If You Can't Beat 'Em. . .

. . . sell them the clubs and lead pipes!

So, here I am. Starting a blog. I’ve given in to the latest “thing.” My manual typewriters will never forgive me.

It’s hard to start writing commentary again after such a long hiatus (especially since I’m not getting paid for it). But the times have always be a changin’. It’s just a matter of how, when and where.

Many of my friends and former colleagues have been urging me to “get back into the game.” Basically this means journalism or, more specifically, what I and others of my kind consider journalism. Unfortunately, what was once a hallmark of American civilization has been reduced to a level of sophistication not much better than championship wrestling. The once-mighty Fourth Estate has, for the most part, been converted into a trailer park, with the later having more in the way of culture, charm and education. So I may find myself “committing journalism” here from time to time to either stay out of or get into trouble. My two cents worth of perspective on a world that thrives on small change ideas.

Perspective. Everyone has one, and everyone’s is different. Mine no exception. But yours truly is not your usual Yank. Having lived most of my life as an expatriate, I’m a time traveler in the very real sense of the word. Whenever I return to the United States I find myself transported into a future concurrently strange and intriguing.

The changes over time to an expat’s home country are so gradual that the people living there don’t notice them, but to the expat it’s like switching the channels on a television. If you come back and forth over a period of years, people, places, things, attitudes, all transmute into something new. Sometimes better, sometimes worse, but always different.

Yet I don’t find the land of my birth to be a foreign country like China or England would be. Returning to the States is more like going back to a book further along than the last chapter you remembered reading, or coming back into a move theater after ducking out to buy some popcorn. Same story, but you missed part of it.

The only difference is this time traveler doesn’t have a reverse switch on his TARDIS. There is no going back, only forward.