As you read this, I am on my way back home, after a great visit with my mom. (To see a pic that captures her essence, see the main page of this site, where she is wearing a party hat and laughing, and I am wearing a stylish turkey hat, even though it’s not Thanksgiving.)
We drove many hundreds of miles on tiny, winding roads through the beautiful, gently rolling landscape of south central Tennessee, and ate at a bunch of small-town diners.
We saw the burial site of Meriwether Lewis (we could use more guys like him today) on the Natchez Trace Parkway, tried to chew two of the hardest gumballs in Christendom that came out of a machine in a county courthouse in Pulaski, and drove through many tunnels of trees on roads that made me wish I still had a motorcycle.
It was sunny every day, but we didn’t do much walking, because it was hotter than Florida. Seriously, it was in the mid-90s every day. It’s almost enough to make me think that Al Gore was right about global warming.
But then I remember that that guy couldn’t pick the winner of a one-horse race, and he couldn’t tell the truth to save his life. And he’s no more a scientist than Lizzie Warren is a Cherokee. (#youknowthething) (#neverstopneverstoppingmockingher)
One of the advantages of traveling with mom is that she doesn’t remember that I’d taken her to some of these places before. She continually said, “I’ve never seen this place before; it’s really pretty.” She was always right about the second part, and in a way, she was right about the first part, too.
I took along a Bluetooth speaker, and we listened to a lot of George Jones, who was always her favorite. She remembered that he had a problem with alcohol, and asked how he was doing with that, and I had to break it to her that he died ten years ago. He made it to 81, but when she asked me if he died because of booze, I told her that it probably didn’t help.
And yes, the next song of his that came up in the rotation was “If Drinkin’ Don’t Kill Me.”
We got to laughing, and I told her that she was probably only still around because she laid off the sauce when she turned 70. (She’s a sweet little Baptist in good standing, and has never taken a drink, as far as I know.)
We did a lot of wandering, and I had to constantly reassure her that I knew where we were. (Because of my phone’s GPS, I wasn’t really lying.) We traveled such scenic lanes as Yokley Creek Road, Cathey’s Creek Road, and even Sheboss Road. Which, it turned out, was gravel.
All in all, we had a good time together. She would lose track from time to time, but she was still the mom, and she asked me if we were lost and if we had enough gas, and told me when I was driving too fast.
And because I’m still a juvenile at heart, I’d drive a little faster, and honk for no reason, and tell her that we were about to run out of gas and die of starvation on lonely Sheboss Road.
Every time I saw rolls of hay in a field I’d point and loudly say, “Hay!” And every time she’d fall for it, and call me a jerk, and then punch me in the shoulder and laugh like when she was young, and dad was still alive, and they were both amused and exasperated by their goofball son.
She’s already forgotten most of this, and I know we won’t have her with us much longer, but this week did my heart a lot of good. And I hope that when she wakes up again after this life is over, she remembers this week as well as I do.
As you might guess, I’ve only caught bits and pieces of the news over the last 5 days. But I did catch the WNBA story on the CO site about classless Angel Reese’s latest dirty play against Caitlin Clark.
It occurs to me that – after the three joyless Joys (Behar, Reid and Gray), and the angry Whoopi (Goldberg) and darkly malicious Sunny (Hostin) – we now have a new contender for most ironic name.
Because whatever else she is, Reese appears to be far from an Angel.
Following the good news from Israel I wrote about on Friday came the grim news of 8 IDF soldiers killed in a recent battle. In a way, that bitter loss is another testament to Israel’s goodness, because those young men were only lost because of risks Israel is taking to minimize deaths among Gazan civilians.
It’s a heartbreaking price to pay, and one that I think nobody has a right to ask for. I hope that the Jewish state will ignore its critics – including those in the UN and here – and do whatever it needs to do to wipe out Hamas.
To end on a more positive note, I’d like to praise two other foreign leaders who are shining examples of what we need more of in our country: Argentina’s Javier Melei and Canada’s Pierre Poilevre.
In only six months in office, Melei has brought an amazing amount of drastic and wildly successful changes to Argentina. He has the most purely conservative agenda in this hemisphere, cutting government (he moved to eliminate 9 of 18 ministries on his first day in office) and deregulating the economy to an unprecedented extent.
Recent stratospheric Argentinian inflation rates have dropped dramatically, and early results of his governance have been very positive. He’s up against a long record of corruption and incompetence, and his ultimate success is far from certain. But he’s acting boldly, and doing the right things.
And all while displaying a self-deprecating sense of humor, and rocking the sweetest mutton chops since the Civil War!
Meanwhile, in Trudeau’s dysfunctional Canada (aka, America’s evil Top Hat), Pierre Poilevre has been giving a master class on how to kick journalist arse and advance conservative policies that could turn that benighted polity around.
Yes, he’s got a problematic name, a toxic mix of hard-to-pronounce and French, which needs to be changed forthwith. I looked it up, and of course “Pierre” translates to “Peter,” and “Poilevre” translates to “rabbit pelt.” So there’s no help in trying to Anglicize his name. Better to just start from scratch and pick out a strong, impressive moniker.
I suggest “Martin Reagan,” but I’m open to suggestions.
Anyway, he’s been handling the horrible Canadian MSM – unbelievably, apparently as terrible as our MSM – like a boss for a long time. You probably remember his sarcastic dismemberment of an interviewer who insulted him about how critics say he’s too Trumpy, in which he called him on his bullSchiff and took him apart at the joints, all while eating an apple and without raising his voice.
Well I’ve seen a new excerpt in which he dismantles a different journalist (with a very suspicious French accent, if you ask me), who asks how he can disagree with Trudeau (who is definitely NOT Castro’s illegitimate son, so stop asking) and his plan to “create 5.8 million houses by 2031.”
P-squared starts by pointing out that, “I don’t disagree. Math disagrees.” And then he rattles off facts like they were paddles and Trudeau’s dishonest plan was AOC’s juicy booty. (Her words, not mine.)
“Trudeau is already missing his target by more than 50%; the Canadian government spends more of their housing budget on government bureaucrats than on people who actually build the houses; in the last nine years, the average rent for a one-bedroom was $973, and now it’s $2000; 1/3 of the cost of every newly built home in Ontario is government permits and taxes – that’s more than we spend on the labor to build the home.”
He summarizes: “Has [Trudeau] spent a lot of money on housing programs? Yes! He’s spent $89 billion on housing affordability and the result is that housing costs have doubled. The problem is that he’s putting money into bureaucracy. Government bureaucrats don’t build homes. Private sector builders do.”
Then he ends with his plan, which is to incentivize municipalities and regional governments to cut red tape, government fees, and permits so that builders can actually build. He would tie federal funding in each area to the number of houses built, instead of to how many government bureaucrats they hire and support.
And everyone who has been longing for common sense conservatism for years goes full Meg Ryan in the diner scene in “When Harry Met Sally.”
More, please. And please God, let’s see some of that here in the States after November.
Hamas delenda est!
Martin Simpson 