Summer At Sea

This is my last content post on this blog until late August, as I will be underway for carrier qualifications, squadron (air wing) training and other pre- “Big” deployment evolutions.

While I do not have to participate in that “big” deployment at the end of the year or the beginning of next year, I will be underway for most of the rest of the year.

I apologize for not posting more often and for not posting with much careful thought to originality and quality, but as always, I will try to improve and actually make reading me worthwhile. One day.

Until then, I will hope for good news (like getting accepted into school) that I could maybe post about on someone’s Blackberry or Treo when we have our various 1 day San Diego port visits for logistics runs. Have a great summer everyone!

Summer Reading

Two to take notes from and compose posts for the future:

My summer focus for bloc reading is colonial Latin American history:

First to understand a bit about where Spain was coming from:

Then to enjoy much of what I’ve learned in school be refuted in a reasonable and well-researched manner.

One of the better textbooks with loads of detail about trade, society, culture, etc.

An older text I found in a used bookstore in Victoria, BC that turned out to be of great utility.

Appreciating the culture….

Lastly, to wash it all down…..

Obviously, all the note-taking aside, one must make time at sea to have fun as well… and what better fun while being stuck on a floating taxi cab/radioactive city than to enjoy some excellent adventure….

And a classic…

I have extra time after July 21st because I will have completed all my of my work to correct the programs I am overseeing for an bi-annual aviation maintenance inspection, hence more time to read these books and maybe one or two others.

Of Divisions & Differences

A recent Ralph Peters essay in USA Today has earned the praise of Thomas PM Barnett and the ire of Dan of TDAXP , Lexington Green and others. Perhaps a mistaken belief that Peters is engaging in a deluded exercise of moral equivalence pinning blame equally on violent militant Islamic sects and Christian groups of similar intent informs their derision. Peters is actually reaching much further than such a pitiful comparison in his piece and in his subsequent book based on the same subject of religious violence.

In India, Hindu extremists oppose much of globalization’s template, from free trade to alien cultural imports that change the status quo of social relations from the untouchable castes to women’s rights. They represent a credible danger to social and political stability, as emboldened by the occasional support of local police forces, the enabling role of technology like mass text messaging and the fear that comes with sensing the potential loss of tradition and social power, both within the home and the community. They have shown few qualms in attacking their fellow Hindus as well as those of other faiths, like Christians and Muslims.

In various corners of Africa (particularly the Congo), a brewing, contentious competition between different styles of Christianity (which often exist as vehicles for tribal and ethnic power and control) could lead to local and regional strife, especially as the fight for resources and land takes on an Old Testament connotation, a point Philip Jenkins makes in both “The New Christendom” and “The New Faces of Christianity”, books which adroitly explore the surprising potential and likely futures of Christianity. Ditto for Latin America, where the growth of evangelical Protestant faiths have not yet affected the power struggles and interests of the elites but may soon cross the threshold for intra-Christian violence if fiefdoms and futures are impacted.

Even within Israel, the ongoing evolution of the Jewish state is seriously affected by the wide divide in world views and attitudes towards globalization between different sects. How Israel approaches its neighbors in the future (particularly potential trading and cultural partners like Turkey, Iran & nations within Africa and Central Asia) and considers the risks and benefits of globalization will reflect the tenor of that divide and the ability to reach consensus. The visceral attitude of the Orthodox branch towards land swaps, ending housing settlements and other forms of necessary realpolitik and negotiation both within the state and its near abroad speaks volumes for the low-level civil war (without violence largely, save for aggression acted out upon Israeli Arabs and Palestinians) that has been ongoing for decades now.

We have not yet experienced the potential for rivalries and conflicts within China’s Christian sects in the future. To ignore such possibilities would be a futile gesture in unimaginative arrogance. Tribal and ethnic hegemony, regionalism, nationalism and plain old power politics and zero-sum thinking across the board would be grounds alone for serious concern about the potential for regressive and even violent intra-religious conflict. Adding in the pressures and travails of globalization only stirs the pot further, a factor that has not yet been fully explored because we have yet to experience a serious economic downturn around the majority of the world, which is likely to occur in some form in the next decade. Dwindling food and water stocks, high commodity prices, failing infrastructure and government programs, etc. may exacerbate the competitions between sects and obviously amongst faiths.

(The real global concern should not be terrorism but the types of shocks to societies and systems that will alter usually overloaded, underfunded and poorly understood social relationships and arrangements. From dwindling resources to terror attacks to economic crashes and sudden and swift natural disasters or climate change, these are the real global concerns, or at the least, the more important.)