The death of George Floyd continues to bring into focus how people of color face different scrutiny and that makes them more vulnerable to police violence.

I’ll be the first to say that I’m a 60 year old white man who lives with white privilege. I’m a hospice chaplain who (frankly) looks like a doctor and I’m able to take respect for granted.

But when I was about 14 I went on a bike ride with my next door neighbor Andy who is black. It was a hot day and we stopped at a convenience store to buy a soft drink. There was a sign on the door that stated that only one teenager at a time was allowed in the store but we ignored that and went into the store together. The woman behind the counter demanded that we stop immediately and one of us needed to leave and pointed to the sign.

Enraged, we both left. I couldn’t believe that this woman, who knew nothing of us, looked at us as possible thieves. She knew nothing about us. She didn’t know that we were both honor students with strong moral compasses who were guilty of nothing more than thirst. She didn’t know that my friend was a boy scout who, a few years later, would blast classical music when he worked on his car in the driveway.

I’ve thought about this a great deal in the last 46 years. As an adult I know that I can enter a store and not be followed by an employee who wants to make sure I’m not there to shoplift. I know that even if I do something suspicious they will assume I’m OK.

But here’s the thing: my black friend never had the luxury. My bike riding companion who became an Eagle Scout is now a 59 year old black man who now knows that if he tries to spend a $20 bill that turns out to be counterfeit he may die.

This is wrong. I haven’t seen him in nearly 40 years but I think of him whenever I hear about black men who are killed by law enforcement for actions that would have been different if they were white.

I pray he’s OK.

From the middle of the 20th Century we’ve seen conflict in the Middle East. As Americans we’ve often looked through the lens of Israel and their Arab neighbors. But the Middle East is more complex.

Eight years ago, in 2011, a civil war broke out in Syria. Any conflict in this part of the world complicates easy answers and I wrote about this conflict here.

I described the war as having three sides: President Assad, revolutionary Syrians, and Isis. The United States supported Syrians who wanted to overthrow Assad and we allied ourselves with the Kurds. The Kurds are an ethnic group in the Middle East.

The end of World War I redrew the map of Eastern Europe and the Middle East and the Kurds hoped they would be recognized as the nation of Kurdistan. Unfortunately that didn’t happen (and if you want to read an excellent book on this I recommend Paris 1919). The Kurds found themselves living in parts of Eastern Turkey, Northern Syria, and Western Iran, and Western Iraq.

In 1991 the United States invaded Iraq to counter Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Then President George H.W. Bush encouraged Iraq’s population to rise up and overthrow Saddam Hussein. The Kurds in northern Iraq did just that. But once the United States forces liberated Kuwait we pulled out, and Saddam Huessin turned his guns on those who followed President Bush’s encouragement. Saddam Hussein used poison gas to slaughter the Kurds.

Fast forward to Syria. When the United States decided to support Syrians who wanted to overthrow Assad we also decided to support the Kurds who populated Northern Syria and opposed Assad. This troubled Turkey because the Kurdish population in Eastern Turkey have wanted independence since 1919. Some of the Kurds formed a terrorist group called the PKK in the 1970s. Since then Turkey has viewed all Kurds as possible members of the PKK.

So here’s the question: Is there overlap between the PKK and the Kurds in Syria who wish to overthrow Assad? Turkey is clear: these aren’t two groups, but one. Allow the Syrian Kurds any encouragement and they will use their power to fight against Turkey. Frankly, I haven’t found proof of this, and not for lack of trying.

And now enter President Trump. On October 7th he tweeted that we are pulling our troops out of Syria. I imagine he thought this would be seen as a good thing as he has often promised to keep out people safe.

It didn’t happen like he thought. The Kurds have (once again) been good allies. In addition to fighting against Assad’s troops they have also successfully rounded up and imprisoned members of Isis. But now the Kurds need to pull out of guarding the members of Isis and fight the Turks.

The freeing of Isis fighters makes us less secure, but it also reminds the Kurds that the United States is not trustworthy.

Going forward the Middle East will continue to be a volatile place. I don’t think it’s in our best interest to become an isolationist nation and pretend that what happens in other parts of the world don’t matter (and I hope that 9/11 makes my point). Our retreat from Syria does nothing more than make us less safe and tell the Kurds that only idiots believe promises made by the United States.

After World War II the Korean peninsula was divided into North Korea and South Korea. During the Cold War North Korea aligned with the Soviet Union and South Korea aligned with the United States. Five years after the end of World War II the Korean Peninsula became the first flashpoint of the Cold War when North Korea and its ally the People’s Republic of China invaded South Korea.

The United States and several other United Nations countries fought back. Nobody won the war and on July 27, 1953 both sides signed an agreement to stop fighting. Technically, the Korean War never ended.

Since 1953 North and South Korea have lived an uneasy peace. The border between their nations soon became the DMZ or “demilitarized zone.” The DMZ has famously become the most heavily armed border in the world. Both nations faced the fear of an invasion from the other side.

This uneasy balance was upset in 2005 when North Korea announced it had developed nuclear weapons. The United States developed the nuclear bomb during World War II and used it to force the Japanese to surrender in World War II. A few years later the Soviet Union developed similar nuclear capabilities. For the next three decades most of the world accepted the fact that these two superpowers had the capability to destroy the world and prayed they wouldn’t.

But other nations also worked to join the “nuclear club.” We’re not entirely certain who belongs to this club, but North Korea’s announcement ushered in a new concern. North Korea did well after the Korean War under the sponsorship of the Soviet Union, but when the Soviet Union broke apart in 1991 it was no longer able to support North Korea (or Cuba, or Poland, or, well, you get the idea).

Famously they suffered a famine in the 1990s caused by a combination of lack of Soviet support and unusually high rain levels in 1995 and 1996. North Korea also insisted they didn’t need help. There’s no way to know how many North Koreans starved but it’s agreed it was substantial.

By that time the first ruler of North Korea, Kim Il Sung (1912-1994) had died and he was succeeded by his son Kim Jong Il (1941-2011) who oversaw the nuclear program while refusing international aid to feed his people.

This caused a great deal of concern with the rest of the world as North Korea was seen as both unstable and dangerous. Anyone who develops nuclear weaponry can use it. It was generally assumed that Kim Jong Il desperately wanted respect and “a seat at the nuclear table,” and it was not given. He was treated by most of the rest of the world not as an adult but as a nut case. We feared this unstable leader would use his nuclear power as a lethal temper tantrum.

But in 2011 Kim Jong Il died and was succeeded by his son, Kim Jong Un (b.1983). He was incredibly young and inexperienced and we all held our breath. At the time the United States was led by President Barack Obama. Like his predecessors President Obama worked hard to encourage a stable North Korean government.

And it all changed on January 20, 2017. Donald Trump entered the White House and decided he was the man to “fix” North Korea. And that’s fine except instead of negotiating with Kim Jong Un, he craved North Korea’s approval. In fairness he did once refer to Kim as “Little Rocket Man” in 2017 (and leaving himself open to be called Honky Cat) but hasn’t done that since.

Instead he now speaks about how they “fell in love.” Last year I wrote about this and explained that Kim gave away nothing and Trump cancelled joint exercises with South Korea to prepare for a possible North Korean invasion.

This has to stop. Kim has figured out that he doesn’t need to give up his nuclear status while at the same time ensuring that the United States won’t confront him on anything substantial.

Meanwhile he has turned his back on our allies. A year ago he called Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dishonest and weak. The next month he turned on German Chancellor Angela Merkel, saying Germany has made itself a captive to Russia. And most recently he called Britain’s Prime Minister Teresa May foolish.

Let’s face it: we have a president who craves the approval of dictators and turns his back on our allies. The 2020 election can’t happen soon enough.

As I write this we approach the 26th day of the partial government shutdown. We’ve had shutdowns before but this is our longest.

This shutdown does not affect all federal employees and is called a “partial shutdown.” But that’s little comfort to those are not being paid. And those who are not being paid are divided into two groups: essential and non-essential.

The non-essential federal employees cannot work and are not being paid. Essential employees must work and are not being paid. So what’s the difference? Good question.

I believe that all federal employees are essential because they serve all of us. In the past few days I’ve suggested that we abandon essential and non-essential and instead use the words safety related and non safety related. This made some sense because safety related employees guard our safety (e.g. the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Transportation Security Administration) and we can’t function without them. But other agencies provide essential services that don’t endanger our safety.

But here’s where it get complicated for our President: as the shutdown continues we’re finding that his base may suffer from his unwillingness to care about the work that our federal employees do. As a candidate he promised to improve the lives of American farmers and by overwhelming numbers they voted for him. But his protectionist policies make their lives more difficult because other nations reduce how much they purchase from us. We can see soybean farmers as an example.

In response to this Mr. Trump allocated subsidies to soybean farmers. Some of them grumbled that they chose farming to grow crops, not to cash checks but I haven’t heard of anyone who refused to cash the checks.

But the government shutdown has meant that farmers aren’t getting their checks.

Today we received word that 2500 federal employees were ordered back to work to ensure these farmers get their checks.

In other words, 2500 federal employees who haven’t been paid since the government shut down are now ordered back to work without pay so that the President can ensure that the minority of Americans who voted for him will continue to receive checks for not farming.

It’s hard to imagine that anything will make him care for the people who work for him and stop pandering to his base.