By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
What an interesting week it’s been, politically speaking. A liberating week, if we’re of a mind to read between the lines. It hasn’t been a good week for the control freaks, nor for those who need surety in the form of absolutes to comfort them, or confirmations to guide them. So much remains unresolved, unbaked, up in the air. So much is still in play. If we look around it seems clear that most of the world is flying by the seat of its pants, a study in improvisation. Still, some of the opinions out there seem no longer to carry the same weight as they once did, disproving that old saw about belly-buttons: everyone has one, innie or outie, they’re all the same (I cleaned that up nicely, eh?).
Yes, there are voices in the wind, the kind we may or may not have been mindful of in the past few months. In foreign affairs, the Crimea has been formally “annexed” by Russia. “Annexed” is an interesting word, dripping with whitewash and smelling faintly of natural gas. We might say that this is only what (the 58% of Russian-speaking) Crimeans wanted, but that doesn’t address the emergency push within Ukraine to beef up its military, hoping to stave off the possibility of future headlines suggesting that Ukraine had really wanted to snuggle back under Putin’s sheltering arm as well. Distancing from Obama, Hillary has suggested Putin’s behavior to be Hitler-like, sparking memories of Blitzkrieg, but I doubt Vlad has any interest in bombing Europe, just in starving them of energy should they raise a ruckus. When this began, I figured it was mostly about the oil. I still think it’s a fight over control of resources and the power that bestows. Isn’t everything?
Despite the anguished wails of family members, the hesitancy of governments to share what they know, and the willingness of an international community to endlessly search, still missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 remains a mystery, except perhaps to Courtney Love. Courtney, like many of us, finds it inconceivable that — despite big government’s ability to listen in on our every conversation, track our every footstep and profile every citizen down to a gnat’s eyebrow — something that big and that visible could simply vanish without a trace. If you think that’s even remotely possible, you haven’t watched a full complement of CSI episodes tracking down serial killers by analyzing a single speck of spit. Or — hinging on the sudden realization that almost all television, including news, is fantasy — could it be that Big Brother isn’t as infallible as it likes to think itself?