The Harris campaign, if it wants to keep the reconstituted Obama coalition together, has very little time to announce a policy change in regards to Israel. Either she does something measurable, or she'll quickly lose young voters. It starts next week at the DNC in Chicago, but it doesn't end there.

Bravery

Yesterday I read about a young man who showed so much bravery and dedication to service that he died. Cpl. Spencer R. Collart was a young Marine who burnt to death in the fires that resulted from an Osprey crash in Australia in 2023. (The article is also on the AP and other websites.)

It sounds kind of 'normal' in a way, burning to death in a fire because a military air plane crashed - especially an Osprey which doesn't have a great record. But what wasn't normal was this, Collart got out of the burning plane just fine, after all the other Marines that were in the back of the plane escaped. And then, he saw that the cockpit was on fire. So he went back inside the burning plane to rescue the pilots. Unfortunately, he and the pilots all died in the fire. Because of his bravery he is being posthumously awarded the highest non-combat medal the Marines and Navy have - the Navy and Marine Corps Medal. It's awarded for acts of heroism which are a great risk to the service member's life.

The Navy and Marine Corps Medal from the military times website linked above.

Dear Harris voters:

I remember reading early on that your candidate's Website had no discussion of issues. I looked just now, and it doesn't appear that the Website still has any such discussion. It would be nice if you were to be apprised of what you would be getting under a Harris administration.

The International Court of Justice recently ruled that "Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza is entirely unlawful, that Israel practices apartheid and racial segregation, and that all states are under a duty to help bring this to an end, including by cutting off all economic, trade and investment relations with Israel in the Occupied Palestin

Spent a couple of days with my grandson driving upriver to the Neon Nights event as part of the Cruise the Gorge car show and cruise-in at The Dalles in central Oregon.

The "liberation" celebrations in South Korea are likely to be somewhat troubled by the "new right" attempt to rewrite history where Japanese colonization and crimes against humanity were a good thing for Korea. The "new right" are really the old legacy elites descended from the collaborator class, that have tried to keep their heads down since the end of the Park Chung-hee dictatorship. The new relationship with Japan (promoted by the US) isn't going over well.