Dec. 29, 2008: Sihanoukville, Cambodia

Well, here goes.

I am going to put down a few of my thoughts about what is happening today, like the Israeli bombing of Gaza juxtaposed with the financial crisis juxtaposed with the Inaguration of our new President Barack Obama. Boy, this is what is called extremely hazardous.

I first wondered this morning why nobody keeps a public tally of the Hamas bombs into Israel in the last 8 years; why do we go from frits and starts in these cycles of violence in the Middle East. I think if there was a public tally on somebody's website, this situation would be a lot easier to handle, The way it is now, nobody knows what the truth on the ground is, so it is missiles away in both directions.

Then I think the State Department should work up 2 tallies: those countries where it is likely that things can get done and those countries where there is going to be no change at all but will make a lot of demands on world peace. I think the two positions could be played off against each other and maybe there can be some kind of balance struck. Maybe the State Department already has this tally somewhere, but it should go public so Americans can really feel involved in their own workings of war and peace. Right now, I think there is no system of checks and balances going on in global matters, so, believe it or not, each and every country in the world feels vulnerable because of so much lack of information on the part of democratic governments. We all know, that many countries will always try to keep everybody in the dark so they can feel in charge, but I think this is an extremely hazardous way to conduct global affairs.

I have to say again that I am so grateful for people like Barack Obama and all of his Administration for taking on this huge and unfun responsibility facing us. I wish everybody in the Obama Administration the very best of wishes and successes in 2009.

These are my thoughts for today.