September 3

 Lovely sunny day and the cats have each found pools of sunlight in which to snooze. For the moment (barring any sudden changes) we don't have any more appointments. The last two weeks have been filled with medical appointments of one kind or another. Now the only errands will be regular visits to the grocery store.

We are watching the Paralympics which are fascinating. It is amazing what people can do and not in the sense of amazing that what they do is done at all. I am able bodied but I doubt I could have competed with any of them even in my long ago youth. These athletes are truly inspirational.

I was wondering what NPA attached to an athlete meant. I couldn't make any connection to a country designation. Well, I found this article about the NEUTRAL PARTICIPATING ATHLETE designation which allows Russian and Belarussian athletes to compete wearing neutral uniforms without any reference to their countries' symbols or colors. The medals they win aren't counted in any country totals.

As the games play in the background I am going through my e-mail. Here is what else I am reading:

Bill Astore has a bit of history which has echoes for today's world: WWI Made Adolf Hitler. I had noted how what is happening in Ukraine and Gaza bear unsettling resemblance to what happened in WWII and not just in the devastating destruction. A passage in a history of Leningrad described the targeting grids the Germans used for their bombing of the city. Those grids included every hospital, every school, every factory, every energy/water/food storage facility, and every cultural site in the city. The Russians are doing the same for the entire country of Ukraine and the Israelis are using that playbook in Gaza.

Stray thought: Mongolia refused the request from Brussels to honor the ICC's arrest warrant against Putin who is on an official visit. Mongolia is a member of the compact creating the Court and does have an obligation to honor such arrest warrants. However, I think I side with Mongolia. I don't know what explanation they issued though the news media is citing economic reasons since Putin is there to get the proposed gas pipeline from Russia through Mongolia to China approved. My thoughts travel along a different track. Do we really want to start a practice of tit-for-tat arrests of heads of state and senior governmental officials?