We left the Independent State of Samoa, once known as Western Samoa until 1997, yesterday, crossed the international dateline at 10PM last night, and are now in American Samoa.  At one time they were like Hawaii.  Then came the Germans, British and USA.  Around the same time that the U.S. annexed Hawaii in 1898, wars broke out in the greater Samoa islands, and in 1900 those three countries split up the islands.  The result was the U.S. gaining the eastern islands and Germany the western ones, with the UK getting the rights to Tonga and some other sites from Germany. In World War I New Zealand seized control of Upolu from Germany, at the request of Great Britain.  Came the Spanish flu in 1918, killing 20% of the total population, including 30% of all adult men. What remained were 38,000 Samoans and 1500 Europeans. Samoa has two main islands, Upolu and Savaii.  They make up 99% of the 201,000 population,  I made a short visit to the capital city of Apia on Upolu. Samoa is a member of the

I don't know who James Templer ( journalist and author ) is, but he published a guest commentary in The Daily News of Galveston County, saying what has been on my mind since the evil days of President Donald Trump, which continues.  I should insert here his entire presentation, but will only use two paragraphs ( you should read the rest ): Lurking beneath the surface of American democracy ever since its inception have been potentially disastrous eruptions from anti-democratic factions, militia, underground armies, insurrectionists and domestic terrorists. Just as plate tectonics can set off a volcano, political greed and chicanery can set off an insurrection. Who are these angry, anti-government, anti-authority, hate-filled, mostly white Caucasian Americans? Why are they so full of fear, paranoia, hatred and resentment? Perhaps it’s because there has always been inequality, government inefficiency and corruption and people get fed up with it. The danger is that the future of our D