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"Yesterday, as I stood at my last stop on the campaign trail, I'll never be doing a rally again, can you believe it? I think we've done 900 rallies approximately from. Can you imagine? 900, 901 or something. A lot of rallies. And it was sad. Everybody was sad..."
"They said that many people have told me that God spared my life for a reason. And that reason was to save our country and to restore America to greatness. And now we are going to fulfill that mission together..."
"I will govern by a simple motto: Promises made, promises kept. We're going to keep our promises. Nothing will stop me from keeping my word to you, the people. We will make America safe, strong, prosperous, powerful, and free again..."
"Success is going to bring us together and we are going to start by all putting America first.
"We have to put our country first for at least a period of time. We have to fix it. Because together we can truly make America great again for all Americans. So I want to just tell you what a great honor this is. I want to thank you. I will not let you down. America's future will be bigger, better, bolder, richer, safer and stronger than it has ever been before. God bless you and God bless America. Thank you very much. Thank you very much."

 

Presumably, 50-year-old volunteer fire chief; father of young daughters; and a committed church-going Christian: Corey Comperatore, lost his life as a part of God's plan, along with fellow rally goers: David Dutch and James Copenhaver, who also stopped bullets; Dutch critically.

 Nevertheless, Trump certainly loved his rallies. 

 The most talked about moment in the The Harris-Trump debate was when Harris mocked his rallies and Trump responded by asserting that Haitian immigrants in Springfield were eating the residents' pets. 

 

"At the ABC News presidential debate, former President Trump went on a tear accusing Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, of eating pets."

 

 

This was the real Springfield, as opposed to the Simpsons' fictional one.  

cats and dogs

  

This man is about to return as 'Leader of the Free World'.

Yet, he saw no warning signals before repeating the Springfield nonsense.  It reminded me of his suggestion, also picked up on Social Media, that Covid-19, might be overcome with household disinfectant.

 

President Trump claims injecting people with disinfectant could treat coronavirus

 

 

And his claim that the F-35 stealth fighter was actually invisible.

 

In a Thanksgiving speech to the US coast guard, President Donald Trump hails the F-35 fighter jet, calling it an "invisible" plane that they "enemy cannot see".

 

 

We already knew that his grasp of American, let alone World, history was woefully inadequate for someone holding, high office.  And this gets to the heart of the matter: he's an ignoramus.

I don't mean he's stupid but he's lacking in the most basic knowledge of how the world actually is. 

No doubt the occasional cat or dog does get eaten by a homeless person but ravenous immigrants, en masse, falling on the pets of Springfield?

The average twelve year old could tell him that this story is unlikely to be true. That same child could tell him that a stealth-jet is not actually invisible (to the naked eye); and that injecting disinfectant; or exposing yourself to radiation, sufficiently energetic to kill a virus infecting you, would very likely kill you too. 

But his ignorance is legendary:

 

Donald Trump often discusses history, and he has a unique way of talking about it.

 

Yet, on several cruises that we have been on with older Americans: "What do you think of Donald Trump" is a standard question at dinner. A few don't like him but for the great majority: 'The Don' can do no wrong. All the negative things said about him are just 'fake news'.  They are 'welded on' regardless.

Now this majority of Americans have got what they wished for - manifest destiny? As bob Dylan sang: With God on Our Side.

I'm worried.

 

 

 

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Travel

More Silk Road Adventures - The Caucasus

 

 

 

Having, in several trips, followed the Silk Road from Xian and Urumqi in China across Tajikistan and Uzbekistan our next visit had to be to the Caucuses.  So in May 2019 we purchased an organised tour to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia from ExPat Explore.  If this is all that interests you you might want to skip straight to Azerbaijan. Click here...

Read more: More Silk Road Adventures - The Caucasus

Fiction, Recollections & News

The new James Bond

 

 

It was raining in the mountains on Easter Saturday.

We'd decided to take a couple of days break in the Blue Mountains and do some walking. But on Saturday it poured.  In the morning we walked two kilometres from Katoomba to more up-market and trendy Leura for morning coffee and got very wet.

After a train journey to Mount Victoria and back to dry out and then lunch in the Irish Pub, with a Cider and Guinness, we decided against another soaking and explored the Katoomba antique stores and bookshops instead.  In one I found and bought an unread James Bond book.  But not by the real Ian Fleming. 

Ian Fleming died in 1964 at the young age of fifty-six and I'd read all his so I knew 'Devil May Care' was new.  This one is by Sebastian Faulks, known for his novel Birdsong, 'writing as Ian Fleming' in 2008.

Read more: The new James Bond

Opinions and Philosophy

The Prospect of Eternal Life

 

 

 

To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream:
ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause:
… But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

[1]

 

 

 

 

When I first began to write about this subject, the idea that Hamlet’s fear was still current in today’s day and age seemed to me as bizarre as the fear of falling off the earth if you sail too far to the west.  And yet several people have identified the prospect of an 'undiscovered country from whose realm no traveller returns' as an important consideration when contemplating death.  This is, apparently, neither the rational existential desire to avoid annihilation; nor the animal imperative to keep living under any circumstances; but a fear of what lies beyond.

 

Read more: The Prospect of Eternal Life

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