Last chance interview for Biden?

We watched the Biden interview by Stephanopoulos on Friday night as it was aired live on ABC. In our view, it failed to accomplish what the President and his supporters hoped in terms of lifting doubt about his chances of re-election.

George Stephanopoulos asked the right questions, but Biden failed to answer most of them or if he did, it was poorly. We think he doesn’t even realize what is happening to him and to his body; that’s sad! His body language showed anger and resentment at all the questioning. 

An angry old man. When asked if he watched a replay of his debate with Trump, he first said he didn’t remember and later said “No”. Instead of projecting a self-assured and calm image of himself, his voice and body language betrayed the complete opposite. We think he’s toast and must be replaced.

A quick ski jaunt to Chile…

As soon as the summer equinox is over, skiing re-enters my mind and with it, as the weather warms up and quickly heats-up, my sole escape back to skiing seems to look down under. I shop the various webcams of Argentina, Australia, Chile, New Zealand and even South Africa, to see what’s frozen, cool and in-between under the Southern Cross skies… 

This year, Chile got more than its fair share very early in the season. Portillo, that stands pretty close to the Argentina border in Chile, got lots of powder and using the webcams available, I pieced together a quiet morning in that resort that doesn’t appear to be very busy. 

In 1946, Emile Allais, came to Chile to take part in the initial development of Portillo and La Parva ski areas, becoming the first director of the Portillo ski school through 1954, until Stein Ericksen took over in 1955. Located 100 miles from Santiago, Portillo’s low latitude (32.83°S), barely gets high enough with an altitude of 9,450 ft at the resort, offering a 2,500 ft vertical stretching from 10,860 ft at the top, down to 8,360 ft below the lodge. 

The skiable area is small, just 1,240 acres and pretty much all visitors are housed inside the same hotel, ski on 35 trails served by 5 fixed grip chairs and 9 surface lifts, including the unique Roca Jack, aka “Va et vient”. As you can imagine, it’s a super cool place, so if you feel oppressed by the summer heat, just go there and enjoy some good turns while there’s snow! 

Could Supreme Court Judges be bribed?

What I now call the “Half dirty dozen”, these six Judges that in theory should be fair and impartial, might have very well been bribed by some nefarious and rogue elements working in unison with the GOP and its Trumpist leadership.

What else could provoke their weird decision to grant monarchic power to a president? Just ideologically-driven insanity? I don’t think so. The whole deal just needs to be properly hidden from view in order for it to be viable and worth risking by the six Judges-for-life. 

Putin might be a logical presumed initiator of such a bribery as he’d love to see his invasion of Ukraine ending in total victory to successfully reach his hegemonic goal. He has enough malfeasance and criminal connections to channel any amount of money through and into offshore accounts to guarantee a totally opaque remittance to the Judges. 

It could also be the Chinese, the Iranians, who really knows for sure? While I can’t prove this at the moment, it’s equally hard to disprove that this obvious incentive was there to tip the balance of justice in totally illogical, absurd and corrupt ways. Outside of a massive Democrats’ win (President and Congress) in November, I wonder how America can extricate itself from this ominous threat...

July 4th and me…

Am I a staunch patriot? Not really, I guess. I don’t fly an American Flag on my house and I’m more of a global citizen. 

I see a lot of sectarianism in the patriotism displayed all over America, and considering the mass infestation from the MAGA virus, from our right wing politics to our fanatic Supreme Court, I am frankly disgusted with what goes on in a country I used to admire.

I only hope this will change, because the United States has taken a turn for the worse and I am all, but in a festive mood on this 248th birthday of the nation I reside in...

Trump and Biden’s presidential crutches

Following his halting, senile performance at the debate, Joe Biden was able to deliver an energetic speech in North Carolina the following day, so his political supporter said “See, the man is good, he can do it, not only that rousing speech at his last State of the Union…” 

Well, these people, including Obama and Pelosi, were either dishonest or not very smart, because they conveniently forgot the key difference between that botched debate and these official speeches. What made all the difference was a device called the teleprompter! These tools were invented in the late 40s and President Eisenhower was the first to use one in the 50s. Obama liked the device so much that he got addicted to it.

For those unfamiliar with that marvel, also called auto-cue, it consists of two or three scrolling screens that prompt a speaker with displaying an electronic text when a speech is given on TV. This enables someone to look straight at the camera lens while reading a script, creating the illusion that the speaker has memorized a speech, or is speaking extemporaneously, while looking the viewer straight in the eyes. 

All major political speeches are written in advance, sometimes by the speaker, but mostly by speech writers when it comes to Biden or Trump. Speakers who can deliver a brilliant speech “off the cuff” are a tiny exception, and teleprompters work best for people who struggle with memorization and are nervous when they must address the public, just like Biden or Trump are. 

It just takes some training but even a stupid person can make a decent impression by using one, as long as the speaker can read well enough. So now, you have it, four years after his last debate with Trump, Biden always used a teleprompter. Several days before the debate, he trained intensely, most likely with cue notes right before his eyes, but in the presence and with the support of his team. 

Without prepared notes, our hapless President found himself woefully stuck, trapped like a deer caught in headlights, as he tried to struggled to string sentences on his own without the assistance of his two screens. He went into a kind of panic attack, a meltdown and was totally ineffective. With his usual swagger, self assurance, lies and big mouth Trump delivered his trademark gobbledygook and got away with it.

Too much reliance on technology can torpedo a debate, a campaign and a political career!

Knife

A few days ago, I finished reading “Knife”, a book by Salman Rushdie, even though I wasn’t able to push any further than page 15 on his “Satanic Verses” that I had found extremely difficult to get into and left me puzzled as to why Ayatollah Khamenei even decided to get its author killed for it. 

So it took my wife to convince me to read the story of what happened on that morning of August 12, 2022, when Salman Rushdie, standing onstage at the Chautauqua Institution, in upstate New York to give a lecture on writers’ safety. was attacked by a lunatic wielding a knife and stabbing him 14 times, almost died and lost his right eye in the process. 

In that book, he explains the aggression and its traumatic aftermath, but most important he explained the way he channeled the event without resentment, but just indifference and contempt for his assailant. 

My take-away from that reading is that I better be careful about what I write about as there seem to be a high cost for shocking idea! In conclusion though, a good book, written in its own style that I enjoyed, this time.

More comfortable with my instinct…

Macron’s crushing defeat at the French legislative elections and Biden collapse behind his lectern last Thursday, validate what I have always thought about this two politicians, and tell me that all efforts to explain away their defeat by their respective supporters won’t have much effect on the two men political future.

In both situations, their demise was already scripted and the scenes were just presented to us so we could assist as was predictable to those who just paid a little attention. This is why this week, I’m beginning to trust and better appreciate my political instinct…