The Cosmopolitan Globalists wish our Christian friends the merriest of Christmases.
Our annual tradition
Now, for the rest of you, it’s time for our annual tradition: Jewish Christmas!
To our Druze, Jewish, Rastafarian, Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, Sikh, Bahá’í, Shinto, Orthodox Christian, Zoroastrian, Manichaean, Bábist, Confucian, Muslim, Taoist, Wicca, Druid, Santeria, Falun Gong, and plain old Godless friends, we wish you a Merry Jewish Christmas, one and all, with Chinese food, a movie, and a good traditional kvetch that everything’s closed and there’s nothing to do.
This year on Christmas, like last year, we’ve opened the comments section on this post to everyone, for free. Just for today, you don’t have to be a paying subscriber to meet one another, chat with us, and tell us what you’d like us to write about this year. So come on over and introduce yourself. Movie recommendations, anyone?
Global Eyes, Christmas edition
Today: Good news only.
More than 10,000 Russian troops returning to bases after drills near Ukraine. Want to know what this means? So do we. CG Vladislav Davidzon will be on France24 English at 9:00 pm Paris time to discuss it.
Here’s Princess Kate playing a Christmas carol. (Poshlost as the day is long, but it’s Christmas, so why not.)
Hopes grow that nuclear fusion is finally for real. The holy grail! If you missed it, here’s CG Owen Lewis explaining how this works.
NASA launches James Webb space telescope. CG Robert Zubrin is thrilled:
The pampered cats of the Hermitage. There have been cats in the Hermitage ever since the days of the Elizabeth Petrovna, and they even have their own PR flack:
A gallery of the winning photos from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest. Just stunning, all of them:
Rudolf Nureyev and Merle Park’s pas de deux from The Nutcracker:
From CG Toomas Hendrik Ilves:
From CG Monique Camarra:
Also from CG Monique Camarra:
From CG Vivek Kelkar:
And finally, Merry Christmas from my cat, CG Süleyman the Magnificent, who is hoping that today, at long last, we will celebrate with General Tso’s tuna.
All of us at the Cosmopolitan Globalist wish our readers around the world the merriest of Christmases.
Kisses from us all.
Merry Boxing Day! I took Jewish Christmas too seriously and didn't go online. Looking forward to more CG content in the new year.
Merry Christmas and a possible discussion point for next year. I have really liked the two Twitter Space discussions the CG has hosted to date on the French election but I have a more philosophical question. That is along the lines of this YouTube discussion I was watching below this evening, does Macron want the Euro to either curb or outright replace the reserve currency status of the US dollar and what are the odds of him actually having success in achieving this through his European policies and what are the implications for the United States. To the extent that while Putin and Xi might "complain" about the US dollar but are unwilling to give up the authoritarian nature of their respective regimes as the video below suggested thus making it impossible for either country to get reserve currency status is Macron as more liberal small d democratic leader actually a greater threat to taking away something many Americans think of as their birthright.
My initial thoughts are yes Macron does want the Euro to be a reserve currency perhaps just as previous French leaders have wanted but I think probably wants it "more" than his immediate predecessors. Second his success with Eurobonds, Brexit, and Merkel's retirement(Merkel being more sceptical of the Euro trying to go for reserve status against the US dollar) have allowed Macron to get much closer that France was say five years ago yet still relatively far away. So what Macron gets on this front in the next five years actually could be a really big deal vis a vis the US. I know on the last Twitter space it was discussed that Macron might go for a Eurobonds part 2 or part 3.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tw_RnGvhz4g