Stuff I've liked

First, I know it’s hot.  But I still got on the bike for a little leisurely ride yesterday evening and I’m still hoping some kind of significant rain will come.  We got a little sprinkle the other day, but it wasn’t enough to make the dirt wet below the very tippy top of the soil.  Oh well, those are the perils of summer gardening.

This weekend I’m going to stake out the area for my corn patch.  I’m very VERY excited about getting corn next spring and summer.  Yum.

 

There’s been a lot going on the last month or so that I haven’t liked.  The lukewarm response to the protests in Iran, the limp wristed handling of North Korea, the refusal to stand by the Honduran congress taking a stand against a would-be dictator for life, the carbon tax and tax bill, the …  oh, it goes on and on.  But there have been some relatively recent developments that I liked.  Some that I liked a lot.

 

First, though, on the topic of Iran, it looks like the “revolution” might peter out.  No, there’s not a lot we can do other than to say that we are watching events unfold with interest and are hopeful that the Iranian people, when all is said and done, will choose for themselves a government that is more engaged with the world, including the US.  Were a movement to emerge that would seek such engagement, we would eagerly support it.

Unfortunately, the “opposition” doesn’t seem to be interested in that kind of engagement.  Mousavi is not a revolutionary, but a reformer.  He doesn’t want to take down the system, but work within the system.  THAT, more than anything, is why I believe this “revolution” will peter out.  Not because the people don’t want change, but the people’s leaders do not want change.  And, despite the platforms and party slogans, our own administration does not want change, but rather stability at all costs.  The same policies, by the way, that put us in the position of supporting despots and tyrants for so many years just so long they supported us right back.  Remember all the criticism about Saddam Hussein being our “friend” for so long, only find the end of his career at the loop of a noose?  But when the previous administration turned his back on these despots and, instead, supported freedom initiatives it was criticized as short sighted because, apparently, brown people don’t deserve democracy.  Sometimes positive change means short term chaos while supporting stability at all costs means supporting dictators and tyrants and kicking the inevitable revolution down the road.

 

Now on to the stuff I like.

The Kang Nam was shadowed by a US destroyer after it left its North Korean harbor because it is suspected of carrying illegal arms.  A couple of days ago it turned back and is heading either home or to another port near home.  That’s a big win.

We tested our own ICBM off the coast of California.  That’s also a big win.  I don’t have a problem showing North Korea that we know how it’s done.  Sure, they’re more bark than bite, and they can’t do all the stuff they think or say they can, but it only takes 1 lucky hit to make a point.  Nonetheless, with the missile radar and various defensive measures in place, I’m liking what I’m seeing.

The tougher rhetoric with regards to Iran is also good to hear.  Sure, it’s just talk.  Sure, there is no “revolution” going on, for now.  But if the regime keeps pushing the “reformer” may become a “revolutionary” and we need to be in a position to support…  if we want to even bother.  Hopefully, we want to bother.

 

I’m still a skeptic, and I disagree philosophically with the President, but I’m a hopeful skeptic.