Looking another sunny day. Still cool and likely to continue cool for another several days. We spent a bit of time figuring our schedule for errands over the next several days. I look at our grocery list and decide when and whether we need to go shopping--not this week. But this is the last full week of the month so we have to plan our trip to pay rent and do our banking--definitely some time this week.
Listened to an interview this morning where they were supposed to talk about the guest's new book on how to get rich but they spent 2/3 of the time on the pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campuses and on the Hamas-Israel conflict. Two interesting things about the piece. First, in sync with several other pieces over the last couple of stories, they threw cold water on the anti-semitism them of earlier stories. The demonstrators, according to the commentators and reporters who have been at some of the demonstrations, were peaceful and included both Palestinians and Jews. They showed part of an interview where the respondent said that provocateurs not affiliated with the protest were responsible for any of the threats reported. I can accept that possibility. We saw a lot of that when outsiders tried to hijack the Black Lives Matter protests. One protest tactic which police and politicians should come down on hard are those tying up traffic. That is a public safety matter as well as disrupting normal life. Second, the guest tried to "put the situation [in Gaza] in context] by comparing it to other episodes involving the U.S.--Pearl Harbor and 9/11. The key notion was the small number of casualties (about 2500 at Pearl Harbor and about 3000 on 9/11) compared to the numbers we killed in response. The first wasn't a good comparison because the Pearl Harbor attack was part of the Japanese government's declaration of war. It was state-on-state violence. The second is a better comparison because it involved the response of a state to an attack by a non-state actor. However, that second instance didn't end well for us. I don't know that such a comparison either justifies the reactions (ours or the Israelis) or portends anything good for Israel.
Update: the sun has disappeared and we have clouds with a light wind. Rain likely.
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We had a couple of errands yesterday and a quick perusal of news/blogs etc. yielded nothing worth commenting on or linking to.
Stray thought: often the "conservative" group (MTG and allies) are described as "isolationist" or "anti-globalist." First, I haven't seen or read anything that convinces me that that group is trying to "conserve" anything. Several real conservatives define conservative as "small government, low taxes, and pro defense." That doesn't fit MTG et al. Second, what is their definition of "isolationism" or "anti-globalism?" Do they conflate immigration with isolationism? They do seem to be anti-immigrant but only, it seems to me, concerning certain immigrants (poor, dark, and from Trump's s**thole countries." How isolated do they want U.S. to be? Third, we live in a very connected world. What aspects of globalization are they upset with? And how much of their lifestyle are they willing to give up to become "de-globalized?" The only consistent position they seem to hold is anti-Biden, anti-Democrat, and pro-their own power.
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