{"id":596,"date":"2026-06-21T07:08:44","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T07:08:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=596"},"modified":"2026-06-21T07:08:44","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T07:08:44","slug":"the-solstice-of-our-discontent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=596","title":{"rendered":"The Solstice of Our Discontent"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

I don\u2019t recall exactly when it was that I learned that it took a bit more than eight minutes for the sun\u2019s light to reach us here on Earth. Sometime before high school, I think. Anyway, that pedestrian fact made a deep impression on me. I knew that light traveled at a fixed speed and that its operation wasn\u2019t (quite) instantaneous, although in our quotidian lives, it seemed almost so.<\/p>\n

Read more Did Trump Snooker Iran?<\/a><\/p>\n

But the fact that the sunlight we see all about us is eight minutes old made a deep and disconcerting impression on my young self. Who knows what might have happened to the Sun in the meantime?<\/p>\n

I began researching this phenomenon and was duly impressed by the awful (in the old sense) immensity of things. The sun\u2019s light, traveling some 93 million miles, takes 8.3 minutes to arrive here.<\/p>\n

Light from the Orion Nebula, wherever that is, takes about 1,500 years to reach us. Light from the Andromeda Galaxy takes 2.5 million years. Then, there are the lights from long-dead stars glimpsed by that astronomical peeping tom, the Hubble Telescope.<\/p>\n

Until recently, the oldest light glimpsed was from a defunct star called\u00a0Icarus. It shone when the universe was about 9.5 billion years old. A few years back, Hubble registered light from a star called\u00a0Earendel, which flickered 12.9 billion years ago, when the universe was a mere 6 percent of its current age.<\/p>\n

These are stupefying, incomprehensible numbers.<\/p>\n

Blaise Pascal touched on the psychological\u2014or is it the ontological?\u2014coefficient of such contemplations in his\u00a0Pens\u00e9es<\/em>. \u201cQuand je consid\u00e8re la courte dur\u00e9e de ma vie, absorb\u00e9e dans l\u2019\u00e9ternit\u00e9 pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente et suivante, le petit espace que je remplis, et m\u00eame que je vois, ab\u00eem\u00e9 dans l\u2019infini immensit\u00e9 des espaces que j\u2019ignore et qui m\u2019ignorent, je m\u2019effraie . . .\u201d (\u201cWhen I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in an eternity before and after, the little space I fill engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces whereof I know nothing, and which know nothing of me, I am terrified.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Nietzsche gave tart expression to the physical reality behind Pascal\u2019s anxiety in his remarkable early essay \u201cOn Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense.\u201d \u201cOnce upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThat was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of \u2018world history,\u2019 but nevertheless it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such cosmic expressions of metaphysical angst have an aspect of adolescent self-indulgence about them. As Jeeves observed to Bertie Wooster, there\u2019s something \u201cfundamentally unsound\u201d about Nietzsche.<\/p>\n

Still, since 2026 began with some big bangs\u2014ask Nicol\u00e1s Maduro about the bang in Caracas, ask the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (if you can find him) about the bang in Tehran\u2014it is worth pondering some local, pedestrian ways in which things that have already happened may finally reveal themselves in their true significance. Gregory of Tours (ca. 539\u201394) began his sprawling\u00a0History of the Franks<\/em>\u00a0with one of the most irrefragable sentences vouchsafed to humanity: \u201cA great many things keep happening, some of them good, some of them bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here we are at the summer solstice, the halfway point of the year, and many things have happened, some good, some bad, and some, like thelight emanating from a distant star, delayed in reaching us.<\/p>\n

Read more The United States: No Place Like Home<\/a><\/p>\n

The year opened with\u00a0Operation Absolute Resolve, the stunning military operation that simultaneously extracted Maduro from his fortified palace in Caracas, opened up Venezuelan oil to the U.S., and denied terrorist groups from Hamas, China, and Iran a safe haven in Venezuela. We are already feeling some of the benefits of that operation, but its full significance will, like distant starlight, take months or years to become fully manifest.<\/p>\n

It is the same with the effects of\u00a0Operation Epic Fury. In some 30 days, Trump destroyed Iran\u2019s navy, its air force and air defense network, huge swaths of its drone and ballistic missile stockpile, and most of its military industrial infrastructure. He also eliminated Iran\u2019s top leadership twice over, beginning with its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who was incinerated in the opening moments of the war. Trump and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent mounted a concerted economic assault on Iran, depriving the murderous regime of some $500 million a day, partly in lost oil revenue, partly through Bessent\u2019s pursuit of the leadership\u2019s foreign accounts. In brief, Operation Epic Fury, in partnership with Israel\u2019s Operation Roaring Lion, was perhaps the most successful military operation in history. As\u00a0Mark Thiessen noted, \u201cNo president in 47 years has done more damage to the Iranian regime than Trump has.\u201d<\/p>\n

That news hasn\u2019t filtered through the anti-Trump scrims that surround the legacy media. For them, destroying Iran\u2019s military capability and eliminating its leadership counts as \u201ccapitulation.\u201d That is a prominent meme in the bustling bazaar of anti-Trump static. Regarding the \u201cMemorandum of Understanding\u201d that is still being hammered out, Trump himself noted its provisional nature. \u201cIt\u2019s a memorandum of understanding,\u201d\u00a0he said\u00a0with some exasperation, \u201cand if I don\u2019t like it we\u2019ll go back to shooting at them and dropping bombs on their head.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similarly, the fact that Trump has been a better friend to Israel than any previous U.S. president is suddenly recast as a betrayal of Israel. The hysteria is remarkable.<\/p>\n

I thought that Mark Zell, Chairman of Republicans Overseas Israel, provided a useful corrective. In one post, he listed\u00a040-odd things\u00a0that Trump has done in his five and a half years as president to benefit Israel. In\u00a0another post, he began by noting that \u201cPresident Trump has not flipped or abandoned Israel. His support for the Jewish State and the Jewish People is incontestable.\u201d He went on to make two important points. One, Trump\u2019s exclusion of Israel from the Memorandum of Understanding was not (as some are claiming) a slight to Israel but rather a gift that \u201cgives Israel a free hand to protect its vital national security interests in Lebanon, Syria, and even Iran.\u201d Two, while admitting that there are aspects of the MOU that he doesn\u2019t like, Zell also insisted that Trump is dealing with the political reality of an impending election. \u201cPresident Trump,\u201d Zell noted,<\/p>\n

has decided that winning the November midterms and preventing the Dems from taking control of Congress is of paramount importance given the certainty that if this were to happen the opposition will seek to impeach him and derail his administration\u2019s foreign and domestic policies for the balance of his second term.<\/p>\n

That seems right to me. The \u201cbottom line,\u201d Zell concluded, is that \u201cthe relationship between Israel and the U.S. is strong and inviolable. Israel will protect its interests and so will the U.S. protect the American public, including 750,000 U.S. citizens in Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

It may take a while for the light generated by these episodes to arrive in the tenebrous redoubts of anti-Trump animus. When it does, expect the anti-Trump zealots to blink and rub their eyes while looking around for additional reasons to repudiate their greatest benefactor.<\/p>\n

Read more Are iPhones Dialing Up the Birth Dearth?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t recall exactly when it was that I learned that it took a bit more than eight minutes for the sun\u2019s light to reach us here on Earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-article"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Solstice of Our Discontent - Urban Economy news<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=596\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Solstice of Our Discontent - Urban Economy news\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I don\u2019t recall exactly when it was that I learned that it took a bit more than eight minutes for the sun\u2019s light to reach us here on Earth.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=596\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Urban Economy news\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-21T07:08:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?p=596#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?p=596\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/be7753cb687f443815cc81e8407f68ad\"},\"headline\":\"The Solstice of Our Discontent\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-21T07:08:44+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?p=596\"},\"wordCount\":1256,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?p=596#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/d4d1bc20f834acb87d7d5e8f2b224a32.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Featured Article\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?p=596#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?p=596\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?p=596\",\"name\":\"The Solstice of Our Discontent - Urban Economy news\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?p=596#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?p=596#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/d4d1bc20f834acb87d7d5e8f2b224a32.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-21T07:08:44+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/be7753cb687f443815cc81e8407f68ad\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?p=596#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?p=596\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?p=596#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/d4d1bc20f834acb87d7d5e8f2b224a32.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/d4d1bc20f834acb87d7d5e8f2b224a32.jpg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":1440},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?p=596#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Solstice of Our Discontent\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/\",\"name\":\"Urban Economy news\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/be7753cb687f443815cc81e8407f68ad\",\"name\":\"admin\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"admin\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\"],\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?author=1\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Solstice of Our Discontent - Urban Economy news","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=596","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Solstice of Our Discontent - Urban Economy news","og_description":"I don\u2019t recall exactly when it was that I learned that it took a bit more than eight minutes for the sun\u2019s light to reach us here on Earth.","og_url":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=596","og_site_name":"Urban Economy news","article_published_time":"2026-06-21T07:08:44+00:00","author":"admin","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"admin","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=596#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=596"},"author":{"name":"admin","@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/#\/schema\/person\/be7753cb687f443815cc81e8407f68ad"},"headline":"The Solstice of Our Discontent","datePublished":"2026-06-21T07:08:44+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=596"},"wordCount":1256,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=596#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/d4d1bc20f834acb87d7d5e8f2b224a32.jpg","articleSection":["Featured Article"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=596#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=596","url":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=596","name":"The Solstice of Our Discontent - Urban Economy news","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=596#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=596#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/d4d1bc20f834acb87d7d5e8f2b224a32.jpg","datePublished":"2026-06-21T07:08:44+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/#\/schema\/person\/be7753cb687f443815cc81e8407f68ad"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=596#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=596"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=596#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/d4d1bc20f834acb87d7d5e8f2b224a32.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/d4d1bc20f834acb87d7d5e8f2b224a32.jpg","width":2560,"height":1440},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=596#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Solstice of Our Discontent"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/","name":"Urban Economy news","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/#\/schema\/person\/be7753cb687f443815cc81e8407f68ad","name":"admin","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"admin"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com"],"url":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?author=1"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}