At 6 a.m. GMT tomorrow - that's 1a.m. EST - I will have completed 78 years of life on this planet, years in which I have set foot in 37 countries, met national leaders (Mandela, Smith, de Klerk), and all in all, led a very interesting and accommodating life. I have achieved 250 catapult launches and carrier arrests, survived a mid-air collision and a separate crash landing, appeared in repertory theater in a dozen or more plays, ridden in mine-proof vehicles with a police escort to assess the damage wrought by terrorists on lonely farmhouses, and I have swum with barracuda off the Kenyan coast. Sure I have made some mistakes - don't we all? But I have striven to make my life both interesting and the life of a gentleman. I get livid when I read or hear of someone mistreating a woman, and though I admit to having sowed plenty of wild oats in my time, I don't believe that I have ever treated a woman with disrespect, and this may be backed up by my 13 years of marriage to Lizzie - still to this day without a single argument or fight. I pray every day that I will get to live at least as long as my late dad, who crossed over in his 94th year.
So what have I learned? What advice can I pass on to my peers, my relatives, and my friends far and wide? I have written extensively in another earlier post about Time, and I sincerely believe in all of my previous comments thereto. Namely, that Time is the most important and valuable asset that you will ever be given. Cheerish the Time that you are given, for you never know when it is going to be taken away from you.
I have been writing my memoirs - The Graceful retirement of an English Gentleman and to boost the page count have included as an addendum all of the poems that I wrote in my earlier days and all of the blog posts written in the Internet age. I am up to 236 pages so far, and when complete will distribute it to friends and family - for posterity and so that I am not completely forgotten.
I am an avid reader, getting through a couple of novels every week - but then I have a lot of Time on my hands. To keep myself informed of political affairs and the like I have taken to regularly read the Reporter at Large column in the New Yorker magazine. Now that the warm weather is here (83˚ F today) I shall start painting again. I would have been doing so today but for the wind, which at a steady 17 knots was trying to get my easel airborne. Lizzie bought me a set of gouache tubes so I will try painting with those as a medium - there's a first for you.
Well guys, as you can see I'm still around and for any of you who are in the business am looking for some writing jobs, so if you're interested, do drop me a line.
Friday 25 May 2018
Friday 4 May 2018
No Collusion, No Obstruction of Justice, No Witch Hunt
No Collusion, No Obstruction of Justice, No Witch Hunt. Remember those words in a few months' time when the Special Counsel Robert Mueller eventually publishes his report or issues more indictments.
I am not a Trump supporter - indeed until I am a naturalized American citizen and have the right to vote, I will remain an unbiased onlooker, but will base my thoughts on what I observe in the so-called "fake" news. Frankly, the only real fake news is that published by Fox News and other right-wing news outlets.
Let's start my post with Korea. Many people are advocating that Trump should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize - not a bit of it! Let's not forget that North and South Koreas leaders got together and started the peace process without any help from Trump. My own view is that it could have just as easily been Kim Jong Un's sister that made the first overtures to her brother after her visit to the Winter Olympics.
Judith Thurman wrote in Time Magazine in January of /2017 in an article comparing Nixon, GW Bush, and Trump "But whatever I may have seen as their limitations of character or intellect, neither was anything like as humanly impoverished as Trump is: ignorant of government, of history, of science, of philosophy, of art, incapable of expressing or recognizing subtlety or nuance, destitute of all decency, and wielding a vocabulary of seventy-seven words that is better called Jerkish than English."
This week has seen Trump take on Rudy Giuliani as part of his legal team in the White House, only to result in dropping the president into deeper water regarding the Mueller probe. Does it not bother anyone, especially House and Senate Republicans, that Trump is a compulsive liar. I have never in the many years that I have been here on Earth come across anyone who is such an obviously bare faced liar. But then there are many people here in the USA who have known for a long time that he is a con-man.
At yesterday's White House press briefing Sarah Huckabee Sanders was so confused that she didn't know whether she was coming or going. She was asked point blank by the gathered press corps yesterday how she expected them to believe her when she contradicted herself time after time. I guess that's the trouble when a buffoon of a president changes his mind so often. The Washington Post stated today that the president has knowingly lied publicly more than 3,000 times since his inauguration. Trump has stated that there was "no collusion" and "no obstruction of justice' so often that it has to raise doubts in any sane person's mind. You are wrong Mr Trump - there is NO Witch Hunt.
I am not a Trump supporter - indeed until I am a naturalized American citizen and have the right to vote, I will remain an unbiased onlooker, but will base my thoughts on what I observe in the so-called "fake" news. Frankly, the only real fake news is that published by Fox News and other right-wing news outlets.
Let's start my post with Korea. Many people are advocating that Trump should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize - not a bit of it! Let's not forget that North and South Koreas leaders got together and started the peace process without any help from Trump. My own view is that it could have just as easily been Kim Jong Un's sister that made the first overtures to her brother after her visit to the Winter Olympics.
Judith Thurman wrote in Time Magazine in January of /2017 in an article comparing Nixon, GW Bush, and Trump "But whatever I may have seen as their limitations of character or intellect, neither was anything like as humanly impoverished as Trump is: ignorant of government, of history, of science, of philosophy, of art, incapable of expressing or recognizing subtlety or nuance, destitute of all decency, and wielding a vocabulary of seventy-seven words that is better called Jerkish than English."
This week has seen Trump take on Rudy Giuliani as part of his legal team in the White House, only to result in dropping the president into deeper water regarding the Mueller probe. Does it not bother anyone, especially House and Senate Republicans, that Trump is a compulsive liar. I have never in the many years that I have been here on Earth come across anyone who is such an obviously bare faced liar. But then there are many people here in the USA who have known for a long time that he is a con-man.
At yesterday's White House press briefing Sarah Huckabee Sanders was so confused that she didn't know whether she was coming or going. She was asked point blank by the gathered press corps yesterday how she expected them to believe her when she contradicted herself time after time. I guess that's the trouble when a buffoon of a president changes his mind so often. The Washington Post stated today that the president has knowingly lied publicly more than 3,000 times since his inauguration. Trump has stated that there was "no collusion" and "no obstruction of justice' so often that it has to raise doubts in any sane person's mind. You are wrong Mr Trump - there is NO Witch Hunt.
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