The world never stops turning, of course, but when it is your turn to walk upon it the revolutions can be difficult to see. Even so, the speed of them now is hard to miss.

I am thinking of the changing place of our great country among 190-odd others. It is not the same as it was even a matter of months ago. Things I thought would come to pass in 10 years, maybe fewer by a couple, are now before us. Good things, believe it or not, at least on balance. We write in black ink, not red.

We come to another Memorial Day. We should look back a little, naturally, and then forward. Mostly we should look around.

Where to begin?

Two events in the past couple of weeks make an excellent place. One, there was the Seymour Hersh piece in the London Review of Books, wherein the curtain draws back on just how Navy SEALs came to kill Osama bin Laden. Two, there was John Kerry's journey to Sochi, wherein our beloved secretary of state—well, as beloved as any other—asked Vladimir Putin for help getting things done that America is powerless to accomplish alone.