Category Archives: Hope

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Giving Thanks for Those Defying Hell & Sowing Hope — “From the River To The Sea”

November 22, 2023 Chuck Fager 2 Comments

Credit…Photographs by Ofir Berman for The New York Times

New York Times
OPINION – THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

#1 – The Rescuers

Rahat, Israel, a Bedouin town in the Negev Desert.Credit…CreditPhotographs by Ofir Berman for The New York Times

By Thomas L. Friedman

Opinion Columnist, reporting from Rahat, Israel

Nov. 22, 2023

I confess that as a longtime observer of the Arab-Israeli conflict, I aggressively avoid both the “From the river to the sea” activists on the pro-Palestinian left and the similarly partisan zealots on the “Greater Israel” Zionist right — not just because I find their exclusivist visions for the future abhorrent but also because the reporter in me finds them so blind to the complexities of the present.

Continue reading Giving Thanks for Those Defying Hell & Sowing Hope — “From the River To The Sea” →

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Gwynne Dyer: Three Wars — Any Victories?

November 2, 2023 Chuck Fager Leave a comment

Wars have stolen our attention from a looming climate catastrophe

We’re still in the game, with a slim chance of holding global warming below a catastrophic level through the rest of the century, Gwynne Dyer writes.

By Gwynne Dyer –
Tuesday, October 31, 2023

You would think that all human energies would be focused on avoiding a potential climate calamity, including those of Russians, Ukrainians, Israelis and Palestinians. Especially the Israelis and Palestinians, whose disputed homeland would become uninhabitable by the end of the century in most “runaway” scenarios,

With practically all the media bandwidth for non-local news taken up by two tribal territorial struggles that would not have seemed out of place in the 15th century AD — or indeed the 15 century BC — you may have missed the latest release from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

That would be a pity, because it’s a lot more important than Gaza and Donetsk. The IEA’s annual World Energy Outlook is the best one-stop guide to where we are now in the attempt to keep global warming below a disastrous level.

Continue reading Gwynne Dyer: Three Wars — Any Victories? →

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A Long Read to Ponder: Biden in Vietnam & at the UN: Who Could Have Imagined?

September 22, 2023 Chuck Fager 5 Comments

An image from Vietnamese TV news, during Biden’s visit.

NOTE: Friends, this material just blows my mind.

Yes, that’s an outdated 1960s expression, but it fits here: this material is about the Vietnam War. And for me (plus, I figure, most of the remaining survivors of that era of national agony), having our minds blown was a thing.

Maybe initially it was fun, or mind-expanding. But for me, and for many, it happened too often back then, and it didn’t always mean by taking drugs. I didn’t do much of that, but had mind-blown fatigue anyway. Continue reading A Long Read to Ponder: Biden in Vietnam & at the UN: Who Could Have Imagined? →

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Garrison Keillor: Out with the old, in with the young

August 25, 2023 Chuck Fager 1 Comment

Out with the old, in with the young

The Column: 08.25.23

I am delighted by the court ruling in Montana that the state, by encouraging the use of fossil fuels, violated the constitutional right of young people to “a clean and healthful environment,” something no court has ever proclaimed before.

“Clean and healthful environment” is in the Montana state constitution. The legislature had forbidden state agencies to consider climate change when considering fossil fuel projects, and this decision would change that, but the state will appeal and likely the decision will be tossed away like used tissue, but still it’s an interesting idea: that we have legal obligations to our kids beyond feeding and clothing them and not putting them to work in shoe factories before they’re 12.