Thursday. Left at ten. Blacksmith. Warm already, bright sun, hazy in the distance, a hint of a cloud here and there, uninteresting light, light winds from the southwest. Merwedekanaal to the refreshingly unassuming, mid-20th century waterfront at Vreeswijk's Handelskade. Then Lekdijk beyond Jaarsveld. Quiet on the river; cows standing in the water. Lopik to Polsbroekerdam. Young swans practicing floating with one flipper on their backs. Benschop to Zijdewetering and Zuid IJsseldijk. Loosestrife still going strong; brown plume reeds in many places. Meerlopad to Nedereindseweg, and eventually parallel to the freeway, then underneath toward the Leidsche Rijn and back into town. The on-line discussion today between the Europeans and the Americans in anticipation of the Alaska summit is all over the news. The impossible European task to influence a president who tends to see the Russian president as a partner at least as much as he sees Europe as one. And even if today yields some kind of common approach, it could be easily be discarded on Friday. There is news that Russia may be behind a hack of U.S. Federal Court filing system; if Putin says it wasn't them, the president will probably believe him. Europe's task today is impossible also because Europe has only recently begun to make itself a little less dependent on Washington for defense. There are serious plans, but most still need to be developed. In the meantime, the Russian president does not have to take Europe so seriously. With a U.S. president who is incapable of defining the war in Ukraine properly--as a Russian campaign to beat a neighbor into submission--he may not have much to worry about from Washington either.
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