#A-TO-Z-CHALLENGE – LETTER “P” - PUTIN'S CONDOLENCES TO ORLANDO

                                                                                                                    

            Спасибо, Россия .

Спасибо, президент Путин .

Warning: Be prepared for one long post!

Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm still farting around with the A-to-Z-CHALLENGE. I'm all the way up to Letter “P”, but as per usual, my crazy life has intervened. The five kittens are all healthy and growing like weeds. The little lavender female is the most adventurous and friendliest of the bunch, although they all are friendly and sweet. The big ginger-swirl kitten had something wrong with his nose, I thought, until I realized he was just falling asleep head-first into his food dish. They're pretty well-potty trained, and are ready for the part I'm gonna dread; deciding who gets to stay and who has to go. My fixed income will not allow for five cats. I already feel like I'm feeding livestock, and on some days, I could probably plow the kitchen floor and plant crops; they're so messy. But, they're kittens, and they're just at the very tippy-point of learning to be fussy cats, (they've started grooming one another) with all the licking and preening and what not.

Once again, the Wallace gene strikes. Out of the roughly 45,000 pictures I took of these little boogers, these are the only two that show anything resembling "kitten". I have tons of murky, blurry out-of-focus pics for my nascent "Paranormal TV" career, which will start just as soon as I get back from Japan, unless I just keep going east to Novosibirsk to play in their orchestra.

But, life intervened in another very surprising and spectacular way recently. I've been playing again, as many of you know, and as it turns out, I am going to Japan in January, 2017 to play for the entire month. I signed the contract last week. I've gotten my paperwork ready for my passport and Alex and I are going to go down to the Clerk of the County Courthouse to apply. He needs to renew his passport, as his dad in the D. R. isn't getting any younger, so we're doing this together.

courtesy: www.insidejapantours.com

The last time I was in Japan, it was in the heat of August. This time, it will be winter and I am really looking forward to this. The country is gorgeous. We will NOT be playing any "Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto", but a combination of well-known sound-tracks from movies on the first half of the concert and then, we will back, "well-known Japanese Matinee-type singers". Not too sure what that means, but I'm assured a fun and first-class trip! Being a red-head is a plus. We bring good luck to the Japanese. I still have no gray hair; I just dole it out to people.

Anyway, I'm glad I got a head start on this, because the entire orchestra's passports are handed over to the Japanese Embassy here, for work visas and such, and they will be returned to us, when we all meet up in Orlando, on January 2, 2017, to rehearse. And this brings me to the nut of this post.

Orlando was horrific. In a country where the horrifying seems to occur with stultifying, mind-numbing frequency and the death-toll keeps rising, each atrocity is just piled on top of one more atrocity. It doesn't surprise me in the least, that this latest massacre exceeded the death-toll, executed by a single agent, for whatever weird, twisted, although probably logical reason, to him, EVER. Most assuredly, at some point, this death-toll will be topped.

courtesy: www.huffingtonpost.com

Medical teams awaiting 1st responders. I do not know if all of the survivors were treated at one center, and in a case like this, the morgue will not be overflowing, because cause of death is apparent. What is so mystifying to me, is this: in any of these tragedies, the people committing these crimes have such a burning hatred and sustain it for so long. They have to get the weapons, ammunition, and explosives (as in James Moore's case, when he booby-trapped his apartment in Aurora, CO and it took authorities about 72 hours to get into his place) and plan, then execute their plan. I'm a bit of a sociopath, when it comes to harming people, but I do it only out of necessity and have NEVER lost a night's sleep over it. I know two muggers who are still running; but I would NEVER do anything like this. My mind simply cannot conceive of doing anything remotely like this.

When this happened, people were once again, trotting out labels: “Radical Muslim”, “terrorist act”, “hate crime” (they're all hate crimes; this is the stupidest, most reductive term; like “hate” speech – meaningless), and what I think has been missed in this case, as in the Root case, but was so patently obvious in the James Moore and the Sandy Hook shootings, is mental illness. Omar Mateen was abusive to his first wife, hated African-Americans, hated women, yet had a friendship with a Drag Queen. Again, people are trying to apply a label to someone, who is so complex, you really cannot do so and do anyone, or any group of people justice. I'm not even sure this is something gun control can fix, nor is it even an argument I want to have. Both sides have their points, but, as far as background checks and all of that, even the FBI had to give up on Mateen, when an investigation went nowhere. I've survived three home invasions; the most serious one being the one where I DIDN'T have a gun, but a lamp, then six weeks later, a colleague is killed; beaten beyond recognition and there were guns in the house. I believe it's all about attitude. I can be one scary bitch if I have the incentive, and two black guys hovering over me while I was asleep, was all the incentive my lizard-brain needed to go bipolar; it was over quickly. A gun would not have made an iota of difference.

It's rather like the sex offender who, once again, in Orlando, answered his door, only to be attacked by a young man. The s. o., who had been out for 20 years and was living a quiet life and registering, because he is required to, by law, and by law, is also not given the privacy that the rest of us are given – his address is readily available via the Internet - fought back and held the young man, until the police came. When the young man was asked why he attacked the s.o. - and it turned out later, others, he said “To seek forgiveness with God for sins I have committed.” That answer right there, is reason enough to do away with the Registry and allow people who have already served sentences and are on the straight and narrow – 95% of s.o.s do not re-offend, and 90% of s.o.s are known by their victims – to live in anonymity. Even law enforcement are coming around to see this for what it is; over-reaction. Something America is good at.

What we are not so good at is equality, nor freedom, nor safety for our citizens. If anyone in our society deems it necessary to go to a social club or a place of “sanctuary” to feel safe, or to be themselves, then guess what folks? Not a damn one of us are safe or free or equal. We have become even more short-sighted about this since the campaign for the 2016 elections have heated up. Never has the country been so divided on so many courses and that is intentional. Just because I don't like what Donald Trump has to say, doesn't mean I'm going to lay one up aside the head of a Trump supporter. How stupid is that? I've created a martyr. Same thing for the idiots who are for Bernie! I like Bernie, but if he doesn't win the Candidacy for the Dems, I'm not going to start terrorizing or smacking around Hillary supporters.

courtesy: www.youtube.com

I love these assholes who say their votes don't matter, so they don't vote. Sorry pal, but you live in a country where you pay taxes and you do benefit from the goods and services of our local, State and Federal government, so yes, you are obligated to vote. It would help if you knew how the government is supposed to work, and what the three branches of the Federal Government are, and why they are set up to check and balance one another. It would also be a terrific idea if you knew what the Bill of Rights was and how it applies to your everyday life, because it does. I hate to say it, but Americans are some of the stupidest, laziest people I've ever run across, yet they are the first ones to stand up and holler about how great this Goddamned country is. Maybe 40 years ago, but not now, and not in my lifetime.

I have never seen people get so hysterical over an election and I thought 2012 was crazy. But, I digress, or got off the beaten path a bit, because this is a micro- version of what is going on in the macro- geopolitical world stage.

It is known, or should be known by Western Leaders, that Vladimir Putin is not a “regular guy” leader. Boris Yeltsin was, maybe. Mikhail Gorbachev is more of a Philosopher and his writings and his legacy that he left the world, by opening the USSR to the west reflects that, for good or ill. It was Winston Churchill, who once said of the USSR “It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.” So much for Winnie.

courtesy: www.history.com

Winston Churchill. His was probably one of the most adroit and astute minds of the 20^th Century. Whether it was guiding his country through World War II, and coming whisker-close to losing the war during the Battle of Britain, or negotiating with the very astute and conniving Joseph Stalin and having to be the more realistic of the pair, with both FDR and the Harry Truman, after FDR's death, Winnie was able to handle it all. 

Probably the main reason the people remained so mysterious to him, is that he was always looking at them from a great height; the geopolitical height, rather than getting down on the proletariat's level and understanding them and their lives and how they lived. Of course, he would never have been allowed to do such a thing; Stalin would never have permitted anything like that and for generations, the USSR apparatchiki strove hard to make sure that nothing but perfection ever radiated forth from the gigantic monolith that was CCCP¹.

courtesy: blogs.crikey.com.au

Joseph Stalin, from the SSR Georgia, born Josip Vissarionovich Djugashvili, he later changed his surname to "Stalin", Russian for "Steel". Technically, a colleague of mine, due to an education by Jesuit Priests, however, he took away the parts that he could use to manipulate and cow others around him. Lenin's last will and testament originally stated that Stalin should not even be part of the Politburo, much less Premiere of the USSR. Upon Lenin's death, Stalin had all of the copies of that last will and testament found and destroyed, and systematically over approximately a decade, he did away with everyone who had that will and testament in their possession. Paranoid in the extreme, once he had finished decimating the top leadership in the Politburo and had driven Trotsky (the Architect of the Red Army) to Mexico City, and finally assassinated in 1940, he turned to the Red Army Generals and began decimating them. When Germany attacked on June 22, 1941, Stalin had little to counter with, and had to re-build his army, as he was fighting off an invasion, that saw the Nazis as close as six city blocks from Moscow. Stalin's USSR bore the stamp of his rule, well into the 80s, until Mikhail Gorbachev began his program of first "Perestroika" (Listen) and then "Glasnost" (Openness).

courtesy:wikipedia.com

Hey! It's me again! I must admit. I'm a sucker for this old Soviet-era style of artwork. I play on Russian fb (vkomte.ru) and there are all sorts of games featuring cats in Soviet-style Navy uniforms and such. I'm an idiot.

No, you had to catch them unawares and it turned out not so hard to do, because, they were, naturally, just people. People love to talk about the things that matter to them. The KGB agent who secretly baptizes his children. The gangly teenagers, who love the western jeans given them as gifts and have learned a sort of half-assed English to match your half-assed Russian. Everyone giggles at everyone else's gaffes, because it all sounds horrible.

No one really cares, though. It's fun and you all pretend your spies, tee hee. The Babushka who yells at you when you come out of your Moscow hotel in the morning with a hangover and your viola, and no hat or scarf, thankful, that yes, you were pulled from that snowbank by “Yuri” your “guide” - read KGB-escort - who was probably drunker than you were. You double-check to make sure he's not still in the gutter. Oh! Here he is, with blintzes and hot tea! You both laugh and look away, because, you're still not sure if you're going to be in trouble when you get to rehearsal. You're not, but decide to behave after that.

courtesy: 02varvara.wordpress.com

I happened across this by luck; a modern-day Cossack family, serving their country. The last I had heard of this was during what we call World War II, but what is known to Russia as the Great Patriotic War. When the men and women dismounted from their horses and turned in their swords, the men went into the T-34 tanks, that were churned out by the thousands east of the Urals, and shipped west, or they flew YAK fighters and bombers against the Nazis. The women fought alongside their men; often times as "night witches" flying wooden and cloth airplanes, that had no defenses, but carried bombs to drop on the supply lines and ammo dumps of the Nazis, behind enemy lines. The witches were highly successful and the women also fought alongside in the infantry, although this was much more common in the South than in the North.

courtesy: pinterest.com 

I'm not seeing a great, big mystery here, folks. Not anywhere. The Cossacks who went to the Great Patriotic War, went in families, as they had done for generations. I believe we had families who fought together in the Civil War, and some who took up arms against one another. In the case of the Cossacks and the Russians, they really had no choice. The Waffen SS were out to destroy them all. The parallel is a bit more apt, though, due to the humane practices of General Heinz Guderian or the Wehrmacht in the South, who actually began enlisting some of the Ukrainians and Southern Russians – whom Stalin would later execute for committing treason, understandably – after the Battles of Stalingrad and Kursk.

Truly, the only thing mystifying to me, about the Russians is that they have had more than their share of misery and hardship and heartache and yet, they can be so damn happy and not just because they drink vodka, which is one letter away from their word for water. Russian mysticism is something I DO understand, and it's partly because, as my mother used to say, I'm fey. What a laugh. I'm like 71% left-brained, and not really dominated by any magical thinking, although I do have a tendency to wander off a bit, and not just rhetorically.

So, let me get to the point of this whole entire post, regarding Vladimir Putin. He called President Barack Obama, and gave the President his heartfelt condolences, regarding Orlando. People seemed stunned by this, regarding Putin's “stance” on the LGBTQ segment of the population in his own country. I think some of his own citizens may have been a little questioning, and then when they thought about it, their very Russianness took over and they went back to what they were doing.

You may remember a post I wrote on the lovely tear-drop Memorial that was commissioned by Russia and is overlooking the New York Skyline. It is in Bayonne, New Jersey and when I was researching that post, I found out some interesting things. Vladimir Putin was there when the Memorial was first dedicated, and building began, and it had already been decided to build it in Bayonne, because the majority of the Fire fighters who died in the twin collapse were from Bayonne. The Memorial also overlooks NYC when you look through the fissure where the “tear drop” dwells. President Bill Clinton was there when the Monument opened and Vladimir Putin and the Memorial's sculptor and Russia are very pleased with the results. You have to work to go and see it, and that's the point of it.

courtesy: cluesforum.info

This was written about in the Daily Mail out of the UK and it was written from the viewpoint of someone who thought that the U.S. had just put this here and not really cared about it at all. When I did some digging into why it was in this specific place and what it symbolized, I got it immediately. This is very Russian  in it's expression, placement and the spare quality of the overall look. Vladimir Putin was extremely pleased with the way it turned out, as was it's sculptor, Zurob Tsereteli and President Bill Clinton was on hand when the statue was completed and dedicated. Each victim's name is somewhere in or around the Memorial, and Mr. Putin was on hand himself as ground was broken, and building began.

This is something Putin understands; he may be very politically conservative, but he understands and does have respect for, human nature. By doing these things; he was the first Foreign Leader to call George W. Bush on 9/11, and by calling President Obama, he's showing that for whatever geopolitical crap is going on in the world, we're still the human family. Yes, Syria is a thorn, but Russia's goals there are not our goals and we would do well to remember that. Ukraine? I've said all along, that one day, they want one thing, the next something else; this is the result of several centuries of territorial conflict and inter-marrying. We have NO business being there, or advising there.

He reached out to us; that kind of moral support is indelible and invaluable. He is representing his people, and I believe expressing his own feelings – not that he's a soft, or sentimental guy, but he understands the shedding of blood in that way that Russians always seem to do, more so maybe, because of the nigh-on close to extinction they've either suffered at the hands of others, or alas, themselves, in ages past, and my experiences with Russians have always been more on the positive side than the negative. Just because our current geopolitical views aren't in harmony doesn't make the Russians or their President monsters. They are flesh-and-blood human beings. With his gesture, he is reaching out to us, and we should respond in kind.

courtesy: www.huffingtonpost.com 

I myself have made fun of ol' Vlad "the Impaler" Putin. Usually when he's riding a bear without a shirt on, or some other nonsense. In this case, I have to say, "Thank you, Mr. Putin". Just because I don't always agree with your politics, okay, well, most of your politics, doesn't mean that I can't recognize one person reaching out, literally and an entire country reaching out figuratively with good wishes and healing vibes. You've done it in the past. Thank you.

I'm not making excuses for the Russians, nor am I giving them a pass. All cultures and histories, are blood-soaked at some point, or another. The old adage of “those who do not learn history's lessons are doomed to repeat them,” is really a tired and worn out one, I think. We just seem to invent new ways to inflict misery upon one another. We have no farther than our own “Trail of Tears” in the U.S.'s recent past to see how evil and conniving people can be, when it comes to the extermination of those we think are beneath us.

I have heard through my little grapevine that things are not as bad for LGBT people as they seem. I don't know if I believe it, however. I do know this: there seems to be an awful lot of looking the other way and demonstrating that passes unnoticed by the "official eyes", so who knows what the hell is going on. Without being in Russia, on the ground, it's hard to believe what you're hearing. Again, I defer to Mr. Churchill on this.

Yes, Russia is having a bad time of it in Ukraine, and some of their policies in Syria have made their economy sag a bit. None of that is relevant. It's not as if the U.S. hasn't blundered into some quagmires and had her nose bloodied. President Putin is not Stalin, nor a monster; he's simply a man, the leader of Russia who is extending sympathy and wishing for a speedy recovery for the injured. Putting aside the issue with his stance on LGBTQ people, I find it a humane and reassuring gesture, coming from him and his people. Thank you, Russia. Thank you, Mr. Putin.

GORBACHEV'S WARNING AND THE FALLACY OF A “SHARED VISION”* - WE SAY GOODBYE TO LUDWIG; FOR NOW

When Mikhail Gorbachev was Premiere of the USSR he first adopted perestroika (перестро́йка), in the mid-80s, along with glasnost (гла́сность) and primarily did so to try and restore a moribund USSR to some kind of economic pre-eminence that it had really never enjoyed, not even under Stalin. To be sure, the power-house that was the USSR had done amazing things, such as improve it's literacy rate from less than 5% to over 95% under Lenin's first five-year plan, even while fighting a civil war with the Royalists; it was Trotsky's magnificent pen and organizational abilities that allowed the Red Army to be built, fight and finally prevail against arrayed enemies sent from Poland and even from the U.S. In an attempt to halt the rise of Bolshevism. But Communism was an idea that took firm root under the hands of Lenin, Trotsky, Bukharin, Kamenev, Zinoviev, et al. and would have remained rather benign had not Lenin died prematurely in January of 1924.

Russian Postage Stamp, circa 1988, celebrating Perestroika in the USSR

Copies of his Last Will and Testament had been distributed to several party members of the Duma and stated simply that under no circumstances should Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, better known as Stalin, be allowed to become Premiere, and preferably, should be reduced to a minor role; in short Stalin was dangerous, narcissistic and given to paranoia. Unfortunately, Stalin found out about the will and managed to reclaim every copy and then to do away with everyone who had possessed one. His long-simmering feud with Trotsky grew to epic proportions and Trotsky was forced into exile, all the way to Mexico City. Not content with having him even on the planet, Stalin had Trotsky assassinated in 1940.

Trotsky, my Russian Blue, not Leon Trotsky, the writer and Bolshevik Party Red Army Leader.

When Stalin died in 1953, his mark was firmly embedded on the USSR. The zeitgeist of the country was one of suspicion of outsiders, paranoia, a deep sense of inadequacy regarding it's place on the world stage and yet, a hatred of anything really new. At least that is how it would seem to a westerner. The reality, I believe was much different. The old USSR and now, Russia is a country of brilliant scientists, poets, artists and critical thinkers. It is also a country of some of the toughest people imaginable. No other country has been invaded so many times. They withstood sieges at Stalingrad and Leningrad. The Nazis made it as close as six blocks from the outskirts of Moscow, before the tide was turned against them. This is the country that lost anywhere between 20,000,000 to 55,000,000 people, both military and civilian, in World War II, while the USA suffered 450,000 casualties. The reason the numbers are so disparate is because, while “official” numbers tend to be lower, independent researchers, over the years, have painstakingly pored back over birth records and talked to surviving relatives, in villages in the west. The other issue is that so many people were also still sent to P.O.W. Camps and D.P. Zones (displaced persons) tended to be rather haphazard in identifying remains, as battle fronts were still fluid. Anyway, I digress.

Mikhail Gorbachev and Margaret Thatcher, in 1989

This is really about Mikhail Gorbachev and what he said recently on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Mr. Gorbachev was “elected” Premiere of the old-style Soviet Union after a series of gray-heads came and went. When Stalin died, Georgi Malenkov inherited all of Stalin's titles, but lost out within the month in a power struggle to Nikita Kruschev. As Premiere, no one dreamed that even with all of his shoe-banging and hollering about “burying the United States in the ash-heap of history” that he was a closet subversive and would allow Alexander Solzhenitsyn to publish his “A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” (an un-put-downable little tome about a little prisoner's day in the gulag) and THEN allow it's reprint in the west, where it was an instant sensation (READ IT! If you haven't, it's great!). Well, Nikita remained Premiere from 1955 until 1964, when while vacationing on the Black Sea, he was recalled by Leonid Brezhnev, and in a fiery clash, he was “let go” and basically declared a non-person; he quietly retired to a dacha on the Black Sea and is buried in the Novedevichy Cemetery, not in the Kremlin, although he was a Hero of Stalingrad. His son lives here in the United States, now and is a charming man.

courtesy: www.quotessays.com

Leonid Brezhnev became General Secretary until his death, and a series of “gray-heads” followed: Yuri Andropov, and Konstantin Chernenko. Their one constant was Andrei Gromyko, who also worked in concert with Eduard Shevardnadze (who along with Stalin, was also from the SSR, Georgia). Gromyko and Shevardnadze had been around during World War II and had negotiated with von Ribbentrop and were people who really got things done. But, again, I digress. When Gorbachev became General Secretary, in 1985 upon the death of Chernenko, he embarked on a series of reforms with the approval of his Cabinet (Duma).

Still, facing the west, with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher proved daunting at first, with the abjurement from President Reagan, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Shortly after that, Mr. Gorbachev announced his ideas for perestroika and glasnost, the two ideas wedded together, essentially meaning “transparency within government and a willingness to open a dialog with the west”. Although this was viewed positively in the west, it became a very hard sell for the Russians; once again, Mr. Gorbachev and his visionaries were battling centuries of suspicion of the west, paranoia and again, perversely a lack of self-confidence on the world stage – even Peter the Great bemoaned the fact that Russians were medieval, as he brought them kicking and screaming into the 1700s, in his effort to join the "enlightenment" then going on in western Europe.

Tsar Pyotr spent 18 months traveling incognito in the west and learned how to build ships and bridges, use telescopes and microscopes and build armies. What he didn't learn, he hired and brought home with him. For several years, he had Dutch and Scottish shipwrights, scientists and astronomers who were part of his vast retinue. Many stayed after his death and they are much written about in Neal Ascher's fine book, "The Black Sea". 

Nevertheless, the wall came down, as both sides really did wish to see this happen. With the fall of Eastern Germany, the rest of Eastern Europe was not far behind. Eduard Shevardnadze resigned and went home, to become Georgia's first ever President and to secure for his former SSR, it's lasting independence. Czechoslovakia broke into two separate states, which they had been under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Poland elected her first president. The Eastern Bloc was no more. Ukraine elected a president, but as a buffer state near Russia, Ukraine, like Belarus and Chechnya are unique. Ethnic Russians have lived in these countries for centuries and as such, they live and speak both Russian, Ukrainian, or Russian and whatever the home country's language is.

This presents a very unique problem for these regions and problems that we, in the west cannot begin to understand. Mr. Gorbachev has recognized this and addressed it today. “We are on the brink of a new Cold War. Some are saying that it's even begun.” This was said at an event marking the 25^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, close to the iconic Brandenburg Gate.

The Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany

Mr. Gorbachev's comments echoed those of Roland Dumas, France's Foreign Minister at the time the Berlin Wall fell. “Without freedom between nations, without respect of one nation to another, and without a strong and brave disarmament policy, everything could start over again tomorrow. Even everything we used to know, and what we called the Cold War.”

President Barack Obama seemed to share some of Mr. Gorbachev's concerns, but I feel that he really doesn't quite get it. Even Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher had a clearer understanding of what Russia and her place on the world stage is about. The conflict now in Ukraine is one, that is not about sovereignty so much as it is about appearances. What we perceive here in the west, is not how it really is in Ukraine. The ethnic Russians and ethnic Ukrainians have lived in that region for centuries. As I have mentioned before in my posts, they will feel one way one day about rule or directives from Russia, or a pro-Russian Leader, and then another way, another day. Then, there is Vladimir Putin himself. He will concern himself with Ukraine for a bit, and then get side-tracked by Syria. It was ever thus. Sanctions against Russia will not do anything but cause ill-will and frankly it is ill-will we really cannot afford. We in the west should frankly, butt out. One of the things the Russians DO NOT WANT from us is advice on how to run their internal affairs, and strictly speaking, this is still an “internal affair” even if it does involve another country.

courstesy of: readditing.com

The perfect map for "busy Americans on the go..." circa 2012, but hey, wait five minutes and it changes, and then changes back, so, this could all be correct, again. The "Commies" part of it is still in play, I believe, and some may have moved farther south to Sevastapol. Whatever. This is a good example for why we should keep our noses and sanctions to ourselves.

President Obama is using a fallacious argument by paying “tribute to the East Germans who pushed past the East German guards to flee to the west”. This is a wholly different situation and Mr. Gorbachev is right to bring Mr. Obama to task. We all want freedom and equality in all nations, but we must look at these situations realistically. Those ethnic Russians in Ukraine are a huge part of the country and they must have a say in their governance as well. That is something Mr. Obama has overlooked time and again. It's time for him to get real; his “shared vision of peace in all nations” is not attainable by his methods. The west must seek an accord with Russia that is acceptable to both parties; not just impose sanctions on a country with no understanding of the real situation on the ground. Mr. Reagan and Mrs. Thatcher understood this better than Mr. Obama and they were supposedly more conservative than the current President.

*My second largest readership resides in Russia. I'm not quite sure how that happened, but I am appreciative for that and for each and every one of you. Спасибо

Well, last Tuesday, we put on an absolutely stellar show at the Palladium Theater in St. Petersburg, Florida. It was even better than the concert we had on the previous Sunday. Tomorrow is our last concert of this series and then we say goodbye to Beethoven. . . for now. It has been an exhilarating, frightening and thoroughly enjoyable experience! I've fallen in love with Beethoven all over again, and it's a love that is deep and wide and will never end. There are times in playing certain figures and passages that still take my breath away with the creativity and the depth of his development; from a simple theme to a 16-measure run of 32^nd notes, in the celli and violas, that are meant to be tossed off, light as air and are then echoed in the violins. It is sublime in it's perfection and the execution has been as near-perfect as can be. We have done honorable service to Beethoven's and then some; it is as a benediction and such a privilege to play. Our conductor, Mark Sforzini, Music Director is wonderful and under his guidance he has wrought a miracle. I am so fortunate. Next up, Edward Elgar and Enigmas.

#ROW80 - 1ST QTR 2014 - POST 9 - TO RUSSIA WITH LOVE

It is hard for me to take any one aspect of this magnificent country and write about it in one post. This huge, sweeping land, that has seen more than it's share of tragedy and bloodshed, much of it self-inflicted, is a testament to patience and hardiness; the people themselves, a blend of Mongol, Cossack, White Russian, Rus and little blobs of colonies that settled over the centuries, containing surprising mixes of Circassian near the Black Sea, and Yakuts in the north, are the true gold and wonder of this land. A land I have been passionately in love with since I was a kid and I asked my father why Communism was bad and for once, he had no answer.

His concession meant much to me later on; there really was no clear answer that he could give me in words I would understand at the time, as I was a child. It would be up to me to find out. I figured I already had a start because I was busy plowing through Tchaikovsky's ouvre of lighter works; “1812 Overture”, “Marche Slave”, and the “Nutcracker”; listening to them on first, a turn-table, then a Magnavox Stereo, wired-up by my father, so that the house shook with the sound of cannon-fire in the Overture's Finale. But all I was really exposing myself to at the time, was a Russian composer's depictions of Napoleon's ill-fated march on Moscow, the Crimean War, in which “Crimea Doesn't Pay” (a horrible, horrible Mr. Peabody and Sherman joke from 1961) and a much-loved ballet that was probably highly influenced by the French, who at the time, were pretty firmly entrenched within the Russian Court. So entrenched, in fact, that at one time, the Russian nobles didn't speak Russian, they communicated in French.

Some of my Russian History classes in college required French as a pre-requisite because for centuries, the Russian aristocracy didn't speak, read or write any Russian. For someone who is not a natural polyglot, it was a bit of an overload. My Spanish is worse than my Russian; my French is non-existent, yet I took Spanish for seven years and Russian for two. I skipped French altogether and relied on cognates. Go figure.

This may be partly due to the fact that during the reign of Peter the Great, he took the Busman's tour and spent approximately eighteen months in western Europe, incognito and learned how to build ships, learned about architecture and science and as much as he could about the art of warfare. He returned home precipitously as there was an uprising amongst the boyars (barons) called the Bulavin Rebellion. By the time he returned home, the rebellion had been crushed. Peter was determined to drag Russia kicking and screaming, if need be, into the 18^th century; he made the boyars assume western dress, rather than wearing the loose, oriental-style robes they had worn previously, and Peter ordered them to shave their much-loved beards. If they chose not to do so, they were required to pay an annual beard tax of 100 rubles.

Autocratic, and often brutal, Peter is responsible for much of the modernization that occurred in Russia during that period. Once he had built a navy, he began a campaign of conquest, primarily in his search for warm-water ports, ever important, in a country striving to become an economic trading-partner and an even larger goal in the Russians' eyes; prove themselves equal, if not greater on the world's stage. After a little tiff with the Ottoman Empire, Peter made a temporary peace with the Ottomans, which allowed him to keep the fort at Azov and turn his attentions to building an even more formidable navy and, oh, yeah, this in turn allowed him to look to the north and Sweden, ruled by Charles XII.

Charles XII. Actually, his nose looked like it partook of the "Battle of the Cannons" with Peter and August II.

I should mention here that Sweden was once feared, and had its own Empire and a formidable army and Charles was no slouch when it came to being a Military strategist. Peter coveted control of the Baltic Sea, which had been taken from the Russians by the Swedes 50 or so years earlier. One thing about the Russians that is a constant: if they have owned or lived on, a piece of land and lost it, no matter how distantly in the past, they will move heaven and earth to reclaim it and protect it. Remember KAL flight 007, shot down September 1, 1983, over Russian Territory, called Sakhalin Island? I do, and while the rest of the world wrung its hands, I understood it perfectly in the context of Russia's history; during the 20th Century, they were invaded in 5 separate wars, 3 of which most Americans know nothing about, because most Americans are ignorant of world history and how it affects current Global Hegemony.

This is a given. The other given is that they are oriental, or Asiatic in their patience, much like the Scots (I. e. my father got his ass put in a jail cell in Heathrow, in 1985, for 48 hours for bitching about how the English stole Scotland. The Customs took one look at his passport, saw his surname and in the hoosegow he went. The incident he was referring to occurred in 1297 A. D. – ya gettin' all this, Lithia?), and they will wait, and wait, and wait, but by God, they will take back what was taken from them. But, again, I digress.

One thing that all cold-weather countries have in common; they love to drink and drink to excess. Being a Scot, I can totally relate; it was said that Boris Yeltsin had to have his blood completely replaced from time to time, he was so pickled. I can believe that. The Russian word for "vodka" is very close and kin to the word for "water". It is literally, life, and comes in so many different varieties and flavors it boggles the mind and pallet!

Peter The Great

August II The Strong

Peter lost his first battle against Charles, but Charles went from there and stepped right into a big pile of Polish-Lithuanian Commonweatlh, which gave Peter time to re-organize his army. As a side note, it should be mentioned that Peter met with the Polish King Augustus II the Strong, where the two rulers, after several days of boozing it up, arranged a cannon-shooting competition. Augustus II the Strong won, which by that time, I imagine, he could have been called Augustus II the Deaf. Just kidding.Peter took advantage of the lull in battle, and as the Swedes and the Poles duked it out, he built a city. He founded the city of Saint Petersburg, in a province of the Swedish empire, which he had retaken, but that had originally belonged to the Russians. In typical Peter logic and behavior, he forbade the building of all statues outside of the city, so that he could hog all the stonemasons in Russia. It should be noted that when he returned from his “Grand Embassy” tour, he brought quite a contingent of brain-power and skilled artisans with him. If he couldn't coax, he would buy. He had a United Nations batch of shipwrights, naturalists, architects and scientists.

Saint Petersburg was built on a swamp and it was built with every possible resource and bit of manpower diverted from all parts of the country to that cause. It was to become a showcase city and in concession to the swamp, is a city of canals. Like Edinburgh, Scotland, it is called the “Venice of the North”. Saint Petersburg is also the city of “white nights”; being so far north, the sun does not set, but sits low in the sky. It is a city of magic and beauty.

The Mariinsky Theatre which houses both the Ballet and Opera; with the typical Russian confusion and re-naming of things, the Kirov Ballet is now the Mariinsky Ballet, yet is still referred to as Kirov, yet is housed in the Mariinsky Theatre. Got that?

The city is home to the Kirov ballet, not the Saint Petersburg ballet and there is a terrible and sad reason for this. Post-Lenin, after 1929 and into the 30s, Sergei Kirov, who was the Commissar, of Governor of Leningrad, (the former Saint Petersburg) had been a rising star in the Politburo and up until a party split over the more draconian implementations of party laws, when Kirov sided with the “Trotskyites” (in Stalin's view and in hindsight, anyone who wasn't four-square with him), Kirov was a devoted Stalinist. The split saw the majority of the Politburo siding with Kirov, who urged Stalin to basically cool his jets with the proletariat and lay off the executions and sending people off to Siberia.

In the spring of 1934, in a conciliatory and a mitigating move to the people, Kirov argued that a majority of people should be released from the prisons to work the collective farms and push forward industrialization; a realization of Lenin's dream. Once again, Stalin found himself a minority in the Politburo and after years of scheming and rearranging positions to put himself in a position of assuming total power and realizing that he could not count on rubber-stamp support from the people he had placed in strategic positions, he, in what would become recognizable as the beginnings of his paranoid-purge style of ruling, began to wonder if Kirov, a much younger man, was willing to wait for his mentor to die before assuming total power of the Bolshevik Party.

During their annual summer vacation on the Black Sea at the Dachas, Stalin, who treated Kirov like a son, tried to persuade the younger man to leave Leningrad and come back to Moscow and sit on the Politburo with him, rather than remain the Commissar of Leningrad. Kirov refused and Stalin believed that he had lost the support and loyalty of his young protegé. 

 

Kirov was viewed as a moderate and was a stalwart supporter of his people in his district. This had more to do with his refusal of Stalin's offer of a higher position within the party if he returned to Moscow, than any thoughts of betrayal of Stalin. His death changed the course of Russian history and Communism and certainly hastened the deaths of others within the inner party circle. Stalin's three-decade rule put the imprimatur on an economic and political system that was entirely different than what Lenin and Trotsky had in mind.

On December 1, 1934, Kirov was assassinated by a young party member. Many within the Politburo noted of the “hundreds of party members rounded up and summarily shot in Leningrad, while others were dragged from prison cells and executed.” The usual suspects were rounded up, meaning most of the other party members, particularly the inner circle, who had looked askance and verbalized there views to Stalin (something encouraged under Lenin, but not so much after his death) and they were interrogated.

Communist party members abroad weighed in on the brew-ha-ha and confusion reigned, until they finally managed to implicate practically the entire Politburo, including Trotsky, who was already in exile and had been expelled from the Communist party. He was safely ensconced in Norway, at the invitation of Trgyve Lie and had actually helped Kirov during the Civil War; Kirov was taught on the job, soundly beating General Antonin Deninkin of the White Army. Trotsky's Red Army became a superb fighting machine; an example of turning the pen into a sword and using it with skill, but it had to be done by putting on blinkers and elbowing other ambitious, yet ignorant party members to the side. Trotsky was not popular with others, but he was true to Lenin's original vision of what the USSR should be. As time went on, and Stalin gathered more and more power, the inner circle began to see the error of what they had, in fact, been warned about. But it was too late.

Of course, Stalin was a pallbearer at Kirov's funeral and there were several monuments, cities, towns and burgs named after him, most of which reverted back to their original names after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. But the most enduring and the loveliest of these remains, and it is one of the Russian traditions of high art: The Kirov Ballet. Located in Saint Petersburg (now, also renamed back from “Leningrad” although, when I was studying Russian history and this time period, World War II, it will always be “Leningrad” just as “Stalingrad” will always be Stalingrad, as it evinces a whole different set of pictures, for me than “Volgograd”) along with The Bolshoi Ballet, perhaps the oldest in them all and the crown jewel of ballets, this one city houses two of the finest ballet companies in the world.

It was far easier for Stalin to cover up the assassination of Kirov, with the “uncovering” of plots and then haul in his enemies, real and imagined, a tactic he employed for decades. He went from the party to the Red Army, shortly before World War II and that is one of the main reasons the early days of the war for Russia against the Nazis was so disastrous; the High Command and most of the Red Army Officers, Strategists and Field Officers were dead. People like Nikita Kruschev and Vasily Chuikov and his brothers emerged from the rank-and-file to become part of the new Red Army that would save Mother Russia.

Ио́сиф Виссарио́нович Ста́лин
 Iosif Vissarionovich Djugashvili

Stalin's porn 'stash and Hitler's upside-down soul patch could have fought it out and spared some 100,000,000 lives plus, just in Western Europe alone. Russia took the heaviest casualties, with estimates as high as 55,000,000. By contrast, the United States had approximately 460,000 casualties, military and civilian in World War II. As a country and as part of our zeitgeist, we have no clue what suffering really is, as a nation, and should be grateful for that.

Adolf Hitler

Kruschev is remembered for his shoe-banging during the 902nd plenary meeting of the UN General Assembly; this may have been in an attempt to liven things up. I can't imagine 902 meetings of anything that would be interesting. He's also remembered for his famous statement “We will bury you [America] upon the ash heap of History!” and for the Ten Days of October, when Kennedy went eyeball-to-eyeball with him, and Kruschev stood down. But within Russia herself, Kruschev was a reformer. He allowed the 1^st publication of “A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” a short novel, by AlexanderSolzhenitsyn. It quickly spread to the west and it was eagerly read by one and all. There were at least two copies of it in my house as I was growing up. I found a 3^rd recently, as I was going through some old stuff I thought I'd lost, when I lost my 2^nd house.

The book is a marvelous little gem that describes Ivan's (pronounced Ĭ·văhn, with the stress on the 2^nd syllable) day; as he gets up, eats, does his chores, negotiates with the “guards” for extra goodies, talks to the other prisoners and finally goes to bed at night. An instant hit in the USSR, it has remained timeless and is a wonderful expression of one man's hope and ability to hang on and appreciate what he has around him.

Kruschev's little spring didn't last however, and he was more or less deposed. He was pensioned off to his dacha on the Black Sea (Sochi sits on the western coast of the Black Sea, and at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains) and a little apartment in Moscow. He was seen as too liberal; we used to play a game when they had their May Day Celebrations and everyone marched through Red Square in front of the Premiere and the other members of the Politburo. It was like reading tea leaves. Who was in favor and who was out of favor? Who stood closest to the Big Cheese and who had disappeared altogether? In those days it was a difficult game to play, since we had so few glimpses behind the Iron Curtain, and when we did, we weren't always given a play list to follow along at home.

This is Novedevichy Cemetery and is far more interesting than the tombs and columbarium in Krasnya Ploshad (Red Square) Both Kruschev and Kirov are buried here, along with many other heroes of the Great Patriotic War. It is also a "mom and pop" cemetery and it is not unusual for folks to come and sit with their ancestors. This is a headstone for a Major General. The tank is a T-34. They held 4 men and were the terror of the Wehrmacht up and down the 1,000 mile-front line, but they were especially effective at the Battle of Kursk, where the little, agile tanks caught German General Guderian's juggernaut and the tide turned, in 1943. Later, it was said, the "German Wehrmacht stuck its tongue in a meat grinder." The southern salient was broken and the Germans began their slow, hellish retreat back to Berlin.

That was a shame then, because as I studied the country and people; her leaders and artists, I've become quite fond of them; foibles and all. As Churchill said, Russia is an “enigma inside a riddle wrapped in a puzzle” or something. He forgot the labyrinth. The country, with all of her mixture of east and west, Byzantine and Occidental is a tantalizing amalgam of seeming contradictions. Fire and ice. Hot and cold. A people who are at once stoic, yet feel more passionately, than any I've ever encountered.

Of course, now I can go back and read all of the supposed “secret” histories and fill in the blanks and it's fun. This is more of a ramble through history than it is a true lesson. I know more about her music and composers and musicians (firsthand) than anything else about Russia. The second-most thing I know is the history of her Great Patriotic War, as seen through the eyes of composers like Prokofiev and Shostakovich and oddly enough, through the best sniper's journal in history, Vasily Zaitsev, as he stalked the German High Command in the ruins of Stalin and fought a deadly, 3-day duel with his German Counterpart, Major Erwin König, fresh from the Berlin War College. But, once more, I digress.

I think if my father were alive today, he would articulate to me, that it wasn't Communism that was bad, but it was in the way it was employed within the USSR. Lenin's idea went sour with his early death and Marx-Engels were never meant for an agrarian society; "The Communist Manifesto" was written with the nascent industrialized era just beginning and with that in mind. I think he would also say that extremism; fascists, theocracies, tyrannical despots and absolute power always, always ends badly, whether right-winged or left-winged; fascism or communism. But, he wouldn't have to explain that to me, for I had already learned the precepts of freedom, human rights and the dignity every human being should be accorded. I learned that from him.

For the next several days, I plan on writing on some aspect of Russian history, or music, or people. I should mention that it hasn't been just the Olympics that spurred this outpouring of love for this magnificent country and people. I was looking at my stats for my blog. My second largest audience outside of the United States is. . . you guessed it, Russia.

#ROW80 WEDNESDAY CHECK IN – UNLIKELY CHAMPIONS AND GOALS

Muhammad Ali pretty much summed up his allegiance with Everyman in his stunning statement in 1967 when he refused the draft and the U.S. Government’s edict that he go to Viet Nam and fight in a mis-begotten war. “Man, I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong.” I remember this because my parents, particularly my father was caught up in the nuances of this war, as he had flown B-29s in Korea and been in the infantry in World War II – at the tender age of 16 (I thought 17, but I erred); Grandmum had signed for him – and he was deeply concerned that the country was being led down the wrong path, as regards the government’s involvement in all sorts of nefarious things, such as the Tonkin Gulf Incident and was it real or just a figment of Robert MacNamara’s imagination, or another of his lies.

Of course, I had a zillion questions about all of this; my father was the most patient man I knew. And hella smart.

So, Daddy in what was a normal display of the profane mixed with the literary alliteration I was becoming accustomed to, said, “That’s it, kick ‘em in the nuts, Ali. Let Turner (Stansfield) go to the Ninth Circle of Hell and take his gibbering minion, Robert MacNamara, Prince of Lies with him!” All this of a morning, as he readied for work and I watched him shave. Or, my father would just call MacNamara a "traitorous Son of a Bitch," and then cut himself. Well, Ali from the start was a bit of a maverick and a damned fine boxer. Being a family of pugilists (See: Sir William Wallace, and skip Braveheart) we have in the main, been more than able to stand up for ourselves, save but for my own stupidity, but I’m all better now.

Ali went on to regain his license and win several championships. He paid a dear, dear price for it in the form of Parkinson’s Disease, which he has borne with his typical grace and aplomb. In 2000, Stansfield Turner, the former director of the CIA, came out in print and admitted that he committed an egregious error in suspending Ali’s license and was heartily sorry for it. He also admitted that the Tonkin Gulf Incident never happened. MacNamara went to his grave, without ever admitting he was wrong about anything. I sincerely hope that man is paying for it dearly in the afterlife; he caused so many, many wrongful deaths, as has G. W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft and Paul Wolfowitz.

Ali, in his customary manner, bore no ill will towards Turner. It was what it was. But it made a difference and it made people really question why we were in what amounted to wars of Imperialism, ala the 19^th century. For a while, there was a slim hope that the country might grow a conscience. No worries there.

Eight years of George Bush and the Patriot Act after September 11, 2001 has put to rest any idea of anyone standing up and saying “What we need here is less spying and more trust”! Nope, spies are once more, back under the bed, Joseph P. McCarthy has once more been invoked, lists of the electronic kind are waved around, and the I, III, IV, XIII (Thanks, Detective Tony, for reminding me), IX, and XIV Amendments are routinely breached, Constitutional Law be damned. Again, I am willing to wager that Writ of Habeas Corpus has flown the coop as well. (At the time this was written, there were no examples that this was indeed so, but sadly, it has come to pass.) "Habeas Corpus" when in play, is a safeguard for a person in custody; no law enforcement officer is allowed to just let someone go free, without a paper trail, or just "disappear" them. Since I first wrote this, the former has happened in my 'hood and something like the latter has made the National News. This truly puts us squarely in the realm of a totalitarian state, either left- or right-wing, it makes no difference. Habeas Corpus is our most sacred right. It is what makes us truly different than Nazi Germany and Stalin’s USSR. D’you remember them?

About the only difference between this country and Nazi Germany are the snappy outfits.

Habeas Corpus, in case you were out getting Twizzlers during the show,is latin “to produce the body” not just a bunch of legal mumbo-jumbo when you apply “Writ” in front of it. Then it becomes a court order (writ) that requires a (presumably live) body be brought before the court. This is to prevent a legal agency from seizing a person without probable cause and holding it for an indefinite length of time, or driving said person around, threatening them, and turning them loose, after they've been in police custody. Nor can they be held indefinitely with no charges brought.. During the terrors of the Inquisition, the French Revolution, Nazi Germany, Apartheid in South Africa, Pol Pot’s regime and all throughout Russia’s tragic history, and many, many other dictatorships, the employment of “Nacht und Nabel” or “Night and Fog” as the Germans called it, saw the disappearance of people, never to be heard from again.

These things do not happen in a vacuum, ladies and gents. They happen because a citizenry allows them to happen. People like Nelson Mandela understood this, because he lived it. When he was imprisoned, there was every expectation that he would die in that cell, but a funny thing happened. People began to see that Apartheid in South Africa was hurting the country. Much of this had to do with the fact that almost every other country had trade embargoes against South Africa, but the best and brightest were leaving in droves, to practice their art, medicine, science, literary careers in other countries. I can think of no other firmly entrenched biased class system that lasted as long as Apartheid and when it ended, South Africa benefited immediately.

Mr. Mandela also struck me as someone who understood and took a lot of joy from life and in simple pleasures, much like the Dalai Lama. How many of us can say that?

Nelson Mandela’s passing was sad, but he had lived a full life. I have heard people saying he was a terrorist, but really? This is coming from people who are scared of giving up the status quo; afraid of losing the already too much that they possess. He was fighting for an oppressed people. We are not talking about jihadists who are, by sane moderate Muslim standards, terrorists. Ghandi himself spent time in incarceration. Mandela was an anti-apartheid revolutionist, politician and philanthropist, who served as PRESIDENT of South Africa. That says something when a black man rises from a prison cell to be duly elected to the Presidency of the state that once put him behind bars, primarily for being black.

The work he did, as does Ali to help and succor those in need around the globe is inestimable; as humanitarians, and spokespersons, they’ve made a huge difference. Ali is also a spokesman, alongside Michael J. Fox for Parkinson’s Disease and movement disorders, of which I suffer, and he has been a part of my life since he was Cassius Marcellus Clay.

Dr. Vitali Klitschko is currently the reigning Heavyweight Champion of the world. Oh, and he does have a reason to be minus a shirt, here.

Which brings me to another unlikely champion, Vitaly Klitcshko. This man is a twin. He and his brother, Vladimir are boxers and they hail from Ukraine. They have both held Heavy Weight titles and are world-renown. They both have made their homes in Germany and they both hold PhDs in Sports Medicine. Right now, Vitaly is in the fight he never dreamed he would fight, I am sure. The government in Kiev has decided to forego alliance with the EU and wants to throw in Ukraine’s lot with Russia, i.e. Vladimir Putin. An odd factoid, in researching this, Vitali joined the Ukrainian Parliament on December 15, 2012, my birthday and in some circles, considered the same day as Beethoven's birthday, who was another champion for the poor and downtrodden. He famously scratched out his dedication of his 3rd symphony, to Napoleon and called it the "Eroica" for "Heroic" instead. Dit-dit-dit-dah and Vee for victory during World War II. For true mankind united music, listen to the 4th movement of his 9th symphony, and the "Ode to Joy".

Vlad is 60 years old and girls, he's single. Why in the hell is every despot out of their ever-lovin' minds? And what is this thing with the bears? Is he re-enacting Nic Cage's not-to-be-missed "Wicker Man" scene in the Bear Suit? I have no words, except that this is one dangerous Mo-fo. I had a Russian Language professor once who thought Kruschev was too liberal. I just wonder what he would make of this? сукин сын!

For those of you who were out getting a giant 64-oz. Coca Cola, during the Russian History part, Putin was once head of the KGB and his management style, as President, or Monarch, or Grand Poobah, reflects that. Actually, he may be Stalin (translation: Man of Steel, or Steel) with a bit more subtlety and a lot less shirt-wearing. See, the dude-in-power, Viktor Yanukovych, in Kiev is some jackleg that Putin pretty much installed, with one of those fakey-fake elections. 

There were riots the first time general elections were held, back in 2003, over this same dude, now in power. Now, it’s looking much more serious. The leader in Parliament, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, has apparently had enough of Viktor's bff and has organized and been coordinating the opposition. With mass demonstrations of 300,000 people and more in the streets, the country’s militia are having a hard time holding things together. This isn't a Flash Mob, but a Mob that has brought its lunch, dinner and breakfast, plus some hardware and tents. They aim to stay awhile and call the neighbors. They've also brought a lot of Likes to Fight Guys, too.

So, Klitcshko is on the side of the opposition. If Ukraine is beholden solely to Russia, this keeps Ukraine within the Motherland’s sphere of influence and this is not good for Ukraine. Russia can then pay whatever she damn well pleases and there is no open market opportunity for the Ukrainians. 

You can see that without Ukraine, Russia has few warm water ports. After Edvard Shverdnadze became President of Georgia, having served as part of the USSR's apparatus, he cooled relations during the Yeltsin years. Putin does not want a repeat of that.

Ukraine, unlike Russia, is a rich country and has always been so. Stalin starved the kulaks in 1934 and their “wheat bowl” a geographically perfect arrangement of mountains between Ukraine and Russia allows for fertile fields and rich yields. Kiev is home to the oldest center of Christianity on that continent over 1000 years old. The language and culture is much different, and it lies on the Black Sea, one of the warm water ports that Russia has access to.

Klitcshko naturally wants his country to thrive and not be subject to the Russian boot. Putin is hell-bent on retaining all of the SSRs that were part of the USSR and I see this as a re-unification attempt on his part. However, the genie is out of this bottle. Vitaly Klitschko, a boxer of world renown is telling everyone in the world about the unfairness and about what it was like when he lived under the Communist boot.

An interesting update on the Ukrainian situation. They recently held a Presidential Election and the winner by a landslide is a  40-year old comedian, who plays a bumbling president. The guy won by a landslide. He's gotta be better than the pro Rrussian is on tjere/ O
, I <3 you so so so much

Sir William died with no issue. The family line is carried through one of the two brothers and I forget which one. I just know that I belong to this family, since I heard it at my daddy's knee from about 9 months on and wore a coat that me Grandmum made for me from an old Wallace kilt. The argyle wool was a few hundred years old then, and would be great for fighting and ambush, were you in a forest fire. We also possess the standards and heralds that have been passed down from generation to generation. We weren't always the brightest bulbs on the tree. Daddy pissed off the Brits at Heathrow in 1985 and got himself locked up for 48 hours for hollering "Death to the Queen" or some such nonsense. He treated it as a grand lark. Typical Wallace.

Let me be clear. I love the Russians, their culture, their ways. I love Ukraine for the same reasons. I have reason to believe that the Wallaces did not in fact originate from Scotland. Our name in Old Welsh was "Uallace" and means “Stranger” and that we are; we are the only Clan with no affiliation or septs with other clans. We most likely are of Scythian blood and were part and parcel of the Scythian guards of Hadrian’s wall, but we always lived apart from the Scots, after the betrayal by the Bruce family. So, I suspect I’m a bit more drawn to that part of the world, because the blood calls me. But, I hate all States; the concept of freedom for all, and the human dignity that is accorded to each of us is sacred, it is not just for the entrenched powers that be. The idea of the State must survive, because the only reason the State exists, is to ensure the existence of the State, is beyond corrupt, it is evil, because it forces people to do evil things to each other to get ahead, or remain entrenched. Think about it. In the meantime, Go, Vitaly, Go!

GOALS: I did nothing; I have the flu. *hack hack* Actually, I want to tear apart "Music of the Spheres" and start REALLY plotting it out. To that end, I got myself some story boards that are erasable, flash cards to set out sections and characters and make it a teensy bit more coherent. I also have my auto-bio in the works, which is really more a batch of essays of my early life, school, music, computer work and being homeless. Most of it is hilarious. No, seriously hilarious. As Carlin says, even cancer is funny. Trust me, homeless was a laff-a-minute!