Ethan and Ehlana:
Our first full week of the school year hasn’t started out with any major news or excitement, but we’ve had a good day and have kept busy. The weather has been a bit of a mix of fall and summer after a chilly morning for Tai Chi by the river that was only in the forties followed by a warm-up to an afternoon high that topped eighty. It has been sunny all day too; so that worked out great for both our academic adventures and the football and cheer squad practices. Ehlana and I hosted our four best friends for dinner and the evening studying; we took care of the post-dinner clean-up; and in addition to our homework, we did a group Magi lesson with mom and had a music practice for both the school band and our own little band. Mom had us wrap up the play time at ten o’clock; we took Silkie for a walk while seeing Naomi and Aiden to their homes; and then we did a bit of family business and charity work in the office with some time phasing to help get more done before we wrapped up at eleven-thirty in ‘real’ time.
That’s all added up to a long day, but we are happy as we’re writing this update and doing the usual computer checks and twin chat wrap-up to our day. While we’ve been enjoying our adventures here at home, the rest of the world has rolled along as normal – meaning that none of the most-serious problems have had any changes for the better. There is good news out there – just not on ‘our’ side of the major wars or global issues. For example, China and Russia are very happy with their new deal for a second, larger gas pipeline between their countries that will soon send most of Russia’s natural gas to China instead of Europe – a deal that will pretty much put a long-term end to cheap Russian energy for Europe for the foreseeable future. News flash for our leaders – that deal gives China an economic advantage for production costs that will make their companies even more competitive than they already are compared to pretty much every ‘western’ country! Maybe starting an economic war with China and India was a really bad idea; since they seem to be more than willing to lose our business and trade while making stable deals with other countries.
While we’re thinking about China, one of the stories we took note of was about one of their tech companies announcing the successful development of 6-G technology that will, apparently, make high-speed communications and data connectivity even in remote locations. We continue to claim to be the world leaders in research and development, but is that actually true anymore? China certainly seems to be ahead of us for a lot of technology advancements; and they are certainly far-ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to things like high-speed trains and other infrastructure capabilities. Maybe that’s been true for millennia for China – after all; they were once the world-leader for building very large and long walls! ;^)
Moving along, the war in Ukraine is not going well for the Ukrainian army, and while they have little successes here and there; those moments come at high cost; and we expect that their army will eventually either collapse or their allies will need to decide to officially join in and go to war with Russia. Option two would end badly for the entire world; so we hope that won’t happen. The Middle East is still a disaster; and we continue to be horrified by what is being done to the Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese, Yemeni, and everyone else being targeted by Israel and their allies. That isn’t a popular opinion with our national leaders, but we are definitely on the wrong side of history for both of these conflicts; and we make more enemies every day because of our actions and support for all of the death and destruction.
As if all of that wasn’t bad-enough, we could be in for more trouble closer to home as we target Venezuela and proclaim them the latest bogeyman for the war on drugs that we’ve been waging with no end in sight for more than fifty years. Here’s a suggestion that our leaders will never consider – stop going after the supply side of the drug trade – focus on helping all of the customers to get clean so they don’t need to buy drugs at all; and that would be the end to the business. We’d also suggest that the government shut down all businesses that launder all of that drug money, but that would mean going after a lot of banks and major corporations; so that will never happen. By the way, we’d suggest the same tactic for dealing with the illegal immigration crisis, and in that case; helping to make life bearable in their home countries would end the desire to risk everything to leave their homes for the chance of a better life elsewhere.
All of those stories are far more important than the diversions that take up most of the daily news cycle, so we’re not going to write about the nonsense of the day; we’ve already done enough ranting for one night; and now we’re going to move on and get some sleep.
Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!
