After God knows how many decades, the good old boys have finally had enough. Liberals are up in arms over two top country songs that tell it like it is. They the accuse the singers of racism and every other abomination imaginable. They work get their songs taken off the radio, get them deplatformed and so on.
Just like the Canadian truckers, the Covid Team Reality, and the climate skeptics these singers sense a seachange. They are not giving up. History will be on their side.
Some races are hard to handicap. Will Hunter Biden and the big guy be able to outrun justice forever? Will Trump ever be able to outrun the endless stream of lawsuits? Will the Democrats really nominate Kamala Harris or Gavin Newsom despite the fact that most of the country loathes them?
Strange things happened in 2016 and 2020. Even stranger things are materializing for 2024. Meanwhile I'm happy to live in a country in which a predictable level of sanity seems to reign. Despite the madness to the north of us, madness to the west of us, and the above noted madness overseas, we seem to know what were doing.
Neither side seems to be backing away from the madness. Becky Pringle, President of the National Education Association – the national teacher's union – gave a speech that had absolutely nothing to do with the mission of educating children. Even the Labor Union News called it "Hitlerian." Part of the sanity I love here in Ukraine is that education is all about educating children, preparing them for life.
As Toastmaster this coming Saturday I have chosen "Faraway Places with Strange Sounding Names" as the theme. You octogenarians will remember that as a Bing Crosby hit of 1948. It, and Unchained Melody, are the earliest pop music I remember. Unlike today, you could let six-year-olds listen to music back then.
Foreign travel was truly exotic as I was growing up. Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour made the "Road" movies. Ocean liners were for getting places – if you had the time – and not just for aimless cruises. Pan Am Clippers offered the first transoceanic air travel. It was a Big Deal when David Baker's family went to Hawaii on vacation in the '50s, shortly before the Boeing 707 made jet travel possible.
I saw the best of it. Airplanes were new and exotic, tourists not so many, and stewardesses chosen for their youth and comeliness. Now, with masks, swabs, jabs and being treated like cattle it simply isn't worth it.
I have the best of it right here. Our Russanovsky Lake beats Lake Anza by every measure, and the weather has been ideal. Still hasn’t broken 90.
That's the news from Lake WeBeGone, where the good looking woman swims every day, and kindergarten spares me being begged every hour for ice cream.
Reflecting on the two songs presented here, I have to admire their reserve. There is so much more that could be said.
It brought to mind the recent movie "Sound of Freedom." I had forgotten the title. Very predictably, Google could not find a 2023 movie about pederasty, child abduction or the like. I eventually found the title through a list of top movies for August.
A review I read gigs the movie for keeping its focus overseas, not shining the light on bad actors in the US. Another area in which you have to be glad it is being said at all, and try to imagine what all could be said.
In Canada, there have been big protests by Muslims against the school system, people chanting, "Leave our kids alone." Justin Turdo then claimed that these people were brainwashed by MAGA types from the US, to which the Muslims stated that they are not brainwashed.
People have had it with Woke. In the Netherlands, WEF stooge Mark Rutte resigned. In Spain, there is an election Sunday and it looks like the lefty types are going to lose. In Germany, the AFD has become the second most popular party and is gaining on the ruling coalition. In Sweden, the Sweden Democrats are now talking about a new government and leaving the EU. In Poland, they are going to hold a referendum on EU immigration policy, and in France, Macron has fallen in the polls so that if an election were held today Marine Le Pen would be elected President.