How Carl Sagan "Predicted" 2020... in 1995

As Of Thursday Morning 75,000,000 US Citizens Have Early Voted

 CNN has announced that as of Thursday morning some 75 million US citizens including my wife and I have participated in early voting in the US. I see this number climbing to 100 million by Monday. Election day Tuesday will be "a blowout" on turnout!!!!! Democracy is working!!!

The Man Who Ran Washington

 

My last Birthday present came early yesterday morning. It is a thick book with the title The Man Who Ran Washington. I sent you, Luah, Pedro, and Elena a detailed article on the book from The FT of London.

        When I got out of the US Navy in June of 1972, I returned to Houston. I wanted to get active in politics. I saw an ad for an internship with James A. Baker. He was a rich and powerful man in Houston with incredible political power. I came to his offices for the interview. Mr. Baker was from a family that had been in Texas since the 1840's. The family started Texas Commerce Bank and the Baker Botts LLP law firm. James A Baker graduated from Princeton University. He became an officer in the US Marine Corps during the Korean War. He then graduated from the University of Texas law school. He was , as they say in English, "Old Money." I was a man from the East End of Houston and poor. I went to the interview with some unease. When I was shown into Mr. Baker's office, I got a big surprise. His suit coat was hung over his chair. His tie was pulled down. His shirt sleeves were rolled up. He made me feel relaxed and right at home. We "hit it off."  I got the internship.

      The 90 days that followed were one of my nicest experiences in life. I spent one-hour in a high-level meeting with Governor (later President) Ronald Reagan. I spent a lot of time with former Buffalo Bills quarterback and US Congressman (and later Secretary of Housing and Urban Development) Jack Kemp. I got to meet anybody and everybody in Houston, Texas, and national politics. I have one regret from this experience. Mr. Baker would spend most evenings with the two George Bushes who both became presidents later. I'm sure that if I had asked nicely, he would taken me over to meet them.

      Mr.  Baker went onto greatness becoming Secretary of the Treasury under President Reagan and Secretary of State under President Bush I. The book is great by the way.

 

Reflections On Reaching 72 Years Of Age

 

This morning I have achieved 72 years of age. I am a very lucky man. In thinking over what to share today, I came up with an interesting story. We all have seen the large offshore oil rigs that drill for oil and gas in the ocean. There is quite a story about how these engineering marvels were invented. It all started during the Great Depression. An engineer in Louisiana made 5 attempts to develop a platform that would allow oil companies to drill for oil and gas offshore. He failed 5 times. World War II came. He went to the US Navy. He continued to work on his dream. He got a design completed that he was sure would work. When he left the US Navy, he made an appointment to see a very wealthy man in New Orleans. He went to the meeting. He was requesting one million dollars to make his oil drilling platform work. In 1946, one could buy a full sized Chevrolet or Ford sedan for $800 US. The house that Elena and I live in is worth $1,300,000 today. In 1946 you could buy this house for $5,000 US. In simple language the engineer was asking for a lot of money.

       The wealthy man listened to his presentation. He took a few notes. He glanced at the stack of engineering drawings. He asked a few questions. Then he went silent for what seemed like an eternity. He looked at the engineer. He made a profound comment: "Each time you tried this and failed you learned something. I think that you got it right this time." He motioned for his accountant to come over. He instructed him to write the man a check for $1,000,000. The accountant protested. The wealthy man just waved his hand and smiled.

      The engineer got his $1,000,000 check. He went to work out in the Gulf of Mexico. This time his platform worked. A revolution began in the oil and gas industry. Try to imagine all the money that the wealthy New Orleans man made in the years that followed. It could have been anything from hundreds of millions to billions of dollars. It was a handsome return on his investment.

     I was a failure until I was 52 years of age. Then Elena came into my life. She saw something in me that other women had missed. She became a wonderful and good influence on me. All the failures that I had experienced taught me great lessons. I used these lessons to turn around my life. I had to face impossible obstacles and hopeless situations many times. I never quit or gave up.

 

Former JAG Officer Richard Black Warns of a Potential Military Coup

An Amazing Music Writer Who You Have Never Heard Of

 

There is that old saying: "every dark cloud has a silver lining." This virus has forced us to forego in person meetings and rely on Zoom and other platforms to conduct meetings. I have met people in these meetings who I would never have the chance to interact with in person including the editor of The Economist magazine, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Dr. Alan Stern, etc. Last night i added someone to that list. His name is Jay Chattaway. It is a name that you have never heard of. His contribution to the entertainment business over 40 years is gigantic. He has touched all our lives. He is the man who wrote all the music for every star trek television series and movie ever produced. He had some fascinating stories about all the actors, etc. He is loaded with talent. he began life in humble circumstances in West Virginia. He graduated from the University of West Virginia. he knew that he had a talent for music. He made it happen. He was such a nice person. He wanted to know something about every person in the meeting. He told one story about his house in Malibu. He decided to store his 40 years of music away from his home at a self- storage facility. His house burned soon afterwards. If the music had been at his home, it would have all been destroyed. The music now resides at the University of Virginia library.

Beware Of Pandemic Fatigue

 My Bible in this pandemic is Dr. John Barry's 2005 book The Great Influenza. Several of our readers have read it after my encouragement. "The past is prologue." I have said that this pandemic is and will be an analogue of the Spanish Flu pandemic in many ways.

      I also have mentioned a quotation by Dr. Rick Bright. He was once head of the US government agency in charge of developing new vaccines. He ran afoul of President Trump and got demoted to a lesser job. His warning to all of us is: "Get ready for the darkest winter of all time."

      We are seeing what is called "A Third Wave" of coronavirus infections coming. (Just as happened with Spanish Flu.) A new vaccine will not be ready for many months. Many new infections and deaths are sadly coming. We are also seeing a phenomenon called "pandemic fatigue." People are getting tired of all the restrictions that stop them from seeing friends and family and enjoying the normal life that we all had. They are tired of wearing masks and gloves in some cases. They are tired of washing their hands 20-30 times per day. People start to "let down their guard." They get infected. What happens to one afterwards is like playing "Russian Roulette." You might feel mild discomfort. You might be on bedrest for two weeks. Or you might end up in the hospital and run up a massive hospital bill. In some cases, you might die.

Germany Continues To Give Aid To The Relatives Of Holocaust Survivors

 

GERMANY

Old War, New Plague and Lingering Responsibility

Germany agreed to give more than $660 million to aid Holocaust survivors struggling under the coronavirus pandemic, the Associated Press reported.

Nearly 240,000 survivors around the world will receive two payments of $1,400 over the next two years, according to the New York-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, also known as Claims Conference. The money will focus on those who aren’t receiving pensions from Germany: The funds will cover pandemic-related expenses such as masks, as well as food and in-home care.

Germany has also agreed to provide $36 million in social welfare services for survivors.

Since the end of World War Two in 1945, elderly Holocaust survivors have continued to suffer from medical and psychological issues caused by mistreatment at the hands of the Nazis.

Germany has paid more than $80 billion in Holocaust reparations since it reached an agreement with the Claims Conference in 1952.

US Arcraft Landings On Hainan Island, China

 https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2020-10-16/reconnaissance-flights-us-china-relations?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=16c847b9-ee62-49ea-a524-0ddca52f79cc

Rod Serling speaking at UCLA 5/17/1971

Our Mortgage Is Officially Paid!!!

 

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Dear Elena, Your Identity Guard® service detected there was a change in PHH MORTGAGE SERVICE account in your Equifax® credit file on 10/2020. PHH MORTGAGE SERVICE Industry Type Mortgage Companies Account Number ****2177 Date Opened 06/2015 Balance 0.0 Date Reported 10/2020 Comments Paid and Closed, Fixed rate, Closed or paid account/zero balance, Affected by natural or declared disaster Log in to your online dashboard for more alert details.

Netherlands-Ubearable Suffering-Unberable Decisions

 

THE NETHERLANDS

Unbearable Suffering, Unbearable Decisions

The Dutch government approved new regulations this week that would allow euthanasia for terminally ill children between the ages of one and 12, the BBC reported Wednesday.

Health Minister Hugo de Jonge cited a study that suggested that new regulations need to be implemented to prevent some children from “suffering hopelessly and unbearably.”

Euthanasia is currently legal in the Netherlands for children above the age of 12 and infants up to their first birthday – both requiring parental consent. However, there is no provision for children between one and 12 who are terminally ill.

The new regulations would not change the present laws: It would exempt doctors from prosecution for carrying out euthanasia on children of that age range.

The issue was extremely controversial in the country’s four-party ruling coalition and was heavily opposed by Christian parties.

The Netherlands legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide in 2002, with neighboring Belgium following suit a few months later.

An Enlightened Leader

 

NEW ZEALAND

Neverland, Discovered

It’s almost like New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is living in a fairytale.

Ardern closed the island nation to foreigners and imposed a tough lockdown with the help of the so-called “team of 5 million,” – New Zealand’s population. Rather than a popular revolt, the policy was a smashing success. After a recent resurgence of the virus, Ardern announced that Kiwis had beaten Covid-19 twice.

She is incredibly popular, the Economist reported, and not just at home: Her image has been projected onto the world’s tallest building, made the cover of Time magazine and she has been “feted by progressives globally for compassionate and decisive responses to crises…for her embrace of multilateralism and liberal values,” the Washington Post wrote.

A member of the left-leaning Labor Party, Ardern is expected to win big, earning a second term and garnering a rare one-party majority when New Zealanders go to the polls on Oct. 17 to elect a new parliament.

The opposition National Party’s campaign keeps pointing out that Ardern failed to fix New Zealand’s housing crisis or improve the lives of impoverished children.

The attacks don’t stick, wrote Bloomberg. Ardern’s standing is too high. Only 25 of her constituents have died during the pandemic. She incidentally also led the country during two other recent dark periods: a white-supremacist terror attack that killed 51 and a volcanic eruption that claimed 21 lives.

The country today has instituted testing and tracing measures that are the envy of the world, as Axios explained. They are figuring out how to lock down specific towns or neighborhoods, one at a time, to stop the spread without bringing everything in a city or region to a halt.

Ardern takes stands. Raised a Mormon, she left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in her 20s because she disagreed with the church’s opposition to LGBTQ rights, Newsweek reported. Ardern is expected to ban conversion therapy that seeks to change the sexual orientation of LGBTQ folks.

She is also promising to phase out coal-fired boilers, mandate the use of electric boilers and reduce carbon emissions from public buses. “During our first term in government, climate change was at the center of all our policy work and commitments,” she told Reuters. “It is inextricably linked to our decisions on issues like housing, agriculture, waste, energy and transport.”

Arden has also taken a softer foreign policy tack toward China in contrast to other members of the so-called “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing partnership that also includes Australia, Britain, Canada and the US, reported the South China Morning Post. While those other countries are seeking to counterbalance China, New Zealand has been less confrontational. Its economy also happens to be more dependent on China than the others.

The world is not perfect. But somewhere in the South Pacific, people still have faith in their government.

White House Embraces Covid-19 Herd Immunity Declaration

 https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/10/13/world/coronavirus-covid?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Some Surprising News About Nuclear Terrorism

 

Yesterday was a day of pleasant surprises. The best surprise was an article that turned up in the Smithsonian Air And Space Museum magazine titled "Atomic Enemy At The Gate":

https://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/atomic-enemy-gate-180975836/

     As many of you know, I have always had a keen interest in nuclear terrorism. A couple of great books have been written on the subject. Major studios have produced big budget movies on the subject including The Sum of All Their Fears.

       If some state actor launches a nuclear weapon on an aircraft, ballistic missile, or cruise missile, super-advanced technology picks it up in nanoseconds. We would know who did it. We would know who to hold accountable.

       However, if a state actor or terrorist group decides to smuggle a nuclear warhead, components for a nuclear warhead, or just radiation materials to make a dirty bomb; there is a huge challenge. Andy Narain, Mandy Findlater, and I have worked in international trade for decades. When a shipping container arrives at some US, Canadian, or Brasilian port, customs workers have the resources to open and inspect only 3% of them. Now these ports of entry are supposed to have operational radiation detectors. Who knows how effective they would be. It is a very similar situation when air freight comes in.

        We have not had a nuclear weapon fired in anger for 75 years. Let us hope this never happens again in human history. There have been a couple of close calls with Russia/US confrontations. There have been mistakes where "cool heads" have prevented a disaster. (I give great credit to the Russians here.)

         When the old Soviet Union broke up, there was a rush to secure all the nuclear warheads. It was feared that some broke Russian scientist or military officers would sell one of these warheads to terrorists or rogue state actors. Likewise, when Pakistan and North Korea got nuclear weapons, there was the fear that warheads would be sold to rogue states and terrorist groups.

    I have always been concerned that this threat did not get the attention that it deserved from people in power. The article that I read was a pleasant surprise. For decades authorities in the US ranging from the director of the FBI to the President took the possibility of nuclear terrorism very seriously. A lot of money was spent to protect us from this possibility.

    It all started during the Cold War. It was assumed that Soviet diplomats would smuggle in components of a nuclear weapon in diplomatic pouches. The weapon would be assembled at the Soviet Embassy or at a Soviet consulate. There were seizures of radioactive material. The truth always comes out.

 

Playful Dogs

 

The Jovial Ones

Dogs like to have fun and even age won’t stop them.

Recently, though, scientists discovered that some breeds of dogs are more playful than others – and they noted that this trait could determine a canine’s trainability, Cosmos Magazine reported.

Researcher Niclas Kolm and his colleagues realized this after analyzing how human-directed play behavior evolved in modern dog breeds. In their paper, the team compared the playfulness of nearly 90,000 dogs from 132 breeds using data taken from the Swedish Kennel Club. They combined the data with that of the American Kennel Association, which grouped pooches into different breed categories, including herding, hound dogs and working dogs.

The researchers also looked into the shared ancestry and gene flow between breeds and concluded that dog ancestors already exhibited playful behaviors that are found in some modern breeds.

They pointed out that humans often picked the most playful dogs for breeding because they were “easier to work with – or just most fun to have around,” said Kolm.

The results showed herding and sporting breeds were the most playful, which include retrievers, pointers and collies.

Kolm explained that these canines work closely and maintain eye contact with humans, adding that their jovial nature made it easy to form a strong bond between dog and handler.

A special message from Mary McDonnell

The Mike Wallace Interview featuring Rod Serling (1959)

Being Away From The US During The Presidential Election

 

Several friends have talked to me about their desire to be away from the United States in November when the presidential election voting is in full swing. They are expecting some big unpleasantries. This is highly possible. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to get on the plane November 1 and fly to Curitiba, Sao Paulo, or Cape Town. My electronic devices would be left behind. I would make a point only to watch the local news. I would want to hear nothing about the US.

       There is some bad news and good news here. With coronavirus, it would be a huge hassle to go to a foreign country at this moment. US citizens are banned from some countries and have onerous quarantine requirements in many other countries.

      Now here comes the perverse good news. Elena and I are veterans of military coups and violent social unrest on a grand scale. We have reached this advanced age without ever being injured in one of these events.

      Regardless of where one is in the world, these events follow the same pattern. All the big action happens in the large cities and towns. If you live in one of these locations and know that problems are coming, lock up your house or apartment and get out of town. In the US there are a great number of charming small towns where you can stay while the bad events happen.

      While you are away, protestors and counter protestors will face law enforcement agencies and military groups like the California National Guard and ICE units. It will get very unpleasant. While angry people with political grievances "fight it out," criminal gangs will move in to take advantage of all the confusion.

         The political protestors might attack a grocery store or pharmacy to get the necessities of life that they need. The criminal gangs will be hitting jewelry stores, high-end appliance stores, luxury goods stores, and sellers of computer gear.

        If you are in some suburb far from the city or town center, you have a low probability of the violence spilling over to where you live. You would be most wise to stay indoors and maintain a low profile. Supply chains could collapse. You ATM cards and credit cards might not work for a while. I would have extra food and water in the house. I would keep a prudent amount of cash.

 

European Union-Privacy 1, Government 0

 

EUROPEAN UNION

Privacy: 1, Government: 0

The European Court of Justice ruled Tuesday that EU nations cannot collect mass mobile and internet data on citizens, dealing a blow to governments trying to monitor their citizens through controversial surveillance tools, CNBC reported.

The verdict said that EU law dictates that states cannot force internet and phone companies to conduct “general and indiscriminate transmission or retention of traffic data and location data.”

The EU’s highest court added that the exception is for reasons of national security, as long as the surveillance is approved by a judge or an independent administrative body.

The case was initiated by privacy rights campaigners who complained that surveillance practices in Britain, France and Belgium went too far and violated human rights.

The ECJ verdict is the latest in a string of decisions to limit the power of EU governments to keep tabs on their citizens.

In July, the court struck down an agreement that allowed American tech companies to send European user data to the United States: It argued that US laws don’t protect the privacy of EU citizens and that these citizens have no effective way of challenging American government surveillance.

Armenia And Azerbaijan

 

ARMENIA & AZERBAIJAN

Simmer, and Boil

Recently, Azerbaijan released a video of Azeri soldiers firing rockets at enemy emplacements in Nagorno-Karabakh, a region in the South Caucasus, Reuters reported. They also released photographs of the alleged damage of Armenian shelling in the Azeri town of Terter.

War has returned to the enclave.

Nagorno-Karabakh’s population is mostly ethnically Armenian but the enclave is within Azerbaijan, explained Al Jazeera. Both countries are former Soviet republics whose borders reflect the whims of communist mapmakers, not the facts on the ground. Rather than delineate the Armenian populations, they divided them from one another.

“In essence, this is a story of a powerful outsider changing history by drawing arbitrary lines on a map that would later spark conflict,” wrote international relations analyst and author, Ian Bremmer in Time.

The region’s status has been disputed since 1918 when the Russian empire fell. During the Soviet era, leaders in Moscow imposed peace from above. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in the 1990s, the citizens of Nagorno-Karabakh moved to break away from Azerbaijan and join Armenia, triggering a war between Armenian and Azeri forces that resulted in 30,000 deaths.

Since then, skirmishes have been common for years along the border. This time, though, it’s on a bigger scale, with both sides using armed drones and powerful, long-range rocket artillery, analysts say. Already, civilians have been killed on all sides, CBS News reported Tuesday.

In recent fighting, it appears that Azerbaijan had been planning a long-awaited assault to recover a part of Nagorno-Karabakh, the Economist wrote. Azerbaijan’s ambassador to the UK, Tahir Taghizade, writing in the Guardian, argued that Armenia has attempted to ethnically cleanse the region. Azeri leaders describe Armenian troops in Nagorno-Karabakh as violating Azeri sovereignty, added Newsweek.

Most of the fighting so far has been artillery duels. After fears of a full-fledged war between the two sides, the second concern among international observers is how the conflict might spiral out of control, dragging Turkey, Russia, Europe and others into a potential mire.

French President Emmanuel Macron, Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump have called for an end to the fighting, Bloomberg wrote. Turkey supports Azerbaijan, however, and has backed the offensive to retake a part of Nagorno-Karabakh. Russia, meanwhile, has signed a mutual-defense pact with Armenia and has an army base in the country.

The fight could expand like others have done in the region. The Jerusalem Post reported that Turkey has recruited and transported Syrian soldiers to fight on behalf of Azerbaijan, a majority Shiite Muslim country whose citizens are ethnically related to Turkish folks.

Armenia is almost entirely Christian. Armenians also maintain that they suffered genocide under the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th Century, which Turkey’s official version of history denies.

It’s a combustible mix, leaving civilians like Ruzanna Avagyana, a 53-year-old social worker from the ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, caught in the middle.

“People are afraid,” she told the New York Times.

The Coronavirus Pandemic Is Ominous And Different

 

WORLD

End of the Beginning

More people have died from the coronavirus since late last year than HIV, malaria, influenza and cholera combined. Covid-19 might have supplanted tuberculosis and hepatitis as the world’s most lethal infection. The major difference between the new plague and those of old is that the former is still spreading – and quickly.

More than 1 million people have died from the virus worldwide.

“Like nothing seen in more than a century, the coronavirus has infiltrated every populated patch of the globe, sowing terror and poverty, infecting millions of people in some nations and paralyzing entire economies,” wrote the New York Times.

Ironically, in a sense, it has united the whole world.

Italy perhaps has been the most uplifting case study in the pandemic so far. Struck hard by the virus early this year, innovative and widespread testing and other measures have recently pushed rates in the country to among the lowest in Europe, the BBC reported. This Euronews broadcast provided more insight into Italy’s success, citing widespread public acceptance of safety measures among the most important factors.

Still, infections are up, meanwhile, in neighboring France, where officials recently instituted a ban on gyms, bars and parties in hard-hit areas such as Paris but are still allowing restaurants to stay open, for now, TheLocal wrote. Businesses in Paris and elsewhere portrayed the measure as yet another imposition that would hasten their demise. They’ve launched a campaign, “Let’s Stay Open” to push for help.

Germany, Iceland and other European countries are tightening restrictions on gatherings as cases also rise, fearing the need for a second lockdown.

Israel, meanwhile, was forced to revive a lockdown to stem rising cases there.

China, where the virus originated, is sending 240 million children back to school, NBC’s Today reported. The video detailed how kids undergo temperature checks, hand sanitizing and three tests per day. By law, parents must sign declarations that their children are well. There are no after-school activities and no team sports.

But Chinese leaders have also embraced the arguments of French bartenders who want to keep the country’s economy humming, wrote the Guardian. Those leaders have encouraged citizens to travel during Golden Week, when families traditionally go on vacation, knowing that consumer spending is crucial to the Chinese economy rebounding after lockdowns. Signs that those travelers might have spread the virus have already been reported in the South China Morning Post.

The virus has ravaged Latin America. The extent of the spread in the region might have led to the world’s first case of herd immunity in Manaus, a city in the Brazilian Amazon region, MIT Technology Review explained. Still, as Reuters reported, the virus is far from done. In Mexico, for example, the working class cannot easily social distance if they expect to make a living. As a result, the virus is still claiming lives at an increasing pace.

The world might have reached the end of the beginning of the pandemic, which is at least a step forward.

Stalingrad Holdouts - German Resistance After the Surrender

21 Years Ago This Morning My Life Took A Dramatic Change For The Better

 21 years ago was a dark Monday morning. I was up early. My car was broken down. My bike had a flat tire. I had to walk from my San Jose apartment to the San Jose train station. I caught the Cal Trans. I got off at Mountain View. I walked to 1155 Terra Bella Boulevard. Just before 07:00 I was in the office of Bill Seethaler at Telewave, Inc. Thus began an 8 year adventure. It changed my life dramatically for the better. Bill S and Ray Collins thank you so much!!!

A Surreal Moment

 What we have now is a surreal moment out of a thriller novel of White House take over movie. Statistically Trump’s survival chances are not good. Is Pence infected? If yes, how sick will he get? Is Biden infected? In one wild outcome, Nancy Pelosi is sworn in as acting president. Kamala becomes president.

Mary McDonnell Houston 2017

Dirk Benedict Panel Phoenix Comicon Fan Fest BSG Starbuck A-Team

Mary McDonnell and Jonathan Del Arco Talk "Major Crimes" at Dragon Con 2014

A Viking Mixer

 

A Viking Mixer

A massive genetic study recently shattered the belief that the ancient seafaring Vikings were homogenous.

Instead, scientists discovered that the fierce raiders and explorers that lived between 750 AD and 1,050 AD were very genetically diverse, National Geographic reported.

This was discovered after researchers studied the genetic data of more than 400 humans buried in sites where the Vikings are known to have roamed, including Southern Europe and Greenland. The remains date from 2,400 BC to 1,600 AD and reveal a very clear picture of Viking DNA: While they did set off from Scandinavia, the genetic analysis showed that they didn’t interact much with the region and mixed a lot with the various peoples they encountered in their far-flung travels.

The team found ancestral evidence from both Southern Europe and Scandinavia, including the Indigenous Scandinavians known as Sami.

The results also showed that modern Scandinavians are not strongly related to Vikings – only 15 to 30 percent of current Swedes are genetically tied to the individuals studied who lived in the same region some 1,300 years ago.

The authors say the data shows the Viking identity wasn’t purely Scandinavian while leaving some key questions: How did the Viking phenomenon happen and what bound these infamous people together if it wasn’t ethnicity?

“People can adopt and adapt to dominant cultural modes of survival,” said researcher Davide Zori, who was not involved in the study. “For whatever reason, being a Viking was one of the primary modes of surviving and being successful economically and politically.”

The World Reacts To The First Presidential Debate

 

WANT TO KNOW

WORLD

Shock, Sadness and Schadenfreude

Allies and rivals of the United States expressed shock, uncertainty, worry and sadness in the wake of the first US presidential debate between Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.

The debate, the first before the presidential election on Nov. 3, was rife with insults, interruptions and yet had very little discussion of policy, prompting many world leaders and analysts to question the state of the US democracy.

In Europe, Finnish-Swiss professor Jussi Hanhimaki said that the debate was disturbing to many on the continent, who see their transatlantic ally as “a symbol of democracy.” In Australia, Paul Kell of the Australian newspaper said the debate was “swamped” by the “rancor engulfing America.” In Africa, Kenyan commentator Patrick Gathara noted, “This debate would be sheer comedy if it wasn’t such a pitiful and tragic advertisement for US dysfunction.”

And in the Middle East, the focus was on the Arabic expression used by Biden, “Inshallah” (God Willing) in response to Trump’s pledge to release his tax returns. Still, Emirati political scientist, Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, wondered, “How did America reach this level of political decline?”

Meanwhile, some commentators said the debate was going to make most Canadians feel grateful for living in Canada.

The enormous international interest in the debate shows the importance of the American presidential election to the world. But the debate itself has left allies and rivals alike questioning the country’s place on the global stage, the New York Times wrote.

John Sawers, a former British diplomat, told the Times: “…It makes me despondent about America. The country we have looked to for leadership has descended into an ugly brawl.”

Some allies worried Russia, China, Turkey and other authoritarian states would feel emboldened to act freely in the absence of US leadership. In China, meanwhile, the response to the debate was “glee,” the Times noted.

Still, some watching from afar just struggled to understand the “shout-athon” at all, according to the Washington Post.

In Japan, public broadcaster NHK employed three interpreters to make sense of the debate for the local audience: All three were heard by their Japanese audience repeatedly talking over one other as they tried to keep pace with the candidates and moderator, whom the audience could also hear.

Regardless, the interpreters were the heroes of the evening, praised by the Japanese public for their skill and endurance: “Those interpreters deserve MEDALS!” said one member of the audience.

Tipping Point 2020 Line Up