worlds end

So while I was adventuring through the uplands of PA I was out of regular electronic contact with the rest of my world. As I traveled back and forth from a stunning vista (High Knob) in Loyalsock State Forest, I did intermittently pop into cellular range and in that brief moment, I found out that something like a coup d'etat occurred in Turkey. It took me more than 36 hours until I was able to read the news story of the suppressed coup attempt.

An ominous headline from The Economist website

Much seems to be falling apart. A coup attempt in a NATO ally shocks me enough. That the government is pointing fingers at the U.S. is all the more ominous. At roughly the same time, there's (another) bloody attack in another NATO ally, with the president of that nation pledging to ramp up raids on ISIS, which seems to be losing its caliphate but mutating into something more dangerous and unpredictable. Oh, and while we're at it, we have a presidential candidate questioning the cost of upholding the NATO alliance as well as the cost of maintaining security in East Asia. Let's not forget that in the midst of this we see the Peoples Republic building islands, challenging principles of sovereignty, and thumbing their nose at international tribunals that seek to check their ambitions.

In other summers I've turned off the news for a week to give myself a break. This summer I chose not to, and I don't see myself doing so before returning to work this fall. But my trip to Worlds End allowed me a chance to escape the news of a world where a lot of things seem to be ending.