What with recent events in Gaza and Israel, I’ve been very distracted, in no small part because I see the exact same arguments I’ve heard for the last forty plus years being repeated over and over again. As the preacher in Ecclesiastes wrote, “Futility*, futility, all is futility.” Not only can I anticipate the passive-aggressive incendiary statement that starts the whole mess, I then can predict several rounds of counterarguments, almost verbatim.

People then just get ugly and hateful, and there’s not much to say at that point. And at the end of it all, everyone is right back where they started, with no concrete paths or suggestions as to how to get out of this godawful shitty mess with minimal loss of life.

So this is the (sucky) post you’re getting today. My apologies.

*It’s often translated as vanity, but the Hebrew word has more to do with ‘nothingless’ than narcissistic vanity.