#IWSG SEPTEMBER 2015 CHECK IN - IN MEMORIAM: NEW YORK'S TEAR DROP MONUMENT

NOTE: In light of last month's post, I had intended to write on something else, and had already written this one, but was waiting for the appropriate time to post it. But some intervening things occurred, so I pulled out the "duty" post. More on this development at the end.

In the course of our daily lives, I think most of us try to learn something new, or pick up an oddity here and there, but to have something come to light that has been so blatantly disregarded and ignored, and by my own country, the United States just seems, well, outlandish. Such is the case of the “Teardrop Monument” that was given to the U. S. in 2006, on the fifth anniversary of 9/11, by President Vladimir Putin and the Russian people in acknowledgment of the terror and sorrow the United States and the world suffered on that day in 2001. I should note here that twenty-six Russians also died on that day, in the WTC.

The statue is 100 feet high, and you can see Manhattan in the background; this was by design of the sculptor, as it is the first thing you see upon entering into the harbor, before the Statue of Liberty, even.

Why am I writing about this now? Because it was never acknowledged; never reported in the press. I never knew the monument existed until today, nearly nine years after it was installed and dedicated and I am appalled that we, as a country, never expressed our appreciation towards the Russians, our wrote about it in our press. We never said anything publicly to them, nor did we reach out to them in our time of sorrow, and say, “yes, we are one in this”, but then, we're great at doing that. Lest we appear weak, or stoop down to what? Our inferiors? There is nothing inferior about the Russians and I do not understand why it was never announced in the press, or the ceremony aired on t.v. But, I do understand the mindset of our politicians.

Around the base of the statue is every name of a person who died on 9/11.

We have become the world's bullies. We have become small-minded and we no longer give credit where credit is due. This is nothing that is part of any one administration, but over time has become part of the entire institution of foreign policy. Take Ukraine. I do know that there are U. S. soldiers on the ground there now, in an "advisory capacity", but to what purpose, who can say. This sets a hugely dangerous precedent, because once you have feet on terra firma, it's not too far from shedding blood on one side or the other; it's de facto. Either unintentionally, accidentally, or by provocation, someone gets hurt, and then, we get drawn in. That is pretty much how we got pulled into Viet Nam, Tonkin Gulf (an entire fabrication, later admitted by Robert MacNamara and General William Westmoreland) not withstanding.

courtesy:russiauniverse.org

Yes, there was a lot of territory-gobbling going on over the centuries, and there are historically sound reasons for every case. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was a threat to Russia when the Tsars took the territory in the years between 1654 and 1917. Lenin annexed Western Ukraine after it lost during the Ukraine-Soviet Civil War. Stalin annexed that part of Ukraine that was lost in World War II and Khruschev annexed the Crimea because Turkey was an ally and part of NATO, although it was considered an "administrative gesture".

courtesy: zerohedge.com

This map speaks for itself; most of the Ukrainian-only speakers are in the west; the Russian-only are in the east. But that doesn't tell the whole story, Between each region, there are very nebulously drawn lines, where for generations, people have gone back and forth. What they hate and despise one day, will be loved dearly the next. One of the most astonishing things to me is this: in any conflict that is regional, or in the case of a Civil War, you have the greatest number of atrocities. Is it perhaps because the combatants are so much like one another? It's one of the reasons the Scots can't get their own house in order.

The problem with Ukraine is this: one minute, one batch of Ukrainians are pro-Russian. Next week, they're burning Putin effigies in their front yards. This is more of a territorial dispute, or tribal and cannot be “overseen” by outsiders. In Mariupol, right now, for instance, one patch of folks are being shelled, but they literally have no clue if it's the pro- or anti- Russian or Ukrainian forces. After centuries of to-ing and fro-ing and inter-marrying, they don't even know. We DO. NOT. BELONG. THERE. PERIOD.

The stepping stones and memorials carved lovingly by sculptor Zulpar Tsereteli in the walkway that surrounds the monument.

The other thing is this: Russia is a proud, tough country; etched in blood and determination. They did not survive and win World War II, just because we cobbled up Lend-Lease and gave them a phony garden-hose in the form of uniforms and what-nots. They had the guts and the balls to survive by doing things like, swimming the Donets River, with two people and one rifle to land in Stalingrad and fight what seemingly was a  lost cause, and at the end of it, what had been a charming city of 500,000, was nothing more that a pile of rubble and ash, with 1,500 starving civilians, and 900,000 German soldiers who surrendered, under the command of their General, Heinz Guderian. It was the turning point of a vicious, vicious war, and the Russians still fought on offensively for another two and a half years.

In Stalingrad alone, the fight went on in buildings, on floors of buildings, from room to room, to try and determine the winner. Stalin dug in, and with his Red Army and their certainty that they could not lose THIS battle, or the war would be lost, they fought on through the deadly winter. It was hardly worth mentioning that there was no “city” left, it was a battle to the death between two foes and the blood flowed. The Russians took full advantage of psychological warfare in using snipers and death came from nowhere to the German, when it was least expected; smoking a cigaret or taking a leak. The Wehrmacht ground itself against an iron foe that would not budge and the German Army finally relented; exhausted, spent, humiliated and would never again advance in the East.

The body count for both military and civilians and death camp victims has been estimated as high as 55,000,000, while American casualties run about 458,000, so, when the Russians come to give us a statue acknowledging our pain, don't you think they know a little something about it?

I know there's an old-style Menshevik lurking around somewhere in me. I do so love these old Soviet-style prints from the war. They were churned out by the thousands in the USSR in the Great Patriotic War as it's called in Russia, but this particular one comes from a Russian game I play, and no, it's not Tanki, Jeremy. :D

It was around the day of, or maybe the day after 9/11, I was watching the reactions from other people around the world, and they talked to this elderly man in Krasnya Ploshad, or Red Square and he was crying. There were flowers everywhere; it seemed the entire floor of Red Square must be covered in them, as people came to show their respects. The man was talking and crying. He had fought against Hitler and he couldn't believe that the evil had not been vanquished. I was so moved by him and by his outpouring of grief for what had been an old foe. Surely, we had patched up those differences. I remembered the time I had seen a wing of the RAF sit down to dinner with a wing of the German Luftwaffe they'd flown against; my father called me to tell me about it and thought it was wonderful. If they could let bygones be bygones, so should we, I thought.

Rather like the Viet Nam War Memorial, Zulpar Tsereteli, placed a plaque at the foot of his monument with the name of every person who died on 9/11. 

Yet, the recent events in Ukraine and the discovery of this lovely Monument given to us in a a spirit of love and empathy, has gone completely unnoticed or remarked on by the American public. The sculptor, Zulpar Tsereteli designed it and chose the spot in Bayonne, NJ, where several of the victims' families lived and where it can be viewed with Manhattan in the background. The man also paid for it with money from his own pocket and donations from Russian people. Ironically, the first thing people will see now, when entering the United States by sea, is this “Teardrop Monument” and then the Statue of Liberty. Although the placement is intentional and understandable, I still fail to understand, why we never acknowledged this beautiful gift; an expression of shared grief.

Loss of any kind is hard; the Russians have had it inflicted on them and, to be fair, under the regime of Stalin, they dealt with the internal struggles of purges and red-baiting, but they were human. I remember reading an auto-biography by some Soviet scientist who survived Stalin's purges, and one of his quotes stuck with me; “We used to bitch about the s.o.b., but we were kinda sad when he died.” I thought, “spoken like a real trouper!” Andre Gromyko and Eduard Shverdnadze, among several others managed to survive Stalin and write their memoirs. Whether or not they meant them to be, there is some hilarity in their words.

People are people. Everywhere. We must never forget that. When we demonize a group of people, or just generalize them, we make them less than human, thus they are less deserving of our kindness, generosity, or thanks when they make a gesture so humane. What must they think of us? Years ago on a visit there, one suitcase contained nothing but small items to hand out to people I met. Small make-up cases for women, soap and cologne for men. The simplest gestures and the merest attempt to even try and communicate in Russian brought delight, which is not the case in other countries that I've traveled in. I ended up leaving the suitcase behind; the Cold War was still on, and there was really not much I could bring home. Years later, I've ended up with Matryushka nesting dolls, old USSR flags, and icons galore, from friends who never forgot.

I was not going to write about this, but some things come up, and I had this stored away, for a rainy day, so I decided to go ahead and post it. After the passing of Jim, I may have mentioned that he had at one time been incarcerated. I have been on the committee of the FAC here in Florida, trying to help ex-felons re-adjust to coming back out into society. Through them, I was asked to help situate a wonderful young lady who has paid her dues and is coming back out into the world. This left me with less time than I would have liked to prepare for #IWSG, but that is okay. This will do. I will be writing of my new roommate, Lexi and her adventures. A couple of things about her; she's much more musically talented than I am and she has a family that loves her very much! I expect she will do well out here and she's paid her debt to society. Hell, we all make mistakes and we all deserve a second chance!

As for writing; I'm getting some done. I'm trying to put my book together, "Homeless Chronicles in Tampa" that explains how I went from having a home out in the country to managing to lose two houses and end up in a homeless shelter. The symphony season started today and we tore through "Scheherazade" like we'd all played it a million times. It stands to reason that we haven't, but it's a huge favorite with kids growing up, I guess. It was certainly one of my favorites! Stay tuned!

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.

RUSSIA, THE UNITED STATES, SYRIA AND IRAQ - GLOBAL HEGEMONY AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Boy, what a boring-sounding title. If I were a reader of my own blog and came across this, I might be tempted to skip it, but let me see if I can make it a bit less weighty-sounding and try to relate it to the blog post I wrote recently, regarding “World War II – Was It the Last Good War?”

In response to my Twitter buddy, Jason Linkins who writes political op-ed for HuffPo and does it very well, he is absolutely thrilled that we are once again being given the opportunity to hop back into a quagmire and protect the political aspirations of a bunch of affluent politicians, I can't say he's wrong at all. Thirteen years after 9/11, we've done. . . what? Killed Osama bin Laden, sure. But we've managed to destabilize an entire region, which we seem to be immensely terrific at doing (see Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia) in the mid to latter part of the 20^th century.

So, Dubya got a hair up his ass, after 19 terrorists from Saudi Arabia, backed by money provided by al-Qaeda (suspiciously close to the Saud family, who were hand-holding with the Bush family, in case anyone forgot) bombed the World Trade Center and the Pentagon (although I wonder about that) and went tearing into. . . Iraq? Only after we had staged a semi-invasion of Afghanistan, and that was always kind of iffy to me, because Afghanistan is known as bein' the “Graveyard of Empires” and all. I'm still trying to connect the dots. When Dubya made his brave assertion “Mission Accomplished” just what in the Hell was he referring to? We never really managed to “quell” the “dissidents” in either Afghanistan or Iraq, a fact that can still be measured in body counts and terrible stories of atrocities, coming out of, now, specifically, Iraq, and of all places Syria, which has it's very own home-grown Strong Man in place, the son of the late President Assad.

In all honesty, I don't know if this is a good thing, or bad. I also don't know if it's a good idea for President Obama to sit down and treat with this man, seeing as how he's got lots of his own countrymen's blood on his hands. At least, Obama isn't sitting down with al-Qaeda, which was the worst idea I ever heard, since I said “yes” to Bill Nunnally. You DO NOT treat with terrorists. Terrorists are not countries; they are not sovereign entities; they are not realms or Kingdoms. They are a bunch of zealots with nothing in their jackalheads except creating terror in the hearts and minds of the people around them to further their cause, which is usually couched in some amorphous language and difficult to attain, even with more measured people and responses. They have no mission statements; they have no credo, other than “Death to the Infidel” and are sectarian in the extreme; they will kill members of their own “faith” quicker than Christians and Jews, because those Sunnis were closer to Allah and should have understood that they were committing heresies. I liken them to the IRA at its worst. The Crusades sound more moderate, when you remember that the Christians who lived there, routinely met and worked with the other faiths in the Middle East.

And now, we come to this: I TOLD YOU SO. Russia. Last week, I implied that basically, the whole mish-mash between Russia and Ukraine should be left alone. They've squabbled and gone back and forth for centuries. They are two countries, who, while not having a lot in common, bear a very similar culture and a shared history; at times amicable, at times, downright horrible. Stalin went out of his way to starve the Kulaks, the rich Ukrainian farmers in 1934, and several million people starved to death. It has been referred to as “Harvest of Sorrow” and a fine historical book of the same name, written by Robert Conquest, depicts the horror and devastation wrought upon the Kulaks. But, again, this was not the first time Ukraine and Russia had adversarial dealings with one another and would not be the last.

Again, there are many ethnic Russians living in Ukraine, just as there are many ethnic Ukrainians who live in western Russia and Belarus. The ENTIRE region has seen many different rulers, from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, to the Czarist rulers. It really is no wonder that one day, Ukrainians want one thing, and another day, they wish for something else. There is a kind of schizophrenic zeitgeist that exists in this entire region and when you look at the maps and how the empires overlaid one another, it is easy to understand why.

courtesy of: deviantart.com

The writer P. J. O'Rourke once went to Eastern Europe and Russia when the Iron Curtain first fell, and the salient point he took away from his experiences there, aside from all of the horrible automobiles looking like they had been made by the Dinky Toy Company, was the complete and utter confusion that the new “nation-states” wanted and why they wanted it. “We want Democracy!”, some shouted on one day. When asked why, they yelled, “Because, Democracy is good!” without having clue one what it was all about.

 courtesy of: allaboutturkey.com

Later on, during the same trip, P. J. asked some of the same people what they wanted. “We wish to stay with the Motherland!”, they shouted. When asked why, they hollered, “Because she takes care of us?”, although many were not sure this was true. This was over twenty years ago, and it is still pertinent today. If you look at the maps, you see that some of the western parts of Ukraine were in the Austro-Hungarian sphere, the southern parts in the Ottoman Empire, and the Eastern portion were part of the Russian Empire. Divestiture came in 1914, but in 1917, the Russian Revolution took place and the Communists were firmly in power, after fighting a civil war against the Royalists. After World War II, as part of the agreement at Yalta, Russia retained Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, and the other “buffer” states, as there were already ethnic Russians living in these places, and because Stalin was a murderous, land-grabbing rat-bastard. Regardless, I believe that, if by some miracle the Romanovs had remained in power, and they were somehow, by another miracle, able to best the Nazis, they would have demanded Ukraine and Belarus and all the rest as their spoils of war. This is a Russian thing; NOT a Soviet thing.

Again, it speaks to the peculiar phobia that Russia harbors towards the West and we help no one by meddling in this. To top it off, today's headline in “The World” is this:

courtesy of: HuffPo

I TOLD YOU SO!

Followed by this article:

courtesy of: HuffPo                   

I mentioned last week that the situation between Russia and Ukraine will find it's own solution. That may sound like weak sauce, but what I mean is they are better left to their own devices, especially since the west and most particularly the United States has such a horrible track record when it comes to intercession. People can quote Panama and Grenada all they want, but the simple fact is, we invaded weak 3^rd world countries, one in an attempt to divert a horrendous foreign policy decision on our part, when we were involved in Lebanon, in 1983.

Let's play a "what if" scenario and see if this doesn't make a bit more sense. Suppose the United States was having some kind of squabble with Mexico, over god-knows-what. Water rights, illegal immigration, the number of donkeys displayed in crappy mariachi bands north of the border was in dispute, whatever, and things got heated. Maybe we have some troops lined up along the borders, ostensibly to keep out "undesirables". We've had our issues with Mexico in the past, but we've always managed to get them straightened out. But this time, we're dragging it along, and for some reason, both sides are being belligerent. On the outside, the rest of the world is throwing their two cents in about what a bunch of imperialist dogs the United States is, and we should never have left Merry Olde England. Yada, yada. After several weeks of this, with tensions ebbing and flowing, things get kind of mind-numbing, what with all of the other stuff going on. Then, out of the blue, or not-so, England is invaded by France and Belgium, and some not-so-nice things begin to happen. Do you honestly think that for one minute, the United States isn't going to have something to say, or do something about that situation, to mitigate and save their long-time ally? The same case can be made for Russia as regards Syria, I refuse to say "vis a vis" because it's pretentious, and I realize I am kind of shoe-horning some facts in here and making it a bit ridiculous, but it's for a reason. 

The Russian-Ukrainian relationship is a very special one; much like ours is with Great Britain. Why? Because, history.

I'm not a historian, or a military historical buff, but I do understand long arcs and how actions from the past resonate into the present. What we do now will make a difference. It might be a decade, or it might be a century. Wise men have the gift of being able to predict what our actions now will predicate for our future. I am not one of those, but I'm a damned good observer and student of global hegemony. I truly think that we should do nothing at all about the Russian-Ukraine situation and tread very, very lightly with this mess in the Middle East.

This isn't even a war movie. It's an exploration into the heart of darkness, based on a Joseph Conrad novel.

I know I called for taking a stance last week, regarding ISIS or ISIL and they are fearsome and what they are doing is beyond horrific. I cannot imagine the charnel house over there, and the suffering of the people who live there. I have friends in Tunisia and Morocco and Egypt and I fear for them, but we did a terrible job in Iraq. We destabilized the country; something we excel at, and upon our departure(?) we managed to foist some mediocre bureaucrat upon the country, along with a less-than-useful fighting force. This is nothing but Vietnam Redux. Francis Ford Coppola did a much better job with “Apocalypse Now Redux” and it still sucked. Watch the original. But, let's not create our own “Iraq Redux”. That's nothing anybody wants to sit through.

#ROW80 3RD QTR 2014 – POST 2 – A VISIT TO MY NEUROLOGIST, 1968

I always look forward to seeing my neurologist. She's a wonderful doctor; a kind, caring and compassionate soul and is a mean wit, although I'm not really sure if she's aware of that fact. Since I was diagnosed with e. t. a year ago, visits to her have been more along the lines of a coffee klatsch, minus the coffee, and some witty and very astute observations from her regarding life. Today we critiqued Samuel Beckett plays, and “new music,” some of the forms of Art that I liken to “The Emperor's New Clothes” School of Whatever. This can also apply to Public Art, the sort that is put up in public squares and in open spaces, to guarantee maximum viewage and eye damage to as many viewers as possible.

 Can you imagine sitting in the office with this giant blue bear? What in the hell were these people thinking. . . or smoking. . . or shooting up, when they came up with this doozy? Oh, and I just noticed the upside-down red and white church. WTF? Same goes for the melted blue car in the upper left.

 A giant, metal, paper airplane. People get paid wheelbarrows of dough to come up with this insipid dreck.

Eyesores abounded in Ann Arbor, Michigan; there was one with a group of mannequins climbing a very tall steel ladder and crammed up along the top, as if they had all run into an invisible ceiling. Ant-like, the ones below were just a-climbin' up into the ones stuck at the top, creating a sort of wedge-shaped grouping of arms, legs and bald heads. The title referred to something nihilistic or inane, like “The Futility of the Worker's Plight”. To me, it just looked like a bunch of dummies on a ladder. Somebody paid good money for that and someone else laughed all the way to the bank. On the next block over was the giant metal cube, that was affixed to the pavement on one of it's corners. It would spin easily if you pushed it. I never did so, because I was afraid the monstrous thing would break off it's pinnings and crush me and 17 onlookers. Public Art can be dangerous!

Somehow, during the appointment, during the can-you-touch-my-finger-then-touch-your-nose-really-really-fast test, in which I always, always spazz out and touch my leg, or her ear, or some shit, the subject of Samuel Beckett came up. I had lived through “Waiting for Godot”, coming out on the other end of that play with a general what-the-fuck-was-that? sort of feeling, but at age eighteen, I was pretty much in a sea of what-the-fuck. I still am, but it's more a sort of confuse-a-what, brought on by my brain's own general demand for everything being made crystal-clear IMMEDIATELY and when, as so often happens in the course of life, that demand goes unrequited, my brain supplies its own answer and it's usually no where near anything close to reality on this planet. Maybe Neptune, from which I believe I'm commuting to and from daily, but not of Earth. This just only enriches my life in untold many and manifest ways and I've come to grips with it. But, I digress.

                       courtesy: samuelbeckett.net                                               

These ladies don't look like the bag-lady, hobos that I saw when I saw this at Stanford, but better clothing doesn't make it any more comprehensible. Maybe I'm just dim-mish.

I started telling my doctor about this OTHER Samuel Beckett play, or vignette, “Come and Go” I sat through at Stanford University once, and it consisted of three hobo-ish looking sorts who sat on a plain, wooden bench and said virtually nothing for about 3 or 4 hours, or so it seemed. These three bag ladies, named Flo, Vi and Ru were holding hands in an interlocking style – I didn't know this at the time, I just saw the thing cold – and spout what seem to be meaningless inanities for a total of 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Lots of pregnant pauses, and pretending to be statuary. Finally, Vi, or Ru, or Flo, I cannot remember which says “I can feel the rings”. Finis. Play over. I had to go back and read the script and see if this still felt as out-of-touch for me as it did, when I saw it in my 'teens. Yep; no clearer. Beckett was odd. So, I'm telling my doctor all of this and about the hobo women, or vagabonds, or whatever, and she blurts out, while she was scribbling out some notes, “Hmmmm, sounds like “Waiting for Godot” meets Arlo Guthrie”.” I don't think she knows how funny she is sometimes, but I sure agree with her assessment.

Anyway, after our little chin-wag, I got my Primodone refills and I'm solid for 6 months. Graduated from e. t. boot camp. But, I certainly look forward to our visits; she's a keeper.

The '60s and 1968, in particular were a time that saw the United States of America turned on it's head and for the first time, we began to question those we had put in power. After LBJ and his Great Society, which gave us a safety net on top of what Franklin Delano Roosevelt had started during his Presidency, it began to look like there might be some true equality and hope for people in the lower income strata, who had had none. But, 1968 changed that, quite a bit. We discovered we had been lied to about the true state of the war in Viet Nam.

Robert MacNamara, General Westmoreland (deputy commander of Military Assistance Command, VietNam, or MACV) had been providing LBJ and the oversight committees in Congress and the Senate with falsified reports on the number of casualties of both the North Vietnamese and our own troops. We had been told that we were winning this war, and it was only a matter of time before we penetrated the North, took Hanoi, and unseated Ho Chi Minh, the titular President of North Viet Nam.

In March of 1968, during the Vietnamese New Year, that myth was busted wide open. A carefully laid plan, up and down the length of Viet Nam saw the uprising of North Vietnamese, especially in the South and in Saigon; the Tet Offensive. We took heavy, heavy casualties and for the first time, we really started to look at what we were doing in a country that as Muhammad Ali would say, we “ain't got no quarrel with them boys”. While this was not the undoing of the Johnson Administration, it was responsible for his decision to not run for a second full term, thus we elected Richard M. Nixon, who turned out to be no better, and in many ways worse for Southeast Asia; he claimed he wanted no wider war, but then expanded it to bombing parts of Cambodia and Laos, thus further destabilizing the region, and paving the way for Pol Pot, one of the 20^th Century's true monsters and a crackerjack mass-murderer, when it came to genocide. Within a decade two-fifths of the 5 million people in Cambodia had died in re-education camps or been summarily executed and buried in mass graves.

courtesy: thefreedomagenda.wordpress.com

Two-fifths of a nation of five million, or rather two million people died under the rule of Pol Pot. While we were not directly responsible for his rise to power, we had a huge part in destabilizing Cambodia, which had declared itself neutral, under the regime of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. America widened the bombing to include the mountains and the Mekong Delta, claiming that North Vietnamese were infiltrating the region. The truth? The Montagnards in the area were fiercely anti-communist and separatist, to boot.

So, where am I going with all of this? Back in the early 60s, we helped to prop up a corrupt leader in Saigon, because there was no one suitable, and rather than see the entire country become communist, we would have crawled in bed with Satan himself, in order to keep this from happening. In a similar fashion, we aided the Taliban in the early 80s, because they were fighting the Russians in Afghanistan. When the Vietnamese President Ngo Dien Dimh rigged a vote in the South, and won by an astonishing 98.2 percent, including 133 percent in Saigon, the country became “unified” in 1955. Although we did not have troops in the field then, we had “advisors”, most likely CIA operatives, due to the number of assassinations of key North Vietnamese politicians and players who were eliminated. The “advisors” were there to try and assist in establishing a democracy in Viet Nam, which Dimh had no intention of ever doing.

As these things go, it began to escalate; we were backing the wrong horse, and Ho Chi Minh, a true patriot, not just a communist, wanted Viet Nam for, well. . . the Vietnamese. We should have been backing no horse. Not too much to ask for. We all know the terrible ending of this conflagration. Millions of innocent Vietnamese died. We got our asses kicked, and for the FIRST time, we began to question what in the Hell we were doing in this little back water country, that the French (Dien Bien Phu, 1955) couldn't hang onto in the first place.

Now, we've come to this: Afghanistan is once more looking like some kind of quagmire. Despite the quote “Graveyard of Empires” a quick gander through Afghanistan's history, shows that conquering armies do have some success. The problem is as Alexander the Great has put it “It's easy to march into, tough to march out of”. So, we've split our forces there. We're in the 13^th year of a who-knows-how-many-years run, despite assurances from the Obama administration, that we will leave some day.

My main bitch, whine, whinge, whatever you want to call it is that now we have a fairly well-organized islamic group called ISIS, which uses very sophisticated tactics in re-claiming territory in Iraq. Take Tirkut, recently. Not one shot fired; the whole operation was one of propaganda, much like Joseph Goebbels in Nazi Germany, but that kind of entrenchment goes a long way towards promoting goodwill among the citizens in comparison with the U. S. invasion. Again, we have backed the wrong horse; some guy, who looks more like a used-car salesman, than someone who would be leader of a great country in the Middle East.

Admittedly, I detest Dubya and think he's a tool of Dick Cheney's and stupid, to boot. I highly doubt that they would have approved of anyone who would think independently, or for the common good of his country. It may be fallacious thinking, but Talabani, just by his association with the Bush administration, can not possibly have his country's best interests at heart.

Elections, schmelections; we helped to groom and primp this guy, this Jalal Talabani, fluff him, pat him dry and make him look good, but underneath is the same old corruption and bad politics. Iraq's constitutional government is loosely based on our own, and he is limited to two 4-year terms. But, how great is it when you have still have corruption at every level from the police on up to the highest offices in the Military? By the end of the U. S.'s stay in South Viet Nam, we had propped up a revolving-door bunch of characters; a total of 13 guys in all. I think some of them had a second go at screwing up the country even more than it was already screwed up. All with our help, of course.

I started typing out all these names and then remembered the ole' cut-and-snip thingy. You can imagine what kind of hell it mush have been like in Saigon, during the last 10 years. I think a few of these guys ended up running 7-11s in east Los Angeles.

And we're doing it again; we're sending U. S. “advisors”, along with 250 military boots on the ground are in Iraq, or are headed back there to Baghdad. That means that we will be in a position to. . . do what? Just what are we trying to accomplish there, because I hear nothing coherent coming out of our State Department or from President Obama. It's time to cut the apron strings, the umbilical cord, let that bitch sail and if she sails over a cliff, so be it.

Damn! What a fine looking flag! My Lenin bobblehead and my copy of the USSR or CCCP Men's Chorus singing the Internationale await. Break out the vodka, black bread, cucumbers and sour cream! Naz Strovya!

I never said a word about Ukraine and Russia because I understand both cultures and people involved. Yeah, it's sad that Ukraine is being bullied by Russia, but the fact is there are ethnic Russians who live in Ukraine near the Russian border and in the Crimea, who probably do feel threatened by the ethnic Ukrainians; that's what happens when you go from being the conqueror, to being just the guy living next door. It's human nature. It's also within Russia's weltenschauung and very typically Russian, that the ground the ethnic Ukrainians are living on once belonged to them. They have typically been part of the Russian empire and within her sphere of influence since the Austro-Hungarian Empire and after World War II, Stalin demanded the states of Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tadjikistan as a buffer between Western Europe and Russia. I could be wrong about Azerbaijan and the -stans, but am too lazy to look it up.

Russians are extremely territorial in a way we cannot even begin to comprehend. I counted once, and between the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 and World War II, when the Nazis invaded on June 22, 1941, Russia was invaded FIVE times, by enemy forces. The United States has NEVER been invaded; It's not hard to figure out the dynamics there, nor their reasons for behaving the way they do on both sides. I'd give my eye-teeth to be there now, but I can watch from a distance and it's going about the way I thought it would.

If you notice carefully, there's a lot of back-pedaling and well, “maybe we want this, maybe we aren't sure”. This is oh, so typical in Eastern European politics. A lot of smoke and mirrors and hollering about having what they don't have, but once whatever it is they want is on the horizon, or knocking on the door, well, it doesn't look so good up close. Thus, the confusion over whom is doing what and who is for Russia and by extension, Putin and who isn't. Their Politburo (I refuse to call it a Duma or a Parliament, because it's not) took back their vote of confidence on what he's doing in Ukraine, on the eve of the rebels' victory. What does it all mean?

Who knows; somewhere I have a feeling a bunch of folks are digging out their hammer-and-sickle flags and Lenin bobble-head statues and wishing for the good old days. It never fails. But whatever it all means, or doesn't mean, I do believe this: we need to stay home and stop trying to be the world's policemen. We're terrible at it, and we're not exporting Truth, Justice, and the American Way. We're sowing greed, corrupting, and hatred, and as a people, we're not like that. We're a bunch of blind bullies, ignorant of the ways and mores of the people we think we are helping, or pretending to help. We don't need the oil. We don't need the hegemony; technology has put that “bullets and bayonets” mentality back in the closet. We need to start acting like members of the human race, not some self-proclaimed Overlords.

#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!