I do admit that there has been a bit of a dry spell as of late between posts and there really isn’t any excuse that would really justify it so I won’t even bother with it. Perhaps I was channeling my inner Jimmy Carter, who gave the famous “malaise” speech 30 years ago this past week. Not that I was alive or anything back then, but it did impact everyone lives as it is widely seen as the final nail in his presidency (although Hendrik Hertzberg thinks its impact was exaggerated). Ronald Reagan became president as a result, the cold war ended a little over a decade later and now here we are near the end of the first decade of the 21st century. American faces another economic crisis, health care once again imperils a democratic president while his opponents openly oppose him not on policy but on politics. In Phuket, Hillary Clinton has been pushing most of Asia on Iran, North Korea and Burma simultaneously, and it is doubtful much will come of her efforts.
In Japan, new elections will usher in a new party, but most are skeptical that change will come to their shores in any positive sense. China is dealing with its western provinces with an iron fist, more or less kicking the can of increased hostility further down the road. India backed away from agreeing to stricter climate controls when pushed by Clinton. In Thailand, a young dynamic prime minister sensitive to both human rights and democracy in Burma is hamstrung by a conservative military that put him in power. In Sri Lanka, tens of thousands have been abandoned in refugee camps stricken with disease and malnutrition, their ostensibly democratic government dismissing them as lesser citizens.
Forty years ago a man was put on the moon, a moon that eclipsed the sun this week in Asia. Solar and lunar eclipses are scientific facts, they happen and we accept them as phenomenon to marvel at from out tiny speck of a vantage point. While out endeavors into the far reaches of space should be pursued in the common interest of human kind, we continue to treat both the earth and each other so badly that one has to wonder if we will ever find what we are looking for out there and that we would know how to appreciate it if we did. Suns and moons get eclipsed, and yet they are still there. Will we still remain when our time has been eclipsed?
On a brighter note, I am off to Chiang Mai next week to work with some Burmese and other ethnic nationalities who have been doing various field research in country and will be taking part in a workshop. Should be a little more fun than missing a partial solar eclipse through cloud cover, scouring news articles and drinking a lot of coffee in front of my computer.
