Ethan and Ehlana:
Happy 14th Birthday, Susan
Connor!
Happy 5th Birthday, Cassidy
Connor!
This has felt like a different kind of day
for us – and that had nothing to do with President Trump’s Liberation Day
political theatre. There were some
thunderstorms early this morning, so Tai Chi was indoors; and then our school
day included extra fun because Susan wasn’t having a major friends’ party; so
we took care of that for her at lunchtime with gifts and Olde Bakery treats. She also wasn’t having a joint party with her
cousin – Susan just opted for spending time with her best friends and closest
family.
Ehlana and I should seriously consider
doing that for our birthday more-often, but we have time to work on that for
this year; so stay tuned for that future story.
As for today, while we would have had fun at a party, we enjoyed our
work-play at the lab or archives. Ehlana
and I opted to do that despite improving weather this afternoon tempted us to
go biking with friends. We were also
tempted to stay into the evening, but went home in time for dinner with Mom and
Dad; and then we worked in the office this evening. Mom did a Magi lesson with us too; we used
time phasing to get more done; and we had a vid-chat with Cassie and Michael that
was work-related as they were getting ready for the rest of their week and the
work they want to get done while in California.
No, they will not be saving the toons or any other Hollywood-related
companies while there, and even partnering with businesses and charities can be
a challenge in the State, but there is a lot of need there too; so we will help
where we can. Between the lab time and
family business work; we got a lot done tonight, so when Mom had us wrap up at
eleven; we were ready to get started on our daily wrap-up of bedtime computing
and twin chat fun.
That brings us to the world and political
news of the day that was dominated by tariffs talk and speculation through
until when the actual news arrived late in the afternoon. Ehlana and I really do see most of this story
as theatre – especially when there are other, more-important stories being
ignored – like the not-so-quiet military build-up in the Middle East by our
armed forces; the threats we’re making against Iran; and the actual wars we’re
waging in Yemen and elsewhere in the region.
The killing and destruction against the Palestinians is escalating again
too; yet few leaders if any are doing anything to try and stop yet another
round of war in the region. You’d really
think that we’d have learned from the failures of the past twenty-five years
and more, but apparently-not; since we seem poised to destroy another country
or three with no apparent care at all for the collateral costs to those people
or the rest of the world! It is also
appearing more and more clear that ‘our’ interest in ending the war in Ukraine
is related, but those efforts are falling apart too thanks to warmongers in
other countries that want to keep the destruction in Ukraine going to the
bitter end. While all of that insanity
rules; we’re ‘fiddling’ around with tariffs and making a big show of that and
other political stories that are mostly meaningless in the context of those
really serious and dangerous conflicts and diplomatic nightmares.
Since the tariffs stories are leading the
headlines; let’s cover them for posterity and point out that while there may be
basis for trying to deal with trade imbalances; it might prove to be a very bad
idea to anger most of the rest of the world – both friends and foes. What we really find craziest about this story
is that, for the most part, the new tariffs are basically half of whatever
tariffs the affected countries apply against our exports to them. The exceptions are the countries that only
have a ten percent tariff on our goods; and that’s simply because President
Trump set a minimum tariff of ten percent.
Yes, there are other trade issues being addressed in the executive order
– such as addressing bans on specific product exports, but those items are
reciprocal too.
We’ll see what happens next as the rest of
the world responds to either accept the tariffs or escalate and retaliate, but
we’ll again mention that we really should be focusing on trying to end the wars
and de-escalating all conflicts and tensions – including the economic problems. That probably won’t happen, but we will keep
hoping for the best – delusional as doing that might seem!
On that weirdly discordant note; we are
going to wrap this up; call it a night; and get some sleep right now.
Until next time, live with love, fellow
Magi of the Light!
