Guess I Better Keep Schtum This Time Around

IT’S BEEN YEARS since I last visited the USA, certainly before 9/11, but I’m about to change all that on Friday as I head across the big pond for a couple of weeks… but I guess politics, sex, law, religion and so many other topics are off the agenda right?

It’s going to be so weird.

A normal vacation for me involves going somewhere interesting and learning about the history, the culture and the people who live there. Normally I would get myself into all kinds of interesting conversations about opposing belief systems, legal and commercial influences, quirky sexual, cultural and moral behaviour, world views and so much more… but somehow I don’t think any conversation about topics such as these would be a good idea this time out.

It’s not the same America I visited last time. New Orleans [as it was] is gone. The towers are gone. Free speech is gone. Democracy is a fading memory in the hand of big business and corporate America. The media are essentially just agents of disinformation these days so objectivity is gone too. So much has gone by the wayside that I wonder if I will even recognise the place when I get there. 

I’m hitting New York for a few days, then off to Las Vegas for some insanity and plan to finally spend about a week in San Francisco chillin’ out and hopefully all will proceed without any issues; I suppose I’ll just have to surpress my usual inquisitive nature and keep schtum.

It’s odd though, that I would feel such trepidation about visiting the USA because it wasn’t always like this. It used to be such a different place.

Oh well – behave yourselves while I’m gone. I may try to post a couple of articles from the road but in case I don’t expect things to pick up again around the last week in September when I get back.