U.S. presidential election (16): is Ted Cruz eligible to be America’s president?
January 13th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
Oh, the irony of it: after all those stupid Republican birther claims that Barack Obama was not eligible to become President of the United States, there is now a discussion – mainly in Republican circles – about whether Ted Cruz, a serious candidate for the Republican nomination, is actually a US citizen and therefore eligible to serve in the White House.
Cruz’s was born in 1970 in Canada and his Cuban-born father was not a US citizen, but his mother was born in the US and his parents were married at the time of his birth. So that, should be that.
But Cruz did not give up his Canadian citizenship until 2014 which makes him politically suspect in some quarters and, much more seriously, there is some question that his mother became a Canadian citizen and may have ceased to be a US citizen.
At its most amusing and/or absurd, one commentator has speculated as follows:
“If it turns out that Cruz’s mother had ceased having US citizenship at the time he was born in Canada, then Cruz would not be a US citizen at all. That would make him an undocumented immigrant and a candidate for deportation, something that he and many other Republicans strongly favor for people in that situation.
Since he has renounced his Canadian citizenship, he would also be a stateless person. Perhaps he could apply to for refugee status though then he would have to undergo rigorous screening to ensure that he was not an ISIS agent.
It is not clear which country would be willing to take him in as a refugee, given that he is such an unpleasant person. The Canadian government of former prime minister Stephen Harper would have done so but I am not sure about the Justin Trudeau administration. They have been very welcoming to refugees but Cruz may be a bit too much to stomach.”
If you can bear to enter into the detail of this debate, check out this blog posting.
Posted in American current affairs | Comments (1)
Another really enjoyable visit to Prague
January 12th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
Vee and I have now returned to London after a long weekend (four nights) in Prague. We have both been there more than 20 times so this was not a trip to see sights but to catch up with very close friends. We managed to see a total of 20 which included a new boyfriend and a new baby.
There was snow when we first landed and the temperature hovered just below and just above zero all weekend. As always, we did lots of long walks. Prague is a fabulous city with magnificent architecture and lots of cobbled streets and hidden courtyards. This is probably the time of year when the city has the fewest tourists, so we were able to savour all the magic of the place.
Of course, since we have been to Prague so many times, we have seen all the sights and museums, but we always manage to fit in something new.
This time, we called into locations commemorating three famous men from Czech history: the astronomer Johannes Kepler whose discoveries are celebrated in a one-room museum off Karlova street, religious reformer Jan Hus who was the subject of a large exhibition at the Clam-Gallas Palace, and filmmaker Karel Zeman whose ground-breaking work in animation is illustrated in a museum near the west end of the Charles Bridge.
Also we made a repeat visit to the Museum of Communism which ironically is located above a McDonald’s and next to the Casino on Na Prikope. As we first visited the then Czechoslovakia before the ‘velvet revolution’ of 1989, we know that the situation described in the museum is no exaggeration.
You can find an overview of my visits to Prague here.
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A little story from Prague
January 8th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
At the start of a long weekend in Prague, Vee and I did what we always do which is walk and walk around this beautiful city. The snowfall of the last few days is melting and the Christmas tree in the Old Town Square was being taken down, but we are here for friends not the festivities.
Now, back at home, we have some delightful Christmas tree decorations which we bought in Prague years ago and we have some friends who said that they would love to have something similiar. Today we came across a shop selling such baubles and purchased a set.
In Britain these days, we have lots of workers from Central & Eastern Europe, especially Poland and the Baltic States. But, here in Prague, such workers are generally from even poorer countries even further east.
So the shop manager was from Bosnia-Herzegovina and her colleague was from from Azerbaijan but spoke Turkish as well. I managed to say ‘good morning’ and ‘thank you’ to the manager in Serbo-Croat and to other guy in Turkish as well as muttering a bit of Czech – so they gave us a discount!
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Another visit to beautiful Prague
January 7th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
In the late 1980s, Vee (whose father was a Czech pilot in the war) re-established contact with her family – the Kuttelwaschers – in what was then Czechoslovakia and, about the same time, we first met the Czech doctor Pavel whose wife and children – the Horvaths – became as close as family to us.
Since then, we have visited what is now the Czech Republic about once a year. We are travelling to Prague for a long weekend on what is my 26th trip and is Vee’s 24th. Vee might well be back in the Autumn because she is expecting some events to be held to mark the 100th anniversary of her father’s birth.
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In Britain, the weather in December was crazy
January 6th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
December was the wettest month ever recorded in the UK, with almost double the rain falling than average, according to data released by the Met Office this week.
Last month saw widespread flooding which continued into the new year, with 21 flood alerts in England and Wales and four in Scotland in force on Tuesday morning.
The record for the warmest December in the UK was also smashed last month, with an average temperature of 7.9C, 4.1C higher than the long-term average.
Climate change has fundamentally changed the UK weather, said Professor Myles Allen, at the University of Oxford: “Normal weather, unchanged over generations, is a thing of the past. You are not meant to beat records by those margins and if you do so, just like in athletics, it is a sign something has changed.”
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
What does the new periodic table look like?
January 5th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
A lot has changed since I did my Chemistry ‘A’ level 50 years ago and the periodic table now looks rather different. This week, four new elements were confirmed. You can view the new periodic table with a look at selected elements here.
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (0)
A review of the recent movie “Million Dollar Arm”
January 5th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
You may never have heard of this film – I hadn’t until it was recommended to me. But I enjoyed it and you can read my review here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A calculation of the new year
January 5th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
(10 x 9 x 8 x 7 x 6)/(5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1) = 2016
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (0)
U.S. presidential election (16): and they’re off …
January 4th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
I wrote my first posting on the American presidential election of this year just over a year ago and this is now the 16th posting in the series (there will be more!). So far, it’s been all town hall meetings, television debates, and media storms – with no voter actually voting for anyone. Over the next few weeks, the race gets real with caucuses and primaries.
The Democrats still have three runners in the race: Hillary Clinton, who is still odds-on to win her party’s nomination and the actual election to the White House, Bernie Sanders, who has done remarkably well and may win some of the earliest primaries, and Martin O’Malley.
The Republicans have had as many as 16 runners in the race and the field still has a dozen riders. Donald Trump has headed the polls for many months but he hasn’t actually won a caucus or primary yet because, of course, there haven’t been any. His strongest challengers are likely to be Ted Cruz, a senator from Texas, and Marco Rubio, a senator from Florida.
Some of the key dates are as follows:
1 February – Iowa caucuses
9 February – New Hampshire primary
20 February – South Carolina Republican primary and Nevada Democratic caucus
1 March – so-called Super Tuesday when there are primaries in southern states plus Massachusetts and Minnesota
15 March – Florida and Ohio primaries
7 June- the last five primaries including California and New Jersey
18-21 July – Republican Party convention in Cleveland Ohio
25-28 July – Democratic Party convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvannia
8 November – presidential election (plus all the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate)
If you want to know more about how the American political system works, check out my short guide here.
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Have you ever read “War And Peace”?
January 3rd, 2016 by Roger Darlington
No, neither have I – although from somewhere I do have a copy of Leo Tolstoy’s mammoth novel on my bookshelves. My copy of the book is a 1967 edition and runs to 1,344 pages. I can’t imagine ever reading the book – at my age, I’m reluctant to start a long work in case I don’t finish it.
But I did once see a film version of “War And Peace”. It was the 1966 Russian movie directed by Sergey Bondarchuk. I viewed this eight-hour epic in a single sitting in a cinema (but thankfully it was dubbed). I remember very little except some battle scenes.
Now I will see the television version of “War And Peace” which will start being broadcast by the BBC this evening and consists of six one-hour episodes. However, I will record the series and try to watch all the episodes in a couple of sittings to help me follow the plot.
Meanwhile I’ve come across someone who has not only read “War And Peace”, but consumed it four times. In this article, Sarah Hughes explains how, each time she has read this huge novel, she has seen it in a different light with different characters coming to the fore.
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