 1375, it’s the oldest poem preserved in Scots. My daughter Evelyn says my reading these to her is like a bedtime story, and she loves the accent. Yet it should be noted that I am not trying to read this poem with an accent. Also, this is actually a very hard poem to read because it feels as though the Scottish accent is being phoneticized into English, plus there are unfamiliar words which I don’t know the meaning of. Nevertheless, this is a stirring piece of writing, and evocative, and I hope you will enjoy hearing it as much as I enjoy reading it to you. From there, I will tell you the story of the fallen fence plank. It’s a beautiful, sunny Saturday here in Greeley, and I am working. So I woke up this morning to a phone call about a server that had locked up about 3AM and needed reset. That done, I got myself a cup of coffee and set to the task of fully waking up. Four chickens in our backyard clucking early this morning. I looked out to see the neighbor’s dog laying by the fence, his head poked through on our side where a plank had fallen. Evelyn helped me gather up the chickens and put them back in their coop; Solomon helped me put the plank back in place to keep the dogs out of our yard and the chickens in it. This was hardly the happiest way to wake up on a Saturday; nevertheless, the fence needed mended. Leftist SPLC Poll Includes Shocking Finding About Democrats’ Support For Assassinations Greg Wilson writes for The Daily Wire on 10 June 2022 about how many Democrats and Republicans recently polled would approve the assassination of political leaders they believe are hurting our country or our democracy. 34% of Republican men under 50 would approve compared to 44% of Democrat men. 40% of Republican women under 50 would approve compared to 32% of Democrat women. 6% of both Republican and Democrat men over 50 would approve. 10% of Republican women over 50 would approve compared to 9% of Democrat women. The fact that this is the Southern Poverty Law Center doing the polling notwithstanding, I have some questions and observations to share on these numbers. For one, what do Republicans and Democrats respectively consider harm to our country which would rise to the level of being worthy of assassination?  For another, how does this question land differently in the minds of men versus women, or those who are older than 50 versus those who are younger than 50?