"Go the Darkie!!!"

Word from Fiji is that everyone was hanging on to their radios and cheering "Go, the darkie!!"

Word from Australia is "Put that man behind bullet-proof perspex!"

Word from Greece:

Photo taken by Dr Tom King.

Word from England is "Poor man! He's been handed the poisoned chalice."

Word from Rome:

Photo taken by Dr Tom King in Rome.

Word from HK? I have no idea! I doubt they'll care because the only international news I've ever known them to deign to notice was the kidnapping of those Russian kindergarten children by terrorists. That, for some reason, they cared about and followed closely with horror and repulsion! Everything else? Ho hum!

Me, I think it's great news. In fact, I'm over-joyed and think Australia has got it wrong and that America is in so much trouble they're going to rally behind him and he's in no danger until he sorts it all out, and he will sort it all out although it will take several years. Three! That's my bet! Before someone takes the first potshot, that is!

Sure, I started out just wanting to see the back of Bush and Cheney and their whole Skull and Bones Crew, and progressed through to disliking McCain for so many reasons, but in the last couple of days, yes, I've become an Obama supporter.

I just love that preternatural calm and that enormous intelligence that seems to arise out of it. And I just love it that Uganda and Kenya have a legend of "The Great Kabaka"; that when the country is in trouble, a giant man of enormous calm and intelligence arises from the people and unites the country and brings everyone out of the chaos and into peace and prosperity, and here it is: a Kenyan looking like he's going to become America's own Great Kabaka!

Since what happens in America impinges on the rest of us, my fingers are crossed!

Actually, on the advice of Chris Patten, I watched the entire election results from the start. And, yes, in the beginning, it felt just like that awful marathon session watching the delivery of those giant pandas from China to Hong Kong, where all I could think was "Why am I watching this!" but then it got good, and then, at the end, it got great. Truly great! Epic, even!

I just loved the speeches. John McCain really surprised me. He showed a nobility of spirit that I hadn't previously seen in him. And yes, he made me cry. I kept thinking of that line from Shakespeare - "Macbeth" - "Nothing became his life like the leaving of it!" But I was still over-joyed that he'd be leaving it! And that awful Palin woman! Thank god we don't get any more of her!

But then the Obama speech. That was truly epic and made me think about Kennedy and Lincoln, Kenya and Great Kabakas, and how legends cross international boundries, and how Americans so obviously want again to live out the Truths that they once held inviolate, and how it echoes the whole Joseph Campbell concept of The Fisher-King ...

... and also thinking about The American Dream and how the young people of Mainland China believe it to be "Having everything your heart desires the moment you desire it!" and how low America has become in the eyes of the rest of the world when this is how it is The Great Ideals of American Founding Fathers are now being perceived.

... and also, yeah, yeah, being kinda childish and hoping that the first act of the Democrats will be to get that hideous and nasty piece of s***t, John Bolton, off the world stage FOREVER!!!

Actually, it's stronger than that: I'd like them to "do a Mussolini" and turn him into a large pinyata and beat him with sticks until he bursts - although I imagine the beaters would be tired by then because in my vengeful fantasy they would have already pinyata-ed lots; Cheney first, then that hideous head of WTO - who I find so repugnant I refuse to speak his name on the principle that "you say the Devil's name and he appears!" - and then Bolton, and then that awful smug Greenspan, and ending with Bush himself, although I think he's finally realised his Legacy will be the lowest of low and then some, and he's feeling rather badly about it! (Yee ha!!!), so I don't mind that it'll be a kinda gentler beating ... just so long as he gets a beating!

But mostly I hope that the Democrats finally get the wealth of the country out of the hands of Skull and Bones and redistribute it to the people. That's what I hope. Fairness. Justice.

And, most of all, that America regains the Moral Authority it has so sorely lost, like BIGTIME!!!