We Are Not Alone...

Our focus is almost exclusively on ourselves, our neighborhoods, our states, our countries, and our earth.  Two meteors remind us that we are but a speck in the universe and will (eventually) be violently reminded of our inability to control nature.  This meteor is just harbinger of things to come.  Of course, that thing to come will not impact us greatly for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years from now.  Much sooner, we will be buzzed by a meteor that dwarfs the one that scorched through the sky over Russia on February 14, 2013. 

This unprecedented (at least, while humankind has been looking at the skies) one-two punch reminds us that the universe is a violent unlimited environment.  Rocks of icy iron, nearly as old as the universe itself, some the size of North Dakota, blaze uncontrollably around the vastness of space.  Despite Hollywood magic, there is no known way of stopping one of these global killers should we spot one on a collision course with our gentle blue marble.  Robert Frost suggested the world would end in fire or ice.  If we survive ourselves long enough, we will be around to see it end in both.

Egypt Nears Completing the Circle

Egypt's trip from autocracy to democracy and back is nearly complete.  The world would not have been so surprised about the backslide had President Morsi not been so good at convincing us that he was a reformer.  Since he's taken office, the Muslim Brotherhood with all its Sunni (anti-freedom, anti-women, anti-semetic, anti-western) rhetoric, has tightened its stranglehold on the populace.  

Even more worrisome, Egypt is falling under Iran's spell just as Syria seems to be shaking itself of that very same drug.  Sunnis and Shias collaborating on spreading hatred and intolerance is a new and troubling development.  As Iran speeds towards a presidential election (and towards another sideshow in its circus of democracy), Egypt speeds away from its promise freedom and progress.  As always in the Middle East, things may not always be what they seem.