One of my Faves
our uneasy relationship with the tired and poor
Countdown!!!
ONLY ONE MORE POST TO GO AND I’M SHIFTING TO ONCE A WEEK ON MONDAYS! I am excited because it means I’ll be more selective in my topics and hopefully give each of you about eight minutes back in your life each week. Thanks to each and every one of you who carved out a little time. For those that dare, share something cool you can do with around ten minutes. There are 10080 so one less of my posts is 0.01% of the week! Here’s a start. That’s enough time to crush the beans and make that coffee in the morning fresh with room to spare! Good coffee is time well spent!
Seven Months Ago
I wrote this originally as St. Patrick’s Day neared. A month later I took three months off so this one has been on the shelf for a while! One of my favorite posts allowed me to meld my newfound joy of writing and the hobby of Genealogy. These two observations intersect in a place that gives me faith in the future as long as we do not reject our long past when it comes to what makes America special. While my family has taken a break from our periodic Zoom calls to connect, I am now working at a non-profit in the Twin Cities that provides support for genealogy research.
When I started writing I had very few subscribers and did not actively seek them. I was a bit sheepish and just wanted to get some practice at writing. When I look back on some of my early posts some were better written than I gave myself credit for. The one I am sharing today fits the bill.
America’s Secret Sauce
After years and probably decades of reading a lot of history books, one of the durable lessons (and opinions) I’ve developed is how important immigration has been to make America unique and caused it to thrive via reinvention. It seems it has always been true, during every era, there has always been controversy over the issue. It seems that as time has passed, the anti-immigration crowd has generally been shown to be lacking each time we argued about it.
There are so many democracies now in the world and it seems their lack of open immigration is THEIR fundamental weakness. It sure causes a lot of stress for people in every generation. They are always one small step away from a fracture as they retain a narrow “us and them” belief system. At the first sign of strife, what to do next fails them.
In the US, on the other hand, we’ve always had a distrust of immigration yet we always remained willing to keep adding to the stew. The diversity of culture in the United States is amazing. Even a narrow focus on food tells me we truly have the best of all worlds here as a result of the melting pot. There are lots of ways to evaluate different countries and their openness to immigration over the long haul. The three that stand out to me are the United States, Canada, and Australia. If I were a betting person, that openness will be one of the keys to a continuing bright future for each of them.
So today, instead of a new post, I offer a lightly edited update from the post titled “Immigration Fraud”. I hope you enjoy it. I liked it on the reread, refreshed it a bit, added a poll, and corrected some sloppy language. I even tagged a bit of new music. My music playlist from Substack now hovers north of 200 songs!
If I were to change the title, I would choose “America, a Love Letter”. If you choose the link, no need to return as I am done here and I added the poll, some music, and the next post to the link to match what is here. For those of you that think you already read this one, here is the ULTIMATE TEASER. There is an earworm of a song at the end and I guarantee if you play it through it will be in your head for a bit. Of course, there is an element of trust required when a 61-year-old promises a song that bops. For those of you that are done and love the short post, I added the poll, music, and what’s next to the bottom.
I hope you take the time to read this one. I believe it represents one of my very favorite posts ever. You have to click below on the [READ MORE] to read the Immigration Story. I think it’s worth it!
The Poll & Music
Tonight’s song is GREAT. Sometimes we just know a tune, love it, and might not even realize what it is about. This might be one of them as the title surprised me. I am confident that my friend “M”, my musicology major already knows what is about to play. He recently shared with me that the band in question had a pretty good run of albums in their day. I hope the rest of you just enjoy it. NOW FOR THOSE OF YOU THAT PRESSED THE LINK FOR THE EARWORM THAT WAS PROMISED, IN THE SAME WAY, THAT REAGAN’S FINAL SPEECH HAS STAYED WITH ME, HERE’S A BOP SONG WITH A CONTAGIOUS BEAT that just might stay with you. It has nothing to do with the post, it is just fun. Finally, since I am pointing to an old post here’s an appropriate song.
What’s Next
Next time, it will be “Let's Play Pong”. When scientists make a hypothesis, they rarely turn out. That is the genius of the scientific method. Each time we prove something WRONG, we get a little smarter. Imagine if someone approached you and surmised I bet flies could be pretty good at playing video games.
Theoretically I do the same, but I can’t help myself from writing up until the last possible moment.
Welcome to the Monday-post club! 😀 it’s a much more manageable schedule in my opinion.
I’ll use the extra time to read more of the many new substacks I’ve recently subscribed to. So much good stuff out there!