For whatever reason I got over 200,000 hits in September, mostly from the United States, which is nice, as I usually get spammed from Singapore or some other Asian country. I say spammed as I get so few comments and assume these are automated bots. If these are real people, then thanks! You pushed the total number of visits to over 1 million since blogger started keeping tabs.
This site used to be more active when we had members engaged in book readings but that was many moons ago. I started the blog for American history buffs with our first group reading being Team of Rivals. We had moved from Escape from Elba to evade the trolls. Seems like Melba, as we called it, has gone defunct, no longer popping up early on searches. It is pretty much just me here, posting my vitriolic thoughts from my armchair in Vilnius. I've renamed the blog several times.
Sorry to have become so bitter but the election last year left me really upset and things haven't improved since then. The Trump virus is spreading all over the world, even here in Lithuania, where our parliament got hijacked by populists parading as "Social Democrats." Lithuanians thought they were voting for the old Social Democratic party but that was long gone, replaced by young "neoliberals" who don't appear to have any idea where to take the country. They didn't win outright, so had to form a coalition. Unfortunately, they picked even worse populists to join them, so now we are seeing protests throughout the country. This is one of the pitfalls of multi-party elections. You vote for one party but don't know who they will ally with until after the election. Not like my wife and I supported the Social Democrats (she has a vote) but we were both shocked to see what they had become.
At least we are not Hungary or Slovakia or even the Czech Republic, where the Trump virus has taken hold and produced semi-autocratic regimes intent on pulling these Eastern European countries back to the Soviet era. We are truly bemused why anyone would want to return to this era, especially my wife, who often recalls the food and fuel shortages that characterized the late Soviet period of the 1970s and 80s. She has no nostalgia for that era other than her personal relationships in high school and college.
Much of this angst comes from our growing technological dependence. Younger Lithuanians have no memories of the Soviet era and no desire to revisit it other than hanging out in the courtyard of the old Lukiškių jail that was made into a beer garden a few years ago and was quite popular for a while. The jail actually dates back to the first Russian occupation (1795-1918) but became notorious during the Soviet era for housing dissidents. You can take night-time tours. It only brought back bad memories as far as my wife was concerned.
Despite having lived in Lithuania for 28 years, I still feel like I have one foot still in the United States. Northwest Florida to be specific, where I still have a crate of belongings that date back to 1997. I recently found out that the storage company is going out of business and will transfer my crate to another holding company. I never thought I would be away so long. I was imagining we would move to the US at some point, but things turned out just fine here. We raised three children.
Many of my thoughts stem from facebook, where I became reacquainted with my old high school and college classmates. My wife warned me not to take too active an interest. What started out as friendly reminisces quickly turned into rancorous debates on politics during the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations. I was often accused of "not having a horse in the race" as I lived abroad. I would politely tell my old classmates that what happens in America doesn't stay in America. Policy decisions effect everyone - the 2008 recession being a case in point. We suffered just as badly as the result of the banking collapse as did Americans, as the bad loans were "bundled" and sold off to lowest bidders throughout the globe resulting in a worldwide recession. Ironically, we kept afloat, if just barely, thanks to ongoing architectural projects with the US Embassy and American International School in Vilnius. We may not be so lucky the second time around.
I gave up arguing with my classmates when Trump was re-elected last November. It was something I couldn't possibly imagine after the horrible mess he made the first time around, but I guess many Americans never learn. I hope the "No Kings" demonstrations will reawaken the Democratic Party and help it win the midterms next year so that Trump will be nominally held in check, as he was the first time around. Otherwise, we are in for a horrendous three years. I don't think I will even recognize the United States at that point.
Anyway, thanks for looking in. I hope you are getting something out of it if you are a real person. Don't be afraid to drop a comment. I don't bite. Let's hope better days prevail with the preview we get this November in the elections in New York, New Jersey and Virginia. Cheers!
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