IS THERE truth in the playwright Molière’s words, “Gold makes the ugly beautiful”?
The Trump family is going to license a company to produce “Trump Watches”. The initial illustrations online show Trump-branded gold phones with the MAGA message embossed on them although the gold looks a bit off-color. Discretion doesn’t allow me to suggest what the color most resembles.
There isn’t much detail yet available about the phone but will it have some vital specifications? Will it be able to stop the regular, almost daily, offers for Trump watches, or allowing me the opportunity to donate money to the Trump campaign? Will I be able to block all political SMS and email messages?
An amusing connection is that the monthly access cost will be $US47.45, numbers that appear on the Trump bandwagon. It may become far more expensive, at $4,745.48 a month, if by some means he does come back a third time.
I think someone dialed a wrong number.
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Israel travel ban
Many countries have now banned travelling to Israel or at least advised people not to visit unless they have to since they probably won’t be able to help you if there were problems.
Like many, I have been lucky enough to visit Israel in quieter times and would recommend going there but not for a while, perhaps quite a while.
It’s sad that there are so many countries that are not really safe to visit, mainly because of armed conflicts and sometimes natural disasters.
In the meantime, why not visit Australia. We’re friendly and have plenty to see. You can ignore all the stories of snakes, spiders, deadly jellyfish — and now, mushrooms, not that many people get killed that way.
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Each to their own
I have seen a number of the giant military parades on TV. They have involved a number of components including thousands of soldiers, weapons, bombs and flybys but all were viewed by a dictator or supreme leader. The most obvious examples are Russia, China, and North Korea.
Now America joins the team although the official reason is to celebrate the 250th year of their military, and coincidentally Donald Trump’s birthday.
One of the few differences is that the first three have leaders that are basically life-long occupants with absolute power whereas President Trump only has three and a half years to go and his power is limited by the constitution and the courts although he seems to be ignoring them at the moment.
Let’s hope for rain so the President doesn’t do or say anything that embarrasses the US.
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A bit spotty
Robert Kennedy Jr. as US health secretary has appointed eight replacement vaccine advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel since he fired all of the previous scientific experts.
Is this a misnomer? Many of them could be considered anti-vaccine and their scientific expertise could be questioned?
For the US, the recent measles outbreaks provide evidence for the need for more vaccines. Measles is not just annoying spots; it can kill.
For the rest of the world the danger is in both the possible spread of diseases and more in the lack of support for the development of further vaccines by American scientists.
The world needs leadership in medicine and medical research.
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Too late?
Elon Musk has realized that he must be more careful with what he says, as his latest post admits “I regret some of my posts about President Donald Trump last week. They went too far.”
Many people have regrets, some acknowledge them and a few do something about it beyond a cursory apology. The world’s wealthiest man is attempting to restore his “buddyship’” with the world’s most powerful man but it might be too late.
It seems to be a case of checking your parachute after you have jumped off a cliff, it’s a bit too late. Musk has blown up his credibility and diminished his wealth while others are blowing up his Tesla vehicles.
Oh well, he has about a dozen children that will take care of him in his dotage.
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Learn the lesson
The arrest and subsequent deportation of Greta Thunberg by the Israeli military was a detailed example of what not to do.
She was drawing attention to an issue that she was concerned about, an activity she has been doing for years and had developed quite a following for. The Israeli military approach of storming the boat with weaponry against unarmed civilians was a great way to bring them bad publicity, given live streaming being so easy now.
They should have let her and the boat land, arrest them for illegal entry and then deport them, as this would then be a Page 9 article in some news short newspapers rather than on the front page of many papers.
It was a simple event that could have basically been ignored but ended up again demonstrating the dangers of overreacting.
When will the world show some sanity in so many issues?/PN
