Sublime and profane

Maisie got her ears pierced. Liam stood between her legs, arms wrapped around her, ear to her chest, eyes squeezed shut. "Maisie..." he groaned when the Claire's clerks squeezed the piercing guns and she started. She's so happy--keeps reaching up to touch them; casually tucks her hair behind her ears when we go out. Last night she hugged me from her bed and whispered, "I feel complete now." A landmark on the path, I guess. A foothold.

This weekend we had our family reunion: all my mother's siblings and their spouses and kids. A sea of Irish political energy--I love these people. A few Indian families came, too. The Irish and the Indian fit so well; all that colonial history and literature and activism: generations of resistance directed at the very same place. The kids played baseball on the lawn that grew over the buried pool, and flew rubberband airplanes, and ate too much pudding. I drank too much sangria. Heaven.

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Geopolitical Diary: Revisiting Core Assumptions (from stratfor.com)
The world's focus right now is on the cease-fire deal in the Middle East. We think that's the incorrect focus. The real focus should be on an earthquake that has shaken the region: Hezbollah's forces, even if they are defeated by Israel in southern Lebanon, will have shown themselves capable of mounting an effective resistance for an extended period of time. The Israelis have not been able to deal them a single, sharp blow and fragment them.

A single assumption has shaped Arab-Israeli relations since 1948: that Israel could decide, if it wished, to resort to war and impose its will on Arab armies. That assumption shaped all political considerations in the region. If Israel is no longer capable of doing that, it follows that a range of political assumptions also are untrue. Consider Jordan: Since 1970, Israel has been the guarantor of Jordanian national security. Consider Egypt: Since Camp David, Egypt has refused to engage Israel militarily. Both of these political certainties have been based on a military certainty -- and if that dissolves, so does everything else.