(or…
some thoughts in support of never following “the news”)
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There are two things that are no cause for worry: that which can be fixed, and that which cannot be fixed. What can be fixed should be fixed — so what’s there to worry? What cannot be fixed cannot be fixed — so what’s there to worry? – Chassidic master Rabbi Michel of Zelotchov
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After an extended visit in the states, Marcia and I returned to Israel wondering whether to keep up with President Barak Obama’s public angst about Syria. We had heard (almost hourly in the news while in America) that Obama had turned his prodigious intellect toward “deciding something” about Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons. (One imagines the president and his right hand men, UN Representative, Samantha, and National Security Adviser, Sue, as they huddle together at the White House pondering getting really tough with Assad and his enormous Sarin stockpile.)
But the president’s extended public airing of his options has confused many ordinary “folks,” as Obama likes to call us.
Syria on his mind.
Many folks suspect that Obama’s daily airing of threats, his circular rhetoric and his scholarly indecision has been unwise at best. Most have concluded that the president’s protracted inner-outer debate about a token military strike at Syria has only served to increase the existential threat to Israel, the likelihood of heightened terrorism against the US and the further suffering of Syrian citizens.
Even beginning poker players, folks believe, know better than to show their hands…
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