Most of you will be familiar with the phrase "six degrees of separation," where all people on Earth can supposedly connect with each other using at most six personal connections. I have my doubts about whether I can really connect with all Brazilian tribesmen or aboriginals from Australia, but so be it. At one point, I think I was only four degrees separated from President Clinton, but I wasn't able to make much use of that fact. I guess I am two degrees separated from President Obama, through folks I know reasonably well in Chicago.
I was thinking about this over the weekend, as it became obvious that there was no simple mechanical explanation for the Ukrainian jet PS752 to have gone down, and indeed, Iran admitted, in a major reversal, that it had shot down the jet accidentally. While nothing will reverse this terrible event, there can be some closure after Iran made this announcement rather than trying to continue the cover-up. While I don't know what proportion of the blame should rightfully fall on Trump (5-15% perhaps), there is no question there is a chain of events going directly back to his assassination of the Iranian general.
But back to two degrees. We were discussing this at work, given how many Canadian citizens and permanent residents were on the flight, and it turns out that two of my co-workers are Iranian and knew several people on the flight. It really brings the cost of war home, far more than any dispassionate news report. I suppose at this point we can only hope that the sabre rattling is done for the time being, though I don't have a lot of hope that would be the case.
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