I was my old self, riding motorcycle back from work on a beautiful Tuesday evening, and I knew that there are some things that riders can experience and car drivers can’t.
I will give you a couple of examples. First is the morning – you ride down into a valley and the air is still cool from the night, you get up in the sun and the air is getting hot in a nice sensation, which you can’t recreate anywhere else. You have to experience it yourself. Second is how they water the fields along the highway, with the big water spraying set so it won’t wet anything beyond. Well, you feel the humidity on your face as you ride through; it brings you close to reality, and I like it. It’s a visceral connection to the world, which is one of my two favorite English expressions. The other one is pristine. I am convinced that this tells you more about me that my two page CV. So, this is what came to my mind riding along the Leman Lake towards Geneva. I watched Trump’s press conference in full following his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki and I liked what I saw. While most normal and balanced people would like to see a state of peace and concord between Russia and the United States, that is not what the Military Industrial complex and the Neocons want – they want Russia as an adversary, because they need a bogeyman, an enemy. So, I expected the media hostile reaction to Trump’s remarks, but it was more than that: they went into full attack mode against the President. Stop and think about that for a minute – Trump makes the effort to defuse a dangerous escalation of tensions with Russia, and he gets called treasonous for his pains, which is a gross disrespect to the democratically elected President of the United States and his supporters. I believe there is a solid reason why the US elites are against any improvement of the US – Russian relations. It has been estimated that a military budget of $200 billion per year would be more than adequate to defend the Homeland of the United States against all who might try to threaten or overrun it militarily. However, the Military and the Pentagon bleeds the American taxpayer to the tune of $800 billion per year - $600 billion more than what is required to get the job done. If I’m right, then there is a $600 billion price tag that kind of explains the hysteria. But the event that shook me this week was the fact that Sergio Marchionne died on Wednesday at a Zurich hospital. He was one of the captains of the industry who was bigger than life. Famous for making Lonza and Fiat profitable, taking Ferrari public and saving Chrysler. His performance, like making Fiat 10 times more valuable during his tenure, is nothing short of amazing. And he was a Toronto boy, moved there with his parents when he was a kid, got his education and professional start right in my town. He wrecked his Ferrari Enzo on a Switzerland highway once. Asked about it he said “you live hard, you crash hard, it is sometimes like that.” He wanted to retire next year, said he was tired of life, but death got to him first. He was only 66. Rest in peace man, you have my respect.
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AuthorTom Kubiak is the author of The Traveler Archives
February 2021
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