We bid farewell
More Kilmer
A Major Proposal
Veterans and Helene
Their backgrounds make them well-suited for a disaster response of this magnitude. “This is what we do when we go to war. We go into bad scenarios with towns turned upside down,” said Mark Elkhill, an Army veteran with the relief group Christian Rangers. (The name Christian Rangers is taken from an exercise in Robin Sage, the nearly two-week special field “final exam” for would-be Green Berets.)Most of the group with Elkhill are former U.S. Army Green Berets and this is exactly their mission: to train local people to recover, sustain and protect themselves, he said while taking a break from cutting firewood that locals will use to heat their homes this winter. “The only difference is we’re not getting shot at here, which makes it a thousand times easier,” Elkhill said.
I told somebody I was with during emergency operations that it was like 'the good-parts version of war.' It's all the eudaimonia without the downsides. It's small wonder that veterans are 'finding purpose' in it, to use the Post's chosen language.
Surprising shifts
You do that
“Obviously this is a major reckoning for the Democratic Party in terms of, particularly as it relates to young men, Black and Hispanic voters and rural voters,” said Jef Pollock, a Biden and Harris campaign pollster. “If the economy were perceived by voters as swimming, things might be different. But for now, it’s clear these voters I’m talking about — particularly young men, Black men, Hispanic men, and rural White voters — do not see the Democrats as addressing their everyday needs, and that’s something we need to think about holistically.”We certainly need to see a lot more political speeches emphasizing the holistic approach. More cowbell!The linked article contains an excerpt from a WaPo piece, presumably behind a paywell, not that I'd go there anyway.
Blinding insights
Many of them, of course, have arrived at that conclusion thanks to outright bigotry.
Cast Iron & “Never”
Never and forever are neither for men.You’ll be returning again and again.-Fritz Leiber, “The Circle Curse,” Swords Against Death
My wife of 25 years did something I warned ‘never’ to do: she put a piece of my cast iron through the dishwasher. This is the classic offense against Southerners’ sensibility that people from the north do after they move down here. This was a grill press rather than a skillet, but still
Cast iron really is indestructible, though. It took some work to clean the rust and reseason it today, but it came out just fine. I shouldn’t have worried about it.
It’s good as new, which is to say, not as good. But it’s good enough to get started rebuilding a new layer of seasoning.