"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
-- Samuel Johnson (James Boswell's Life of Johnson)
It's believed that Dr. Johnson was speaking of false or misguided patriotism when he said that in 1775. Jump forward to 2007 and take a look at the sign in from of the Economy Inn in Great Bend, Kansas. I took that photograph on Thursday, and of course you see the words "American Owned" on the marquee.
I saw three other "American Owned" marquees, all in the Oklahoma panhandle, when I took a quick diversion during last week's Kansas trip.
Why do I think that is a problem? Across the country, many Days Inn type hotel properties are owned by Indians. People from the sub-continent of India, not Native Americans.
By touting their inns as "American Owned," they owners of these properties are practicing a subtle form of bigotry.
For starters, the Indian innkeepers who own the "non-American owned" properties could very well be US citizens. Secondly, if promoting their "American-ness" is the best hand they can play, then perhaps these properties have nothing more to offer that the Indian-owned, or better yet, Indian-American motels already offer to travellers.
Since I worked at various hotels in the 1980s and 1990s, I guess that qualifies me as an expert of sorts on the hospitality industry.
Hotel guests really only want just a few things when the check in: A clean, quiet, reasonably priced room. They don't care what nationality the owner of the hotel might be if those basics are delivered.
"American owned" hoteliers need to keep that in mind.
That's the American way.
Scroll down for more Kansas posts. The photograph above was taken with my digital camera, most of the photographs I took were from my 35mm Nikon, I dropped the rolls off at Wal-Mart a few hours ago--the prints will be ready on Wednesday.
My Kansas Kronikles is the first of a new Marathon Pundit series, which admittedly has begun with a sour note, but I thought I'd get the bad news out of the way.
Related post:
Obama's "macaca moment"
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Kansas 
travel 
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India 
भारत 
Oklahoma 
hotels 
racism 
Samuel Johnson 
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