October 18

 Good sunny but cool morning to you all. I got out on the patio and continued the process of putting the gardens to bed for the winter. I cleared out spent plants from three buckets and finished clearing out the stalks of sunflowers. I cut down the plants a couple of weeks ago. I started taking down trellises but too many still flowering plants are vining up the remaining support. I tried to detach the hose but, like last year, I couldn't move the connecting piece. I will have to call our landlord and ask if one of the handymen can swing by for a couple of minutes between other calls. We gave all of the wrenches that were of a sufficient size to my brother and nephew. They have more use for that kind of thing.

The news announced that the Israelis killed Yahya Sinwar the "mastermind" of the October 7 assault last year. Everyone hopes that will induce the Israelis to go back to negotiations to end the war and release the remaining hostages. Netanyahu has coyly said that this is only the "beginning of the end of the war" but no end is in sight. Stray thought: who is left for the Israelis to negotiate with? Hamas has been decapitated and its organization shredded. The Palestinian Authority has been invisible in this entire fiasco, its octogenarian leader (Abbas, I think) totally silent, and the organization has never had much clout in Gaza. It has even less now in the West Bank given the actions of rogue Israelis who the government either supports or has no power to stop. Point to remember Hezbollah is NOT Palestinian; Saudis, Omanis, Syrians, etc. are NOT Palestinian. Who can truly speak for the Palestinians?

The last "full scale" Target store in the U.S. is slated for closure. The retail giants I grew up with are dwindling. Sears, Penneys, K-Mart are all ghosts of what they once were--if they still exist in some form at all. We often drove down to the large mall and started at Sears then strolled past the small stores to finish up at the Penney at the other end.

Concerning Israel's aims (or Netanyahu's aims) Bill Astore has some opinions that parallel my own: the real aim has been to annex both Gaza and the West Bank and for Netanyahu to short circuit the corruptions indictments against him and remain in power. Astore is quite cynical about the role the U.S. is playing. I don't know if our government is really on board with the Israeli program or if our politicians really can't adjust to the fact that the Israel of today is not the Israel we originally supported. Or perhaps the problem is a residual sense of guilt for not doing anything much to counter the Final Solution and did quite a bit to trap Jews in Europe as the Nazis killed 6 million of them.

Charles Eisenstein has an intriguing post on "political bypassing" which derives from the notion of "spiritual bypassing." Both are tactics that allows individuals to evade deeper and perhaps intractable problems by either spiritualizing it or politicizing it. I have it on my list to reread. I am not sure yet what I think of the idea.