Ehlana and Ethan:
Life is returning to normal – though maybe that isn’t quite-true; since we are definitely feeling the changes tonight as we’ve gone from near-summer weather on Saturday to spring-like warm in the mid-sixties this afternoon to a wintry snow-rain mix with below-freezing cold tonight. Sure, the cold isn’t going to last for long and we’ll be back into warmer weather again within a couple of days, but it still felt colder to us when we came home from the lab tonight.
We were happy to be back at school with our friends today; our academic adventures included the start of new modules; and we opted for biking and park play after school while catching up with our friends and sharing our own travel stories. Ethan and I were on our own for dinner with Mom and Dad; Mom went with us to the lab while Dad stayed home and worked in the office; and we used a time phase to get more done at the lab or archives while also catching up on the work that happened while we were away – though that was more for me than for Ethan’s work. Even with the time phase, we stayed at the lab a bit too late; so it is late and we’re tired. I don’t want to put off news commentary and our travel stories, but instead of doing both; I’ll go with the news updates; since they are more-important in the grand scheme of things.
At the top of the list for current events today is the ongoing aftermath of a terrorist attack in Russia at a concert hall that left hundreds killed or wounded. The gunmen also set fire to the hall, so as horrifying as this tragedy is; it could have been a lot worse because there had been thousands of people in the building and more in the rest of the mall complex. Suspects are under arrest, but details are a challenge to discern for truth. To be blunt, we’re taking claims in our own media with a large grain of salt, since it is a bit unbelievable that our ‘western’ governments could know within an hour of the attack the identity of the group responsible – unless, of course, they had information in advance that they kept secret while allowing the atrocity to happen. Let’s not take that idea further; since we really wouldn’t want to believe that any of our three-letter agencies might have been involved too. None of this is funny in any way, but we did appreciate one comment we saw comparing how quickly our government and media jumped on blaming a very specific Muslim group for the concert hall shooting and fire while being completely unable to figure out who bombed the Nord Stream pipelines even a year and a half after that ‘terrorist’ attack!
Moving along, but staying with the Russia-Ukraine conflict, President Putin was re-elected; there were Ukrainian attempts to attack directly into Russian territory ahead of and during the elections; and those attacks were defeated with very-heavy losses for Ukraine. Since then, Russia has been retaliating; there have been missile and drone attacks in both directions; and the human and property costs on both sides is more-horrifying as that concert hall attack. All of that is already horrible, but if any links to Ukraine or western powers is proven to that concert hall attack; that conflict is definitely going to escalate to something even-worse.
All of that is awful, and it is really hard for us to watch all of that happening while the tragedy unfolding in Gaza and Israel may prove out to be even-worse. The world continues to stand by impotently while spouting off empty words while Palestinians are being slaughtered and starved and displaced. The Israeli government needs to be stopped from continuing this genocide, and if they aren’t stopped; future generations will learn about those horrors the same way we’ve learned about the world wars and the holocaust.
I am not going to get into a rant on these stories. It is late and we need to get some sleep; so that’s all for tonight too. Flip the digital page in our future whenever you’re reading this; and we’ll cover those belated travel stories with our next update.
Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!
