"I’ve broken my no-news rule and watched analysis on Greenland. Very smart people. Too smart. Everyone grasps the obvious but won’t accept the regime’s actual depth - or shallowness. There’s no strategy beyond I want it. When you have ultimate power, a child’s logic is often all that’s left. - Bluesky"

Every day I try to write something as I finish my first cup - in summer it’s about birdsong, or maybe the start of an innocent children’s story. This morning my mind wandered to the news, and I wrote the above.

Podcast after article over-analyzes, searching for new meaning where there isn’t any. (Never focusing on the people these actions affect, by the way.) Each commentator normalizes what’s happening - I assume to have something to discuss - when really all that needs saying is: these actions are wrong, and here’s what we need to do about it.

The smartest analysts keep looking for chess moves. But when someone has ultimate power and no accountability, sophisticated strategy becomes optional. What’s left is impulse without consequence. A child’s logic: I want it, so I’ll take it. The disturbing part isn’t hidden complexity - it’s the shallowness.

A couple of years ago, my son and I discussed university plans. I tried convincing him to consider studying in the States - that if he did well enough in high school, money could be found. Despite its problems, it remained a place where a smart, ambitious person could find opportunities unavailable here. Work with a good organization, stay healthy, build a solid career.

Thankfully, he didn’t choose that path.

But now another worry surfaces. He’s smart, dogged, athletic, loves his country. If what comes from the regime’s mouthpieces holds any truth, young men like him may form the backbone of resistance to military action against their home.

A thought unimaginable just a few years ago.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this is January talking - dark mornings and darker news cycles, amplified by voices that profit from alarm. Maybe I’ve listened to the wrong podcasts, let anxiety compound into something larger than reality warrants.

But the rhetoric keeps escalating. And rhetoric, even when it doesn’t become action, shifts what we accept as normal.

Now I’m thinking about it over morning coffee, writing it down between ideas for bedtime stories, trying to understand how we arrived here - and what small, quiet acts of clarity look like when the noise gets loud enough to drown out reason.