I’ll confess that’s it’s strange to be in Hong Kong while so much is going on back home (all of it happening each day in what is, for us, the middle of the night). It’s delightful to be able to spend so much time with our daughter and our three wee grandsons (and our son-in-law, a remarkable young Dubliner of whom we are immensely fond), but already, not even two weeks into our sojourn, I’m feeling more than a little cut off. (It’s also that I’m very much a “homebody”, and something of an introvert, and so I miss my familiar routines, my books, my music studio, and above all the deep peace, otherworldly light, and quiet rhythms of winter in the Outer Cape.)
How’s the mood back in the States? From over here it seems downright exuberant, the way one feels when waking from a nightmare to the happy realization that it was all just a dream. It even seems as though the nocuous spell of Wokeness is losing its grip on people (and places) that seemed wholly and hopelessly lost.
Is this really happening? It all seems so abrupt. But perhaps it’s always this way when tyrants fall, or when bullies get their come-uppance: the power seems unbreakable, the doom eternal, and then poof! — all is sunlight and fresh air, and the hope beyond hope suddenly comes true.
I’ll be glad to get home.
5 Comments
The speed at which events are moving here in the USA at the moment is truly remarkable. The new Administration, this time, seems to have done their homework, anticipating effective counter moves to road blocks put up by various party’s, both domestic and foreign. This is a pinch me moment for me!
Trump, as usual, is tireless, from reports flying to NC and LA to survey and talk with the locals in regards to issues experience all in a days time and in addition to all Trump has already done with EO’s etc. in DC.
Wishing you and yours a safe trip on your planned return!
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As I am, like you, something of a homebody and introvert, I cannot tell you “the word on the street.” Trump is obviously using blitzkrieg tactics to great effect right now, but his blitzkrieg will probably bog down in the quagmire of the courts. Like the kreitarchy, our perfidious press has not changed and it is clearly falling back to defensible positions. The blitzkrieg has to roll over those positions before our perfidious press has time to pour cement and plant minefields. Comparisons to Andrew Jackson are obvious and Jackson’s famous rebuke of John Marshall may be the answer to the quagmire of the courts. I’m not calling for lawlessness, but laws are barbed wire and this is blitzkrieg.
The changes are shocking. More than ever expected eliminating noxious systems I thought would be with us forever. Getting rid of affirmative action is one. I was in high school in 1970 to 74 when the first wave of preferences hit and as a white man had to deal with discrimination my whole life. It certainly changed my direction, prompting me to leave corporate in my mid thirties. I’m not unhappy how things worked out, for me personally. But, the waste of human talent this policy put in place certainly shows in the poor management of just about everything.
Great title, Malcolm. You’re a damned good writer. But for a ‘homebody’ you certainly do travel a lot. You’ve recently been to Vienna, Rome, and now Hong Kong. I hope you are not torturing your aging frame in Economy class on those long flights.
We are siloed into our positions. Polarization breeds extremism. So get ready for a long hard slog. Our political enemies will not go gently into the nether regions whence they slithered. The National Sanitation Project, as I’ve been calling it, will take a generation. And as you well appreciate, AI will make things even more ‘exciting.’
Thanks all for your comments, and thanks, Bill, for the kind words.
No, I am certainly not making fifteen-hour flights in coach seats. I realize how fortunate I am to be able to afford better. (I wouldn’t even go at all otherwise; I’d surely perish!)
For further thoughts on travel, see my subsequent post.