Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Innocent freshness or polished platitudes, what is preferable?

It seems to be a custom in the US for a candidate's wife to give a speech extolling her husband who is running for office. We should have the same in India, it will make boring elections so much more enjoyable, to watch each lady trying to prove her extreme devotion to her husband. Couple of days back it was Melania Trump's turn to speak at the Republican Convention about her husband Donald. Now this is a lady who was born in Slovenia, worked in Milan and came to the US in 1996. During her speech she repeated a paragraph straight out of Michelle Obama's speech to the Democratic Convention in 2008. Michelle Obama is a lawyer, born and educated in the US and her husband is the champion gasbag of the world, so she wrote her own speech, but we are not sure of Melania Trump's knowledge of English. She apparently said that she wrote her own speech but whether she meant that she wrote every word or just suggested the ideas is not clear. A speechwriter has now accepted responsibility for the plagiarism but whether she did it on purpose we do not know. It is unimaginable that a professional speechwriter will not know that in today's world, where everyone is armed with Google, her action will be detected within minutes, as it was, causing acute embarassment to Melania. Donald Trump is a highly divisive figure, but so is Obama. The US has not been so racially divided since the Rodney King riots of 1992. It was eye-opening to see the sheer delight in the liberal media at this innocent lady's discomfiture. These people are usually highly sympathetic to terrorists, who they see as misunderstood children, to be hugged with sweet words of comfort. But these same people were enjoying repeating that bit of video over and over again with such mean spite that it was painful to watch. Being liberal obviously does not mean being generous, understanding or sympathetic. On another note, Sam Allardyce, also known as 'Big Sam', is to be appointed as the new manager of England following the resignation of Roy Hodgson, after the humiliating defeat by Iceland in France, in Euro 2016. He is the same man who was sacked as manager of Blackburn Rovers by the Venkys, the chicken magnates, after they bought the club in 2010. Blackburn were relegated that season and have not been able to get back to the Premier League. That is a loss of almost 200 million pounds per season. Obviously, running a football club is not the same as selling chicken. The Democrat Convention is next week and we will see a highly synchronised event and we will see Hillary Clinton, another lawyer, giving a flawless speech, with the same platitudes in high flowing language. How stale, same old, same old.

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