Strange Days Indeed

A new look for the blog and now a first for the blog. Political comment.
Always dangerous for a blog as it brings out the trolls.Write anything nasty about the American National Rifle Association and your blog will definitely be bombarded.So no NRA comments here.Much as I am tempted.
But it has been a strange week for politics in three English speaking countries so please readers from elsewhere indulge me.
Firstly in the UK the opposition Labour Party selected a new leader-Jeremy Corbyn.An extreme left winger.
About 20 years ago a Japanese soldier came out of the jungle in the Phillippines.He had not heard about the end of the second world war and had been hiding waiting to ambush the next patrol of allied soldiers who came along.True story.
Jeremy Corbyn reminds me of that sad Japanese soldier.It's almost as if he has been hiding in the basement of a building in East Berlin for the past 30 years and has just come out still enthusiastic about Lenin.In fact it's the film "Goodbye Lenin" all over again.
To counterbalance the loony left in the UK the US has the loony right in the shape of the truly appalling Donald Trump.Now Trump worries me as I fear that he is going to do US society real harm if he is not derailed soon.He is beyond rational explanation.He is just vile.
And here in Australia we have had our own local drama with the deposing of the sitting Prime Minister,Tony Abbott, by his own party and his replacement with what we all hope is a moderate centralist,Malcolm Turnbull.
Now there has been a pretty rapid turnover of sitting Prime Ministers here in Australia in recent years and outside observers are justified in asking how this could happen.Quite simple.We've had a run of duds. And the biggest dud,by far,has been Tony Abbott.
Now unless you are an Australian it is impossible to appreciate the depth of feeling people have had towards Tony Abbott over the past two years.Let me summarise it by saying he was toxic. I HATED him and so did many others- the public opinion polls were below rock bottom. He came to power two years ago after being leader of the opposition -he opposed everything-and he was a total disaster as PM. He is on the extreme right of Australian politics and he has done enormous damage to Australian society and Australia's reputation in the world in the last two years. But his deposing whilst inevitable may not be the end of it as he still has a significant following in his own party and that great American and Australian's greatest export,Rupert Murdoch,will be using all his considerable media muscle to get the appalling Abbott and his coterie of very right wing old white men back into power.
But don't take my word on Tony Abbott as gospel read today's editorial from the local The Saturday Paper. Even if you are not interested in Australian politics it is a classic piece of editorial writing. Enjoy. I certainly did.