I'll try not to be too profound, political, or prophetic for this, my first ever post. I should also try not to misspell anything.
"Avuncular," for anyone who hasn't come across this word (I hadn't either when it was used to describe me a few years ago), means roughly "like an uncle." The idea in launching this blog, though, is not to dispense "Dear Abby" or Agony Uncle advice, though that might sneak in from time to time. No, the plan is to look at the world, and in particular my native country the United States, from the vantage point of Europe, where I have been living for most of the last decade.
Why me? Well, why not? I have been living outside of the United States, working as an American diplomat until I left the State Department in late 2002, for the better part of three decades. Except for trips back to see family, or one or two year stints in Washington, I have been an expatriate most of my adult life.
Okay, I cannot help getting political after all, even in my first post, so here goes: sometimes, when I look at the state of affairs that our world has gotten into, I wonder "where are the grownups?" If I start making references to Walter Cronkite, Daniel Schorr, Russell Baker or Alistair Cooke you'll have guessed that my formative years were in the sixties and seventies, and that the grownups I've mentioned were from what I see as the heyday of news commentary.
Today there is no shortage of smart, savvy commentators, and for someone like me who lives abroad, thankfully writers like Sidney Blumenthal, Scott Horton, Glenn Greenwald, George Packer, Kevin Drum, and Joshua Marshall, to name some of the best, are accessible through the internet. So maybe my nostalgia for grownups in the world of journalism is misplaced. It's simply that as I've gotten older, the sages just look younger.
But in American politics, that's where the yearning for some gravitas really kicks in. Think of some of the leaders on the American scene -- of whatever stripe -- from our not-too-distant past (JFK, Martin Luther King, Senators like William Fulbright), and contrast them with many of the elected or appointed officials of the present. You might then understand what I mean about longing to see some grownups. Maybe I have to offer up some "uncle" like advice, now that I have reached greybeard status.
But this is my first post, and I'll hold off on the polemics for now. Welcome to Avuncular American.