From the news: “When asked Friday about his latest tweets about Mueller, Trump said tellingly: ‘I like to take everything personally, because you do better that way.’ “
This explains a lot.
This would be remarkably bad advice for anyone, but for the elected leader of the most powerful nation on earth, it is truly horrifying.
The President of the United States takes an oath to faithfully defend the Constitution of the United States. His, or her, every act must be measured against the following standard: what action is in the best interest of the United States?
To take everything personally is to assume that your interests are paramount. That the interests of the nation do not count. As president, you are absolutely not ‘doing better’ that way.
Worse, taking everything personally pretty much guarantees that you will misinterpret the actions of others. Even as president, you are not the center of everybody else’s universe, and people and nations almost always act to further their own interests. If you believe that everyone’s actions are motivated by their feelings about you, you will be wrong nearly all the time. Worse, your ability to respond intelligently will be fatally compromised.
As if that’s not enough, taking things personally is psychologically and emotionally draining. In the end, taking everything personally is a recipe for inaccurate judgments, ineffective responses, and mental exhaustion. A far cry from ‘doing better.’
When Congress passed the Indian Removal Act in 1830, they created a ‘legal’ justification for the abrogation of countless treaties the government had signed with Native American tribes. The purpose of the Act was to remove Native Americans from eastern lands which had been ceded to them by treaty, thus opening the land – much of it quite valuable – to development by whites. Among the inevitable results of the Act was the infamous ‘Trail of Tears,’ a forced march of more than a thousand miles that killed thousands of Native Americans.
Having driven most Native Americans onto desolate western reservations, and having waged numerous local wars to keep them there, by the 1900’s the federal government seemed content to let the Native Americans melt away under the mostly incompetent and vigorously corrupt oversight of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
But somehow, the tribes refused to die out, and after World War II, encouraged by western commercial interests that sought access to potential mineral and energy resources that might be lying undiscovered beneath some reservations, Congress decided to take back the reservations and force Native Americans to assimilate into the larger culture. While even Congress was reluctant to make the tribes walk back east – there was nowhere for them to go and they wouldn’t be especially welcome on the way – the government’s policy was crude but effective. They would simply ‘terminate’ the reservations and leave the Native Americans to figure out what was next on their own.
To add the spice of urgency, the Act not only terminated federal recognition of the tribes, a somewhat abstract legal construct that might not have affected daily life on the reservations, but also ended all types of federal support for reservation residents, including health care, education, public safety, employment, and ownership of reservation lands, which transformed a difficult life into an impossible one.
In 1956, to further encourage assimilation, Congress passed the Indian Relocation Act. This Act promised vocational training, assistance in finding work and housing, money for tools that would be needed for apprenticeship programs, medical insurance, and a small stipend intended to cover living expenses for several weeks to Native Americans who agreed to participate. By 1960 more than 31,000 Native Americans had volunteered for the program and moved to specially-designated cities, including Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Denver, Dallas, Cleveland, St. Louis, San Francisco, and Seattle.
Considering the long, baleful history of U.S. and Native American relations, it should surprise no one to learn that many of the Relocation Act’s promises went unfulfilled, leaving thousands of Native Americans adrift in strange cities, unemployed or working at low wage jobs, and enmeshed in a culture they didn’t understand. According to a 1960 Bureau of Indian Affairs report, nearly one third of program participants were not self-supporting in their new cities. Many found that promised jobs and affordable housing did not exist. Virtually all participants faced racial discrimination and segregation and suffered from a lack of community support and their unfamiliarity with non-tribal culture. Many that could return to their reservations did, but some could not, as their reservations had been sold off when their tribe was terminated.
By the mid-1960’s it was apparent even to the government that the loss of federal support was killing Native Americans who remained on former reservation land. By then, federal recognition of 109 tribes or bands had been terminated, eliminating support for nearly 13,000 Native Americans and selling off three percent of all reservation land. By 1968, the government had reversed the termination policy and by 2018 more than 45 terminated tribes have regained federal recognition.
But while the Relocation Act failed to live up to the promises of its supporters, the combination of termination and relocation forever changed Native American life. Between 1950 and the mid-1980’s an estimated 750,000 Native Americans moved to cities, some as part of the relocation program, but most on their own, as conditions on the reservations deteriorated. Today, an estimated 70 percent of Native Americans live in cities, compared to 8 percent in 1940.
“Wherever we went, the soldiers came to kill us, And it was all our own country. It was ours already when the Wasichus made the treaty with Red Cloud, that said it would be ours is long as grass should grow and water flow. That was only eight winter’s before, and they were chasing us now because we remembered and they forgot.”
― Black Elk, from Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux
Saw a social media post that stated, “Unless You’re Willing to Pick Up a Badge and Protect Your City, I Suggest You Stop Criticizing Those Who Are and be Thankful for Their Sacrifice.”
While eerily reminiscent of COL Jessup’s unhinged testimony in A Few Good Men, this post reflects an attitude that might not be as helpful as some posters believe.
I was a police officer for nine years, so I guess I am permitted to criticize police officers who fail to live up to their oaths. I don’t do it much – and I practically never do it in public – because I understand how difficult and dangerous the job can be, and how often police officers are unsupported by their departments and their communities. But I also believe that a citizen can appreciate the sacrifices of public servants while preserving the right to point out instances when one of those servants performed poorly.
The idea that only a police officer can comment on the actions of another officer is transparently childish and is remarkably counterproductive. If a clerk at a fast food restaurant gives you the wrong sandwich, do you stay silent because you never actually worked behind a fast food counter?
Honest and accurate feedback on performance is critical to the well-being of any organization. Reflexively denying the validity or truth of any criticism and attacking the critic for not serving drives a wedge between the police and the community they serve. An organization that cannot accept and act on honest criticism is doomed to fail. The results will be a lack of accountability, responsibility, and professionalism leading to a downward spiral of declining performance.
“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” – Winston Churchill
I am no immigration expert, and I don’t even play one on TV, but there is plenty of accurate information readily available about America’s immigration system, if anyone wants to actually understand it. At the end of this post I will include links to a number of articles and reports from a variety of sources, including the CATO Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Brookings Institute, and the Economist.
First of all, there is no immigration “crisis.” That doesn’t mean that as a nation we are doing a good job managing the issue of immigration. But it does mean that our current system, though badly broken, is not endangering the republic.
Our current immigration situation is the result of decades of inaction and inattention. Eleven million unauthorized immigrants did not get here overnight. The mismatch between the goals of our immigration system and the needs of the U.S. economy did not develop yesterday.
While clearly not optimal, our failure to implement an effective immigration system is neither taking jobs away from Americans nor boosting America’s crime rate. Unemployment is at a near-record low, and crime has been declining in this country for fifty years. The loss of low-skilled jobs is far more attributable to automation and offshoring than to immigration (legal or illegal). Please note that automation, offshoring, and the hiring of illegal immigrants are actions performed by American businesses, and are not perpetrated by immigrants. (Except, I suppose, when immigrants become business owners…)
So, you have to recognize that the breathless warnings about the existential threat of immigration are a political stunt intended to use fear to fire up a certain segment of the voting public.
Our current immigration system is unsustainable. But so is our current system of health care, our deficits/national debt, our inability to fund infrastructure improvements, our college tuition costs, and our continued pumping of carbon dioxide into the earth’s atmosphere (just to see what will really happen…). We are headed down a lot of roads where we would really rather not go, but since immigration is the issue that most visibly energizes some voters, it is the pre-election priority of the current administration.
When we discuss immigration, we should understand what is really going on. Here are twelve facts about immigration in the United States:
Congress hasn’t passed significant immigration reform legislation since 1986.
There are about 11 million illegal immigrants in the US today. Many of them have been here for years as valued and productive members of their communities.
Most illegal immigrants in the U.S. did not cross the border, they arrived legally and overstayed their visas.
The rate of illegal immigration into the U.S. has been declining since before the current administration took office.
Immigrants commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans.
Immigration boosts the U.S. economy. Immigrants purchase goods and services, pay taxes, and provide labor for American businesses.
Immigrants do not take jobs away from Americans.
Illegal immigrants pay more in taxes (sales tax, property tax, and income tax withholding) than they consume in government services. They are ineligible for virtually all government benefits, including Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and food stamps.
Immigrants are motivated to come here far more by conditions in their home countries than by anything we say or do here. Central Americans aren’t coming here because they want to pick vegetables or wait on tables. They can do that at home. They are coming here to escape violence.
Our current immigration system does not support the needs of our economy for skilled workers. With a declining birthrate and an aging population, the United States needs an influx of skilled workers to maintain economic growth. Immigration can be part of the solution.
There are far too few immigration judges handling far too many cases, which leads to a backlog that can leave immigrants waiting for years.
A $20 billion border wall will neither remove illegal immigrants already here nor will it provide some of the skilled workers our economy needs.
Immigration reform is not some secret, dark art that only a few understand. The path we should be taking is pretty well-marked. We need a system that:
Strengthens border security through an increase in the size of the Border Patrol, additional surveillance systems, and other measures.
Increases the number of immigration judges, courts, and ICS agents to reduce the backlog of immigration cases.
Determines the skills and abilities the U.S. economy needs and develops an immigration process that values and prioritizes those attributes. Many nations, including the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia use a points-based system to determine immigrant desirability and award the majority of visas to high-skilled workers while still allowing for family and humanitarian visas
Addresses the existing backlog in our green card system by creating effective temporary worker programs for workers of all skill levels that can provide workers that American businesses need and reduce the motivation to enter illegally.
Establishes an effective worker verification system for employers of all sizes to reduce unauthorized employment.
Establishes a process that sets forth strict eligibility criteria for allowing the otherwise law-abiding individuals who are already here to earn legal status.
I am sure that this is the ultimate plan that the administration has in mind, they just haven’t announced it yet.
And here is a section of a report by the conservative CATO Institute:
“The overriding impact of immigrants is to strengthen and enrich American culture, increase the total output of the economy, and raise the standard of living of American citizens. Immigrants are advantageous to the United States for several reasons: (1) Since they are willing to take a chance in a new land, they are self-selected on the basis on motivation, risk taking, work ethic, and other attributes beneficial to a nation. (2) They tend to come to the United States during their prime working years (the average age is 28), and they contribute to the workforce and make huge net contributions to old-age entitlement programs, primarily Social Security. (3) Immigrants tend to fill niches in the labor market where demand is highest relative to supply, complementing rather than directly competing with American workers. (4) Many immigrants arrive with extremely high skill levels, and virtually all, regardless of skill level, bring a strong desire to work. (5) Their children tend to reach high levels of achievement in American schools and in society at large.”
Overlooking the Grand River in downtown Grand Rapids is a bronze statue of Chief Noahquageshik of the Ottawa Anishinable tribe.
If the chief were here today, he might recognize the irony in erecting a statue of him on the land that he was forcibly evicted from. Like many eastern tribes, the Ottawa didn’t want to relinquish their ancestral land and were willing to accommodate the growing influx of white settlers all around them.
Many tribes adopted western ways, living in cabins and frame houses, farming rather than hunting, sending their children to schools, and converting to Christianity. But it was never enough. Under the Indian Removal Act (1830), all Native Americans were subject to forcible deportation to lands west of the Mississippi River.
Chief Noahquageshik and the Grand River Ottawa tribe initially refused to sell their land to the U.S. government, but when the government threatened to forcibly remove them to Kansas, they relented.
He was never able to return to the land that he loved.
At 10:53 am on Wednesday, Oct 25, 1944, an Imperial Japanese Navy Mitsubishi Zero fighter, believed to have been piloted by Lt. Yukio Seki, dove through a curtain of anti-aircraft fire to crash deliberately onto the flight deck of the U.S. Navy escort carrier, U.S.S. St. Lo.
Japanese planes attacking USS St.Lo, October 25, 1944
The crash, which ultimately sank the carrier, was the first kamikaze attack of the Pacific War, which is to say it was the first time that a modern military organization had sent members on a mission with no intention of their surviving.
Before that date, Japanese and allied pilots had occasionally crashed damaged aircraft into enemy targets. It is also likely that some Japanese pilots – overcome by the emotion of battle – had deliberately crashed undamaged planes onto allied ships. But unlike Lt. Seki and his fellow kamikazes, those pilots had acted on the spur of the moment. They had not been condemned to death by their own leaders.
The suicide attack that morning – and the thousands that would follow – were conducted by hastily organized Special Attack Units, and they represented a final desperate bid by the Japanese to stave off a devastating total defeat. The destruction of Japanese naval airpower at the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944, and the capture of Saipan by U.S. forces in July, spelled doom for Japan. The U.S. now had island bases within bomber range of Tokyo and the Japanese Navy had no means left to defend the homeland.
It was clear to Japanese military leaders that Japan no longer had any hope of halting the American advance. Massive American superiority in naval forces, air forces, and technology combined with the near-total strangulation of the Japanese home islands by U.S. submarine operations made military victory impossible.
But Japanese leaders had always known that they would not be able to match the United States in war material or other resources. The great equalizers, they believed, would be the Japanese fighting spirit and self-discipline. Japan, they reasoned, could simply not be defeated by an undisciplined western power.
Now, in their hour of desperation, Japanese military leaders again called upon the Japanese fighting spirit, which had been honed by decades of strict rule by military juntas that had brutally enforced an ideology stressing loyalty and fealty and a super patriotism that required absolute obedience to family and nation. Japanese history, culture, and a generation of military rule created the conditions in which organized suicide attacks were proposed, debated, and approved as a last-ditch military effort to deter an invasion of the home islands by terrifying the Americans with the promise of millions of American casualties.
Far from wild-eyed fanatics, Japanese kamikaze pilots had been raised to believe that their duty to their families and to their country far superseded their personal desires. Survivors of a brutal military training regimen, these pilots saw themselves as the modern embodiments of the traditionally revered “failed hero,” who gives his life in a doomed cause.
The rest of the Pacific War would hinge on Japan’s further development of the kamikaze weapon and on the U.S. Navy’s dogged efforts to counter the suicide attacks.
As for the St. Lo, her destruction capped the most consequential five hours in U.S. Navy history.
From 6:35 am until 10:00 am that morning, St. Lo and five of her sister ships, accompanied by three destroyers and four destroyer escorts, had been chased across the waters of Leyte Gulf by an overwhelmingly powerful Japanese force of four battleships, six heavy cruisers, two light cruisers and eleven destroyers.
Through a combination of luck, good fortune, unrivaled courage, and Japanese miscalculations, the carrier group escaped annihilation, though at the cost of one thousand American sailors, an escort carrier, two destroyers, and a destroyer escort.
But St. Lo came through the fight virtually unscratched, even though Japanese warships had closed to within four miles of her during the chase. Shortly before 10:00 am the Japanese veered away and at 10:10 am the St. Lo secured from general quarters.
Having survived surface combat as one of the great underdogs of the Second World War, and not being exactly sure how they had done it, the crew of St. Lo had just a few minutes to consider their unlikely escape. At 10:51 am the exhausted sailors were called back to general quarters when Japanese planes were spotted less than a mile away. Two minutes later, the kamikaze struck St. Lo.
In the first moments after the kamikaze strike, St. Lo’s commanding officer, Captain Francis McKenna, thought that the damage was minor. The plane, approaching from astern, had smashed a small hole in the after portion of the wooden flight deck, but had not penetrated the deck and had careened the length of the ship, sliding right off the bow. The smoldering hole looked to be easily repaired.
But unknown to CAPT McKenna and the other officers on the carrier’s bridge, the Japanese plane had carried two bombs, at least one of which had penetrated the flight deck, starting a fire in the hangar bay below. Within a minute, a large explosion rocked the hangar and buckled a portion of the flight deck. That explosion was followed by as many as six other explosions over the next twenty-five minutes. Those blasts ripped open the flight deck, the hull, and, finally, the ship’s bottom. St Lo sank at 11:25 am, with a loss of 113 sailors. Around thirty more men died later of wounds.
The coordinated kamikaze attacks damaged three other escort carriers that day, but it was the destruction of the St. Lo, at the hands of a single Japanese pilot, that changed the direction of the Pacific War.
(Photo: By U.S. Navy – U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation photo No. 2000.236.017, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17131102)
For more information on the creation and operations of the Special Attack Groups, see Danger’s Hour, by Maxwell Taylor Kennedy, published by Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, New York, 2008
When I was a sergeant in a big-city police department, having joined the department after serving four years on active duty as an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard, I was selected to serve as a member of the instructor cadre for a contractor-developed management/supervision class to be given to all supervisory officers, sergeants and above.
As someone who had learned the basics of leadership in the U.S. military, I was already aware that police supervisors received zero leadership training or encouragement and that very few seemed interested in learning. Still, I was unprepared for the absolute refusal of some senior officers to accept even the most basic responsibilities of leadership. Taking responsibility for the work of others, holding subordinates accountable for their performance, supporting their subordinates in any manner whatsoever: these were completely foreign concepts that apparently had no place in my department. The mere suggestion that a supervisor had responsibilities to anyone but him or herself was contemptuously derided.
The training course was presented in ten modules, one per week, and I was one of the instructors for one of the modules, so over the course of the program I interacted with every senior officer on the department. Many of the younger supervisors were actually interested in the material, but they were openly ridiculed by older, more senior officers.
I understood at the time that police personnel practices then (and, I suspect, now) were unlikely to produce effective leaders. Police departments mostly hire non-college graduates with limited occupational experience for entry-level positions. From that point on, every supervisory position is filled from the same small, inexperienced pool. Leadership training is rare, and few, if any departments go outside their own ranks to hire sergeants, lieutenants, or captains, thus guaranteeing that no supervisor will have any actual supervisory or managerial experience, except what they have picked up watching their own supervisors flail. A police captain in a large department might be responsible for two hundred officers, millions of dollars in equipment and infrastructure, and the safety of thousands of citizens. What other industry in America would appoint a person to such a position with no experience, training, or education in planning, budgeting, personnel administration, or leadership?
But while I understood many of the obstacles to effective leadership within the police department, I was not prepared for the degree to which actual “leaders” refused to accept their role. It was then that I fully realized that my department was essentially a Cub Scout troop without adult supervision. The cubs were in charge. It was a low point in my law enforcement career.
I was fortunate in that I had already earned a master’s degree, so, unlike many of my colleagues, I had employment opportunities outside of law enforcement or private security. I took a pay cut to leave, but it was well worth it.
Ultimately, I spent nine years on the police department, not including three years as a police cadet while attending school and another half year as a civilian planner. I am glad that I was there and I am proud of my service. I think that everyone should work as a police officer for five years, but no one should stay longer than that.
My law enforcement experience was primarily limited to a single department at a single point in time. Other large departments may have operated differently and my experience from decades ago might be irrelevant today. I certainly hope so.
From the news: “INCHEON, South Korea — A landmark report from the United Nations’ scientific panel on climate change paints a far more dire picture of the immediate consequences of climate change than previously thought and says that avoiding the damage requires transforming the world economy at a speed and scale that has “no documented historic precedent.”
Naturally, the release of the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has prompted another round of useless debate about climate change. Changes in the composition of the earth’s atmosphere, the average temperature of the plant, the reduction of Arctic Sea ice, the thinning of the glaciers in Greenland, the retreat of glaciers elsewhere, and the rise in sea level are all measurable phenomena, but apparently that is not enough to convince some people of the existence, let alone the urgency of the problem.
It does seem ironic that in the United States, the “conservative” position is to defer any possible action as long as possible. Given that it is indisputable that humans are altering the composition of the earth’s atmosphere and that the consequences, while uncertain, are possibly catastrophic and are undoubtedly irreversible, it would seem that the conservative approach would be to act to prevent possible disaster. Isn’t that why we wear seat belts and build tornado shelters?
Rather than deny the ever-accumulating weight of evidence, shouldn’t we recognize that our understanding of the issue is a gift that makes it possible for us to prevent significant harm to ourselves and, more importantly, to our descendants?
Of course, history is littered with examples of warnings that were ignored, so I guess we haven’t learned as much as we might like.
“There will be a day sometime in the near future when this guide will not have to be published. That is when we as a race will have equal rights and privileges in the United States.” – Victor Hugo Green
Victor Hugo Green in 1956
Later this year a film titled “The Green Book” will be coming out. I don’t know much about the film, but I know a little about the Green Book.
The Green Book was a travel guide published by an African-American post office employee named Victor Hugo Green. He first published the book in 1936 to help black Americans find gas stations, restaurants, and hotels that would actually serve them. While legal segregation (Jim Crow laws) was more prevalent across the south, many businesses in the north also refused to serve blacks.
It didn’t matter if you were a teacher, a pastor, a nurse, or a combat veteran. Until the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, if you were a black American, you would be denied access to services all across the country. Black travelers had to plot their route across the states like military logisticians planning a campaign: ‘Here’s where we can get gas, and then, just up the road here we can get a meal. We’ll have to leave the main road here and backtrack a bit to get a room, but we’ll be able to get breakfast just past here…’
The Green Book, 1956 edition
A visitor from a distant place – Finland, maybe, or Mars – might wonder what these poor souls had done to deserve being treated like that. The answer, of course, would be, “Nothing.”
Well, we’ve made a lot of progress in race relations in this country. Been a while since lynchings were grand public spectacles. But we’ve still got a ways to go.
An article by writer Amber Ruffin, a black American who is married to a white man from the Netherlands, gives a little insight into the state of race relations today. “When you’re young and black,” she writes, “it seems like your parents are obsessed with racism. You think it can’t possibly be as crazy as they think it is. But then you get older and see they were not exaggerating. Jan never thought I was exaggerating—I had a real fear that he might—but he didn’t fully understand the consequences of discrimination until he saw them.”
Just returned from a week in London, where our daughter will be attending university.
While the uncertainty over Brexit is causing some consternation in the UK, life in the Kingston-Upon-Thames section of London remains outwardly unaffected.
This was my second trip to London, and it was completely fascinating and enjoyable.
Five things I especially like about London:
The design of the city is efficient and compact. Little or no space is wasted on huge, useless lawns and surface parking lots and population density is high, meaning offices, shops, cafes, and restaurants are almost always within walking distance. More people in less area means more opportunities for interaction, cooperation, economic activity, and creative collaboration – the building blocks of successful communities. The roads are not laid out in a grid, and they are not normally straight, so I am sure that driving is confusing, especially since the streets were not designed for cars and are narrow and often congested. But, as a tourist at least, there is no reason to drive a car in the city, as there is no place that you might want to go that you cannot easily reach on foot or by bus or train.
Walking, biking, strolling, riding trains and riding buses are nearly always more convenient and enjoyable than similar activities in the USA. The non-auto transportation infrastructure is well-developed, well-designed, and well-maintained. The city was more than a thousand years old before cars were even invented, so you see virtually none of the auto-centric development that has defaced so much of America.
The city is more crowded and diverse than I expected. Of the two, the crowds were more surprising. Shopping districts, museums, and parks all seem to be well-attended. At times, they are uncomfortably crowded. Not exactly sure why I didn’t expect the city to be crowded, as it was the most populous city on earth from 1831 until 1925. Today, it has more international arrivals each year than any other city. As for diversity, well, London was the center of a world-wide empire for hundreds of years, so it has always drawn migrants, immigrants, visitors, merchants, financiers, and government officials from all over the planet. While the empire is no more, London has remained one of the most accessible and open of the world’s great cities.
History is everywhere. The first settlement on the site was built by the Romans around 2,000 years ago. Ruins from the Roman era still can be seen. By 1300, London was a city of more than 100,000 inhabitants. Shakespeare’s theater, the Tower of London, the British Museum, Churchill’s war room and countless other sites remind us daily that we are links in an endless chain, and that we might be wise to consider the effect of our actions – or inactions – on future generations. Standing on a bridge that is 900 years old provides a perspective that is not easily available in the United States.
The Royal Parks. Most cities have parks – but no place has a collection of enormous, accessible, well-maintained, and well-used parks like London. Hyde Park, Richmond Park, Green Park, Kensington Gardens and the other Royal Parks cover almost 5,000 acres of land in Greater London.
“Aesthetically speaking, London is just beautiful; it’s a gorgeous city. The architecture, the monuments, the parks, the small streets – it’s an incredible place to be.” – Sara Bareilles
“The vibe of London as a city is captivating. It’s both fast-paced and extremely rushed but still has the calmness that would attract any big-city person.” – Ali Fazal
While eerily reminiscent of COL Jessup’s unhinged testimony in A Few Good Men, this post reflects an attitude that might not be as helpful as some posters believe.
Just returned from a week in London, where our daughter will be attending university.
The city is more crowded and diverse than I expected. Of the two, the crowds were more surprising. Shopping districts, museums, and parks all seem to be well-attended. At times, they are uncomfortably crowded. Not exactly sure why I didn’t expect the city to be crowded, as it was the most populous city on earth from 1831 until 1925. Today, it has more international arrivals each year than any other city. As for diversity, well, London was the center of a world-wide empire for hundreds of years, so it has always drawn migrants, immigrants, visitors, merchants, financiers, and government officials from all over the planet. While the empire is no more, London has remained one of the most accessible and open of the world’s great cities.
“Aesthetically speaking, London is just beautiful; it’s a gorgeous city. The architecture, the monuments, the parks, the small streets – it’s an incredible place to be.” – Sara Bareilles