Category: Fourre-tout

We are currently witnessing a war of words between two spoiled brats: our volatile commander in chief and North Korea’s grandstanding autocrat. It would be a laughable interlude except for the fact that this could easily degenerate into a nuclear war.

Any sensible head of state has to show restraint before unleashing the dogs of war. None of these two airheads display any hint of that.

There is no doubt that in a war between North Korea and the United States, the US would prevail; but at what cost? While the two halfwits at the top might survive, thousands of people would surely perish.

And who knows what might follow? World War One was ignited by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. Armageddon unexpectedly followed.

“The total number of military and civilian casualties in World War I was more than 41 million. There were over 18 million deaths and 23 million wounded. The total number of deaths includes about 11 million military personnel and about 7 million civilians.”

“Speak softly and carry a big stick” was once Theodore Roosevelt’s foreign policy precept. Any well-read individual knows and probably agrees with that; but is our present leader well-read? Or does he read at all? Besides authoring a book (written by somebody else) and sponsoring beauty contests, this remains very much in doubt.

Bombast and blustering never accomplished anything constructive. Let diplomats deal with each other quietly and cut out the juvenile cyberbullying.

Where are the great diplomats of yesteryear for crying out loud? Where are the Talleyrand, Benjamin Franklin, Henri Kissinger, Dag Hammarskjöld, Golda Meir, Abba Eban… the very people who valued peace and thought that diplomacy was preferable to whistling bullets?

An ignominious exit usually follows a populist leader who gets ensnared in his web of deceit. Let us hope that this happens way before the unthinkable occurs.

Alain

PS: Due to a request from Marc’s family, the previous posting (In Memoriam) was removed.

Effective communication between a man and his spouse is often difficult challenging.

Geography and the topology of the battlefield seem to be the main obstacles to this elementary process;  women clearly prefer speaking from a separate room when engaging in a conversation, They seem to imply that a face-to-face dialogue is not as helpful as a room-to-room exchange. I am in the bathroom doing my nails… let’s talk.

A woman often prides herself to be multitasking. She can be ironing, watching General Hospital and have a meaningful conversation at the same time. A man is different. Genetically, he is programmed to be single-minded; one thing at a time. Arguing and chewing gum simultaneously can prove difficult.
For a woman, it is child play. The trick is her uncanny ability to tune out what she hears to focus on what she wants to say.

Later on, she will be surprised (and irritated) if you didn’t catch everything she mentioned earlier. You never listen, she will declare.
I beg your pardon Liebchen, but I was in the bathroom emptying my bladder.
Did you really have to do that? Or was it a lame excuse to ignore me?

In the early days, proximity was never a problem. She would always listen adoringly to your golden sayings. But familiarity breeds nonchalance. After many years of cohabitation, aural faculty on both sides seems to falter and make conversations more challenging.
Hints of hearing aids and Alzheimer allusions are also perfidiously dropped.

This problem though is elementary!
To have a conversation, both parties need to be in the same room, ideally at the same time. Then, speaking clearly (preferably in the same dialect), and waiting for an answer can also help.
A conversation kroshka, is akin to a Morse code exchange. I send, you listen. Then you send and I listen. Capisci?

And lastly,

The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said. Peter Drucker

Alain

 If everything fails, summon help  ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄

Fairly unnoticed by the public at large, a large portion of the American population has gone bionic. That is, sporting man-made body parts tailored to replace human organs or limbs.

“At some point in every person’s life, you will need an assisted medical device – whether it’s your glasses, your contacts, or as you age and you have a hip replacement or a knee replacement or a pacemaker. The prosthetic generation is all around us.” Aimee Mullins

After years of wear and tear, some body components start to misfire and need to be upgraded. Replacing them with bionic elements is presently a fairly common practice. Some bodies are now fitted with sophisticated prostheses that mimic pretty well what genuine components do.

When I was a young child, I remember seeing decorated World War One veterans hobbling on crutches. Leg amputation was then the only way to salvage the body. These poor souls would be incapable thereafter to resume a normal life.

But now, war veterans and civilians alike can be fitted with artificial limbs and resume a fairly conventional life. Hip or knee replacement is as a common today as replacing a car battery. Prosthetic technology firm Touch Bionics has created a hand so advanced it can be controlled using a smartphone app.

Our local club is very special… For many reasons. One of them is the fact that probably half of our members are fitted with titanium devices. If some of us would go on a trip together, passing through the airport’s metal detectors would surely trigger a massive commotion. This would in turn greatly unnerve the authorities. Before long, hooded men bristling with weapons would order us to drop our Uzis and hit the deck.
And our case would not be helped by carrying suspicious metal spheres in our handbags.

Our bionic brigade is still fairly small but growing. Regardless of sex, creed or race, we accept anybody who can prove that they have what it takes to be called a Titanium man (or woman).

Alain

PS: We are also known as the Titanium Titans.