By Phil Jarratt
I’m sure after the tedious and often infuriating wait for election results in America, we’ve all heard enough about politics for the time being. But I’ve got so much anger burning inside me right now – tempered only by the joy of seeing real, rational people once again in charge of the free world – that I have to let a little out.
Trump lost. In the end the electoral college margin will be about the same for Joe Biden as it was for Trump in 2016, which is to say in Trumpspeak it’s a landslide; in the more measured tongue of the President-Elect, it’s a workable majority. Yes, 70 million Americans voted for four more years of divisive and dangerous stupidity in the White House, but 75 million said enough is enough.
There is a clear-cut winner and loser here, although maybe they see it differently in a Trump casino or in the White House bunker, which are both eerily similar shelters from reality. And as fast as the Trump fantasy factory throws out the baseless and spurious court challenges, they are being thrown onto the bonfire of Trump’s vanity.
Quite clearly he doesn’t like it, but it is the measure of the man that he seems prepared to take down every sacred democratic institution of the United States as he sits alone in his playpen trying to deny that the people have spoken. The only reality that Trump understands is the one claimed by reality TV, from whence his public persona came, and hopefully will soon return.
Has anyone ever seen such a moronic, insulting and petulant display from an alleged leader of the free world? When it comes to world leaders throwing wobblies, you have to look to Adolf Hitler and Idi Amin to even come close, and sadly the outgoing President of the United States has sunk to their level in his lack of respect for democratic process.
Trump has no friends left in the Republican Party, half of which deserted him a long time ago, and Rupert Murdoch has no further use for him. It’s time for him to go quietly into the night, but of course he won’t.
The biggest laugh I got last week was from a recirculated video parody of Trump being dragged out of a nursery playpen, clutching at furniture and howling at his minder as tiny children, who would never behave so badly, looked on in horror. Funny as hell and just as scary because it is exactly what is happening right now.
Just go, Donald. The world has had a gutful. Here endeth the rant.
Honky’s and Sultan’s saved … for now
If you’ve ever been to that wonderful playground of waves, the Maldives, you’ll know that Honky’s and Sultan’s, those back to back points across the water from Male International, are the island chain’s most consistent and most crowded breaks.
In the last decade or so, most surfers who can will either bypass these breaks completely or just use them to get the feet in the wax before venturing on to the less crowded atolls. In half a dozen visits to the Maldives I’ve only surfed the hard-breaking left of Honky’s once, and managed to snag a few long ones in a pack of mostly local surfers. But I haven’t been back, happy to leave that one to the locals, many of whom have access to only this surfing area in a chain full of great surf breaks.
This is why I was delighted to hear from Swellnet this week that Maldivian surfers have finally won an eight-year battle to protect their access to the breaks from being closed by foreign developers.
Swellnet’s Stu Nettle reported: “In 2012 it was announced that a foreign development company named Telos Investments had paid USD $5 million for the lease of Thanburudhoo Island at Kaafu Atoll, which included exclusive access to the waves breaking off its southern tip, Honky’s and Sultan’s.
“Over the next three years, Maldivian surfers fought that battle, till in 2015 then-President Abdulla Gayoom suspended the development. For the next five years a cloud of uncertainty hung over Thanburudhoo. As foreign investment turbocharged development in other parts of the island chain, local surfers waited for the next proposal at Thanburudhoo.
“Last Thursday, however, President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih announced that Thanburudhoo Island had been granted protected area status. This doesn’t protect Thanburudhoo from all development, though if any were to proceed they’d have to meet more stringent environmental guidelines.”
In a country where politics is sometimes volatile and unpredictable, this is far from rock solid, but it’s a good start.
Wavescape for a good cause
A few weeks ago in this space I highlighted the work of local longboarder and wavescape painter Ray Smith, who has been getting tremendous reaction to his works, now hung at Nissarama Gallery in Hastings Street. Ray not only allowed Noosa World Surfing Reserve the use of his work to promote their upcoming fundraising Surfers Christmas Ball, he created a poster for it. If you like what you see here, check out more of Ray’s work at bluiota.com
Tickets for the Surfers Ball are selling fast, so if you’re interested in putting a table together for this great night of fun for a good cause, visit noosaworldsurfingreserve.com.au for more info.
