What Goes Up Must Come Down

When I said "those people" were fighting among themselves, I meant all those people, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Red China. There are more, but those are the ones that immediately come to mind. Throughout history, they all took their turn at dominating their neighbors, but those ancient empires had declined and fell long before the French showed up. Europe went through a similar process, but Britain, France, Spain, and Portugal, had risen from their ashes and were ascending while most of Africa and Asia hadn't pulled out of their last crash dive yet. That's why Europe was able to colonize those places instead of the other way around. North and South America were a little different. The Incas and Aztecs were at their peak, but the Spanish conquistadors were able to mobilize their vassals against them. Native North Americans were not as far advanced, but there is evidence that some of them used to be, like the Mayans, the Navahos, the Pueblos, and the guys who built all those mounds in Kentucky. Some people have been saying for a long time that our own civilization has already peaked and we are all going down like the Romans, but I think it's too early to tell that yet. By some measures, it appears that we did peak at the end of World War II, but that might have been a perception thing, due to the decline of everybody else.

I agree with Ken that the Mideast has been in an uproar for a long time, we just hadn't been paying attention. In our lifetimes, it has steadily gotten harder to not pay attention to world events. Funny, though, we hardly ever hear anything about Canada. I wonder if that's because the Canadians never do anything important, or if somebody doesn't want us to know about it when they do.

Last I heard, the EU was having existential problems of their own, so I wouldn't worry about them threatening our national sovereignty any time soon. Truth be known, neither nationalism nor internationalism seem to be much of a threat anymore. The biggest threats to world peace today are coming from tribes, gangs, and cults.

I tried planting apple trees in Beaglesonia, but they didn't do well here. I didn't care about harvesting apples for human consumption, it was for the benefit of the wildlife. The trouble is that our local wildlife doesn't seem to understand the concept of deferred gratification because they ate the trees long before they could grow enough to produce apples. There are a few wild apple trees around, and I have tried to encourage them, but they seem to do better if I leave them alone. It's hard to cultivate anything here because it can't compete with the wild stuff. Man, it's a jungle out there!