Labor Day at Lake Mary: Serenity in the Midst of Climate Change and the Trump Derangement Syndrome

 My home sits on the banks of Lake Mary in southwestern Mississippi. Shaped like a ten-mile bratwurst sausage, Lake Mary is an oxbow lake formed when the Mississippi River changed course long ago--in the eighteenth century, I've been told.

Unlike my region's recreational lakes and waterways, Lake Mary is undeveloped. Even on Labor Day, when other watery playgrounds are packed with boaters, skiers, and jet ski enthusiasts, Lake Mary is virtually deserted. I saw only three boats pass by all day.

Lake Mary is only 90 minutes from Baton Rouge, a leisurely weekend drive. Why aren't there more lakefront homes here?

Climate change is the primary reason Lake Mary has been passed by, leaving it a Southern Living Brigadoon. In the mid-twentieth century, Lake Mary and nearby Lake Foster were a famous duck hunting paradise, and hunters came from near and far to hunt ducks and geese. A few lodging houses near the lakes catered to these seasonal visitors, but now they are largely devoid of guests.

What happened? Global warming changed the fly routes of migratory birds. Now, ducks are more likely to spend the winter farther north--in Oklahoma or Arkansas. 

Thirty years ago, Lake Mary was a reliable fishing spot where anglers could catch largemouth bass. No longer. Now the lake is stocked with Asian carp, an invasive species that swam into the lake from the Mississippi River. Wildlife officials along the Mississippi drainage system are fighting to keep the carp from extending their range, but Lake Mary lost that battle long ago, and the Asian carp have taken over.

 Alligator gar, a needle-nosed prehistoric-looking species, has also muscled its way into the lake, and together the carp and gar have pushed out the sport fish. Both species are edible, but few people want to eat them.

Another sign that the ecosystem is changing: alligators are moving north, and my family occasionally spots a gator sunning on the lake bank. Swimming in Lake Mary has become less inviting.

Feral hogs have also grown in numbers in southern Mississippi, and climate change may explain this expansion. These beasts roam the woods in large sounders--20 pigs or more-- and compete with the deer for forage.

Given all these disadvantages, why would I want to live on Lake Mary? Several reasons. First, I cherish the serenity and the solitude. 

My neighbors occasionally pass by my homestead on the gravel road that borders my property-- people in 4-wheel drive pickups or all-terrain vehicles. But there are no traffic jams or road rage, no carjackings.

I also love my Mississippi home for the abundant bird life: snowy egrets, great egrets, white ibises, blue herons, tricolored herons, kingfishers, and the occasional stork and bald eagle. Late in life, I've become a hack birdwatcher.

Even so, living on Lake Mary has a significant drawback. My property floods yearly when spring rains flow down from the upper Mississippi Valley, depositing as much as eight feet of water under my house.

Climate change? Many of my neighbors think so. According to the oldtimers, the Mississippi River hardly ever flooded this region until 30 years ago. People speculate that extreme weather events have caused more torrential rainstorms and that the excessive water has triggered soil erosion, silting up the Mississippi River and its tributaries.

No matter. My home sits on steel piers 15 feet above ground level. It would take a flood of biblical proportions to threaten my habitation.

So, as Waylon Jennings put it, "Let the world call me a fool." I'm content to live out my days in a backwater of southern Mississippi, where the sunsets are gorgeous and no one suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome.

The Texas Redistricting Battle: Representative Al Green's Congressional District is Going Republican

 The Texas Legislature, dominated by Republicans, recently redrew congressional district boundaries to disadvantage Democrats in the next election. This political maneuver, called gerrymandering, is as old as the Republic.

For example, Al Green, a Democratic congressman and a perpetual burr under the Republican saddle, represents Texas Congressional District 9, a historically safe district for Democrats. No doubt, Green felt confident enough about his congressional seat to disrupt President Trump's address to Congress last spring. His Democratic constituents undoubtedly loved his buffoonish behavior. That's our boy!

Then things changed. The Texas legislature drastically altered District 9 to encompass voting precincts that are reliably Republican. The district's stalwart Democratic neighborhoods were shoved into District 18, and Green's congressional sinecure was wiped out. He will lose if he runs for reelection next year in District 9. 

Indeed, unless the Republicans' gerrymandering maneuver is overturned by the courts, Texas will probably send five additional Republicans to Congress after the next federal election. No wonder that Democratic Texas legislators fled the state in August to stall a vote on the Republicans' redistricting scheme. 

Of course, the Democrats didn't take the Republicans' gerrymandering scheme lying down. California Governor Gavin Newsom, self-appointed leader of the increasingly deranged Democratic Party, signed gerrymandering legislation countermanding the Texas action by gerrymandering the Golden State's congressional districts to favor the Democrats. 

Now, gerrymandering battles between Republicans and Democrats have broken out in other states. It seems likely that all this political turmoil will have to be sorted out by the U.S. Supreme Court.

No one can predict the outcome of the gerrymandering war. Nevertheless, Americans are waking up to the fact that congressional districts have been gerrymandered nationwide and that most of it has benefited Democrats. 

New England's six states have no Republican-held congressional seats, even though the region has many Republican voters. Illinois is the poster child for corrupt Democratic gerrymandering. No wonder that 33 conservatively leaning counties want to join with Indiana to escape the state's oppressively corrupt, Democrat-dominated political system.

All this sturm and drang over congressional redistricting highlights the fact that numerous congressional representatives are lunatics who behave childishly and irresponsibly because they are in safe districts where their constituents prefer to be entertained rather than governed. 

Congressman Al Green's fans need not mourn the loss of their wingnut representative. Although he is being pushed out of District 9, he will probably run again in District 18, where many of his supporters were placed due to redistricting. If Green runs in District 18 in 2026, I predict he will win.

Gerrymandering for me but not for thee.

All School Shooters are Deranged Males, Including Robin Westman

 Robin Westman, a 23-year-old male who identified as transgender, killed two children at Assumption  Catholic School in Minneapolis earlier this week. Armed with an assault rifle, a shotgun, and a pistol, he wounded fifteen other children and three adults while the victims were celebrating Mass. 

With his mother's support, Robert Westman changed his name to Robin when he was 17 and declared he identified as female. Later, he regretted that decision.

The New York Times deferentially referred to Westman as "Ms. Westman," and darkly observed that "some conservative activists [had] seized on the shooter's gender identity to broadly portray transgender people as violent or mentally ill . . ."

Two observations about the Times's characterization of Robin Westman. First, all American school shooters are young men. There is not a single school shooting perpetrated by a female. 

Second, all schoolground assassins suffer from severe mental illness and a psychopathic disregard for human life--including their own lives. 

Westman's writings suggest he was antisemitic and anti-Catholic, but basically, he was just nuts. For the legacy media to insinuate that his transgender ideation had nothing to do with his homicidal rage is disingenuous. 

How would I feel if I were a 23-year-old man who'd changed my sexual identity as a teenager and realized I'd made a mistake? The prom I missed, the girl in my algebra class I didn't date, the varsity track team I didn't try out for.

I would be furious at anyone who encouraged me to identify as a woman and at the school that tolerated this charade. Indeed, I might be angry enough to start shooting people--although not so angry that I would shoot a child.

The Big Crack Ditches the Cracker and His Barrel. Will Little Debbie Be Next?

 Cracker Barrel, the rustic-themed restaurant chain, is known for its traditional food menu and nostalgic, rural Americana decor. Some of my relatives dine regularly at a Cracker Barrel, which they affectionately call "The Big Crack."

For good or ill, the Big Crack is getting a facelift. Under the direction of the chain's chief marketing officer, Sarah Moore, Cracker Barrel is modernizing its dining rooms by removing antique farm tools and assorted bric-a-brac hanging on the walls.

Unfortunately, Moore outraged some of the chain's patrons when it removed the iconic country bumpkin from its logo. Critics compared the move to Bud Light's disastrous marketing decision to hire a trans influencer to sell its beer.

I'm okay with these changes. I never liked Cracker Barrel's uber country theme. All the antique geegaws hanging from the walls always made me feel like I was dining in my grandfather's barn. 

The new minimalist-style decor works just fine for me. The Cracker Barrel's updated look is more like America's authentic small-town cafes, where the focus is on the food and not the ambiance.

And I'm also okay with the new logo. I never swore allegiance to the image of an old dude wearing overalls. My grandfather wore overalls, which weren't always clean. Believe me, you wouldn't want to eat anything he cooked.

So, Godspeed to Cracker Barrel and CME Sarah Moore. But let's not take the modernizing trend too far. We've already lost the Cracker Barrel dude, Uncle Ben, and Aunt Jemima. I'll go to the barricades to save Little Debbie.

Russiagate, Lawfare, and Other Nefarious Schemes to Destroy Donald Trump: Where were the Players Educated?

 James Howard Kunstler posted a blog today listing the leading players in the various schemes to destroy Donald Trump: Russiagate, Lawfare, the impeachment fiasco, the Mar-a-Lago raid, etc.

Kunstler's blog listed 43 names, and I added three more: Hillary Clinton, Antony Blinken, and Jack Smith. Most of these 46 people had impressive academic credentials and law degrees.

Here's a summary of what I found: Few anti-Trump characters held degrees from public universities, but Harvard, Yale, and Columbia were well represented.  Among the 46 participants in the grand anti-Trump conspiracies, there were 18 degrees from Harvard, 8 Yale credentials, and 5 Columbia degrees.

Here's the takeaway. The central characters in these anti-Trump dramas were well-educated. Indeed, 87 percent held graduate degrees, and 63 percent were lawyers. Most of the attorneys graduated from the nation's most prestigious law schools: Harvard, Yale, Georgetown, Columbia, etc.

It is time for Americans to cast aside their misguided infatuation with our nation's elite universities. Although they claim to be pillars of civic virtue, they produce far too many rogues. The arrogant and self-righteous people at the center of the anti-Trump conspiracies were engaged in a project to destroy our democracy, and most of them graduated from elite schools.

Hillary Clinton at Oxford

Postscript.  I could not find education credentials for two people that Kunstler listed: Joe Pientka and Steven Somma, but most have flattering Wikipedia listings.

You May Call RFK Jr. a Wingnut, But Coca Cola Will Offer an HFCS-free Version of Its Flagship Soda

 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a Trump cabinet member whom progressives love to hate. He's been repeatedly branded as a "wingnut" and a "crackpot,' and his views on vaccines have often been maliciously misrepresented. Senator Elizabeth Warren darkly hinted that he was trying to enrich himself while in public service.

Let's give Bobby a break. Unlike his predecessors, he's called out Americans for our unhealthy eating habits and vowed to make us healthier. As Kennedy has repeatedly said, the U.S. spends more on health care than any nation in the world, yet our country is not the healthiest--far from it.

 Americans have high rates of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, and these ailments can be traced in significant part to our diet. The corporate food industry laces all kinds of processed food with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) because it is cheap, and it's cheap because our government subsidizes corn production.

Now, thanks partly to Secretary Kennedy, Americans are looking more closely at what they eat and have come to realize that ultra-processed food and high-fructose corn syrup are bad for us. Research has found a link between heavy consumption of HFCS and obesity, diabetes, and liver disease.

 And the corporate food industry is taking notice. Most notably, Coca-Cola announced that it will soon offer a version of its flagship soda containing cane sugar, not HFCS. The corporate giant isn't making the switch because the government forced it to take action. Instead, it's responding to the public's heightened concern about all kinds of food additives--including HFCS. 

Americans' belated interest in the food they're ingesting is partly due to Secretary Kennedy's focus on the nation's diet.  I'm grateful to him for trying to make us healthier and thankful he's in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services.

If that makes me a wingnut, I'm happy to embrace that label.

Image credit: Patrick Fallon via Getty Images 

Mrs. Butterworth is Dead to Me: Zeeland Street Offers Steen's Cane Syrup with Its Pancakes

 In Travels with Charlie, John Steinbeck wrote that he never ate a really good dinner at a roadside cafe or a really bad breakfast. I agree; most restaurants cook a pretty good breakfast if you stick to bacon and eggs.

Nevertheless, it is hard to find a restaurant that serves a really good breakfast--a place that serves perfectly prepared eggs, bacon, grits, and pancakes in a casual and friendly atmosphere.

Therefore, I count myself among the blessed to live in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, home of Zeeland Street Restaurant. Zeeland Street is a really good breakfast spot. Indeed, the New York Times listed this eatery among the 50 best restaurants in America. 

My wife and I ate breakfast at Zeeland Street a few weeks ago. We ordered the Zeeland Slam: bacon, eggs, grits, and pancakes. 

In the South, at least, a restaurant's breakfast can be judged by its grits, and Zeeland's grits were perfect--piping hot and lightly seasoned. I like to sprinkle a few drops of Tabasco sauce on my grits, which Zeeland provided on its condiment table.

However, what set this breakfast apart was the breakfast syrup on the pancakes. All across the nation, restaurants serve high-fructose corn syrup with their pancakes, the same stuff, in essence, that sweetens store-bought candy and soft drinks. And that syrup is generally laced with various additives.

Zeeland Street offers diners a second option: Steen's cane syrup. Steen's syrup is extracted from sugar cane, and nothing is added. Cane syrup is healthier than high fructose corn syrup, which has been linked with obesity, diabetes, and liver damage. 

Of course, eating small amounts of corn syrup won't kill you, which is reassuring, given the amount of the stuff that shows up in all kinds of processed food. If it were seriously harmful, we'd all be dead. 

Besides health considerations, cane syrup is preferable to corn syrup because it tastes better, and I'm grateful to Zeeland Street for serving it. 

Of course, excellent food is only one of the qualities that set Zeeland Street apart from other restaurants. What really makes this restaurant shine is the owner, Stephanie Phares. Stephanie is always cheerful, and her infectious laughter, which can be heard throughout the restaurant, always brightens my day.

As John Steinbeck wrote in a short story, "some element of great beauty" can be found in a hearty breakfast in the early morning. Baton Rouge can experience that great beauty at Zeeland Street Restaurant by eating the Zeeland Slam and hearing Stephanie Phares's joyous laughter. 

photo credit: Collin Richie & 225 Magazine