Ron’s Thoughts …

The Australian open tennis championships are currently in progress.

The heat has been so extreme,(40 degrees plus) ,that they had to cover the court with a man-made roof.

This is supposed to be a tennis contest, not a heat endurance contest.

If the Aussies had any sense, they would schedule the competition for a cooler time of the year.

The euphoria of the Barack Obama inauguration in 2009 has many similarities to that of Nelson Mandela in 1994.

They were both historically the first black President in a previously white-dominated country.

There were mass gatherings, excitement, enthusiasm and optimism for peace and racial harmony in the future.

Another, more ominous, similarity is that, the day after Mandela’s bash, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange crashed.

The day after Obama’s bash, the New York Stock Exchange crashed.

In South Africa’s case, many months went by, the sky didn’t fall down, the world didn’t come to an end and the JSE proceeded to climb to new highs.

Lets hope that the NYSE will do the same.

I am not a Jew.

I am also not an historian.

But, I do have a keen perception of the history of the present conflict in Israel/Palestine.

Over two thousand years ago, the Jews were enslaved by the Egyptians. They revolted and trekked back to Israel.

For many years thereafter, Jews were discriminated against,( mainly for religious reasons).

Fast forward 2000 years, and the Jews were again persecuted, this time by the Germans.

Somehow they not only survived the genocide of the second world war but they also managed to secure for themselves the right to live in their historical homeland, Israel.

Now Islamic extremists want to deny them that homeland and daily fire off rockets to kill whoever might be at the receiving end at the time.

I believe that those firing the rockets should be the ones to be killed.

Obama, you have a problem.

Previous US governments have supported Israel.

I hope that you will too.

While flipping through TV channels tonight, ( something I do once or twice per year ), I happened upon BBC World News.

What bothered me was that, while the main pictures and news report showed Israeli rocket strikes in Gaza with bleeding bodies all around, the Breaking News written scrolls across the bottom were giving sports results and money exchange rates all around the world.

That gave it an air of frivolity that I for one would not expect of a major news broadcaster.