I'm watching President Biden's speech at the United Nations. Right now he's supposedly "defending democracy," which is his way of reciting Democratic Party talking points against his domestic opposition. But I'm more interested in his remarks about Russia, which are strident but don't seem open to diplomacy.
This is the United Nations -- the very forum in which nations were meant to work out their differences so that conflict could be avoided. Biden is saying a lot of good things about the need to deter aggression, to protect smaller nations, and so on, but he's not using the forum to call for talks to stop war in Ukraine.
Not only is this the right place, but it would also be the right time. Ukraine has regained leverage with a successful counteroffensive in the Donbas, and Russia is about to escalate the conflict with a mobilization of its civilian population in the war effort. Now is the time to talk: it is an urgent yet advantageous point.
Yet I hear nothing about talks from Biden: "It's Russia's war, and only Russia can end it." So the U.S. policy is not, as Biden declared when he took office that "diplomacy is back," but rather to isolate, punish, and threaten Russia in the hope it will give up, or that there will be internal political change. Is that wise?
The story of Noah is familiar; the details, less so.
Noah is often seen as an ambivalent figure. He was righteous -- but only for his generation. What was his deficiency?
One answer suggests itself: knowing that the world was about to be flooded, he built an Ark for the animals and for his own family -- but did not try to save anyone else or to convince them to repent and change their ways (the prophet Jonah, later, would share that reluctance).
Abraham, later, would set himself apart by arguing with God -- with the Lord Himself! -- against the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, saying that they should be saved if there were enough righteous people to be found (there were not).
Still, Noah was good enough -- and sometimes, that really is sufficient to save the world. We don't need heroes every time -- just ordinary decency.
Hi all -- as I noted last month, I'm going to be closing down my Locals page, at least for tips and subscriptions -- I may keep the page up and the posts as well, but I'm no longer going to be accepting any kind of payment.
Look for cancelation in the very near future. Thank you for your support!
An interesting weekend -- one of the last of Daylight Savings Time -- in which there is much to celebrate, much to contemplate, and a bit to worry about.
The Gaza peace deal is shaky, but holding, after the living hostages returned; the shutdown is still going on, with no end in sight; the China trade war is heating up; and the confrontation with Venezuela continues to escalate.
The "No Kings" protest was a dud, despite the media's attempt to inflate it. What I find fascinating is that the Democrats have basically stolen the rhetoric and the imagery of the Tea Party protests, circa 2009. They claim they are defending the Constitution -- just like the Tea Party did.
On the one hand, this is good. How wonderful to have a political system in which both sides, bitterly opposed though they are, articulate differences through the Constitution -- and not, as in so many other countries, outside it.
On the other, this is sheer hypocrisy for the Democrats. Not only did they malign the Tea Party as ...
