I have been absent lately. I like to blame it on health issues but it runs deeper than that. I see a dysfunctional political environment that makes it impossible to deal with the major issues of our time. So here are some random thoughts.
1. First some good news – after 6 years in Texas my brother is moving back to Oregon. It will be nice to have a sibling close by again. My sister has lived in Texas most of her life as an oil company executive and is a lost cause.
2. I am somewhat surprised that no one has drawn parallels to what is going on in Baltimore and other urban areas to the Arab spring. The issues are much the same, poverty, no jobs and the brutal tyranny of law enforcement.
3. ISIS is referred to as a religious jihad but as the documents published by Der Spiegel point out nothing could be further from the truth. The leadership of the organization is made up of non religious thugs from Saddam Hussin’s old government
4. There is once again talk of raising the retirement age. We are at a point where there simply won’t be enough jobs for people who want or need them so we should be doing just the opposite. Outsourcing gets much of the blame but that is an over simplification – it’s mostly industrial robots and automation. Much of this is necessary – the mother board in the device you are using to read this post could not be built by human beings at all much less efficiently.
5. And then there is climate change. Here in the Pacific Northwest we are getting smoke from massive wild fires in Siberia. In Miami they find themselves underwater on clear days and this is in a state where the governor has forbid state employees from using the word climate change. In order to save New York City massive infrastructure projects will be necessary to save it but such projects would be an admission that climate change is real.
Thank you for letting me get a few things off my chest and I hope to be a bit more productive in the following days and months.