August 19

 Much cooler but yesterday afternoon and through the night thunderstorms rumbled through the area. It is cloudy right now but we don't expect more rain though a stray pulse of rain might come by.

I don't know what I will find reading so I will make some observations.

1) The various European leaders and Zelensky met Trump in Washington yesterday. There were some nice visuals but not volcanic eruptions. Also no real agreements and what looked like sort-of agreements were very short on details, And Putin has not really agreed to anything.

2) Several bloggers have written for some time about our "cult of progress." The don't argue that in some ways life today is better than in past ages: economic prosperity which a broader part of the population can experience, a democracy which encompasses more people, legal rights that enables the political and economic participation of more groups of people (minorities and women), education that is available to more people of various classes. What they argue is that progress however it is defined is not a linear process always pointed in a desirable direction. We now see two factions of the cult of progress. One faction believes that the movement of the last century was desirable and should be pushed further. The other believes that the changes of the last century was not real progress and want to erase as much of it as possible. Both factions are likely to be disappointed.

3) So Trump claims that crime in D.C. is "out of control" and he can tame it by "surging" federal officers and national guard troops into it. However, he is putting those assets into very odd places. The Mall and monuments, the museums and other tourist spots. Those aren't the high crime areas but they are the most photographed places. This is political theater and won't really address the "crime problem." But so much of the Trump program is producing the illusion of addressing our problems while more often exacerbating them.

4) How can Europe and the U.S. really "guarantee" Ukraine security given Putin's history of breaking every agreement in the past? These become "gentlemen's agreements" where there is no gentlemen on either side.