So that trip 10 years ago, we didn't stop until 2:00 a.m., when we finally got a room in downtown Roanoke. I don't mean to pick on Virginia, but, Virginia?--Downtown Roanoke NEEDS WORK. My dad paid $200 a night, each, for two rooms that stank of mold. That is just un-American. Also, I stand firm in my belief that any town with more than one Waffle House is desperately crying for help. HELP ROANOKE, VIRGINIA, RECOVER ITS LOST DIGNITY. Please. Thank you.

I am going to open a new restaurant and call it, "Your Place."

And the menu will just be a blank piece of paper that says, "Order Whatever The Hell You Want" across the top.

BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT PEOPLE DO, ANYWAY.

The Food Whore

And:

As far as the mass of the people go, the extraordinary swings of opinion which occur nowadays, the emotions which can be turned on and off like a tap, are the result of newspaper and radio hypnosis. In the intelligentsia I should say they result rather from money and mere physical safety. At a given moment they may be "pro-war" or "anti-war," but in either case they have no realistic picture of war in their minds. When they enthused over the Spanish war they knew, of course, that people were being killed and that to be killed is unpleasant, but they did feel that for a soldier in the Spanish Republican army the experience of war was somehow not degrading. Somehow the latrines stank less, discipline was less irksome. . . . We have become too civilised to grasp the obvious. For the truth is very simple. To survive you often have to fight, and to fight you have to dirty yourself. War is evil, and it is often the lesser evil.

George Orwell, "Looking Back on the Spanish War."

The two quotes are unrelated because I get told two unrelated things whenever I categorize myself as in the middle politically: First, I get told that I want to be able to special order everything, to have a leader who guarantees I shall have it my way--"because that is what people do, anyway." Well, no. I am adult enough to grasp the necessity and usefulness of compromise. Also? I can read a menu, and I recognize that you do not substitute shrimp for chicken and pay the same price.

The second thing I get told is that by disagreeing with the Republican party, the party I supported in both 2000 and 2004, I am somehow wobbly. I am not to be counted on. I am not trustworthy. I am creeping towards anti-Americanism; I am selling my country short; at worst, I am lowering the morale of our soldiers. Well, again, no. And again, I am adult enough to grasp the necessity and usefulness of compromise. But really, that doesn't mean I won't occasionally complain about it. (If you think webloggers do much beyond complain about things, well, you probably read Powerline and believe every word--in which case, goodbye and good riddance.)

*Because I know someone will mention it: "Wait, you mean you took I-40 from Amarillo to Oklahoma City instead of taking 287 from Amarillo to D/FW?" Yes. Yes, that is exactly what I mean. And do you know why? Because I drove from Albuquerque to Dallas once, and on the advice of more than one--what's the word I want here? JACKASS, yes--I tried taking 287. And I am here to witness before you that 287 is a deep, dark, Satanic lie. The 287 is a way for all the two-bit towns from Amarillo to Dallas--and have you seen how many of those there are? Because it's a goodly number--to make some spare change by dropping the speed limit first to 50, then to 35, then to 15. That is not a typographical error. 15. School zones in Dallas are 20 miles per hour, but that ain't good enough for the towns off 287; they need slower. They need 15 miles per hour. That's 15. FIFTEEN. I gave up counting the towns along 287 that did this after I got into double digits. FIFTEEN. MILES PER HOUR. Ilyka does a lot of different speeds willingly, but 15 miles per hour is not one of them.