Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from May, 2017

AND THE DEVIL LAUGHED

So once again it has happened this time in Manchester, England.  Manchester that solid working class city, now the second city of England, the evil losers have struck with an explosive device.  NAUTICAL LOG remembers it some 60 years ago British people with a very distinctive accent and expressions.  That of course has changed considerably with the influx of persons from former British Empire countries such as India, Pakistan, Ceylon and the West Indies.  Add in numerous others due to the European Union with its unwise indeed foolish "open borders" policy.  What has resulted is no doubt something NAUTICAL LOG would not recognize from 60 years ago.  Yet when push came to shove and this tragic disaster occurred after a pop princess's concert the working class spirit of Manchester came into action with exemplary behavior of hotels and residents opening theirs doors and hearts to help with shelter, food and communications.  There were videos of heavily armed Police Office

EXCEPTIONALISM

Until NAUTICAL LOG came to be based in the USA some forty-five years ago and subsequently retired here one had never heard of the word " exceptionalism ".  Not found in all American-English dictionaries it can be " Googled ®" and is explained as: The condition of being unique The theory that a nation does not conform to a pattern This is a status often claimed most often by public figures for the United States of America.  While it may have once been partly true it no longer applies.  Americans used to observe the minor laws while breaking the major ones one has heard it said that Americans would pay the parking meter while robbing the bank - again no longer true if it ever was.  There has been a steady decline in recent decades under both Democratic and Republican administrations to were today we have arguments, fights and indeed gunfights over such minor things as parking spaces.  Our cities both major and minor have an unbelievable level of violence - Chi