And then I wrote...

by Dick Schilling, "Editor Emeritus"

.. that reflecting on how united in purpose the United States became after the attack on Pearl Harbor 73 years ago this Dec. 7 only served to remind me of how divided we are at the current time.

I think I was among the many who hoped that the election of the first U.S. president with African-American credentials would once and for all put behind us the “race problem” that still existed in some quarters, and in some minds, for the century and half plus since it should have been quieted.

Instead, it has gotten worse. And I blame government. Not just this administration, although it has contributed greatly, but all administrations, at least since the “successful” civil rights movements of the 1960s.

And government failures are not limited to racial matters. A couple recent stories are cases in point.

The president named two ambassadors to foreign posts which had been vacant.

One of those named was a woman whose only bona fide seemed to be that she was able to “bundle” around two million dollars to support the president’s re-election. Her claim to fame is that she directed a television soap opera. Now there’s a recommendation for someone who may be confronted by real world situations! It may be apocryphal, but one wag suggested she could not immediately locate on a map of the world the country to which she is being assigned. She has never visited there and she does not speak the language.

The other ambassadorship is to a South American country were Spanish is the spoken language. That gentleman does not speak the language and also has not visited the country.

True, ambassadorships are often mostly ceremonial and rewards for service to an administration. But the way things are in the world today, I wonder.

More serious is the naming of the administration’s top military advisor. He has no military experience, and has been basically an academician. He has doctorates in medieval history and physics. Recent history and physics of the medical kind might be more valuable!

And finally, came the announcement that the U.S. is leaving a force in Afghanistan to train local forces. There were a couple photos accompanying the article, one showing a rifle squad, and the other two guys with oversized boxing gloves.

Boxing gloves!

When was the last time a member of a Moslem radical group was defeated by a right cross to the chin?

You can’t make this stuff up entirely!