Mariner hasn’t posted for the last few days. The reason is the break in the heat wave, allowing him to get out tending lawn and garden. Nevertheless, there are some situations that are significant to note. Each situation has been covered by news stations and websites but speak specifically to ‘our times they are changing faster’.

Taiwan – A nation with a lovely culture not blinded by dollar bills, firmly entrenched in local life and family yet, in 2005, the last time mariner checked, Taiwan was the seventh wealthiest nation in the world and is the world’s most productive source of Lithium batteries. Mariner had a contract in Taiwan for a while and is fond of that experience.

Alas, the future does not bode well for Taiwan. China believes, with much more heritage than Putin has, that Taiwan, an island 225 miles long and 110 miles from China mainland, is part of China.

It always had been China until the Qing Dynasty ceded it to Japan at the end of the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895. Japan held control until the Second World War. At the end of the war the island was assigned back to China but less than a year later the internal war led by the Communist party and Mao Tse-tung drove the Chinese government to relocate on Taiwan where it claimed still to be the real government of China.

Over the years the West has supported Taiwan; the nation has become a mix of resistance to Mainland China and a virtual western democracy. Militarily, Taiwan is willing to go to the mat with China if China decides to invade. Taiwan knows it will be decimated but its military strategy is not to defend the island but to throw everything into China, making it extremely expensive for China to try.

The United States, South Korea and Japan have a commitment to Taiwan but mariner cannot see a way out without a bullet war. Don’t forget, North Korea is less than a thousand miles to the north.

Beyoncé – She’s back. Why?

Ancient Mariner