(Snowy owls- this one a female- are being spotted way outside traditional habitats. Which includes K Street in DC, of all places. Photo Wikipedia.).

We may get up to the twenties today, so I am officially bored with the weather. I got to thinking about the Hawaiian Islands yesterday, what with the birthdays, and a pal has returned to Key West from la Belle France late yesterday, and frankly, I would rather be warm than freezing my ass off up north, as famed island troubadour Michael McCloud puts it.

The white stuff is all still out there, of course. The temperature’s rise into the double digits this morning has not permitted anything to change. The snow and ice may be more compact, but it is still in the same state it was when it fell out of the sky.

A colleague wrote in amazement to say that there had been a sighting of a snowy atop a green awning at 15th and K streets NW near McPherson Square. According to the Washington Post- I had to be directed to the paper, since I no longer subscribe- the birds have now been sighted at such diverse places as “Revere Beach, MA, to Little Talbot Island State Park near Jacksonville, FL.

This is of note only because the snowy owls normally hang out in the treeless tundra of the Arctic. Considering the constant stream of stories about warming forcing some habitats north, and threatening mass extinction, it is good to know that the birds apparently have more sense than we do. They came south via the Great Lakes, Dakota Country and down to Arkansas.

I have not seen one down at the farm, but just before the snow came this week I was clearing some crap out of the garage and loading up on more of Raven’s old photo collection when I heard a tremendous clamor of honking. There is a flock of geese- a large one- that has set up shop on a pond on the property across the fence-line to the southwest.

Something got them going. The racket was loud enough that I put down the box of Kodak slides and walked over to see if the bird were advancing through the brush to attack the farm. Suddenly, the noise swelled and waves of the big gray and white birds appeared in ragged V-formation over the trees, wheeling majestically west, then south again.

I don’t know what it means. Predator on the ground, two or four legged? I waited to see if there would be gunshots, and there were not, so I got on with snow avoidance things. I was shutting down the farm to relocate back north ahead of the storm when something came up that wasn’t climate change, or Affordable Care or the other vaguely alarming issues that are getting the blogosphere all worked up every morning.

This one was just chilling. You know we are in the midst of a Pivot to the Pacific, right? I know, hard to tell where we are pivoting from moment to moment. But I have been following the developments in the South China Sea with bemused interest the last couple years.

In my time, the idea that the US Navy was not the preeminent power on the sea from San Diego to Tokyo and south to the Straits of Malacca and further west to the placid swells of the Indian Ocean was absurd.

Not so much any more. China’s rise has changed the calculus on everything. The new regional hegemon has asserted wild claims to virtually the whole South China Sea. It has purchased an old Soviet-era aircraft carrier. It has, in a word, deployed the force with which it intends to back up the claims of sovereignty. Like the snowy owls, they are way outside their normal habitat, yet seem unconcerned about the implications.

(Liaoning is a used aircraft carrier, but it is a cool one. This is her on sea trials. They say the Chinese are going to build another one from scratch).

All sorts of things are at issue. The Chinese assert claims to otherwise worthless rocks and shoals all the way to just off the shores of the Philippine Archipelago. And some insignificant flyspecks in the ocean between Taiwan, which the Mainland also claims, and Japan, which it doesn’t.

At least at the moment.

I don’t have time this morning to go into the blow-by-blow about the Senkaku Islands- as the Japanese term them. The Chinese call them the Diaoyus, and say that they are theirs alone. Suffice it to say that though the Japanese have administered the barren things since before the Second World War, the matter seems important to the Chinese, who have some issues about the way their people were murdered at Nanking seventy-odd years ago.

(The disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. Could the regional powers screw the pooch?)

Anyway, what caught my eye was not from one of the PRC Coast Guard Cutters which are buzzing around the islands, nor the imposition of a unilaterally declared Air Defense identification Zone (ADIZ) above them. The story was actually from Davos, Switzerland, where the really cool folks are gathered for the 2014 iteration of the World Economic Forum. The theme of this meeting, which is in progress, is “The Reshaping of the World: Consequences for Society, Politics and Business.”

I am wary enough about how we are reshaping the world. Wait, I need to re-phrase that. We are not re-shaping anything. We are the ones who are getting reshaped, and well and truly.

The word from Davos, relayed by a guy named Henry Blodget, was chilling.

I don’t know Mr. Blodget personally, nor do I anticipate ever getting asked to table with the financial elite of the world. I will take the words of the co-founder, CEO and Editor-In Chief of the magazine Business Insider, for what it is worth, which was free. Apparently he attended a dinner at the Forum in which a microphone was passed around the table so the attendees could articulate the issues that seemed the most significant to them.

He said when the mike got around to a prominent Chinese official, he opined that the biggest deal was the Diaoyus, and that the PRC just ought to take them back in a military occupation.

Blodget titled his account of the dinner “Someone Just Said Something About The Japan-China Conflict That Scared The Crap Out Of Everyone” which is just exactly what I was thinking.

The last time the Great Powers really screwed the pooch was a hundred years ago: 1914.

I don’t know if there are centennial tides in human affairs, or if there is just a hankering to imagine there is one. But the Japanese and the Chinese are having a moment not dissimilar to Shia and Sunni Muslims. They really don’t like each other, and there are some outstanding scores that they would both like to settle.

Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times tweeted the following about an interview with Shinzo Abe, the feisty Prime Minister of Japan:

Just interviewed Shinzo Abe @Davos. He said China and Japan now are in a “similar situation” to UK and Germany before 1914.”

— Gideon Rachman (@gideonrachman) January 22, 2014

I don’t know if the quote is accurate or not. But to the degree that the PM of Japan and highly ranked Chinese officials seem to concur, I have to agree with Mr. Blodget’s assessment. It is enough to scare the crap out of people.

I am no snowy owl, but I know when a habitat is about to change.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra

www.vicsocotra.com

Twitter: @jayare303