Disappearing Act

     A wave of the wand, the curtain drops and poof...gone.  What happened?  Where did they go?  We hold our breath and applause, as if waiting for the surprise finale when the "illusionist" will call to the back of the room and --like magic-- the person will walk calmly to the stage and take a bow.  But what if that didn't happen?  What if the "magician" simply walked off the stage and left us all wondering.  Was that it?, we'd ask.  Are they ever coming back, and where the heck did they go?  The lights go on and I turn around.  Wait, my brother.  And where's my mom, or my aunt and uncle?  What happened to them?  They were right here!  Show's over folks...time to go.

     We now live in a world of illusions and smoke & mirrors, so I'll be blunt in saying that this post will not be uplifting for the most part.  It is one thing to be entertained, and quite another to be fooled, especially if the price we pay is rather costly.  So this post will feature a few questions about death and killing, delusions and horrors, all things we may not want to face.  Some things we just don't want to know, or we are aware of but don't want to admit, or things we both know and admit but don't want it to affect our lives...so we delude ourselves into a new reality, one where such things are happening, but not really.  And you wouldn't be alone in feeling those things; wrote the BBC earlier about an Oxford study: More people are turning away from news, describing it as depressing, relentless and boring, a global study suggests.  But folks, it's not to late to back away.  Move on to the next amusement ride.  Full refunds offered.  Otherwise, and if you're ready, have your tickets handy and step right up.

     We put our cat down the other day, one of those surprise mornings where you awaken to find that everything has changed.  There was some blood on the pad, no, make that a lot of blood.  We rushed her down to the clinic and it wasn't good.  The thought (hope) that it might be a bad urinary infection turned out to be a mass in the bladder, specifically in the trigone area, something we discovered when they performed a full abdominal ultrasound (when a vial of her urine came back dark red, what vets term "frank," we forked over the $700 for the test).  So at that point, most people (including us) would take awhile to talk things out.  Could we afford it?  Should we do it?  What if they find something and it's bad?  On the other hand, what if it's something minor, an infection that would heal on its own and put everyone's mind at ease? 

     So stop there because any pet owner who has tried to quickly get an animal into a clinic knows that it's pretty near impossible.  People are trying their best to care for their animals, that is until they can't.  Shelters are now so full that vets are reporting people walking out of their clinics without paying, even if that means abandoning the animal.  For many such pet owners, the choices are gut-wrenching.  Giving up their animals --or having to put them down-- tears at each pet owner's insides, even if they often know that it is the right decision.  With all that we faced (the bleeding likely wouldn't stop; if we took her home and a clot caused a blockage it would be an emergency; she was likely already in pain) our decision was made within 30 minutes.  We didn't really go in with the intention of putting her down; we didn't really get to say goodbye properly (the vet did let us take as much time as we wanted or needed to spend time with her); and we certainly would have preferred to have her euthanized at our home  Then the moment came: a syringe of a sedative, then another, then another, and our beautiful 15-year old cat was gone.  Staring at her lifeless body had me again asking, what happens?  For those of us still living, there is only the stark reality at that point, the hope that our last-minute goodbyes, the summaries of our life & times with her, was enough; and that our memories and words and tears could effectively hide the guilt that was there, that all of our words of "don't be scared," likely did nothing to reduce how scared she was.  Animals don't process or think of death the way we humans do, say some.  But I find that a big unknowable guess.  As Henry David Thoreau said: Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?

     Long ago I had asked, what would be the largest organism you could kill?  A fly?  A mosquito?  A fish?  A cat or dog?  An elephant?  A human?  One friend I know has no problem shooting rats in his yard with his air pistol, and several of my friends are hunters, both for sport and for eating.  But most of us have a difficult enough time watching a lion take down a young gazelle on the TV, much less having to see a picture of the wholesale speed lines of factory farms which can kill over 225,000 chickens (or 20,000 pigs) each hour.  We've grown numb, even to the point of avoiding naming the larger animals we eat.  We'll eat a fish filet or a chicken thigh, but do we want to hear "would you like a slice of cow" or "a few strips of pig fat with that?"  A steak or slices of bacon sound much more distant so yes, load me up.  No qualms there.  Now let's move onto humans.

Photo of child in Nagasaki: Yasuo Tomishige/The Asahi Shimbun/Getty

     Also long ago I brought up the book On Killing (required reading in some military units) which noted that historically, killing in war had gotten psychologically "easier" and more lethal the farther away the weapon.  Fighting with swords forced you to face your opponent, then came arrows and muskets, hand grenades and rifles, missiles and bombs.  And then nuclear bombs.  The 80th anniversary of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima just passed (Nagasaki, the second city to be bombed, wasn't the planned target).  Indeed once those two 5-ton atom bombs were deemed successful, General MacArthur wanted 26 more to be used against Korea and China (he was relieved of duty by Truman).  But from the later Korean War came this from General William F. Dean, who was held prisoner in North Korea, as reported in Smithsonian: “The city I’d seen before—two-storied buildings, a prominent main street—wasn’t there anymore.  I think no important bridge between Pyongyang and Kanggye had been missed, and most of the towns were just rubble or snowy open spaces where buildings had been.  The little towns, once full of people, were unoccupied shells.  The villagers lived in entirely new temporary villages, hidden in canyons or in such positions that only a major bombing effort could reach them.”  Then came this reminder from The New York Times: The last remaining U.S.-Russian arms treaty expires in six months; China under Xi Jinping is nearly doubling its nuclear arsenal; politicians from countries such as South Korea and Turkey are voicing ambitions to join the nuclear club.  Geopolitically, the bomb is back. Culturally, it remains a Cold War antique (as a piece in The Atlantic noted: The most potent current warheads are more than 80 times as destructive as the bombs that leveled Hiroshima's urban core, and they now fly on missiles that can reach their targets in mere minutes.  It would take only one of these to all but erase Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing, or New York City).

     And now come the drones.  Lt. Col. Wayne Phelps wrote a book about killing remotely, its pluses and minuses and how, despite Hollywood versions, such drone operations are quite distinct from playing a video game, both technically and psychologically.  But he asked: Why would we think that humans could make decisions faster than lethal autonomous weapons?  The human becomes the limiting factor in the process of making the decision to kill or not kill...Oppenheimer understood that with unprecedented destructive power comes unprecedented responsibility.  With the rapid advancement of autonomy in robotics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, we are not very far from the decision points of unprecedented responsibility...we must not think that any human life is so insignificant that we allow robots to make the decision to take the autonomous action to kill a human.  Even in its early stages, AI has advanced to the point of writing its own code to override efforts to shut it down, even if it is indeed shut down and rebooted.  Give AI control of lethal weapons and you could have what was chillingly imagined over 50 years ago in Colossus, The Forbin Project.  And yet, as author Phelps quoted former Google CEO Eric Schmidt: The US military should adopt artificial intelligence urgently without letting debates over ethics and human control "paralyze AI developments."  In light of the choices being made by our strategic competitors, the United States must also examine AI through a military lens, including concepts for AI-enabled autonomous operations.

     I'll be among the first to admit that I have little interest in weapons or military fighting, even as I tip my cap to all those who have served, and still serve, all to allow me to feel safe and protected (even if the question becomes: why to these ICE "enforcers" wear masks like bank robbers and produce little or no identification; as WIRED wrote, are bored Proud Boys happy to be back in the action, the article noting a quote from the Global Project Against Hate & Extremism: Posts from Proud Boys groups reveal an emboldened network, with members fantasizing about mass deportation schemes and threatening to escalate their attacks during Pride Month).  But my grand nephew is not only a combat veteran (and medic) but is fascinated by guns and ammo.  In his own blog, he posted this about what hungry Palestinians face/d when waiting in line for food: 

Photo of Palestinian food line: Khames Alrefi/Anadolu/Getty Images

On Tuesday, June 17, 2025, Israeli tanks opened fire on a crowd of people, killing 59 people and injuring hundreds.  They were posted near one of the Israeli-run, American (mercenary-secured), Israeli-supervised feeding centers in Gaza that is the sole source of food for millions of Gazans.  They were Merkava main-battle tanks, designed to engage other main-battle tanks in peer-level combat and win.  They are heavily-armored, armed with .30-caliber and .50-caliber machine guns and a 120mm cannon, and were supported by infantry to prevent infiltrators from attacking from the rear or flanks.  These tanks are fitted with high-powered optics, thermal sights, and have advanced radio and computer-based communications to share information in real time.  They are in a stationary deployment, presumably in a secured zone, and they are not engaged in high-intensity combat.  There is no “fog of war” to speak of -- these soldiers are posted in a position over watching a crowd of hungry people queuing for a chance to eat.  It’s pretty simple.  Somewhere along the way, a decision was made.  Where it started matters, but what matters more is that it was obeyed.  In at least one turret, maybe more, safeties were disengaged and rounds were loaded (if they weren’t already).  The tank commander would have had a choice -- either engage with the secondary weapons (.30 and .50-caliber machine guns, firing rounds that will punch through multiple people at a few hundred meters at a rate of around 800 rounds per minute, aimed either by the optics if they opted to use the coaxial mount or by hand if they wanted to use the cupola-mounted guns) or to use the main gun.   If they opted to use the main gun, they’d have a choice -- to load either high explosive or canister...fundamentally a gigantic shotgun [firing] hundreds, or even thousands, of projectiles moving at supersonic speeds scything through everything in a swathe.  Each one of these, hitting a person, will cause extremely gruesome injuries.  Skull penetrations and fractures, destroyed long bones, craters punched though chests, abdomens and pelvises blasted apart.  They’ll travel for several hundred meters, depending on their firing angle, and they’re potentially lethal to around a kilometer. 

     But despite Merkava tanks and nuclear weapons, starvation can be equally effective...and equally horrific.  Here's part of what happens, as described in a piece in The Conversation: The journey from hunger to starvation starts with a drop in energy levels, then the body breaks down fat, then muscle.  Eventually, critical organs begin to fail.  From undernourishment, to acute malnutrition and finally starvation, the process reaches a point where the body can no longer sustain life...In children, long-term effects include stunted growth and impaired brain development.  Both can become irreversible...After a period of starvation, the body is in a fragile metabolic state.  Sudden reintroduction of food, especially carbohydrates, causes a spike in insulin and a rapid shift of electrolytes like phosphate, potassium, and magnesium into cells.  This can overwhelm the body, leading to what’s known as refeeding syndrome, which may result in serious complications such as heart failure, respiratory distress, or even death if not carefully managed.  But it is not only Gaza.  Starvation is happening in many parts of the war-torn world, including Sudan.  As Anne Applebaum wrote in The Atlantic: On both of my trips to Sudan, I traveled out via Dubai, and each time it felt like a scene from a children’s book, where one of the characters walks through a mirror or a wardrobe and emerges in a completely different universe.  In Sudan, some people have nothing except a bowl of bean soup once a day.  In the Dubai airport, the Chanel store is open all night, AirPods can be purchased for the flight home, and multiple juice bars serve crushed tropical fruits.  But despite the illusion of separation, those universes are connected, and the same forces that have destroyed Sudan are coming for other countries too.  Violence inspired and fueled by multiple outsiders has already destroyed Syria, Libya, and Yemen, and is spreading in Chad, Ethiopia, South Sudan, and beyond.  Greed, nihilism, and transactionalism are reshaping the politics of the rich world too.  As old rules and norms fall away, they are not replaced by a new structure.  They are replaced by nothing.

     My wife and I happened to watch two series, one being quite old (Life on Mars) and the other fairly recent (Shining Girls).  In both, the characters have to question their sanity on what they're seeing as time seems to change before them, all while they're aware of it (neither series was that good and we watched only a few episodes, despite terrific acting by Elizabeth Moss).  But it got me thinking that what if we could look at things from a different point in time, or at least in a different way?  Even conservative David Brooks wrote in The Atlantic: We’re entering an era of junkyard dog politics.  Maybe Trump is the guy to stand up to Xi Jinping.  Maybe governments need a pummeling cleanse before they can reinvent themselves.  Maybe the vibe shift is permanent and the progressive march through the institutions is over.  Maybe the American economy is a wonder to behold and it survives what Trump is throwing at it while our allies continue to stagnate.  As editor David Rovella wrote in Bloomberg: It’s as if nothing happened.  A week ago, the latest taboo to be broken by the Trump administration looked to be a doozy: the president fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after revised data showed unemployment on the march in a way not seen since the pandemic.  Add to that stirring inflation and anxious consumers and one could reasonably see Wall Street taking a breather.  But no.  Stocks on Friday ended their best week since June, with a rally in big tech driving the Nasdaq 100 to all-time highs and the S&P 500 approaching 6,400, closing on the brink of a record.  Wait, what's happening?  

     As bad as things may seems, imagine if you were born in 1900: at age 14 WW1 would begin; four years later WWI would end but the Spanish flu pandemic would begin and end up killing 100 million people.  By your 29th birthday the Great Depression & Dustbowl would start.  Then ten years later WW II begins.  In another 2 years, the US would enter that war (which wouldn't end until you were 45 and would end with 75 million people killed).  Then five years later, you'd witness the start of the Korean War, and five years after that, the Vietnam War (which would last for 20 years).  I've always maintained that ending war is simple: take away the weapons.  But for the US, the 100 countries we produce and ship weapons to is four times the number of the next largest exporter of weapons...France (closely followed by Russia).  Wrote Statistica: Russia's and France's biggest customer is India, which is the biggest importer of weapons in the world overall. France shipped arms to 64 states...On the other hand, if you just want to getaway from such weapon-producing countries, you can apply (and pay for) a passport elsewhere.  Continued Statistica: A passport from St. Kitts and Nevis, for example, offers relatively hassle-free entry to 154 countries, not far off from the world record held by Singapore at 193.  Other so-called golden passport countries follow close behind, including Antigua and Barbuda at 152 countries, Grenada at 147, St. Lucia at 146 and Dominica at 143.  But weapons are money (a poor country like Sudan is being provided weapons by a number of countries, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE), so here's an even simpler solution...have the leaders and the generals duke it out, mano y mano, or maybe give each a dagger.  Netanyahu fighting the leader of Hamas, or Trump (who would by then be 80-years old) fighting Putin (former jujitsu champion so perhaps a bit one-sided).  Backing each leader, in reverse seniority, would be the oldest military leaders with the youngest people at the back of the line.  Winner takes all, just like the old days when you "followed the leader."  No longer shielded by heavy bunkers or a heavy squadron of tanks and personnel, and no longer able to kill from a distance (or avoid military service altogether) wars as we know them would likely never begin because ask yourself, how many "ordinary" people even want war or want to go into battle...and for what?  I'm fact, most people would rather make someone a friend rather than an "enemy."

    So we're back to that fantasy world, that fine line between life and death, smoke and mirrors.  In another world, to quote the poet Robert Frost: I can sum up all that I've learned from life in three words: it goes on.  Why is it that so often the people or animals you felt closest to don't come back in your dreams, or come back only once or twice, or return to another generation (often a grandchild).  And when each of us dies, will we even recall this brief speck of time we once called "life on Earth?"  Perhaps life and its end just is.  Poof, a vanishing act to which we'll never know the secret.  Hiroshima, the Spanish flu, endless wars or tidal waves or hurtling asteroids.  The light of a million suns...or a modern-day nuclear bomb.  National Geographic had a piece that had scientists now thinking that the Roman Empire came to an end because of both climate and disease.  The Ming Dynasty.  The Ottoman Empire.  Mesopotamia.  Perhaps our reign at the leading exporter of wars is also due for a close.

    Underneath all of this (and thank you for reading to this point), the way to break the distraction of such illusions may be to simply bust the mirrors and recognize that we don't need to watch or listen to only the "bad" news, and that there are many sites* telling you about what is right in the world, and of how it is not the loud carnival barkers shouting that should draw you in but rather the everyday person next to you asking if you want to go grab a cotton candy and maybe ride the Ferris wheel and see the world in a different way.  Maybe from "up there" we could see not cloudy weather ahead but big, beautiful blue skies.  Even at night!  As the saying goes: When it's dark, look for stars.

*A quick search of "positive news" or "good news" sites brings up many lists of feel-good sites, ones of people helping and all the optimism that is out there.  But there are several others that I found much more interesting, particularly the site Gapminder which "tests" you on many current subjects, from plastics to climate (a heads up, I never got even half of the answers correct, particularly the one on refugees, a crushing blow since I felt that I had read a bit about such topics...alas, it was an eyeopener, but in a good way).  Also check out Our World in Data, which is similar in scope but has many more graphics to easily show current stats on subjects such as wars (which has caused the deaths of 37 million) and migration; a quick way to both see what's happening and where our planet needs help.  Another site is the Progress Network whose motto is: Let's Create the Future of Our Dreams Instead of Our Fears.  Between that and the site Solutions Journalism, you can quickly find ways others are helping to solve issues, and how you can also contribute in that effort.  After all, we're all seeking progress and solutions.  A brief article by Maria McNair on finding such sites and how and why it came about appeared in her piece in Deseret Magazine.  --And finally (finally!, you say) a recommendation to watch a movie (on Prime/Apple) and read an essay...'nuff said.