This chronicle of President Bush's final journey is from New Zealand. He made a rather incredible impact on the global community which he liked to call, "The Family of Nations." He held that idea as a way of stating every country could have the same opportunities for it's people as the USA. He never gave up on the hope someday peace would also bring an economic advantage to every country welcoming it. I think I know what he would be saying about some of today's global events.
3 December 2018
Former US President George H.W. Bush looks out of the cab of Union Pacific locomotive 4141 at its 2005 unveiling in College Station, Texas.
...Bush's body (click here) will be transported by a motorcade Monday morning from a Houston funeral home to Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base, a Texas Air National Guard base. The casket will be loaded onto a plane during a departure ceremony and flown to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. Relatives accompanying the casket will include his sons, former President George W. Bush and Neil Bush, with members of their immediate families. The rest of the Bush family is expected to be at Joint Base Andrews when the body arrives.
In Washington, Bush will lie in state in the rotunda of the US Capitol tomorrow and Wednesday. His casket will be transported by motorcade on Thursday to the National Cathedral, where a state funeral will be held at 5am NZT.
US President Donald Trump has indicated that he and first lady Melania Trump will attend the state funeral. Trump has said he plans to designate Thursday as a national day of mourning....
I've seen protests in France and most of the time for excellent reasons, but, this is pure destruction for the sake of destruction.
3 December 2018
By John Lichfield
...On Saturday, the gilets jaunes (click here) – or a large, violent fringe of the wider, peaceful “yellow vest” movement – took evident joy in smashing up the grandest and wealthiest parts of the French capital. Appeals on social media, where the movement began a month ago, are calling for another assault on Paris this weekend.
How can a movement that began a month ago with broadly peaceful protests against high fuel prices have generated such vicious enmity towards not just President Macron but the entire French political system? Some French commentators have suggested that the yellow vests should be rebranded “yellow shirts” – a fascist rabble. This is dangerous and misleading talk, for now....
They want to overthrow the government. They aren't interested in protests for change to make life better. They want the French government to end. Who is behind all this?
24 November 2018
By Kim Willsher
Police have used teargas (click here) and water cannon against fuel tax protesters in Paris after violent clashes erupted on the Champs Élysées.
Thousands of demonstrators from all over France massed on the famous boulevard on Saturday to express their anger at the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and his government. But what was supposed to be a peaceful protest by the gilets jaunes (yellow jackets) movement degenerated rapidly.
On one side, protesters reportedly infiltrated by far-right extremists and casseurs (rioters and hooligans) tore up paving stones and hurled them and other missiles at police before building barricades that they set alight. On the other, police used teargas, pepper spray, water cannon and bulldozers to clear the road....
We live in increasingly strange times when jumping to conclusions only powers the extremists and anarchists. The way I see it, the extremists saw a chance to take a moral issue and enslave it for their own purposes.
