2018 Aug 18 - Aretha Franklin & Trump's Military Parade
This week saw the loss of music legend Aretha Franklin after her final major hit turned out to be morphine. I imagine that she's up there singing, RESPECT while recently deceased Barry Chuckle follows the line "you know what it means to me" with "means to you" Aretha passed away on the 16th which was also the same date that Elvis died and the same date that Pete Best was kicked out of the Beatles, thus loosing out on a lot of money, but at the same time avoiding having to ever spend time with Yoko Ono. Anyway, a great loss to the world of music and so I decided to listen to some Aretha as I drew the cartoon this week, as did my neighbours next door, partly because they too like her music but mostly because I happen to have an insanely loud stereo system and it would be a great shame not to use it once in a while. Lord help the folks down the road when Jimmy Page passes away.
Anyway, once person who came out to pay their regards was President Trump who commented on the business dealings he'd had with her in the days when he was involved in the entertainment industry. I half expected him to follow it up by trying to reach across the racial divide by saying that some of his favourite vinyl records were black. But by that point people were starting to talk about Paul Manaford's trial so the discussion was quickly shifted to that of the much talked about military parade in Washington DC.
The idea for a parade was apparently inspired by a French one through Paris that the president saw. I'm going to be honest, when I think about military forces marching through the streets of Paris, it's not necessarily French troops that spring to mind but Mr Trump insists that the footage was in colour so let's give him the benefit of the doubt. The current estimated bill is $90m which is lot, but it has been nearly 30 years since the last military parade in DC. Anyway, it's now been postponed for a year, officially due to reasons of cost. Unofficially of course though, 2019 would be a better year for it anyway: the 18-month long US election cycle will be kicking into gear then and the president, unable to rely on a despised opponent this time around, might need a jingoistic crowdpleaser to get the country behind him, especially if he can hand the invoice over for congress to deal with.
Anyway, once person who came out to pay their regards was President Trump who commented on the business dealings he'd had with her in the days when he was involved in the entertainment industry. I half expected him to follow it up by trying to reach across the racial divide by saying that some of his favourite vinyl records were black. But by that point people were starting to talk about Paul Manaford's trial so the discussion was quickly shifted to that of the much talked about military parade in Washington DC.
The idea for a parade was apparently inspired by a French one through Paris that the president saw. I'm going to be honest, when I think about military forces marching through the streets of Paris, it's not necessarily French troops that spring to mind but Mr Trump insists that the footage was in colour so let's give him the benefit of the doubt. The current estimated bill is $90m which is lot, but it has been nearly 30 years since the last military parade in DC. Anyway, it's now been postponed for a year, officially due to reasons of cost. Unofficially of course though, 2019 would be a better year for it anyway: the 18-month long US election cycle will be kicking into gear then and the president, unable to rely on a despised opponent this time around, might need a jingoistic crowdpleaser to get the country behind him, especially if he can hand the invoice over for congress to deal with.
This week saw the loss of music legend Aretha Franklin after her final major hit turned out to be morphine. I imagine that she's up there singing, RESPECT while recently deceased Barry Chuckle follows the line "you know what it means to me" with "means to you" Aretha passed away on the 16th which was also the same date that Elvis died and the same date that Pete Best was kicked out of the Beatles, thus loosing out on a lot of money, but at the same time avoiding having to ever spend time with Yo ......