"Just take a left after the big black Mammy."

Those would be directions given to me the first time I tried to visit my in-laws without the wife there to navigate.  I hadn't a clue what he meant.  Then, as I crested a hill south of Natchez, I suddenly did:

Texas advertises itself as a "Whole 'Nother Country," but that's only true if you live off a farm-to-market road.  Houston's sprawl is as uniformly bland as the city that extends from Los Angeles to San Diego; but in the actual South, even the metropolitan areas surprise you. 

This is my way of saying: as I'm writing from a location where the power—much less the internet—is intermittent, I'm not going to be able to address the arguments in Avatar thread for a couple of days.  I will do so soon, though, as I value your new low opinion of me. 

Comments

[thor]

Excellent post, thank you.

[Jeanette]

That is the biggest piece of racist paraphernalia I have ever seen.