Unwanted Advice

With Sir Harry still voiceless, and nursing sore ribs, there occurred a welcome respite from work, save for some futures trading with respect to sugar beets. This lacuna provided some time for me to get on certain secure telephone lines, and proffer a number of people certain advice. To wit:

To Barack Obama: Stop trying to be Mahatma Gandhi, be bolder, and think of a Roosevelt, any Roosevelt, but particularly Teddy or Franklin. Either will do.

To Stephen Harper: Be a bit more cautious on the world stage. Cultivate Angela Merkel.

To Angela Merkel: Be a bit bolder on the world stage. Cultivate Stephen Harper.

To the Chinese leadership: Stop trying to harm Western children by sending toxic toys to North America. Someone in the inner circle has obviously read Swift's A Modest Proposal, but has not realized that the good Jonathon was writing satire, not policy.

To David Cameron: This tap dancing (actually, more a gavotte) to avoid hard decisions about Europe, the E.E.C. and the Euro should cease -- it will end in tears. But perhaps a career on Broadway beckons....

To Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and all other Islamic fundamentalists: Read and absorb Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great. Once the shock of awareness has subsided, there are schools to be financed, hospitals constructed, bridges to be built, and un-burka clad women brought into the scheme of things as full partners. Now get on with it.

To Mahmoud Ahmedinejad: Read up on Spike Milligan and Oscar Levant, then check yourself in to the nearest asylum. You are an embarrassment to a once great country. And if you can persuade your friend Hugo Chavez to do the same thing, all the better.

To Toronto's new mayor, Rob Ford: Continue your campaign to put Toronto's fiscal house in order. Yes, I am aware of the howls of outrage coming from all those on the City's payroll who "study" issues, host focus groups, and hare off to conferences in sunny climes. As you know, any studies or reports are shelved almost as soon as they are written, and nothing is recommended except that further study is warranted. So continue to do what you are doing, and always keep in mind the following advice: Nihil te bastardes carborundorum.*

So. Advice from a genius. I know this because, as Goethe tells us, "Genius consists of knowing when to stop."

And I just stopped.

* "Don't let the bastards grind you down."