The Post-Partisan Emporium

  Hurricane Hell The American Eschaton Came Early to Appalachia Hurricane Helene has devastated the Appalachian region. My wife and I live nearby, in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina. Though only a few hours away, we were thankfully untouched by the storm. My wife’s family lives in northwestern South Carolina. They had to evacuate their homes temporarily, but their homes are undamaged; given the utter devastation that struck just west of them, they are among the fortunate. The aftermath for the less fortunate is visible from space. But the view from space minimizes the damage. Far more has been lost than mere power lines. Entire towns have been washed away as if they never existed. Now, I do not generally cover “breaking news” here on the  Tree of Woe . Even the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene would not, in ordinary times, have brought me to blog about it. But, as I have said before, we no longer live in ordinary times - we live in extraordinary times, made all the mor

  The Regime Wants Appalachia To Suffer Tho Bishop Americans from Florida to North Carolina continue to deal with the devastating consequences of Hurricane Helene, now the deadliest hurricane to hit the US since Katrina. The stories emerging from the region are heart breaking. The economic damage to property and the infrastructure will take years to recover from. Large parts of the area will never return to what they were. Many Americans may be unaware of the extent of the damage. Unlike Hurricane Katrina, which received non-stop coverage on cable news for weeks, with primetime anchors like  Anderson Cooper  visiting on location covering stories of human tragedy and government incompetent, Helene’s aftermath has received far less coverage. It is on social media platforms like X where folks will find horrifying stories of the stench of death still strong in difficult to reach areas, the lack of government assistance for those in need, and the courage of private efforts serving the area.

  The Regime's Crisis of Legitimacy is Getting Worse It's all falling apart and they're going to get more desperate. Theophilus Chilton Over the past week, one of the more disturbing news stories to come out of the wheelhouse involved the apparent takeover of several apartment buildings in Colorado by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. On top of this, we then saw something similar happen in Chicago. American border security and social integrity, already in shambles, are being shown as practically non-existent in real time. Thanks to the massive influx of immigrants, we’re now  formally  seeing the rise of social and political balkanisation take place in America. Legitimacy is one of those things that a government either has or it doesn’t. Either the rulers are able to maintain a  moral mandate to exercise power that extends beyond reliance upon raw force  or they aren’t. Having that moral mandate, however, comes with providing good leadership, safety, and so forth to your

  Up In Flames An incendiary ritual Radio Far Side Back in high school, a period now know as the Dark Ages, we had an annual bonfire to launch the homecoming ritual, because in Texas, high school football season is a form of religion, and that’s what folks did before carbon dioxide was evil. After high school, I moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I took part in an annual ritual called “ Zozobra ,” or burning of Old Man Gloom, a tradition started in 1924, by Will Shuster. Later, living in London, I experienced  Bonfire Night , in which an effigy of Guy Fawkes is incinerated in a quasi-political purge to commemorate the Gunpowder Plot. Of course, this was long before England became a Muslim country, so I’m not sure if the 300-year-old ritual is still practiced these days. When I moved to Barcelona, there was an occasion when some friends grabbed me and dragged me to Valencia for the  Las Fallas  festival, the highlight of which is  La Cremà …the burning of a large figure called  ninots