Thoughts on America

 

Light Moments

Men – if you need a haircut in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, I recommend ‘Biker Babe Barber’.  Yes, there is such a place and person, and she gives a good haircut.

The only two types of television ads in the U.S. appear to be for injury lawyers (“Morgan and Morgan, the largest injury law firm in the world”, probably because Americans are the most litigious people in the world) and prescription drugs (most of which don’t tell you what they are supposed to cure, but the side effects seem worse than any disease they may address).

Serious things

Among my other ridiculous habits is my habit of collecting quotations.  You may have noted that I use them frequently in my blogs.  However, they can be handy in illustrating messages using the wisdom of notable people from the past. So, here a few which could well describe the United States of today.

“Whenever you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.”

  - Harry S Truman (Elon Musk, are you listening)

 “Democracy was a fragile thing, stable and steady until it was broken and trampled. A man who didn’t care about shattering every convention and then found new mays to vandalize the contract that allowed free people to govern themselves, could do unthinkable damage.”

 From ‘A fever in the heartland’ by Timothy Egan referring to D.C. Stephenson, founder and leader of the Klu Klux Klan in 1920s Indiana.

 “In America, anyone can become president. That’s the problem.”

George Carlin

 Okay, enough of quotes.

I recently wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper (and it even got published!) in which I wrote that Mr. Trump should rightfully be called CEO Trump rather than President Trump. In examining why Mr. Trump wants to annex Canada and Greenland, I said, “One must look into Mr. Trump’s background to find the answer. He made his mark as a land speculator and real estate developer.  He still thinks like one. The one thing that both Greenland and Canada have is a lot of land.”

When I expounded of why Mr. Trump should be referred to as the CEO, I said the following, “CEOs have almost unlimited control of their company.  They can hire and fire on a whim. Promote whoever they choose. They can reduce their decisions on anything to do with their company to a memo.  Executive orders are Mr. Trump’s memos.  Although most CEOs must answer to a Board of Directors, Mr. Trump sees himself as the Chairman of the Board, a board of one.”

It would appear that the US, and by extension many other countries, is in for a very hard two to four years. In the 2026 mid-term US elections, where every congressman (congressperson?) and one third of the senators must stand for election, we may see a shift in power in the American legislature.  But that is not guaranteed. Come 2028, who knows what the situation may be. Remember what has been described as an ancient Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.”

U.S. Adventure

 

Well, that was, to say the least, interesting. We just spent the month of February in the United States; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to be exact. There are a lot of thoughts that came about from the trip. I’ll try and summarize some of what we encountered.

The US overall

The US is a strange place these days.  I’ve visited there often and lived there for two years in the 1970s. I was there when Richard Nixon (“I’m not a crook”) was forced to resign. But I have never seen anything like what is going on now. People are treading carefully, not knowing what might come next. There is a sense of buyers’ remorse among the people. They are confused about what is going on and what might come next. When some people found out we were Canadian, they apologized to us on at least two separate occasions. A poll while we were there showed that 77% of Americans did not want to annex Canada.  There was a fine on-line letter from a Florida pastor who asked why the US should want to annex Canada and gave several reasons why it should not be done.  We did not have any problems from any of the people we encountered, it’s only their government that seems to be the problem.

The best advice that I can give on this matter is to embrace the American people while you condemn their government. At some point, the majority of the American people are going to realize they have been duped by Mr. Trump and will start to resist his demands. Show our friendship to the American people and they will respond.  They have no issue with Canada.

Weather

We went to Myrtle Beach for some sun and warmth; an opportunity to get out and walk and enjoy.  Well, as I said to my kids in an e-mail, one out of two ain’t bad.  For the first two weeks, that seemed to be the case. The warmer days (mid to high teens C) were overcast with heavy fog most days.  On sunny days, it was colder and windy.  The only changed to better weather came in the last week or so we were there. Note that today’s (March 8^th) temperature there is 26 C. and sunny. Oh well, at least we missed the many snow falls here.

What the weather never did was stop us from walking on the beach every day.  The beach there is long and flat. The beach below the high tide mark is nice and firm and good for walking. There was only two rainy days, and on those, I used the resort’s fitness centre to maintain some semblance of conditioning. The extent of the beach in Myrle Beach and North Myrtle Beach is 17 miles and is part of a 62-mile beach stretch along the coast of the Carolinas.

Driving

Last October, I bought a new Hyundai Tucson Hybrid. It was an upgrade to my 2021 model of the same model. I have become a true believer in hybrid cars. They combine great range between fill-ups and tremendous gas mileage. I averaged over 35 miles per US gallon diving down there, reaching 40 mpg at one time. One of the features of this car is the ability to change the settings between metric and American units. Thus, I was able to drive in miles and show temperatures in degrees Fahrenheit while in the US. The car drives very well, is a pleasure to drive and is quiet to be in. Oops, I’m starting to sound like car salesman. To me, hybrids are a great compromise and transition to all-electric vehicles.

US drivers were quite inconsistent. Some of them very fast, particularly on freeways, but many would not even drive the speed limit in urban settings.

At the condo timeshare where we were staying, we saw licence plates from all over the US, and a few from Canada. The farthest state was Iowa, the farthest province was Newfoundland and Labrador.

Retail

While you’re in the states, there is always the temptation to shop, and we did some of that. What gets you is the sheer size of many of the retail outlets. The usual suspects such as Walmart and Costco are expected to be big, other outlets surprise you with their size. I visited a PGA golf store (one of two in Myrtle Beach) that was the size of a good-sized department store. The biggest surprise was a liquor store which was several times as big as the biggest LCBO store I have every seen. It had two sides, one for hard liquor, whisk(e)y, rum, gin, vodka, etc., and one for just beer and wine. Americans, it seems, like things big.

Finis

As you can see, it was an interesting experience. We did enjoy the experience, but at the end, we were glad to get home. Just remember, the ordinary people in the US want to be friends, it’s their government that is the antagonist.