Don
Cherry to search for peace in the Middle East?
by
Robert LaFrance
A news report last week from the
Middle East, specifically the Gaza Strip, referred to the fighting there after
the Israelis invaded. It seems they were a little annoyed that the terrorist
group Hamas kept sending rockets over into Israel and it’s well known that
Israelis have no sense of humour about such things.
As they say in bad novels, I “sat
bolt upright” when I heard what the U.S. was doing to trying and calm down the
combatants. One ABC-TV report noted that Secretary of State Don Cherry was due
to land in Tel Aviv within a few hours and he wanted to start peace talks
between Israel and Hamas. Israel said sure, why not, but Hamas said no we
prefer to be bombed.
(NOTE: In earlier days, I may have
been in favour of getting bombed, but that was a whole different kettle of
haddock, my friend.)
By this time I had stopped dozing
and began listening carefully. Don Cherry? Seems to me he would not be the guy
I would send. “Get them terrorists in the corners and pound them,” he might say
– not helpful. Then I listened some more and it turned out that the U.S.
Secretary of state was John Kerry, not Don Cherry.
As my wife, the retired English
teacher, would say: “Bob, you gotta listen more better.”
**************************
I often wonder about millionaires
and billionaires. Senators too for that matter, but that is a story for another
day.
What I wonder about millionaires and
billionaires is this: are they really? It is said that Donald Trump is a
billionaire, but I have read speculation by people who know about these things
and they say that the average truck driver in Victoria County, New Brunswick is
probably more financially solvent than Mr. Trump is.
The point is, or many think it to
be, that Mr. Trump rides around in a limousine and the truck driver has a
Toyota or a Buick. Just suppose that Donald Trump has assets of $251 billion
and DEBTS of $311. Is he rich or is he poor?
In 1991 a “Media mogul” (he owned a
bunch of British newspapers and TV stations, or somebody did) named Robert
Maxwell died and after his death it was found that his debts exceeded his
assets by, oh, roughly $881 zillion. He was about to lose his empire and be reduced
to whatever money he had managed to squirrel away in the Cayman Islands. Was he
a millionaire?
The reason I bring up this subject
(note the phrase ‘bring up’) is that I’ve been wondering who are really
millionaires in Victoria County, and indeed in this very house. After much
thought and a certain amount of lemonade, I have decided that Donald Trump is
no more a millionaire than my dog Kezman, and I, after years of saving, am at
least a hundredaire.
*****************************
Over the past few decades we have
heard about scores – no, hundreds – of new diseases and syndromes we never knew
we had, and certainly could have survived nicely without knowing anything about
them.
I am here to tell you that I have
discovered another one and am now looking for a way to make some money on it.
After the contracts are signed with the big drug companies, we will find a
‘cure’ for it. That reminds me that a ham is also cured even though there is
nothing wrong with it, other than its being dead.
The syndrome I have discovered I
choose to call RPRC, or Remote-Phone Reversal Condition.
In our living room there are at
least ten remote controls, most of them active in some way – controlling a
VHS-DvD recorder, the TV, the satellite receiver, and some of them controlling
two items or all three. And now recently we have gotten two heat pumps and have
a remote control for each. Allowing for duplication, we do have ten remote
controls; I have counted.
Here’s where the RPRC comes in: last
evening a certain person (no names please!) was talking on a cordless photo to
her sister in Nova Scotia when she said she had to pick up something and that
required both hands. She set down the cordless phone AMONG SEVERAL REMOTE
CONTROLS. See where this is heading?
When she was able to resume talking
on the phone, she picked up the satellite TV remote, couldn’t hear her sister,
then picked up the VCR remote. Finally she spied the cordless phone and resumed
talking on that as if the bizarre occurrences of half a minute before hadn’t taken
place.
Usually I have no problem commenting
on everyday events, but I really can’t think of anything more to say about
this.
-END-
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