Belated Mid-Week Updates, No 11
Ukraine, Biden, Israel, Iran and The Crown
Happy Thanksgiving to all those celebrating it. And enjoy the Black Friday.
It has been a truly insane week here with a venture financing on the go at one company where I have an active board role and one legal situation at another going haywire, all that in between a workshop, some advisory calls and portfolio updates for the fund. In addition we are now in the middle of the World Cup for which I had to install a brand new TV which was an altogether new experience (Best Buy sales people are not all that helpful, their customer support people are gold). So little time for updates, but here is one looking at this week.
Ukraine
Started as a war of aggression (war crime) it has now morphed into a full frontal terror attack on ordinary citizens (also a war crime). Russia is taking out utilities such that there is no electricity, heating and water in major urban centres. If there is any, it is now rationed. And this in brutal winter conditions that will last a number of months. It is awful and if anyone needed more evidence of both the gruesome character of Putin and his utter desperation, well here it is. It also means that in addition to ongoing military and humanitarian support there is an urgent need to help rebuild, fix and keep Ukrainian utilities going. This is less and less a proxy war where the West can at its own pace support and keep its distance. Ukraine needs to win and the West needs to ensure that will happen. It is therefore ‘all in’ now, no exceptions or diplomatic carve outs. The predicted long dark European winter has just started.
Biden
Although not victorious, the GOP captured the House after all, the Democrats did not do as poorly as expected and that has rubbed off on the president. With Trump’s lacklustre announcement for his run for the presidency and the momentum for DeSantis, little has been said so far about how the White House incumbents are going to play their cards. This piece in the NYT got my attention, an expert overview of one’s capabilities at age eighty. Yes, Joe marked his eighth decade earlier this week and the paper of record delivered a remarkably upbeat assessment of the possibility of having an octogenarian in the White House until January 2029. The case is being made for this scenario and expect more of it in various media outlets in the months ahead.
To note, I am not against older people running and governing. Far from it. With all the debates around racism, sexism and ableism there is remarkably little discussion around ageism. There have been incredibly successful leaders who sometimes have served well into their nineties. Deng Xiaoping comes to mind. And although he had no formal title, he acted as China’s paramount leader with a very flexible work schedule until the day he died at age ninety-two.
Israel
Terror attacks are on the rise. Two bombs exploded near a bus station in Jerusalem killing Canadian-Israeli teenager Aryeh Schupak. The level of depravity was taken to another level when a Druze student got into a car accident near Jenin and was taken to a hospital and put on life support. Palestinian militants entered the facility thinking the young man was an Israeli soldier and kidnapped him by taking him off life support in front of his family. Tiran Ferro died not long thereafter; seventeen years old. The evidence that the Palestinian leadership is losing its grip on the overall situation is mounting, while in Israel they are still bickering over the formation of a new coalition government under Nethanyahu. The leadership vacuum on both sides is now contributing to increasing lawlessness and horrific deaths.
Iran
Yes, Iran just won its World Cup match against Wales. The players (as opposed to the first game they played) sang along with the national item and apparently there were intense emotional scenes on the stands before, during and after the game. All of this against a background of continued protests and killings back home in Iran where former football star Voria Ghafouri was arrested this week. Like Ukraine, this will go on for a while: the people of Iran will not give up.
The Crown
In between everything going on I also caught up with the fifth season of The Crown. Wowed and mesmerized by the first four seasons, the chronicle of Elizabeth’s reign in the 1990s was a bit underwhelming. There were lovely parts like Princess Diana as played by Elizabeth Debicki and the truly spot on performance of prime minister John Major. But still it lacked the energy and real drama we were expecting and instead got a slow moving take on Charles and Diana’s collapsing marriage with lots of filler material to beef up the length of the episodes. That said, there was one piece that got me. Symbolizing the steady retreat of the empire the Hong Kong handover got a prominent place in the last episode. Yes, the man who is now King Charles gave his speech in a blistering rainfall before boarding the royal yacht Britannia which was retired after its last sailing in 1997. No matter the quality of the script, The Crown has lots for history and political buffs. I would still recommend it.