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.”