As regular visitors to this space will have noticed, I have been unusually slow to post during the last week. This is not because I’m running out of steam as a blogger. And it’s not because this is a slow news week. In recent days the European financial crisis took a dark turn for the worse, clueless environmentalists and relentlessly junketing bureaucratic hacks have set off on another failed quest to revive the brain-dead global treaty on global warming, and North Korea revealed a new nuclear reactor shortly before launching an artillery attack on the South. There’s a corruption scandal in India along with a serious crisis in the microfinance industry that was once seen as the best hope for the poor, there are ominous signs of economic policy failure in China, and from Europe comes the sound of tectonic plates shifting as Russia and NATO rework their relationship. President Obama has caved to Prime Minister Netanyahu in the Middle East as the peace process looks less hopeful than ever; the outlook for the US economy is getting worse; US Pakistan relations are taking another lurching turn for the worse, and rising food costs threaten unrest in much of the world.
The slow post schedule is a consequence of events closer to home. For one thing, I really, really need to grade the latest batch of student papers before the final papers are due. There have also been some long delayed tasks connected with establishing a base of operations in the Dutchess County hunt country as I shift more of my work and time from the Stately Mead manor upstate. Between visits to Best Buy, Office Depot and long, complicated telephone conversations with a cable company which seemingly delights in making its customers jump through as many hoops as possible before giving them service, there has been less time for posting than usual.
We are also having some meetings this week at The American Interest Online as we think about how to organize ourselves better to bring you information and ideas that can help you reflect more clearly on the state of the world and act more intelligently to change it. Blogging will resume later this week on a regular schedule; in the meantime, thanks to all of you for your patience and your continuing interest in Via Meadia.
Fortunately, The Long Recall, our daily aggregator of Civil War news as readers would have encountered it 150 years ago continues to unfold in another spot on our website. I hope that during this Thanksigiving Week some of you will take the time to look back on the state of our country 150 years ago and give thanks for the dedication, heroism and clarity of thought that somehow brought us through that storm.