My daughter and I have done a handful of long road trips over the last few years, especially after Texas sensibly lifted the most onerous COVID restrictions. For many of these trips we preferred to take country roads; various two or four-lane routes which meandered through miles of Texas back country, hopscotching past small ranches and passing through small towns of varying degrees of prosperity. One thing we often noticed in passing was a scattering of Trump banners, many of them weathered and obviously left over from the 2020 campaign. It was a hard-fought campaign; obviously many Trump supporters out here in flyover country remained sore about the steal. Also rather obviously, residents in rural Texas aren’t worried about random retaliatory vandalism to their property or vehicles by displaying such political partisanship.
Culture
Interior View
We decided to take a break from watching the interminable (and at this point, rather depressing) Midsomer Murders. From a starkly realistic point of view, the mythical English Midsomer must be about as dangerous as Cabot Cove, with regular citizens regularly dropping off their various perches, to the tune of lashings of blackmail, family grudges, illicit relationships, financial fraud, and outright criminality among the lush gardens and even lusher cozy cottages. It got to the point where we were playing “spot the actor” or “what had we seen this guest star in before?” Anyway, we needed a break, and the choice fell on the latest TV series adaptation of Tony Hillerman’s Leaphorn & Chee mystery novels, Dark Winds … which turns out to be surprisingly good, although some elements from the books have been combined, and the lead characters various backgrounds tweaked a little.
Quote of the Day
We are not a serious country because, as a democracy, we do not have serious voters. Autocracies like China and Russia have many disadvantages compared to us, but in the present historical moment, they are nowhere near as stupid as we are. One trembles for the future.
Fair Play
“The Saxon is not like us Normans, His manners are not so polite.
But he never means anything serious till he talks about justice and right.
When he stands like an ox in the furrow with his sullen set eyes on your own,
And grumbles, “This isn’t fair dealings,” my son, leave the Saxon alone.
Rudyard Kipling
If there is one concept thought to be more quintessentially English over any other, I think it must be the concept of fair play. Fair dealings, as Kipling put it. That one party should be treated as any other, held to the same standard of conduct, and afforded the same penalties or rewards for the same acts, regardless of economic standing, religious beliefs or racial background. A lot of this concept of “fair dealings” carried over into the American cultural mainstream as well; honored as a concept and an ideal to be striven for. I’d guess that a lot of that general support among Americans generally for the civil rights movement was based on the dawning realization among most of us that Jim Crow laws restricting black Americans were not fair at all.
It Was Funnier In a Movie
Wondrous to behold, in these degraded days, an equally-degraded national media blob, nakedly and unashamedly going all-out as the Democrat Party’s publicity department. Yes, we always knew or it became clear to us over the last decade or so that the major news publications, to include the broadcast version as well as the most notable internet sites skewed progressive. They got down on their knees and worshipped the Kennedys back then, and just carried on, quaffing deeper and deeper of the intoxicating brew that proximity to power appears to provide. They haven’t yet got off their knees and realized in the cold light of day what their job ought to be, which is our loss. Ah, well we do have the conservative side of the internet, social media, and the ability of everyone with an up-to-date cellphone to record video of anything interesting happening right in front of them. (Like Hillary Clinton being rushed away from a 9-11 memorial event and flung into the back of a van like a sack of potatoes.) And it would seem that the national media machine is losing consumers and viewers in substantial numbers, so we have that to cheer us up, at least a little.