Ethan and Ehlana:
Another weather flip led to another warm day with a high around sixty degrees; and it even warmed up overnight to around forty – which is why we bundled up and went out to the river for Tai Chi. That was a nice start to our day; we had fun with breakfast and a video chat with Cassie, Michael, Rowen, and Tim; church and Sunday school kept us busy for a couple of hours of fun and love with our family, friends, and neighbors; and then we had lunch with Mom and Dad before going out to play with our friends for the afternoon. With the fast warm-up, the snow on the ground melted fast, but we had some snow play fun; mixed that up with some biking around town and at the park; and we had our snack break at Naomi’s house. We’ve been home since about an hour before dinner because we were booked to help Mom with the cooking; and then our evening has been quiet with some family business work and a Magi lesson. Bath or Jacuzzi time started comparatively-early tonight; and we’ve been doing our usual bedtime computing and twin chat for nearly a half-hour now.
Getting some sleep soon is an option, but before we go there; let’s cover some world news commentary.
While the world is paying a lot of attention to events in and around Ukraine and the Freedom Convoys that began in Canada and are spreading around the world; we’ll begin with a mostly-ignored Covid-19 milestone here at home – reaching eighty million confirmed cases. The big numbers continue to become more-meaningless to most people; so we’ll simply note that nearly everyone will eventually catch Covid-19 eventually; so we still have a long way to go before we get there – and that’s not accounting for the unknowns like whether we’ll have any immune protection to future variants. That isn’t a suggestion for ongoing restrictions and mandates. We all need to just prepare for the reality that we’ll need to learn to live with yet another endemic disease – just as we do for flu and cold viruses.
Related to that, the Freedom Convoy protests are showing some very ugly moments in supposedly-free countries. In the Canadian capital, Ottawa, the protests were definitely peaceful until the government decided to crack down over the past four days. Apparently it is now dangerous to a country to have tens of thousands of protesters dancing, partying, and providing free food to everyone – including the homeless. The bouncy castles were also, obviously, early training ground for the kids that will surely become future peaceful protesters! That crackdown was bad-enough, but it is now also apparently illegal to donate to the charities set up to finance the protests; the Canadian government gave themselves the right to freeze bank accounts, cancel licenses and insurance, and basically destroy anyone that dares to protest or speak out against them. We’ll see how hat plays out over the next weeks and months, but we really hope that’ll end badly – for the politicians that are trying to destroy democracy and freedom.
Ukraine politics might not prove to be as-dangerous as stifling peaceful protests with force, but war is big business; so it is no surprise that pretty much everyone with political and financial interest in conflicts. Getting into a rant about the stupidity of wars – especially in recent decades – isn’t something that we want to do tonight, but need to at least mention our disappointment with many world leaders that collectively truly seem to have no concern at all for their citizens and fellow humans. We’ll also pray and hope that another country and the people living there will not be destroyed in the process of supposedly saving them or protecting democracy. How many times will this story need to play out and end badly before people stand up and demand peace? Oh wait – Canada is trying to prove that standing up in peace won’t be permitted either.
With that in mind, let’s end this report with the paraphrased reminder that when peaceful protest is denied; violent protest becomes inevitable. Let’s hope that we collectively figure that out before it is too-late.
Until next time, this little blast from your near or distant past is written for you with love from Ethan and Ehlana Proctor – twin junior Magi Masters of the Light!
