Another Quarter Heard From

Present: Me (M) and two Australian PGs* (APG) both academics on a three month leave - mandatory after 10 years' employment with one employer in Australia.

APG: What do you think of the current political climate in the USA?

M: Pretty scary.

APG: Yeah, especially with that billionaire Clinton woman.

M: What about Trump?

APG: Well, after Sanders dropped out he's the far better choice.

M (aghast): Why do you say that?

APG: He's a businessman. The USA needs to be run like a business.

M: He's a failed businessman. Every business he has been involved with has bankrupted. He's been sued.....

APG: Oh come on, most businessmen have failures, that's how they become successes. They learn from their mistakes!

M: But what about the people who have invested in his companies, their shares are worthless!

APG: That's real life. Some you win, some you lose.

M: So if he fails the USian people, and I can't count the number of ways this could happen, it would be an experiment?

APG: Of course. You don't want another corrupt Clinton running the country for her own personal gain.

I backed away with my hands up and didn't touch on Drumpf's comments on racism, immigration, privilege, creepiness (i.e desiring his daughters, et al)and mockery of those less fortunate.

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*Paying guests

Back in the Saddle.

I am sick and tired of this depraved and senseless world we live in. I look at the statistical map of mass killings in the US and think: no one does anything, those who are elected to serve and protect only protect the gun lobbies, the NRA. 'We the people' is a fallacy, truly. A sop to the masses.

I look at the murdered and missing aboriginal women in Canada well over 1,000 and counting just about daily and think: no one gives a shyte. Our man Harper focuses on Niqabs and the wearing of them at citizen oath-taking ceremonies and the troops rally around that particular flag and sends him skyrocketing in the polls,(our election looms shortly)which says a whole pile about our electorate and their hidden prejudices and women hatred. Forgetting, of course, that not too long ago Xtian nuns were so garbed and in some cases hidden behind screens even from their parents, looking at you Carmelites.

I predicted, way back months ago, that Trump and Harper would be the kings of North America. Two first class manipulators, millionaires, man-beasts. Both held in thrall to the worst of capitalism and fundamentalism, slurping at the troughs of oil, the standards of industrial militarism held high, death to the brownies, the blackies, the other than Xtian belief systems. Not forgetting, in Harper's case, overt references to the "Old Stock" Canadians - i.e. the founding-rampaging-death-to-all-aboriginals "fathers". In Harperland your legitimate citizenship can be revoked if you don't behave. Even if you were born here. Stasi-land, Harper style. And I haven't gone into the spying network he has set in place to monitor the "New Stock" citizenry like yours truly and presumably those pesky First Nations people with their protests and marches against clear cutting and unbridled oil-derrick hoistings.

I backed away, consciously, several years ago from political commentary, it was frying up my brain. But it seems that lately the corruption, callousness and trampling of rights is breathtaking in its audacity and horror. I am compelled to vent.

Terrorism as 'out there' no longer exists, if it ever did.

Terrorism, in many forms, is right at our own front doors.

Donald Trump and I

There is one quality in Donald Trump I admire. Very much. And no, I am not taking the mickey or the piss out of him. Seriously. It's his hair. Or rather the way he feels about his hair.

I think it must be the world's longest comb-over. There's some that say it is down to his waist at night and in the morning has to be flipped under/over/under five or six times to make it rest so massively on top of his head. And sometimes the hair spray doesn't hold it all together and a wind takes it in twists and turns around his shoulders and leaves him with a high forehead; by high I mean it goes back to the crown of his head. And all this blondy-white growth then tumbles hither and yon around his neck. Publicly.

And no, I never laugh at him and his hirsute obsession. Because it takes enormous chutzpah to face the derision of the world. And to carry on, and on, and on with the incredible management of your hair in the face of such mockery. He knows how everyone feels and he bloody well carries on and he's a millionaire who could shave his head or wear a wig or get hair-plugs or even tattoo his skull.

It's like his hair is a beloved pet he is going to honour and respect and downright love. For ever.

What brought this on? you might well ask. Well I'm with The Donald on hair. I am the only woman I know over sixty who has long hair. People (usually other women) don't know what to make of me and it. Seriously. It can irritate them. Much like The Donald's crop.

Isn't it a nuisance? Yeah, sometimes.

It must kill you to shampoo it? Yeah, it's a bit of work alright.

Why don't you cut it? It's not time.

Now everything else about Mr. Trump I just about despise, his politics, his racism, his misogyny, his prejudices.

But he and I sing from the same songbook when it comes to our hair.