PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

The headline on this blog makes it seem like I know more than I do about the U.S. and the Czech Republic.

I know just enough to be dangerous.

Still, as I write this, I am sitting in Prague where my wife, Nancy, and I will be spending another day or so before heading four hours away by bus to Nuremberg where will board our ship for a river cruise on the Danube.

We are on a line called Scenic, which began as a land-tour operation in Australia, then expanded to river cruising in Europe. One of the good things is that – and this could be true of more lines than Scenic – once you pay your will you are done.

Everything is covered, including wine and tips.

Should be a fun and rewarding experience where we will see a lot history, as we have done in several previous European river cruises, including on the Rhine, Mosel and Senn.

On the Senn, one of the highlights was a visit to the D-Day battlefields where we saw so many graves that, I suppose, to call the visit a “highlight” is not altogether accurate, given the gravity of so many graves.

This time, here in Prague, on a four-hour walking tour of the city with our guide, I gained a couple of quick perceptions:

1. It was raining here yesterday, which is not an unusual occurrence in Prague. The Czech Republic is surrounded on all sides by various mountain ranges, so, in a way like Oregon, rain is a fact of life.
2. It is possible that the United States and the Czech Republic have one other unfortunate fact in common: The countries are led by a crazy person.

In our case, of course, it is Donald Trump who continues to confound, not only in the U.S., but also around the world with his erratic behavior that, for me, conjures up the image of a TV entertainer who has no idea what he is doing in the nation’s highest political office.

In the case of the Czech Republic, the culprit is Milos Zeman, now more than 80 years old who appears to have a good chance to continue leading the Republic.

He has a fondness for alcohol, so much so that our guide told us, in one TV shot of his performance as president, he was seen tottering toward the door of the meeting room without any ability to find it.

Our guide told us he roles with an iron hand in a country that is “a republic,” which is better, I guess, than communism. Like Trump, he also appears to have a yen to get close to Russian premier Vladimur Putin. Some in the Czech Republic worry that, with at least a personal lead toward the Russian, Zeman could enable a Russian takeover of the Czech Republic – again – or, at least, more Russian influence.

Perhaps that is an overstatement and, of course, I don’t know much about all of the political to-ing and fro-ing in this country.

Our guide, who said she risked a bit by getting into politics – and, also, religion – did say the country is roughly 50-50 split between wanting a Republic, which could be described as a democracy, and communism, which could build a bridge to Russia.

Here is the way my wife described the issue in her first-day travelogue of our trip — a description that brings a major political issue down to earth:

“Our guide is probably 45 years of age, so was a child in the Russian-control years and revels in freedom to travel and to share opinions. She is worried that the current president’s coziness with Putin will bring back too much Russian influence.

“Her mother, on the other hand, is 73 and, while she endured hardships (months of no toilet paper, queuing up for food, worrying about KGB spies, etc.), is fearful of spending older years without the expected government support of communist years.

“Our guide thinks the country is divided 50/50 over whether communism or current freedom is better. We would not have expected that.”

Here is what the New York Times wrote in 2018 after Zeman won his second term in office.

“After an election campaign centered on questions of civility in politics and the Czech Republic’s place in Europe, voters decided to stick with President Milos Zeman and his often-caustic brand of populism that has stoked resentment toward Muslim immigrants and ruptured the country’s relationship with its allies to the west.”

So, politics is askew in the Czech Republic as it is in the U.S.

Further, we also did not know in advance that the Czech Republic is basically an atheist society, which has been true since the Russian years. That is true even though there are wonderful old churches, with high steeples, all over the city.

More from Prague and the Danube if I think or more to write.