2024 has begun
A new year has begun.
But I’m not looking forward to it because this year is projected to be a tense and crazy year, possibly even a consequential year.
First, we have the Ukraine-Russian war still going on. It is amazing that the Ukrainians have been able to hold off the larger Russians but now they are not receiving the funding or the weaponry to continue to hold off the Russians. That could alter the landscape of the war.
But at least this war has a clear-cut indicator who has started the war as a bad guy. In the early days, most countries and most Americans came to the defense of the Ukrainians and said that the Russians do not have the right to take over the land. But lately, some Americans seem to be changing their tune.
Second, the Israel-Hamas war is the newest war and this one seems to be less clear-cut. To me, the Hamas are in the wrong for precipitating the war with such brutality such as burning people alive, beheading people, and raping women. Babies were included in the brutality. They could have just taken a few hostages, like maybe 1 or 2, and use them as bargaining chips to gain their own independence but the brutality has foreclosed any kind of peaceful negotiations. The attack was designed to enrage the Israelis and provoke a war.
But apparently, not everyone sees the Hamas as the “bad” guy in this war. According to the news, some of the pro-Palestinians are pro-Hamas, which is rather dismaying. If the pro-Hamas protesters are Palestinians, then that is somewhat understandable because the Gazans are their people and thus, they will not be objective. Especially if they have family living in Gaza and in dire danger.
Hamas had fooled everybody into believing that the leadership had revised their thinking on destroying and eliminating the Israelis, so Israel’s government had become less vigilant about being wary of the Hamas. The violent and cruel nature of the attack has put to the lie to the idea that the Hamas were softening, and the surprise attack probably feels like some form of betrayal. Definitely a betrayal of trust.
Consequently, I understand the need to eliminate the Hamas from power and to take down their military infrastructure, and I kind of feel the same way because the Hamas showed that they cannot be trusted. So, go all out and destroy the Hamas.
But…
How does Israel do that without killing the civilians? I’m having trouble with that. Hamas hide themselves within the civilian population such as mosques, hospitals and schools.
And Israel’s bombings feel indiscriminate. As Biden or Blinken says, there is a huge gap between Israel’s intent to follow the international laws of war and the number of civilian deaths. The gap is huge.
It feels like they are complying technically with the laws but not with the spirit of the laws.
This is the tension. This is what makes this war so troublesome. Neither side are coming out with clean hands. Hamas have dirtier hands, but the Israelis are not coming off too clean.
Third reason for not looking forward to this year is 2024 is election year and in conjunction with the election campaigns, we also have the potential for trials to also take place at some point during the year before the November elections. We might have violence, especially as we get closer to the November voting date.
There are couple of flashpoints: 1) he gets charged with crime; 2) he receives a sentence of prison; 3) he loses the right to be on the ballots; 4) the poll watchers appearing during the election votes; 5) he loses the election, thus leading him to claim a rigged election.
There may be others I have thought of.
Fourth, climate change is still roiling our world. Will we have another heat dome parked over the central part of the US? Any disastrous tornadoes or hurricanes? This past summer was the hottest on record; will 2024 summer beat that record? I’m dreading the summer.
So, I’m not looking forward to this year for these and other smaller reasons.
Before finishing off the post, I want to show what the New Year’s celebration looked like around the world. I snapped some images from YouTube. Most major cities have New Year’s celebrations like the US does but there are some interesting tiny points I noticed.
New Year’s Celebrations – a recording of the sights
London: they had what appeared to be a prototypical fireworks ringing in the new year.
Paris: there’s a large crowd there but again a prototypical fireworks.
Acropolis, Athens: it looked like they had a smaller scale celebration without all of the lights or fireworks.
Hong Kong: I would say the Asians do celebrate the new year with lots of fireworks. I wonder if that is part of their culture?
Bangkok: In keeping with lots of fireworks.
Istanbul: Istanbul was interesting only because the camera guy had included the sight seers within the video. See, everybody got their phones up to take pictures. That’s now the lingua of our times.
New York: New York differs from most cities in that there is a countdown to the ball dropping. And, there appears to be NO fireworks. Instead, we have a nice crass display of commercialism on the walls of skyscrapers.
So Dallas did something different: they had a drone display as well as some fireworks. It looks like the drones went through each musical decade.
Disney: I don’t know if this is in Florida or in California but I decided to add this last because it was the most beautiful set of lights and fireworks.
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