Where do you stand on things? That’s a loaded question, depending on the context.
But if you take it in the literal sense, right now, I am standing on a wooden floor. In my house. In Ohio. In the United States. On Planet Earth.
That is where I stand on things.
Most people who read this are standing somewhere in the United States. In one of those states. And we have 50 to choose from. As it turns out, they all hold unique interests. And collectively, we can be quite a bunch.
So, with that in mind, here are some curious things to know about the good old US of A. It’s right beneath your feet.
• Out of the 10,000 members of the Communist Party USA in 1957, 1,500 were FBI informants. That’s 15%. But. Given the population of the USA in 1957, there weren’t many Communists and certainly not many informants. There were 172 million Americans back then. Today there are 346 million. We’ve doubled in those nearly 70 years. But not our Communist Party. Only around 7,000 by the last head count.
• So. What about the stuff we buy? Is it Russian too? Not Communist in that way, but Communist in a “Made In China” way. Because, in 2015, a report found 100+ Walmart products labeled “Made in the USA” that were actually made elsewhere. Sam, old buddy. What are you pulling on us there, big guy?
• Communism may not be your thing. Mine either. But it is a far cry better than Nazism. Here’s something about that old Nazi Party. The Nazi salute looked almost identical to what was — at the time — the salute to the American flag. The USA changed the salute in 1942 because the Nazis adopted it. We couldn’t be going all Hitler when facing the flag, I’d say.
• Here’s another thing about that Nazi influence. Until it was forcibly suppressed during WWI, German was the second most widely spoken language in the USA. Back then, many local governments, schools, and newspapers operated in the German tongue. My Grandmother Regina spoke German perfectly, as did her entire family. Oftentimes, that is what they spoke when they got together. When Grandma went senile in her late years, she would often switch over to German. I started learning it in high school so I could speak with her.
• The US, like suppressing German as a language, has done some dumb things. Since we are speaking of Germany, the Hindenburg was originally designed to use non-flammable helium. By the Germans. But. The USA refused to export any helium back then. As such, it resulted in the hydrogen-based construction. Yes, I said the Hindenburg. Don’t light a match, folks. Whoops. Somebody did. And we had a fire in the sky.
Well. These are all pretty heavy facts about the United States. So here is a light one to go on.
• The US has more plastic flamingos than real ones. That’s right. We have more plastic flamingos than real ones. And scientists are still trying to figure out why people like to stick these in their yards and leave them. Kind of like the Trump signs that have been up for ten years.
Oh, my fellow citizens.
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“In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.”
– Napoleon Bonaparte
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“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
– Martin Luther King Jr.
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“To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.”
– Thomas Paine
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The pink flamingo fact. A light one. Like standing on one foot.
