Ehlana and Ethan:
Happy 22nd Birthday, Emma Norton!
Emma is away at school, so we didn’t have anything to do with her special day, but Mom and Dad did send a family gift; and we’re sure that Jimmy and her college friends will take care of helping her to have an awesome day!
Our top news of the day isn’t from here at home. Naomi, Aaron, and their Grade Eight class and chaperones are in Washington D.C. tonight, and the surprise that they were greeted with on arrival was that Cassie and Michael met them there and are two of the chaperones too!
Cassie and Michael flew into D.C. after some nap time in Boston following their overnight flight from Europe. They arrived ahead of the gang from our town; and had rental vans ready to go by the time that luggage had been rounded up and they could load up and head for their hotel. The weather is warmer there with a high in the mid-eighties; and our friends left the rain behind and have a mostly-sunny week in the forecast for most of their visit too. As for their visit so far, they’ve only had time to get checked into their hotel and go out for a late dinner; and now they are supposed to get a good night of rest ahead of their adventures on Monday that will include visiting the Smithsonian. We’ll keep you posted on their travel news, but that is all we have for now.
Here at home, we had a good start to our day – though Tai Chi was indoors and in pairs instead of together and we had very different breakfast meals before eventually meeting up at church. The service and Sunday school were a bit on the short side, and that was mostly because of the Grade Eight class departure that had a hard time limit so that they could get to the airport on time. That’s why Ethan’s goodbye with Naomi was too-short for them – and why we ended up playing at the lab or archives for the afternoon while Ethan was already missing Naomi a lot. Of course it was raining too, so outdoor play time wasn’t really an option, but let’s not let facts get in the way of my storyline! We did have lunch with Mom and Dad first; our afternoon work-play kept us busy through to near-dinnertime; and then we were home in time to help Mom with the cooking. We fit in a vid-chat with Cassie and Michael while they were still waiting for Naomi, Aaron, and their classmates; that meal was a nice break with Mom and Dad; and then our evening has included some office work and a Magi lesson; bath or Jacuzzi time; and a short music practice ahead of a playing test we have coming up this week. We’re overdue for some world news commentary; so let’s do that next and then we’ll wrap this up and get some sleep.
While there isn’t really much good news on any of the usual war fronts, we’ll concede that a wider war in the Middle East, at least so-far, has been avoided – particularly between Israel and Iran, and while the risks are still high; that has settled down a bit. On the downside, though, our government just passed a bill to spend another ninety-five billion dollars on their war efforts around the world while sneaking in new powers for the deep state and other measures including the now-famous ‘Tik-Tok’ ban that will either end up with the end of that business in our country or forcing China to sell the company. We won’t predict what that outcome will be, but either way, doing things like that will put all current and future international investments at risk, since companies and investors will need to at least consider the dangers that their investments could be lost basically on the whim of the leaders in our country. Add in the plan to confiscate frozen assets from Russia; and our leaders are putting us on a dangerous path. We actually do know what we’re talking about for this, since our family business and charities have needed to deal with issues like this in other countries – and never wanted to see happen here. I don’t want to rant on about this, but our government really is wrong about this, and if they can do that to other countries and businesses; they could just as easily try to do the same thing here against anyone they don’t agree with or want to destroy. Okay, that already happens here, but let’s not go there tonight either.
Moving along, the war in Ukraine is getting tougher for Ukraine, and despite having another sixty-one billion dollars worth of military and financial aid coming their way, but the time that happens; they might not have many people left to fight Russia and use those weapons. Nobody seems serious about negotiating for peace; so it could be that we won’t see that happen until one side wins outright – and we don’t even want to think about when and how that could happen when both sides also claim that they are willing to fight to win at any costs. Finally, tensions are rising in Asia and with China – with that Tik-Tok ban just one tiny part of the problems. To be blunt, we think that our leaders are messing that up too; and it seems as though the war mongers in our government are in charge and doing their best to provoke yet another conflict in that region – whether because of Taiwan or through other ‘projects’ they have on the go to stir things up with other regional countries against China. Without getting into the weeds on that, we really don’t understand why any of those countries go along with our leaders when most of them also have China as their largest trading partner, but then the same could be said for most of the other geo-political issues going on around the world that are led by our government.
That is more than enough for tonight, and we are getting tired; so that’s all for this report.
Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!
