Old Glory

Amused by the Althouse/WaPo/Atlantic fray over the semiquincentennial (yes, really), I went to look for the 1939 classic cartoon about the Pledge of Allegiance. The Pledge itself was controversial, being authored by a Socialist and having in it a dedication to the union being "indivisible," at one time a very controversial point (as, indeed, it deserves to be separate from the older issues around why it once was: a union that you cannot leave is a prison, not an exercise in free association but a sort of domination by whomever comes to control it).

Ironically, the only full version I saw on  YouTube is dubbed into Ukrainian (and even that version seems to hang up after a while). I suppose Ukraine has more reason than many Americans to feel patriotic about us and our traditions just now.

I wanted to watch it again because the 1939 version of the story -- drawn up amid other American disputes in the run-up to World War II -- might be worth considering. This was the part they thought was uncontroversial, after all: Paul Revere's ride, the Revolution, the Westward Expansion and Manifest Destiny. If I recall correctly, it elided the Civil War into a dispute not much explored, but that was presented as having been resolved by the Gettysburg Address (another uncontroversial as a popular American moment).

To do something similar today, you'd have to cut out everything after the Revolution; and even before then, you'd have to already be addressing the controversies over the Western Expansion, which after all began with General Lachlan McIntosh's efforts in the Ohio River Valley during the Revolution (or even earlier, with British colonialism).

On the other hand, the exercise does show that the nation's history has always been more controversial than we like to remember. Just the other day I mentioned Thomas' Legion of Indians and Highlanders, which is a good example of how much more complex the history is than fits either narrative: 

• The simplified 1939 version of history had the British as the Bad Guys in the Revolution, Westward Pioneers as the Good Guys and Indians as the bad guys, the Union as the Good Guys and the Confederates as Misguided Sons and Daughters; 
• The revisited ~1969 version has the British as the Bad Guys for being Settler Colonists, but the American Revolutionaries as also Bad Guys for the same reason; Native Americans as the Good Guys; the Union still as the Good Guys while fighting against slavery, but the Bad Guys while fighting against the Native Americans. 
• Yet the Cherokee were on the British side of the Revolutionary War (Bad!) and then the Confederate side of the Civil War (Bad!). Nevertheless, they have to be shoehorned into the Good Guys side because they were Natives (Good!).

None of those unified views of American History really works out. Literally the same people who won the war against slavery, Sherman and Sheridan and Custer and their troops, are the ones who fought the war that the later movement wants to call a "genocide" against Native Americans. The same people are the heroes and the villains. In the Revolution sometimes too: Thomas Jefferson is at once the author of the Declaration of Independence, and a slaver who forced Sally Jennings into a secret adulterous affair that lasted for many years. 

Also other American conflicts: Jim Bowie, hero of the Texas revolution and martyr of the Alamo, smuggled slaves into the United States and ran a land fraud operation; his sometime partner in slave-smuggling, the pirate Lafitte, was a hero of the War of 1812. That whole business was so confused that when John Wayne wanted to do the Alamo, he adopted in the Iliad as his model instead of using the real historical figures at all.

We could do the same thing, reaching for mythology since the history is too complicated. Fighting over who wore the white hats in American history is otherwise not going to be a clean exercise. The truth is more interesting, but there's a lot of accepting one ends up having to do about how flawed even the best of humanity can be.

Life in a comedy sketch

From a Twitter report on remarks Elon Musk is giving today:

"I got a bunch of nutty stories. SpaceX had to do this study to see if Starship would hit a shark. And I'm like... it's a big ocean. There are a lot of sharks! It’s not impossible, but it’s very unlikely. So we said, 'Fine, we’ll do the analysis. Can you give us the shark data?' They were like, 'No, we can’t give you the shark data.'

Well, then, okay, we’re in a bit of a quandary. How do we solve this shark probability issue? They said, 'Well, we could give it to our western division, but we don’t trust them.' I’m like, 'Am I in a comedy sketch here?!'

Eventually, we got the data and could run the analysis to say, 'Yeah, the sharks are going to be fine.' But they wouldn’t let us proceed with the launch until we did this crazy shark analysis.

Then we thought, 'Okay, now we’re done.' But then they said, 'What about whales?'

When you look at a picture of the Pacific, what percent of the surface area do you see as whale? If Starship did hit a whale, honestly, it’s like the whale had it coming, cause the odds are... so low. It’s like Final Destination: Whale Edition.

And then they said, 'What if the rocket goes underwater, then explodes, and the whales have hearing damage?' This is real!

US 276 & NC 215

In an update to a post a few below, I mentioned that I was surprised by the Haywood County statement that a couple of our high mountain highways were back open. I decided to scout them this afternoon on the bike, and can report on the veracity of that claim.

I decided to ride over to Brevard, and then to scale US 276 from that side to Wagon Road Gap, where I entered Haywood County. First of course, I had to get to Brevard.

Entry to Wolf Gorge, off NC 281.

Wolf Lake, right by the powerhouse (which is why there are so many electrical wires).

Lunch in Brevard at the Casa Mexicana taqueria, empenadas and flautas.

The ascent on 276 in Transylvania County showed significant sign of the hurricane, but the road is quite open and clear for travel. 

Wagon Road Gap atop the Pisgah Ridge, viewing one of at least two "Cold Mountain"s in North Carolina.

The Haywood side is much less clear for travel. It's technically open as advertised -- I got the bike all the way across it to the junction to NC 215, and then all the way back over Pisgah Ridge at Beech Gap. However, the road is in much worse condition. Pavement is broken at many places, so the highway suddenly becomes a gravel road, especially at stream crossings where the highway itself is washed away. In at least one place, only one lane is traversable so the road becomes single-lane. 

Both highways are in that condition in Haywood County, but you can make the journey if you are patient and careful. It's very pretty right now.

Lake Logan showing some wear and tear, but also beautiful foliage.

The Devil's Courthouse, viewed from the Jackson County side of Beech Gap.

Altogether a pleasant way to spend the afternoon. The roads are more or less open, as advertised. I don't think they're ready for heavy traffic yet, but the random adventurer will find them welcoming enough.

Two Songs of Ancestral Labor

Here is a pair of songs that are both about men who inherited their father’s line of manual labor. One is very sad; the other is not. 

The sad one has the upbeat banjo. 

Ghost Gun

A religious tune in the manner of Johnny Cash. 

Cash himself spent a lot of his career in gospel, especially following his salvation from Nickajack Cave. It wasn’t his most popular work, but his heart was in it. 

Future Planning

If any of you are considering a trip, the Borrowed Band is pretty good. 

The Apple Harvest Festival

Waynesville celebrated its annual festival as scheduled this week, although it was still canceling events as recently as last weekend. I went with my wife, and we found a very heavy crowd for the occasion. This may be partly because not everywhere is open, including the much-larger Asheville still being mostly in recovery.

One of the groups present was a small collection of Protestants singing hymns a cappella and occasionally preaching their faith in the truth of the Bible. Nobody told them they were at the wrong party, though if you preferred beer or marijuana oil to biblical exegesis both were also available. So was barbecue, mashed potatoes, apples (of course!), baked goods, and many kinds of art. Pretty much something for everyone, including the many dogs in attendance, for whom there were drinks for free and costumes for sale. 

Waynesville's going to have a hard time rebuilding its lower section, called "Frog Level," which was badly flooded by the nearby stream during the hurricane. Its main street is on a fairly high bluff, however, and survived mostly intact. 

The town is named after Founding Father "Mad Anthony" Wayne, having been established by one of the soldiers who fought under him during the Revolution. It's also where the last battle in the Civil War was fought, at least in the eastern United States, when Thomas' Legion of Indians and Highlanders surrounded and obtained agreement to surrender from the last active Union detachment in the region, only to have the Legion surrender themselves instead when word of Lee's surrender arrived in town.

Good to see them at least getting a start on a return to normal. It's a pretty little town, and home to my favorite pub in the Carolinas.

UPDATE: An official statement by Haywood County, the local government, about what is and isn’t open. 

I’m surprised that 215 is back open so quickly. Both that and 276 are high mountain roads with exposure to wind and flood. 

UPDATE: See new post above for a fuller description of the conditions of these roads.

Racism in Politics

A hundred years ago, politics in the South were explicitly racist. At some point that stopped; one might argue about when, but for a long time explicitly racial appeals have been off the menu. Almost everyone regards that as an advance, including myself. 

Here’s an ad that showed up in the mail. It doesn’t mention the word ’race’ nor the name of any race; it depends for its effect on you knowing that things like quotas and hiring are targeted that way. I’ve been turned down for Federal jobs because I don’t have the right demographic background; they didn’t even ask about my qualifications before telling me I was disqualified. 

So, fair play, because it’s true? Or out of bounds, because it is racist/sexist?

Engineering Contest

Knowing when you need advice is a good thing. 

The road through the Pigeon River Gorge is indeed in a challenging place. There will definitely be future floods with the power to destroy it. A contest to come up with the best approach is a great idea, and shows a willingness by the government to be informed by private thinking that is encouraging.

Well, When You Put it That Way...

 

I might actually get enthusiastic about my vote.  More than a little truth in it, I suppose.

From Twitter.

Communication in an Emergency

Earlier this year I got my ham radio license and so during the recent hurricanes I paid attention to emergency communications. Then I did some research to sort out what I think would be the best way to handle communications if the cell network and electric grid were down. Here are the useful bits of what I learned for anyone interested in preparing for the next disaster. 

By way of caveat, I'm new to ham radio, not any kind of expert, and obviously you should assess your own situation and come to your own conclusions for emergency preparedness. I do hope for those not familiar with the topic that the following provides some good starting points for your research, and I would be very interested in your thoughts and knowledge.

As you can guess, probably the best individual emergency communication technology is satellite. There are satellite phones, but a quick look shows them to be $800 or more and require a subscription. A common option used by hikers, etc., is the Garmin InReach Mini 2, which is $400 for the item plus a $15 per month subscription for GPS tracking and satellite texting. There is also satellite internet, like Starlink, but that requires electricity. These really aren't too bad, but there are much cheaper, if less reliable, options.

The Ion

A very short dialogue, the Ion by Plato has Socrates discussing artistic interpretation with a rhapsode, whose job was to perform Homer to the delight of audiences and the award of prizes. The argument is straightforward; you can read it in just a few minutes if you wish, and you won't have trouble following the argument without much commentary (but here is some anyway, if you like).

It is an early salvo in Plato's war against poets and similar figures (Ion is not quite a poet, just a reciter of poetry who can also expound his thoughts on its meaning). This war is carried on at much greater length in the Republic and Laws. There, however, Plato is especially concerned with poets who assign to the divine beings immoral acts and motivations; here, Plato has Socrates question whether Ion is really capable of understanding well enough to do any of the things he claims to do. We might analogize to our own culture's desire to imbue pop culture icons with moral clarity as well as whatever physical beauty or talent they may have; why else care what actors or singers endorse politically?

Socrates here does something that the later dialogues avoid, which is to endorse (perhaps ironically) the idea that the rhapsode is in fact inspired by the divine directly. He makes an analogy of his own, to a magnet:

The gift which you possess of speaking excellently about Homer is not an art, but, as I was just saying, an inspiration; there is a divinity moving you, like that contained in the stone which Euripides calls a magnet, but which is commonly known as the stone of Heraclea. This stone not only attracts iron rings, but also imparts to them a similar power of attracting other rings; and sometimes you may see a number of pieces of iron and rings suspended from one another so as to form quite a long chain: and all of them derive their power of suspension from the original stone.... For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and the mind is no longer in him: when he has not attained to this state, he is powerless and is unable to utter his oracles.

Many are the noble words in which poets speak concerning the actions of men; but like yourself when speaking about Homer, they do not speak of them by any rules of art... and he who is good at one is not good any other kind of verse: for not by art does the poet sing, but by power divine. 

Now if that is true then the poets who are inspired to ascribe to the divine beings various immoral acts or impulses do know what they're talking about because they are directly informed by the divine. That would greatly complicate the later Plato's arguments against poets who write such things; it is the philosopher that has the problem, because the poet is channeling divine energy and inspiration into their work.

The commentary I linked warns of the danger of hubris to the poet or rhapsode in making the claim, and suggests that they are required then to engage philosophy on its own terms in order to justify their positions. Yet the philosopher has no divine inspiration to compare with this; logic and analysis, like mathematics, model the world as well as the human mind can do it, but the poet has direct inspiration from beyond the veil. Or so they claim, and so Socrates here appears (ironically?) to grant. 

It seems reasonable to say that Ion doesn't really have that kind of direct connection to the divine, no more than our own celebrities; but what about Homer or Shakespeare? Or, as you might prefer, what about the Biblical poets and prophets? Inspired perhaps by the divine, they have composed works of art that have moved the hearts and minds of generations of humanity, though translated into many different languages and taught to people who have very different cultural assumptions and practices. Many today still strive to structure their lives according to the words of such poets and prophets; and very few are inclined to reject them in favor of philosophy, but rather tend to try to find a way to accommodate their philosophy to their faith in such poets and prophets. 

As usual, and following Plato's example, I leave the matter open. What I first and always liked about Plato was the invitation he offered to all of us to try to understand and participate in these ancient discussions. 

Safe Passage

Following the rapid deaths of the leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas, Israel has made a peace proposal:

Netanyahu offers a deal: those who hand over hostages will receive permission to leave Gaza (granted immunity and safe passage).

.. Netanyahu: Hamas will no longer rule Gaza, this is the beginning of the day after. To the Hamas terrorists - whoever holds the hostages and lays down his weapon, we will allow him to live and whoever harms them - blood on his head

Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana posted a message in Arabic on X: "A year ago he was a hero, now he is annihilated. Where will you be in a year? Return the kidnapped, lay down your weapons, save your souls." - to the people of Gaza.

That's the best offer they're likely to hear today. 

There could be peace by tomorrow if they were as rational about the situation they have made for themselves. 

Asheville Resumes Normal Search and Rescue

One of the hardest-hit areas has decided to end emergency search and rescue operations, returning to normal procedures. 

Thousands of volunteers checked and re-checked at least 15,982 households, helping worried loved ones find reassurance that their friends, family and neighbors were safe.

The scale and success of these volunteer efforts in the emergency should be encouraging to all.  

'The Opposition is Crazy'

In general, I dislike appeals to psychology in politics. I don't mean this as a criticism of those who work in psychology out of a sincere desire to help particular individuals who are suffering. I'm talking about the attempt to paint your opponents as crazy. Most likely your opponents aren't crazy; they're driven by interests that diverge substantially from your own, to the point that the course of action that seems obvious and correct to you seems crazy to them. 

Nevertheless, as the excellent British documentary The Century of the Self points out, psychology captured the imagination of the leadership in the early 20th century and never let go of it. It captured their imagination partly because it terrified them, suggesting that the human beings they led were actually wild animals driven by unconscious forces that were basically irrational. However, the real key to the elite love of psychology was the fantasy of control it offered: as those few who understood the secret drives and forces at work, we could master and manipulate them -- and, thereby, exert real control over the rest of humanity.

Today I see this at work on both the left and the right. At Hot Air today, here's a whole post about how much mental illness there is on the left. On X, here's a post about why Democrats are having trouble with young men that asserts, inter alia, it's because young men are crazy. Especially the white ones.

Third, we’re facing a mental health and social isolation crisis. Young men are lonelier and struggling with mental health issues at higher rates, partly fueled by social media and the erosion of traditional community institutions (churches, men’s groups, etc.). White men in America are four times more likely to commit suicide than any other group. This is a national crisis, and we’re barely talking about it.

Fourth, there’s an identity crisis. Gender roles and societal expectations are shifting (which is a good thing!), and young men are left wondering where they fit in. Without positive role models, many gravitate toward toxic figures like Donald Trump, because at least someone is speaking to their frustrations—however inartfully (which is being generous). Democrats haven’t done enough to offer better alternatives, though I think we’re starting to, with people like Tim Walz, Pete Buttigieg, and Doug Emhoff stepping up as strong role models.

Fifth, forming relationships—especially romantic ones—has become harder. Economic pressures and the rise of online dating have created new dynamics that are disincentivizing young men (and women, for that matter) from building meaningful connections. This only adds to their sense of isolation and fuels resentment, particularly toward women and those who are economically better off.... 

We can’t keep acting like white men don’t have real issues. Everyone is suffering from something, and everyone deserves to have that suffering addressed by their government. If we address these issues with the same seriousness we give to other communities, we won’t win them all—but we don’t have to. We’re building a multicultural coalition to move this country forward, but we can’t ignore the real challenges young white men are facing.

An aside: I'm not sure that anyone deserves to have the government address their suffering -- haven't they already suffered enough?  

Leaving that alone, though, the Hot Air post begins on the relatively solid ground that a lot of actual diagnoses have been given to young liberal women. Even that is doubtful to me: I think you get a mental health diagnosis essentially anytime you ask for one, because that's the only way to get your insurance to pay for whatever it is you want, and the psychologist/therapist/doctor/whomever wants to get paid. Thus, I don't think 'more mental health diagnoses' actually demonstrates more mental health issues: I think younger people are more likely to seek out psychology/therapy than older people, women than men, and liberals than conservatives for what amount to cultural reasons. If old conservative men went to therapy at the same rate as young liberal women, in other words, I'd assume they'd receive diagnoses of some sort at the same rate -- i.e., approximately 100% of the time, so that the money can flow. 

It is interesting that Hot Air views the gender issue as already a mental health issue, while the liberal poster views the changes in gender identity as a good and healthy thing that is nevertheless provoking mental health issues (apparently by not providing 'better alternatives,' which may begin with the fact that the poster himself seems to think that fake-combat-veteran-and-non-CSM Walz represents a better alternative).

What really is driving this deep division isn't, I submit, craziness. It's interest. The administrative state directly employs or supports a vast percentage of our population. Its interests and theirs are aligned to such a degree that they will tend to support it. 

Because that state has become ossified and thereby nonfunctional, however, it is harming us all. Also, as Weber knew from the beginning, the administrative state is inherently corrupt, and creates a class of administrators that rules in its class interests in a way that diverges from the public good. The interest in significant reform (or replacement) is therefore also quite large. 

Both of these collections of interests are rational, rather than the working of some deep irrational urge. We do need reform, but those deep and powerful reforms will definitely disrupt the rice bowls of tens of millions of people. It's going to cause real pain when the reforms come. 

To my way of thinking it still needs to be done, and ultimately it's better to do it in a planned and intentional way than to wait for the eventual unplanned collapse. I can easily understand why public school teachers shudder at the thought of a thoroughgoing reform of the way we educate children, though; or academics of academia; or Federal/state employees of the civil service; or those who have obtained degrees in social sciences the revocation of the power of Human Resources over corporations and society; or those who are heavily invested in the big corporations, the loss of regulatory barriers to entry for new competitors; etc. 

Clearing all that away is wise and necessary, but the considerations about how much suffering it will entail are rational ones. Your opponents may sometimes scream and wail as they contemplate it, but they are not thereby crazy.

Operation Airdrop

I’ve been talking about all the volunteer help and donations we got during the recent hurricane. Smoky Mountain News wrote up an article about the volunteer air supply effort for those who would like to read more. 

Crime Up Significantly

We've talked about the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting many times since this blog's inception decades ago. One of the talking points of the Biden administration has been that crime has been falling during its tenure; that seems to be out of order with the evidence of our eyes, but such evidence is anecdotal, not statistical. 

Well, it turns out the eyes have it.

When the FBI originally released the “final” crime data for 2022 in September 2023, it reported that the nation’s violent crime rate fell by 2.1%. This quickly became, and remains, a Democratic Party talking point to counter Donald Trump’s claims of soaring crime.

But the FBI has quietly revised those numbers, releasing new data that shows violent crime increased in 2022 by 4.5%. The new data includes thousands more murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults.

The Bureau – which has been at the center of partisan storms – made no mention of these revisions in its September 2024 press release. 

John Lott, the author here, has been on this for a while. I admit that I initially took the UCR statistics at face value, as most of the ways I was familiar with seeing them manipulated happen at the local level rather than the Federal level. Douglas warned me in the comments to the post on murder rates that major cities were choosing to omit themselves from the statistics, which is a local-level manipulation but on a grand scale. 

(Also, here is an Obama-era exception in which the Feds were changing rates by changing definitions, though that change appears to have been ideological rather than strictly manipulatory: they wanted rape understood differently from the traditional definition of 'physically forced to have sex.')

This, however, is apparently the FBI putting its own finger on the scales at the Federal level. Lott notes that this kind of major 'stealth edit' is becoming a standard practice.

The actual changes in crimes are extensive. The updated data for 2022 report that there were 80,029 more violent crimes than in 2021. There were an additional 1,699 murders, 7,780 rapes, 33,459 robberies, and 37,091 aggravated assaults. The question naturally arises: should the FBI’s 2023 numbers be believed?...

The FBI isn’t the only government agency that has been revising its data. The Bureau of Labor Statistics massively overestimated the number of jobs created during the year that ended in March by 818,000 people.

If you're going to go that far towards destroying your credibility as a source of data, why not wait another month to publish the revisions? Obviously the desired effect was achieved -- the headlines were that crime was 'down,' and the statistical revision won't make the NYT or CBS News. Still, you could have avoided even having it here by putting off your revisions a short time. 

DOJ Thinks Firefighter Math is Racist

Now, here's a subject I do know something about: firefighter examinations in North Carolina. I've taken several of the certification exams in the firefighter series as part of my training as a volunteer; I'm also a fully certified Technical Rescuer in rope rescue, water rescue (Swiftwater and still water), and wilderness rescue, and those certifications come out of the same department (the Department of Insurance, whose elected head is ex officio State Fire Marshal as well).

[T]he lawsuits... claim that tests are racist because blacks fail them at a higher percentage than whites, and require cash awards to be paid to those blacks who failed them. Most blacks generally pass the tests, and the lawsuits do not explain how the tests can be racist against only some blacks. Blacks who passed the tests are excluded from the financial payouts.

Last week, Durham, North Carolina settled with the DOJ, saying blacks failed the tests required to become a firefighter more often, and “Employers should identify and eliminate practices that have a disparate impact based on race.” It said the Durham Fire Department must pay nearly a million dollars to people who failed the test, and hire up to 16 of them.

While the DOJ said the tests were not relevant to actually being a good firefighter, an online practice test suggests that it is directly relevant, that people could die if such firefighters were hired. One question asks if a building is 350 feet away, how many 60-foot hoses would be needed.

The tests are of uneven quality at best. The way they work is that the questions are drawn at random from a large database of test questions that were approved in advance, and the instructor has no way of knowing which questions will appear. The test is administered by a proctor, so the instructor doesn't even see the test on the day of the test. 

The intent is to foster honest testing, but the effects entail that there is no guarantee that the firefighters will have been taught the material on which they are tested. The testing database is only reviewed occasionally, so there are reasonable odds that a question might appear that is out of date. Two examples: in the helicopter rescue operations test we were asked one question about an outdated practice dating to pilots who would have been trained on Medievac in Vietnam; on another occasion, we were asked multiple technical questions about standards for Type I Harnesses, which no longer exist because that entire type was disqualified as acceptable by the NFPA standard a long time ago.

I've also seen test answers that were outright violations of logic. For example, once we received a question about how much heat a device could be exposed to before needing to be replaced. The answers were, I believe, 100 degrees, 200 degrees, 240 degrees, and 300 degrees. Logically only 300 could be correct given that only one answer was acceptable, because if you were exposed to 300 degrees you were also exposed to at least 240, 200, and 100 as well. However, the correct answer was (IIRC) 240, even though being exposed to 300 degrees would exceed that standard also.

So there's a lot of cramming and memorization, just stuffing your head with the exact technical figures that are likely to turn up on a test. Almost none of it is relevant to an emergency, as the decisions about what equipment you will have on the occasion were made long ago when the stuff was purchased -- and the purchases were made by people who had ample leisure to check the technical standards and be sure they were correct. 

I don't think the tests are racist, unless there's a racial disparity in the ability to memorize trivia. I do think they're not the most useful way to test qualifications. As for the one question they ask in the article, maybe it's helpful to know that you will need six hose sections; but probably you aren't going to have an exact measurement of the distance, and you'll just keep adding hose until you get there. I have trouble imagining an occasion when you'd park the apparatus 350 feet away from the fire you wanted to fight anyway; more likely you'll be parked a lot closer, and using the hoses to link multiple apparatus together to boost pressure (and, in rural environments without fireplugs, to increase your water supply or to enable tankers to tie in and out as they go to get more).

The whole system could usefully be rethought. The DOJ's effort, however, is not likely to improve it because it isn't aimed at the parts that don't work well.

VDH on Harris' Mythology

The noted historian raises many of the strange things we are asked to believe in spite of evidence to the contrary, or serious omissions.

My favorite of these is that she was raised in a "middle-class" household. This is meant to make her sound like an ordinary American, as almost all of America thinks of itself as "middle class" even though that isn't statistically feasible. 

Yet to be 'middle class' means less to be part of an economic category, and more to have certain values. Both of her parents were college professors, one feminist and one Marxist, each deeply critical in its way of that cultural 'middle class' that they refer to as the bourgeoisie. (In this she is very like Obama, except that both of her parents were aliens and she mostly grew up not in Hawaii but in a foreign country, Canada.) College professors earn a comfortable living; the only reality behind the claim that she was 'middle class' comes from the fact that her parents divorced, leading to straitened circumstances she would not have experienced if they had done that most 'middle class' thing and "stayed together for the children."

As we discussed some time ago, what she actually comes from is a caste -- the Brahmins -- that is so famously upper-class that its name was assumed by the historic elite of Boston. Her values are the values of the academic heights that can continue to entertain fantasies like Marxism, generation after generation, because they are so insulated from pragmatic realities. Vladimir Lenin wrote a book about why Marxism hadn't come true more than a hundred years ago, but Marxists and 'Marxian' economists and historians like her father remain gainfully employed at universities around the world. 

Oh, and she likes Glocks. Sure. 

Columbus Day

Today Columbus Day is celebrated, in the words of Joe Biden as a monument to Italian-Americans. It's still better than his replacement's version.

As we stand on the brink of another age of exploration, let us not forget to celebrate the spirit that drove those earlier explorers to seek new lands and go beyond known frontiers of knowledge. We may ourselves know children who will go on to explore farther reaches yet. They will need courage and confidence. Knowing they come from a heritage of such feats will be helpful to them.

Let's go to the stars. Ad astra per aspera.

'Not Worse than Landmines'

The least discriminate weapon in common military use is the landmine; they are nevertheless very commonly used because of their military utility. One of the AI bros in Silicon Valley thinks he's thus got a great argument for building killer robots:

'The U.S.’s adversaries “use phrases that sound really good in a sound bite: Well, can’t you agree that a robot should never be able to decide who lives and dies?” Luckey said during a talk earlier this month at Pepperdine University. “And my point to them is, where’s the moral high ground in a landmine that can’t tell the difference between a school bus full of kids and a Russian tank?”'

Unlike rifles, which are the weapon of democracy and a tool of equality, automated killing is a tool of oligarchy. The ability to manufacture and deploy large numbers of landmines that will kill anyone who comes close is an industrial ability that favors the state, not the individual. Things that seem justifiable by analogy to landmines are things wisely avoided. The world would be a better place without them.

At War Again

The US is deploying THAAD to protect Israel in its current war. I support this war, and Israel, but did Congress debate this entry into a regional war at all? Did it even become a matter of debate in the Presidential campaign? You’d think that it might, given that the Democratic administration has a base divided over the war.  

Democrats control 2/3rds of the elected branches. How much democracy is really going on here? We keep hearing that it’s important, and on the ballot. Is it really?

Full anti-Musk freakout mode

I've been re-reading with pleasure a John Ringo 2010 scifi adventure called "Live Free or Die," about a one-man engineering/entrepreneurial powerhouse's effort to combat an extraterrestrial invasion. It's an enjoyable romp, but on this reading I'm noticing a remarkable pre-figuring of the Elon Musk phenomenon.

When the action starts, hostile aliens have emerged through a galactic gate and cratered Earth's economy by demanding all its heavy metals as tribute. Our hero is a down-on-his luck ex-IT engineer who makes ends meet by multiple odd jobs. The hostile aliens being only one of the alien races in contact with Earth, the hero takes a stab at finding any non-heavy-metal terrestrial product that might interest the friendlier ETs, and stumbles by luck on a substance that has an irresistable psychic effect on them.

Abruptly the richest man in the world, the hero quickly applies his new leverage to master alien technology, resist the bad-guy ETs, and launch mankind into a new era. Naturally he incurs the wrath of government bureaucrats and the press in a way that quite sharply resembles the current anti-Musk clown show. This book being written before iPhones (to judge by the references to Blackberries as the ultimate in net-linked accessories), Ringo is unlikely to have had Musk in mind, but it's great fun to see how good his guesses were. That's one of my favorites parts of scifi, anyway, seeing which authors guessed trends early. Bonus points if the author is one of the few conservative free-market enthusiasts publishing in the field.

"Live Free or Die" follows the basic Heinlein juvenile-series formula: the protagonist is posited as Everyman, but of course is unusually bright, self-directed, trained in basic science in engineering, and Boy Scout to the core. Plunged into conflict, he rises to the occasion, vaulting through level after higher level of influence and crisis, until he saves the world. A good example is the highly entertaining "Have Space Suit--Will Travel," a book I'll never get tired of.

Happy Birthday

I was born fifty years ago today. I don’t usually make a big deal about birthdays, but half a century is worth celebrating. I started putting aside a little money the summer before last so I could afford to buy something fun for the occasion. 

Conan seems to approve.  

A Quiet Evening in October

Things have mostly calmed back down here in my neck of the woods. The weather is getting pretty, with fall colors coming in upon cool mornings and warm afternoons. I hope we'll yet have a very nice October.

Two Hurricanes and a Solar Storm

We could all use a laugh, I think, though some of us more than others, I'm sure. Here's a random collection of things that made me at least chuckle; I hope you find something amusing here.

First up, Merle Hazard, who usually sings about economics but has taken up another theme here.

Tours

By Charles de Steuben - Bataille de Poitiers en octobre 732 - Unknown source, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=363367

Douglas reminded us of the anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto on October 7. Today is the 1,292nd anniversary of the Battle of Tours, where armies from Gaul and Aquitaine led by Charles Martel defeated an Islamic army led by Abd al-Rahman al-Ghafiqi, governor of al-Andalus (AKA Spain).

There is some debate about its historical importance, but in any case it seems to be agreed that it sealed Frankish domination over western Europe. What seems to be in question is the extent to which it stopped the Islamic imperial advance into Europe. Was this incursion merely a raid in force or was it an actual invasion to help the Umayyad empire expand? At least, that's the debate as I understand it; this isn't my area.

Terror Arrests in OKC

According to the local CBS affiliate on October 9th:

The FBI has arrested an Afghan man who officials say was inspired by the Islamic State militant organization and was plotting an Election Day attack targeting large crowds in the U.S., the Justice Department said Tuesday.

Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, of Oklahoma City told investigators after his arrest Monday that he had planned his attack to coincide with Election Day next month and that he and a co-conspirator expected to die as martyrs, according to charging documents.

Tawhedi, who arrived in the U.S. in September 2021, had taken steps in recent weeks to advance his attack plans, including by ordering AK-47 rifles, liquidating his family’s assets and buying one-way tickets for his wife and child to travel home to Afghanistan, officials said.

...

Tawhedi’s alleged co-conspirator was not identified by the Justice Department, which described him only as a juvenile, a fellow Afghan national and the brother of Tawhedi’s wife.

PJ Media actually covered it on the 8th. They provide a copy of the criminal complaint filed in the US District Court at the end of their report.

NC Solar Power Set Up

For those who have followed my links to the other Thomas's experiences with Hurricane Helene, he has posted his solar set up. Although his area is without power, and may be without electricity for another couple of months depending on how long it takes to rebuild the roads, he never lost power. He goes into some detail on it in his most recent post. Interestingly, he uses Tesla batteries.

I also noticed his family name is Witherspoon and I should probably have called him TW here to differentiate from myself.

Micro-preemie still micro

My friend's grandson, born at what they thought was 21 weeks but seems apparently to have been more like 23, continues to do well. He has suffered few and relatively minor challenges so far. He grew taller but until recently couldn't seem to gain weight, but he did go on real food a while back. This week they successfully got him off the ventilator. He gained a diaper size, an excitement for the family on general principles but also because the hospital called them to say the change would be an opportunity for them to hold him for the first time and would they like to come over?

Would we?

He is finally starting to gain a bit of weight. He wasn't even due to be born until December. The family is encouraged to take turns speaking and reading to him. The NICU is great.

Maybe the race isn't that close

Conrad Black in the New York Sun:

If allowance is made for the fact that the Democrats carry California and New York by almost 5 million more votes than the Republicans comfortably carry Texas, Florida, and Tennessee, Trump is leading by about 8 million votes in the other 45 states.

Of course, it's not about the popular vote, it's the vote in the likely swing states.

Leif Erikson Day

Today marks the holiday celebrating Nordic heritage in America; also, jointly with Columbus Day, celebrating the spirit of exploration.

Many believe that roughly a millennium ago, Leif Erikson — a Norse explorer — and his crew were the first Europeans to reach the shores of North America.  His spirit of adventure, curiosity, and resilience would inspire generations of Danes, Finns, Icelanders, Norwegians, and Swedes to sail across an ocean and begin new lives in America.  These immigrants built bustling homes and enriched their communities, supporting and realizing the American Dream.  They fought for our freedoms in the military; built new churches, businesses, and schools; and spearheaded social movements.  Today, Nordic communities continue to enrich the fabric of the Nation. 

Congress needs to step up

From American's Newspaper of Record.

I kid, really. I'm not yet convinced of the stories about FEMA blocking humanitarian aid. Not that I think they'd hesitate if someone pointed out that a blank had been left in an 80-page application: they might not do it to exact revenge on a lot of mouth-breathing alt-right hillbillies, but they'd certainly feel justified in some kind of safety-first protocol stretched insanely out of proportion to the emergency circumstances. FEMA is very comfortable dealing with other huge, sclerotic bureaucracies. They seem to lack the faintest clue what first and second responders need to do, and everyone is probably lucky if they hog some of the last few decent short-term rental spaces available and sit by their phones awaiting orders. A few years from now, some of them may be dispensing some helpful aid to strapped local governments.

UPDATE: After reading Thomas Doubting's linked blog account of another NC mountain community's experience, I'm thinking I judged all of FEMA too harshly. They must have some people who aren't pointy-headed bureaucrats. Not that any of them came to my county, as far as I know. The one FEMA bigwig who addressed my Commissioners Court made me angrier than I've often been in my life, and spurred me to run for office.

Testing newfound ability to add images using Chrome instead of Brave, here is a dog we rescued last year, on her way home from being spayed. She was successfully treated for heartworms and adopted by a couple with a dog so similar they swear they are brother and sister from the same litter reunited:

Another Benghazi narrowly averted?

I don't like to jump to conclusions about single-source stories, but this one seems like a pretty sober, detailed account.

Forty U.S. Army soldiers who were in Israel as the advance team for what they thought was a routine training exercise last October 7 suddenly found themselves in the middle of a war, unarmed, and being forced to beg reluctant Pentagon officials to send an Air Force plane to extract them.

Approximately a quarter of the soldiers were just miles from Gaza in off-base housing near the IDF’s Tze’elim base when the attack began. A group of local Israelis – IDF reservists, police officers, and ordinary citizens – got them to the base, which Hamas terrorists were quickly heading toward. With his men in mortal danger, the U.S. team leader requested permission to open the arms locker so they could retrieve their firearms but was denied at the US Central Command level and “denied and/or ignored” at a level above that, according to a military intelligence analyst with knowledge of the mission and exfiltration.

Glitch?

Apparently I can post here, but I can't comment. All I get is "failed to publish, try again later."

"Disaster Equity"

Apparently this is what FEMA is doing instead of coming out here. 

That's ok. Like I said in the comments, we haven't missed them. Private, volunteer, and local efforts did almost everything; we did have a little help from State DOT that was appreciated. If they hadn't come either, though, we could have handled that too: a surprising number of people up here own what Thomas' post calls "track hoes," more commonly known as excavators. A lot of the heavy work was done by these private citizens with their own resources. Chainsaws are likewise nearly universal here, and generators of one sort or another aren't uncommon as power outages are fairly regular occurrences as trees get dropped on lines or transformers. 

They don't usually last for more than a week, almost two weeks now for those still without power. This commentary reflecting on what happens when the electricity dies is worth reading. For me, the loss of power was probably a healthy experience: earlier to bed and earlier to rise, plenty of hard work, and thus I probably physically improved overall. 

For our neighbors who are on oxygen, however, it's a potential death sentence to lose power to their oxygen concentrators. As I mentioned in an early post, this has been a major focus of ours: so far, I don't think we have lost even one of them. I would not have predicted that ten days ago.

For others, the darkness is depressing and maddening. Boredom is also a common complaint: it's hard to read by candlelight, and all the usual diversions were gone. The only person who told me that he and his female companion were "suffering" had those kinds of psychological complaints: she was having "panic attacks" because of the early darkness; he was probably mostly suffering from having to be cooped up with her, I would ungenerously speculate based on our brief encounter. It's hard for me not to push those sorts of complaints into the category of "whining," which is forbidden in my house -- my only two rules for my son, growing up, were "No Whining" and "Grow Stronger" -- but I suppose that psychological misery is perhaps the worst kind. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter; but if you do, if you really do, it really does, at least to you. I guess that's a kind of standard for equity.

I was glad to see our local EMC's trucks yesterday and today. The EMC apparently sent its trucks to Florida to pre-position for Helene, which was certain to hit there but not certain to hit here. That's part of why it took so long for power to get back up here: they were busy in Florida, and others had to come from elsewhere until they could return. Today I've seen quite a few of them running around while I was testing out my new motorcycle tire. 

Hopefully they'll be able to get the power back on for those still without it. Frankly I'm impressed with them: I expected some of these places to be a month or more given the amount of damage, but they report 90% of their customers back online. That includes some remote farms so far back in the woods that I didn't know they existed -- or sometimes even that the trails that lead to those homes existed -- until this rescue effort began. Bless the linemen, because they're carrying a tremendous amount of weight. 

More Reports from NC

I've posted links to several first-hand reports by a ham radio operator named Thomas in Buncombe County. These seem to be a good second viewpoint on the situation. Grim has the rescuer / responder view covered and is quite busy with it all. Thomas has more time to write detailed reports and post photos.

Thomas has two more out discussing how his local community came together, the various kinds of help they've gotten (volunteer, local, FEMA, NC National Guard, etc.) and various rumors that are running around.

One Week Report

Community, Coordination, and Misinformation

In the second report here he also talks about disaster tourism and why some people claiming to be volunteers have been turned away from his area.

Update: Here are the earlier reports from Thomas.

Alas for the Bobarosa

One of the great biker bars died in the storm, down as it was on the shoulders of the Pigeon river. 

Another of the greats, Mauhuffers of Indian Beach, is gravely threatened by the next storm. 

October 7

I’ve been a little busy lately, and it’s no surprise that I have lost track of time. Still, we ought to mark the anniversary of the brutal attack of last year, when perfectly innocent people were killed by Hamas in what amounts to an act of blood magic, an attempt to conjure a final reckoning with Israel and probably an attempt to bring about the end of the world— to provoke the End Times according to their particular theory of Islamic eschatology. 

Reportedly Iran tested an atomic weapon on the 5th of this year. Definitely there was a seismic event there. 

Lepanto

 Today marks the 453rd anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto, where Christian naval forces turned back the Ottomans in a decisive battle.  One interesting note is that Don Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was one of the soldiers on the ships, and apparently acquitted himself well in the battle.  It also marks the feast of the Holy Rosary, as Pope Pius V called for all of Europe to pray the Rosary for victory, and he then attributed the victory to the Rosary and pilgrimage.

Chesterton memorialized the battle in a poem- "Lepanto"

The first verse:

Lepanto

By G. K. Chesterton

White founts falling in the courts of the sun,

And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;

There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,

It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard,

It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips,

For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.

They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,

They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,

And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,

And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross,

The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;

The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;

From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,

And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

Running the Wheels Off

We have no functional spares, but hopefully as things calm down we will have time to replace things. I swapped the last one on the Wolf Mountain run a few days ago. Not only department vehicles but personal ones have been ridden hard and put away wet. 

For example, I think I got the good out of this motorcycle tire. 

I’ve been on it every day since we got the roads clear enough to ride. I’ve also been through two pair of boots, two saw chains, and a bar. Not that the boots nor the saw nor the tire were new, though one of the saw chains was. 

UPDATE: 

We must be doing all right if the community is bringing us pound cakes. 

Lasagna too; some Italian-American woman who lives here brought us a great one. I happened upon her the next day on patrol and complimented her lasagna highly; when I got back to the station several hours later, I found she’d dropped off six more. 

In Praise of Starlink

Ten days ago I woke to a world without power. All the cell towers had been knocked down. The 911 center was out. All roads were impassable. Landlines were flooded and inoperable. There was no communication at all, not by ground, not by wire, except for the handheld radio that let me communicate with other members of the fire/rescue squad. With chainsaws we began the work of opening the ground lines of communication, and by the end of the day we had at least linked up with each other. 

Once we got to the station, though, we had Starlink. Hooked to a truck, powered by that truck's own diesel engine, the Starlink system worked in the worst hours of the disaster. As long as you were standing by the truck, you could make calls, you could get to the internet. We could communicate with family, and as we opened the roads, we could drive that truck around the district to let people reach out and let their own family know they had survived. 

Generously, Starlink is extending its efforts to help in North Carolina, but I am already grateful to them just for providing their normal service. When nothing else worked, they were dependable. It reminded me of Sam's realization, walking through Mordor, that the stars were ever above Sauron's power, untouchable and pure. Likewise Helene could knock down every cell tower, every power line, and so many trees that you could not at first move: but she couldn't touch the stars, nor the satellites. 

MREs

They aren’t really. They’re much more digestible than the things we give out soldiers and Marines to eat. But they do have a similar heating mechanism. 

Not as much protein as they should have, in my opinion, but not terrible as emergency rations. 

The Last Word on Moral Philosophy

"Waste no more time debating what is a good man: be one." 

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations X

Today I moved seven generators and an oven. Two of the places we could use a truck and a trailer to reach, including to a mule farm with very little need for electricity at all. One we could still reach with the trailer, but only detached from the truck and attached to a Polaris Ranger instead. It only carried two, so I rode in the trailer holding on to the generators as we bounced over the mud trail, secure in the knowledge that I had tied the rescue knots lashing them to the frame myself. The last one we had to reach with just the Ranger, so I had to deadlift the generators into it to ferry one by one. We left the third guy with the truck.

I spent a large part of my life studying philosophy, including moral philosophy. Indeed, it was moral philosophy that first caught my attention: I was greatly taken by Plato's dialogues, beginning with the Laches, in which we were all invited to participate in the ancient discussions about what it means to be good and virtuous. Plato invites everyone, but especially in his most famous middle dialogues makes it seem as if it's hard to come to an answer; in his later dialogues, like the Laws, he makes it seem clear but his answers are ludicrous. 

Aristotle developed an answer in the Nicomachean Ethics that was broadly satisfying for more than a thousand years. The Stoics refined and improved upon it, but their model of virtue is basically Aristotelian. 

Aristotle also provided the best scientific writing for many generations, but his scientific writings were proven inaccurate in many ways by the late Medievals and early Moderns. Thinking that his moral philosophy was also as flawed, modern thinkers have tried to either refound it on reason -- like Kant or Rawls -- or to replace it -- like Marx or Bentham. 

All of those projects have been as ridiculous as Plato in his late phase, which is not to scorn them: they were, like he was, operating at the top of humanity's intellectual capacity. Studying them likewise is not a useless endeavor, as it allows you to approach an understanding of how and why the later models were flawed. 

Ultimately, however, there are no secrets remaining in moral philosophy. There is no reason to hold a week-long seminar, or a three-day retreat, or a day-long debate. We know how to be good, how to be virtuous, and what we ought to do. If you don't know, you should know. 

The hard part is doing it. If a course in moral philosophy leads to men who worry over abstracts of 'justice' or 'right' or 'duty,' sitting in libraries or lecture halls, it has failed. If it leads to men who know how to tie rescue knots and tourniquets, and who stand ready to apply CPR or work a chainsaw to clear a road, it has succeeded. 

I guess I had good teachers, starting with my father who set the example for me. I came across Aristotle early and Marcus Aurelius late, but they were right all along.

More Ham Radio in North Carolina

As the video points out, in an emergency when life or property are at risk, anyone can use a ham radio.

Third Update

There's still no power, but at least for now some of the cellular towers are running. Coverage is unstable, as towers sometimes go back down again. For those with generators, internet access has reappeared in some places as the phone company's lines are mostly buried and were less heavily damaged. (The phone company technician's name is Joe. He's a good guy.)

As described before, the first 48 hours our operations were focused on opening the roads just enough to get to people in far flung homes. We helped a few families even while the storm was raging, especially those who had trees fall through their roof, but getting to them was the hard part at first. Every road was impassable, hundreds of trees were down across them.

By Friday morning the cellular networks were all down. 911 was also down. We had to go out to find the people who needed help. Cutting trees and throwing the pieces was most of what I did on Friday and Saturday. As we opened access to vulnerable people in the community, we brought them oxygen cylinders or generators to power life-saving equipment like oxygen concentrators. By Sunday we had a county saw team to help, and we mostly cleared the mountain roads up here by nightfall Sunday.

By Monday we could expand our sweeps from known vulnerable people and homes that had obvious physical damage to elderly citizens who might need extra help. Patrols dispatched multiple times a day in each of several directions went through different regions of the district, distributing water and food to the very old and those with young children.

The first law enforcement showed up Monday as well; up until then it had mostly been volunteer firefighters, technical rescuers like me, and the county groundskeepers who became our saw team. Two deputies appeared on Monday and returned Tuesday with some more. Today the Sheriff was here, as well as two members of the National Guard.

Starting yesterday we began an effort to contact everyone in the district, to distribute food, water, gasoline, and information about how to obtain further aid at a time when ordinary forms of communication are down.

Today I took a patrol out to Wolf Mountain and talked to every person who lives on it. It had several of the last "black" roads, places we had not been able to go to at all. I think we are very close to 100% accountability on citizens; so far, I'm not aware of anyone who has died in our district, neither from the storm nor from the aftermath without power or the ability to obtain food (or water, for those with well pumps but not generators). There are some missing still that we are searching for, however. My team found one yesterday, who had broken her hip, but she is ok and receiving treatment.

The communities up here have pulled together beautifully for the most part, and are supporting each other with minimal need for outside assistance. I'm proud of them.

Reports from North Carolina

A ham radio operator caught in the storm in Swannanoa, Buncombe County, NC, has posted reports and photos on his blog. He has solar and a satellite connection. It seems his community is cut off, but making do.

Aftermath - 9/28/2024

Long Update - 9/30/2024

The ham radio technician license exam is pretty easy, and the general license is only slightly more difficult. Technician gives you UHF and VHF privileges; a small handheld radio that can connect with a repeater can communicate around 50 miles. That license also gives you a slice of HF, the 10-meter band. An HF radio about the size of a CB radio can communicate worldwide in the right conditions. The general license opens up a great deal of the HF frequencies and much more flexible communications.

Rest in Peace, Kris Kristofferson

I was sad to hear, belatedly no doubt, of this great singer songwriter passing. There are tremendous stories about him; I don’t have time to relate. Look them up. They’re worth your while. 

Dawn over Cimmeria

Several shots from the same location at dawn, showing how the Smoky Mountains raise a fog with the first solar energy. Before dawn the stars were clear. 

The National Guard is supposed to be sending a squad up here today. We saw the first law enforcement officers yesterday, five days in to the business. The school system turned its fuel over to emergency services, so we are still running patrols to vulnerable families. Today we are planning a full sweep of the district to advise everyone of what aid is available and how to access it, as power, cellular towers, phones and internet remain down. 

UPDATE: The National Guard did not in fact appear; apparently a paperwork error at the State Capitol sent them somewhere else. No word on if that might get straightened out. 

One Way to Help

 When Kentucky was flooded a while back, the guys at Stocking Mill Coffee put together a 'strike team' of relief, and headed up and helped people out- no big NGO, no overhead, just dudes helping people who needed it.  They're at it again, and I trust them to put my dollars to good use up there.  The CEO is a vet and a "get it done" kind of guy, so the right man for the job.  They are targeting the area between Spartanburg and Ashville, and that seems like a good target zone for the operation.  I offer this as I know many here share my distrust of the big NGOs, and as I mentioned, I trust these guys.  Link to their donation site.

Second Update

Operations for the first day focused almost exclusively on clearing local roads enough for emergency access. This does not mean that the roads are clear: frequently just enough of a fallen treetop was cleared to allow a rescue vehicle to pass through one lane. Some twisty and forested roads were like mouse mazes, swerving from this lane to that to take the tunnel cut through the next tree. Many roads remained completely impenetrable after the first day. 

The second day we continued access operations on the remaining roads, and began health and welfare checks in earnest. Up here the populations are mountain people and vacation/second-home people. 

Most of the mountain people had cleared their own roads, or hadn’t bothered because they didn’t need a road. Mountain families have extensive home-canned food and usually gravity-fed spring water. They own chainsaws; a surprising number of them own excavators, and thus an even larger number have kin or neighbors who do. I met one lady without a spring who cans water, ensuring a secure supply of clean water even if the creek fouls. These people have only two problems: some have family members with mental health issues, and some have extreme elderly who need oxygen concentrators or other powered medical equipment. They need gasoline for the saws and equipment, eventually, but the ones who have to keep a generator going are coming to a very hard decision. They will, however, be fine: the worst they face is grief for the few they may lose. We are focusing our efforts on trying to spare them that grief. 

The second-home people are happy and prosperous, and depend on stable social organizations like stores that take credit cards. They don’t realize how bad things may get if a way to get fuel in here doesn’t arise soon; more on that later. Some of them cleared their own roads by the happy expedient of having hired a local family as caretaker or groundskeeper of their property, and in this way another large chunk of work got done by someone other than the rescue service. 

Everyone we checked on was fine, including the dubious tent-campers-in-a-hurricane “where the sheriff got shot.” (The sheriff got shot nigh a hundred years ago, but everyone here knows exactly where that location in the backcountry is better than they would understand an address.)

Day three, today, we switched to actual clearing operations on the roads. Most of them are clear, all of them where we are aware of anyone living. We also continued health and welfare checks until 1700 local time. 

Starting at that time and until further notice, we are restricted to emergency operations only. “The present emergency,” which really is an emergency and a catastrophe, doesn’t count. 

We are nearly out of gasoline, you see. Even the emergency services. Diesel we’ve got for the big trucks, but gasoline is now almost gone. When it’s gone most county vehicles stop, including ambulances and police cars. Those generators powering the oxygen concentrators stop too. 

I hope the people working on that part of the problem have had as productive a last three days as we have. A lot hangs on whether or not more gasoline appears. If it doesn’t, the mountain folk will grieve, and a lot of other folk will learn about how hard life can get. 

We’ve done what we can where we are. If they have too, maybe it’ll still work out. 

There’s a Chinook. That’ll be the 30th Armored Brigade of the National Guard. I was with them in Iraq for a while in 2009. It’s funny how much this has been like that: rise at first light, shave by candlelight, gather for a mission briefing followed by a dawn patrol from the base to carry out your several missions. I was enjoying it, surprisingly so. It was sort of like the good-parts version of war. I hope we get some gasoline, so we don’t get the bad parts. 

Hurricane Update

This is the first time I have been able to communicate since the hurricane hit Thursday night. The situation here is catastrophic. The hurricane dropped its load of water here in the mountains of North Carolina. All cellular towers are down. All power lines are down. I-40 is closed and so is I-26, eliminating the major ground lines of communication with eastern N, SC, and TN. Locally our county seat has no power or phones, although I have heard that 911 is back online for anyone who has a phone that can call them. No cellphones work, but some landlines do.

Our rescue operations are 24 hours a day currently. I can report steady progress; yesterday at dawn it took me five hours just to cut my way out with a chainsaw to reach the highway and the rally point. Today we have saw crews and a three man team from DOT with earth moving equipment to clear landslides. We have established a temporary shelter for the elderly until they can be moved to proper facilities, but our hospitals are overwhelmed-- one of them is closed, but yesterday all of them were.

This is going to take a while. Power restoration is estimated between 5 days and weeks, depending on who you consult. I have Internet while standing next to this one fire truck with a mobile Starlink system. Many people have generators, but fuel is an issue: with the interstates down supplies will dwindle, and the economy is cash only because credit card systems can't reach their banks. We are especially concerned about elderly on oxygen, supplies of which will also dwindle.

I will be in touch as I can be, but expect that to be limited especially at first. I have not heard anything about when cell towers will be back online. Once power is restored, I'll have Starlink from home. I haven't been at home much, though.

The community is pulling together in the best traditions of America. The support systems are heavily stressed, though.