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| Whooah! |
I had to laugh a little bit last night
when my wife came into the room after some long phone conversations with her friends.
She and her friends have talked themselves into a high level of anxiety based
on what they’re seeing on the news. The Trump bombing of Syria, sabre rattling
in North Korea, and the breathless news coverage surrounding the dropping of a
large bomb in Afghanistan earlier this week convinced them, abetted by the aforementioned
news coverage, that we were on the verge of World War 3. Her friends wanted to
know what I thought based on my now vestigial military experience.
I’ll admit Trump seems to have raised the
news organizations’ tendency for hyperbole to a new level; something I think he
loves. The reality is that relations with Russia are not the worst they’ve ever
been; that, in itself, is a patently ridiculous statement. We were on the verge
of an actual shooting war with Russia (then USSR) from the dying days of World
War 2 until the 1980s. Since I grew up in the shadow of that cold (at times
very hot) war and spent the first half of my military career training to kill
Russians I find today’s laughable claim on the state of relations with Russia
just that, comical. Putin is trying to make Russia relevant again and has found
a great foil in the current administration which seems incapable of ignoring
them.
North Korea, in the same vein, always
claims to be on the verge of war with, well, everybody. It is problematic to
have the current, young, bizarre leader but that’s a family trait. They know if
they ever tried to use a nuclear weapon against us or our allies Pyongyang
would be a smoking crater the next day and DPRK would pass into the mists of
history. They posture to gain attention and further deceive their own people
that they’re anything other than a nationwide personality cult watching the rest
of the world pass them by.
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| She Loves Coloring |
Speaking of smoking craters there
seems to be a lot of consternation wailed about amongst the news pundits about the
MOAB dropped in Afghanistan which I honestly don’t understand. The
consternation that is. We have this weapon. We have ISIS idiots/cowards hiding
out in caves. Instead of having our or Afghan Soldiers needlessly spend their
lives digging the aforementioned idiots out we use a really big bomb. The ISIS terrorists
get their virgins and no sane Soldiers were spent accomplishing this. This was
a completely good news story that is somehow being bandied about as a bad
thing. I don’t get it. J
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| Too Cute |
So I tried to assure my wife the world
is not any scarier than it was a couple weeks ago. We’re just seeing the “look
at me” campaign of our President in full flower. The good news – we’re closer
each day to 2020. We’re much further away from Armageddon than we used to be.
We’ll figure out a way to get along with the Russians, the Chinese need us to
keep buying their goods, and even the North Koreans know they’re little more
than speed bumps if they ever go nuclear.
I take solace with time with family,
even if it’s over the electro-magnetic spectrum. The First Blog Reader was too
busy entertaining a friend last night to devote her usual amount of charm our
way but even a taste is worth the effort. My Favorite Son is gearing up for our
weekend visit with a discussion of frozen hams and chocolate pies. His dog Riggins
is gearing up for a date with the huevos remover on Monday so he actually does have
something to worry about. Finally some updated pictures of the Condo
construction down in Panama is also bracing; oh, and it’s the First Friday of
the Week!
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| Condo Update |
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