Heirs of the Magi News Flash!

***Heirs of the Magi News Flash!*** Witch Falls is the place to be for amazing summer adventures with your favorite Magi Masters and their families and friends! That is true for everyone except Cassie and Michael, since they're traveling for most of the summer while busy with weddings, a vacation, and another work trip, but they'll manage to have fun too; so check in regularly for the highlights from their travels! The weather's hot and every day will be an amazing adventure; so... ...Visit Witch Falls often to keep up with all of our latest stories; and Happy Reading!

Sunday, June 1, 2025

Ethan's and Ehlana's Journals - June 1, 2025

 

Ethan and Ehlana:

Happy 25th Birthday, Allen White!

Congratulations, Caylee and Cody Carter – it’s a girl!

While we were at church this morning, Colleen Carter was being born at the clinic, and while the jokes are inevitable; we’re sure that she didn’t time her arrival so that her parents and family could get out of one of Pastor John’s sermons!  Colleen and her Mom are doing well, but they are spending the night at the clinic to rest up after a tough labor before they’ll be ready to go home sometime tomorrow.

Our day hasn’t been very exciting – though we managed to have fun mixed in with the afternoon study session.  The dinner, studying, campfire, and camping last night was entertaining even with the exam prep work.  The campfire included stories and music; we had some parents join in on that part of our night; and then the camping was only co-ed for a few of us while the rest of our cousins and friends were in boys’ or girls’ tents.  Tai Chi by the river was great with bonus spectators; breakfast was a blast of busy getting everyone fed before church; and so was getting ready for the day while sharing bathroom time with a gang of kids and teens.  We managed to get to church on time; the sanctuary was only slightly-quieter without Colleen’s family, Uncle Mark, and Aunt Deborah; and Pastor John had fun with relaying that news to his congregation.

That service and Sunday school were good; we went home and needed to pack up our gear and tents; tidy the campground; and then have a quick lunch before getting to work on another study session with our friends.  That was tougher to do on another hot and sunny day with a high in the mid-eighties.  Yes, we took a couple of breaks, went for a short bike ride and two quick cool-down swims, but we did the work too; and our friends are mostly ready for first exams now.  We wrapped up the studying by dinnertime; Mom and Dad only had Ehlana and me with them for that meal because Cassie and Michael were at the Inn with a gang of friends for Allen’s dinner party at the late buffet; and then we only did a bit of work and a quick Magi lesson before Mom sent us upstairs for bath or Jacuzzi time and an early bedtime.

Now that we’re clean and ready for bed; we’ve been busy with the usual computer checks and chatting about our day.  Exams time at school is a good example of moments when we would like to skip the need to play normal when we don’t actually need to study at all – especially when we would have much-rather biked to Quarry Lake and played there all afternoon instead of studying!  That isn’t an option and we do like helping our friends; so we’ll still choose this over other choices we might have made instead.  Yes, those thoughts are happening now because our favorite hater is officially done college now – just ahead of her fourteenth birthday yesterday.  We really wouldn’t trade that for what we have here with our family and friends, but it is fun to imagine what we might be able to do now if we didn’t have school for our teen years – like work full-time at the lab or archives; travel the world with Cassie and Michael; or just have fun all of the time for the next decade! ;^)

Okay, we’re going to have a lot of fun with the lives we are living; so let’s move on and wrap this up.

Peace talks for Ukraine and Russia are supposed to resume soon – within hours; since it is already Monday morning in Turkey where the talks are scheduled to be held.  As always, we don’t believe the talk at all when actions prove the opposite.  In this case, as peace is supposed to be negotiated; both sides are increasing attacks with Ukraine sending hundreds of drones into Russia every day and usi9ng terrorist attacks to do things like derail passenger trains like they managed to do this weekend while Russia is expanding the front line; increasing missile and drone attacks deeper into Ukraine; and working harder to destroy Ukraine’s army.  It is all ugly and horrific; yet it seems as though all parties involved want to fight on until one side or the other is forced to surrender.  That will not end well for Ukraine, and for anyone who wants to doubt that, we suggest that you crack a history book or three; since Russia will never stop fighting regardless of the cost.  Our current group of world leaders might not be able to figure that out – just as has happened in past centuries, but we understand; and hope that the western countries won’t learn this lesson again the hardest way.  These same issues are present in the Middle East, with one of the biggest problems being the lack of trust in our country when it comes to making new deals after so many deals have been broken in the past.  For one example, talk about another ceasefire in Gaza sound great while the Palestinians only need to look at the last deal to know that any deal can’t be trusted since they traded hostages for food and medical aid that wasn’t delivered beyond a few token truckloads that did nothing to alleviate the starvation tactics being inflicted on them by the Israeli military and government.  Israel is gaining more enemies every day with their actions in Gaza and the West Bank; and it will not end well for them – or for the countries that support them; and that doesn’t necessarily mean in a war kind of way when it can also mean that those enemies will just choose to have nothing to do with Israel and their allies.

Moving on, the same talk-action issues continue with our actions toward Iran.  Peace is not very likely when the talk is all one-sided and demands to obey while military build-up is happening all around Iran.  Yes, we could inflict a lot of damage on Iran if we chose to do that – as we’ve done to so many other countries, but at what cost this time?  How many millions of people would die this time?  How many trillions of dollars would be spent to cause all of that destruction on both sides?  Since we’re getting into rant mode now, let’s move on to China.  There was a lot of talk and one specific speech from our Secretary of Defense that is worrying as the talk isn’t peaceful at all but straight-up war-mongering.  In just the past few days, our leaders have talked about major tariffs and sanctions on China over both trade and their support for Russia that is mostly only because they continue to trade with Russia and have increased that economic partnership.  We’re also threatening war with China over Taiwan – an island that we still, officially, acknowledge is part of China.  That entire situation is stupid.  Americans should think of Taiwan in relation to our own civil war.  The losers of China’s civil war fled to Taiwan and were allowed to stay there by the new Chinese government.  Taiwan’s leaders have been risking the future of their own people through their militarization and partnership with the United States and other western countries, and that really is a bit insane when we’re talking about a total population of around twenty-three million people looking to pick a fight with China’s one-point-four billion people!  Taiwan would also lose about twenty percent of its export business if China stopped buying from them; so maybe it would be a better idea to get along with one of your largest trading partners instead of antagonizing them!  Hint to the Taiwan government – if you want to be the next Afghanistan or Ukraine; keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll get there soon!

All of those problems add up to the western leaders either directly fighting or antagonizing about a quarter of the world population – or closer to half if you add in India and the other countries that are more-likely to side with our so-called ‘enemies’ if they get targeted by proposed sanction-tariffs too.  That’s a very bad idea for us too; so we’ll continue to hope for better even when that hope seems unlikely.  That is enough for today, though, and we do want to be at full-power for the start of our exams week; so that’s all and we’re out of here and off to nap time soon.

Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!