Columns

There’s an old Mexican tale that claims at midnight on Christmas Eve, the animals will kneel and lie in the barn and speak with one another until dawn.

I don’t have Alexa. Or Siri. Don’t use Facebook or Twitter accounts. So I just go around the house announcing out loud what I’m doing at random times. I have three followers, but I think two are therapists.  I have just explained to my bedroom my new secret ingredient for scrambled eggs. I think it liked it.

AMLO (Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Mexico’s new president – yes, he’s an acronym) is pushing forward with plans to build his “Mayan Train,” a tourist transportation mega-project intended to run on 932 miles of track that, say many friends of the Earth, will lay waste to a treasure trove of biodiversity.

According to The Guardian newspaper, 5,900 active-duty U.S. troops were deployed to the border with Mexico eight days before the midterm elections, seeking to inject fears over immigration into the campaign, and to ensure the president goes down in the history books as the man who saved America from a couple of truckloads of unarmed women and children.

We all know that software and cyber technology with all its magical twists, permutations and applications will be at the helm of taking us into the future.

It’s time for my recommendations for Christmas. For all of our griping about how Christmas has changed from the days we were getting gifts of oranges, handkerchiefs, cufflinks, stockings and ties (and what man didn’t want a LOL Santa tie with his nose lighting up?), the truth is the yuletide season really isn’t commercial enough, according to those people who understand the economics.