potential meme: try to explain something difficult that you're familiar with in simple terms

[buster]

In my campaign to get everyone to start more official websites about their passions, professions, and interests, I've had a couple conversations in the last week about how websites work.  I remember when I bought my first domain in 2000 (ianomalous.com) it took me a long time to wrap my head around how websites worked, and since I'm not really that

Comments

[tarvie]

In 1893, a famous professor named Frederick Jackson Turner said that the American frontier had disappeared. He was right, if you ask me. There was no more new land to discover, and the American government had taken charge of the whole continent. Poor natives. Here are the reasons why people in the East flooded to the West:
1. Too many damn people in the cities of the East
2. Too much damn bloodshed during the Civil War
3. Too many damn landlords keeping the people down--everyone wanted to own their own land
4. As demonstrated in the immortal "Far and Away," too many damn immigrants coming from even further east, looking for jobs and land and freedom from oppression.
5. Too many damn capitalists trying to broker deals between industries. Railroads, steel, and the American Government being the most obvious. Railroad towns, Chinese workers, etc. etc.
6. The newspapers made a lot of money selling "Go West, young man!" ads, which were funded by the people in #5, and which were wildly successful.
7. Too many damn treaties with Mexicans and Indians, which opened up the whole freakin' American west (and contributed to the Civil War, but to explain that would take me too far afield)
8. Too many damn rumors about GOLD!!!! in California and FERTILE SOIL!! in Oregon.

I just realized that this is Buster's post, not mine. I will stop now.