Successful trip to the City Dump

Another successful trip to the City Dump and gradually the downsizing continues. It is a bit of a wrench as I do this because it constantly feels strange to be downsizing our possessions. Edward was in the process of doing so before COVID but all of that was pretty much on hold from the time that we were locked down except for material he had already prepared. 

Another gloomy day outside and  rain is promised a little later this morning (described as heavy thunder storms) so must get out there in a bit to do some weeding. The rain though is always needed to saturate the ground a little before the dry period comes in July as it generally does. It will be a warm couple of days now which is welcomed as we have had a cold June this year. It does look like rain all day though once it starts. 

We made pizza last night for dinner and it was quite tasty. I am enjoying pizza now although I did not fancy it much until the last couple of years. 

Today I shall continue cleaning the basement as the rest of the house is finished but I want to do a bit of reorganizing down there and today will be a perfect day to do that. 

The world is changing rapidly these days as I read through the information on the BRICS summit which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. This group was created in 2006 and the first summit was in Russia in 2009. Apparently none of these member states have condemned Russia's invasion. They represent 41.5% of the world's population, 27% of the world land surface and are listed as a voice for developing countries. These five states in 2018 had a combined GDP of 19.6 trillion (US dollars) which is about 25% of the gross world product. This relationship is based on non-interference, equality and mutual benefit. I gather that Russia doesn't believe in non-interference though as they invaded Ukraine (although not a member state of BRICS, they are still a world state).

I think it would be much more interesting and profitable to the world if we continue to rely on the United Nations as the main place for discussion; every voice can be heard there and the present Secretary General has been effective in solving some of the issues in the Ukraine when secure corridors could not be obtained otherwise. It is interesting that the wording used in this particular website was "global hegemony." Looking up this interesting set of words the meaning appears to be the "regional predominance of a single country." It becomes more obvious why Donald Trump was a favourite in some foreign capitals because he was bent on extracting the United States from this position of dominance as he felt it cost the US too much money to continue with this dominance. But he was less interested in a successful United States and more interested in a successful Donald Trump. So his ideas were not entirely useful.

If the United Nations is being properly used then the power lies with the peoples of the world. The dominance of the United States in world affairs is born directly out of two World Wars neither of which they wished to be involved in when they first occurred but ended up being dragged in. The thought being perhaps (looking at it from a Canadian viewpoint) that if a country is dominant then a World War can be avoided - namely World War III. It was a good aim following the Second World War as we certainly did not need another war at the beginning of the 1960s when the world stood still for a moment as John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev stood on opposite sides of a nuclear catastrophe in the making. Stepping back, taking a deep breath on both sides resulted in a peaceful time that followed to a certain extent. War seems to be something that the human race can not stay away from although my own country Canada has never been an aggressive nation trying to solve problems in a negotiated settlement. Would we change? I doubt it. We like to negotiate and the art of negotiation has been finely tuned here over our more than 150 years of existence since we were a colony and the thousands of years before that when the First Nations managed as part of the trade system between the various groups of peoples who lived in the Western Hemisphere. 

As I reach toward my 77th birthday, I do wonder if the human race is capable of getting along; of not making war whenever greed surfaces like the illegal Russian war in the Ukraine as they try to continue their land grab that started with the Crimea (part of Ukraine). When the largest country in the world invades a smaller neighbour to steal their land one wonders at the depth of greed that exists in the world. It is greed that destroys civilizations.