This makes me think of my late grandfather. He had been a civil engineer for the US Navy who spent several years working in the Panama Canal Zone. He told me this story of a senator showing up one day with cost-cutting on his mind. He focused on one line in the budget: mosquito control. “Mosquitoes? There are no mosquitoes here! What a colossal waste of money!” The whole area became pretty much unliveable within a year of his returning to Washington.
He seems to have manufactured quite the crisis. Is this what he meant by bringing manufacturing back to America?
Lately, I’ve been listening to The Martian. I’m kind of a sucker for synthy orchestral compositions and that soundtrack is just so hauntingly beautiful.
Is it not a net benefit to China in that the US drawing inwards expands their global influence? And they must be laughing at what carnage Trump is inflicting on the North American auto sector at a time when China is surging ahead with EVs.
I think it was in the late 90s when a vicious ice storm took out power lines everywhere and the whole downtown core was plunged into darkness for the better part of a month. Fortunately, out where we lived in the suburbs, the power mostly ran underground and was restored pretty quick.
But then my wife got a panicked call from a distant relative who said she couldn’t reach her daughter studying at the university and could we look in on her? So we found her and offered her the guest bedroom for as long as she needed it.
At first, it seemed to be working out? Then it began to emerge that she was some sort of evangelical Christian who was frustrated that we were not eager to convert. I sort of thought taking in a refugee was a fairly Christian thing to do, but whatever.
Eventually, she demanded I take her back to the dorm. I told her downtown is still dark and cold, but she said “I don’t care. You guys are so boring!” So I carefully drove her back around downed trees and power lines and dropped her off.
I felt pretty bad about it and we prayed she’d be ok. A couple of weeks later, the relative called again and thanked us so much for taking care of her daughter and that we went way beyond the call despite how things turned out.