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Elections or TV, take your pic

You never know what is going to be on television nowadays

Throughout the summer the American election controversy replaced my winter schedule of comedy shows.

A steady diet of CNN, and three or more Canadian news stations kept me up to the minute on every stupid remark and its possible meaning as identified by various panels of six or eight political experts.

I was desperate for a break in the round-the-clock Trump nonsense. It came in the form of a bomb set off on 23rd Street in New York City. From then on for the next 48 hours news coverage was all about the explosion, and who might have done it. The presidential campaign was put aside.

I heard only one Trump remark. Briefed along with President Obama and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, Trump’s response was just what I would expect after listening to many of his rallies. He said, “A bomb exploded. We’ve got to get tough.”

That was before FBI, state police, city police or other officials had determined it had been a bomb. But Trump-like, he knows without knowing. And his first reaction was to reciprocate in kind.

To lighten my TV diet I watched such shows as a documentary about Hillary Clinton’s life where I learned as a young woman grad of a prestigious college she rented a room from an elderly lady.

The lady divulged that Hillary never made her bed in the mornings. That tidbit delighted me; it distressed the elderly landlady.

The other light note to come from her documentary mentioned how daughter Chelsea and her parents made a practice of eating supper together at the dining table in their White House living quarters.

As a teenager Chelsea brought home a boyfriend who sat down at the supper table wearing his baseball cap. But not for long. Hillary let him know that at her table no one wore caps.

Come to think of it, Hillary described their evening meal as supper, not dinner. A small matter, but one that crops up in my family when we’re planning a get-together.

When I say dinner, I mean noon. Supper is 6 p.m. Or thereabouts. That follows my farm upbringing. Younger family members call noon lunch, 6 p.m. dinner. They skip supper.

About that time I chanced upon a reality program titled 90 Day Fiancée. Americans – men and women – choose from a dating website someone who lives in Europe, Asia or South America.

The rules are the American can bring someone to the U.S. on a K1 Visa. The couple has 90 days from the time the person arrives in America to marry, or the person must return to their own country.

So far I’ve been following five couples, all of whom seem doomed from the start as I see it. And I’m not alone in my assessment.

Each couple has parents, siblings and other relatives who worry the foreign partner is in this more for the green card which is a first step to being able to work in the U.S. and then becoming an American citizen.

One big problem in many cases is some secret which one partner is withholding from the other, or from parents. Secrets can destroy a marriage.

Every couple is so obviously mismatched. A 20-year-old who demands a $10,000 handbag and criticizes his new car for not holding all her luggage. A 28-year-old Tunisian Muslim engaged to a 43-year-old mother of four with unpaid utility bills.

How is it they can’t see the mismatch? Or does the payoff for taking part in the TV show override their common sense?

Which show is the bigger time waster – the U.S. Presidential campaign or 90-Day Fiancée?