• The Assembly’s Emily Stephenson interviews Timothy Moffitt, a Republican state senator representing western North Carolina, about the aftermath of Helene and the ongoing recovery efforts there: “The Emergency is Still in Place.”
The interview is informative. It’s also refreshingly grounded in actual reality. Moffitt isn’t speaking as a politician but as a government official pursuing actual government responsibilities. This is the actual job that we elect people to do. Every once in a great while, in extreme circumstances, we’re reminded of this — that governing is not the same as shit-posting on Twitter or Truth Social. That matters in North Carolina after a devastating storm. But it matters everywhere else, too, all the time.
• Here’s another story from western North Carolina that’s not related to the flooding and recovery: “‘Those beautiful ladies are here again’: the women from a secretive evangelical church cheering on Donald Trump.”
Word of Faith church in Spindale, N.C., is weird and creepy — even by the standards of the hate-the-stranger false prophets of the larger CharisMAGA movement. I do wonder if “those beautiful ladies'” nationwide travel following Trump from rally to rally is paid for with money from the offering plate.
• Speaking of weird and creepy, this photo is real.
Friends don’t let friends do this. I mean, if you’ve got a big chunk of broccoli in your teeth, your friends will tell you, “Hey, go look in a mirror and get a toothpick.” But if you don’t have any real friends — just sycophants, suck-ups, and yes-men because you’ve chased off everyone in your life who isn’t that — then you wind up walking around all day broccoli-smiling at people.
Or you walk around all year not realizing that your garishly-too-dark bronzer just abruptly stops a full inch from the edge of your face.
Toxic narcissists not only chase away everyone who might warn them that they’ve made themselves look ridiculous, they also are incapable of seeing it themselves when they look in a mirror.
• The Rev. Jean Beniste, the Haitian priest who serves as rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal in Concord, New Hampshire, made the most of the feast of St. Francis last week.
• We’re blessed with animals here in Chester County, too — maybe a bit too blessed, as my neighbor Martin Longman writes, “On Raccoons and Deer.”
“Basically, I hit one deer and almost hit five during a twenty minute drive,” he writes. Just about everybody in town has a story like that.
On the positive side, we don’t need speed-traps here. The speed limit on my street is 25 and nobody drives any faster than that because of all the deer.
This is also good for business at the Big Box, where we sell a lot of Liquid Fence. Does deer repellent work? Well, the deer correctly find its signature mix of garlic, thyme, and putrescent whole egg solids to be repellent. But they still eat everything eventually. So it works in that, if you use it and your neighbor doesn’t, the deer will eat your hostas last.
• Speaking of the Big Box, the only thing I knew the older British guy who works at the service desk was that his accent made for the best closing announcements. I missed those announcements when he took a few months leave this summer. Turns out he was touring Europe with his band.
Anyway, here’s the song that provided the title for this post. Please bring your final purchases to self-checkout where our cashiers will be happy to help you. The Big Box will re-open at 6 am tomorrow and for your convenience you can always shop 24/7 at BigBox.com.
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