For some decades now, the president of the United States has been the most photographed and scrutinised person in the world. It is hard for most of us to remember a time when this was not the case - a time before American primacy.
This year the contest for that role is between two of the oldest ever aspirants, and the focus on their personalities has been especially intense. Hence it is no surprise that the idea of either of them being in failing health has become a major campaign issue.
At times when the modern world seems full of unprecedented and dire problems, history can be useful not because it provides solutions but because it shows we have been here before. JFK and FDR, two of the most celebrated presidents of modern times, hid their own serious health problems from the electorate. That is not what we remember them for.
To look back and find what we have in common with people of other times and places seems to surprise us, perhaps because we spend so much time in our individual bubbles of information. So the news that certain sounds for common objects can be found across languages is a salutary reminder that we are not so very different from one another as we way seem.
Far from the White House race, on a boat at sea, Newman Otas Oqunbor was born into no nation. What he has to say - and in which language - will not affect how Americans vote this year. But he and those in transit with him are another reminder not only that our ideas about boundaries and difference are breaking down, but that they were never that absolute to begin with.
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