“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”
–Prime Minister Winston Churchill, speaking to the British House of Commons (August 20, 1940), addressing the bravery of the RAF pilots engaged in the “Battle of Britain”.
Yes, I know that Winston Churchill was British, but his sentiments are so easily applied to our own national experiences. Also, Mr. Churchill was 1/2 American.
Today is Memorial Day, a day to remember our fallen who gave their lives on the field of battle. Many assume that peace is the natural state of human affairs; it is not. War and lesser armed conflicts have always been present, from the beginning of time. Our own country was birthed through violent revolution, as we threw off the chains of King George III’s tyranny, and asserted our God given rights as Englishmen. We fought The Late Unpleasantness, the Confederates wishing to reassert rights infringed upon by Northern commercial interests, and the United States seeking to preserve the Union. World War I was the “war to end all wars”, but it only laid the foundation for the far more reaching and devastating World War II. During WWII, we came belatedly to the aid of Great Britain, and together the English speaking peoples rescued the world from the dark forces of fascism.
Following WWII, the Cold War came, as international communism spread its evil tentacles around the world, and the “West” faced a new and far more dangerous foe, given the nuclear age, in the Soviet Union. Armed conflicts arose in Korea, Vietnam, The Dominican Republic, Grenada, Angola, Nicaragua, Cuba and other “hot spots” in the Third World. The American soldier was present in all these events, seeking to preserve, not just our freedoms, but the freedoms we deem God to have given to all men. In America, we go to war, not to conquer, but to preserve freedom for all.
Memorial Day, or if you prefer, Decoration Day, began simply enough, in Columbus, Georgia in 1866, as the ladies of that town gathered to mark the graves of the Confederate fallen, and to remember their sacrifices. The commemoration quickly spread throughout the land, and is now annually celebrated with small town parades and ceremonies. The theme and the purpose of the day is to never forget what others have done for us.
John 15:13 states, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” True fulfillment is being filled with enough love that one is willing to sacrifice himself for something bigger than himself. That requires, paradoxically, a willingness to overcome fear and be willing to take risks and fully live and, yes, face death in doing so. On Memorial Day, we are thankful for the men who loved country more than self and in so doing freed future generations to live. May we honor that sacrifice by fully living and pay it forward by being willing to do the same.
May we never forget, and may we always be grateful.
This coming Sunday is Pentecost, called Whitsunday in the English tradition. Although the etymology is somewhat confused, we should remember that the Pentecost Vigil was one of the two traditional occasions for baptizing catechumens, the first being the Easter Vigil. On both occasions, the newly baptized were clothed in white, symbolizing the washing away of sin in that sacrament. “White” Sunday signified the latter occasion for the newly baptized.
Another convincing etymological argument suggests that with the influx of Germanic words around the Norman Conquest, the word for “white” was confused with that of “wit,” which in Old English meant “wisdom.” Of course, wisdom is one of the gifts of the Spirit for which we are bidden to pray.
Standing behind the outpouring of the Holy Ghost into the life of the nascent Church is the Hebrew festival of Pentecost. Coming fifty days (pente) after Passover, Pentecost (Shavuot) came to be associated with the giving of the Torah at Mt Sinai. Liberated from slavery in Egypt, the children of Israel were now called to enter into a covenantal relationship with God through their obedience to the Law.
Pentecost was one of the three pilgrimage festivals when all males were required to come to the Temple in Jerusalem to worship (Deuteronomy 16.16). This explains why in the lesson for the Epistle from the Acts of the Apostles, pilgrims from all over the Diaspora were present to witness the apostles speaking in their own native language: Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.
Shavuot was also connected to the grain harvest in Israel that lasted seven weeks. Beginning with the barley harvest at Passover, it ended with the wheat harvest at Pentecost. The time of harvest was a joyous occasion, and at its conclusion two loaves of wheat bread were to be offered at the Temple.
We might recall that Our Lord spent 40 days between His resurrection and His ascension instructing the apostles and showing how He was the fulfillment of the Hebrew Scriptures. The parallel with Moses spending 40 days on Mt Sinai and receiving God’s commandments was not lost on the apostles. With that foundational teaching, they were now in expectation of the promised Comforter. Having spent nine days in prayer, God’s Spirit is given in abundance.
Recalling how God manifested Himself to Moses and the children of Israel at Mt Sinai with an earthquake and lightening, now He manifests Himself with a “rushing mighty wind,” and “cloven tongues as of fire.” Instead of the commandments written on tablets of stone, the law of the new covenant is written on the hearts of the children of the everlasting kingdom of God.
Our Lord’s teaching in the Gospel tells us why the gift of the Spirit was given to the Church. He is to “teach us all things;” “to lead us into all truth;” “to dwell with us…to be in us.” The Spirit “which proceedeth from the Father,” sent by the Son, continues the ministry of Christ in us, even in Our Lord’s physical absence.
We have been praying these past nine days for the seven-fold gifts of the Spirit in our own lives and that of our parish: Wisdom and Understanding, Counsel and Fortitude, Knowledge and Piety and Fear of the Lord. May He grant us our prayer!
Aiding and abetting immorality will come back to bite you
BY: Robert Knight, The Washington Times (May 17, 2026).
One day, when I was working as a reporter at a small newspaper, a colleague came into the office with a brand-new, very expensive camera he had just bought.
For a struggling journalist, it seemed like an outsized purchase. When I asked how he could afford it, he chuckled and said, “Easy. Insurance paid for it.”
Insurance?
“Sure. I broke a window on my car and then reported to police that a thief had taken a camera just like this one.”
“You broke your own window? And was the camera you said was stolen as good as this one?” I asked.
“Hardly,” he said. “There wasn’t any camera in the car.”
“So, you lied and ripped off the insurance company?”
“Why not? They rip us off every day and make millions off us.”
I was stunned by his moral ambivalence and the way he rationalized his thievery. By his reasoning, you could justify any theft from a large corporation.
In fact, that has become a rampant theme today, so much so that a New York Times editor, Nadja Spiegelman, coined the term “microlooting” to describe stealing from large corporations and feeling fine about it.
From people such as university professors and progressive politicians, we have heard a litany of rationalized wrongdoing that goes like this: Victims of an unfair system are entitled to get what is coming to them, and so are the perpetrators on the wrong side of social justice.
On a large scale, think of the looting in any leftist-inspired riot, such as the George Floyd “unrest” in 2020, that liberals largely excused as an understandable reaction.
A shocking number of people have made a folk hero out of Luigi Mangione, the man accused of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in cold blood on Dec. 4, 2024, on a midtown Manhattan street.
Mr. Mangione, who did not even have a UnitedHealthcare policy with a disappointing claim result, allegedly shot Mr. Thompson in the back. That is the act of a murderous coward, not a hero.
Yet Mr. Mangione’s legal team has raised about $1.5 million so far from donations from people who feel the shooting was justified. Thousands of people have sent him letters and gifts, and the “Free Luigi” movement has held rallies outside the New York courthouse. The internet is full of T-shirts, tote bags and merchandise with his image and the slogan “Free Luigi.”
Mr. Mangione’s next court appearance is slated for Monday, with a flock of supporters expected outside.
In a recent Wall Street Journal column, “When Rationalization Turns Deadly,” psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert writes, “Once frustration is aimed at a broad target — corporations, the wealthy, the system — it starts to act like moral credit. … The question quietly shifts from, ‘Is this right?’ to ‘Who deserves it?’”
Last month, Hasan Piker, who is part of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s entourage, appeared on a New York Times podcast in which he justified the killing of Thompson, the father of two teenage boys.
“Friedrich Engels wrote about the concept of social murder,” Mr. Piker said. “And Brian Thompson, as the UnitedHealthcare CEO, was engaging in a tremendous amount of social murder.”
Engels was Karl Marx’s co-author of “The Communist Manifesto” and other collectivist works. Their communist worldview has directly caused unfathomable misery, including the murders of more than 100 million people during the 20th century alone.
Mr. Piker has said, “America deserved 911,” called the American flag “a symbol of terrorism and oppression” and described America and Israel as “evil.” He has jokingly floated the idea of “killing landlords,” said “billionaires should be guillotined” and that straight, White males are “the most privileged group in human history.”
This goes down like butter among the lunatic fringe, such as the “transtifas,” a transgender anarchist movement implicated in many recent murders and terrorist plots. Mr. Piker is also a hero to the antisemitic “From the river to the sea” crowd that openly wishes for another Holocaust.
Despite these extreme views (or perhaps because of them), Mr. Piker is quite welcome in Gracie Mansion, where Mr. Mamdani is busy turning New York City into a version of North Korea, albeit with Broadway plays.
Someday, perhaps not until the afterlife, these men will have to face a justice system that cannot be manipulated.
“Most people don’t need to be told that stealing, much less murder, is wrong,” Mr. Alpert wrote in his Journal column, adding, “It isn’t just a failure of knowledge but a failure of restraint.”
Indeed, the Apostle Paul wrote in the Book of Romans that people of faith and those of no faith are “without excuse” because God’s natural law is “written on their hearts.”
The problem with aiding and abetting immorality is that it comes back to bite you.
During my college days, one of my off-campus roommates often surprised me with his carefree thefts. When one of his car’s hubcaps disappeared, he found a similar car in a school parking lot and stole a matching hubcap from it.
“I needed it, so I took it,” he told me with a shrug.
After graduation, he went on to law school and then founded a small business. Without any irony, he lamented to me about the biggest problem he faced: dishonest employees who stole from him.
Today I am sharing 2 articles from The Washington Times. The 1st article addresses former President Obama’s duplicity, and the 2nd article concerns the ultimate demise of Cuba. Enjoy!
Obama and the art of projection
BY: Everett Piper, The Washington Times (May 17, 2026).
In a recent interview with Stephen Colbert, former President Barack Obama said, “I’m worried about the Republican Party … I’d love a loyal opposition. I’d love a Republican Party that is conservative in some ways, that didn’t agree with me on a whole bunch of stuff but believed in [the] rule of law, judicial independence and empirical evidence and science. … There has been a Republican Party like that in the past, and I want to see that return.”
Thus, Mr. Obama once again proved to be the master of what Sigmund Freud called “psychological projection.”
Projection is the art of attributing your own negative qualities, thoughts and actions to others. In layman’s terms, it is the skill of the pot calling the kettle black, the tactic of accusing someone else of what you yourself are guilty of doing.
Projection is akin to looking out the window when you should be looking in the mirror. It is a manipulative tactic of blaming other people for your own sins. At its core, projection is the quintessential poster child of the self-serving lie.
Let’s take the former president’s above statement and dissect it point by point.
Mr. Obama suggests that it is Republicans who presently stand against the rule of law and that the Democrats represent the opposite. Is this true? Any honest reading of the news proves it is not.
Who can deny that it is the Democrats who have encouraged massive illegal immigration with all its compounding effects of welfare fraud, gang violence and general anarchy? Who can pretend that it is not the Democrats who have flooded the streets of Seattle, Portland and Los Angeles with illicit drugs, vagrancy and homeless encampments?
Who can deny that it is the Democrats who have fomented civil unrest and violence in our nation’s cities from coast to coast?
Does our former president honestly think we do not see the obvious: that it is he and other Democrats who have tacitly encouraged the burning and looting of businesses in Kenosha, Wisconsin, St. Louis and the District of Columbia? That it is his party that has campaigned to defund the police and stop paying for law enforcement in the very cities that his “useful idiots” are literally burning to the ground?
Yet Mr. Obama sits smugly commiserating with Mr. Colbert about the Republicans, who are supposedly at fault for the anarchy that the Democrats themselves inflame. This is Gaslighting 101.
Next, we have Mr. Obama’s claim that he wants an opposition party that believes in judicial independence. Really? If an independent judiciary is what you want, then why is your party now openly calling for upending the Supreme Court from its current configuration and replacing it with a packed court that will do your political bidding?
If judicial independence is your ideal, then why are you trying to throw the judicial branch of the American government into constitutional chaos simply because you do not like the rulings of the somewhat “conservative” opposition that you say you want and respect?
Does Mr. Obama think we do not see that he is guilty of advocating for the very judicial impropriety that he pretends to condemn? Some might call this throwing stones while sitting in a glass house. Some might call it a big lie. Some might call it textbook projection.
Then we have Mr. Obama’s pedantic preaching that he and his party are the ones who believe in science while Republicans don’t. Is there any truth to this?
Last I knew, it is the Democrats who keep telling us that they do not know what a woman is, and it is the Democrats who keep saying that boys are girls and girls are boys. Unless I missed the memo, it is the Democrats who keep saying that babies are not human beings and that executing them at their most innocent stage in life is somehow a moral good.
Mr. Obama keeps prattling on about “following the science” when he and his party show us time and again that they do not even believe in biology, genetics, the basics of physiology, or the ontological dignity of what it means to be human.
There was a time when Mr. Obama and many within his political party told us they were Christians and governed accordingly. If he and any of the rest of them still make such claims, then maybe they would do well to go back and read the book that their faith elevates above all others. Maybe they should start with these words from the Apostle Paul: “In passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.” (Romans 2:1)
My time in Cuba helped me understand the island’s suffering
Instead of talking to communists, we should demand ‘Cuba libre!’
BY: Don Feder, The Washington Times (May 17, 2026)
In a social media post last week, President Trump called Cuba a “failed country and only heading in one direction — down.” Then he added, “Cuba is asking for help, and we are going to talk!!!!”
The only thing Washington and Havana have to talk about is how soon the communists can pack their bags and leave.
I would like to volunteer to be part of the American negotiating team.
I feel a special connection to Cuba. I was there for a week as a journalist in 1998. What I experienced left a lasting impression. The situation was wretched when I was there. It is worse now.
Without Venezuelan oil, there are rolling blackouts. Hunger is rampant. In 2025, the average Cuban worker earned the equivalent of $16 a month. Garbage piles up in the streets.
The regime blames the United States for choking off its fuel supply. Good for us.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was asked whether he believes Cuba is a threat to our national security. Silly question.
Cuba has been a thorn in our side since Fidel Castro and his gang seized power in 1959. It has been allied with the worst of the worst: China, Russia, Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah. As Venezuela moved to Marxism, Cuba sent secret police to Caracas to instruct its goons in the instruments of repression.
Climate kook Greta Thunberg took time out from campaigning for Hamas to denounce the U.S. fuel blockade as “a brutal act of collective punishment.” Yet the suffering of the Cuban people is a result of the merciless regime that rules them, not the U.S. blockade.
Food and medicine are exempt. Most of the chicken in Cuba comes from Mississippi and Alabama.
Pre-Castro, Cubans had the third-highest caloric intake in Latin America. Today, the average Cuban gets half a pound of chicken and 10 to 12 eggs every 10 days.
Hardly a night goes by without a demonstration somewhere on the island. On March 13, a march through the streets of the regional capital of Moron ended with a mob storming the Communist Party headquarters.
In Cuba, the regime has all the guns, which makes open revolt impossible. It operates a string of political prisons where 1,200 are currently incarcerated. That is the equivalent of 40,000 political prisoners in the U.S.
On my first day in Havana, I was walking along the Malecon by the sea when I struck up a conversation with a gentleman who seemed well-informed. I invited him to come back to my hotel for lunch. He politely declined. Ordinary Cubans are not allowed to enter tourist hotels. It is one of the many contradictions of Cuban communism. Power to the people — but not access to the hotels they are forced to build.
The doorman at my hotel told me he was a civil engineer. He could earn $20 a month practicing his profession or $20 a day in tips. Communism turns engineers into doormen.
My most poignant encounter was on my last night in Havana. I met a young man who was selling postcards. He came to the capital to study physics but then decided there was not much of a future in that or anything else in Cuba.
When he heard me speaking English, he approached me. “You’re an American? For God’s sake, help me to get out of here! I don’t want to end up like them.” He pointed with his chin to older Cubans shuffling by on the street. I gave him $20 and the name of a contact who might have been able to help. I hope he made it out.
I think of him and others I met in Cuba as the island wakes from a 67-year-old nightmare.
The Miami-based Center for a Free Cuba is calling for the release of all political prisoners, bringing in international human rights monitors and holding free and fair elections for a popular government.
Cuba has been part of our consciousness for as long as I can recall: the Castro revolution, the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban missile crisis, the Mariel boat lift and the flight of more than 1 million Cubans, including the parents of Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Cuba’s rulers will never give up on communism any more than the ayatollahs will give up on radical Islam.
Talk is cheap. The island’s future lies in two words: Cuba libre.
. HOLLAND IS BACK HOME! She flew into Dulles yesterday afternoon, and will be spending a Summer of Leisure here in the Commonwealth. DUDLEY IS SO HAPPY to see her, that he forgot he was angry with English and me for leaving him to travel to Dallas.
It was not an easy trip for our little girl. She was supposed to arrive Tuesday afternoon. And then her flight was delayed. And delayed. And delayed. And then, cancelled. Sigh.
Luckily our daughter has her Father’s knack for traveling, and absorbing the slings and arrows that come flying at one occasionally. She rebooked her flight to Dulles. Then American Airlines automatically rebooked her to travel all night to Hartford, Connecticut, and the on to Reagan Airport. That must have been the U.S. Air portion of American Airlines, because when traveling from Dallas, Texas to Washington, D.C., you do not go by way of Hartford, Connecticut. So that plan was rejected in favor of 2 days’ delay.
And Holland did not complain at all. She did not cry. She did not whine. Which cannot be said of many people. Holland reports that when it was announced that the flight was cancelled, there was almost a riot, as grown adults melted down at DFW. Shortly after that, Holland was off to a nice dinner with her friends, and then safely back in her apartment for the night. The rioters got to eat at TGI Fridays, and sleep on the B Concourse.
Luckily Holland left Dallas ahead of the Memorial Day Weekend rush. And the thunderstorms that plagued Dallas again yesterday.
English informed me of a very fun fact. Between Memorial Day and Labor Day, inclusive, Americans eat 818 hot dogs every second. That is 7.5 billion hot dogs. WOW! I am not keeping up my end in this regard.
The President must be a native born U.S. citizen as a qualification to serve in office. Naturalized citizens can serve in other elected federal offices, such as Congress, as well as the courts, and State offices as well. Should that change? Should only native born U.S. citizens be members of Congress or federal judges, or even bureaucrats? If not, why not? And if you disagree, I have 2 words for you: Ilhan Omar.
“The Class of 2026 is graduating at an incredible, exciting time for our nation [. . .]
Our national strength is back, our morale is back [. . .] confidence is back, and, above all, American is back, BIGGER and BETTER and STRONGER than ever before. We have a STRONG, GREAT, RESPECTED country again”
–President Trump, speaking to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy graduating class at commencement. The President later pardoned all those cadets currently on restriction. WINNING!
The President is an inspiring leader, always ready to proclaim the greatness of our country, and to praise those who make it great. But day in and day out, he endures the slings and arrows of media and Democrat criticism (but I repeat myself), most all of it false, the rest misleading. But he keeps plugging. Do you hear Leftists praising America? Or do you hear Democrats denigrating our country, cheering for our enemies, sabotaging our economy, and lecturing us on how to live our lives?
Let us look at a small issue, the restoration of the Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial. President Obama spent $34 million over 2 years to restore the Reflecting Pool. President Trump spent $13 million over 2 weeks to restore the Reflecting Pool. AND, he got sued for doing it! Did the media criticize President Obama for the Reflecting Pool restoration? It did not. Did the media criticize President Trump over the same thing? Yes it did!
How about the price of gasoline? The average price of a gallon of gasoline has spiked at $4.50, due to the Iranian conflict. The media has gone nuts over this, proclaiming over and over that the President caused this, and the midterm elections will punish Republicans for raised prices. Hmmmm. The average price of gasoline hit $5.85 a gallon under President Obama, with no Iranian war to cause the price spike. Instead, high prices occurred due to federal government policies, restricting production. The media’s reaction? Crickets.
Finally, let us look at armed conflicts. Under President Obama, the United States was in its 10th year of the Afghanistan War, with no end in sight, and no plan to end it. The media was fine with it. Under President Trump, after 10 weeks during which the United States has neutered and destroyed Iran’s military capabilities, and imposed a complete naval blockade closing the Straits of Hormuz, depriving Iran of any income, the Democrats and the media have declared Iran the winner, the United States the loser, and insist that Iran is stronger than ever.
Donald Trump does not need the job of President of the United States. He was wealthy, successful, and influential long before becoming President. He has nothing to prove. But he is in his second term, working every day to make America great. He wants the American people to succeed. He works to make success available to all Americans. He works to keep our country safe. He works for our country, because he is a patriot. You will hear none of this on the evening news broadcasts.
Do you think the media might be biased? Do you think the Democrats are lying for political advantage? Of course you do! And if you truly do not, you are not paying attention.
A former federal prosecutor was indicted on criminal charges for secretly emailing sealed, confidential documents to her personal email account. The disgraced former federal prosecutor labeled the files as cake recipes in her attempt to avoid detection. She faces 20 years in prison, if convicted.
Senator John Thune (R. S.D.) just adjourned the Senate until June, without finishing the pending spending reconciliation bill. Because he is throwing a temper tantrum about his buddy Senator Bill Cassidy (R. La.) being tossed by Louisiana’s voters. All hail The Stupid Party! A$$HOLE!
The China Joe Administration opened up a criminal investigation into the Southern Poverty Law Center on the same bases as did the Trump Administration. But instead of pursing the SPLC’s grift of funding racism in order to profit off its donors, the China Joe Administration dropped the investigation. Instead, Attorney General Merrick Garland paid the SPLC to train its attorneys. The Justice Department allowed the SPLC to guide smears of traditional Catholics, the Moms for Liberty group, and other traditional values organizations. And it seems that the Obama Administration was well aware that the entire “Unite The Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, at which 1 woman was murdered, others injured, and which China Joe claims inspired him to run for President, was funded entirely by the SPLC. There are no words to describe the depravity of the Democrats’ use of race and hatred to manipulate the American people, to their advantage.
As an aside, the SPLC’s annual income under the China Joe Administration rose from $51 million to $133 million. Want to guess which political party the SPLC supports?
“The last job I had in uniform — my job was to get better. It was to heal. It’s a very selfish thing. My job was to heal. The Marine Corps paid me to get better, and then I retired. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but it was unfinished business.”
–FOX News host Johnny Joey Jones, who reenlisted in the United States Marine Corps.
Joey Jones lost his 2 lower legs in Afghanistan, in service to our country. His attitude is inspiring. He is a great American.
Virginia Abigail Spanberger (D.) signed an executive order banning ICE agents from election polling places, and instructing election officials to evict any ICE agents who appear. That is not going to work. But why? Why would you ban ICE agents from election polling places, unless it was because illegal aliens from voting? Maybe Abigail is worried about losing that 20% of Fairfax County’s population.
Make Abigail Go Away!
“The reality is that we expected the Supreme Court of Virginia to respect the constitution and the will of the people. They did not . . . We will make sure that Justice Kelsey does not serve anymore come this January.”
–Virginia Delegate Dan Helmer (D. Fairfax), expressing his anger over not getting to run for Congress in a gerrymandered district.
Threatening to toss a Virginia Supreme Court Justice? The Democrats are unhinged! Dan Helmer is a carpetbagger, and a LOSER!
Washington, D.C.’s Southwest Neighborhood Library branch celebrated its 5th birthday with a drag queen story hour for children. Sigh.
Lucy Biggers is a former “climate change” activist. She was a giant among the climate scolds. But recently, Lucy Biggers has had a change of heart. She reveals that the entire “climate change”, “global warming” agenda is a hoax. It is a scheme to control people’s lives. It is tyranny, dressed up in apocalyptic garb, insisting that control is necessary to save our lives. IT IS A LIE!
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library’s 250th American Celebration Exhibit opens today, and it has lots of nifty things to see, including, but not limited to:
Revolutionary War officer’s uniform and spouse’s dress;
An 18th-century American flag.
It sounds fantastic. I want to go, and hope to do so. I hope you all do too!
Southern Living magazine ranked the best grocery store cakes, and Costco won. Huh. It seems that the judges liked the cake to icing ratio. Also, Costco gives you a 1/2 sheet cake for a price less than 1/2 the price of other grocery stores sold their 1/4 sheet cakes. Whole Foods came in 2nd.
In Great Britain, Henry Nowak as stabbed 8 times by Vikrum Singh Digwa. The police arrived, where Henry Nowak lay bleeding on the sidewalk. Mr. Digwa told police–falsely–that he only stabbed Mr. Nowak because Mr. Nowak called him a “racist” name. So police naturally arrested Mr. Nowak, and let Mr. Digwa go. And while Mr. Nowak was obviously bleeding profusely from his 8 stab wounds, the police ignored his pleas for help, and continued with the arrest process. Mr. Nowak died at the scene.
Sage Creek Elementary School in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada has eliminated any mention, celebration or consideration of Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day. Instead, the school will only recognize “families”. Hmmm. Coming soon to a Leftist run public school near you.
Iran is hell bent on national suicide. The United States has been very patient, and loathe to inflict complete destruction on the country. But the time has come to act. Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran!
HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY to Meghan Shelton! Her big day occurred while I was in Dallas. I hope it was fun!
The U.S. Department of Justice indicted Raoul Castro for murder, in connection with the downing of a plane carrying Cuban Americans. WINNING!
The U.S. Department of Justice is suing the Commonwealth of Virginia over the gun laws recently enacted by the General Assembly and signed by Governor Abigail Spanberger (D. Va.). YAY!
My friend and golfing buddy Blaine Lowery came up with a good use of the phrase MAGA, for we Virginians suffering from the tyranny of Democrat socialism. Make Abigail Go Away. I really, really like it. It belongs on t-shirts, hats, billboards, cups, etc.
During a Congressional hearing on transportation, Senator Kristen Gillibrand (D. N.Y.) got into a back and forth with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, and denied that she ever had flown on a private jet. Hmmm. It turns out that Senator Gillibrand has spent millions on private jet travel, and is documented as being the member of Congress that is 2nd in private jet use. That is #2 out of 535. Wow. Senator Gillibrand is a liar. But then you already knew that.
At a Congressional hearing, Senator Chris Van Hollen (D. Md.) lied through his teeth, when addressing the witness, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. Mr. Blanche called out Senator Van Hollen for his lies, which angered Senator Van Hollen. Liars never like being called a liar.
Senator Bill Cassidy (R. La.) will not be returning to the United States Senate, having lost his primary election, finishing 3rd. Senator Cassidy is a reliable pain in the President’s posterior, largely because he is an unprincipled Establishment kind of guy, with the spine of a jellyfish. Kind of like Thom Tillis (R. N.C.) who is also being exiled from the Senate.
Senator Cassidy wasted no time in breaking ranks with the President and the GOP, voting with Democrats to advance a War Powers Resolution calling for the end of military action in Iran. Stay classy, Senator Cassidy!
“As a guarantee, we are taking back control of the United States House of Representatives in November. We will defeat them. We have to beat them electorally, and then we have to break their spirit, because of the extremism that’s being unleashed on the American people, that’s completely and totally unacceptable.”
–Representative Hakeem Jeffries (D. N.Y.).
Oh, my!
Representative Thomas Massie (R. Ky.) will not be returning to the United States House of Representatives. Like Senator Cassidy, he is a major pain in the a$$, whose only principle is being obstinate.
“What about this passage from Mike Johnson declaring that our rights do not derive from government? They come from you, our creator and heavenly father. Is this him putting God over the Declaration of Independence?”
–MS NOW host Katy Tur, demonstrating her astounding ignorance of so many things.
I should not be so hard on Katy Tur. She is naturally confused. After all, her father thinks he is her mother. Dresses like her too. And she used to date Keith Olbermann, the absolute worst person in the world.
West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrissey (R.) is on a full scale assault on Virginia, urging businesses and citizens to relocate to The Mountaineer State. Governor Morrissey cites Virginia’ high taxes and complex regulations, imposed by Democrats. Governor Abigail Spanberger (D. Va.) is not amused.
“How many people, who are unhoused, that you meet have no teeth at all? They don’t have teeth, why? Because meth rots your teeth. YOU CAN’T SUCCEED WITHOUT TEETH! So there needs to be comprehensive healthcare provided to people.”
–Los Angeles, California Mayor Karen Bass, urging that taxpayers should provide comprehensive medical care to the drug users who plague L.A.’s streets.
Current City Councilman and mayoral hopeful Nithya Raman (D.) dismissed the importance of cleaning up L.A.’s streets, and removing homeless encampments from residential neighborhoods, because “it does not matter”. That statement brought loud booing from the assembled crowd. You might think that Councilman Nithya Raman would quit while she was behind. NOPE! She then went on to propose that backyard grilling be banned, due to the risk of wildfires. That did not go over well either.
The City of Los Angeles Fire Department keeps records on the causes of all fires within its jurisdiction. In 2025, more than 17,000 fires were caused by the homeless in their encampments. Backyard grills caused . . . zero (0) fires.
It does not matter, Councilman Nithya Raman? Yes it does matter!
California’s policies are increasing consumer’s energy prices by $1,518.00 in 2026. That is a lot of money, on top of a lot of money already being spent.
If you are still in California, and have a lick of sense, now is the time to leave. It is only going to get worse.
Maryland Governor Wes Moore (D.) claims that racism is “inherent in the fabric of America”. No, it is not.
U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner (D. Me.) has an energy plan he proposes to have Congress enact. Mr. Platner’s plan would freeze electricity rates for 4 years and a windfall profits tax on oil companies. If enacted, people would be sitting in the dark, and freezing in Winter. Many of them in Maine.
Remember President Carter’s windfall profits oil tax? How did that work out? Answer: Not too good.
U.S. Senate candidate Mallory McMorrow (D. Mi.) is pushing for legislation that would stop utility cut-offs to residential users, as well as forgiving past due debts, and strictly regulating the price of providing utilities. She calls that part of her “affordability” agenda. Well, it seems that Mallory McMorrow and her husband accrued nearly a year’s worth of unpaid water bills, supplying their million dollar home. Hmmmm. Maybe there is another motivation behind Mallory McMorrow’s “affordability” agenda.
“[G]o f**king shoot yourself!”
–Minnesota State Representative Aisha Gomez (D.) to a Republican legislator who voted against a draconian gun ban in the Minnesota House of Representatives.
Western Michigan University Professor Parker Crutchfield is urging the medical field to ensure that all Americans become infected with the tick born alpha-gal syndrome. Those infected with the alpha–gal syndrome are unable to eat meat, and become sick if they do. Some even die. So why would anyone want to do this? According to Parker Crutchfield, eating meat is so morally wrong, anything done to stop it is acceptable. And to appeal to a wider audience, he notes that if people stop eating meat, it will help alleviate “global warming”.
Parker Crutchfield denies that he is actually advocating this scheme, even though he is actually advocating this scheme. He claims that he is just thinking “out loud”. Uh, huh.
By the way, Parker Crutchfield eats meat. Even though it is morally wrong. Want to guess someone does not want to be infected with the alpha-gal syndrome?
Parker Crutchfield is not just sick and twisted–he is. Parker Crutchfield is pure evil. And he enjoys lots of company on the Left side of the political spectrum.
Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice James Blacklock sent a sharply worded letter to Dallas County Court at Law Judge D’Metria Benson, demanding she either justify or withdraw a courtroom mask mandate that has been requiring attorneys, jurors, witnesses, and members of the public to wear masks and disclose personal health information before entering her courtroom. That was last week. In the year of our Lord, 2026. What is wrong with this woman?
U.S. House of Representatives candidate Maureen Galindo (D. Tx.) wants to turn ICE detention centers into prisons for “American Zionists” and ICE officers. Oh, my goodness!
Why does U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico (D. Tx.) hate white people? Oh, yeah! He is a Democrat!
“You could DOUBLE the taxes I pay — and it’s NOT gonna help that teacher in Queens!”
–Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, addressing New York City Comrade Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s (D.) “tax the rich” crusade.
Florida energy company NextEra is buying Virginia’s Dominion Energy. The combination will create the world’s largest energy supplier. Good luck dealing with the Democrats’ “green energy” scam/schemes.
In 1970, a popular beer commercial proclaimed that “11 million times a day, America turns to Schlitz”. It was the most popular beer in the United States. In 2026, Schlitz beer is being discontinued after 177 years in business. Sad.
Las Vegas, Nevada’s Heart Attack Grille is closing after 21 years. The over the top burger joint, where massive burgers, beer, fries and unfiltered cigarettes were celebrated is no more. *#&$!
I never ate at the Heart Attack Grille, and never would. But I find it a shame that such places are rare. People should be able to live their lives as they choose. And if you choose to eat 1 lb. cheeseburgers, drink 6 Miller Beers, and then chain smoke unfiltered Camel cigarettes, then have at it!
“In the name of Jesus, get in the car.”
–British police officer, arresting Pastor Steve Maile.
Senior Paster Steve Maile of Oasis City Church in Watford, England was arrested by British police, and criminally charged on criminal “hate speech” charges. What was Pastor Maile doing to incur such charges? He was preaching The Gospel on a public sidewalk. Police told him that his speech was “inflammatory” and hurtful to any Muslims nearby.
In Southeast London, England parks, machete fights occur on a daily basis, as Muslim immigrants settle their differences by trying to murder each other. That is not good.
In Spain, an elderly couple were riding in an elevator, when they asked a man to please turn down his music blaring from a radio. For their impertinence, the man–a North African migrant–brutally beat the couple, with the music blaring in the background.
LIV golf tour is preparing to file for bankruptcy protection. The players probably should have worn long pants. Good-bye!
In the Southeastern Conference’s baseball tournament, Vanderbilt University pitcher Connor Fennell taunted a University of Kentucky batter, screaming at him “You’re f**king mine, let’s go!” Connor Fennell then delivered the pitch, right over the plate, which the batter promptly sent screaming out of the park for a home run. Karma.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People wants black student athletes to boycott Southern universities and colleges, in retaliation for redistricting legislative districts. The NAACP’s campaign calls out Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and South Carolina as States to boycott, arguing that the athletic programs of those States’ flagship universities are especially reliant on black athletic talent and should protect black political interests. The NAACP may have been formed with good intentions. But in 2026, it is not only unnecessary, but it has devolved into an advocate of racism. Just like its parent company, the Democrat Party.
How much sense does it make for a black athlete to turn his back on an opportunity to play football at the University of Alabama, simply because the State government is following the Constitution–the law of the land–in drawing its legislative districts? Why should a black athlete blow up his future for the interests of the Democrat Party? THIS IS SO STUPID!
Former Representative Barney Frank (D. Ma.) has died at age 86. R. I. P.
President Trump endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R.) for the United States Senate. The Dallas Morning News is not pleased. Neither is incumbent Senator John Cornyn (R.). And that screaming sound you hear is the Washington Establishment folks, outraged that one of their teammates may bite the dust.
Congress is considering imposing a $130 annual fee on electric vehicles. Not enough. Raise it!
Two (2) radical Leftist judges are running for a seat on the Georgia Supreme Court. Both have been accused of violating the State’s judicial canon of ethics. A federal judge–who just happens to be failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams’s (D. Ga.) sister–enjoined the State Judicial Qualifications Commission from commenting on their findings as to these 2 judges. The federal judge cited the First Amendment “free speech” rights of the 2 judges. Huh. What about the “free speech” rights of the Commission members? Or the rights of the taxpayers to know what is going on with these 2?
In a joint statement, the [G7] finance chiefs from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States said they remained committed to stable energy markets and urged countries to avoid arbitrary export restrictions. Yes, fine. But other than the United States, what are the other countries doing about it? Other than whining, complaining, and blaming the United States?
I am exhausted. Too much fun was had in Dallas celebrating Holland’s graduation. And the flight back was fine, as was the drive home from the airport, but . . . still. It was a lot.
Now it was a VERY BIG TIME! Thoroughly enjoyed seeing friends, meeting Holland’s friends and their parents. Everything was lovely. Dallas is a great city, and SMU is a beautiful and inviting campus. But you can only have so much fun. Though, English might disagree with me on that point.
Today I try and catch up, and inform you dear readers on some of the important things that happened in my absence. Eventually, I will become current. But for now, let us get started.
The United States Senate confirmed Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve Bank Chairman. He cannot be any worse than Jerome Powell.
“South Carolina, where the first shot of the civil war was fired, where 40 percent of those enslaved came through the Charleston port, is today engaged in an ugly recidivism to draw maps that will deny a black person the chance to serve in Congress. The stakes could not be higher. Our political fight is not on a playground, but a moral battleground. We must stand for black representation across the South.”
–Representative Ro Khanna (D. Ca.).
Senator Tim Scott (R. S.C.) is not black? Since when? I must have missed that.
“The ghost of the Confederacy has afflicted the United States Supreme Court majority and is invading and haunting the nation right now, and we take that seriously.”
–Representative Hakeem Jeffries (D. N.Y.).
How dumb is this man? Every time he opens his mouth, he says something incredibly stupid. And false.
“I think Republicans face a new time of choosing whether we’re gonna stay on the path of the traditional conservative principles that have always defined our party for the last half century or whether we’re going to follow the siren song of populism on more to conservative principles,” the former vice president said. “And there are loud voices in and out of government, some of which have been able to influence the new Trump administration in ways that are taking our party and our movement far afield from those traditional conservative underpinnings.”
–Former Vice-President Mike Pence.
If anyone cared what Mike Pence had to say, he would still be in political office. The truth is, no one cares. Go away.
Democrat led States are refusing to issue registrations to undercover cars being used by ICE in immigration operations. Sigh. This is so unbelievable.
In San Diego, California, 2 teenagers opened fire at a mosque, killing 3. Senseless. Absolutely senseless.
San Diego authorities promised to investigate the mosque shooting as a “hate crime”. Sigh. Is there really any such thing as a “love crime”? Are all crimes a manifestation of hate?
Delaware Democrats are seeking to redistrict their State. One (1) problem. Delaware is 1 district, and the seat is already held by a Democrat. What are they going to change, the State’s boundaries? Oh, good gracious!
The United States Supreme Court rejected Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones’s Petition for Certiorari, seeking to overturn the Supreme Court of Virginia’s redistricting decision. Told you so.
Democrats are now exploring a plan to abolish the entire Virginia state level government. Democrats control both houses of the General Assembly. The Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General are Democrats. BUT, because they lost 1 decision (4-3) at the Supreme Court, the Democrats want to burn it all down. My goodness, these people are power hungry tyrants!
Governor Abigail Spanberger (D. Va.) signed legislation making public universities and colleges “gun free zones”. What could possibly go wrong?
In 2007, VPI was a “gun free zone” when a disgruntled student murdered 32 and wounded 17 with 2 pistols. No one could stop him because no students or faculty carried firearms. Because it was a “gun free zone”. But the shooter did not care about the regulations concerning firearms. Because he was a criminal. Criminals by definition do not abide by laws and regulations. But the law abiding did. And for that, they died at the hands of a crazed gunman.
What would have happened if even only 1 faculty member or student had been armed? Or would the incident even have occurred if the shooter were faced with a situation where others might have been armed? Would not the possibility that some of his intended victims were armed have deterred him? We shall never know. But maybe.
The University of Virginia placed tampon dispensers in men’s restrooms throughout the campus. What a dumb idea! What a waste of money!
Virginia’s Appalachian School of Law [Buchanan County] is exploring affiliating with the University of Pikeville [Kentucky]. It may be the cash strapped school’s only hope for survival.
At Freedom High School, in Loudoun County, Virginia, a “trans” student has been surreptitiously filming students in restrooms. What is it about Loudoun County public schools and these “trans” students?
In Fairfax County, Virginia, 1 in 5 residents are illegal aliens. That is a problem. That is a HUGE problem.
When the Tennessee legislature approved legislation to redistrict the State, House Democrats erupted in protest on the House floor, waving banners, shouting profanities, throwing objects, threatening State troopers, and disrupting legislative business. As a reward, the Tennessee House Speaker has removed all Democrats from their legislative committee assignments. Now these petulant Democrats will have lots of time to be disruptive outside of the legislative arena.
The South Carolina Supreme Court unanimously overturned Alex Murdaugh’s murder convictions, and remanded the matters for a new trial. The Court found that the Court Clerk’s improper communications with the jury interfered with his right to a fair trial.
In Nebraska, the Democrats are going to nominate a Senate candidate who will quit the race immediately after being nominated. Democrats will then claim that the best choice to beat the Republican incumbent is an “independent” candidate, who is, in actuality, a radical Leftist Democrat. This is nothing but “moderate” Abigail Spanberger 2.0. On steroids.
People will be forgiven for believing that Animal Crackers were invented by Nabisco, and distributed via the familiar red Barnum’s boxes. I certainly believed that, but it is not so. Animal Crackers were invented in England in the mid-1800s, and were first baked in America by David Stauffer, owner of the D.F. Stauffer Biscuit Company. How ’bout that?!?
Pizza Hut is the #1 pizza chain in the United States. And now Pizza Hut is returning to its roots which got it to that position. The chain is refurbishing its restaurants to their origins; red and white check table cloths, red plastic cups, and the always popular salad bar.
Will Young was in Las Vegas, Nevada with friends, when they got a case of the munchies. They all went to In-N-Out Burger, where they ordered 1 burger–a Double/Double, with an extra 98 hamburger patties and 98 extra pieces of cheese. In-N-Out made it for them! And according to Will and friends, it was delicious, and they finished it. What a great In-N-Out story! One of my favorites.
Late Saturday night following Holland’s graduation, several of us went to In-N-Out in Dallas. It was packed. I enjoyed a Double-Double, and a strawberry shake. It was heavenly!
Congratulations to Napoleon Solo on winning The Preakness Stakes. It was the 3 year old’s first win of the year.
Congratulations to Aaron Rai on winning the PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania. A strong finish propelled him to a decisive win over the field.
LSU head football coach Lane Kiffin opened his big mouth again, insulting his previous employer, the University of Mississippi. Coach Kiffin claimed–for the 1st time, and without any specifics–that he lost a lot of black recruits because Mississippi is . . . “racist”. Coach Kiffin went on to insist that he does not have that problem at LSU, because it is so “diverse”, “welcoming”, and “inclusive”. Sigh. Lane Kiffin is an a$$!
Former Los Angeles Police Detective Mark Fuhrman has died at age 74. R. I. P.
Film critic Rex Reed has died at age 87. R. I. P.
Former San Francisco 49ers tight end Charle Young has died at age 75. R. I. P.
Former New York Jets player and NFL coach Sherman Lewis has died at age 83. R. I. P.
Pinehurst, North Carolina is a magical place for golfers. The Carolina Sand Hills are home to many of the best golf courses in the nation. The weather is usually pleasant, though Summers are a challenge (as they are throughout the South).
One of my favorite places to hang out is a comfortable place called the Pine Crest Inn. Situated in the Village of Pinehurst, it is just a short walk from the 1st tee at Pinehurst #2, as well as the much more posh (and expensive) Carolina Hotel. The Pine Crest Inn is historic, iconic, and friendly. The food is good, and the drinks are better. Like Pawley’s Island, South Carolina, the Pine Crest Inn is “arrogantly shabby”.
One January afternoon, I sat in a rocking chair on the front porch smoking a cigar and drinking Scotch. The temperature was a pleasant 75 degrees. The next afternoon, it was snowing and cold. I still sat in a rocking chair on the front porch smoking a cigar and drinking Scotch, albeit wearing heavier clothes than on the day before.
Robert and I were staying there in the middle of an ice storm one Winter, when all the guests left but us. The manager and the chef went to bed around 10:00 p.m., tossing the keys to us, and telling us to lock up before we went to bed. Which, a couple of drinks later, we did.
The article below was originally published in Pine Straw magazine. I hope you enjoy.
Home Away From Home
The legend and allure of the Pine Crest
By Bill Case
It’s March 1961. You’re 45 and a lifelong resident of Erie, Pennsylvania, where you’re the respected managing editor of the local newspaper, the Erie Daily Times. You’ve worked at the paper for 20 years and been its editor for five. You have an excellent relationship with the paper’s owner. The job is yours as long as you want it. And you love it.
Your wife, Betty, comes from a prominent Erie family. Her father, Charles A. Dailey Sr., owned and operated Dailey’s Chevrolet from 1925 until his death in 1958, when Betty’s brother, Charles “Chuck” Dailey Jr., took over. The Dailey family has been among Erie’s foremost philanthropists. And your kids — Bobby, age 9, and Peter, age 5 — are happy in Erie.
Bob and Betty Barrett seemed the unlikeliest of couples to pull up stakes and seek a new life. While Bob was making a good living at the hometown paper, he wanted to own his own business. He discussed the possibility of partnering with Betty’s father in a second auto dealership in Erie, but that trial balloon blew away with Charles Sr.’s death. His passing did, however, result in a significant bequest to daughter Betty. With this nest egg and additional assistance from Betty’s mother, Elizabeth Dailey, the Barretts began looking for investment opportunities. But where?
“My dad had contracted pneumonia and worried he might not live long if he stayed where he was,” says Bobby Barrett, now 74. “He thought he stood a better chance of a long life if the family moved south. The Barretts and Daileys made regular golf trips to the Sandhills after my dad started playing in his mid-’30s. He fell in love with Pinehurst.”
While walking down Dogwood Road during a March ’61 vacation, Bob happened to encounter Carl Moser, then owner of the Pine Crest, sweeping the inn’s front steps. The men struck up a conversation in which Moser indicated he would consider selling if the price was right. Bob and Betty began mulling over the idea of making an offer. While the Pine Crest was no luxury hotel, the Barretts knew that many golfers weren’t interested in cushy surroundings. The inn’s 44 modestly sized rooms provided a homey, affordable alternative to the upscale lodgings at the Carolina Hotel and Holly Inn. And it was a going concern. The Pine Crest boasted a solid base of recurring guests, migrating golfers who returned like swallows year after year. Some had been doing it for as long as the inn had been in existence, 48 years.
Built in 1913, the hotel was the creation of enterprising innkeeper Emma Bliss. A New Hampshire native, Bliss had spent the previous nine years (1903 to 1912 ) managing The Lexington Hotel — where The Manor is today — which primarily served as a boarding house for resort employees. Leonard Tufts, who controlled most business activity in Pinehurst, hired Bliss after being impressed with her surehanded management of a Bethlehem, New Hampshire, inn.
Bliss shuttled back and forth with the seasons between managing The Lexington and her inn in Bethlehem. Possessing an entrepreneurial spirit of her own, she aspired to own a hotel herself, not just manage one. In January 1913, Tufts sold Bliss property on Dogwood Road, adjacent to the Lexington. By year end, she had erected and opened the Pine Crest Inn.
The Pinehurst Outlook hailed the inn’s arrival as a “delightful addition to the list of hotels; its comfort is suggested by the charm of its exterior . . . Modern in every particular, it provides several suites with private bath; radiant with fresh air; sunshine, good cheer, and ‘hominess’.”
Bliss operated the Pine Crest for seven years before selling it in April 1920 to Donald Ross and his fellow Scot expatriate W. James MacNab for $52,500. Ross, Pinehurst’s patron saint, was hitting his stride in the golf course architecture business and supplied the money for the purchase. MacNab managed the inn.
Instead of simply returning to run The Lexington, Bliss bought that property and tore down the old hotel. In its footprint, she erected a new lodging house — The Manor, a far more upscale house than its predecessor. Neither Tufts nor Ross seemed to begrudge Emma’s maneuvering, and Bliss owned and operated The Manor until her death in 1936.
To keep pace, Ross financed several improvements at the Pine Crest. He summarized them in correspondence with a prospective buyer in 1939: “Ever since I purchased the property, I have put back every cent earned and also some additional cash in the furnishing and maintenance of it. . . . Among the improvements I made are a telephone in every room and a Grinnell fireproofing system.” Ross dropped an additional $35,000 adding the inn’s east wing.
The Ross era at the inn began winding down after MacNab died in 1942. Aging himself, Ross chose to sell the inn in 1944 to the Arthur L. Roberts Hotel Company for $65,000. The company operated hotels in Florida, Minnesota and Indiana. The company’s founder, Arthur L. Roberts, arranged for title to the Pine Crest’s property to be placed in his individual name.
In September 1950, Carl Moser came to Pinehurst to manage the Pine Crest. Moser had extensive experience in hotel management and customer service. In 1941, the native New Yorker managed the Officers Club at Fort Bragg while serving in the Army Reserve. He had subsequent stints managing hotels in Greensboro (the Sedgefield Inn), Charlotte (Selwyn Hotel) and Stamford, Connecticut.
Along with his wife, Jean, the Mosers chose to live in the Pine Crest, occupying rooms 6, 8 and 10 on the first floor. Daughter Carlean joined her parents in these cozy quarters following her birth in May 1953. Arthur L. Roberts passed away in October 1952, and the trustees of his eponymously named company began liquidating its portfolio of hotels. In June 1953, Carl and Jean Moser entered into a land contract with Roberts Hotels to buy the Pine Crest Inn for $65,000 — $12,000 down and the balance paid over time.
By virtue of the deed records, Roberts’ heirs thought they owned the property, not the company. If they were right, neither Roberts Hotels nor the Mosers had any cognizable interest in the property. To resolve the issue, litigation was instituted in Moore County in September 1953. After hearing evidence, a local jury determined that (1) Roberts was acting in his capacity “as president and agent” of Roberts Hotel in effecting the 1944 purchase from Ross and MacNab; (2) it was Roberts Hotels, not Arthur Roberts individually, that paid the $65,000 purchase price; and (3) Roberts Hotels was not “under any duty to provide for the said Arthur L. Roberts in purchasing said property.”
Roberts Hotels was declared the inn’s rightful owner. Carl and Jean Moser breathed a sigh of relief; they had been dealing with the right party after all. And if in the future they wanted to sell the inn, they could do so.
Eight years later, the Mosers were ready to entertain offers, but according to daughter Carlean, her parents did not initially consider the Barretts serious prospects. After the sidewalk chat between Bob and Carl, there was no immediate follow-up. Not long afterward, however, representatives of the Barretts — probably Betty and her brother Chuck, who had experience in evaluating businesses — came to inspect the premises. Negotiations heated up, and in May 1961, the Barretts agreed to buy the Pine Crest for $125,000.
Since the Dailey side of the family was providing the capital, it was determined Betty would hold title to the property.
Unlike Carl and Jean, the Barretts chose not to reside in the Pine Crest. They bought Chatham Cottage (now Barrett Cottage) across Dogwood Road and made it the family’s home. Over the summer, Bob moved his wife and children to Pinehurst, took a crash course in hotel management, and announced a fall reopening date of October 12, 1961.
Eight-year-old Carlean Moser was heartsick to be departing the inn. “My dad broached the subject by asking whether I thought it would be fun for us to live in our own house,” recalls Moser, now 74 and living in Washington, Georgia. “I said it wouldn’t be fun if it meant I had to make my own bed or couldn’t order off a menu like I could always do at the inn.”
To Carlean the Pine Crest’s employees were like family. Some doubled as playmates. Carl Jackson, the inn’s head chef since the Donald Ross days, was a special favorite. The burly African American would spot Carlean entering the kitchen and commence beating the pots and pans hanging over the counter. The cacophonous clanging delighted the little girl. “I nicknamed Carl “Boom-Boom,” says Moser. “He was kind and fun.”
She played with guests too. At age 6, she sat on the lap of 19-year-old lodger Jack Nicklaus, in town for the 1959 North and South Amateur (which he won). ”We sat in the lobby watching the Mickey Mouse Club on television, and I wore my mouse ears,” says Moser. “Jack was very shy then. As long as I was on his lap, no one was going to bother him.” (Nicklaus bunked in room 205 in ’59; 26 years later, son Jack Jr. also roomed in 205 while winning his own North and South title).
The inevitable pitfalls of Barrett’s unlikely career switch presented the sort of scenario reminiscent of the 1980s comedy Newhart, the long-running television show about a New York City-based author of travel books, played by Bob Newhart, who abandons his former life to operate a 200 year-old Vermont inn.
In contrast to Newhart’s neighbors — Larry, Darryl and his other brother Darryl — a coterie of dedicated employees kept Barrett on track. Foremost was Jackson, who proved to be the ultimate lifer, remaining the inn’s chef until 1997, a full 61 years of employment. Starting in 1936 as “the pot washer” in the kitchen, Jackson began preparing meals about five years later.
“I started cooking under a German lady, “he told a Pilot interviewer in 1986. “She became ill and left it in my hands.” Jackson mastered a variety of Southern-style recipes. His pièce de résistance was “Chef Jackson’s Famous Pork Chop,” 22 ounces of meat “so tender you can cut through it with a fork,” effused writer John March in his 100th anniversary piece “Legends of the Pine Crest.” The famous dish is still on the menu.
Barrett insisted the kitchen serve the best cuts of prime meat. Specially ordered steaks came from Gertman’s in Boston. Freshly squeezed orange juice graced breakfast tables. Assisting Jackson in the kitchen was his apprentice and nephew, Peter Jackson. Peter had been employed at the inn for three years when the Barretts arrived and worked in tandem with his uncle for nearly 40 years. Carl Jackson’s cousins Elizabeth “Tiz” Russell and Josephine “Peanut” Russell Swinnie were sisters and permanent fixtures on the housekeeping staff. Tiz also babysat for youngsters Bobby and Peter.
Then there was Peggy Thompson, who supervised the dining room for decades, charming the guests and making a point to know them on a first-name basis. She recruited Marie Hartsell, who labored at the inn for 33 years, first on the wait staff, then as kitchen supervisor. Though Hartsell did not fancy herself a cook, she assisted in the kitchen baking pies. Her tasty banana cream became a Payne Stewart favorite.
And Betty Barrett was a worker bee too. She assumed the duties of an assistant manager, working behind the counter, preparing menus and ordering supplies. Even Betty’s mother, Mrs. Dailey, a frequent presence in Pinehurst, pitched in, assisting with the inn’s bookkeeping.
Though it took time for Bob Barrett to find his innkeeping sea legs, his personality proved perfectly suited for his position. A natural schmoozer, Barrett easily befriended guests. A major factor was his resourcefulness in arranging golf itineraries, an aspect of the job he enjoyed. During the ’60s, independent hotels like the Pine Crest had little difficulty getting starting times at the Pinehurst resort, Mid Pines and Pine Needles — a lifeblood for the inn.
Barrett also expanded the Pine Crest’s footprint. When the old telephone exchange building next to the inn was offered for sale, he outbid The Manor to get it. The revamped “Telephone Cottage” would become a favorite lodging choice for pros like Roger Maltbie and Ben Crenshaw.
Things ran relatively smoothly for the Barretts throughout the 1960s, but that changed when the Tufts family sold Pinehurst in 1970 to Malcolm McLean. His Diamondhead Corporation promptly converted vast wooded acreage into housing subdivisions, tacking on Pinehurst Country Club memberships to lot purchases. With the ranks of new club members swelling, securing tee times by the independent hotels became a nightmare. Under the new regime, outside starting times could, at best, only be reserved three days in advance.
Barrett did find a lifeline at the resort who assisted him in coping with the new order. Young Drew Gross, the first assistant to the resort’s director of golf, greased the skids for Barrett, keeping him abreast of last-minute openings on the resort’s tee sheet. The two men formed a bond that would have lasting impact.
Despite Gross’ assistance, the early 1970s were a bleak time for the Barretts. Bobby recalls his dad becoming so frustrated with the starting time debacle he considered suing Diamondhead for ruining his business. Instead, Bob and Betty decided to get out altogether. In 1974, they sold the Pine Crest to Richmond businessman Nat Armistead. The Barretts agreed to take periodic payments from the buyer and to continue managing the inn for an interim period.
The Barretts were in the midst of planning their future when tragedy struck in 1975. Betty Barrett, just 53, died suddenly at home. The family was devastated. To make matters worse, Armistead defaulted and Barrett (now in joint ownership of the inn with sons Bobby and Peter) remained saddled with a teetering business.
Barrett rededicated himself to improving the Pine Crest’s facilities. He installed air conditioning in 1977, allowing the inn to stay open during the summer. He reduced the number of rooms in the hotel to 35, increasing the size of several, and added rooms by moving out of Barrett Cottage and converting it into an eight-room headquarters for larger golf groups. When Diamondhead exited the scene, obtaining tee times at the resort eased up and new courses, like the Carolina Golf Club and The Pit, were open for play.
A 1978 change in state liquor law provided a major boost to the Pine Crest’s bottom line. North Carolina had historically been a “brown bag” state; customers brought their own booze to restaurants, and the bartender would mix their drinks. But with passage of the new law, inns and hotels could sell liquor themselves. Originally situated in the Crystal Room at the western end of the inn, the bar was ultimately moved to its current location, just off the lobby. Bill Jones, the flamboyant personality who tended the bar, began attracting regulars to the watering hole known as “Mr. B.’s.”
While Jones’ long blond hair gave him the outward appearance of a California surfer dude, he was actually a high-voltage comedian, flashing his rapid-fire albeit caustic humor. John Marsh wrote that Jones’ “rapier-like wit reminded many of comedian Don Rickles, and it was generally conceded that you weren’t really accepted within the Pinehurst community until you had been insulted by Bill Jones.”
Adding to the atmosphere at Mr. B’s were regular appearances of renowned golf writers Bob Drum, Dick Taylor and Charles Price, all bon vivants. They formed the bar’s notorious “Press Row.” A Pittsburgh Press alum, Drum was Arnold Palmer’s muse and later a feature presence on CBS golf telecasts. Taylor was the longtime editor in chief of Golf World, and Price was the author of several noteworthy books (A Golf Story: Bobby Jones, Augusta National, and the Masters Tournament and Golfer at Large), and at one time or another wrote for every golf publication worth the ink. Bob Barrett often permitted these luminaries, as well as other notable golf figures, to imbibe on the house, or at least at a steep discount. And they made the most of it.
Just about everyone in Drum’s family worked at the Pine Crest in some capacity. Son Kevin served as busboy or, as he puts it, “the relish tray girl.” Bob Drum himself served as a celebrity bartender from time to time, standing in for Jones. On one such occasion, a customer ordered a “George Dickel.” Drum, a man of substantial girth, broke a sweat rummaging through the bar in feverish efforts to locate the whiskey. Once he was ready to pour, the guest said, “Oh, and mix Coke with it.” The thought of despoiling fine Tennessee whiskey so offended Drum he suggested the man take his business elsewhere.
Barrett considered his generosity toward Press Row money well spent. He’d been in the newspaper trade himself, and the writers did provide the Pine Crest some favorable publicity. Mr. B.’s soon began appearing near the top of ubiquitous listings for “the best 19th holes in golf.”
Jones fit right in, moonlighting a golf column for The Pilot. Despite his bluster, he was a revered part of the scene, and it was a shock when Jones passed away in 1995 at age 40.
Bobby Barrett’s wife, Andy Hofmann, who has worked in reservations for 45 years, got teary-eyed recalling Jones’ passing. “Bill said he wasn’t feeling well at work on November 13th,” she says, “went home, and by the 15th he was in the hospital. He died December 5th.”
Jones’ successor behind the bar, Carl Wood (now the owner of Neville’s in Southern Pines), was at first unaware of the local luminary discount. He recalls two-time U.S. Amateur champion Harvie Ward sitting down at the bar with a friend and ordering a Bombay. “That will be $6, sir,” said Wood. A clearly mystified Harvie turned to his companion and observed, “I think he’s serious!”
The return of PGA Tour events to Pinehurst, beginning in 1973, brought increasing numbers of golf greats into the village. Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Payne Stewart, Bill Rogers, Ben Crenshaw and Tom Kite are just a few of the champions who stayed, ate or drank at the Pine Crest. And their appearances led to memorable anecdotes.
Barrett made friends with the great, the not-so-great and the run-of-the-mill alike. Probably his best buddy in PGA circles was Pinehurst pro Lionel Callaway. Whenever there was a March snowstorm, Bob would call on Lionel to give golf lessons in the lobby, a tradition begun by Donald Ross, who likewise provided instructional tips to snowbound guests when he owned the inn.
Callaway’s greatest contribution to the Pine Crest is the celebrated chipping board. No golfer’s Pinehurst pilgrimage is complete without trying to knock a ball into the hole in the wooden board covering the old fireplace. Ben Crenshaw has the record for consecutive chips holed — 28. Not everyone is as accurate. The fireplace mantel has more dents than a car in a demolition derby. The glass protecting the painting of Donald Ross above the fireplace was smashed so often, it was ultimately bulletproofed.
Both of Barrett’s sons became skilled golfers. Bobby Barrett made the final field of the 1969 U.S. Amateur, competed at medal play that year at Oakmont Country Club, America’s most demanding championship test. Not to be outdone by his elder sibling, Peter Barrett would subsequently make a strong run at winning the Carolinas Open. He did win the 1974 Pinehurst Country Club championship, his 283 total edging Pinehurst mogul-to-be Marty McKenzie by one shot.
Both boys were advancing in their professional lives as well, though on different tracks. Bobby obtained professional degrees at Duke and UNC. He became a CPA catering to individuals and small businesses (including the Pine Crest). His office is located on Community Road just behind the inn. Bobby also obtained a law license but never practiced. “I never lost a case,” he deadpans.
Groomed by Bob to one day succeed him as the inn’s general manager, Peter attended hotel management school. Given his own golf chops, he related well to the younger pros, like Payne Stewart, who became a friend. It was he who created a slogan touting the inn’s no frills persona: “A third-rate hotel for first rate people.” It supplemented the inn’s other tagline, employed since the Emma Bliss era: “An Inn Like a Home!” The youngest Barrett also sold real estate.
In the course of Bob Barrett’s first 37 years of the inn’s ownership, a slew of PGA Tour events were contested at Pinehurst, but no professional major championships. So it was a thrill for the 84-year-old when the USGA brought the 1999 U.S. Open to Pinehurst. And not surprisingly, both the Pine Crest and a longtime employee became involved in the lore surrounding Payne Stewart’s epic victory. Payne ate dinner at the Pine Crest after an early round of the championship and affixed a hyper-enlarged signature on the wall of the ground floor men’s room. The passage of time has rendered the script undecipherable, but his outsized signature is replicated in the lobby.
Margaret Swindell, a mainstay behind the desk for decades (you’re a newbie until you’ve been employed at the Pine Crest for at least a decade), had a memorable encounter with Stewart prior to his final round. Swindell was working at her then-primary job with Pinehurst Country Club at the Learning Center when Payne approached her counter and requested a pair of scissors. He did not like the feel of his rain jacket and wanted the sleeves trimmed away.
Swindell and a co-worker held the jacket taut while Stewart snipped. She placed the detached sleeves in a drawer, thinking nothing more about the remnants until Stewart won the championship, and a ruckus was made afterward concerning his sleeveless rain jacket. Today, the sleeves and scissors are displayed at the World Golf Hall of Fame in an exhibit titled “Style and Substance: The Life and Legacy of Payne Stewart.”
Bob Barrett’s hope that moving South would lead to a long life came to pass. He died at age 89, two months after the 2005 U.S. Open at Pinehurst. John Dempsey, the longtime president of Sandhills Community College, gave the eulogy.
“Bob lit up every room he ever entered,” said Dempsey. “He was truly the community’s innkeeper.” Dempsey, who first met Barrett while guesting at the Pine Crest many decades ago, credits Bob for persuading him to apply for the position of SCC’s president, a job he would hold for 34 years.
Though already performing the bulk of managerial duties, Peter Barrett formally became the Pine Crest’s general manager following his father’s death. But additional leadership was required, and it came from Bob’s old friend.
Drew Gross was hired in 2011 as the Pine Crest’s resident manager. Gross had been involved in a diverse array of activities since his Diamondhead days: caddying on tour, event planning, cultivating relationships with airlines for National Car Rental, and operating a company that provided retired baseball players moneymaking opportunities. It was Gross who arranged for retired greats like Sparky Lyle, Lew Burdette, Tommy Davis and Warren Spahn to bivouac at the Pine Crest during the old ballplayers’ 1992 Pinehurst golf get-together.
Recognizing the inn’s history constitutes a major part of its appeal, Gross organized a gala centennial celebration of its founding on Nov. 1, 2013. Bagpipers played, dignitaries spoke, Hoagy Carmichael’s son, Randy, performed “Stardust,” and a bronze bust of Donald Ross was unveiled.
Free drinks at Mr. B’s are a thing of the past. Head bartender Annie Ulrich makes sure of that. The Long Island native came to the Pine Crest as a fill-in barkeep during the 2014 Open. Ulrich, whose husband, Gus, is a two-time North Carolina Open champion, loves her job. “Making one person happy is great,” she says. “But at any one time, I can make 20 people happy.” The narrow passage between the piano and the bar is now called “Annie Avenue.” Even as Mr. B’s flourishes, courses like Pine Needles, Mid Pines, Southern Pines, Talamore, Mid South, Tobacco Road, etc., continue to work with the inn booking tee times.
It is true that the Pine Crest celebrates its history — the three barstools at Mr. B’s bearing brass plaques dedicated to the long departed trio of Drum, Price and Taylor; the two Donald Ross sculptures and the painting of Ross over the fireplace; the many images of long-gone golf heroes; and the tiny monument to the succession of orange cats, Marmalade or Marmaduke depending on the feline’s gender, that patrolled the porch — but this is no museum. Stop by on a weekend night when music is playing, folks are dancing and guests are chipping, all in the snug, yet somehow uncrowded, lobby. It’s vibrant, intimate and fun.
We are boarding an American Airlines flight to return to Northern Virginia. I expect Dudley will be pleased to see us upon arrival.
Below is an article concerning the stupidity of the minimum wage. I have opined on this before (many times, but Mr. Cardoza’s article explains the stupidity of the policy in detail).
There is also an article on the abuse of language in order to deceive. A particular pet peeve of mine.
Advocates of minimum wage present the policy as a means to uplift low-income workers. But for more than a century, it has steadily produced outcomes starkly at odds with this goal.
BY: Jim Cardoza, The American Thinker (May 7, 2026).
Progressive lawmakers in Washington, D.C., recently introduced legislation that would increase the federal minimum wage to $25 per hour. But rather than discuss the merits of an increase, our representatives would be wise to debate the scheme itself.
Advocates of minimum wage present the policy as a means to uplift low-income workers. But for more than a century, it has steadily produced outcomes starkly at odds with this goal. It is far more than an economic policy. It is a statement on our society’s underlying assumptions about human freedom, responsibility, and the proper limits of government power. When examined honestly, minimum wage reveals an unsettling truth: symbolic compassion often produces actual misery, and the people paying the highest price are those least able to bear it.
Let’s look at how this policy originated. The popular narrative claims the minimum wage was created to protect low-skill workers from exploitation. But the historical record tells a very different story — one so politically inconvenient that it has been almost entirely erased from public discussion.
In the early 20th century, Progressive-era reformers in the United States, Canada, and Australia supported minimum-wage laws explicitly as a tool to exclude undersired workers from the labor market. These undesired workers were usually minorities, immigrants, women, or the poor. The logic was simple: raise the cost of competitive labor. After all, the appeal of hiring unionized white men is greatly reduced when a black laborer, an immigrant, or a woman is available to do the job at a far lower wage.
The intention was not hidden. Economists and policymakers wrote openly about the need to prevent “inferior” workers from “undercutting” others through their offer to work for lower pay. Early advocates were quite clear that raising the cost of hiring low-skill workers would reduce their value, making them less employable. They supported the legislation for precisely this reason.
Milton Friedman noted bluntly, “The minimum wage law is most properly described as a law saying employers must discriminate against people with low skills.” Walter E. Williams went even further, calling it one of the few government policies whose historical intent and modern consequences aligned perfectly: it reduced employment among low-skill workers, disproportionately harming minorities.
Minimum wage is a policy born not of generosity, but of exclusion. Its intent was never to uplift. It was always to restrict.
A minimum wage is not merely an economic regulation; it is a legal prohibition. It forbids consenting adults from entering into a work agreement that both find mutually beneficial. If a young person wishes to work for $10 an hour to gain experience — and an employer wishes to hire him at that wage — that transaction is outlawed.
The assumption behind such a law is that individuals do not know what is in their best interest and that government overlords do.
In a free society, there is no reason that third parties should dictate terms for people whose circumstances and incentives they do not share, do not understand, and cannot possibly know individual motivations. The paternalistic presumptions of minimum wage should be an affront to a free people.
Williams made the moral point even more directly: if you do not own your labor — if you are not free to sell it on terms you choose — then someone else owns part of you. Minimum-wage laws obliterate a core principle of a free society: the right of peaceful individuals to make voluntary arrangements without political interference.
A policy that forcibly restricts human freedom has no claim to moral superiority.
The most basic lesson of economics — so often ignored in political rhetoric — is that price controls create surpluses or shortages. A minimum wage is a price floor. When imposed above the value a worker can produce, it does not raise that worker’s productivity; it simply makes it illegal to employ him.
Employers do not pay wages out of kindness. They pay wages out of revenue generated by the worker’s output. If a law requires an employer to pay $20 per hour for labor worth $12 per hour, the employer will not hire that worker. There is no mystery in this. There is only arithmetic.
When the government mandates wages that exceed a worker’s productivity, the worker is priced out of the job market entirely. In other words, the government mandates their unemployment.
The groups most harmed are those with limited skills: often teenagers, minorities, immigrants with limited English, individuals with poor schooling, and anyone needing a first step onto the employment ladder.
These workers do not need a law declaring their labor to be more valuable than it is. They need the opportunity to gain skills and experience so their productivity — and thus their wages — can rise naturally. Minimum-wage laws deny them that opportunity.
One of the great ironies of minimum-wage policy is that it kills precisely the jobs that build the foundations for success. First jobs are not primarily about income; they are about experience, habits, discipline, and the development of employability.
Minimum wage has led employers to eliminate entry-level positions, replace labor with automation, combine multiple low-skill roles into a single high-skill position, or simply ask existing workers to do more.
The gas station attendant, the grocery bagger, the usher, the dishwasher, and the clerk — positions once filled by teenagers and those entering the workforce for the first time — have quietly disappeared over the decades. Not because society no longer needs these services, but because it is no longer legal to hire inexperienced workers at wages that reflect their initial level of productivity.
Like many government interventions, the minimum wage creates a comforting illusion. Consumers and voters see the wage mandated by law; they do not see the jobs that never appear, the hours that are cut, the businesses that do not open, or the services that vanish.
The winners are the higher-productivity workers who keep their jobs. The losers are the lower-productivity workers who are pushed out of the labor market entirely.
Society pays in other ways as well. When labor becomes more expensive by law, prices rise, service options shrink, small businesses struggle or close, automation accelerates, and economic mobility slows.
Every additional restriction on voluntary exchange reduces the range of choices available to individuals. A society does not lose its freedom all at once; it loses it regulation by regulation, each wrapped in the language of noble intentions.
In time, citizens become less free not because freedom was taken from them violently, but because it was regulated away politely.
Minimum-wage laws allow politicians to appear compassionate while shifting the costs onto the invisible, the inexperienced, and the politically powerless. The policy was born in exclusion, survives through misunderstanding, and persists because its victims lack a voice.
Minimum-wage laws do not uplift the poor. They prohibit the poor from helping themselves. They do not expand opportunity; they ration it. They do not raise productivity; they merely outlaw employment for those whose productivity is too low.
Most of all, the minimum wage erodes one of the central pillars of a free society — the right of individuals to make voluntary arrangements that benefit both parties. When the state dictates the terms of peaceful exchange, liberty gives way to symbolism, and compassion becomes something performed rather than practiced.
A society serious about opportunity would not criminalize the first rung of the economic ladder. It would widen the path upward — not block it with good intentions and rigid mandates.
There are too many euphemisms in politics. And ‘euphemism’ can often be considered a euphemism for ‘lie.’
BY: Bob Weir, The American Thinker (May 9, 2026).
When I grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, there was an area, about half a mile downtown from me, known as “The Bowery.” One of the most elegant areas of the city during the 1800s, by 1900, the Bowery had devolved into low-rent concert halls, flop houses, beer gardens, brothels, and streets that became the living quarters for hundreds of people with no visible means of support.
These days, people in those circumstances are called “homeless” or “temporarily unsheltered.” In those days, they were known as Bowery Bums. The word, bum, simply refers to someone who refuses to work and tries to live off of others. Those who either chose or were thrust into such penury were also called loafers and tramps. Such references were made during a time in our history when euphemisms were rare.
Today, there are euphemisms for just about every activity that, if given the specific title, would be deemed offensive to civil discourse, also known as polite conversation. Hence, in a continuing effort to soften our language and distort reality, we find words that make us feel better about who we are and how un-judgmental we can be. Those who are extremely overweight are not referred to as obese or fat. Instead, a man would be called heavyset or husky, while a woman would be full-figured. People who used to be called handicapped or crippled are now labeled physically challenged. The famous comedian Henny Youngman told a joke about his brother-in-law who claimed to be a diamond-cutter. Later, it was learned that he was in charge of mowing the lawn at Yankee Stadium. Ed Norton, the famous sewer worker from the Honeymooners television show, introduced himself as “an engineer in subterranean sanitation.” Employees are never fired from their jobs; they are “let go.”
When I was a young lad, people who were physically attracted to the same sex were known as homosexuals. Now they are gays and lesbians. The late English author Quentin Crisp, who was openly gay, was also very open about the use of softened language. “Euphemisms are not, as many young people think, useless verbiage for that which can and should be said bluntly; they are like secret agents on a delicate mission; they must airily pass by a stinking mess with barely so much as a nod of the head.” Furthermore, “euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne.”
In the days of yore, we never even heard of someone being able to change from one sex to another, but when surgeries came into being that pretended to do this, they became known as sex change operations. Soon, the term was considered objectionable, so it became “gender reassignment.” Once upon a time, if you supported taking the life of a child in the womb, you were pro-abortion; if you didn’t, you were anti-abortion. Now you’re classified pro-choice or pro-life.
Someone who has died is said to have passed away, bought the farm, given up the ghost, kicked the bucket, or, as the great Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, “shuffled off this mortal coil.” When ending the life of a pet, it’s called “putting him to sleep.” When the mob wants to put someone to sleep, it puts a “contract” out on him. The mobsters don’t want to murder the guy; they want him “whacked,” “hit,” “taken for a ride,” or “fitted for a cement overcoat.” The bad guys don’t get sent to prison; they go to correctional institutions. In military terms, people and places bombed out of existence have been “marginalized.” When innocent civilians are killed during a war, it’s known as “collateral damage.” Slums and ghettoes have been euphemistically excised from the language and reborn as economically depressed or culturally deprived environments. People who violate our laws by sneaking across our borders are no longer “illegal aliens”; they are “undocumented immigrants.”
When taxpayers became aware of the term “earmarks,” which are pork-barrel projects intended to benefit constituents of a politician in return for their political support, it became an epithet for wasteful spending. Therefore, they needed a new name, so they were magically transformed into “legislatively directed spending.”
All of the foregoing is meant to be more than a linguistic exercise; it’s about questioning where we are as a society. It’s about our refusal to deal with reality, preferring instead to pretend what is happening before our eyes can be creatively denied by the use of more “tolerant” language. In other words, if we can find a comfortable substitute for the truth, we can avoid facing it. This doesn’t make me vomit; it makes me lose my lunch.
“We didn’t realize we were making memories, we just knew we were having fun.”
–A.A. Milne, Winnie The Pooh.
This is our last day deep in the heart of Texas. It has been a wonderful time with family and friends. But it will be good to return home.
And it is not like we will not be back. After what will probably be her last Summer of leisure, Holland will return to Dallas to attend law school at SMU. English and I will visit occasionally (English probably more than me). We look forward to following the next chapters of The Adventures of Holland Koontz.
Today I have chosen 3 articles which touch on important topics. Don Feder discusses the dangers of our nation’s falling fertility rates. Robert Knight writes about the dishonest media, always 1 of my favorite topics. And Everett Pipe takes issue with Associate United States Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch’s claim that the United States is not “a Christian nation” (we quote an excerpt from Justice Gorsuch’s remarks on May 11). Enjoy!
Justice Gorsuch ignores the faith behind America’s freedoms
Rights, self-government and equality depend on moral foundations the Founders repeatedly traced to religion and virtue
BY: Everett Piper, The Washington Times (May 10, 2026).
In a recent interview, Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said the United States is not a Christian nation but rather one that is “creedal.”
He went on to extol the principles of “equality, inalienable rights and self-rule” as being above any commonly held religious beliefs or consequent moral obligations. More specifically, Mr. Gorsuch said, “[America] was not founded on a religion. It is not based on a common culture, even, or heritage. We’re a creedal nation.”
The fact that one of the supposed “conservative” judges of our nation’s highest court just made such a statement should stun all of us. Why? Because it is simply not true, and anyone with an elementary school understanding of American history should know it.
How could Justice Gorsuch not know that the principles he claims to cherish — such as “equality, inalienable rights and self-rule” — do not just create themselves ex nihilo, i.e., out of nothing? How could he not know that human rights, personal liberty and the right to self-governance must be grounded in something and that their source is the very religion, culture and common heritage he denies?
How could he not know that our Founding Fathers — the ones who wrote, signed and championed the “creed” he says he loves — said the exact opposite of what he claims?
How could he not know that the authors of our nation’s creed told us repeatedly that we, in fact, are a country of common faith and common values and that what binds us together is our Judeo-Christian understanding and respect for the Bible?
How could Justice Gorsuch not know that James McHenry, for example, declared, “The Holy Scriptures … can alone secure to society order and peace, and to our courts of justice and constitutions of government, purity, stability and usefulness.”
How could he not know that President John Quincy Adams said, “No book in the world deserves to be so unceasingly studied and so profoundly meditated upon as the Bible. [It is] the first and almost the only book deserving such universal recommendation.”
How could he not know that one of our earliest American historians, W.P. Strickland, observed, “Who … will call into question the assertion that this is a Bible nation? Who will charge the government with indifference to religion when the first Congress of the States assumed all the rights and performed all the duties of a Bible Society long before such an institution had an existence in the world!”
How could Justice Gorsuch not know that John Jay (Founding Father and original chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court) said, “The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the Word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue, therefore … to regulate your life by its precepts.”
How could he not know that Jay went further to declare, “The Moral or Natural Law was given by the Sovereign of the universe to all mankind … Being founded by infinite wisdom and goodness on essential right, which never varies, it can require no amendment or alteration.” Lest we miss his point, he concluded by saying, “The Gospel not only recognizes the whole Moral Law and extends and perfects our knowledge of it, but also enjoins on all mankind the observance of it. Being ordered by a Legislator of infinite wisdom and rectitude and in Whom there is ‘no variableness,’ it must be free from imperfection and therefore never has nor ever will require any [change].”
How could any “conservative” justice of any court not know all this?
America’s common religious and cultural heritage is irrefutable. It is the glue that has bound us together for 250 years. It is the source and stability of the national “creed” that Justice Gorsuch so admires.
None of the freedoms and rights he is charged to defend would exist without the very faith and foundation he now sidesteps and denies.
Those who gave their blood and fortune to bequeath to us the liberties Justice Gorsuch now celebrates knew this. They also made it very clear that should we ever forget that we are, in fact, a people bound together by this common faith and common heritage, that our efforts at “self-rule” would fail and our country would fall.
Before the good justice grants any more interviews, he might do well to go back and read a little bit of American history. I recommend he start with President John Adams: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people and is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Lawlessness, big government and its media enablers
Pressing a pillow to the face of real journalism
BY: Robert Knight, The Washington Times (May 10, 2026).
What are we up to now — four attempts on President Trump’s life? And possibly one on the life of Vice President J.D. Vance?
This has happened amid constant Democratic vilification of Mr. Trump, his staff and conservative Supreme Court justices, who have had to increase their security. Several Cabinet members and other top staff have left their homes and moved to military bases to protect their families from crazies.
In Virginia, Arlington County Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti basically declared Tuesday that it was open season for harassing Trump administration officials and their families.
One of many Democratic district attorneys elected with aid from leftist financier George Soros, Ms. Dehghani-Tafti dropped criminal charges against a woman who had gone to Trump adviser Stephen Miller’s Arlington County neighborhood to scare him and his family.
On Sept. 11, 2025, the day after Charlie Kirk’s murder on a Utah campus, activist Barbara Wien and her husband, Robert Herman, handed out flyers bearing a photo of Mr. Miller with a red line through it.
“Wanted for crimes against humanity,” the flyer read, along with the Millers’ home address and “No Nazis in NOVA,” referring to Northern Virginia.
Upon spotting Mr. Miller’s wife, Katie Miller, on the Millers’ front porch, Ms. Wien, a “retired peace studies professor,” made a gesture to indicate that she was watching her, The Washington Post reported.
You know, just free speech stuff. Nothing to worry about. Especially if you have children. The Millers have three young children and a baby on the way.
A Virginia statute says, “It shall be unlawful for any person, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, or harass another person, to publish the person’s name or photograph along with identifying information … or identification of the person’s primary residence address.”
The Class 1 misdemeanor carries a maximum sentence of 12 years and a $2,500 fine.
But wait. It was only a Trump official and his family who were being targeted. Also, Ms. Wien said she didn’t know who made the flyer and hadn’t been aware that the Millers’ address was on it. Right.
Ms. Dehghani-Tafti said that pursuing the charge would “risk having a chilling effect on others wishing to engage in peaceful, political protest.”
Not feeling the warmth after being doxed in their own neighborhood, the Millers moved to military housing.
When shots were fired outside the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on April 25, Mr. Miller instantly shielded the pregnant Mrs. Miller with his body, an act of chivalry that has gone viral on social media.
Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of California, was arrested and charged with attempting to assassinate the president.
On May 4, a gunman who had been tracking Mr. Vance’s motorcade a block from the White House exchanged fire with Secret Service agents. A child was struck and briefly hospitalized. Michael Marx, 45, of Texas, was arrested.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said Mr. Marx exclaimed, “F the White House” after being arrested.
We are constantly being told that “both sides” are responsible for the rise in violence and that “both sides” should turn down the rhetoric. That is a lie propounded by legacy media, which see no enemies to the left, even as that side grows more violent.
You might think the shooting near the White House, which occurred around 3:30 p.m., would be front-page news, especially after the attempted assassination of the president only days earlier.
The Washington Post buried it in the second section, on page B-20. It was, in fact, the very last story in the entire publication.
On the front page, however, The Post gaily celebrated its latest Pulitzer prizes. The paper won for feature photography and for the big one: the Public Service Award.
It got the latter largely for siccing hard-left reporter Hannah Natanson to crusade against the Trump administration’s attempts to rein in the federal bureaucracy through the Department of Government Efficiency.
The best argument for freedom of the press is that it is there to keep government honest and in check. The Post news staff appears to feel otherwise. Instead, it goes after any attempt to impose accountability on the ever-growing permanent state.
It may have helped Ms. Natanson’s case for a Pulitzer that the FBI had executed a search warrant at her home in January, looking for leaked classified information from a federal contractor who was charged under the Espionage Act. The agents told her she wasn’t a target of their investigation, but what a feather in her cap.
In its glory days, The Post brought down a sitting president, Richard Nixon, by regurgitating leads fed to it by FBI Deputy Director Mark Felt, whose cover was “Deep Throat.”
During the Obama and Biden administrations, The Post was incurious about any number of reportable scandals, including mass illegal immigration and lies about COVID-19 and the Russian collusion hoax. The latter netted Pulitzers for The Post and The New York Times, which played key roles in manipulating the public.
That itself should be a major news story. Yet it doesn’t fit the narrative, so don’t hold your breath.
When the New York Post broke the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020, the legacy media pointedly ignored it while leftist-controlled social media crushed it.
Dave Burge, who writes at Iowahawkblog, put it best when he observed, “Journalism is about covering important stories. With a pillow, until they stop moving.”
Falling fertility: The world could end in empty cradles
Gen Z will regret not having children
BY: Don Feder, The Washington Times (May 10, 2026).
Generation Z is easily the most self-absorbed, egocentric generation in history. Their hubris will have consequences for its members, society and the future of humanity.
A Barna Survey on Gen Z attitudes toward marriage and children signals looming disaster.
Overall, the survey by America’s foremost Christian pollster shows that Gen Z is largely disconnected from reality. Among 14- to 29-year-olds, support for socialism has increased 17 percentage points since the last time the survey was taken, from 22% to 39%. Why not?
The signs of its success are all around us. What do you do when you get caught between Pyongyang and New York City?
Barna notes: “Young adults today report high levels of anxiety, uncertainty and emotional complexity in their daily lives — factors that may shape how they approach long-term decisions like marriage.”
In other words, they are emotional lightweights.
My parents married in 1936, in the depths of the Great Depression. They were married for 20 years before they could afford to buy a house.
Of course, there was nothing to be anxious about in 1936 — nothing except Nazis goose-stepping across Europe, Imperial Japan tearing up Asia and Marshal Stalin waiting to pounce.
The survey’s most troubling disclosure is this: Some 74% of Gen Z say life can be fulfilling without children. This attitude has been carefully cultivated by elites in education, news media and Hollywood.
If marriage and children aren’t important, then what is the greatest source of satisfaction for this aimless generation? Their careers, condos, cars, investments or the number of likes they get on social media?
I have a friend who is a successful lawyer. In her 70s, she says she was focused on a legal career since high school. Now, she wishes someone had told her about the importance of children decades earlier, while she still had time.
The decisions Gen Z makes about marriage and children won’t affect them alone. It is a butterfly effect that starts in the maternity ward and eventually collapses the Social Security Trust Fund.
To put it bluntly, our civilization is dying because too many have unknowingly chosen for it to happen.
Our society is aging rapidly as fewer children are born to replace previous generations.
Fertility is the key to a nation’s future. A nation’s fertility rate is the number of children the average woman will have in her lifetime. Replacement level fertility is 2.1. We haven’t been there in almost 20 years. In 2025, America’s fertility rate was 1.57, the lowest on record and well below replacement, and it keeps going down.
This means fewer taxpayers supporting more elderly people who need their pensions funded and their medical bills paid.
An industrialized society runs on people, all sorts of people, including architects, teachers, medical personnel, first responders, assembly-line and agricultural workers, investors and innovators. As more of them retire, fewer are waiting to take their place.
In 20 years, we will still have the abundant natural resources we have today, but we will have no one to harness them. We will still have the roads, railroads and ports, but not the truck drivers, trainmen and longshoremen.
America will contract. Small towns and medium-size cities will be abandoned. Life will be centered on large cities, which will be increasingly unlivable, as the pool of police, firefighters and medical personnel dries up.
Fertility and marriage go hand in hand. In 1970, more than 40% of households consisted of married couples with children younger than 18. By 2022, that figure had declined to 22%. In 2024, for the first time, a majority of women weren’t married.
The survey shows one positive trend.
Barna reports that Generation Z has outpaced all other generations in church attendance. On average, they attend religious services 1.9 times a month, compared with 1.8 for millennials.
There is a gender gap here too. Although 21% of Gen Z men attend church monthly, only 12% of Gen Z women are regular churchgoers. They are probably too busy marching with CodePink.
Regardless of their sex, when they are in church, do they hear anything positive about marriage and procreation, such as “Be fruitful and multiply and subdue the earth” and “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh”?
Churches and synagogues need to do more than pay lip service to marriage and procreation. Otherwise, the world may end not in fire or ice but empty cradles.
Observations From The Fifth Estate 