2018 Jan 13 - Trump and S***hole Countries
This week I'd initially planned to talk about Theresa May's cabinet reshuffle except that frankly the most visible change was that the various cabinet ministers changed their shirts and ties between day one and day two. The main news this week (of course) was from Washington DC where the president decided to draw attention to himself. Sure presidents love to steal the show, Bill Clinton famously carried a saxophone with him in order to outshine George Bush or Ross Perot should the situation arise, and there was rumours that he brought the saxophone to the Northern Ireland peace process after someone said that he was going there to support the Corrs. Geddit, support the Corrs? (That Irish band)
Ok, so back to President Trump. The Washington Post this week reported that he'd supposedly referred to the 3rd world using a word beginning with 'S' that was (to use the letter S) a synonym for stool, more severe than the word 'suspicious' and a simply silly suggestion to spout to the scribes. As with many of Trump's proclamations though, even if you do agree with his America First policy, he comes across as a hypocrite as quite lot of his staff at Mar A Lago in Florida happen to be migrants from impoverished parts of Latin America; perhaps he'd have had more success if he'd accompanied the gaffe with an announcement that the Trump organization would cease employing migrant labour and start paying $15/hour for long-term US residents. On the other hand, he did suggest that he wanted people from Norway, a fairly left wing place, to move to the US so that's perhaps as close an olive branch towards centrist politics as we're going to get.
Also, one take away is that if you find yourself living in an economically depressed post-industrial part of the UK, or France, Germany or well anywhere north of the Mediterranean then congratulations, according to president Trump, you're not living in a cesspool after all. It turns out that even if your shopping precinct was recently filmed as part of a video montage for a news report about urban decay, just be glad that you're lucky enough to not be beset by the sort of problems they have in Southern Asia with it's sun and its cheap lifestyle and it's 7% annual growth rates.
Anyway, a day later as part of an encore there was an announcement that the president will no longer be visiting London when the new US Embassy opens up in Battersea. In all honesty though and speaking as someone who used to live near Kings Cross, a lot of Londoners would probably agree with his decision to not venture south of the river.
Ok, so back to President Trump. The Washington Post this week reported that he'd supposedly referred to the 3rd world using a word beginning with 'S' that was (to use the letter S) a synonym for stool, more severe than the word 'suspicious' and a simply silly suggestion to spout to the scribes. As with many of Trump's proclamations though, even if you do agree with his America First policy, he comes across as a hypocrite as quite lot of his staff at Mar A Lago in Florida happen to be migrants from impoverished parts of Latin America; perhaps he'd have had more success if he'd accompanied the gaffe with an announcement that the Trump organization would cease employing migrant labour and start paying $15/hour for long-term US residents. On the other hand, he did suggest that he wanted people from Norway, a fairly left wing place, to move to the US so that's perhaps as close an olive branch towards centrist politics as we're going to get.
Also, one take away is that if you find yourself living in an economically depressed post-industrial part of the UK, or France, Germany or well anywhere north of the Mediterranean then congratulations, according to president Trump, you're not living in a cesspool after all. It turns out that even if your shopping precinct was recently filmed as part of a video montage for a news report about urban decay, just be glad that you're lucky enough to not be beset by the sort of problems they have in Southern Asia with it's sun and its cheap lifestyle and it's 7% annual growth rates.
Anyway, a day later as part of an encore there was an announcement that the president will no longer be visiting London when the new US Embassy opens up in Battersea. In all honesty though and speaking as someone who used to live near Kings Cross, a lot of Londoners would probably agree with his decision to not venture south of the river.
This week I'd initially planned to talk about Theresa May's cabinet reshuffle except that frankly the most visible change was that the various cabinet ministers changed their shirts and ties between day one and day two. The main news this week (of course) was from Washington DC where the president decided to draw attention to himself. Sure presidents love to steal the show, Bill Clinton famously carried a saxophone with him in order to outshine George Bush or Ross Perot should the situation aris ......