‘How would you have handled the standoff between Trudeau, the hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suet’wen nation, northeast of Prince George, and the solidarity protesters in the Mowhawk territory in Ontario who have been blocking the rail line there,’ I asked Camp after Vicky, our dependable waitress set down two pints in front of us.
‘It’s a tough one,’ Camp said.
Here is my (unauthorized) translation of a review in German from my Swiss newspaper about a new book by Ruud Koopman, a Dutch Sociology professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin. ‘Das verfallene Haus des Islam’ – ‘The decaying House of Islam: the religious origins of the lack of freedom, violence and stagnation’.
‘Here is a fact,’ Camp stated after we made ourselves comfortable on our perch on the glassed-in veranda at Gramma’s Pub. ‘After Trump’s first term in office a quarter of all federal judges, including two supreme court judges, will have been appointed by him, changing the judiciary of the USA for a long time to come.’
‘And now Trump has declared himself the top cop in the land as well as judge and jury. As of today, Trump has pardoned twenty-five convicted criminals, some of them pals of his, undoing years of prosecution and legal work,’ Camp said.
‘Let’s switch to the other hot topic of the day,’ I said.
Life is a beach goes the saying except around here life has been a puddle with a few rays of sunshine to brighten up the dreary, soggy days. Lucky are those who can escape to sunnier climes and I envy people who aren’t bothered by the wet winters in the pacific Northwest. I grew up with real winters, white wonderland, blue skies, hot coco and skis instead of gumboots.
I lumbered into Grammas Pub, looking for Camp who was already seated at our usual table and sat down with an exasperated sigh.
‘If it’s not raining, it’s about to,’ my friend Campbell said – Camp to everybody in town – with a dispirited sigh as he plunked himself in the opposite chair at our weekly watering hole by the sea.
The good news is that spring is only a couple of months away,’ I said lamely. Just then Vicky, the only ray of sunshine, put down a couple of pints of the golden liquid. ‘Cheers’, I said, raising my glass, it’s sunny somewhere in this world.’
Bruno's point of view 