Biden's speech, a missed opportunity and theater triumph

Your old columnist apologizes for being a news junkie but feels the need to comment. Yes Grannie Annie and I leaned back in our easy chairs to listen to our President Joe Biden (D) deliver his annual State of the Union Address. It was a good idea for the Republican Majority Leader, Mike Johnson, to caution his people to not be disruptive because they had lots of chances to object. What I really saw was a grumpy abrasive old man delivering a campaign speech. Based on his past, recent record, I was surprised that he didn’t get sidetracked from what was written for him on his teleprompter and go off mumbling on his own. No he stayed right on script even though quite a bit of it was outright lies. Oh well as expected.

Typical Biden he bollixed up Laken Riley’s name, called her Lincoln Riley, the 22-year-old Georgia student who got her head bashed in and killed by one of our now multitude of gang member illegal aliens. Later he apologized, not for missing up her name but for calling the “newcomer” illegal. It is not hard to tell which side our President is on—the new illegal aliens or we American citizens. Hopefully for him they will be voting for the Democrat Party in the future.

It has also been interesting to listen to news commentators talk about President Biden’s address. The more conservative channels and commentators, like Mark Levin, tell us how bad it was because of the out-and-out lies but still MSNBC thought he did great. In the end it will be up to we the voters to sort it out in November.

File it under opportunity lost! Back in 2010 a big US outpouring of aid for relief of a disastrous earthquake with tremendous damage to our neighboring island State of Haiti. It killed more than 316,000 people, injured 300,000 others, and displaced more than 1 million people.

We sent our military to open up their damaged harbor and provide traffic control to both sea and air.

Notably local pilot Richard Stull, then owner of our McDonald’s restaurant, paid for his own trip loading his private airplane with supplies to deliver to the residents in need. He was typical of those across our country that selflessly provided help.

Haiti was originally a slave colony of the French and France typically did not rule very benevolently. Finally the slaves there created a bloody revolution and declared their independence in 1805 the first Latin American colony to do so. Sadly it became more of a dictatorship than the democratic republic example of their USofA neighbor.

Our President was Obama at the time of the Haiti disaster in 2010 and missed a wonderful opportunity. What he should have done was to declare martial law as we did after the fall of Nazi Germany.

There we used our own military officers to set up a democracy to govern instead of the dictatorship that the people had been forced to live under. In a few years, the people could have been prepared to vote for their own government and our temporary overseers would have left.

But no, we quickly took our people out and helped set up the dictatorship that they were familiar with. Another earthquake in 2021 caused additional horrendous damage and since then lawless gangs took over to cause more punishment to their local people.

Note that last night we evacuated our embassy with only the Marine guards left to guard the building. What do you suppose our President Biden will do to make things better? Probably nothing as there won’t be any democrat votes for him there!

Happier thoughts. Grannie Annie and I enjoyed SWNCTA’s presentation of “Spitfire Grill.” We went last Friday but good crowds filled our historic Fox Theatre on through the weekend. Of course we had dear friends as leading actresses and went to help cheer them on. Both were cast as a bit abrasive characters, so different than we know in real life, but both stood up to the challenge and preformed superbly.

It was a musical with a great ending—the way it should have come out. Especially well done was the scenery that filled the stage of the Fox. Dian has a wonderful talent for painting in 3D and her backgrounds were right on.

Loved the scenes provided by a large electronic screen in center stage rear. Several pictures were pretty familiar to any who notices the buildings aligning our “On the Bricks” Norris Avenue.

So many volunteers giving their time and talent to make an enjoyable evening for the public right here in our wonderful community. Great date night.

That is the way that I saw it.

Dick Trail