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Convulsed by politics
IF YOU think we're convulsed by politics, maybe it will be over in a couple of days. Or maybe not. But in that case it might not be overly exciting. Or maybe the contrary, who can tell?
The world about us is in a state of flux. Brexit in Britain. An attempted coup in Turkey. Terror attacks all over the show. And what looks like potentially being pretty seismic in the US.
Can Donald Trump make it to the presidency? The man who says he's going to build a wall along the Mexican border to keep[ outr rapists and drug dealers; who says he's not so sure about Nato; who is billing and cooing with Vladimir Putin in Moscow; and who seems to have single-handedly destroyed the Republican Party threatening the two-party pendulum system America has.
The man is an ignoramus, an oaf, people say. He won't have the usual Republican apparatus behind him. The women of America loathe him. They have the vote.
But he's a populist, a rabble-rouser. He's a wild card.
American film-maker Michael Moore – who is politically on the opposite end of the spectrum to Trump – predicts he will make it. He says on his website is that all Trump need do is win the four traditionally Democratic upper Great Lake "Rust Belt" States of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, three of which now have Republican governors.
Rust Belt? Yes the Clintons' support for the North American Free Trade Agreement has all but destroyed industry in those states. The people are hurting.
Moore goes on to point out that in 2012 Democrat Mitt Romney lost by 64 electoral votes. "Add up the electoral votes cast by Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It's 64."
Hmmm.
Over now to humorous writer PJ O'Rourke, a conservative and supporter of the Republican Party, who this time endorses Hillary.
"It's the second-worst thing that can happen to this country," he says of her potential presidency.. "But she's way behind in second place. I mean, she's wrong about absolutely everything, but she's wrong within normal parameters."and amusing.
He says Brexit, plus what he sees happening in America, is a reflection of failure by the liberal elites to take people with them. Politics hasfallen into the hands of demagogues. He sees Boris Johnson in Britain as an equivalent of Donald Trump, with the difference that Johnson is intelligent and amusing.
In an interview with the British Guardian newspaper he says: "Actually, I suppose someone who lived between World War I and World War II would say this is the comic version."
O'Rourke winds up with the traditional Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times."
That's where we are, I guess.
Big cats
THE Beast of Dartmoor has been captured. A lynx that escaped from Dartmoor Zoo in Devon, England, three weeks ago killed at least one lamb before being caught in a humane trap baited with meat, according to Sky News. Flaviu, a Carpathian lynx, is now back in his cage at the zoo.
Actually, he was not really the Beast of Dartmoor. That's from the headlines some years ago when a huge predator waged a campaign of terror on the forested moor, killing livestock and frightening people. But the Flaviu episode has brought forth new information about the Beast. In fact there were several Beasts, according to somebody connected to the same zoo. Several pumas escaped at the same time and wrought havoc before they were killed off by a very severe winter.
Heavens, this in the gentle countryside of England. It's as bad as St Lucia, up in Zululand.
At St Lucia people sometimes trip over leopards in the dark in the main street. Household cats and dogs disappear. When they felled the alien pines on the Eastern Shores to restore the eco-system for Isimangaliso Wetland Park, it took them much longer than expected because the place was infested with leopards and the felling gangs spent a lot of time running away.
Come to St Lucia – it's better than Dartmoor Zoo.
Tailpiece
"MY EX-HUSBAND wants to marry me again."
"How flattering."
"Not really. I think he's after the money I married him for."
Last word
There are some that only employ words for the purpose of disguising their thoughts.
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