I eat a lot of corn on the cob during the summer season, but I am confused about how to cook it. Every day I seem to get a computer feed announcing the best way to cook corn. Unfortunately, the advisors, always definitive sounding, do not agree. I should roast it in the oven with the husk on. I should roast it in the oven with husk off but brushed with olive oil. I should grill it wrapped in foil. I should grill it with the husk on. I should grill it with the husk off. I should boil it for four, eight, ten minutes. I should steam it for six, eight, ten minutes. I should drop the corn into a half inch of boiling water, bring it back to a boil, and cover it for two or three minutes. Whatever method I choose, many “experts” will say, it’s wrong.

A friend sent me a cartoon with an “updated” picture of Mt. Rushmore. It was now four presidents with the fifth image an equine patootie. That reminded me of an unpleasant experience last week. I was in my local Pennsylvania bar in a county that is split 50-50 red and blue. I was nursing my Barley Creek Summer Ale when Trump appeared on one of the four TVs above the square bar. I muttered, but not quietly enough, “That horse’s ass.” The guy next to me, whom I did not know, spun me slightly towards him, hauled off, and punched me in the nose. I did not go down, but my nose spouted blood and ran down my face and shirt onto the bar. My fellow patron stormed out. As I was wadding up paper napkins to shove up my nose, the bartender came over and started mopping up blood. I said, “I’m sorry. I should have realized that there would be Trump supporters in here.” “No, he is not a Trump backer,” the barkeep replied. “He’s a horse lover.”

As conservatives have done many times in our history, they are labeling opponents “communists.” Trump has been saying that candidates and officials on the Democratic side are communists who will destroy the country. Apparently, the country will self-destruct if the mayor of New York City gets his way, and New York owns a grocery store. Really??? If a city selling canned peas and red (not communist) potatoes is tantamount to destroying the country, we are incredibly weak, and perhaps we should change our national leadership posthaste. Instead, we should realize that municipalities have widely engaged in “socialism” without the republic collapsing. For example, in the Pennsylvania county where I spend part of the year, private companies handle the trash, supply the water, and furnish the electricity to many of the boroughs and towns. Free enterprise at work, perhaps. On the other hand, in the small town where I grew up, garbage was collected by city workers, and the water company was part of the municipal government. Both private companies and municipal entities provided electricity. I guess that in today’s terms my hometown would be labeled “communist,” but the city was in Wisconsin in the days of Wisconsinite Joe McCarthy, who had no trouble finding communists in closets, bedding, and conference rooms everywhere. Even so, Tailgunner Joe did not label Sheboygan communist. And even if he had, the country has survived this brand of socialism and similar ones in towns and cities across the country. Some people even think that servicing the populace is one of the roles of government! I take no stand on whether Mamdani’s grocery store is a good idea, but, no; I don’t think it jeopardizes the stability of the country.

Stephen Kinzer reports in The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War (2013) that Secretary of State Foster Dulles, who considered himself a devout Presbyterian, said, “There are two kinds of people in the world. There are those who are Christians and support free enterprise, and there are the others.”