Some are saying the warm October temps are making up for the much cooler than normal August temperatures we experienced this past summer. Who am I to argue with that?
While I wish I could have kept the boat in the water another week or so as a means of taking advantage of the warm weather, my misadventure last week prevented that. BeezleBub and I pulled the boat out of the water during the week and the prop was indeed damaged, with one blade having taken the brunt of it. The boat is presently at one of the local boat yards awaiting winterization and storage. Prior to winterization they will swap out the damaged prop for my spare prop and send out the damaged prop for repair and reconditioning.
So ends Boating Season 2017.
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It's amazing what happens to one's perceptions when one leaves the isolated enclave of the coastal elites. In this case, former NPR CEO Ken Stern found his understanding of those of us in 'flyover country' was seriously flawed and colored too much by liberal groupthink.
Most reporters and editors are liberal — a now dated Pew Research Center poll found that liberals outnumber conservatives in the media by some 5 to 1, and that comports with my own anecdotal experience at National Public Radio. When you are liberal, and everyone else around you is as well, it is easy to fall into groupthink on what stories are important, what sources are legitimate and what the narrative of the day will be.That public distrust of the media has grown considerably over the past decade or so is no secret. That they did it to themselves by becoming the propaganda wing of the Democrat Party is not a surprise. It's gotten to the point that even the Washington Post concedes that a large majority of the American people trust Donald Trump more than they trust the media.
This may seem like an unusual admission from someone who once ran NPR, but it is borne of recent experience. Spurred by a fear that red and blue America were drifting irrevocably apart, I decided to venture out from my overwhelmingly Democratic neighborhood and engage Republicans where they live, work and pray. For an entire year, I embedded myself with the other side, standing in pit row at a NASCAR race, hanging out at Tea Party meetings and sitting in on Steve Bannon’s radio show. I found an America far different from the one depicted in the press and imagined by presidents (“cling to guns or religion”) and presidential candidates (“basket of deplorables”) alike.
--snip--
...the media should acknowledge its own failings in reflecting only their part of America. You can’t cover America from the Acela corridor, and the media need to get out and be part of the conversations that take place in churches and community centers and town halls.
I did that, and loved it, though I regret waiting until well after I left NPR to do so. I am skeptical that many will do so, since the current situation in an odd way works for Trump, who gets to rile his base, and for the media, which has grown an audience on the back of Washington dysfunction. In the end, they are both short-term winners. It is the public that is the long-term loser.
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I was at one of our local eateries this morning and struck up a conversation with one of the other patrons. Our discussion covered good ideas and bad ideas put forth by government and how people perceive those ideas depending upon who presents them. Too much political ideology gets in the way in regards to parsing the good ones from the bad ones.
Then I see this about how Trump's tax plan is seen by college students as a good one, but only if it is presented as being from Bernie Sanders.
So it's not the message, but the messenger that determines whether an idea or a plan is good or not? That doesn't bode well for our future leaders. Oh, heck, it doesn't bode well for many of our present 'leaders'.
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Only on the Left Coast...
Three Multnomah County (Oregon) deputies are under investigation for following federal law by reporting illegal aliens to ICE.
I knew things were effed up in Oregon, but now we see just how bad it is. Then again when the city of Portland has become a den of sexism, racism, and fascism, so what would you expect?
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A story that isn't being covered by the media: When it comes to crime, London beats New York. So London now has a higher crime rate than New York City. That isn't all that surprising considering the laxity of the UK government towards criminal activity by Muslim immigrants who refuse to assimilate.
Of course if Bill deBlasio gets his way and continues to undo many of the reforms of Rudi Giuliani (continued by Mike Bloomberg) New York will quickly surpass London in crime stats and become a crime-ridden hellhole again, and it won't be because of immigrants.
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Having mentioned above the eye-opening experience of the former CEO of NPR, there's this story of Lloyd Marcus relocating from Florida to West Virginia and “experiencing wonderful culture shock.” Writes Lloyd:
The post office and public library closes for lunch. I stopped in the town hall to purchase a permit for the fence I planned to have installed. The clerk looking a bit puzzled said, "We're pretty laid back here. You don't need a permit." The police department consists of two patrol cars. The school's marching band of about 15 students marches past our house practicing. They sound good.What makes this even more remarkable, at least it should be to Leftists, is the Mr. Marcus is black, one of 20 blacks living in a town of 500 people. Yet there's no mention of racism or racial strife. The Marcuses are merely “the folks that bought the white house.”
On Sundays from our front porch, we sometimes hear the choir of one of the five churches in town. Mary and I attended a fundraiser at the fire hall for a needy family. The elderly husband has terminal cancer and wants to make sure his wife has a new roof on their home. The fire hall was pretty full.
Contrast my daily heartland experience with the putrid-smelling Leftist hate dominating the airways and national political arena.
Maybe the coastal urban elites need to get away from their enclaves and find out what a majority of America is really like.
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One last thing before I close this week's edition of TOAS:
What's killing coastal US cities? The disconnect between Liberal aspirations and Liberal housing policies.
The outcomes of our housing policies fly in the face of our ideology. For those in need, we support providing supplementary income, health insurance, educational support, and other social welfare programs—and then we erase their value by making our cities too expensive for those most in need of these benefits. Either low income residents can’t afford to live in the city at all, or the cost of housing is so high that the value of the benefits is exceeded by the added cost of rent.As long as Liberal housing policy continues to make it unaffordable for many Americans to live in cities like San Francisco, New York, and Washington, DC, the cities will continue to see a decline in the number of middle and lower class citizens. Those cities which have none of those soul-killing policies will continue to see their middle and lower class populations grow and see them thrive.
By doing essentially nothing but letting things happen, conservative America is kicking our ass at providing opportunities for low income and working classes to build wealth and get ahead. Cities like Dallas, Phoenix, and Atlanta have managed to stay affordable by simply allowing housing to continue to be built as their populations grow, and the result is that people keep moving there.
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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where summer is hanging on, no one is complaining about it, and the sound of silence from our furnaces is money in our pocket.