Fukuyama on Trump, China and the Legacy of 9/11

HTML Perplexity
Follow-on to previous post
September 12, 2026

After relating my personal recollection of 9/11, here's a broader view by experts in the field. What struck me is nations and people seeking to be recognized and accepted as régimes evolved  - this was particularly acute for me & my parents as Hungarian refugees in the aftermath of 1956 - this piece frames that from both the migrant and the host perspectives against the canvas of before & after the fall of the Berlin Wall. 

AI composition follows.

In a new Ezra Klein Show episode, political scientist Francis Fukuyama revisits his 1992 book The End of History and the Last Man and explains how the post‑9/11 era helped set the stage for Donald Trump, U.S.–China rivalry, and today’s crisis of liberal democracy.

9/11... 25 years later!

hover mouse over: forward backward arrows, tap 3 dots: full caption

Update: see here a follow-on post contextualizing 9/11 today.

My second post written by me not AI (they're all prefaced as such), and nostalgia too: that was around being paid to hike in the Rockies 41 years go; this is more topical as an anniversary and as social commentary - more here on religious regimes causing same, & here on the Middle-East vs. the West - 9/11 was during my tenure in So.Cal. as an international marketing manager for a premier GIS firm.

That bright September morning started so normally... I was at a trade show in San Antonio TX, early to set up my both. A Saudi client touring the show floor before attending talks, invited me for coffee - a habit he proudly reminded me was Saudi not Italian - New York was one time zone ahead of us, so the attack happened early morning for us. This was early in the internet era, so our mobiles were for calling and texting, but neither for news nor for streaming - this was before iPhone mobiles and, say, Google apps - and as computer mapping and GIS were on the ascendant at that show, industry players had then-new big screen digital TVs only they could afford then. 

Nihahi Ridge

Update 1: Added two 'couleur locale' stories
Update 2: riff on a French literature and early travel to Southern Canadian Rocky Mtns.

Looking W toward the Front Ranges on Nihahi Ridge, S Alberta Rocky Mtn. Foothills

I spent the summer of 1985 in the Southern Canadian Rocky Mountains mapping the Front Ranges just past Nihahi Creek. This is in the Kananaskis Public Land Use Zone (PLUZ) of southwestern Alberta. A Park Ranger helicopter took our gear in, we hiked in and the chopper moved our camp twice. The third move never happened: forest fires in Southeaster British Columbia across the water divide requisitioned the chopper. So we left the gear behind, and Park Rangers called us when the chopper was free to pick up our gear at the local Ranger Station North of Canyon Creek, the next creek North of Little Elbow Creek access point to Nihahi Ridge.

From a Mystery Acreage SW of Calgary to Zahava Hanen’s Ranch and Andy Russell

 HTML: Perplexity AI
Source: Susan Hornburg acreage SW of Calgary AB 1989
September 9, 2026 

AI‑generated c/w Dad’s Chinook Arch, Foothills near Calgary, early spring light

It started with a fragment: “Susan Hornburg, acreage SW of Calgary, 1989.” No address, no legal description—just a name, a direction, and a year. Enough to suggest a real place and a real life, but not enough to pin down in any public index.

Remote Sensing to investigate Geography & Geomorphology

 HTML: Perplexity AI
Source: "[NYT video] Who are Christof Koettl..." 
Date: 8 September 2026

Former Guardian & twitter now Google data journalist Simon Rogers said “Comment is free, but facts are sacred”, after C.P. Scott's 1921 Guardian motto. Read on for a textbook case in today's New York Times.

click to enlarge, Google Earth screen grab by author

Perplexity AI starts here.

From a Stone in Parc Beaumont to a Former Latin Teacher

HTML: Perplexity AI

Source: What is the significance of this stele

Date  6 September 2026

"Learn a new thing a day" my late gran said, "and you shall stay young". I remember my late Latin prof at the Lycée in Pau tracing down Allées de Morlaas... she certainly stayed young!

click to enlarge

It began with an unassuming granite stele in the Parc Beaumont in Pau. Set among the trees, it bears a globe in relief and a large Latin injunction:

Two Zones, One Goal: Alberta's Northern and Southern Queen‑Breeding Work in the 1980s

HTML: Perplexity AI

Source: Alberta beekeeping industry vs. US etc.

Date: 5 September 2026

Pallet from overwintering, separator keeps queen & brood below honey above, enclosure against cattle & deer in rancher's field, Priddis, Alberta, AI reconstructed by writer beekeeper 1980-1990, photographs not available.

A beekeeper's recollection, 1980–1990 • Alberta Beekeepers Association • Northern & Southern Zones

From Herefordshire to the Canadian Prairies: a route map for Hereford cattle

HTML: Perplexity AI

Source: Are hereford basic beef cattle in W Canada

Date: 5 September 2026

Hereford bull. Photo by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Climate Change, Floods, and Earthquakes in the Early Old Testament

HTML: Perplexity AI

Source: Is there any evidence that beginning of old testament was subjected to climate change, desertification, plagues, floods and earthquakes

Date: 4 September 2026

Question: with increasing climate variability, the question arises "has this happened before?". The Old Testament being so violent and reaching so far back in time, the second question arises "is that violence related to climate catastrophe?".

Overview | Climate & Desertification | Floods | Earthquakes | Cores | Key Papers | Class Notes (Short) | References

Overview

There is no direct archaeological or geological proof that the opening chapters of the Old Testament were physically altered by climate change, plagues, floods, or earthquakes. However, multiple lines of paleoclimate, geological, and archaeoseismological evidence show that the ancient Near East experienced significant Holocene climate variability, desertification trends, major local floods, and frequent earthquakes. Many scholars argue that the early Genesis narratives (Creation, Flood, patriarchal famines, Sodom and Gomorrah, etc.) were shaped by, and reflect memory of, these real environmental crises. [1][2][3][4][5]

Velayat‑e Faqih: Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Vatican, and Jewish Tradition

HTML: Perplexity AI
Backstory Kuwaiti Blog
Date: 3 September 2026

Part I – Initial Enquiry

This post explains the doctrine of velayat‑e faqih (“guardianship of the jurist”) that structures Iran’s political system, then compares it with two other religion‑state models—Saudi Arabia’s Islamic monarchy and the Vatican’s papal theocracy—and with Jewish tradition, which develops a rich legal‑religious system (halakha) but does not instantiate a modern, centralized theocratic state. The aim is to clarify how different traditions conceive the relationship between religious authority and political sovereignty, especially as Iran faces a succession crisis around its new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei. [1][2][5][8][9][10]

AI help example

Here is something off-beat, as I closed socials and blog posting, as per my main blog.

Update: Nature article on the continuing relevance of Young's experiment.

The question

One day I remembered the famous double-slit experiment - handy intro to quantum physics in the news - I actually remembered it partially wrong, as this   v e r y   l o n g   AI conversation will reveal: it starts correcting me with French resources as I'm in France, and I asked to switch to English ones incl. Feynman's original, but check this: it ended up proposing online experiment analogs to try out myself! And as I'm new to Python (this century's standard coding, I go back last century to Java & HTML), I asked for Python tools to load so-called Jupyter Notebooks (Wikipedia).