Summer and the Summer Moon Above
Thursday gratefuls: Tom. Arriving today. Dick Arnold. My roommate in Jerusalem. Jamie. Herme. His story. Diane. The Ancient Brothers on Earth. A blue Sky. Slight Wind. Hail and Thunder last night. More Water. Planning, making trips real. Vince, coming to mow today. Shadow Mountain. Writing dialogue for Herme. And Ovidius Publius. Joan and Ruth. Gabe and his new guitar, amp. Sarah and BJ. Unloading books. In BJ’s own personal Idaho.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: South Korea, K-dramas
One brief shining: Life with that old excitement you know things to do in the future and a good day today Korea in August and Israel in October the Herme project beginning to take shape with Herme and the Old Grey Magician and Cold Mountain sharing a room together at the showcase upcoming, taking a bow before taking a plane.
Hail lies thick on the driveway and covers the Dandelions like Snow. The Thunder roared, the Clouds were big. The Lightning flashed and killed a Pig. Recalled that ditty many times in Minnesota, rarely here. Last night though…
The night of the Summer Solstice and the temperature went down to 46. The Hail pounded so hard on the windows that it woke me up and kept me up until it passed. Even with my hearing issues. Small Hail, larger than Grappel, around pea sized. The Aspens lost some Leaves, but not too many. Glad for that. The Irises are still Leaves only above the Soil so they’re fine. The Lodgepoles seem unflustered.
An exciting night.
The submersible. Gosh. Every cell of my claustrophobic body clenches up when I read the news about the Titan. It has seventeen bolts which tighten from the outside. No way out. No need at the crushing depths it visits anyhow. Though a lot of my claustrophobia focuses on could I get out if something bad happened. Why I couldn’t even go down the elevator in the mineshaft at the Lake Vermillion-Soudan mine. I wanted to go see the neutrino experiment at the very bottom. I looked at the elevator. I looked at its route, twenty-four hundred feet through solid rock at a slant. I bought tickets. I looked at the elevator. Its route. Nope, I turned around and walked away.
Even with a spare $250,000 you wouldn’t find me in that submersible. Would I want to be there? Yes. Could I? No. I’ve never done the gradual exposure therapy that can cure phobias.
Politics and its bedfellows. India and the U.S. Sure the world’s soon to be largest country has English as a common language with the U.S. Along with hundreds of other languages. Sure my son’s from Bengal. Sure the British stamp on India remains indelible if still deplorable. And yes India prefers to count itself as non-aligned, neither pro-Russian nor pro-China nor pro-West.
Yet India also has extensive commercial ties with Russia. There is, too, the India of Narendra Modi summarized in this NYT article today. Which disturbs me. A lot.
This is the classic example of the enemy of our enemy, China, might well be our friend. Maybe? But. Do we want to be buddies with an autocratic chauvinist who has sidelined Muslims and other non-Hindus, encouraged caste discrimination, and started a push to devolve the status of women? From a geo-political perspective it’s a tough call. A humane perspective though suggests now is not the time.
