Sitting in the “Admirals Club” in terminal D at the Dallas airport after saying goodbye to Cathy over at the domestic terminal, & seeing her off through the security section there. Very sad indeed as we had expected to be able to have coffee & a meal etc before taking off on our respected flights at 5.30pm and being apart again for another six weeks. However there was no where at all to sit there as all the shopping was ‘through’ the security gates, and I had to get back on another bus to get over here to the British Airways area. So alas, we are still together for another four hours without being able to actually ‘be together’.  And I feel even worse as I’m able to get into this club because of my membership with the Qantas Club in Australia. However, the clubs in Australia are much better than the ones here in the US, where you still have to pay for everything & they won’t even let me onto their WiFi system for the internet. At least the seats are comfortable!

The news on the TV is all about the hurricane & I can’t help but think (very cynically) that a lot of these reporters are somewhat disappointed that the storm is not proving to be as cataclysmic & damaging as they were first reporting. It’s like everything has to be turned into some bloody ‘Hollywood script’ with most of the media practicing their acting skills….

And that brings me to the politics…

Politics is such a serious business in reality, especially in this country with their huge world influence and massive (over) resource use, and yet it seems to have an air of fantasy about the whole process. Don’t get me wrong, I have enjoyed my time in the States immensely and the people by & large are extremely friendly, polite and courteous, and we have got to meet some truly genuine types in our travels.

“However” I get a feeling that the whole deal is far from being truly ‘sincere’ a lot of the time and the word ‘fake’ uncontrollably springs to mind occasionally. And the political process unfortunately highlights the worst of it…

Having a system that boils down to two massively funded political machines fronted by the two most charismatic leaders available after all of the ‘runners up’ have been disqualified due to a character failing too immense to be covered up or dismissed, does not strike me as the ideal way forward. Now, I don’t want to sound too critical of the American system alone, as I’m not a big fan of the political process, and politicians in general in most places. I guess we do get the politicians we deserve as has been noted many times, however our democratic system of short term thinking & continually promising all & delivering nothing does not necessarily leave us with the leaders we initially intended on having when we get a chance to vote.

Another way of doing it is hard to think of within the current paradigm. But maybe one way forward would be to have longer terms, say five years & then if at the halfway mark the incumbent government hasn’t enacted policies & driven forward programs that it promised when elected then they are thrown out with ‘no compensatory’ pension plans to fall back on to keep them fat & shiny. I also dislike how politics is always polarized between liberal / democrat, liberal / labour, right / left etc etc as if a person can’t be ‘caring & entrepreneurial’ or ‘ run a forward thinking & environmentally conscious business that makes a good profit. I’ve found in my travels that there is a bigger disconnect than I could imagine between most of society (especially but not exclusively ‘urban’) and the realities of life. And probably most decision makers in society, such as politicians, lead the gulf divide. Whether they are leading it or just succumbing to it is debatable.

To the Democratic / Republican debate over here….

The race between Obama & Hilary created huge interest for obvious reasons, as the successful nominee either way was going to get the chance to make history, being either the first woman, or first black president. And boy, don’t they like their record books over here…So you would have been forgiven for thinking that there was in fact another political election to actually win before the deal was done. Obama became the darling of the media & did look ‘odds on’ for a while, but personally I believe he made a mistake of not picking Hilary for his running mate after it being such a volatile and close nomination race, with obviously huge numbers of Democratic voters left with their noses out of joint. Like they used to say in Roman times….keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer!!

And after McCain picked his running mate, a chick who was almost unheard of from the ‘Alaskan Outback’, the media went into a frenzy of criticism and ridicule. But again, a day is a long time in politics, and now it is looking like a very, very clever and shrewd move indeed as she is quite a capable & tough cookie it seems.   

Hold the press….

Just on TV…her 17 year old daughter is having a baby & is going to marry the father!!

That’s enough of this stuff for me, the vultures in the media are circling and I’m heading to Africa to get away from it all. Two months to go before the election & it would drive me mad…

I have a 9 hour flight to Heathrow ahead of me, & then a connecting flight to Johannesburg…..and then another connecter to Zimbabwe…so bye for now!!