Odds and ends number 126
Since I'm using the concept from monoblogue, I'm keeping the numbering system, too. Here are thinner slices of bloggy goodness.
This one is sort of a hybrid odds and ends as a follow-up on a recent TER and a sweet story I moved up from there will wrap it up. (I may have to increase my TER frequency in the New Year. As I add subscriptions and followers I come across more good stuff.) And make sure to read to the end for your final chance at a special offer.
The top 10
I opened my first odds and ends of the year back on January 6 with my top 10 posts of 2023, so I thought I would repeat as a year-in-review since this will be the last post. While my odds and ends posts are reasonably popular, none will make the top 10 - but a Tuesday Evening Reading post will. (Those have been a hit.)
Out of over 130 posts, these were the winners:
At number 10, from just a couple weeks ago on December 11, it was An open letter to LBR. And I still have received no more than a boilerplate response that they received the note. It edged out another recent piece (The New Delaware, December 4) by one reader to make the top ten.
In ninth place is my post from a week ago (December 21), A step too far. This tells you the difference in average readership between pieces posted in April and December. (In fact, by now it may be eighth.)
If it is eighth, it knocks back Thoughts on Trump, which I wrote the day after the Butler assassination attempt back on July 14.
A few days afterward, on July 24, I wrote the seventh-place post, Their change can wait. Unfortunately for Delaware, it didn’t. Tell me again how the rich people are all Republicans.
I pined about The end of an era on November 23, and it finished the year at number 6 out of my most-read articles. This actually comes with an assist from
as he wrote the original trilogy of articles my review and comments are based on.I enter the top 5 with one of my “deeper dive” pieces on the 2024 election, A deeper Election 2024 dive: Delaware's U.S. House seat. Out of that whole series, this piece was the most-read - but the worst race. It was written pre-primary back on August 3.
Fourth place belongs to the most popular of my Tuesday Evening Reading series, the TER that appeared October 15. If I did a top 20, there would be a couple more TERs, which isn’t bad for something I started in the latter months of 2024.
While I was on a high from my number one post, and a little bit on the same subject, It could happen to you came on June 19. That was the third-ranked piece in 2024.
In second place, and my highest-ranking Election 2024 post, was the look at Question A across the border in Wicomico County, Maryland. A divisive question (from October 19) had over 500 readers for a post that was hyper-localized. It did my heart good to be remembered from my Maryland political days.
And the number one was a complete shock to me: Where are the riots?, from June 5. I don’t think it took me more than 30 minutes to write that one, but it really struck a chord with people - enough to become my most-read piece ever with over 1,280 readers. At the time, it was over 10 times my subscriber base (which grew by 14 people simply from that post.)
It’s worth noting that my #10 post from 2023 (in fact, all but maybe the top two or three) would probably not even make the top 50 this year - the surge of subscribers after June was such that my top post prior to that (The Key Bridge fell down. Now what?) barely made the top 25 at year’s end. After more than tripling my subscriber base in 2024, I’m praying for similar - or better -growth in 2025.
Snapping the cables of offshore wind
In a move that will likely draw a lawsuit from US Wind (which is actually a foreign-owned company), the Sussex County Council voted 4-1 on December 17 to deny the company a conditional use permit necessary to build an electric substation necessary for the cables near Millsboro. David Stevenson of the Caesar Rodney Institute provides his take here.
The whole idea is complicated by the Transpeninsular Line: the proposed offshore wind towers would be off the coast of Ocean City, Maryland, but the cables would come ashore in the midst of Delaware Seashore State Park at what’s called 3Rs Beach. They would then go underneath the Indian River to a point adjacent to an existing electrical facility near Millsboro, only to be transported back across the Mason-Dixon Line to serve Maryland. Most likely these are the utility lines being upgraded that I noted in a previous post.
(As an aside, the Mason-Dixon line terminates at the Transpeninsular line, as the midway point between ocean and bay determined the western border of Delaware. There is a small monument at that point, off Route 54 - same designation in both states - I have featured before.)
So US Wind was throwing money at Delaware to compensate for its usage, but it was a pitiful sum compared to the potential loss of tourism and environmental damage these turbines would cause - not just here, but in those far-off lands being denuded for the rare earths out of our sight.
Bring on the lawsuit, and let’s hope for jurists with sanity to prevail. Better yet, maybe the incoming administration will scrap the entire house of cards represented by the federal subsidies and carveouts Big Wind is getting.
Looking at the “New Left” and a Pyrrhic victory
Writing from the Capital Research Center, Ken Braun summed up something the voters had spoken about: the Left, as represented by Kamala Harris, had gone past the Overton Window of what’s acceptable to the body politic.
It’s interesting to read what Braun said about this schism between the traditional Democrat constituency and the academic New Left that deals in issues by looking through the lens of race, because he traces it back over a half-century. He quotes the workers’ faction of the socialist movement, who wrote in 2019, “The racial narrative is intended to replace one that is based on the analysis of objectively existing social and class interests.” They figured it out, and this time around the voters did as well.
There’s also a Substack element to this, as Braun cites (The Liberal Patriot) as another one who cried out in vain this cycle. It looks like the New Left has won the battle, but it could be the war that slips away from them - and not a moment too soon.
The scourge of regulation
It’s a rather long rant by retired Kent County Resident Judge William L. Witham, Jr., but if it makes A Better Delaware, then it’s worth the read.
I’ll jump to his conclusion:
Much of our bureaucratic regulation is too expensive, too arduous, and too limiting for our free enterprises to thrive. In an ideal world, the government would only do what is mentioned in the Constitution and nothing more. That may not be possible, but we need to substantially push back from too much regulation and let our free society survive and thrive.
I just talked about an example of this with offshore wind. The only reason we have it is regulation: it had to be willed into existence because the technology is really centuries old and has been passed up by more reliable sources of electricity creation. As I often note, farmers who used to rely on their windmills a century ago abandoned them once the rural electric cooperatives showed up to wire their properties. Back then a government like ours would have been subsidizing the equine industry because we’d be afraid of the smoke belching from the exhausts of those newfangled horseless carriages.
A minor-league NFL
This story came out the other day, and - as it seems more and more often these days - the action came from off the field.
The upshot is that Vanderbilt University quarterback Diego Pavia was awarded another year of college eligibility, making 2025 the sixth season he could play. Normally a college player gets four years, but Pavia took advantage of a provision that allowed an extra year of eligibility for those who played in the 2020 COVID season. That season was used up this year, but the ruling by U.S. District Judge William L. Campbell (a Trump appointee, in case you were wondering) allows Pavia to come back for another go because he played for two seasons at a junior college in New Mexico before transferring to New Mexico State and then Vanderbilt.
And why wouldn’t he? From the story, as written by Judge Campbell:
Those familiar with college football appreciate this remarkable accomplishment. Pavia estimates that he could earn over $1 million in NIL compensation in the 2025-26 season. (Emphasis mine.)
It seems to me that we’ve lost the thread here. Granted, many people now use the junior or community college system to start their postsecondary academic career - in fact, it’s become the key marketing tool for those local institutions. Students get a two-year associate’s degree and then finish out at a four-year college.
But it seems to me that education is secondary to a guy like Pavia, who is playing a sport where he will make several times what a normal college grad can expect in his or her first job. Even if he “only” makes a half-million in NIL cash, that’s a lot more than his classmates can expect to make.
It always seemed to me that the pay in college athletics was the fact you’re going to school for free when your less athletic peers are schlepping up student loan debt to stay in college. At some point, the bubble will burst and a lot of people will be hurt.
Following up on a TER item
Last time I shared the story of
and the transistor radio gift he received as a young boy. A couple weeks ago he provided, “the rest of the story,” as said in my best Paul Harvey voice.It’s a combination of dedication, hard work, persistence, and probably a little bit of luck. And the present he received the very next year set him off on his career path. The piece is worth the read and I wanted to make sure I followed up, so here you go. It’s a bit of a (well-deserved) promotion from TER, since I didn’t want to wait until next week to run it.
The blessing of a long marriage
Good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, come February I’ll celebrate my ninth wedding anniversary. While it’s been great - this time - I could only imagine what 54 years is like.
Today, my husband and I celebrate 54 years of marriage—a milestone that represents a lifetime of memories, challenges, and unyielding grace. It’s astounding how swiftly time has flown, yet as we reflect on our journey together, we recognize that each moment has been etched in our hearts. From the day we exchanged vows, we embarked on a path filled with twists and turns, and it’s undeniable that we wouldn’t be here today without God’s guiding hand. (Emphasis in original.)
What was wild about reading that was then seeing on social media that my old neighbors, who I reconnected with almost a half-century after we moved away from them, also celebrated that very same anniversary the same day! I guess the Saturday before Christmas in 1970 was a popular wedding day.
It’s good to see people like my parents, who stuck it out for better or for worse for over 61 years until my dad passed away in 2022.
I thought that would be a good note on which to end what’s been a rancorous year.
On that note, I wish everyone a happy and blessed 2025!
But wait, there’s more! Until Tuesday night I’m having a sale on my paid annual subscriptions. Just follow this link for 50% off! Since a lot of my Tuesday Evening Reading comes from my subscriptions to them, having enhanced access to them would be a bonus to all of us.
Until my next edition of odds and ends, you can Buy Me a Coffee since I have a page there.
….responsibly. (The Gary Thorne pause. Longtime Oriole fans would get it.)
Thanks for the mention and kind comments, Michael.
Michael, I am honored you used my essay for your exemplary work.