September Sunrises

September is coming to a close, and with it comes a temporary end to a frenetic summer pace. Not that I will stop being busy, but hopefully the next few months will feature a somewhat more manageable level of stress. (Whether this allows for more writing remains to be seen). I do have a nugget, a seedling if you will, that I'm nurturing right now, thanks to a single word with a simple meaning that I picked up in a David McCullough essay on Frederic Remington, a famous painter and illustrator from the 19th century. The word is endion, an Algonquin word that simply means "the place where I live." This idea of endion has latched itself to my psyche; since I first read the word, there hasn't been a day that it has failed to enter my thoughts. What this means, I'm not sure, but I believe it will be worth allowing the notion to germinate a little longer. Endion.

The few quiet moments afforded me have taken form in the early morning, when I'm making lunch for the kids and waiting for them to get ready for school. September has offered some of the most lovely sunrises I've seen in years. Or maybe I'm just paying attention now. For those fleeting moments, there is a hushed and renewing peace. People wonder why I've been taking so many pictures from my deck. I can't help it, because each day brings a new vision of … endion. Oh, how I long to be able to put all these fragments of thoughts together! It is all connected, I know it! There is meaning here, if only for me. And if I can find the words, perhaps for you as well. For now, I'll just treasure the sunrise.

 

 

Far Out!

Voyager 1 has left the building.

Or rather, the heliosphere surrounding our solar system.

I first wrote about Voyager 1's travels this time last year, when NASA scientists speculated that the venerable old spacecraft was on the verge of passing beyond the heliosphere. Today comes the official news that yes, indeed, Voyager is going where no man has gone before:

The debate is over. The venerable Voyager 1 spacecraft has entered the uncharted territory of interstellar space.

A team led by Don Gurnett, a space physicist at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, reports compelling evidence that Voyager has exited the heliosphere, the Solar System’s protective bubble of charged particles. The findings, published online today in Science1, settle an argument that has raged among members of the Voyager team for more than a year.

“This is a milestone,” says Ed Stone, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, who has been the project scientist for the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft since 1972, five years before their launch. Voyager 1’s entry into interstellar space “ranks with circumnavigating the globe and the first steps on the Moon,” says Stone, who was not involved in the latest study.

Forgive me, but I simply cannot help but to find this, fascinating.

Patriot Day 2013

May the memory of this day not be diminished or revised by friend or foe, but rather revered as one of those rare moments when we came together as a nation, as one people, under one banner. May the Lord have mercy on us, and continue by His grace alone to bless the United States of America.

Photo: Thomas E. Franklin/The Record/AP

Outmaneuvered

I've always thought there would come a day on this blog where I would regret - not something that I had written - but something that I had not written. I think that day may finally be at hand.

For the last several years, dating back into the presidency of George W. Bush, I've been collecting links to online material that taken in whole, chronicles the subtle and not-so-subtle maneuvers executed by Vladimir Putin both on the Russian domestic stage and the geopolitical stage. It's a fascinating look, really, but one I never felt fully comfortable writing, because of my lack of depth on foreign policy and strategy.

I've kept the powder dry with regard to politics lately. I've stayed away from Obamacare (starts in 3 weeks, you know). Benghazi still bothers me. Our various domestic scandals bother me. Now we have Syria. After Libya and Egypt, I can see nothing good coming from the U.S. getting involved in the Syrian civil war. I see so much of the current crisis as one of our own making. I find it hard to disagree with both the headline and content of this blog post in the Weekly Standard.

I cannot help but to think that we have made a cataclysmic error in our Middle East policy. But neither am I resigned to believe that Russia has fully ascended to role of patron benefactor to that region of the world. It may be true that America's role has been weakened, but that does not mean America has become weak. But it will take time, sound strategy, and better leadership to recover.

During the 2012 presidential campaign, Mitt Romney said that Russia remained the United States' #1 geopolitical foe. The media laughed at him. But he was right. The stage is set for an increasingly adversarial relationship between these two nations and their interests. What this portends for the future remains to be seen.

The maneuvering continues. Our leaders best have their wits about them.