VEYRIER, Switzerland — In a leafy glade straddling the French border, among headstones chiseled with the Star of David, it aches to see a world sleepwalk toward what may be another great war with the same intolerance and apathy that sparked the last one.

Reality bites hard in haunting silence at the Cimetière Israélite among victims of an elected madman who during my lifespan exterminated millions of Jews and other “non-Aryans.”

In nearby Annemasse, France, the municipality is restoring torture cells Nazis built in the old Hôtel Pax. Peace Hotel. Young women in the Resistance imprisoned there chose awful death rather than reveal escape routes that saved Jewish children.

The Maison de Mémoire recalls those forgotten words: Never Again. Yet in Israel and Gaza, opposing forces kill innocents en masse. Some soldiers under that Star of David use torture to interrogate. In the West Bank, Jewish settlers evoke a dreaded memory: pogroms.

MORE

AMPUS, France — Hulking boar called sangliers and assorted rodents dominated high-country Provençal fauna when I came here in the 1980s. The pigs trampled rock terraces and uprooted plants. Rats infested homes and barns. They were no big deal.

Olive groves, amber waves of grain and vineyards thrived with reliable winter cold snaps and tolerably hot summers. Rivers swelled in spring. Snowmelt recharged the eau de la montagne subsurface water that Marcel Pagnol made famous.

All creatures great and small ate their fill. Hunter friends grilled sanglier chops on olivewood coals. Miranda the cat kept rodents on the run. We barely noticed early shifts in biodiversity as nature began culling humans from the mix.

Today, Porcus trumpus and Rattus muskiana, invasive subspecies from North America, threaten Provence and everywhere else. The risk goes far beyond ecological balance. Donald Trump and Elon Musk have my vote as the two most dangerous men on Earth.

MORE

WILD OLIVES, France — Finally, a gleam of hope tinged with euphoria cut through despair down my rutted road in deepest Provence.

America soon might have a leader who speaks plainly and carries a big law book. Its porcine ex-president, intent on an Orwellian Animal Farm where self-anointed pigs rule hapless beasts of burden, now faces a border collie with a taste for pork chops.

Kamala Harris is ready to take on the world. She works hard in the shadows to rally allies and face down adversaries. Joe Biden, spared backbiting from faithless politicians and gotcha reporters, can be a wise old dog who teaches her his old tricks.

MORE

GENEVA — On a planet already gasping for air while playing nuclear chicken in unwinnable wars between the despotic and the desperate, shunting aside Joe Biden as a doddering has-been would be about the dumbest thing imaginable.

His normal aging is different from the pathology of a malevolent sociopath who feeds off vengeful destruction. Yet the media mainstream relays Donald Trump’s venom with little comment while zeroing in on every tic and twitch of a remarkably effective leader.

In today’s world, there is no time for on-the-job training. If Biden must cede the Oval Office to Kamala Harris, she is ready. Allies and adversaries alike take her seriously. With his counsel, contacts and aides already in place, she can provide vital continuity.

But Democrats squabble over untested candidates — that circular firing squad Barack Obama warned of in 2016. Too many unreliable sources confuse inattentive voters. That favors Trump and a corrupted party with elaborate plans to cripple democracy.

MORE