A friend posed a question-why so much focus on Israel when there are so many pressing crises around the world, like the Sudan, largely forgotten? A worthy question, as dire straits expand from deadly political conflicts and authoritarian, corrupt governments to include climate impacts and crop failures.
If you keep up with the news, I betcha you're just as frustrated as I am. You think you know the truth. The evidence is as clear as day and yet you see people in the "other side" spewing nonsense with authority. You look for people on "your side" to exchange the latest gossip and avoid speaking about politics with the "other side" because it takes too much drama. So each of us sits on our "safe side" and drift further and further apart.
The great debate between Biden and Trump is history. You’ll know whose predictions were accurate. And the media will have their analysts massaging the truth to their liking. I dare not contribute to the confusion so I will just share a few observations about the event.
The country holding captive the birthplace of the religion I grew up with, Christianity, of the ethics that shaped me, has withered beyond redemption. It seems hell-bent on withering spirituality throughout the world.
Ukraine is a now a tilt-a-whirl that’s come loose. To understand it, I’m trying for inputs beyond the mainstream that’s had a dubious track record in the past, from WMD’s in Iraq to Russiagate. One shouldn’t ignore the mainstream, but one needs a wider angle lens.
The midterm election is just around the corner. Whether living conditions have improved or not since the last election is the normal gauge of whether one votes one way or another. In other words, if things got better since the last election, you re-elect the current establishment. If things got worse, you vote for the other guy. Simple, right? No. Not really.
Are you mourning this year’s lack of Carnival’s spiritual cleanse, its satirical sorting of society’s woes to give us perspective? I am. And so I retreat now to past frolics. It’s hard to overstate how rotten the past year has been, in so many ways, or the dim prospects it left us, as we await whatever next escapes Pandora’s Box.