And then I wrote...
by Dick Schilling, "Editor Emeritus"
... that there is an old saying to the effect that government which governs least governs best.
The recent mid-term election, which still isn’t over, mainly thanks once again to Broward County, Florida and its incompetent supervisor of elections, would seem to indicate that Americans subscribe to that idea. Voters gave Democrats control of the house, but Republicans maintain control of the senate. That probably means very little legislation has a chance of succeeding.
If nothing else, election results show a nation badly divided, and ditto for the state of Iowa, but for a slightly different reason.
It isn’t universally true, but generally on the national scene the more populous West Coast and the Northeast states voted liberal, while the great mid-section voted conservative.
There’s a lesson to be learned there about the importance of the Electoral College to small population states.
In Iowa, the split is obviously rural vs. urban.
The well-financed, multi-millionaire Democrat candidate for governor won only a dozen of the state’s 99 counties, basically the state’s most populous counties. So, the winning Republican won all the others, but finished only three per cent ahead of the Democrat!
In the race for U.S. Representative in this northeast Iowa district, the winning Democrat carried only four of the 20 counties in the district, but those four contained the three major metropolitan areas.
Republicans still control both bodies in the Iowa legislature, so they may get to accomplish some things.
As of this writing, major fires continue to burn large areas of California, and they have claimed 30-plus lives to date.
Among areas threatened or involved is the famed Malibu Beach scene made so famous in the movies, and the location of some fancy homes owned by Hollywood celebrities.
One northern California town was completely consumed, the community of Paradise.
How ironic.
Oddly enough, neither my 62-year-old university geography book nor my 1981 American Express atlas lists a Paradise, CA.
Didn’t exist then?
Just goes to show there is still no such place as Paradise on Earth!
