Erik the Red, a Norwegian Viking, named Greenland over 1,000 years ago to make it sound like a great place to live in, as he wanted to attract settlers. It seems to have finally worked, as Trump, arguably the most unsuitable leader of any major western country in living memory, wants to buy it or bully Denmark to give it to him.
According to Trump, "essentially it's a large real estate deal", as US presidents have bought land before. In 1803, Thomas Jefferson bought huge tracts of land from France for $15m in the Louisiana Purchase. In 1867, Andrew Johnson paid $7.2m for Alaska from Russia. Territory has also been purchased from Denmark. In 1917 Woodrow Wilson bought the Danish West Indies for $25m, renaming them the US Virgin Islands.
I haven't been to Greenland but I guess it's as dull a place as it was a thousand years ago, but with the thawing of the ice it will certainly play a more significant role in the Northwest Passage and with the plethora of strategic minerals and oil reserves thought to be hidden under its ice.
As for Trump wanting to retake the Panama Canal from Panama, his timing may be a little out as the canal is said to be running dry. Not so the Gulf of Mexico which he wants to rename the Gulf of America.
What's in a name? Despite the Arabs having for decades called the Persian Gulf the Arabian Gulf, it hasn't really caught on, although Trump may be helped by Google Maps who will do his bidding and call it the Gulf of America. Why not compromise and call it the West Cuban Sea?
As for some of the other stuff Trump has been rolling out, I'm all for putting all that weird gender stuff back into the padded cell from which it escaped all those many years ago. There are only two genders, male and female, instead of women with penises and men with "husbands". If homosexuality were, as claimed, genetic rather than just a mental aberration, it would, by definition, have died out a long time ago.
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair."
So let's hang on to some of the good stuff, and disregard most of the foolishness, and muddle through the next four years as best we can.
On this happy note, let's listen to the voice of reason, Richard Dawkins, whose voice I could listen to and whose books I could read all day long.
