The Tip of the Iceberg

The caravans themselves are not the total problem, they are only the tip of the iceberg.  The total problem is that there are too many refugees worldwide desperately trying to save themselves and their families.  It's like when the Titanic went down.  Once the lifeboats were loaded and launched, they were ordered to pull a safe distance away to avoid being sucked down with the ship.  After the ship had sunk, the occupants of the lifeboats could hear lots of people crying for help in the darkness, but it was decided that there were so many of them that they would swamp the boats and everybody would go down together.  After the cries of the doomed subsided, the boats went over and did save the last few survivors.  It sounds cold hearted but, if they had tried to save them all, they would have saved nobody including themselves.  I was concerned about the big caravan that came last fall because I thought they were intended to try to break through in a big mob like they had already done when they crossed from Guatemala into Mexico.  As it was, there were a few failed attempts to do just that, but the Border Patrol had anticipated them and were able to prevent their success.....One life boat still afloat, for now.  Meanwhile, the asylum seekers have already overwhelmed the system that was never designed to handle so many of them at once....One lifeboat down.

Be that as it may, we were talking about the current upgrades to the border barriers that have been going on for some time when Uncle Ken introduced the concept of bollocks.  I believe he also said something about fake news.  Uncle Ken, are you saying that the borders are not being reinforced as has been reported in recent news articles?  If so, what is the basis for your assertion?  Did you read or hear something to the contrary, or have you come under the influence of President Trump, who reflexively calls anything he doesn't like to hear "fake news"?

I don't know if I would rather live with a crappy government than no government. I suppose it depends on how crappy.  I am not advocating the overthrow of the federal government anyway, I'm just saying that they keep threatening to shut it down bit by bit, and I'm daring them to just pull the plug already. As I have said, if the fed goes down, we will still have state and local governments, so it wouldn't be the end of the world.

The car was a '52 Ford 4-door sedan.  I once described its color as "pissy green" in a letter to my parents. My mom chided me for my vulgarity but, when she saw the car later, she couldn't come up with a more accurately descriptive term.

I saw the Northern Lights a few times in Alaska, but I've seen much more elaborate displays of them in northern Michigan over the years.  Contrary to popular belief, it doesn't have to be cold to see them, they are likely to display any time of the year when conditions are right.  They are caused by electromagnetic radiation from the Sun, which increases when there are solar storms or "sunspots".  I think they appear occasionally as far south as Chicago, but you'd probably have to get away from the city lights to see them well.