Dearest Kathy, Pete and Sue, here follows my weekly e-mail.

I got back safely. On my way up, I saw Odyssey and Orbiter still spying on Mars. To tell the truth, we don’t mind Earth looking at us as we do the same with Earth. As you remember from the wonderful sky above Bob’s ethanol field, our UFOs have been perfected off late. But we’re a bit wary of these Mars Landers Earth sends over, because they look like these unfriendly giant spiders that roam Mars’s Rocky Mountains. Fortunately, we have our ways to protect our existence and succeed in persuading these crafts to become (legal!) Mars residents and stop sending their messages back to Earth. NASA calls that the Great Galactic Ghoul that feeds on Martian spacecraft. Well, we don’t eat them as we have better ways to feed ourselves. What they don’t understand is that we turn them into machines for our own space reconnaissance and perfect them along the way. Willing collaborators to visit our moons, Phobos and Deimos, and sister planet Venus. Regretfully, from my talks on Earth it appears some remain keen on pursuing their mission to invade us. So we shall have to keep an eye on more of these flying objects spewing to Mars, despite NASA’s recent transformation into a multicultural education department.

I landed on one of our main launching pads in what they call on Earth our Valles Marineris, where most of us live. As I told you, contrary to Earth’s findings so far, it’s quite a livable place. They immediately asked me for a TV meet to discuss my latest findings as they’re all very curious about what’s cooking on Earth.

You as family know we have different ways to indentify ourselves here, but for others listening in I shall use Earthly names for the panel that interviewed me last night: Tamil, Elmer, Shamus, Pasha, and Huda. They are all part of UCB (Universe Communications Broadband), our main TV station and wanted to know everything I did during my stay.

“Any progress?” Tamil was the first to ask.

“To the contrary, regression all over,” I told him, and he looked relieved. “But in the West the genders are merging.”

“How’s that?” Huda was always keen to hear about women on Earth. “Are they becoming like us?”

“More and more,” I confirmed. “More men are wearing skirts – and I’m not talking about Scottish pipers –and more women are wearing pants. They almost look each other’s mirrors now. The only difference is that women still have boobs but they’re getting flatter. Even their voices are beginning to sound similar.”

“Do they still do it?” Pasha had a penchant for sexual relationships, and anchors a TV show and writes books about it on Mars.

“Women prefer to go to the sperm bank,” I revealed, reluctantly. “They aim for a national sperm bank system with a Federal Reserve to regulate quality and equitable access at low rates.”

“What do men do, then?” Elmer asked, glancing at Pasha and looking embarrassed.

“Apart from delivering at the sperm bank, they marry each other.”

“But that’s weird,” Elmer gasped. “There must be something wrong with their brains.”

“Everybody says that, but so far their authorities haven’t made it a priority research item yet.”

“You said regression, what do you mean by that?” Tamil brought the interview back to the basics.

“The USA is moving to failed communist systems. Unbelievable but true. Europe is already seriously suffering from them and has lost steam as a result. The Middle-East shoots everyone who doesn’t live like before the Middle Ages and spurns women. That makes one hundred percent of their populations unproductive. China is hellbent on becoming number one and working hard on their own path to Mars, but its brutal statist regime has too many people to feed. South-Asia has the same problem and is facing fundamentalist wars. Then there is that old flame of Earth history, you know Persia what they now call Iran. Those pashas think they are Alexander the Great number Two. What can I tell you…Everybody fights each other. There’s no enlightened vision, no unity, no spirited leadership down there, except old mullahs yelling in megaphones.”

Tamil seemed to relax. “Good for us, no prospects for new Rovers.”

“But do we put money on Earth?” Shamus asked. He handles USB’s space-wide investments.

“Only in gold if you need to, but you have enough of that here. USA and Europe keep spending more than they earn. Their moneys are going down and they can’t keep printing it at the rate they do. At some stage it must collapse. Especially if their banker China calls in its loans and invades Taiwan.”

“What about us colonizing Earth, rather than them colonizing us?”

“Interesting question, but I wouldn’t put my money in it.”

“We know you have siblings on Earth. How do they feel?” Pasha asked.

“Kathryn runs a bank but sits on the money and doesn’t lend, afraid they won’t pay back, and she hates bailouts in exchange for government regulators on her Board. Pete and Sue have good paying jobs, but many of their friends don’t. When they ask their Government why, it says it’s the other party’s fault and will always be.”

“Don’t they complain in the press, then?”

“The main press in the USA is in the tank with the socialist Government. They are utterly silent on the same things they were raising hell over under the previous administration. Double standard to perfection.”

“How did this all happen?” Elmer asked.

“I think it’s a mixture of things. You know about Earth’s nine-eleven. That changed everything. People lost direction. Many lost their mind and never found it back. The worst for Earth is that the great USA elected a bunch of leftist nincompoops and has lost its grip on world events. They can’t even handle their own border security.”

“Nincompoops?”

“Well, that’s an Earth term for ignoramuses.”

“We don’t know what that means either,” Elmer said, laughing.

“Bum heads, my son’s definition, will that do?”

“So, if I may conclude, “Tamil said, “everything is quiet for us on the West-front?”

“For now yes, but the danger is that you may see slanted eyes landing here first, looking like us…”.

“What about these women,” Huda asked quickly, to get a last question in.

“They’re taking over,” I said. ”You see it everywhere in the USA. More women than men in universities. More and more women making it to CEO. They are flying airplanes and space shuttles. A whole new group of angry women is entering politics and beating male candidates. Granted, Earth men have made a mess everywhere you go and have done so for millennia. The Middle East is a point in case. So are Africa, South-Asia and the Far-East. And presently the USA isn’t any better. Women are coming to power. Matriarchal management is on the rise. Maybe that’s Earth’s best hope.“

“But would they come here to disturb our homogeneous society?” Pasha wondered.

“By the time they come, they will have fully merged into one gender, like us, with just one minor difference for the purpose of procreation.  They can’t stay here for physical reasons, and must go back to their sperm bank, otherwise they die.”

“Earth sperm banks may be a good investment, then,” Shamus inferred.

“And we can be assured that we won’t be bothered,” Pasha ended happily. “Long live Mars.”

“Our time’s up,” Tamil announced, looking satisfied. “Thank you, Mars Man,  for this informative interview and please come back next time.”

That’s the news from Mars, dear all. I’ve to water my plants. Till my next e-mail. Stay well.

Mars Man