It was not all that long ago that the Democrats embraced racism for the southern vote and there was a strong liberal wing in the Republican Party. Probably everyone reading here is aware of the pivot that came with LBJ signing the Civil Rights Act, though he was way off in his prediction of how long it was give the southern vote to the …
It was not all that long ago that the Democrats embraced racism for the southern vote and there was a strong liberal wing in the Republican Party. Probably everyone reading here is aware of the pivot that came with LBJ signing the Civil Rights Act, though he was way off in his prediction of how long it was give the southern vote to the GOP.
The traditional conservative imperatives—strong defense, fiscal restraint, blah blah blah—are gone, Wm F. Buckley would be unwelcome and Goldwater's "shoot straight" would make him a pariah. What remains of the GOP is mostly crazy people and a few more who are not repelled enough by children in cages, or by Trump, to leave the party.
Aside: on the way home from the gym just now the traffic was backed up, one lane closed ... I thought it was some minor construction but then a grass mat over a lump in the road and a stream of blood coming out by a small hand. A dead child. Probably fallen off the back of a motorbike whose driver was playing too hard at "me first." Pardon if I have a touch of the horrors right now.
To your aside, yesterday I watched the internet news from Thailand with my wife. Severe flooding in the north. A capsized naval vessel with 31 missing sailors. Traffic carnage including a 14 year old boy killed on a motorcycle whose older brother died on a motorcycle two years ago. Horrors indeed.
I've been to Thailand. It is nothing like Vietnam. People drive sensibly, like a moving pattern of bikes maintaining the same distances and speed. In Vietnam it's all me first! Me first!; I even saw people zooming around dead bodies in the road, reckless as ever with the end result of such recklessness right in front of them.
In Thailand if you're walking toward someone on a sidewalk he will shift to one side. In Vietnam they don't; in America it would be a macho thing (YOU get out of MY way); in Vietnam it isn't, it's just a fundamental unconsciousness of cooperative order.
I was struck many times by the difference between behavior in the two countries.
The Lunar New Year (Tết) is coming soon; half the city will go visit relatives in villages, the other half will stay, get drunk, and drive craz[il]y. Great time to stay at home.
It was not all that long ago that the Democrats embraced racism for the southern vote and there was a strong liberal wing in the Republican Party. Probably everyone reading here is aware of the pivot that came with LBJ signing the Civil Rights Act, though he was way off in his prediction of how long it was give the southern vote to the GOP.
The traditional conservative imperatives—strong defense, fiscal restraint, blah blah blah—are gone, Wm F. Buckley would be unwelcome and Goldwater's "shoot straight" would make him a pariah. What remains of the GOP is mostly crazy people and a few more who are not repelled enough by children in cages, or by Trump, to leave the party.
Aside: on the way home from the gym just now the traffic was backed up, one lane closed ... I thought it was some minor construction but then a grass mat over a lump in the road and a stream of blood coming out by a small hand. A dead child. Probably fallen off the back of a motorbike whose driver was playing too hard at "me first." Pardon if I have a touch of the horrors right now.
To your aside, yesterday I watched the internet news from Thailand with my wife. Severe flooding in the north. A capsized naval vessel with 31 missing sailors. Traffic carnage including a 14 year old boy killed on a motorcycle whose older brother died on a motorcycle two years ago. Horrors indeed.
I've been to Thailand. It is nothing like Vietnam. People drive sensibly, like a moving pattern of bikes maintaining the same distances and speed. In Vietnam it's all me first! Me first!; I even saw people zooming around dead bodies in the road, reckless as ever with the end result of such recklessness right in front of them.
In Thailand if you're walking toward someone on a sidewalk he will shift to one side. In Vietnam they don't; in America it would be a macho thing (YOU get out of MY way); in Vietnam it isn't, it's just a fundamental unconsciousness of cooperative order.
I was struck many times by the difference between behavior in the two countries.
The Lunar New Year (Tết) is coming soon; half the city will go visit relatives in villages, the other half will stay, get drunk, and drive craz[il]y. Great time to stay at home.