It is Sunday, and we are just sitting here in the powered reclining chair looking at some remarkable stuff. The guy pictured below was elected Mayor of his little town and ruled his town through the combination of politics and religion. His Sunday job was as Minister of thee congregation of the local Baptist Church. his nickname was, appropriately, “Bubba.” We are only a few days shy of the next general election, so these politically-tinged stories will be around at least until the polls close near the end of next year. Here is what got this story some notoriety: Bubba shot himself when local police showed up for a welfare check after parishioners became concerned for his welfare.

chair, thinking about Sunday and time changes and the remarkable story of the Down South Mayor and Minister. I only saw it twice, but the story is so weird it was worth a (brief) immersion to see the depths of misery. In short, and “she” is, but also plump and well-jowled.

That was just to start the day. Sorry, it didn’t. Yesterday was weird without any other crazy Rebels. We need to take a deep breath at some of the other assorted lunacies abroad in The Land. Some of this goes back to our transgender replacement for the Assistant Secretary of HHS, or better said, we have discussed this when such oddities were…how to best say it? Odd?

So we had thousands in the streets of Our Nation’s Capital yesterday. It looked like mostly Gen Z sorts of people, mostly derived from the cohort of young ignorami. The other stuff of madness? The drumbeat of war in the Middle East? This is serious and painfully real. We find ourselves getting the wars whirled into one single jumble, though of course it is more. It is interesting to see the Ukraine conflict drop abruptly into oblivion at the first moment possible. There is more about that, of course, and the reminder that “Palestinians” are Semites too, just like the Jews.

One could easily craft a story to go along with the narrative that this is actually a civil war between a common cohort. Maybe that is why there is so much emotion in this, with thousands (perhaps a hundred thousand) here in town to demonstrate their commitment to the elimination of the state of Israel. That includes the same treatment for the citizens.

To the Salts on the Patio there is, of course, the question of what on earth is next? War with the PRC? At present, there does not seem to be any sort of madness that would avoid a Sino-mega meltdown against the West. It is reminiscent of Orwell’s prescient analysis of the World Order if it was filled with the Rule of Three- the Americas in one, Europe another, and the Mysterious East as the Third. We have been pummeled with that calculus since we were kids!

So, with that I found myself collapsing most of Saturday and did not catch the warnings, alerts and ominous reminders about doing something with the clocks around the residence. An upside to this seasonal transition- which direction does the clock go? Spring ahead, right? Once I was safely wrapped in soft covers and the people upstairs had muted their music and stopped the discordant laughter. That had started around the dinner hour and lasted through a couple modest bouts of sleep. But our bodies knew, even if the proliferation of automatic devices changed some of the moving hands of the time-pieces to “automatic” updates. The Chairman sent a memo reminding us it is our responsibility to pull down the five time changes on the actual clocks. We had to take a poll to determine which direction. Back, we reminded overselves.

Yesterday’s mysteries blended into more uneven unconsciousness looking up from the couch. But the number “5” retains it’s mystery, you know? And the big crowds that flashed on the flat-screen? Was that London or Washington?

Doesn’t matter much. The five clocks got changed that did not change themselves. The talk of waris real, and it is no longer a bit startling to hear the phrase “So-and-so is responsible for World War III.” And with the clocks changed, the Salts considered this annual temporal disorientation a perfectly normal thing, even if there are thousands in the streets. And that only happens periodically. When was the last time people decided to make war over the Gaza Strip?

This one has been going on for seven decades, and this one is simply the latest between Israel and Hamas militants who stormed Israeli towns and kibbutzes from the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7. In the rampage, some 1,400 Israelis, mainly civilians, were killed and over two hundred- including American citizens- were taken hostage. There is naturally some confusion in wartime, but given the history of the region it is not unexpected. Israel responded with both airstrikes and a massive ground assault.

That brief summary includes the goals of both sides, which has been simplified to the goal of wiping out the other side. Medical authorities in Hamas-run Gaza said that 8,796 people – including 3,648 children – had been killed in the enclave since 01 November.

That is just this one, with the stakes enormous. There is conflict over what is known as the “Two State Solution.”

That had been proposed in the talks that surrounded the United Nations-brokered establishment of Israel in 1947. The resolution was simple. The United Nations General Assembly was then less than two years old, and it agreed a plan for long term peaceful co-existence to “partition Palestine into Arab and Jewish states and for international rule over Jerusalem.” Jewish leaders accepted the plan giving them 56 percent of Palestine land. The Arab League rejected that proposal. We will see how this one turns out, you know? If history is any indication, we will probably have a chance to see.

Copyright 2023 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com