Hello and happy new year.
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It wouldn’t be surprising if you expected me to tell you something about our four-generational Christmas.
But I can’t because, as I write, it is yet to take place.
It’s just one of the things that happens at a newspaper, when many are on leave and the skeleton staff is a bit too busy.
Better for them to get material that is not time-critical (like this page) out of the way — to make sure they can handle the real news as it happens.
A long story short
It started in October, when one son said “I’m going to tidy up the front garden”.
Once upon a time, my husband spent his weekends in the garden, controlling things — and my attempts had been futile.
Three days and nine trips to the tip later, another son said “Great job! You’ve left us with a blank canvas. We’ll start with a new watering system.”
I won’t say they are pedantic — because I love them too much, and they are busy people — but there were so many steps and stages.
Getting rid of the no-longer-good-enough lawn, designing the shape of the garden beds, a load of topsoil, levelling, raking, rolling, levelling again, blending an already blended seed with another.
One Sunday, they were digging the edges of the garden and it was raining.
They came inside, dripping wet, declaring that their “drops per minute” level had been reached.
And five weeks after the blank canvas stage, the lawn seed went down.
They have planted four hydrangeas because a perfect site was now available — and the lawn is beautiful.
There is an almost private place for a garden seat, and around it, I want all the perfumed plants.
The lilac is already in place, with daphne, gardenia and lavender yet to come.
We are getting there.
If you have guests
Please remember that the Museum of Vehicle Evolution in Kialla is open on New Year’s Day and the days to follow.
The men will be very content with the door to the right and the magnificent display of vehicles.
Your lady friends will be delighted with the Loel Thomson Costume Collection — the door to the left.
The items in this special collection date from the late 1700s to 2010.
SAM will reopen on January 3 and the Heritage Museum is also giving volunteers a break and re-opening on January 12.
And here is something I prepared earlier
On the 20th day of the new year, a new (but slightly used) United States president will walk back into the White House.
On the desk, in the Oval Office, he will find a polite note, probably handwritten, from President Joe Biden — wishing him well.
(Because whatever else he isn’t, Biden is a gentleman.)
I’ve been looking at television shots of the slightly used president meeting with Biden.
He looks like a triumphant buffoon. Very different to his demeanour when meeting with President Barack Obama; at that moment, he looked like a stunned mullet whose section of the ocean was about to become tsunamic.
Because Trump has Biden figured out! He would never, could never, understand Obama. Barack used big words, and The Donald was somehow aware that the former president’s thinking ability was multiples of his own.
Obama, polite as he would have been to Trump, had eight years as president — but it wasn’t enough.
He needed more because his agenda had yet to be ticked off.
When he moved into the White House in early 2009, his priority had to be the global financial crisis, which had been mishandled by the previous government.
It required his immediate attention, when affordable health care was his major objective in his first term.
The Affordable Care Act, when he finally got to work on it, had to overcome almost insurmountable odds.
How Obamacare (as it is known) survived the Trump years, I’ll never know — but it did! In 2024, it assisted families (of four) earning up to $120,000.
Should the triumphant buffoon follow through on his many threats to get rid of the ACA, up to 24 million citizens would be added to the uninsured list.
During this first term, Obama clashed with the generals about Afghanistan and organised to have Osama bin Laden tracked down and killed.
For some Americans, an assassination was his greatest success — and it might have been the force behind his re-election.
His first book — about the presidency — all 700 pages of it, talks frankly about the reach and the limits of presidential power.
The problem with Obama
I don’t mean to insult the clear-thinking, fair-minded people of the USA.
But the rednecks are loud, and there are many of them.
Obama was not only anti-war, but his foreign policy was designed to create lasting peace.
He visited countries where the relationships with the US were not as he wanted them to be.
Laos was one of them, because the US had dropped two million tonnes of bombs on it.
Why? As part of anti-communist CIA plot.
When? From 1964 to 1973.
I don’t know what he said to them.
What could one say?
However, I am familiar with his words to Japan.
He said the only way he could guarantee that nuclear bombs would never be used again was if there was never another war.
And his purpose of visiting many countries was to create a peaceful future — for all.
He and his team, which included John Kerry, Susan Rice and Samantha Power (among others), visited China, Iran and Nigeria.
Kerry was tied up with Syria.
It was — and still is — complex; Americans wanted to help out.
However, Obama said he could think of nothing they could do that would make things better; that, like Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad was looking after his own interests, not those of the people.
At this time, the American president was talking about ‘red lines’ that Assad should not cross.
And then ignoring them because he knew if the US was involved in the fight it would make things worse.
Eventually, a temporary ceasefire was agreed — but before its end, Assad had a UN food caravan blown up.
People were killed and food for 78,000 hungry Syrians was destroyed.
However, Obama was having successes, including in relation to China — none of which were being talked about in the United States.
His last trip was to Greece to, among other things, thank the Greeks for their enormous contribution to a free world (democracy).
But the American people appeared to be more interested in Trump’s Twitter feed.
And television journalists were now saying that Obama’s foreign policy was a complete disaster.
Was the man a dreamer or merely an optimist?
If he’d had more time, would his policy have held up?
His hair was grey at this stage and he looked exhausted.
He was aware that he was running out of time.
He talked about not only diplomacy, but understanding and friendship.
He was attempting to heal the world.
When it was over, he said that although the pendulum would swing from time to time, the world was on a more empathic and kinder path.
Then he returned to the White House to be patient, polite and gracious to a ‘stunned mullet’.
At least they didn’t murder Obama.
And now...
The stunned mullet is no more.
We have a confident man with a different dream.
He cannot be re-elected, so to a large degree he has nothing to fear and no reason to look after the interests of the people.
He has said that God has saved him to become president.
Not the God that I know!
His dream could well become a nightmare for many.
2025
Despite the above, there is still optimism about the start of a new year; perhaps because we are a hopeful lot and can’t help ourselves.
God bless and may it be easy, my friends
Marnie
Email: towntalk@sheppnews.com.au
Letter: Town Talk. Shepparton News. P.O. Box 204. Shepparton 3631.
Phone: Text or call 0409 317 187
Town Talk