After two weeks in Pakistan and a week’s vacation I am hoping to return tomorrow to the stately Mead manor in glamorous Queens. A bit sunburned and blistered from some tough scuba duty here in the Cayman Islands, I expect to resume regular posts on Via Meadia this week. Many thanks to Professor Cristol and Damir Marusic for keeping the place lively while I’ve been away and if the rumor mill is correct we have at least one more Cristol piece to look forward to.
Another week at the beach wouldn’t have hurt, but it’s time to come home. The next three weeks are going to be busy ones at the Mead manor. I’ve got classes to prepare for the fall semester at Bard and Yale, a book manuscript due in December to dust off and think through, capsule reviews are due at Foreign Affairs and there’s a whole slew of activities at The American Interest Online to plan. It won’t all be work. There’s a reunion planned for the researchers I worked with over the years at the Council on Foreign Relations, my parents are celebrating their 59th wedding anniversary, and it looks as if I’ll have a couple of weekends in the country with friends.
I’m coming back to Via Meadia refreshed and renewed. There’s still more to say about Pakistan, the green agenda on climate change continues to unravel, there are some surprising and even hopeful developments in Israel, I’ve read IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri’s dreadful novel cover to cover and am ready to review it, the major American political movement of the twentieth century is on its deathbed, and I have a few thoughts about the relationship between Islam and the west that I’d like to sketch out.
For now, it’s time to go out and meet the dive boat. The summer break is ending, but there are still a few hours to go and there’s one more chance to catch a spectacular tropical sunset over the gin clear sea.