Travel Blogging XIV

General Impressions: If I had thought about this river adventure I would have imagined that somewhere in the Great Plains I would have looked ashore and seen huge wheat or corn fields. In retrospect that was foolish. 

Trees love water, in the dry west every creek is lined with cottonwoods, mostly. This river is lined with walls of trees and undergrowth. Only where large sandbanks have been exposed by low water can you see more than a few feet beyond the shoreline. 

The effect has been a green wall along both banks, except where people have cut it back to build a house (on the upper river) or a town. The vistas are still sweeping because the river is wide and you can see a long ways upriver or down, except where it is meandering and the curves cut off the view.

In that sense the experience I’ve had cruising the Danube or Rhine doesn’t translate, the view there is more varied than here. Cruising this river is visually more like cruising the Amazon although there the forest goes on for hundreds of miles and here I suspect it is just the strip that floods when there’s high water that they leave forested to hold down erosion.

It might be interesting to cruise Old Man River after the leaves drop in autumn, you might see something besides the seeming forest we’re seeing.

I fear this post is a string of recollections from a life of travel and reading. I’ve seen the claim that when Europeans first arrived here, North America east of the Mississippi was so heavily forested that a hypothetical determined and energetic squirrel could have covered the entire distance without ever setting foot on the ground, leaping from branch to branch.

I do know that east of the river a tilled field, if left fallow for several years, will spontaneously sprout chest-high young trees. You’ve heard the term “free and clear” spoken of ownership? To homesteaders the land wasn’t yours until you’d cleared it of most of the trees and turned it into farmland.

To the west there is less rain and trees have to be more selective in where they grow. Along bodies of water, for sure, and also on the north side of hills where there is less drying sun and the moisture that falls as rain or snow lingers longer. 

In my part of Wyoming you drive north up a valley and the south-facing hills look bare, with some scrub brush on them. Drive south down the same valley and the same hills are lush and green with conifers. No compass is needed to tell north.

If someday we and the Russians are on friendly terms again and you take the river cruise from St. Petersburg to Moscow as we did some years ago, you will see the conifer forests stretch to the horizon in every direction. It’s quite a sight.

Somewhere in the middle of that vast forest on the banks of the river or canal we were sailing, was a small town with a dock at which was tied up a black, streamlined nuclear (?) submarine. In the post-Soviet era their navy was contracting. The ship was not camouflaged in any way, and could not submerge as the river was too shallow.

My theory: they were going to beach the ship and its captain knew his home town had no electricity. He sailed it home, and used the reactor to generate power for this tiny cluster of houses. I hope they haven’t started having two-headed babies, radiation is no joke. Maybe it was a diesel, they generate electric power too.

Endorsements

The New York Times endorses Kamala Harris for president. We are not surprised, they’ve been wrong about nearly everything for years now. When you’ve got a streak going, changing your course makes no sense, amirite?

COTTonLINE endorses Donald Trump for president. We don’t know who will be elected but we’re sure who should be elected. We backed him four years ago and eight years ago. We are 1 and 1, lost one, won one. 

The best reason to support Trump is that nearly everyone you don’t like supports Harris. The schadenfreude in watching their despair when he wins will be near-orgasmic. Mass suicides among the “woke” is too much to hope for, I suppose.

I particularly look forward to reading the pundits saying how they knew she was a weak candidate, one they had to support but feared the whole time she would lose. I propose to ridicule them for trying to foist another weak loser on us as POTUS.

Solving the Problem

If women athletes would refuse to compete when former men are allowed into the same competitions, the current catering to ho-hum male athletes who decide to switch would end pronto. The power to end this invidious practice resides with women athletes. Refuse to accept it and it ends.

Some of this is happening now, more of it needs to happen.  Feeling sorry for poor, mixed up trannies is misguided nonsense. 

Trannies’ problem isn’t between their legs, it is between their ears, it’s mental. Sadly, we aren’t yet good at reprogramming broken minds.

Tasteless

 Someone has spent considerable money and effort to erect a 43 foot nude statue of Donald Trump outside of Las Vegas. This article has a photo. If you don’t choose to look, know it isn’t flattering.

I wonder what the reaction would be of a similar nude statue of Harris giving a BJ to Willy Brown? How is one less tasteful than the other? Why should any duly accredited political candidate be subjected to this sort of abuse?

There is something about the desert that strikes bent souls as a blank ‘canvas’ they need to ‘decorate.’ I can think of several examples along the desert interstates. Hat tip to Lucianne.com for the link.

Travel Blogging XIII

Natchez, MS: We docked in Natchez with no drama, purely routine and on time. Natchez has a lot of history, including being the southern terminus of the Natchez Trace.

In the days when a common way to travel the Mississippi was flatboat or raft, people rode the current to New Orleans but had no way to take their craft back upstream. So they would sell their boat for lumber and walk or ride an animal home.

Apparently the Nashville area was where many of them wished to return to. They’d follow the river upstream to Natchez and then strike out overland taking the shortcut to Nashville. That shortcut was called the Natchez Trace. Draw a straight line from Natchez to Nashville and you have the approximate route.

They’d come down an eastern tributary to the Mississippi, perhaps the Ohio or Kentucky river. Now they needed to return there. Think of their river route as a capital gamma (Γ), they could shorten the trip by heading off to the northeast and this trail became the Natchez Trace. So many walked it, or rode a horse up it that it became in places sunk several feet below the surrounding terrain.

Today it is a national historic park, paved but otherwise maintained in a predevelopment condition. We had the opportunity to drive it in 1976, in a small motorhome. We were heading south from the DC area where were temporarily domiciled. It is a slow drive, but very pleasant and somewhat historic. 

At an inn of sorts named Grinder’s Mill, Meriwether Lewis of Lewis & Clark fame died, whether by assassin’s bullets or suicide has never been conclusively established. People who knew him well were inclined to believe suicide, some have described him having bipolar disorder.

Later … We’re in Baton Rouge, LA tomorrow, good old “red stick.” I wonder where the name came from?

Much Later: The other DrC found out where the name came from. Long ago two native tribes lived in the area and to reduce confusion marked the boundary between them with a tall, red pole, festooned with fish skeletons. Upon seeing this pole the French dubbed the area Red Pole or Baton Rouge and the name stuck.

Merging Wars?

Foreign affairs analyst George Friedman weighs in with some long-range “what if” thinking about the two active wars with which we’re concerned. He asks if there is a chance the two merge into one?

Friedman points to a sort-of alliance between Russia and Israel and wonders if Russia’s troubles with its Islamic citizens could flare up into an active theater. The mechanism he posits is the war in Lebanon spreading out to the north and east. I don’t see Israel’s highly capable but small military enlarging the theater of war to the extent he imagines. 

Could a charismatic leader emerge with the ability to pull all the competing strands of Islam into a single, militant caliphate ready to take on the world? I can imagine it and so can others, but the likelihood is not particularly great. Iran hopes to lead such a movement but their sway beyond the Shia faithful is limited.

I like Friedman‘s analysis but I believe this time he has overreached.

Low Expectations

Gertrude Stein famously said of her hometown Oakland, CA, “there is no there there.” She coined a clever phrase to say it didn’t have much to recommend it. 

Stein thought Oakland generic and bland, accurate enough when she said that. Now it is much worse, a real s***hole. 

It strikes me “there is no there there” is an apt description for Kamala Harris, she is generic and bland. With accomplished parents, she is an unfortunate example of “regression to the mean.” 

She’s gotten this far as an affirmative action hire or candidate, taking full advantage of what Bush 43 condemned as the “soft bigotry of low expectations.”

Travel Blogging XII

On the River: We were supposed to be docked in Vicksburg, MS, this morning. What I see out the window is an overgrown riverbank and no city.

We are told a barge grounded somewhere up ahead and traffic is backed up on the river apparently in both directions. It is like a traffic jam at an accident site on the highway, except what is backed up here is river craft, not autos and trucks. We wait while the stuck barge is freed and moved.

For those who planned to be ashore in Vicksburg touring the excellent battlefield park, our plight is frustrating. As with so many things along this route, the DrsC did it years ago - driving, not cruising - and redoing it now is optional, so if we don’t it’s no big deal.

Later … I posted the above before 8 a.m. It is now 11 a.m and we still aren’t in Vicksburg. Passenger scuttlebutt says the first barge is freed but another is now hung up. 

Vicksburg was on the Mississippi during the Civil War but after the war the meander loop it was on was cut off by the river. It is now on the Yazoo River, rerouted to flow past V-burg and thence into the Father of Waters. V-burg is now 4 miles from the big river.

As I write this we just started moving again. Let’s see how far we get this time.

Even Later … Vicksburg, MS: We finally arrived around lunchtime, and people are headed ashore. We missed a whole morning of touring time, no way to make it up. The National Battlefield Park here is excellent. Everyone will be back aboard by 5:30 p.m. when both the cocktail hour and open supper seating begins. Tomorrow we’re in Natchez. 

Your Vote Matters

What is special or unusual about Springfield, OH or Aurora, CO? Absolutely nothing except their problems with unwanted, illegal immigrants have made them news. If it can happen in no-name places like those, why not in your town? 

Politico quotes Trump as claiming that the Harris border malfeasance will turn every little town into a “third-world hellhole.” Those two examples simply prove no town is safe from the immigrant horde.

The fault lies as much with do-gooder NGOs as it does with the government. Both do things which enable them to feel virtuous and you have to live with the downside of having immigrants dumped in your town, more or less in your lap. 

Unvetted criminal immigrants are ushered to your neighborhood. Keep an eye on your pets, and more particularly on your children who look like rape and murder targets to far too many illegal immigrants.

There is something you can do in the next couple of months to change this. Vote for the candidates who have always promised to end the problem: Trump and Vance.

The Sectarian Issue

My favorite commenter on foreign affairs - George Friedman - asks us to consider an aspect of the current Middle East conflict which hasn’t been much mentioned. Two of the frontline opponents of Israel - Hamas and Hezbollah - represent different branches of Islam, Sunni and Shia respectively. 

Both oppose Israel but, presumably neither wants to much strengthen the hand of the other. Iran supports both but very likely only listens to Hezbollah, while considering their support for Hamas an arm’s-length “marriage of convenience” not unlike our alliance with the Soviet Union during World War II.

Friedman points to Hezbollah’s belated attack on Israel which, to be more effective, would have been coordinated with Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. Hezbollah supports Iran’s long-term goal of forming a Shia empire in the region, whereas one supposes neither Hamas nor Iran see much role for Hamas in an Iran-led empire. Think “second class citizen” at best.

Killing Enemies

 Lee Smith writes at Tablet a truism too many people don’t want to admit.

The Israelis have resurfaced the ugly truth that no modish theories of war, international organizations, or even American presidents could long obscure. Wars are won by killing the enemy, above all, those who inspire their people to kill yours.

Killing Nasrallah not only anchors Israel’s victory in Lebanon but reestablishes the old paradigm for any Western leaders who take seriously their duty to protect their countrymen and civilization: Kill your enemies.

We must choose leaders who accept this truth as a given.  And there’s a corollary: Bring back capital punishment. Not all enemies-who-need-killing are foreign despots.

Travel Blogging XI

Tunica, MS: We were scheduled to spend one day here but since there wasn’t enough water at Memphis for us to dock where we needed to dock, we continued on to Tunica which is just a few miles south of Memphis. The buses ran all of our Memphis tours today from Tunica and we leave here tomorrow around noon, I believe. 

Tunica has the nicest cruise ship docking facility on the river so far: covered floating dock, covered bridge to shore, a large waiting facility up on the bluff, very posh. I seem to remember an excursion boat operates here in high season, which this probably is not. I seem to remember our friends Pam and Sam joined us for a couple of hours on the river.

It has rained pretty much all day, the wind has been substantial, and it is chilly outside. We looked at the weather and decided to spend the day aboard, instead of taking a bus to Memphis. 

We’re wondering if this storm is the fringe of hurricane Helene that has hit the west coast of FL? Since our flight home on Tuesday goes via Atlanta, we’re hoping that busy airport has recuperated from the storm by then.

The State of Play

I read something a day or two ago, I can’t find it now, where the author wrote that everybody has decided whether they will vote for Trump or Harris. All we’re doing now is marking time until the results are announced.

Do you feel like that? I do. Whoever is elected, half the country will be shaking their heads at the evil or stupidity of the other half for voting as they did. For saddling us with “that idiot” who won.

I’m hoping Trump wins, no surprise. I hope he can avoid being assassinated for the next 7 weeks or so. It seems like only consequential public individuals and ex-spouses are actively targeted. The rest who get killed are in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s human nature. 

I’m not making grandiose claims about what I’ll do if my preferred candidate loses. I know me, I’ll figure out how to cope with what comes, good or bad. It’s what I’ve done all my life. It is what we all should do, figure out the rules of the game, and play to be comfortable and trouble-free. 

I calculate this society will not deteriorate so quickly as to greatly inconvenience someone of my advanced age. On the other hand, if you have grandchildren whom you love, do worry about their futures.

I’ll leave you with the Stark family ‘words’ from Game of Thrones.

Winter   is   coming.

Travel Blogging X

On the River: We are experiencing low water conditions on the Mighty Mississippi, enough so that I’m told we are blowing off a stop in Memphis and perhaps substituting one in Tunica, MS which is just south of Memphis. There is certainly some dry bank showing in many places, and a few gigantic sand bars too.

If we stop in Tunica it will be our second, or perhaps third visit. Tunica represents a successful effort to exploit a loophole in MS laws forbidding gambling on land. If it can be shown to be gambling on water, however shallow, supposedly that is not unlawful. The law existed at the behest of showboats which plied the river and provided entertainment, including gambling, at various stops along the way.

At Tunica they cut a small canal from the river to some flat farmland, built hotels on the farmland and in adjacent acreage built “floating” casinos with maybe a foot of river water underneath them. You cross a barely noticeable ‘bridge’ from hotel to casino. The hotel on land holds everything except the actual gambling equipment - parking, lodging, restaurants, gift shops, RV camps are all “ashore.”

The first time we visited we showed up in our fifth wheel trailer and pickup truck. We intended to stay a day or so, but one of us got the flu and was miserable, so we stayed longer. Then the other came down with it, hard not to do in the confined space of an RV. 

We were there for close to two miserable weeks. One of the casinos had a special on prime rib for $9.99 and we ate it for several days running, got tired of it, but everything else on the menu was more so … we kept eating prime rib while recuperating. The Great Tunica Prime Rib Pig-Out is how we remember it. 

By the time we got well enough to travel we had lost a week out of our schedule. We had to blow off the planned extension to eastern TN to see friends so we headed west through AR. Life is like that.

—————

Here on the lower Big Muddy, there are essentially no houses along the banks, just mile after mile of trees choking both banks. On the upper river there are fine homes, and weekend cottages lining the banks but not here. I think nobody builds on the banks here because of intermittent flooding and I suspect the levees controlling it are a fair ways behind the trees I see from the ship.

They say the river this far south is polluted, and it may be exactly that. One thing is clear, the pollution isn’t harming the trees which look healthy and lush. I suspect these are varieties which tolerate having their roots underwater some part of the year, not all trees will survive that.

Here and there I see some sort of commercial activity on the bank, maybe a conveyer to load some bulk product into barges, all of these rusty as anything. But they are probably miles apart.

Much of this part of the river has banks that look like no human had done much of anything nearby. On the river by contrast, the commercial barge traffic is nearly constant. And where it isn’t moving, there are barges tied up, effectively “parked” until someone needs them. As I write this we are passing a group of 17 barges being pushed downriver by a ‘tow’ boat. And it was passing another string going the other way - the river is wide here, and deep too, I’d judge.

Trivia item: There are no locks on the lower Mississippi, this is helpful for barge traffic because I’m thinking that 17 (4+4+3+3+3) barge string would have to be broken up and locked through in subgroups.

Travel Blogging IX

On the River: It is roughly 1:30 p.m. and we undocked from Saint Louis maybe 15 minutes ago. We overnighted there, something I’d not anticipated tho others had read the schedule more carefully and were not surprised. 

We are now officially on the lower, more industrial part of the journey. We are cautioned not to expect much recreational traffic on this part of the river as the water is quite polluted. There will be lots of barge traffic. River transport is by far the cheapest mode of transport, cheaper than either rail or truck. 

Barges with flat tops haul liquid cargo, largely petroleum-based fuel. Barges with domed tops carry some bulk agricultural product like wheat or corn, something rain would damage. Barges with no tops haul stuff that can stand the weather - coal, gravel, mechanical equipment, vehicles. Liquid carriers are dedicated to that purpose, the rest can ‘wear’ tops when the mission calls for it, leave them off when it doesn’t.

It is amazing how little freeboard the barge pusher tugs have, in some cases as little as 6”. Most ships have a pointed bow, barges and their pushers have square bows. Our ship’s bow is pointed but the part above the waterline pivots up to reveal the base for our gangplank which reaches ashore from there.

Addendum

To the other DrC’s post about Mark Twain and Hannibal, MO, I’d add just one biographical detail. He was also a river boat pilot, which required memorizing the sand banks, snags, and navigable channels in an ever-changing river. 

I’ll bet it was an accomplishment of which he was particularly proud. On this big river in his day that was a high-status occupation.

Review: Oppenheimer

The ship’s TV system has a group of films we can watch whenever we choose, the DrsC choose for after supper entertainment. Last night we opted for the film that vied with Barbie for viewers last year - Oppenheimer. It was an admittedly reluctant choice.

The film is a mish-mash of straight narrative of the Manhattan Project plus flashbacks and flashforwards (sic). The latter featuring a series of committee hearings during which Oppenheimer is exonerated of Communism and ‘convicted’ of using poor judgment in allowing unreliable people to participate in highly confidential science leading to leaks to the Soviets. That is what passes for a story line.

What you see is a group of moderately unattractive people (mis)behaving with each other politically, scientifically, and sexually while doing science at a level most humans cannot imagine, thinking thoughts mostly kept to themselves and only hinted at to the audience. 

To what extent it represents accurately what actually happened I have no idea. One supposes it downplays connections to Communists, for that is Hollywood gospel and thus not to be mocked.

History tells us Communist spies leaked the science to the Soviets who built their own bombs. The film tries to tell us this would have happened regardless of leaks, but the scientifically superior Germans who had no such leaks did not succeed, something the film fails to mention.

Did we enjoy the film? Not especially. It had moments but much of it was excessively “arty” at the expense of a recognizable narrative line one could follow. A fair amount felt like a fever dream, which is to say disturbing and unpleasant. Perhaps that was the intent. 

Full disclosure: my parents and I lived in Hollywood until 1947. My patriot/veteran dad had pals in the LAPD. I grew up hearing his stories of anti-Red raids in the 1920-30s, and the generally dissolute behavior of Hollywood notables and wannabes. Dad believed showfolk were scum. I’m sure my views are colored by that upbringing. 

If you’ve watched the War and Remembrance TV miniseries you see the Hollywood entertainment folk put on a party to agitate for the US and Brits to open a second front in Europe. This they did at the explicit urging of their Soviet contacts. It is a rare moment of Hollywood self-awareness, an admission of Commie influence. It is worth noting that the Soviet Union was an arms-length ally at the time.

Travel Blogging VIII

On the River: This morning we are still cruising southward, later today we will be moored in St. Louis, MO. Most activities seem to be scheduled for afternoon.

Saint Louis, MO: We are moored right at the foot of the Gateway Arch, a nice location at a signature spot. True, the river bank here shows low water and therefore is kinda mucky. 

We were here in 1974 in a small motor home and did the arch and the Clydesdales of Budweiser at that time. So no need to go ashore today, we’ll enjoy having the ship mostly to ourselves while most pax are ashore touring. There aren’t many places in North America we haven’t been in 53 years of touring together. It has been a grand adventure.

We got a new lecturer on board today for the second half of the trip downriver. She’s a big improvement on the first who was hard to hear and undynamic. We’re picky about lecturers, having both done the circuit ourselves. This one we’ll go back to hear again. 

I love being on the river, going ashore is less appealing. My idea of nirvana is Philip Jose’ Farmer’s Riverworld. Book me a cabin on the Not for Hire, find me a grail, and I’ll happily sail into the sunset.

Brussels Won‘t Listen

Fraser Myers writes for sp!ked and makes the argument that the underlying model of the EU or European Union is flawed and will lead to its eventual demise. What are its problems? 

The past decade of economic misery has exposed the lie at the heart of the EU project – namely, that technocracy ‘works’; that unelected, uncountable experts should be left to make critical decisions about economic life.

The question is how soon the EU’s constituent parts (i.e., nations) recognize it functions poorly compared to its first world competitors, and how rapidly they act on that realization? 

Global Cooling, Anyone?

The latest of Steve Hayward’s charts for Power Line deals with the earth’s climate over the past 485 million years, as reconstructed from the fossil record by paleoclimatologists - climate scientists.

I apologize for not including the chart here, I am currently limited to my iPad. Some of what the desktop does easily the iPad does with difficulty or not at all.

It shows that the earth is currently near its lowest temperature for the last 485 million years, until we stopped cooling and started warming recently. Is it a bad thing that we stopped cooling? You can find serious scientists who conclude that a modest warming is a net benefit to the planet.

We know the planet was once warmer. We have found fossil trees in the high arctic and Antarctica, in neither of which regions they currently grow. Clearly Gaia has been warmer during much of its past, and likely will be so in the future. Technology is the way to deal with whatever the future holds.

The Incurious Media

The press aren’t upset that Kamala Harris won’t tell us her positions on a dozen or so topics of interest to the nation. Their rationale: we know where Trump stands and we hate it. Wherever she stands is likely to be better than his views. 

Beyond that, we don’t need to know as whatever she reveals will alienate at least a few voters. It is a strange view for a journalist to take, but an entirely reasonable one for a rabid partisan. 

I conclude most of the mainstream media are in fact “rabid partisans;” they no longer meet the minimum criteria for journalists. Furthermore, they are proud of their commitment to values they mistakenly believe are more important than knowing and sharing the truth.

In this sort of situation, pundits like to say “They only had one job … and failed to do it.”

Travel Blogging VII

 Hannibal, MO: We are tied up alongside in Hannibal. It turns out that the citizens of this burg have decided to make it into a Mark Twain theme park. 

You buy a ticket that admits you to a variety of Twain-themed sites, including his boyhood home. There is also the cave Twain had the boys get lost in and a villain locked in fatally. 

I understand the impulse to profit by a widely shared interest but I am disinclined to participate therein. As the son of two well-beloved but long dead Missouri natives, I believe I have an understanding of the place without being subjected to theme-park-style simplification and such. 

Plus the weather is rainy and who wants to get wet? The DrsC choose to stay aboard. I am going to cherish Tom, Huck, Jim, Aunt Polly, and the eternally adolescent and lovely Becky Thatcher in my imagination as I have for more decades than I choose to admit. 

Not to mention the curious cat to which Tom fed pain-killer. Its descendants probably prowl these precincts to this day, killing the odd river rat for sport.

Travel Blogging VI

On the River: Today is what long-time cruisers call a “sea day” which designates a day we are not in port. Our next port is Hannibal, MO, where we’ll be tomorrow. That’s Mark Twain country, for sure. 

Today we’ll motor past Quincy, IL, about which I wrote yesterday. We’ve left the “upper Midwest” and are getting to land over which the North and South fought some 160 years ago. 

My dad’s ancestors wore the gray uniform. Great granddad on my father’s mother’s side - an army physician - probably cut off a bunch of legs and arms. That was a surgery some men actually survived in those pre-antisepsis days.

John Wesley Powell who led the first expedition down the Grand Canyon, was missing an arm he lost in the war. One armed he would climb the canyon wall to improve his view for the canyon map he was drafting for the government. He was a tough old bird, a real explorer.

The Autumn Equinox

Today, September 21, is the autumnal equinox, one of two times in a circuit of the sun when the north and south poles of the planet are equidistant from the sun. This makes day and night of equal length in both hemispheres of the globe.

Today, autumn officially begins in the northern hemisphere, though for us who live at higher elevations it has felt like autumn for some weeks. On or about December 21 autumn will end, officially, as winter begins.

In Davenport, IA, on this day at roughly 7:20 p.m. sitting outside on deck four, we are comfortable in shirtsleeves. The sun has set and twilight is fading. The air feels silky with the riverine humidity. The crew tell us it will get warmer as we go south, and that’s logical.

We cast off at about 8 p.m. and I believe our next port is Quincy, Illinois, My father grew up in Quincy to which his mom moved after his dad died. She and her two sons then lived there with her father and mother, his grandpa was a physician who had served in the civil war.

Later … I was wrong, our next stop is Hannibal, MO, so we will bypass Quincy, alas.

Travel Blogging V

Davenport, IA: We are alongside in Davenport, one of the Quad Cities group. The four are Davenport and Bettendorf in southeastern Iowa and Rock Island and Moline in western Illinois. The river is the border between the two states.

There is a lot less recreational boating here than in Dubuque, not certain why. It could be because the area is more urban and industrial.

It is a breezy Saturday and the weather did look a bit like rain earlier, but it never materialized. We are doing some laundry this afternoon. The ship has a guest laundry and provides both detergent pods and dryer sheets for our use. 

My TA - Steve - from when I first taught at SacState, became a friend I stayed in touch with. He graduated and went to work for the Army as a civilian systems analyst.

He was sent here to Rock Island Arsenal for training, after which he was posted to Letterkenny Army Depot, in Chambersburg, PA, where he worked till he retired. We visited him and his wife there when we lived in the DC area for a couple of years. Sadly I’ve outlived him by a decade or more.

Travel Blogging IV

On the River: Some mornings we wake up and are already docked at our new port, others like today we are still cruising downriver at mid-morning. Our destination today is Dubuque, IA. We should arrive soon.

I enjoy daytime cruising as the changing scene on the riverbanks is fun to watch. In this stretch it is sometimes wooded bluffs along the river and other places it is a low-lying slough or swampy area.

What I have to remember is that the current was more swift when Mark Twain wrote about rafting. Now it is controlled by the locks and dams which maintain navigability depth by creating what are effectively a series of shallow-ish lakes connected by locks. 

When Huck and Jim were rafting none of these existed. Then the river flowed free, dropping 700+ ft. from its elevation near St. Paul to sea level at the Gulf.

Dubuque, IA: We’ve arrived at roughly 11:30 a.m. and maybe a half hour ago I saw my first commercial traffic on the river. It was a “pusher” with 8 barges lashed together 3-3-2, headed upriver. Barges here don’t get towed, they are pushed, mostly in groups, by tugs of a sort with flat bows.

Mind you, I don’t claim that is the first commercial traffic we’ve passed, only the first I’ve seen. We could have passed dozens whilst I slept the sleep of the just.

In Europe barges are mostly powered and travel as a single unit. They have a dwelling at the stern in which the family who own it live and they are also the crew. 

This model hasn’t caught on here, not certain why. Our barges are unpowered floating boxes, often with lids, that get roped together in groups and pushed by a crewed push boat with a big engine. 

Travel Blogging III

La Crosse, WI: We saw a bit of La Crosse today, it is a university town, with a branch of UW located here. The town is old, with many large old homes mostly lovingly maintained. 

I slept through a poorly delivered lecture on the process of converting a mighty river into a watery highway of commerce. Having been a cruise ship lecturer I have a high standard for such efforts, the one today was lame. 

Later we took a bus tour of the city, narrated by a lady who moved here as a young wife and raised her children here. She wasn’t bad but the town isn’t intrinsically fascinating so she didn’t have a whole lot with which to work. There is a nice city riverside park, a feature I expect to be common along the river.

This far upstream there isn’t lot of river traffic, in an hour I saw maybe 5 small pleasure craft and absolutely zero commercial vessels. I expect to see more barge traffic farther south. There were barge pushers and barges moored up near St. Paul but I don’t see them here. There is plenty of water for navigation but hereabouts it is underutilized.

At supper tonight we were talking about how this ship and the firm that operates it is delivering a very high standard of guest service. It is clear they are trying to outdo Viking. 

As the other DrC has written, there is food on offer somewhere almost constantly. Particularly notable are freshly baked cookies mid-morning and mid-afternoon. Coming back from our bus tour there was “whisky lemonade” on offer, which tastes better than it sounds - quite good actually. 

The firm has its own buses and drivers which follow the ship downriver. We chatted up the driver who is based in New Orleans. The ship starts north and the bus follows along and takes guests around each town where we stop. As soon as the touring ends for the day, the buses and drivers head for the next stop and grab a motel. Then they’re ready for our arrival the next day. There are a lot of moving pieces in this operation.

Understanding “Why”

The Teamsters Union surveyed their members to find out which political candidate to endorse for president. Trump was the preference of roughly 60%. Biden got less than 40% as minor candidates got a bit of support. Nevertheless, the union chose not to endorse this year and conservative pundits wonder why.

The answer lies in the straw poll data which favored Biden. Unions are interesting organizations. Most of the members belong either because they must, since they live and work in a state without right-to-work laws. Or they belong to get the benefits, but treat their membership as a “comes with the territory” sort of obligation like buying car insurance. In other words, most belong without getting involved in the inner workings of the union.

Who runs the union? The minority who get involved, who believe the union matters to them, who organize, run for office, serve as shop stewards. In short, those who believe and wish other member would share their belief. These are the one’s involved in straw polls because they attend all the meetings, even when no strike is pending.

Union activists are invested in the Democratic Party’s historic support for unions and its opposition to right-to-work laws. Activists are who ends up deciding if the union will make an endorsement, they sit on the committees and go to the routine meetings. 

Activists supported Biden, and now Harris. The rank and file support Trump. Activists have enough clout to prevent an endorsement of Trump, but not enough to endorse Harris in the face of polling data showing their view to be a minority one. Hence, no endorsement.

Travel Blogging II

St. Paul, MN: Well, I got one thing wrong yesterday, we are being picked up to go to our ship at 10:30 a.m., we’re in the first group to go. Looks like all 190 of us will be aboard by noon. I wonder if we shove off then?

The river cruise lines put people up at the St. Paul Hotel in the city of that name, and it is a well-maintained grand old hotel. Chandeliers and a fireplace in the lobby, lots of wood paneling, and a quite decent, if pricy, restaurant. 

Hotels take a beating and this one doesn’t show it, so they’re taking care of it on a regular basis. My only complaint was the WiFi wasn’t included so I’m on my phone’s hotspot.

Since we flew into St. Paul I presumed that is where we’d board our ship, I presumed wrong. We were bussed maybe an hour downstream to Red Wing, MN, where the MS American Serenade was moored. Now we are cruising downstream at a leisurely pace and the water is smooth as glass. Lunch was great and there are gimme soft drinks for the taking. 

Earlier this evening we sat on our private balcony and watched twilight fade to black. Later we both fell asleep with our clothes on and woke up just shy of midnight to get ready for bed. I conclude we are more tired than we realize. All in all a decent first day of our 2 week river cruise.

Travel Blogging I

St. Paul, MN: We were up at 3 a.m. in order to make a 7 a.m. flight, the airport is an hour from our summer place. The flights here were SOP, nothing to report. 

On the second, longer leg I watched part two of the latest attempt to bring Frank Herbert’s Dune to the screen. This director has done a fine job of making the film look good, but he’s taken liberties with Herbert’s work. For example he’s given Paul’s girlfriend Chani a much larger part and a lot more “agency” or independence than the book gave her.

St. Paul is prettier than I expected. There are lots of trees and the land isn’t completely flat. It is definitely a river city; back in the 1800s, before the railroads were built, rivers were our highways.

We board our ship tomorrow, not certain when but almost certainly in the afternoon. Normal cruise ship practice is to disembark in the morning and board the new passengers in the afternoon before sailing around suppertime. 

It’s a hard day for the ‘hotel staff’ as they have to clean and refresh all the cabins. While they are scrambling to get everything done, the cooks normally feed us pax a late lunch, to keep us entertained. “Pax” by the way is ‘ship shorthand’ for “passengers.”

No Time to Be Helpful

Why are people trying to shoot Donald Trump? I blame Democrats and Bush-era Republicans comparing Trump to Hitler and claiming he will be a dictator. He was nothing of the sort for his first four years in office.

On the other hand, why is he exposing himself in places (golf courses) where he is hard to protect? Especially when the Secret Service has demonstrated its protection is very uneven.

Once he’s elected he can force the Secret Service to take his protection more seriously. For now I selfishly hope he tries to avoid bucolic ‘shooting galleries’ with sand traps and water hazards.

Update

The DrsC will be traveling for the next couple of weeks. Posting to the blog will continue but the weekly round of meme postings will not happen. It turns out what is easy on my desktop is not so easy on the iPad, so I'll just post text.

On the other hand, I will be "travel blogging" which will be a nice change from the usual diet of politics and foreign affairs.

Weird Respiratory Science

UPI. which reports interesting research findings, has a new one for us.  A pediatric researcher in Britain found that salt water drops in the child's nose could shorten cold symptoms by two days, from 8 to 6 days. Their families were also less likely to catch the cold. The article adds:

Salt is made up of sodium and chloride. Chloride is used by the cells lining the nose and windpipes to produce hypochlorous acid within cells, which they use to defend against virus infection.

Because these findings are from a medical meeting, they should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

I figure I've got nothing to lose by trying this, next time I get a cold. Hat tip to Instapundit for the link.

Hypocrisy

Some yahoo in Florida tries to shoot former President Trump, is spotted while getting ready, takes incoming fire from the Secret Service, flees, and is apprehended. His web sites reflect a very Democrat leaning.

Vice President Harris issued the following comment:

I have been briefed on reports of gunshots fired near former President Trump and his property in Florida, and I am glad he is safe. Violence has no place in America.

Reacting to her pro-forma statement, Trump advisor Stephen Miller X'ed as follows:

They are relieved that the biggest threat to America since the civil war is safe.

Biden, Harris and Walz have said things like Trump is "the biggest threat to America since the civil war" and now they're glad he's safe? Hypocrisy much? 

Quoting La Rochefoucault: "Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue." It's saying what is expected when one feels the opposite.

About Tucker

On his show on X, Tucker Carlson recently interviewed, defended, and indeed praised a 'historian' who claims Winston Churchill was a villain and Adolph Hitler was "misunderstood." This is poppycock, and the supposed historian - Darryl Cooper - seems a nutcase pandering to conspiracy obsessives. 

COTTonLINE believes Winston Churchill may have been the greatest world figure of the 1900s. If not, he is certainly a finalist for that honor.

Somewhere along the line Carlson jumped the shark and deserves the ridicule doing so normally triggers in reaction. In retrospect, I believe Rupert Murdoch sensed Carlson was losing it and was wise to fire him before he embarrassed Fox News any further.

A Second Assassination Attempt

There has been a second assassination attempt against former President Trump on a FL golf course. He was not hit and a suspect has been arrested. 

The shooter had an AK-47 style rifle with scope. It is a Soviet assault rifle design that's very popular with third world revolutionaries. Early info suggests the suspect is a strong supporter of the Ukraine fight to eject Russian invaders and a contributor to Democrat candidates.

The Secret Service did a better job this time. They apparently spotted the rifle poking out of some brush an estimated 400-500 yards distant from where the former president was. Some reports suggest they shot at whoever was holding it but missed. The suspect appears to have fled, leaving his sniper paraphernalia behind, and was picked up later unharmed.

An Own Goal

It would not surprise me if Taylor Swift learns the hard way that nearly half her fans don't like her choice of presidential candidate. And of course, nobody insisted she reveal her politics.

Whatever the merits of her music, which obviously speaks to many, the smart thing to do was to encourage people to study the issues and vote for the person and party with which one shares values. Exhortations to "Go Vote" are entirely laudable and offend no one. 

Pick a side and you've offended many of your former fans, who now know something about you both you and they would rather they didn't know. Something that makes you less likable, less relatable. Something that "others" you.

It's too late now, that cat is out of the bag and running like a Haitian was chasing it with cleaver. A year from now it will be interesting to see how endorsing Harris played out for both women.

Saturday Snark

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

Cat Eaters and Cat Ladies

Childless cat ladies are said to be a major Democratic voting bloc. Democrats Biden and Harris have brought thousands of illegal immigrants here from Haiti. 

Haitian immigrants eat cats. Is the party's tent big enough for both cat-eaters and cat lovers? Probably not.

Ladies, protect your moggies, vote for Trump and Vance.

Later ... many, many memes flow from this whole cat eating outrage, go here to see a bunch. Plenty are cute, because cats are some of this planet's most attractive life forms.

Playing 3D Chess

The Washington Free Beacon reports an example of political chicanery that, presuming you don’t want Harris to defeat Trump, is very fine. A little known PAC is running ads praising Harris’ support for Israel and opposition to antisemitism. 

The ads also make a point of her husband being a Jew, and the historic implications of him becoming the spouse of the president and the first Jew to live in the White House. Amazingly the NY Times calls these pro-Israel ads “antisemitic.”

Oh, we forgot to mention: The ads are airing in the Detroit area. Dearborn, Mich., is an inner-ring suburb of Detroit home to the country’s largest Muslim population, and what the Times report from Katie Glueck doesn’t say is that the 40,000 or so odd Arabs there don’t like Jews. It’s not that the ads are anti-Semitic, it’s that the voters are.

If the ads can convince half of Dearborn to sit out the election, Trump could win Michigan.

Dropping Like a Stone

Stephen Green posts the following chart at Instapundit, showing the rate of new company start-ups in China. Here's Green's comment:

Xi Jinping wanted to restore CCP control over the economy. This is what control looks like.

 

Collusion?

There is "out there" a claim of a claim of the existence of an affidavit alleging that ABC News colluded with the Kamala Harris campaign to 'throw' the debate. Supposedly they did this by giving Harris the questions in advance, accepting suggested questions from Harris, and promising not to fact check her.

The possessor of this affidavit writes it will be released this weekend. I have no idea if any of the foregoing is true, or accurate. 

If it were true it would explain the observed lopsided behavior of the ABC on-screen personnel. It would also be a scandal of Watergate-like proportions and would likely end several careers, much as Dan Rather's career at CBS was ended.

We'll see what, if anything, happens. As was once said in the long-ago days of AM radio, stay tuned....

Later ... It should be noted that ABC has issued a pro-forma denial of these allegations. Not that you'd expect anything less. 

I'm certain those denying collusion fervently hope their claims of innocence are true. Or at least unfalsifiable. 

Friday Snark 2.0

Image courtesy of Instapundit.

and

The satirical Babylon Bee 'reports' the following, while tipping the hat to Indiana Jones II.

Mola Ram Says He Has Found No Evidence To Support Trump’s Claim Of Heart-Ripping Ceremonies Taking Place Within 

Temple Of Doom.

Friday Snark 1.0

Images courtesy of Politico's Nation's Cartoonists on 

the Week in Politics.

More on Debates

Donald Trump says "there will be no third debate." Translation: He debated Biden and then Harris. Harris wants a second debate which would be three for Trump. He says "No, there's no need." 

I believe he is correct, Trump is a well-known political figure. Harris needs another debate but likely won't get one.

The pundit class thought Harris won her debate with Trump, but a lot of regular folks think otherwise. Some post-debate polling suggests Trump got a bounce out of their match-up.

One supposes Vance will debate Walz, and will probably do well in the process. 

What They Do

Power Line's new guy Lloyd Billingsley quotes a lyric by Frank Zappa. Zappa found clever word play to imply "you ain't sh*t." Check it out and note the "ABBAA" rhyme scheme.

Cause what they do
In Washington
They just takes care of NUMBER ONE
An’ number one ain’t you
You ain’t even number two.

Wrong Focus

Sean Trende analyzes politics for RealClearPolitics. I really like his insights, including the following from his analysis of the debate.

From my perspective ... the debate wound up being mostly about Trump, and Trump’s a known quantity. Telling us more about Donald Trump that we already know probably won’t change the trajectory of the race.

Let's hope so. 

Social Class?

John Hinderaker of Power Line writes a long column mulling over the party-changing coat-turning of the Cheneys, father and daughter, and people like Bill Kristol, George Will and Mitt Romney. He tries out several hypotheses and isn't totally convinced by any of them.

A hypothesis I find has considerable explanatory power is that of social class; Hinderaker doesn't consider it. A lot of folks find discussions of social class uncomfortable, or even icky.

So how would social class help us understand old line Republicans bailing out of the party? Trump has made a pitch directly to working class America and they buy what he is selling. 

Pundits left and right now call the GOP the party of those without college degrees and of those who don't live in large cities. How hard is it to imagine that label creates status anxiety for people with degrees? Not very, in my opinion. 

The stalwarts of the old Republican Party often were country club members quite concerned with seeking and maintaining status. Many held what are being called luxury beliefs. Sharing a party affiliation with people of lower social status may feel like "a bridge too" far to them. 

Another Bad Choice

See how The Babylon Bee characterized Taylor Swift endorsing Kamala Harris for president.

Woman Who Made Career Singing About Her Bad Choices Endorses Kamala.

They illustrated their X with this photo.

Wednesday Snark

Images courtesy of RealClearPolitics Cartoons of the Week.

Last Night

Most but not all people think Harris had the better of last night's debate. Both combatants claimed victory. 

The one thing commenters agreed on was that the ABC News moderators were clearly on Team Harris and didn't seem to care who knew it. They fact-checked Trump, did not correct Harris and were so blatant even Democrats deigned to notice it. See for example this statement by Mark Penn, a Clinton adviser.

Harris has challenged Trump to a second debate. If he agrees, he should insist on Fox News moderators as a precondition, which might give him the "home field" advantage she had last night.

Maybe the wisest thing I've read about the debate: it is unlikely many voter minds were changed in either direction.

----------

Today, on the 23rd anniversary of the World Trade Center/Pentagon attacks, lame-duck President Biden shows up for the commemorative ceremony in NYC after being heard last night disparagingly referring to the rite as "doing 9-11." 

Biden doesn't "get" the importance of the ceremonial aspects of the presidency. The job entails some of the ritualistic folderol of being a monarch. 

Our president needs to take it seriously because he embodies the nation. Snide remarks and looking at your watch while GI bodies are unloaded demean the Oval Office.

Former Majority Leader Changes Parties

Two days ago I wrote "Hardly a week goes by without someone in elective office announcing they're no longer a Democrat." Check out this news from the Daily Wire.

A woman who was the California State Senate Democratic Majority Leader for three years is switching her party affiliation to the GOP and will vote for Donald Trump. Gloria Romero, once one of the state's most prominent Democrats has become a Republican. See her reasons.

“Today, I am leaving the Democratic Party,” Romero said. “I stayed for as long as I could. I tried reforms, I spoke out, I voted.”

“Today, I say goodbye, adios, I’ve had enough,” she said. “I am now another near lifelong Democrat who is joining the growing number of people — including key groups, Latinos — who are leaving the Democratic Party.”

Romero says the Republican Party has become "the champion of working people" under Trump. She adds the Democrats' refusal to protect women's sports and promote school choice also influenced her changing registration.

Reading between the lines, it appears Romero's Hispanic roots ended up in conflict with Democrats' shifting policy choices which in CA primarily reflect the desires of black and LGBTQ+ constituencies.

The Harris Backstory

Here is a photo of Kamala Harris (29) kissing Willie Brown (60), appearing in the San Luis Obispo Telegram Tribune, dated November 8, 1995. At the time Brown was running for mayor of SF. My source is a Gateway Pundit article.

The Gateway Pundit article has video of an ABC News profile of Brown which talks about his "fine women" and "fast cars" while showing him with Harris and a Porsche and also reports this.

“Excuse me, are you his daughter?” a woman asks Kamala Harris.

Harris looks stunned: “No, I’m not.”

China ... Doing a Japan?

BNN Bloomberg Business has a report on China's economy that is gloomy, here are some key excerpts. Hat tip to Stephen Green blogging at Instapundit for the link.

The gross domestic product deflator will likely extend its current five-quarter drop into 2025, according to Bloomberg Economics and analysts at banks including BNP Paribas SA. That would amount to China’s longest streak of deflation since data began in 1993.

The danger for China is deflation could snowball by encouraging households reeling from falling paychecks to cut back on spending, or delay purchases because they expect prices to fall further. Corporate revenues will suffer, stifling investment and leading to further salary cuts and layoffs, bankrupting families and firms.

It’s a cycle the world has seen before in Japan starting in the 1990s during a period that came to be known as its “lost decades” — when a grinding stagnation followed a burst bubble in real estate and financial markets.

Meanwhile, the deflationary mindset is starting to take hold. Consumer confidence is hovering at a record low, and households report a growing willingness to save instead of spending or buying homes.

I am old enough to remember when it looked like Japan Inc. would "buy the world." You saw echoes of that in the films Die Hard and Rising Sun. People touted the "Japanese Management" model, some of my colleagues taught aspects of it. I didn't as I believed it was culture-specific - worked for them, not for us.

Then Japan went into a slump that lasted decades. Japan eventually recovered but literally nobody fears (or emulates) them any longer. It is my hope China will follow the Japanese path, the above analysis suggests it may do so.

Mad Max in Malibu

This is from The Babylon Bee. Enjoy "Mad Max in Malibu" while it remains satire. How soon it becomes reality is open for debate. 

Hat tip to Ed Driscoll blogging at Instapundit for the link.

The Key Question

There is a debate tonight, likely the only one between Trump and Harris. It will be interesting to see if, with coaching and prep, Harris can hold her own against Trump. And to see if Trump can refrain from whining about how badly he's been treated by the Democrats - both in and out of office.

A word of friendly advice: take Trump seriously, but not literally. He 'paints' with a broad brush - exaggerates and uses florid metaphors. This doesn't trouble me, but I know it bothers others. 

Even more so than in prior elections, the key question remains this. Leaving aside the Covid pandemic which was China's or maybe Fauci's fault, was your life better during Trump's four years as President or during the almost four years of the Biden-Harris presidency?

I don't know your individual answer, dear reader, but for Americans in general the Trump four years were better than the Biden-Harris almost four years. Under Trump we had low inflation with high employment and wages. 

The logic of self-government is that we all vote based on our personal self-interest. The electoral process aggregates these and, most of the time, produces a reasonable outcome. 

Trump, the Steampunk Version

I'm liking this steampunk version of Trump. Hat tip to The Atlantic for supporting superior cover art. The most fun part is the magazine thought it a put down.

Monday Snark

Image courtesy of Townhall.

Purchasing Power in Your State

Where you live is an important factor in how far your money goes. Zero Hedge has a US map color coded to show the purchasing power of $100 in each state (click image to enlarge). 

CA is worst, AR is best as far as how much you can buy with your Benjamin. I'm guessing the two largest factors are housing costs and taxes.

Honeyed Words

The following from Ed Driscoll posting at Instapundit. He shares NBC News interviewing Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) about the Kamala Harris presidential candidacy.

Welker: "Do you think Kamala is abandoning her progressive ideals?"

Bernie: "No... I think she is trying to be pragmatic and do what she thinks is right in order to win the election."

Hence she echoes much of the Trump agenda. Her values haven't changed, but now she's saying what she believes we want to hear, the honeyed words. Whether she believes them is anybody's guess. My guess is "No."

'Tectonic' Shifts in Politics

I just scanned briefly an article at AMAC about all the strange party shifts that have taken place. Many of the old corporatist Bushies like the Cheneys - father and daughter - have become Democrats. On the other hand one of the famous Kennedys endorses Trump, and hardly a week goes by without someone in elective office announcing they're no longer a Democrat. Ditto the Silicon Valley oligarchs.

All of these are the fallout of a shift in our two major parties. The Republicans have become the party of the working class, and increasingly it seems of the BIPOC part of that class. Conversely the more finicky members of the educated elite have become Democrats, probably because of their status insecurity - a fear of being miscast as no longer elite.

This process is not new. Remember Ronald Reagan said he didn't leave the Democratic Party, rather it left him. At about the same time millions of white southerners, who'd been Democrats since Reconstruction, became Republicans.

Within each of our major parties, coalitions shifting over time is no new thing. It goes on today as some of the left-behind like Ruy Teixeira bemoan what was lost. 

Personally I welcome the new Republican policy concerns of lost manufacturing and fair trade being as important as free trade. These are issues I lectured about as a Management prof. 

What Project 2025 Is and Isn't

A search doesn't find where I've written about Project 2025 in any detail. Let's be clear about what it is and is not. 

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, gathered a group of quite conservative thinkers to put together what amounts to a conservative "wish list." The result was Project 2025. 

A Democrat equivalent would be to get the progressive "squad" consisting of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, etc. together with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and ask them to construct a wish list of the socialist things they'd ideally like our government to do.

Blaming the whole Democrat Party for the squad's wish list would be no more fair than blaming Trump for Project 2025. The squad doesn't represent the entire D party. Project 2025 doesn't represent the whole GOP. In each case the subgroup is the party's most "out there," impractically radical members.

Life is filled with unintended consequences. Heritage did Trump no favor by releasing their wish list when they did. 

The Rest of the Story

You've seen somewhere that VP candidate Sen. Vance called the Georgia school shooting "a fact of life" and heard people screech how awful he was. As a COTTonLINE reader you should read what he actually said, and John Kass has Vance's actual words.

If these psychos are going to go after our kids we’ve got to be prepared for it. We don’t have to like the reality that we live in, but it is the reality we live in. We’ve got to deal with it. I don’t like that this is a fact of life. But if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets. And we have got to bolster security so if a psycho wants to walk through the front door and kill a bunch of children they’re not able.

That is what J.D. Vance actually said. Do you find anything there to disagree with? He's saying let's begin with where we find ourselves and try to make it better, or at least less bad. Hardening the target isn't rocket science, it's common sense. That's exactly what Vance advocated.

As a society we refuse to lock up our insane and confiscating our guns is literally unconstitutional so it won't happen any time soon. That's where we are now. However much you may dislike our here and now reality, at least admit it to be true. As an aside, countries which have confiscated guns are plagued with "knife crime," multiple stabbings and slashing. 

Seriously fencing school grounds and controlling access thereto are good first steps. I admit to mixed feelings about arming school staff, it is worth considering.

Anyway, as the late Paul Harvey liked to say on radio, "that's the rest of the story." The intent of those who took Vance's words out of context was to harm him, not to share his views.

No Bargain

Columnist Derek Hunter on why you won't see many interviews of Harris or Walz.

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz can’t avoid the debates without looking like they’re deliberately avoiding them – which means Kamala will be there Tuesday – but they can avoid being asked any serious questions, and they will.

You’d think that would be political suicide, and it certainly won’t help them in the election. Still, the old saying about being silent and leaving people to think you might be an idiot or opening your mouth and confirming their suspicions is doubly true with this ticket.

Not every "twofer" is a bargain. Two idiots with one vote? No thanks.

Saturday Snark

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.