Kashmir and the Straits of Hormuz are not familiar places to most
Americans, nor are the names Kamala Harris and Peter Buttigieg.
They are among many other “new”names and places suddenly in
the news. Most of the unfamiliar places and names will soon fade
from the news, but the events associated with them will continue,
creating more and more uncertainty until they are resolved ---and
a new set of unfamiliar names and locations will then replace them
in the news.
These are days of a certain uncertainty about economic, political
and diplomatic circumstances. There are crises, large and small,
seemingly everywhere and involving matters at home and abroad.
Unsettling moments such as these occur with historical regularity,
just as periods of apparent tranquility also take place, but most of
it is a kind of illusion because the world we live is always changing
out of daily sight.
Recurring events often provoke what we do see --- elections,
revolutions, natural disasters, technology innovations --- humanity
and nature dancing together on a kind of global petri dish.
Key elections are ahead not only in the U.S, but also in Great Britain,
Germany, Argentina, Austria and Israel; recent key elections have
occurred in Mexico, India, Australia, Brazil, Italy, France and Turkey.
Major events are occurring in western and central Europe, Hong
Kong and the South China Sea, Venezuela and Central America.
As if all this isn’t enough, President Trump is reportedly thinking
about the U.S. purchasing Greenland!
(Incidentally, President Harry Truman originated the idea.)
I don’t know if such a purchase would rise to the historical
importance of the Louisiana Purchase or “Seward’s Folly” of buying
Alaska (both in the 19th century), but it is a curiously newsworthy (if
also a diversionary) idea. For a mere $60 billion, every native
Greenlander could become a millionaire, Denmark (which owns the
frozen territory) could wipe out its national debt, and the U.S. would
not ever run out of ice cubes.
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Copyright (c) 2019 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.
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