Mourning Ariel Sharon

In the strange world of politics, there are the clowns (Bush, Palin, French President Hollande), the phenomenal, hard-to-classify figures (Bill Clinton), the tough, practical ones (Angela Merkel), the absolute villains (Assad, Cheney), the also-rans (Chris Christie), the complicated may-runs (Hillary Clinton), the much-admired (Mandela), the no-longer-admired (Aung San Suu Kyi), etc. And then there are the Shakespearean, monumental characters. I realize that I’m applying here one of the favorite cliché of people who love clichés–mixing apples and oranges–by mentioning these public figures in the same breath although some are important or infamous for the reality of their exercise or pursuit of power, past or present, and others simply there as background brouhaha. The point I want to make is that a look at today’s media demonstrates that Ariel Sharon who just died after eight years in a coma is in a category of his own, remarkable in bad as well as in good, on a scale different from that of ordinary politicians–and with much vaster consequences. I used to detest the man, particularly after the Israeli forces under his command looked the other way while Lebanese militia massacred hundreds and perhaps thousands of Palestinian refugees in the Sabra and Chatila camps in 1982. The decades that had preceded and those that followed don’t make him any more endearing. He was an unbending, self-serving and self-promoting bastard, bulldozing his way through obstacles, facing off with a conniving, corrupt Yasser Arafat on the Palestinian side, both men finding their bread and butter in making sure that no agreement would ever bring peace to that benighted region.

I am God

At least for today. To briefly replace this superior power in whose name half the world tortures, maims and kills and half the world remains on its knees, with words of praise and gratitude for the repeated blows, disappointments and tragedies only occasionally offset by spectacular sunsets and cooing babies. For the record, I’m not an atheist, as that would require a level of interest that eludes me–frankly, religious faith and belief leave me cold, if slightly baffled.

So, let’s play. Just for today, I am God. What will I fix?

One, world population.