Catastrophic Weather Events and the High Cost of Living Make Flyover Country More Appealing

 Wildfires in Los Angeles have driven thousands of Angelinos out of their homes, and many won't return. California, with its spectacular weather and stunning beauty, has become too difficult for anyone but the wealthy to live.

Catastrophic weather events--wildfires, mudslides, and earthquakes--coupled with stratospheric real estate prices, sky-high taxes, and directionless political leadership have transformed paradise into a nightmare for people of modest means.

So, where will discouraged Californians go? Many are going to Texas and Florida, but taxes and the cost of living have climbed in those sunny states.

 Austin, known for its low cost of living in the 1970s when I was a student at the University of Texas, has become so expensive that a person of modest means can't afford to migrate there. 

Florida has been a retirement haven for almost a century but has become too pricey for many older Americans on fixed incomes. And then there are the hurricanes.

How about Flyover country? Would that be a good region to move to? 

The Cambridge Dictionary defines Flyover Country as "parts of the United States which many people only see when they fly over them on journeys to the other coast, but which they would never visit." In other words, Flyover Country is made up of the regions of the U.S. that were once known as Middle America or the Heartland.

As the Wall Street Journal noted in a recent article, some parts of Flyover Country are becoming increasingly attractive—specifically Middle Appalachia: 

Drawn by lower housing costs and living expenses, lower taxes, lower insurance costs, low crime, warm weather (but with seasons) and less chance of hurricanes, an older, wealthier population is arriving [in Middle Appalachia]and demanding a level of services from governments and businesses that neither had to provide in the past.

Other parts of Flyover Country are just as enticing but have yet to be discovered by the frazzled Americans trying to escape the high cost of living on the East and West Coasts.

I live on Lake Mary in South Mississippi, in the heart of Flyover Country, and I find it a congenial place to live. I admit that Lake Mary is not as prestigious as Lake Tahoe. We fish for catfish here instead of rainbow trout, but real estate is a lot cheaper in Mississippi than in the famous Nevada vacation spot, and the people are more interesting. 

And life in South Mississippi offers attractions you can't find on Cape Cod or the Hamptons. For example, we have an alligator season in Mississippi, and you can hunt feral hogs here day or night all year round. 

Marlin fishing in the Keys is all well and good, but it's nothing like hooking into a monster alligator gar or Asian carp on Lake Mary. And you can take my word: a fried Mississippi catfish tastes as good as any seafood you will eat on Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. 

Not all Flyover Country is idyllic. We need better schools in the rural South and an economy that produces more middle-class jobs. Nevertheless, as coastal cities become increasingly expensive and crime rates rise, Flyover Country might be a better place to live and raise a family.

Image credit:  TV Tropes

Los Angeles Wild Fires: The Lord's Burning Rain

This old town is filled with sin

It'll swallow you in

If you've got some money to burn

Take it home right away

You've got three years to pay

But Satan is waiting his turn.

Gram Parsons, "Sin City"

I'm not blaming anybody for the Los Angeles wildfires. Yes, the water hydrants ran dry in some burning neighborhoods, but no one could possibly have envisioned a conflagration as massive and catastrophic as the inferno that overwhelmed the LA firefighting infrastructure.

And I'm not blaming Mayor Karen Bass for the fire disaster. She had no business traveling to West Africa on a political junket while a disaster was looming, but Bass didn't start the fires.

For me, the LA wildfire is nationally significant as a sign of the arrogance and cluelessness of America's political and media elites. The people in LA's elite neighborhoods sneered at the working folk in Flyover Country as they insulated themselves from the real world with chauffered limousines, gated communities, and private bodyguards. 

The glitterati labeled working-class patriots as "white Christian nationalists," despising them as racists because they worried about crime and our country's open southern border.

Hollywood moguls made boring, overlong films full of woke DEI drivel and then wondered why movie attendance was down.

Movie stars donated millions of campaign dollars to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris even though they knew both were idiots.

Now, the chickens have come home to roost, and the Tinseltown world of the West Coast elites is falling apart.

I feel sorry for the average Angelinos who lost their homes in the wildfires, but I have no sympathy for the wealthy assholes who got rich under Bidenomics and whose cosmos is going up in smoke.

Mayor Karen Bass and her DEI minions are done--exposed as incompetent dolts. Governor Newsom and Kamala Harris are done as important political figures, having shown no talent for leadership. George Clooney and Julia Roberts, sycophantic fundraisers for the Democratic Party, are done as respected movie stars.

Many West Coast elitists are still rich, but their wealth won't save them from irrelevance. As Gram Parsons put it, "On the thirty-first floor, a gold-plated door won't keep out the Lord's burning rain."

President Biden Gives Presidential Medal to Hillary Clinton and George Soros. Flipping the Bird at Flyover Country

As Joe Biden's disastrous presidency wound down, he searched for ways to display his middle finger at the people living in Flyover Country—particularly those who voted for Donald Trump. Handing out prestigious honors to his political cronies was the perfect strategy.

Thus, President Joe Biden awarded George Soros and Hillary Clinton the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award. 

Let's start with George Soros, one of the wealthiest men in America and a megadonor to the Democratic Party. Soros bankrolled so-called progressive candidates for various district attorney positions in many of the nation's cities. 

As reported by Thomas Hogan, Soros-backed candidates won D.A. races in "Manhattan, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Portland, San Francisco, . . . and other population hubs." Hogan quoted an estimate that 20 percent of Americans lived in districts served by prosecutors that Soros supported.

These prosecutors promised to focus on serious crimes rather than divert resources to prosecute non-violent offenders accused of petty offenses. But, as a Heritage Foundation article observed:

[O]nce these candidates get elected, they quickly turn their anodyne statements into something different and engage in prosecutorial nullification by refusing to prosecute entire categories of crimes, watering down felonies, refusing to ask for bail, and refusing to prosecute violent juveniles as adults. 

The result of this tragically flawed strategy was that crime rates went up in many of the cities where Soros-assisted prosecutors held office. 

And then there's Hillary, who also received a Presidential Medal of Freedom. It is now well known that Hillary and her presidential campaign created and circulated the false story that Trump was in collusion with the Russians during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The Wall Street Journal summarized this tawdry tale in a 2022 editorial:

[T]he Clinton campaign created the [Trump-Russia collusion] allegation, fed it to a credulous press that failed to confirm the allegations but ran with them anyway, then promoted the story as if it was legitimate news. The campaign also delivered the claims to the FBI, giving journalists another excuse to portray the accusations as serious and perhaps true.

As the Wall Street Journal correctly noted:

 [T]he Russia-Trump narrative that Mrs. Clinton sanctioned did enormous harm to the country. It disgraced the FBI, humiliated the press, and sent the country on a three-year investigation to nowhere. Vladimir Putin never came close to doing as much disinformation damage.

Biden's award to these two disreputable public figures was his way of showing his complete contempt for the American people.  But maybe this disgraceful episode will have an epilogue. If there is any justice in the world, perhaps Hillary will become the first Medal of Freedom winner to be disbarred.

Photo credit: Associated Press

 

Don't Go Hating on Chick-fil-A

 Not long ago, St. Mary's Medical Center, a hospital in Duluth, Minnesota, distributed free chicken sandwiches to staff members. That's good, right?

No, that's bad. Chick-fil-A, a popular fast-food chain, donated the sandwiches, and some St. Mary's employees complained. Why? The company's CEO once expressed his opposition to same-sex marriage. 

The hospital quickly issued an apology, written in classic wokespeak.

We have received feedback from some colleagues who were concerned or offended by this occurence [free sandwiches] , and we value colleagues feeling comfortable expressing their reservations. . . .

We would like to thank our colleagues who had the courage to speak up to widen our lens of inclusivity, and we appreciate all colleagues continuing to live our values of respect and justice.

A couple of thoughts. 

First, Chick-fil-A restaurants make very good chicken sandwiches, and their employees are invariably courteous. I live not far from a cluster of popular fast-food outlets: Chick-fil-A, Atomic Burger,  McDonald's, and Whataburger. When I drive by, the take-out line is always longest at Chic-fil-A.

Second, St Mary's Medical Center is in the healing businees, and its staff should be focused solely on their patients' health and wellbeing. Do hospital employees have time to complain about a free and delicious chicken sandwich?

One thing for certain, people who are admitted to St. Mary's should keep their political opinions to themselves. You wouldn't want your doctor to let you bleed out because you let it slip that you once ate a sandwich at Chick-fil-A.

Photo credit: NPR

Why get drunk on Bourbon Street? Reflection on the French Quarter Terrorist Attack

My father was a cattle stockman in southwestern Oklahoma. As a child, I often accompanied him as he drove his pickup truck from pasture to pasture to feed his cows.

Many of my father's pastures lined a country road, and the entrance gates into these properties offered a convenient spot to park a car. On countless occasions, I would find a couple of dozen beer cans and bottles, evidence of a late-night drinking party. As I recall, the revelers favored Jax, Stag, Schlitz, and quart bottles of Coors.

It was my job to pick up the debris and throw it into the bed of my dad's truck. I remember wondering why someone would want to get drunk on a lonely Oklahoma road. How much fun could that be?

Early this morning, a terrorist drove a truck down Bourbon Street in New Orleans' French Quarter, killing at least fifteen people and injuring many more. The street was crowded with New Year's revelers, many drunk.

I've walked down Bourbon Street many times over the years. Believe me when I say it's nothing special. Bourbon is just a street lined with bars, strip joints, souvenir shops, and tourist-trap restaurants, and parts of the street smell like urine. Why would anyone think they would have a good time getting drunk and strolling down Bourbon Street at three o'clock in the morning?

American life is becoming increasingly dangerous, particularly for people attending mass events. Last year, numerous people were killed or wounded at nightclubs, large parties, and sports venues.

Average citizens can do little to protect themselves from being victims at these events, but maybe they should reconsider whether some events are worth the risk.

Partying in the French Quarter in the middle of the night is risky every night of the year. Muggers and pickpockets lurk in the shadows, looking for victims who are alone or drunk. It's true that the risk of being killed by a terrorist on Bourbon Street is low, but the New Orleans crime rate is high.

Isn't there somewhere safer to let your guard down from consuming too much alcohol than Bourbon Street on New Year's Eve at three o'clock in the morning?

Bourbon Street after a terrorist attack on New Year's Day

Photo credit: Fox News

Feral Pig Ribs: Better Than Store Bought

 A tornado blew through Wilkinson County a few days ago and knocked out an electrical substation. Woodville, the county seat, and my family's home on Lake Mary lost power for several days.

Our butchered hog lay cut up and packaged in our refrigerator when we lost power, and I had a harrowing thought about what that hog would smell like when it thawed out if we didn't find a way to keep it from unfreezing,

Kim and I loaded all the pig meat into ice chests, iced it down, and distributed it among various family members living in Baton Rouge. 

As we parceled the meat, I came across the ribs, which had been packaged in four freezer bags and were still frozen. Let's cook 'em!

Under normal circumstances, we would have slow-smoked the ribs in our electric smoker. However, our smoker was in Mississippi, where the power was out, so we elected to cook them in our kitchen oven in Baton Rouge. 

Here's our extemporaneous recipe:

• First, we marinated the ribs for about an hour in Italian salad dressing. Then, we removed them from the marinade and applied a dry rub of salt, black pepper, cajan pepper, and garlic powder.

• Next, we prepared a glaze of honey, a little whiskey, butter, wine vinegar, and barbecue sauce.

• After we slathered the glaze on both sides of the ribs, we wrapped each rack in a double layer of heavy foil, put the packaged ribs in a shallow baking pan, and popped them into a preheated oven, taking care to place them with their fatty sides up.

• We cooked the ribs at 350 degrees for two and a half hours. Then, we unwrapped them, applied more glaze, and broiled the uncovered ribs for five minutes to make the glaze crunchy.

We ate the ribs with Bush's baked beans, which we supercharged with bacon and onions. The ribs paired nicely with a Stella Artis beer.

Our first attempt at cooking feral hog ribs was a success. They tasted better than the pork ribs I buy at the grocery store.

As you can see, we cooked our hog ribs using a scratch recipe. To achieve a similar result, you can use your favorite marinade and grocery store barbecue sauce. 

 Indeed, If you've ever cooked store-bought ribs, you can cook wild pig ribs the same way, and they will taste just as good. As my friends assured me after my family butchering our first feral hog. wild pigs taste delicious if you don't try to eat a big boar.

90-Second Food Review: A Dummy's Guide To Tex-Mex Restaurants

I grew up in western Oklahoma, a region unknown for its cuisine. Even as a small child, I longed for spicy food, but the only condiment in my family's kitchen cabinet was Worcestershire sauce.

When I was a little older, I discovered Tex-Mex food. My family began dining at the El Chico restaurant in downtown Oklahoma City. 

I loved that restaurant! I was astounded by the complimentary tortilla chips and salsa—manna from heaven. I always ordered a combination plate with a tamale, an enchilada, and lots of chili gravy.

Unfortunately, El Chico banned us from the restaurant after my father and grandfather got into a loud and acrimonious dispute over who would pay our lunch bill. To this day, a copy of my father's driver's license is taped to the cash register with this warning: 

Precaución. No sirvas a este gringo ni a su familia Fossey. ¡Llámale a la policía!

Since those days, I've eaten in over a hundred Tex-Mex joints, and I consider myself an authority on this ethnic cuisine. Here are some tips to help you find a good Tex-Mex restaurant.

First, a Tex-Mex restaurant's popularity is primarily based on the strength of its margaritas.  If the joint's margaritas contain adequate tequila (fortified perhaps with Everclear), you will give the eatery a five-star review.

How can you determine if the margaritas are sturdy? Order a house margarita on the rocks. When you've finished it, a little voice in your head will tell you to switch to beer.

Ignore that voice, order a second drink,  and chug it down. If the proprietor deprives you of your car keys, you'll know the margaritas are strong enough.

Here are a few other pointers: 

First, Mexican beer is the only beer to drink when eating Mexican food, and it must be ice cold. I favor the obscure brands: Carta Blanca or Victoria. My friends like Corona, but I find it tastes too much like Bud Light.

Second, your server should serve your food on a hot plate. Nothing tastes worse than tepid Mexican food, and a good Tex-Mex restaurant will present you with a searing platter that will give you a second-degree burn if you unwisely touch it.

Finally, Mexican food is inexpensive, and most Tex-Mex restaurants are consistently good. I ate many meals at El Patio restaurant on Guadalupe Street in Austin while working my way through law school in the 1970s. The dinner plate only cost a buck fifty.

Ever since those days, Tex-Mex has been my favorite comfort food. Hot and flavorful, with an orange glow rising from the melted cheese, a Tex-Mex meal signals to me that all's right with the world.

The Enchilada plate at an El Paso restaurant. What's not to like?