The new Miss World is a United Statesian.

Alexandria Mills.

What's her favorite book? "'Guess how much I love you,'my mom used to read it with me." Don't laugh. I'll bet most of the people you know, if they were being honest, would name a children's book as their favorite book.

Tell us a little something about your Country?

The USA is a melting pot for all cultures. My home town is famous for the Kentucky Derby Horse Race.

Yeah, the USA, la la la... let me tell you about Louisville! Louisville, Kentucky:

"... Not London. Not even New York. This is a weird place. You're lucky that mental defective at the motel didn't jerk a pistol out of the cash register and blow a big hole in you.... Just pretend you're visiting a huge outdoor loony bin... If the inmates get out of control we'll soak them down with Mace."

That reminds me. The Rally to Restore Sanity is happening today. Are you there? Are you watching it on C-SPAN? Sanity. Are you up for sanity today? I've got the sanity rally recording on the DVR and I'm going to scroll through it — I say "scroll through" these days, not "fast-forward" — later. Meanwhile, remember when the smart reaction to politics was insanity, back when we read Hunter S. Thompson essays?

A radio news bulletin says the National Guard is massacring students at Kent State and Nixon is still bombing Cambodia. The journalist is driving, ignoring his passenger who is now nearly naked after taking off most of his clothing, which he holds out the window, trying to wind-wash the Mace out of it. His eyes are bright red and his face and chest are soaked with beer he's been using to rinse the awful chemical off his flesh. The front of his woolen trousers is soaked with vomit; his body is racked with fits of coughing and wild chocking sobs. The journalist rams the big car through traffic and into a spot in front of the terminal, then he reaches over to open the door on the passenger's side and shoves the Englishman out, snarling: "Bug off, you worthless [censored]! You twisted pigfucker! [Crazed laughter.] If I weren't sick I'd kick your ass all the way to Bowling Green--you scumsucking foreign geek. Mace is too good for you...We can do without your kind in Kentucky."

"When this debate ends, you will notice that I will not be shaking his hand tonight."

Rand Paul:



ADDED: Jonathan Chait, a commentator with no affinity for conservatives, writes:

The ugliest, most illiberal political ad of the year may be this one, from Kentucky Democrat Jack Conway:

... The trouble with Conway's ad is that it comes perilously close to saying that non-belief in Christianity is a disqualification for public office. That's a pretty sickening premise for a Democratic campaign.

Consider that the ad has more to do with the question of whether Rand is weird than whether he's irreligious. But, ironically, Conway has made himself seem creepy for throwing all this crap at the screen.

AND: Conway stammers through an attempted explanation of his ad:



AND: Here's a montage of nastiness:

"Kentucky!!!!!! WTF????????"

We're just hanging here waiting for room service and watching basketball and the sun setting over the Flatirons and I'm reading the "Kentucky" Twitter feed out loud and laughing. I don't much care about basketball, but the raw emotion in the Twitter feed cracks me up, and you know West Virginia is my team:



UPDATE: Pasta, salmon, salad consumed. Kentucky spent.

The death of a census worker.

"A part-time census worker found hanging in a rural Kentucky cemetery was naked, gagged and had his hands and feet bound with duct tape.... The word 'fed' was written in felt-tip pen on 51-year-old Bill Sparkman's chest... 'The only thing he had on was a pair of socks... And they had duct-taped his hands, his wrists. He had duct tape over his eyes, and they gagged him with a red rag or something.... And they even had duct tape around his neck... And they had like his identification tag on his neck. They had it duct-taped to the side of his neck, on the right side, almost on his right shoulder.' Authorities have refused to say if Sparkman was at work going to door-to-door for census surveys before he died."

Can we speculate about what happened here? If I had to guess, I'd say that Sparkman, doing his census work, encountered a criminal enterprise — perhaps a drug lab — out where people thought no one would — or should — be coming around.

Berea, Kentucky.

Things seen in Old Town, yesterday:

At the Stag Beetle Café...

... we like it when you come in alone. Why not meet somebody? Or creep about in your solitary way, you dorcus?

***

Photo taken last night on the campus of Berea College, where the young people of Appalachia receive free tuition and are required to do work, which, historically, included making the bricks upon which crawls the hideous insect.

A late night greeting from Kentucky.

The odometer clicked over to 600 and we decided not to push it to 700 as planned. We're conked out at a Hampton Inn, soaking up WiFi and making a late snack out of vending machine stuff (microwave popcorn and peanut butter crackers).

Roses are much friendlier than poison ivy.

I walk in Augusta, Kentucky, down by the Ohio River.

ADDED: The hymn playing in the second half of the video is "Faith of Our Fathers." That's also the name of a Philip K. Dick story. Wikipedia has an article on the Dick story, but not the hymn. That says something, doesn't it?

IN THE COMMENTS: Traditionalguy writes:

Memorial day is for a remembrance of the real heroes who really died for us. This is the one day we don't push marketing myths and science fiction tales from the wide world of commerce and politics. So it is fitting to see poison ivy, roses, Faith of Our Fathers, and the Ohio River all just being themselves.

Broken windows, graffiti, flood damage.

Augusta, Kentucky.

Log cabin closeup.

A sign says: "Log Cabin/1750-1850/Moved from Beasley Creek/Mason County/1974."

Here she is, Miss America.

American motorcycle.

In Augusta, Kentucky,

We crossed the Ohio River into Kentucky and ended up in the town of Augusta.

There's a somber after-the-flood feeling:



(The great flood was in 1997.)

There were beautiful old historical buildings — like the Rosemary Clooney homestead — but many moldy and dilapidated places.

People worked on their gardens, though. Sometimes in an incomprehensibly manic style:



That's a goldfish pond with fountains at the extreme left.

And the people seemed pretty friendly:



And, yes, I asked the man in the elephant mask if I could take his picture. He said: "Sure, let me put the beer down," and I said, "No, the beer is fine."