to advance entirely incorrect positions with more conviction than anyone I've ever known.

I should mention that I always believed I'd been raised by wolves until I met mer family. Compared to them, the Careagas were the Marchmains of Brideshead Revisited and her clan was more like the Joads from The Grapes of Wrath. I mean, I honestly think that in terms of sheer processing power, she's smarter than I am, but lordie, she was poorly educated. Geography, for example, is one of her weaker subjects, which does not inhibit her one bit at the breakfast table.

(I mentioned a friend at present vacationing in Guatemala. L suggested that Central America is a too-dangerous holiday spot)

R: Of course, there's always Costa Rica. They've been largely free of military rule, banditry, revolution and slaughter of the indigenous for most of the past half-century.

L: That's because of their long coastline.

R: I beg your pardon?

L: Their long coastline. They have more exposure to trade, other cultures.

R: Long coastline? The whole of Central America is one big isthmus. Costa Rica doesn't have much of that.

L: Of course it does. We've got a map upstairs. I'll show you.

[We go upstairs]

L: Oh. OK. I guess I was thinking of Chile, not Costa Rica.

R: That's not even in Central America. And it's not like Chile has such a distinguished human rights culture.

L: Who cares? Why are you making such a big deal out of it?

I love her dearly, but again, I've never known anyone who will argue so fiercely on behalf of a stance utterly unsupported by factual evidence, only to assert, when she's been proven wrong, that the entire issue was of negligible importance. I pray that she never crosses over to the GOP.

cordially,