{"id":29386,"date":"2020-01-16T16:43:45","date_gmt":"2020-01-16T21:43:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/?p=29386"},"modified":"2020-01-16T17:45:27","modified_gmt":"2020-01-16T22:45:27","slug":"my-big-read-today-a-link-but-commentary-to-be-posted-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/?p=29386","title":{"rendered":"My big read today &#8211;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2020\/01\/12\/magazine\/12mag-MBZ-image1\/12mag-MBZ-image1-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&#038;auto=webp\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This is very long but, for those interested in the Middle East, very worth the reading.  <\/p>\n<p><strong>Mohammed bin Zayed\u2019s Dark Vision of the Middle East\u2019s Future<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/nyti.ms\/37NmBqJ\">https:\/\/nyti.ms\/37NmBqJ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>It took half hour to finish. Trump would want a quick 30 second summary so his eyes wouldn&#8217;t glaze over. (I&#8217;m snarking about <a href=\"http:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/?p=29373\">the startling Pearl Harbor anecdote<\/a> in the previous post about Emperors and Tsars.)<\/p>\n<p>I just sent this Times Story to a high school classmate who lives in Oman to the south of the United Arab Emirates on the Arabian Peninsula. There is so much more to Arabia than Mecca. <\/p>\n<p>I just saw my friend at my 50th high school reunion. I mentioned that she greeted two surprised and delighted Somali girls at a pep fest by greeting them with a traditional Islamic salutation. She is an educator in Oman is a very different Arabic paradise that has tried to stay out of the area&#8217;s politics but is nonetheless in the cross-hairs of history. I asked my friend for her thoughts on the Time&#8217;s story. While I was at it I mentioned another high school classmate that was stationed in both Peshawar, Pakistan and Kabul, Afghanistan by the State Department. Those are two red hot assignments that you don&#8217;t find Presidential Contributors, like Trump&#8217;s Mr. <em>Quid Pro Quo<\/em> Sondland, being assigned to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is very long but, for those interested in the Middle East, very worth the reading. Mohammed bin Zayed\u2019s Dark Vision of the Middle&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-middle-east","category-trump-2016"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29386"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29399,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29386\/revisions\/29399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}