The State of America - Soft Landing, Hard Politicking

Many of you know that I wrote my thesis at Cal on Mark Twain and the Western Frontier. It was out west where Samuel Clemens experienced the expansion of the then 9-decade-old nation. Clemens was born on the banks of the Mississippi. He grew up and grew wise in his adventures out west. His childhood dream was to be a riverboat pilot. He fled Mississippi as the nation was being torn apart by the Civil War...