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!
