Regular readers will know that I am crazy about my wife, and that my daughters are the apples of their daddy’s eye. But this week I’ve discovered a love that almost threatened to supplant their place in my affections. The object of that love?
Electricity. Sweet, quality-of-life-improving electricity!
Which is my way of saying that because of the storm, our power was out for 27 hours, from 2:15 Monday morning until 5:30 Tuesday morning. For much of that time I was home alone, but I had various battery-powered lights, including a LED light on a headband that I usually use during handyman projects.
And I had my faithful Wonder Dog at my side. Plus three indifferent cats, who skulked around on the edges of darkness, inscrutably.
I made bacon and eggs for breakfast on our gas stove, and I cooked some steak on our gas grill for supper. And with no tv to watch or computer to write with, I read a novel and a half in those 27 hours.
The biggest downside – other than the heat and humidity that quickly displaced the indoor air conditioning on which human life in Florida during August depends – was that I had just bought a gallon of ice cream on Friday. And my frugal Midwestern upbringing brought me to a dark night of the soul around 2:30 on Monday night: should I try to eat an entire gallon of ice cream right now, so that it won’t go to waste?
I fought off the temptation, hoping that the power would be restored soon. So RIP, gallon of ice cream.
My wife and daughter’s plane – returning from Emily’s 10-week research fellowship in Boulder, CO – landed at 7:30 Monday night, and we got to spend that evening together, sweating in our living room around a small pop-up camp-style light while she told us how much fun she’d had, and how much she liked the school, her professors and her classmates.
By the way, if any of you would like to learn about her summer project – snappily titled, “Numerical Simulations of the Interaction of Jupiter’s Magnetospheric Plasma with the Atmosphere of Europa” – don’t ask me, because I don’t understand it. But mom and I are both proud of her.
So I woke up to sweet electricity, and spent the day cleaning up fallen palm fronds, Spanish moss and mostly small tree limbs. I took a pick-up load to the dump, and then cleaned up the yards of our rental houses too, filling a bunch of barrels and another truck-bed before coming home for a shower.
Then I checked the computer and found that Que Mala had thrown us all a curve ball and picked Tim Walz from Minnesota for her VP.
As I wrote before, I had thought she’d pick one of two smarter choices, Mark Kelly or Josh Shapiro. Shapiro was the heavy favorite throughout the weekend, and her turn away from him is a big tell.
I thought he’d have been the smartest choice, mostly because he was perceived as more moderate – which he isn’t – as always, thanks, lying MSM scumbags! – and because PA is a must-win for her, and he would’ve made that more likely. I’d been prepared to write that despite the general awfulness of the national Dems, it’s an encouraging sign that they over-rode their own Jew-hating, jihadi caucus to pick him.
But NOPE!
On that theme, CO’s musings last week about how Jews vote Dem was thought-provoking. I think he is sadly right that so many Jews continue to vote left even as the anti-Semites on the left hold serious sway, and the left generally is either neutral or anti-Israel on that nation’s existence. Which is mind-boggling to me; CO is more understanding and compassionate on that issue that I am.
However, I think there is a huge voting difference between secular Jews and orthodox and/or take-their-religion seriously Jews. I met and worked with many Jewish people in my years in academia, but the vast majority of them were secular, and voted left. (As the vast majority of academics in liberal arts fields do.)
But the couple of seriously religious Jews I knew, as well as a majority of high-profile seriously religious Jews in our culture – I’m thinking of people like Dennis Prager and Ben Shapiro – are conservative. Post 10/7, both of them have talked about how everybody in their synagogue will be voting GOP in November, in large part because of the way national Democrats have welcomed people like Tlaib and Omar, and actively worked against Israel’s defense since the latest Hamas genocidal attack.
There are some exceptions of course. Alan Dershowitz is committed to his Judaism and describes himself as a life-long Dem/liberal, but he’s excoriated the Dems over the last several years, and has hinted that he’ll vote for Trump, and definitely not for the Dems.
In any event, Que Mala’s choice of Walz was a huge, unforced error. MN is already a blue state, and as a far-lefty like Kamala, Walz doesn’t bring any votes to the ticket that she didn’t already have wrapped up. Plus he’s got a lot of baggage – the DUI, his support for BLM riots and open borders, etc. – that the Trump team can exploit.
Maybe worst of all, at a time when the MSM is working themselves into positions not seen since Kamala was “dating” Willie Brown to try to falsely re-make her image – she was never the border czar, or the most leftist senator, etc. – picking Walz belies all that.
If she were really the competent centrist the MSM is pretending that she is, why would she pick a leftist Mini-he like Walz?!
The smart money says that the election will come down to who can get the most independents and persuadable moderates, and an extremist like Walz only makes that harder for Que Mala.
So what have we learned today?
First, electricity is our friend.
Second, Kamala Harris is a dope, and this – her first major decision as the post-coup, selected-not-elected candidate – is a major fail.
But I do have a suggestion for a theme song for her campaign. As soon as I heard Walz’s name, I thought of the old folk song, “Waltzing Matilda.” If you haven’t heard it, Tom Waits’ version – Tom Traubert’s Blues (Waltzing Matilda) – is my favorite, but there are a million of them floating around.
I’m no songwriter, but I’ve come up with a few lines in the hope that some talented folks in CO nation might be able to improve on these. (You might want to listen to the Waits version before reading these, just to get the rhythm.) I give you:
Walz-ing Kamala
“A radical governor, big fan of rioters,
No one thought he’d be picked,
But Kelly was bland, and Mayor Pete might get pregnant,
And Shapiro was one of the much-hated Jews…
So… he’ll… go…
Walz-ing Kamala, Walz-ing Kamala,
He’ll go Walz-ing Kamala this fall.
And the jihadi Squad members
Ululate their favor
As BLM and antifa pass out high fives.
While moderates face-palm,
Confused and forsaken,
Wond’ring if she fell out of a coconut treeeeeee.
And why she chose to go…
Walz-ing Kamala, Walz-ing Kamala?
Walz-ing Kamala, seriously?”
Hamas delenda est!
Martin Simpson 
Yes, I thought of the same. I’ll soon be working on a Walzing Kamala parody.
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