The Eve of Destruction

What's new, let's see. Aside from dragon boat and running, which are going strong, everything else is in a sort of limbo. This includes the job situation (I had an interview Monday with Design Shelter, but I won't hear back until "later this week or early next"), my summer reading/studying plans, and various other things it would be impolitic to talk about.

Speaking of politics, reading the paper every morning is becoming increasingly depressing. There are always signs of hope in national and world news, but inevitably they're cautious promises for the future, and outweighed by the glaring bad news at the present. To mind at the moment are:

• Progress towards the Gaza withdrawal in Israel/Palestine continues to be shaky; the ceasefire is in doubt.
• A White House official with ties to the petroleum industry seems to be doctoring reports on global warming (they say 'climate change') to make them even less decisive.
• Canada's foreign aid spending is at something like 0.3% GDP. That's shameful.
• U.S. foreign aid spending is at 0.2% GDP, and military spending at 3.6% GDP, or something. The 3.4% difference, to me, belies any show of rebuilding things recently blown up. To my understanding the Gulf War lasted a matter of months and had 400 American casualties; the current occupation is over 2 years old, with 1600 deaths. Comparisons to Vietnam (~60 000 dead, My Lai atrocities, etc.) are perhaps hyperbolic, but I'm not convinced things are stabilizing or ending anytime soon.
• Nuclear agitation from North Korea, Iran et al; the failure of the NPT talks.
• AIDS.
• The French/Dutch 'No' on the EU constitution, probably killing it.

I could probably go on. Suffice it to say that things I'd like to see (world government, solving the raft of problems facing the Third World (Africa especially), peace-forcing/-keeping by non-national forces [under the UN, say], environmental reform) aren't even on the horizon, there's a lot of crap to wade through before they will be, and I'm not sure enough people want to do that wading.

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