Ron Miller's Blog: Ron's Reflections, page 2

Deafening Dog Whistles

I didn’t think there was much left for the Trump administration to do that would get under my skin, but they continue to prove me wrong. When I read that they had fast-tracked the resettlement of 59 white South Africans to the U.S. because they were “victims” of racial discrimination, I couldn’t believe what I was reading.

White “victims” of racism protesting in South Africa

Trump said the decision to expedite the refugee status of these Afrikaners, descendants of the Dutch settlers who ruled ove...

The other side of the Rubicon

At the 100-day mark, the swagger is unmistakable. President Trump is so buoyed by the havoc he’s wreaked against his perceived adversaries - the press, academia, law firms, “the deep state,” immigrants, political opponents, and “freeloaders” in the international community - that he was willing to sit down and do two expansive interviews with TIME and The Atlantic, two publications that he has excoriated frequently in the past for their coverage of him. He declared in The Atlantic interview that ...

Closer than they appear

Anyone who has driven a car recognizes the warning on the passenger-side mirror: “Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.” I was never curious about why this is the case for that mirror alone until I came up with the title for this article! The passenger-side mirror has a convex shape that widens the driver’s field of view but makes objects appear smaller and, therefore, farther away than they are. This seemed like an appropriate metaphor for assessing the first 72 days of the second ...

What have we got?

James McHenry, a Maryland delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, kept a journal of the experience. It is from this journal that a famous statement was attributed to Benjamin Franklin, a founding father of the United States and the only one who signed three of America’s founding documents - the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Paris in 1783 that formally ended the Revolutionary War and recognized the United States of America as an independent nation, and the Constitution of ...

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

I am a self-described news junkie, and I am more than willing to pay for quality journalism and opinion writing to the tune of thousands of dollars a year. That said, I confess the rush of news generated by the Trump administration since January 20th has been overwhelming. Every time something happens that motivates me to write, something else comes up almost immediately to take its place. I’ve had just enough time to express myself about discrete events through Substack Notes, but that seems in...

How are y'all doing?

Happy New Year to all of you—or “all y’all” if I stay consistent with my header! My wife, the linguist, renewed my respect for “y’all” and “all y’all” when she revealed that German has similar colloquialisms, but French doesn’t. Also, English doesn’t have a standalone second-person plural pronoun - “you” is both a singular and plural second-person pronoun, which is a little awkward - so “y’all” serves that purpose! Anyway, I hope all y’all had a blessed and bountiful holiday season and are prepa...

American Dad

Tomorrow would have been my father’s 87th birthday. I would have called him on Facebook Messenger, connecting to the Facebook Portal I bought my parents many years ago because its single-purpose design was easier for them to navigate than a desktop or laptop computer with a webcam and video conferencing apps. Along with wishing him well for his birthday, we would have talked about the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, and I would express my gratitude to him and my mother. We’d talk about the prospe...

Let there be peace

A dear friend asked about posts she read on social media where people were praying to God about today’s election and declaring, “It is now in God’s hands.” She wondered aloud if they were sincere in that belief; would they accept the outcome as God’s will regardless of who wins, or would they be upset with God if it doesn’t go their way? I responded to her inquiry, and after reading it, I feel like I must share that response more broadly:

It should be a reflection of trust in God's plan regardles...

As far as it depends on me

While scrolling through my Facebook feed, I found an item about country music singer Jason Aldean which read, “Jason Aldean Rejects $500 million Music Collaboration With Taylor Swift, ‘Her Music is Woke, No Thanks.’” In light of Swift’s recent endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris in this year’s presidential election, Jason Aldean’s popularity with Trump supporters, and the awful grammar in the post, this item set off my “fake news” radar. I’ve written previously about propaganda technique...

The company you keep

The recent actions of former President Trump and his staff at Arlington National Cemetery while honoring the 13 American soldiers killed in 2021 during the withdrawal from Afghanistan have garnered significant attention in the political news cycle. However, what might have gone unnoticed except for a few news reports was the presence and response of another politician who accompanied Trump during his visit, Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah.

Cox, who is running for reelection, was present at the request ...