The REAL America

OUR Red-State APPEASEMENT SECTION

JAMIE MALANOWSKI

Herewith, another report from the down-to-earth world that exists beyond the view of the latte-sipping, Chardonnay-swilling peacenik freaks who control the media. Many thanks to my crack research team of cultural-anthropology doctoral candidates.

THE READ: It's November, and nothing says autumn like NASCAR'S Chase for the Nextel Cup, which, after corporate-sponsor-friendly stops at the Atlanta Motor Speedway (for the Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500), the Texas Motor Speedway (for the unmissable Dickies 500), and the Phoenix International Raceway (for the Checker Auto Parts 500), culminates with the Ford 400 at the Homestead-Miami Speedway. For anyone at risk of plunging into a post-racing-season depression, the good news is that, even after the Ford 400, the high-speed, piston-pumping action continues with the publication of the third installment in the NASCAR Harlequin romance series: A NASCAR Holiday. Unlike the first two books in the series (Dangerous Curves and In the Groove), A NASCAR Holiday is a Salinger-esque collection of short stories. In "Ladies, Start Your Engines," two young lovers (not samesex, alas) discover that winning a race isn't nearly as important as winning each other's heart. ("I'm not trying to make you fall in bed with me again, chief. I want you to fall in love with me.") And in the screwballish "'Tis the Silly Season," driver Clay Slater courts a young lady because he needs an already complete family in order to impress a potential sponsor. Vrooom!... WORK IN PROG Rising fast in Petersburg, Kentucky, just outside Cincinnati, is the $25 million Creation Museum, due to open next year. Visitors will be able to see a 40-foot-tall re-creation of a section of Noah's Ark and stare into the jaws of robotic dinosaurs. In one dramatic presentation, two paleontologists, working on the same dino fossil in the very same field, will come to dramatically different assessments of the age of the bones—and radically different views about the origins of our planet and of the human race. How will they resolve the question? Well, just go next door, to the Bible Authority Room, where, we are assured by the Web site (answersingenesis.org/museum), "Paul explains God's authoritative Word, and [proves that] everyone who rejects His history—including six-day creation and Noah's Flood—is 'willfully' ignorant." ... HE ESSENTIAL ACCESSOR One door closes, another opens. If it's the end of antelope-hunting season in South Dakota, then it's time to load up and start hunting bobcat in Minnesota or antlerless deer in Oklahoma or squirrel in Mississippi. And what could be more valuable to the on-the-go hunter than wheels—specifically, the wheels of the Bad Boy S.U.V., the nastiest golf cart ever devised by man (and surely not woman), a lifted, four-by-four, electric off-road behemoth manufactured by Bad Boy Buggies of Natchez, Mississippi. With dual 15.5-horsepower high-torque motors, 800-pound springs, and 22-by-9-by-10 mud-grip tires, the $8,450 Bad Boy S.U.V. purports to be strong enough to roll over any terrain, and comes already painted in various solid shades or traditional camouflage. Best of all, you can take the quiet-running Bad Boy out hunting, the company says, "and never spook the game again. Game won't pattern your route or time of travel." (Indeed, we defy you to name any game that anticipates being shot at by someone in a golf cart!) The Bad Boy seats four, which, frankly, doesn't seem to leave much room for much more than a squirrel carcass or two. Fortunately, a four-to-six-passenger stretch version, the Fat Boy, is also available.