What Were They Thinking?

Russian troops sickened after being exposed to radiation at Chernobyl site

Russian troops were exposed to “significant doses” of radiation from digging trenches around the Chernobyl nuclear plant and have left the highly contaminated site, Ukraine’s state power company said Thursday.

Energoatom said the Russians had dug in the forest inside the exclusion zone around the now-closed plant, site in 1986 of the world’s worst nuclear disaster. The troops “panicked at the first sign of illness,” which “showed up very quickly,” and began to prepare to leave, said Energoatom, which did not provide information on the soldiers' condition.

Russian forces seized the Chernobyl site early in the invasion that began Feb. 24, raising fears that they would cause damage or disruption that could spread radiation.

On Thursday, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Ukrainian officials informed it that the Russian forces who were in control of the plant have “in writing, transferred control” of the facility to Ukrainian personnel.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-pulling-back-to-resupply-us-says-expect-even-more-suffering-in-ukraine-nato-chief-warns-live-updates/ar-AAVHwkn?rt=0&ocid=Win10NewsApp&referrerID=InAppShare

When the Russians first occupied Chernobyl early on, I wondered what they expected to do with it.  I can understand why they would want to take that other nuclear power plant, which is actively producing electricity, but I didn't understand what they wanted Chernobyl for.  It now seems that the Russians themselves didn't know what they wanted it for.  They were digging trenches around it, presumably for defense.  Who did they think they would have to defend it against?  

Then there's those generals.  The Russians had about two dozen generals in Ukraine before Ukrainian snipers took out seven of them.  Each one of those generals were either commanders or deputy commanders of their individual units, but there was no one general in charge of the whole operation.  Apparently each general reports directly to Putin, and they don't communicate with each other.  

And what about the reports that numerous Russian soldiers have been incapacitated by frostbite?  I find it hard to believe that Russians wouldn't know how to deal with cold weather.  I mean, it frequently snows on their May Day Parade, and the VIPs in the reviewing stand look quite comfortable in their big winter coats.  Maybe, because the climate in Ukraine is a little warmer than in Moscow, the soldiers thought they could take off their shirts and get a suntan while they were stalled for weeks on the road to Kyiv.  

The Oscars

 For years I have had my triumvirate of lady singers, Emmylou Harris, who is the honor student, Lucinda Williams who is always in detention, and Nanci Griffith who was the girl next door who was a bit dreamy and had a way with words.

Wrong again on Johnny Cash, I don't know what to say, those songs always just sounded so much like him.  Had to check to see if he wrote Man in Black.  

I don't know what to say.  Years ago I was in a tavern in Champaign and a song came on and I went on and on to the guy on the next bar stool, about how much I liked Roy Orbison and how interesting it was that he stuck with those old rock and roll love ballads through most of his career, and so on and so on.  Finally the guy stopped me and told me that was all well and good, but that was Elvis Presley on the jukebox.

I remember at the Ten Cat when Old Dog would speak of how he always thought he would have been a pretty good unicyclist, and once again how he bruised the owner's oranges showing off his juggling ability.  But harmonica, yeah I can see it.  You go guy.

So thankfully The Institute has not been sullied with mention of The Slap, but I am afraid I am about to ruin that.  First of all, as a guy who does a little improv I can see where Kevin might have reached too far for an edgy joke, but that was no excuse for slapping him, but Will has apologized so maybe they can exact some small penalty on him and then we can all go back to our unglamorous lives and carry on.

I like movies but I never watch the Oscars.  It doesn't mean anything, like that Baseball Hall of Fame thing.  It doesn't mean that you are the best, it's just what some group of people voted for on a certain day.  If it was raining maybe they would have voted differently.  Nothing to get your panties into a bunch over.

And a day or two before the affair there was Sean Penn in Ukraine, or more likely one of the bordering countries, telling the CNN talking heads that they should definitely have Zalenskyy phone into the Academy Awards, because ,you know, it is the most important thing going on in the world.  He was threatening to melt down his Oscars (Oh please Sean don't do that) if Zalenskyy did not make his appearance.  At this point I don't know if they are still standing tall or if they are just puddles on the shelf.

Okay, just now, doing some fact-checking, which I obviously should do more often, I learn that Zalenskyy himself, was asking to make the appearance.  Well he is a desperate man.

I imagine on a Saturday night in Big Al's Tap, it is not unusual for a spot of violence to occur for whatever reason.  Possibly the gendarmes are called in, most likely they are just pulled apart and there may even be some sort of apology, but I'll wager that what doesn't occur is a discussion on what this means for society.  

And another thing, reading past the slap the next morning it was all about how history was made because a movie about deaf people won an award, and how the emcees were all three of them were women(!!!).  I reckon the Puerto Rican lesbian in the wheelchair will have to wait some more years for her day.  

Nothing much was said about whether the movies that won were any good.  Because you know, it is not about movies, it is about the whole word.  

And the next time you have an itchy fist at Big Al's Tap, maybe you should confer with Sean Penn and if his message of peace and brotherhood does not win you over maybe he can loan you one of his melted down Oscars to clobber the other guy with

Marching out of here

Thanks for the heads up on Nanci Griffith, Uncle Ken.  I don't think I was ever aware of her but she may have come and gone in the recesses of my memory.  My tastes in music ebb and flow, always shifting; I'll like something for a while and then I don't like it anymore but then years later I like it again.  You may call it wishy-washy but I call it a nuanced appreciation of the fluid nature of artistic expression.  That was a nice song but they could have eased up on the background music, a little too loud for me to enjoy her singing.

I'm starting to feel a little sorry for Uncle Ken regarding Johnny Cash as a songwriter.  That song about the chain gang, the one he sings with Waylon Jennings?  He didn't write that one, either.

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Perhaps Old Dog is referring to Isle Royale National Park...

No, Mr. Beagles, I know the difference and what a remote location Isle Royale is.  Many years ago, way back in the 20th century, I worked with a lady who was recently married and the newlyweds spent a week-long honeymoon camping on Isle Royale.  The marriage did not get off to a good start, eventually failing miserably and hardening her heart.  A sad tale, to be sure.

I'm glad the ammo situation has improved.  Last year my brother-in-law, the retired police officer, had a devil of a time getting .38 Special ammo for his weapon qualification as a security guard.  He had to get some shipped in from some friends in Michigan (!).

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Every kid had a stack about two feet high...

Yeah, two feet sounds about right.

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Some people say I suck, others say I blow and they're both right.  A little something I picked up a few days ago; time to see how easily the neighbors get annoyed.

 

the Burning Bed Bounder

 As witnessed by my paean to Johnny Cash I am all for peppering up your prose.  And Burning Bed Bandit is plenty colorful, but it's a little disappointing under explanation when it is revealed that there is no thievery involved, indeed the only crime is littering.  I get that it's alliterative and a grouping of three words is pleasing, but calling the guy a bandit is setting up the listener for a letdown.

How about bounder, the Burning Bed Bounder, three  B's and the same rhythm, and it lends a bit of Merrie Olde Englande to The Swampe.  "I say Guvnor, this looks like the work of the Burning Bed Bounder."  Situated not far from a lake I would wager that Cheboygan gets its share of fog and you could switch out your roll your own for one of those pipes with the curvy stems, and wear one of those Sherlock Holmes hats.  Then when the tourists tell the bus driver they have become bored with the shotgun toting authentic guy, he can offer to drive them off to a foggy spot of Merrie Olde Englande where a famous English detective lives in seclusion, and once they are assembled around your porch you can regale them with tales from your detective days.  And If they look a bit bored you can switch to your stories about deer stalking.

Because that Sherlock Holmes hat is actually a deerstalking hat.  You probably already knew that but I had to go the wiki. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deerstalker 

Which I have to tell you is a little disappointing because it never properly explains what is going on with the bill facing backwards.  I have to wonder if it is to confuse the deer so that they will not know whether the hunter is walking forwards or backwards.

I mentioned that thing about Putin withdrawing last morning in my post and as the day grew longer the story firmed up, and it was looking more and more like a withdrawal, but then it became more and more of a redeployment.  But as you military guys must now, isn't a redeployment just a fancy word for a retreat?

An Over Dramatization

Perhaps calling the perpetrator the Burning Bed Bandit was an over dramatization on my part.  All we really know is that somebody left an old bed by the side of the road and that it appeared to have been set on fire.  We don't even know if the dumper and the fire setter were the same person.  Usually, when a back woods litterer is apprehended, it's because a letter or something with the guy's name on it is found among the trash, like in the old Arlo Guthrie story "Alice's Restaurant".  In this case, the bed may have been burned to obliterate any identifying marks, or it may have been some kids just screwing around.  

The latest Russian troop movements in Ukraine might be a tactical withdrawal to consolidate their gains, or it may be that they need a respite from getting their asses shot off trying to take Kyiv.  Either way, it doesn't appear that they are planning to go home any time soon.  Bummer!

the burning bed bandit

 The burning bed bandit?  Hey now here is something that sticks out in a recitation of old roads of Cheboygan, but then the subject is dropped without further mention.  A blog search reveals nothing, nor does a document search, and Old Man Google simply shrugs at mention of the burning bed bandit Cheboygan.  So what is the story here?

Oh I get why Biden shouldn't have said what he said, but it doesn't seem like such a big deal to me.  He didn't specifically say regime change, he was just expressing his opinion same like us denizens of The Institute do.  The taking it back part was awfully clumsy though, if he didn't favor regime change did that mean he favored leaving Putin in power?  They should have just brushed it off at the press conference, much like Will Smith brushed off Kevin Hart.  Now that is something that will eat up more ink than anything Biden says.

There seems to be something afoot where Putin will take parts of eastern Ukraine and leave the rest of Ukraine alone.  You hate to see Putin get a prize for his actions, but then you see that endless parade of woeful immigrants and bombed out buildings, and you think maybe that is the way to go.

When Old Dog said that I Never Picked Cotton had two authors I assumed that it was Johnny Cash and some other guy, but poking around later I noticed that Johnny Cash  was neither of the authors.  Well shit.  It certainly sounds like Johnny Cash with that rich old-time slangy tone.  I guess I can only say that Johnny chose it because it sounded like something that he would have written.

Speaking of which, sort of, I mentioned that Nanci Griffith was my favorite songwriter and here is a song that she didn't write, but I like for it's old timey tone, 30's I would guess.  Well I just like it.  The dawgs can have their own opinions on it of course.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QAXmqIdweA

Alpena State Road

Alpena State Road never went to Alpena and has never been a state highway.  It got its name from being originally built by the Alpena State Lumber Company back in the old logging days.  I don't know anything else about that particular company.  The road crosses several sections of state land and links with several other roads that lead out to county roads with houses on them.  There are also a number of two track trails that branch off, meander around, and eventually dead end in the swamp.  The whole network is primarily used by hunters in the fall and snowmobilers in the winter.  There used to be a dump, which would be called a landfill today, that was closed before I moved here in 1967.  Apparently some people never got the word about the old dump being closed and continue to deposit trash and junk at several sites along the road even unto this day.  Volunteer groups have been trying to clean these sites up for years, and they have made significant progress, but have not been able totally stop the practice.  Citations are issued occasionally, but I haven't heard of the Burning Bed Bandit being apprehended. 

Round Island is located between Mackinac and Bois Blanc islands and is quite small.  There is a lighthouse on it and not much else.  Perhaps Old Dog is referring to Isle Royale National Park, which is located in Lake Superior near the Canadian border.  That one is maintained as a true wilderness area.  I understand that it's the least visited and least accessible of all our national parks, but I have never been there.

Hunting ammunition was really hard to come by last fall.  All the stores were sold out and I couldn't even find the type I use on the internet.  I did file several requests to let me know if and when they come back in stock.  About a week ago I was notified by one of the sites that my bullets were now available, limit two boxes to a customer.  My order arrived in a few days, so I should be all set for next season, provided one or both of us doesn't get sick or die by then.  I guess I should have stocked up during the Trump administration.

The war in Ukraine has now entered into its second month.  I never thought that the Ukrainians would hold out this long, and neither did Putin.  I don't know why there has been such an uproar over Biden's statement that Putin should be removed from office.  I said the same thing recently and nobody got upset about that.    

the rough poetry of the Man in Black

 Thank you Old Dog, I was thinking of putting together something about the Oscars, something about them being a big tinsel  ball of over rated nothing.  I like movies, and I saw several of the movies in contention, but who cares what a bunch of fat headed Hollywood types vote for?  Not me.  Anyway now I have a better topic.

I just heard there was a punch out.  A punch out always gets the attention, but once it gets to be a regular thing it is like throwing chairs.

The war comics that I read didn't have any heroes, it was just one story after another set in various wars, WWII and vaguely the Korean mostly.  There were cowboy comics too, though I was never a big cowboy fan.  The only superheros at the time were Batman and Superman, I think there may have been a Green Lantern but he seemed kind of esoteric.

But of course the best comics were the horror comics.  I don't think we were even aware of the Comics Code, but we were aware of the exact date it went into effect and comics before that date were prized much higher than the ones that came after.  

I never read a real book until I was twelve.  The Ant Men, one of those famous Winston science fiction books.  Why read anything else when comics were so good?  Every kid had a stack about two feet high and every so often we would get together and trade comics.  It was great.  Happy days in the old hood.

Yes the Sunday comics were a whole nother world, to spread out on the rug and crawl over.  A lot of story comics and those really odd Katzenjammer Kids, and years later when I got into head comics I realized that Smokey Stover was psychedelic before there was even psychedelia.

I love Johnny Cash lyrics and try to sprinkle them into my writing when I can.  One I use often is our streak-of-lightning cars and fancy clothes.  At first glance they look kind of cornball but a closer examination reveals that they are spot on.  

I have noticed that there are small changes in the lyrics depending on their source.  I remembered long-haired girls, but there was long-legged girls in another version.  I prefer the former because I think it adds to the fast cars, you can see their hair blowing in the breeze.

My favorite songwriter off the cuff is the recently deceased Nanci Griffith.  

When I copy and paste the lyrics I put them into italics, then I make them bigger or smaller to fit in with the post.  I guess this last time I made them too small.

Another cotton picking post

Comics, huh?  It appears that the Institute is unanimous in it's positive opinion of comics.  Well done, Uncle Ken, in starting the ball rolling with your memory of war comics.  I'm trying to nail down the time frame, I'm guessing that you're talking about the mid-50s, the peak years of war comics.  The three year difference in our ages is a big gap when you're a kid.  Unless your were family, I think the third graders were ignored, if not shunned, by the fifth and sixth graders.  The war comics I remember most strongly came a few years later, Sgt. Rock of Easy Company.  Where else is kid going to learn about SNAFU and FUBAR?

The mid-50s were a turning point in the world of comics (comic books, not newspaper comic strips) with the outcry against the sex, violence, and gore in some of the comics.  EC Comics was a big target of the goody two-shoes and they lost a lot of their titles, but they did keep MAD, which was nice.

The newspaper comics were a big treat for me with the Sunday Tribune, all those big color pages with Dick Tracy leading the way.  Smilin' Jack, Smoky Stover (Notary Sojac!), too many for me to remember right now and the Sun-Times had their own goodies.  It was a golden era and we didn't know it, and that's a different rabbit hole.

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Good oblique reference to the song "I never picked cotton" with the quoted lyric but the version by Johnny Cash has the line "long legged girls" which none of the other versions had.  But the Man in Black left the guy lying and not dying in Memphis, so go figure.  An even better line, I think, is the previous one, "I stole ten bucks and a pickup truck;" reminds me of a hillbilly haiku, if there is such a thing.  I lost track of all the versions I listened to on YouTube and I think the live version by Johnny Cash in New York is the best and I never expected Roy Rogers, of all people, to sing a song like that, maybe there was a hidden bad boy that caught the eye of Dale Evans that we never knew about.  But who is your favorite songwriter, Uncle Ken?  That song was written by two guys.  And what's the deal with the real tiny type in that lyric?

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I read that article by the "French guy" you both mentioned and it was okay, but another article he wrote is better, talking about how college isn't all it's cracked up to be.  And you know that French guy was born in Oregon, right?

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Is there any post-winter report from the environs of Beaglesonia?  I like to keep up with what's going on "up there," and since joining the Institute I've made Cheboygan my fantasy home away from home.  It started with a few glances at the Cheboygan Tribune, and then signing up with their daily alerts and limited digital access, and now, dammit, I'm on the hook for the digital subscription but I can afford the 6 month deal for one dollar, even in these troubled economic times.

So, Mr. Beagles, did they ever catch the guy who left the burning bed near Alpena Road?  I'm a little behind in my reading but I like what I see in your local news, a slice of a reality that us city folks sometimes fail to appreciate.  And the fact that you are so close to a designated Wilderness Area boggles my mind.  Have you ever been to Round Island?

 

Kilroy was here

 Remember this guy?  In my early youth he was ubiquitous.  Wherever you found graffiti, and graffiti seemed more benign in those days than the eye smashing stuff you see today, he was there.  I learned to draw him myself, the nose and hands going over the line, the close set eyes.   A clever little drawing I thought.   Sometime before I got to Gage Park High he disappeared and I haven't seen him since.

His name was Kilroy and he had something to do with WW II, often accompanied by Kilroy was here.  He was drawn by WW II GI's who probably had never been out of the small rural county where they were born, and now look, they were in Paris, they were in Berlin, all across the south seas and Tokyo.  They would rather have been at home eating Mom's fried chicken, but at least they were seeing the world.  How could you keep them down on the farm after this?

Wiki, as is its wont, has a lot to say about Kilroy, most of it interesting, but no brass tacks, just speculation as to where and when he originated.  I guess that is for the best because otherwise he would be just one guy, and now he is everyman.  Or was, you don't see him around much anymore.  Pity.

I came up with the Kilroy thing responding to a fb post about graffiti,  Responding to another post, making a joke about how a friend came into a pot of money, I remembered a phrase from one of my favorite songwriters.   fast cars and whiskey long haired girls and fun That led me to another Johnny Cash song that I am going to leave the dawgs with,  This information comes too late to do us any good, but the next time some young buck taps you on the shoulder and asks you for some of that wisdom that us old guys are chock full of you can tell him this:

there ain't no good in an evil hearted woman,
And I ain't cut out to be no Jesse James,
And you don't go writing hot checks down in Mississippi,
And there ain't no good chain gang. 

And good Friday to you.

comic strips

 That is a really old joke.  I first remember hearing that in the halls of Old Gage Park High, told to me by Dan Looney and the island guys were Irish.

Calvin and Hobbes was one of the best.  You had to admire his world attitude.  I loved how the tiger was a real character to Calvin but when anybody else looked at him he was a stuffed toy.  Also the reactions with Suzy who the Calvin couldn't stand, but the tiger thought was hot.  

It's too bad that he is not writing anymore.  A writer of books or essays can write what he wants, but a newspaper comics writer has to have an idea every day, every fucking day for Chrissake.  Sometimes they just did those stock jokes, mother-in-law type things.  The odd thing was some comic strip I didn't like would do it, and I would frown, that's not funny, but when my favorite comic strip did it I would get a chuckle.  Well, you know, it's not the joke, it's how you tell it.

My sister reads the New York Times, and I've looked through it and it is well-written and has a lot of news, but it has no comics.  I can't get past that.  I get the comics in both the Trib and Sun-Times, and when I bought my tablet it came with a subscription to the Washington Post and I get their comics too.  They have my favorite comic strip,  Cul de Sac.

Just a bunch of kids in a neighborhood cul de sac, but you know it is not the joke it is how you tell it.

Sad story, the author got Parkinson's and he is no longer with it, but they repeat it over and over again, and there are so many that they all seem fresh.

They Don't Make Comics Like They Used To

 I still read the comics out of habit, but I don't think I would miss them if they were gone. Among my favorites used to be Peanuts, Cathy, Calvin and Hobbes, and another one about a smart aleck kid whose name I don't remember. No, it was certainly not Dennis the Menace.  I also liked Prince Valiant, although I didn't understand half of it in my younger days.  Some time ago, I started buying a series of books that contained all of the episodes from day one.  I bought them mostly for the artwork, but I found that I understood the plots much better now than I used to.  I stopped buying them after I had all the episodes by the original creator, Hal Foster.  I also have a three-volume set of The Complete Calvin and Hobbes.  

Speaking of historical fiction, here is a really old joke that I repurposed to fit the current situation.  Only the names of the nationalities have been changed. I believe the original ones were Poles and Lithuanians.  

Once upon a time, there were two islands a couple miles apart.  One island was the home of a thousand Russians, and a single Ukrainian lived on the other.  One day 10 of the Russians set out for the other island to kick the lone Ukrainian's ass, and they never returned.  Then a hundred Russians followed after them for the same purpose, and they never returned.  Finally, all of the remaining Russians set forth, except for one guy who was too sick to participate.  When they didn't return either, the sick guy, who was feeling better by now, went over to see what had happened to all his comrades.  When he got there, he saw dead Russians laying all over the place, and one who was still barely alive.  He asked him what had happened, and the guy's dying gasp was, "Go back!  Go Back! There's two of them.

the red line

 My NPR station goes to BBC at eleven and that stays on until five in the morning so I fall asleep to it and I wake up to it in the morning.  The idea that the Putin is running out of steam is common consensus among the experts on CNN, but likely they will be doing a lot of damage to Ukraine before they are done.  A lot of damage to the Russian army too, but Putin does not care about that.  I saw on CNN that he is bringing a fleet down from Vladivostok around China and India and up through the Suez canal to get to Ukraine.  Also he may be bringing in Syrians

This whole thing sort of begins with Syria and the Arab Spring. Syria had a particularly odious dictator and they had him on the run, and everybody thought he would be gone, but then Hezbollah came to his aid.  Obama was big on rooting for the opposition (which at the beginning was mostly freedom-loving Syrians of the kind we like, but as the going got rough they faded and many were replaced by Jihadis).

Anyway there was talk about chemical weapons and Obama said that if Hassad, the Syrian dictator, used them that would be a red line for the US intervening, and then Hassad used chemical weapons, and we were in a pickle because did we really want to put troops in Syria?

No.  We kind of wriggled our way out of it, and the Russians moved in.  Well it didn't seem like such a bad thing to me at the time.  Let them get tangled up in that tar baby.  

But see the reason it would be such a tar baby for us is as the good guys we would have to worry about killing civilians and determining who was on our side, but the Russkies didn't care about that at all and just started bombing everybody.

There has been some talk about how we shouldn't be so shocked at the Russkies bombing civilians because look what they did in Syria, but not much about the Obama red line incident, and I am not sure why.

Actually there has been some talk about the Russians using chemical weapons, but I don't know, I think this whole thing about chemical weapons is overdone.  They are not that reliable, and may blow back on you, and you can kill more people with bombs anyway.

That went on longer than I thought it would.  The Sun-Times and the Trib are both fading.  The Trib is in the untender hands of one of those corporate raiders, and the Sun-Times is in the hands of do-gooder, non-profit types so we will see how that goes.  Both papers have way too much sports, Bears, Bears, Bears, but that is what makes them the most money.  International news has faded though local news appears to be holding steady.  I'm glad to hear that Beagles is a big fan of the comics because I am too. but I doubt that we both have the same tastes that way.  Both my papers sit on the table unread at this early morning hour, but as I read them today I will make some notes about which ones I like and hate and Beagles can do the same as he wolfs down his amazing harvest bowl and we can exchange our preferences, just to have something to talk about.

"Poland is Not Yet Lost"

 That was the motto of Poland throughout more than a century of foreign domination, and as far as I know, it still is.  While reading this article, it occurred to me that the same can be said about Ukraine.  "Ukraine is not yet lost.", it's got a nice ring to it, doesn't it?  

At the end of the article are some secondary links, the first one of which provides "live" updates on the situation.  I know that Uncle Ken has been closely following the CNN news, but this is from the BBC, which might offer a different perspective.  According to them, the Russian invasion is showing signs of faltering.  The Russians are continuing to experience supply problems, and they may even be running out of missiles.  Meanwhile, the Ukrainians shot down 10 Russian planes just on Wednesday with their own missiles, which we gave them.  They said something about the Russians no longer having air superiority, which, if true, would be good news indeed.  

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/how-poland-s-businesses-are-helping-ukrainians/ar-AAVd2oG?rt=0&ocid=Win10NewsApp&referrerID=InAppShare

I may not have made this clear last night, but my response to French Paul was a copy of a letter to the editor that I sent to our local paper.  The Cheboygan Daily Tribune has become part of a large conglomerate known as "the U.S.A. Today Network."  There is more and better news coverage now, but the comics still suck, and there is still too much sports coverage for my taste.  You may remember that I used to say,  "What this paper needs is more news, less sports, and better comics." Well, I guess one out of three is better than nothing.

bad guys with cool jets

 I liked war comics as a kid.   The Korean war had ended but I don't remember anybody telling me.  It was a bit outrageous.  Weren't they still commies?  Why weren't we still fighting them then?  Adults, what was the matter with them?  Anyway I remember the scene where the slightly bucktoothed yellow guy in the Mig (those Migs were so cool with that big gaping mouth in front and that tall tail in the back.  Way cooler than whatever jet we were flying at the time.  Maybe they were godless atheists and out to bury us and all, but they made the coolest jets) had our guy in his boring jet in his sight and was saying, "Die, capitalist running dog of Wall Street."  Wall Street, I wondered, where was that?

I remember during the Vietnam war when they would be describing a battle and they spoke of communist bombs.  Communist bombs.  
Why didn't they call ours capitalist bombs?  Christian bombs maybe?

Communism is an economic theory which neither Russia or China follow anymore.  If it pleases Beagles to call them Communists with a capital C, very well then, this is a free country, but most people just call them China and Russia today.  Anyway they are both bad actors right now.  Russia is the worst of the two because Putin's atomic finger is itchy.  The Chinese as always are playing the long game, and in the long run all sorts of things can happen.

Just from the title I don't have much truck with Paul the French guy.  Countries do not get human diseases.  Commentators often speak of countries as if they were humans, like this is a young country prone to errors, and it is just bullshit.  Oh wait, Russia does not have PTSD, maybe it is schizophrenia, maybe it is asthma, maybe it is the sniffles.  What difference does it make anyway?  How does that make what is going on any clearer to call it PTSD?  I have to agree with what he says in the end, that we should not lob nuclear bombs at each other, but then the ten year old me reading war comics would say the same thing. 

Geopolitical Catastrophe my Ass!

Paul deLespinasse: Is Russia, too, suffering from national PTSD? (hollandsentinel.com)

This is in response to the column "Is Russia too suffering from national PTSD" by Paul F. deLespinasse, published in the September 16 issue of the Cheboygan Daily Tribune.

The liberation of the Captive Nations was certainly not a "geopolitical catastrophe", it was the best thing to happen on the geopolitical scene since the Allied victory in World War II.  Now we have Vladimir Putin, an unrehabilitated Communist, who seems intent on reestablishing the Evil Empire.  I believe that most Russians are good people, they just happen to be cursed with bad leadership.  What they need to do is overthrow Mr. Putin and cast him into the Outer Darkness where men shall weep and gnash their teeth. 

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Both Russia and China were our allies during World War II, it was their behavior after the war that made them our enemies.  Technically, communism is a system of economics, not a system of government.  In common usage, however, Communism with a capital "C" has become synonymous with the autocratic governments of Russia, Red China, and others of their ilk.  Russia in particular has openly threatened to "bury" us on numerous occasions.  Sounds like an enemy to me.  I'm not so sure about Red China, they seem to have evolved into shrewdly competitive businessmen.  That would make them okay if it weren't for their oppression of their own people.  President Nixon seemed to think he could play Red China and Russia against each other to our own advantage.  It's beginning to look like Red China is considering trying the same tactic between us and Russia, but it's too early to tell for sure.

*************************************************************************

When contemplating the optimum population density of a country or a planet, we need to consider more than the number of square feet per person.  Some habitats, like mountains and deserts, won't reliably support even a moderately dense population because of inhospitable climate or limited water availability.  Much of the "good" land is needed for agriculture, and urban sprawl gobbles up a lot of that.  Then there are subjective considerations.  While my urban colleagues might be comfortable living stacked up on top each other, there are some of us who need room to swing our boom.  Deprive us of that, and we're likely to get angry. You wouldn't like us when we're angry

the lost city of Winona

 Oh C'mon Beagles I know the story about the goose and the golden egg.  I mean doesn't everybody?  What I was asking was who was the goose and what was the golden egg, and it turns out that Uncle Sugar, as some call him, is the goose and trade with us is the golden egg.  I had forgotten that by buying pretty good goods at a pretty good price we were falling into their trap and that was how they were able to buy up our debt and if only we had refused to trade with them, why we would be sitting pretty, and they would be sitting not so pretty.

Well I don't know, it seems like it is probably more complicated than that, but I don't fully understand the dismal science.  Took a course in it once.  I recall that there were guns and there was butter, but I don't remember much else.  I don't really understand these sanctions.  I guess we and western Europe have all the marbles and we can use that to fuck with countries we don't like.  Well countries that don't have such robust economies, so I don't know about China because I think it has some marbles itself.

Russia had their revolution in the teens of the last century and China had hers in the mid-fifties.  Were they friends of ours before that?  Certainly no friends of ours throughout the cold war which brought us the Vietnam war which was us and the Russkies while China stood on the sidelines.  They both stopped being commies maybe twenty years ago, but now they seem to be even worse enemies than when they were red.  Would they have been our enemies even if they had never been commies?

Seems to me the common consensus is that the Russkies went off half-cocked because Putin is off his rocker, and likely he will never completely take Ukraine though he will kill a lot of people and destroy a lot of property before that happens.

And what then?  Hopefully the Russian people with the help of some band of disgruntled generals will rise up and hang him by his feet.  And that would all be good.  I suppose then we could all join hands and sing Kumbaya and turn to face RedNoMore China.

I am glad you enjoyed my tale of the man who put Cheboygan on the tourist gravy train.  I was indeed trying to be witty.  I guess to some that makes me a condescending dipshit, make that dipstick, well as my favorite philosopher, who I have quoted frequently on this subject, Ricky Nelson, sang to the world, "You can't please everybody, you gotta please yourself."

I was up in Mackinaw myself, the first summer after we bought our first family car, the pea green 1953 Customline, when we drove clear around Lake Michigan with that 50's spirit of seeing the USA even with a Ford. 

Being as how I was only eight or nine my memories are vague, but maybe ten years ago Ruby Dew and I, on one of our Louis Sullivan bank trips were skirting the southern edge of Minnesota when we took a turn northwards and stumbled upon the lost city of Winona.  Well not lost really, but I had never heard of it which I thought was surprising considering its size.  I remember 100,000, but looking it up now I see it is only 25,000, but that's still sizable isn't it?  It is not as far north as Mackinaw but it is right on the Mississippi and the land around it is hilly and full of trees, and there is some kind of state or national forest and I saw hunting lodges, and even though we were not on a motorcycle the air felt abnormally clean, brisk, and fresh.

The town itself is on the southwest side of the Mississippi and just southwest of the town is a big narrow lake so the town is like on a peninsula and kind of squashed together and most of the grand old buildings are still standing in their art nouveau glory so you are taken a bit back in time.  Oh, and Winona Rider was named for the town,

Well I just wanted to talk about Winona.  It has been so long since I have been anywhere besides the Greyhound bus to Champaign.

And I was shocked at last evening's news that the senate had voted unanimously to extend daylight savings time into eternity.  I had not even known there was such a bill advancing, and unanimously?  Surely Ted Cruz would have voted against it just to be a prick, and Rand Paul, how can he not have objected to something that so many others were for?  Anyway on to the house, news at eleven.

Ides of March

Kudos to the both of you Sout' Siders for your generous contributions to the relief efforts in Ukraine; nothing like putting your money where your mouth is!  I'm taking a different path, looking to buy some swag where some of the profits go to help the cause.  First up will be the new postage stamps from Ukraine that tell the Russian warship to go fuck themselves.  A fine souvenir to be sure and I can't wait to get some and do a little guerilla graffiti.  There's a company in the UK that produces t-shirts that say the same thing (in Ukranian, not English), along with a shirt that says "Putin is a dickhead," again in Ukranian with an image that superimposes Hitler's moustache on Putin's face.  I could use some new apparel for strolling around the neighborhood and it's for a good cause.

-----

I'm glad to see Uncle Ken appreciating some of the virtues of Cheboygan, even if he does come off a little snarky.  I'm not sure if he's trying to be witty or is just a condescending dipstick; I can't tell but it doesn't matter.  Anyhow, I've been lurking in the virtual Cheboygan area since I started posting with the Institute.  Since I've been in that area a few times, going so far back as taking the ferry to the U.P. while the bridge was being built, the memories of the northern US keep flooding back.  Most of the time was spent in the Wisconsin part of the great North Woods but northern Michigan is a lot like it, same trees, same kind of folks living there.  The strongest memory I have is the smell of the forests.  Once you get north of Madison in Wisconsin there is a different smell in the air, very clean and fresh.  You might not notice it a car with the windows rolled up and the air conditioner cranking away but it's very obvious on a motorcycle.  The effect is profound; it killed my desire to smoke cigarettes while I was "up there," smoking less than half of what I smoked in the big city.

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So, I think Mr. Beagles made a good choice in making Cheboygan his home.  A different roll of the dice and I might have done something similar but on the Lake Superior side of the Great Lakes.

It's amusing to me that I find myself in agreement with Mr. Beagles much more frequently than I do with Uncle Ken but I have to call him out on something, one last time and then I'll shut up about it.

I posit that there is no overcrowding in the US, at least not to the extent that it's something to get worked up about.  It's true that our population has more than doubled in our lifetimes but we have plenty of room; most folks are moving to the cities or building cities out of smaller towns.  I'd like to know what evidence Mr. Beagles has and if it is something that he has personally experienced.  This isn't a topic that I'm going to beat to death; agreeing to disagree is fine.  But I did a little digging and I learned that the United States is ranked #174 in population density among global nations.  If it's getting crowded here imagine what it's like everywhere else.  As an added treat, I submit images from Bangladesh, one of the most densely populated areas on the planet.  Make of it what you will; we can move on to other topics.

Like this one:

Fact is all pint glasses, hold fifteen and a half ounces.  Just something they do, and they still call them pint glasses because that's what they do.

And they do it for a reason.  The British fluid ounce is a little smaller than the US fluid ounce, so 16 British fluid ounces (a pint) is only 15.37216 US fluid ounces, not quite a US pint.  My source is the 4th Edition of Thomas J. Glover's Pocket Ref (Wikipedia agrees) if you want to argue, and I don't.  But the British Imperial Pint is 20 of their ounces so now I don't what to think.  Just gimme a beer, barkeep!

Don't Kill the Goose

 A long time ago in a land far away, there was a rich king who had a goose that laid a golden egg every day.  Growing impatient with this installment plan, the king decided to kill the goose and cut it open so as to get all the golden eggs at once.  As it turned out, he didn't find any golden eggs inside the goose, and now that it was dead, the goose would never lay a golden egg again.  So, it is said even unto this day, "Don't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs." which means, "You've got a good thing going here, don't screw it up."

Red China is the rich king, and the U.S. is the goose that has made the king verily rich over the years.  The consensus of the articles I have read is that, while Red China has become chummy with Russia lately, they are not likely to help them work around our sanctions because then we might sanction them a well, which would be bad for business.  They seem to be trying to stay neutral in this war because they want to maintain trade relations with both sides.  Those crafty devils!

Rumor has it that one of the things Putin is asking the Red Chinese to supply is MREs, which is what they call C-rations nowadays days.  If true, this would lend credence to the theory that the Russian forces have been underfed since day one.  In the olden days before C-rations were invented, invading armies used to subsist by looting the peasants on their way to the castle.  This won't work here because the Russians are bombing everything in the path ahead of them, so there won't be much left to loot when they reach their objective.  This is called the "scorched earth tactic", but it is customary to scorch the earth behind you as you retreat, not the earth ahead of you as you advance.  Either the Russian don't know what they're doing, or they know something that we don't.  

I enjoyed Uncle Ken's little story about me putting on a show for the tourists.  I suppose we don't need to totally lose our sense of humor just because there is a war going on.

Howdy neighbors, you drop on in.

 Thank you Beagles I have been wringing my hands over this for a couple weeks and I don't think that was helping the Ukrainians at all.  I don't reckon that my matching donation will do much good either, but I reckon it will do something.

I see that Putin is seeking material aid and comfort from Red China now, but that Red China seems to be reluctant to provide it.  Of course, we don't know that for a fact because those Orientals are inscrutable.  Personally, I doubt that those crafty devils are eager to kill the goose that has been laying golden eggs for them lo these many years

This seem as inscrutable as Beagles finds the Orientals.  Who is the goose and what are the eggs?

I reckon maybe those tourists are getting fed up with those tourist traps like Petoskey, and are pushing up north to find something more authentic.  Tourists love authentic as long as the toilets are indoors. 

 There is a stretch just north of downtown with Ohio Street on one side taking traffic straight from the expressway into the city and a block further north is Ontario Street taking traffic straight back out to the expressway that leads back to the burbs.  In between these streets are a Hard Rock Cafe, a Portillo's, a big McDonalds, was a Rain Forest Cafe. but it went down the tubes.  All of this for suburbanites.  They can drive into it from the expressway on Ohio and leave it on Ontario without having to leave their little corridor and go into the nasty city.

I pass through there with a cold city sneer, "Fucking tourists," but at the same time I am glad that they are coming into the city and spending some bucks here.

And it strikes me that Beagles could be part of the tourist attraction.  I reckon you have lived there long enough to be authentic, and that swamp sounds very authentic, and you have that crabby anti immigrant attitude that also sounds very authentic.

Tourists could board a bus would take them out to the swamp where you would be sitting on your porch with a yellow beer, a roll your own hanging out of the side of your mouth, Old Betsy on your knees

and when the bus came into view you could brandish your weapon and yell "Git outta here you damn varmints, this country is already filled up way too much, git back to where you came from afore I fill you full of lead," and here you could shoot off a couple rounds, blanks of course because you would not want to pull an Alex Baldwin.  

The tourists could return their hearts athrob at being shot at by an authentic Cheboyganite and the city could pay you off with rolling tobacco, yellow beer, and ammo.

And maybe a gift certificate for an amazing Harvest Bowl which you could wash down with a latte, while all around you the other diners at the Nourish Cafe would watch with wide eyes, the guy that helped put Cheboygan on the tourist gravy train.

Aid and Comfort

 I don't normally donate to charities, but last night I gave a hundred dollars to the United Ukrainian American Relief Committee.  I know it's insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but it made me feel that I was doing something instead of just talking about it.  I checked out several of the many existing organizations, and this one seemed to be the most reliable.  I tried sending the money directly to the Ukrainian military through the National Bank of Ukraine, but I couldn't make my card work.  It occurred to me that my card might not be valid outside the U.S., or that the National Bank of Ukraine might have been bombed out of existence by now, so I decided that a U.S. based charity would be a safer bet.  Here is their link if anybody is interested:

United Ukrainian American Relief Committee, Inc. (uuarc.org)

I see that Putin is seeking material aid and comfort from Red China now, but that Red China seems to be reluctant to provide it.  Of course, we don't know that for a fact because those Orientals are inscrutable.  Personally, I doubt that those crafty devils are eager to kill the goose that has been laying golden eggs for them lo these many years, but that's just my opinion.  

Speaking of Putin, I am reminded of a Biblical quote, I believe from the Book of Revelation:  "Satan has great rage for he knows that his time is short."  

The last time I drove down Cheboygan's Main Street, I hardly recognized it, but then I don't get around much anymore.  I knew, however, that it had been evolving into a strip of touristy boutique shops for some time.  Nothing wrong with that, but it's not exactly my cup of tea.

Cheboygan Main Street: My new favorite Main Street

 When you get a smart phone one of the features is a newsfeed.  When you click on (sorry on a smart phone you poke it) your browser icon it shows your eight favorite sites and below that are about twenty articles that the phone deems you might be interested in.  And there are some on politics or science or history in which I am sometimes interested but the rest is all like celebrities and sports and cooking and that kind of crapola.  

There never seems to be enough news for me, so when I get a quiet moment where I could be doing something to make it a better world I find myself scrolling through the pseudo news and that is where I came across this.

https://www.cheboygannews.com/story/opinion/columns/2022/03/10/cheboygan-main-street-my-new-favorite-main-street/9413890002/

As Monty Python said in their heyday, nobody ever expects the Spanish Inquisition, and I say to you on this snowy morning, I never expected to see Cheboygan Michigan on my smart phone.  Oh well I know that there is a lot of info on me from everything I do on the web and I am not surprised to see like articles on movies that I search for appearing in the newsfeed, but Cheboygan seemed awfully specific.  

Could it be that my phone is reading the blog?  I would be happy to think that anybody or anything was reading my golden words, but probably not.

I have a Yahoo weather thing I go to when I am too lazy to stick my head out the window which also allows me to see what the weather is in other places and when the weather is really cold and crappy here I sometimes look up Cheboygan to be cheered by the knowledge that the weather is worse somewhere else.  So that is where this spritely article by always upbeat and sunny Maggie Badgley comes from.

I think it comes from the Cheboygan Daily Tribune.  Beagles may have already read it.  Even now he is likely planning to drop by the Nourish Cafe for an amazing Harvest Bowl and a latte, hoping to run into Merry Maggie and discuss the goings on in the world that the dull fellows of The Institute seem to drone on about endlessly, especially that one guy who won't be mentioned, except to say that he is not a dawg.

I hear that it will be ten below wind chill tomorrow morning when the river will be dyed in front of what I expect to be a sparse crowd of drunken teenagers.  But the next day we will begin to soar into the fifties and sixties.  And the sun will be setting later.  And the ballplayers will be batting the horsehide around in Florida and Arizona.

So there is that.  Happy Friday.  And Beagles, get your butt out to Main Street and see the wonder.  But hey, be careful out there.

removing heads of state

 A movie came out a few years back, The Death of Stalin, which was pretty funny.  The centerpiece of it was Joseph Stalin lying on the floor after suffering a stroke, and all the other commies scrambling about and trying to come out on top.  They were glad to see him go, and they didn't summon any help for Josef, but none of them were brave enough to deliver the coup de gras.  

I believe that is a pretty close description of what actually happened.  If there was a mechanism to remove the head of state nobody was brave enough to use it.  Hell it happened right here in the USA where we twice tried to use the constitutional mechanism to remove a law breaking tyrant, and failed because half the reps were in love with the guy and the other half were scared shitless.  Even to this day with book after book comes out about what a dickhead he is, you'll find very few reps willing to say a bad word about him and he is the overwhelming favorite to be their nominee the next time around.  

I keep harping on the guy I know, but I don't think it has been set enough.  HE HELD UP MILITARY AID FOR UKRAINE TO GET THEM TO SMEAR HUNTER BIDEN, AND ONLY WHEN THE WHISTLE WAS BLOWN DID HE DO WHAT HE WAS LEGALLY REQUIRED TO DO AND THEN HE FIRED THE WHISTLEBLOWER.  I was going to go on with increasingly larger caps, but it suddenly occurred to me, how would I feel if the Russkies put a cap in Orangey's head?

I can't say that I would feel bad about that at all.  But it would set a bad precedent, with heads of state knocking off other heads.  Probably not that easy to do either, witness the comedy of errors when we tired to knock off Castro and he lived in a small island not that far away from us at all.

What He Said

 I couldn't have said it better myself.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/how-to-help-ukrainians-is-a-moral-question-too/ar-AAURoXN?rt=0&ocid=Win10NewsApp&referrerID=InAppShare

I seem to remember that several Russian heads of state were removed from office back in the communist days. I'm not sure exactly how this was accomplished, or if a similar mechanism exists in their current system.  I think there was a committee or something that voted the guy out and chose his successor.  I find it hard to believe that Putin just unilaterally declared himself to be the leader, and it was so.  Somebody put him in office, and somebody can remove him from office.  

There are indeed too many people in the U.S. already so, if we admit two million Ukrainians, we will have to deport at least that many other people.  I don't care if they are Mexicans or Mongolians, as long as they're here illegally in the first place.  

schmexperts

 That photo Old Dog posted of the six news channels all on one screen at the same time reminded me of what CNN did after one of those jumbo jets plunged into the south China Sea without a good bye.  I don't remember exactly how many, maybe sixteen experts in a four by four grid on the screen.  One of them was a psychic and CNN got a lot of grief for that, and in fact they got a bit of grief just over the ridiculous grid, and now they bring them on one at a time.  The thing  being I have had my fill on experts so I am going to skip this one which is just as well as I can see from the link he is saying pretty much the same thing all the other experts are saying.

Back when the US faced its constitutional crisis, even when only one party wanted to rid us of this tyrant, much of the military and law enforcement stood tall and stuck to what they believed in.  It didn't help us get rid of the tyrant, but it did keep him from establishing his dictatorship and lining us up against the wall which word is was one of the things that so enamored him of Putin.

Are there any such generals or officers of the law with any kind of power to do such a thing in Russia?  Just my own little expert guess, but probably not.

CNN just on with a big list of all the companies that will no longer deal with the Russkies.  Again I am surprised at the strength of these mysterious sanctions, but apparently the citizenry is going back to the bad old days of waiting in line.  I'm not sure how real polls in Russia are, but the last one had the people backing the war two to one.  Well the American public backed the wars in Vietnam and Iraq at first, but when they went on and on and accomplished nothing, our people eventually got tired of them.  On the other hand in the mean time a more and more frustrated Putin finger is on the atomic button.

Here's the thing Beagles you have previously spoke against Mexican immigration using the issue that the country is just too crowded as it is.  Those bold blue and yellow Ukrainians would take up just as much space as the Mexicans.

But the analogy is not quite right.  These Ukrainians don't want to settle in Poland or Hungary or Czech, they just want to stay out of the way of the bombs until hopefully this thing is settled and we can go back to normal.

Speaking of normal, our local covid rate is down to the low levels of last summer, and just maybe we are going back to normal although plenty are still dying in the outlaw states of Florida and Idaho.  But my masks are now languishing in the bathroom drawer and hopefully I will only have to open the drawer to dump ithem into the dust bin.  Maybe while listening to the sound of hammers and nails as the Ukrainians put their country back and of the wheels of the wagon that is delivering Putin to the Hague.  There is a glimmer.

"Putin's Days Are Numbered"

 I know this sounds like wishful thinking, and it is when I say it, but maybe this guy's opinion is a little more well informed than mine.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/putin-s-days-are-numbered-russian-strongman-has-shown-he-s-not-very-strong/ar-AAUM7A8?rt=0&ocid=Win10NewsApp&referrerID=InAppShare

Truth be known, though, all of our days are numbered aren't they.  I just looked it up, and Putin is only 69 years old, which is not so old for a national president.  Too bad.  Of course, that doesn't mean he has to stay in power until the day he dies.  He could be persuaded to retire to a nice country home in Siberia.  One can only hope.

We have discussed this immigration thing before, and pretty well ran it into the ground.  What's new is my proposal that we bring in a few million Slavic people to balance the equation.  What's wrong with that?  Those Cubans have been in Florida for a long time, and I don't remember hearing about them causing any trouble lately, unless you count voting Republican as causing trouble, which Uncle Ken seems to be doing.  

if only there weren't so damn many of them

 I've done microwave instant coffee since I have had a microwave which was maybe a couple years after I got back to Chicago which would be the early nineties,  At some point my sister who has more couth than I do, bought me a coffeemaker to elevate me into a more refined lifestyle, and it's been okay, coffee is a little better but it is also more work and sometimes of a morning I am not in the mood and do the instant and that serves just as well.

That thing about the measuring cups reminds me of an interesting evening at the Ten Cat when I think it was Old Dog, maybe it was somebody else, wondered does the Ten Cat pint glass hold 16 oz.  Turns out it doesn't, it holds like fifteen and a half, which is not as shocking as it sounded right off.  Fact is all pint glasses, hold fifteen and a half ounces.  Just something they do, and they still call them pint glasses because that's what they do.  Sounds like some bit of chicanery and maybe it is.  I wonder if in Merrie Old Englande where those pint glasses came from if they are also fifteen and a half. Actually Englande has gone metric, so you would think it would have something to do with the metric system, but you would think that ye olde pubbe would be one place where maybe they hold to the measures used back when Britannia ruled the waves.

I went to google and it is more complicated than I thought.  I will leave it at that for the nonce and the reader can read further on the subject if they are of the mood.

Most matters are beyond my power of control.  I am interested in this because well, I am just interested in what is going on in the world.  

And right now I am near the end of Emma Goodman's autobiography and she is in Ukraine which was a hotbed for the anarchists, who were uneasily joined with the commies when they had the czar in common to fight, the enemy of my enemy sort of thing, and now that the enemy is gone so has the friendship between the two and the commies are putting the hammer to the anarchists.  Their most potent weapon is their bureaucracy which they also turn on themselves.

And a Putin knock off has appeared on House of Cards, pretty much looking like Satan.  Well you know on tv and in the movies Satan always has a lot of charm and do does this guy and normally I would go along with all that, but thinking of the current Putin I find no charm. no cleverness, nothing but, dare I say it? Trump across the waters.

I seem to remember that Europe was overrun with refugees from the Middle East a few years ago.  They finally had to start turning them away because there were just too many of them.

See this is what I have been talking about, the idea that refugees are turned away not because they are too different, but because there are too many of them.  The deception being in the idea that if there were fewer of them it would be ok, but in fact a handful of them would be too many, unless of course they looked like you and maybe their enemy is your enemy (interesting how Putin is now most everybody's enemy) and then the sky is the limit.

A little off the subject but those Cubans were hispanics like the Mexicans further west, who Beagles is always worried about taking over the country, but we let in a whole slew of Cubans and now they have taken over south Florida delivering the whole state to Trumpette, De Santis, and I don't see that disturbing the sleep of Beagles up north in the freehold.

But of course there are other differences between the Ukrainians and the wretched masses of the mideast yearning to be free and the situation is more complicated than that, but I am just saying that the argument that we would be kind to the huddled masses if only there weren't so many of them is pretty bogus.

I remember when Nixon used to rant and rave about Uncle Ho, how he had enslaved so many of his countrymen to a godless ideology and then had caused this huge war where so many had died and I thought geez he did all that, just this skinny little guy with the wispy goatee, how had he done all that by himself?

News break

You want news?  I got yer news right here, pal, a screen grab of six live news feeds.  The audio is amazing with folks all jabbering at the same time,  just like in the movies.  I feel like a media mogul...

Let My People Go!

 Call me a racist if you want to, but I'm more concerned about the war in Ukraine than I am about the myriad conflicts in Central America and the Middle East.  To be fair, ask any of the refugees from those two regions if they care as much about Ukraine as they do about the troubles in their own homelands.  My guess is they don't, and for good reason.  Okay, Slavic Europe is not exactly my homeland, but it is the homeland of my ancestors.  All four of my grandparents came from Bohemia, which is now part of the Czech Republic.  It wasn't until I moved to Cheboygan that I ever met anybody's grandparent who didn't speak with a foreign, usually Slavic, accent.  I think it's just human nature to care more about your own people than you do about other people's people.  If that makes me a racist, so be it.

I seem to remember that Europe was overrun with refugees from the Middle East a few years ago.  They finally had to start turning them away because there were just too many of them.  I don't know how many the Slavic countries accepted, but I seem to remember that they accepted a bunch of refugees from Vietnam when there were too many of them for us to take care of.  Last I heard, there were upwards of two million Ukrainian refugees so far.  We had that many illegal crossings of our southern border only last year, and that's just the ones they caught.  To be fair, that was a record breaker, usually it's closer to one million.  I don't see why we can't make room for at least that many Slavic immigrants.  Diversity is a good thing, right?  

When I was stationed in Berlin, popular mythology held that Hitler was the only bad German who had ever lived.  I find it hard to believe that he murdered all those Jewish people and ran roughshod over much of Europe all by himself, he must have had help.  The same could be said about Stalin, Genghis Khan, and Atilla the Hun.  I can't think of any historical figure who rose to national leadership without a little help from his friends.  Even Moses had a least one Friend in high places.

Coffee break

This war has been obsessing me,  I tune into CNN every morning and leave it on.

There's your problem, Uncle Ken.  Listen to some music instead, Sandy Denny perhaps, or watch some cartoons.  As I read the recent posts of the Institute I ask myself, "why are these guys spending so much time yammering about this stuff?"  What, I wonder, are they getting out of all the back and forth, besides a little venting?

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"Every thing we hear is an opinion, not a fact.  Every thing we see is a perspective, not the truth."      -Marcus Aurelius

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My motives for not joining the conversation are purely selfish.  Maybe you guys haven't noticed, but the clock is ticking and I'm not getting any younger.  Since you guys are about three years older than me, pushing 80, it looks like, I'm surprised you think that chewing over matters that are beyond your control is a good use of your time.  The whole situation is nuts but you can say that about most of human history, so there we are.

But I'm not going to aggravate myself, getting worked up and frustrated over the failings of the human condition.  Thousands of years of recorded history and it's the same old crap.  Mr. Beagles is on the right track, only checking the news once a day if I'm not mistaken.  I'm not ignoring the situation in Ukraine but like Mr. Beagles, my interest lies in the tactics, strategies, and now the big one, logistics.  But my source of news is not network or cable, I'm strictly a YouTube guy.  There are 24-hour news channels, in English, from many countries and I try to see what they have to say.  They all have a slightly different perspective but if you add them all up I think you get a better picture of the reality of the situation.  I don't check those channels until very late, near midnight, because Ukraine is 8 hours ahead of Chicago and not much seems to be happening overnight.  As of this moment I think the outlook for Ukraine is bleak unless there are some internal changes in Russia.  With all the dithering going on I think Puta will eventually have his way but it will be a Pyhrric victory and a disaster in the long term.

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So, rather than make myself goofy following the actions of total strangers in locations I've never been to, I'm working on enhancing my quality of life and making sure that my day-to-day reality is the best I can make it.  And lately, it's been coffee.  I'm not a coffee snob, for ease of use you can't beat instant, and the Maxwell House stuff is good enough for me.  But lately I can't find it, the local Jewel stores never seem to have it in stock so I've been giving normal ground coffee a chance, in this case, Folger's Columbian blend (the only coffee available at the local Kwik-E-Mart).  Brewed it up, filtered it, and it was terrible, some of the worst coffee I've had in years.  I used the proper amount of coffee but maybe I let it steep too long.  Anyhow, time to do a little digging and I started reading about cold brewing and gave that method a shot.  A little weak but otherwise very close to wonderful, no acidity or bitterness.  The downside is that it requires more coffee and a lot more time so there has been some trial and error but I am pleased with the results.  If I want some coffee tomorrow I have to mix it up today, 18 to 24 hours are recommended.  And now I'm fiddling with adding some eggshell and a little salt with good results.  The best thing about cold brewing is that you get the full jolt of the water soluble caffeine and since you need to use more coffee to get the full flavor you get about double the caffeine.  I keep it in the refrigerator and because it can get so strong I cut it with a little water.  And then I nuke it good; the cold coffee is good but a hot cup of java is better.

Another thing I noticed in my kitchen adventures is that measuring spoons are not accurate.  Over the years I've accumulated many partial sets and I did a little experiment with four different tablespoons and they were all different, none delivered the true volume of 15 grams of water.  Some were over, some were under, but none hit the spot.  I doubt this means anything in the real world but I don't think you should mix up the measuring spoons; use spoons from the same set for best results with your recipes.  That's your kitchen tip for today.

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There is no medical term for "booger."

fading glimmers

 It looks like Putin has foregone any attempt to be a little sophisticated about taking Ukraine and is now going to blow the place to shit with his many bombs and cannons and missiles.  I read an article a few days ago and it predicted this behavior if he didn't get his way right away citing the experience in Syria.

Ah remember the Arab spring? What a bust that turned out to be.  As part of that the Syrians arose against their odious dictator, Bashar al-Assad.  At first it looked like they would succeed but then Hezbollah came to the aid of Bashar and not much later Putin came knocking on the door, and he just bombed the shit out of the rebels.  The guy writing the article said it should come as no surprise to us.  The author was an Arab, and complained about how we were making such a hoopla about Ukraine, but we never seemed to care much about the Syrian rebels.  Was it because they were Arabs?  Most likely yes.

There were extenuating circumstances.  Syria was in the midst of a civil war which was part of the foment going on in the middle east, and while half of the rebels were those good freedom loving people who we so admire the other half were jihadi types.

Now that I think of it we didn't raise much of a fuss when the Russkies took back the Crimea.  Well Ukraine had some terrible kleptocrat, and that area had always been kind of Russian anyway, and Putin, at the time he didn't seem so bad.  He came out of the time of the drunken Yeltsin and Russia coming off the wheels, and many of us, including me, thought well maybe they need a strongman, and he may be brutal, but at least he is sane.  That latter part turned out not to be true.  

And what about all those refugees Poland and Hungary (both headed by right wing dictator types) are taking in, and isn't that like so generous and makes you proud to be a human.  But they have also been beating back middle eastern refugees with the butts of their rifles and while regretful, we don't worry too much about that.

One thing is how sudden this whole Ukraine invasion was.  One day there was peace and in weeks the Russkies were running in their tanks like in broad daylight, right in the middle of a busy thoroughfare.  And another one is how much the Ukrainians look so much like us.

Just one thing Beagles, the oligarchs have not put Putin in power, he has put them in power, he can make or break any of them.  But it does seem likely that it will take somebody on the inside to take him down.  I am wondering about the generals.  Not a big fan of the military as you know, but they do stand for something besides the dear leader and I remember how some of the generals that Trump put in helped to take him out.

One thing that has surprised me is how powerful these sanctions are, toppling the ruble and all that.  I don't quite understand it but it seems to work powerfully and quickly.  If we can undo Putin with it, can it be used to keep China's hands off Hong Kong and Taiwan?

In the glimmer of hope thing, well it's certainly not helping Trump, and Biden is gaining a tad bit in his dismal polling.  He is looking like Bush the First when he assembled the force that forced Hussein out of Kuwait.  Of course he lost the next election after that.

Thanks for the cartoon Old Dog.  Putin is looking strong now but when this over and the Russian economy is in the toilet, and they are saddled with a big country where everybody hates them, maybe then Putin's dick may go limp.  

Just for laffs

Vladimir Puta; need I say more?

 

 

Russian Politics

After the Captive Nations were liberated, I naively believed that the Russians rehabilitated themselves from communism, but according to Wiki, that was not the case.  While they seem to have abandoned their communist economic system, their system of government hasn't changed much.  Although they now have oligarchs instead of communists calling the shots, many of them are the same people, so all that is changed is the nomenclature.  I thought that Putin himself was a neo-communist, but it turns out he is just a regular old fashioned communist leftover from the old regime.  If past practices are any indication, the same oligarchs that are keeping him in power will turn against him if they determine that he is a liability to their interests.  The only question is, what will it take to convince them that he is a liability to their interests?

I'm pretty sure that it was just a few whistleblowers in the Russian Security Service that tipped the Ukrainians off about that assassination plot.  We surely would be hearing more about it if it was the whole department.

Speaking of assholes, I see that those Trumpy truckers are at it again.  What's the matter with those people, don't they realize there's a war going on?  On the bright side, maybe this war will drive another nail in Trump's political coffin, since he and Putin are alleged to be asshole buddies.

Too bad about that no-fly zone, I thought it was an idea whose time had come.  If things keep going the way they are, our guys are likely to be directly engaging the Russians eventually anyway.  Better in the Ukraine than in Michigan.  Those Polish jets might do some good, if they can get them to the Ukrainians in time.  

gimmers of hope

 This war has been obsessing me,  I tune into CNN every morning and leave it on.  If I go out I am thinking of how is the war going, and I am back to it first thing when I get back.  In the evenings I feel bad about viewing my Netflix, and before I turn in, I go back to CNN for five or ten minutes to catch up, then I go to sleep listening to the BBC on NPR, and when I wake up it's right back to CNN.

I looked it up and it's been eight days.  Everybody figured it would be over in a couple, so there is some glimmer of hope.  There have been considerable demonstrations in Russia, which is encouraging.  But polls say two thirds of Russkies are for the war, but the public soon loses interest in wars that go bad.  There have been some oligarchs coming out against the war, but none of them are in Putin's tight inner circle.  Come to think of it I wonder if there is anybody besides Putin in his inner circle?

I was surprised about members of the Russian Federal Security Service (which google tells me is the successor to the KGB), alerted the Ukrainians to that assassination attempt.  Was that the whole organization or just some whistle blowers like our man Vindman, who blew the whistle on Trump for holding up military aid that congress had voted for Ukraine unless they would smear Hunter Biden, and Trump fired him and his brother too over that.  That is what the second impeachment was about, a treasonous deed that only seven out of fifty republican senators found to be treasonous.  The same republicans, I might add who are now pissing about Biden's war efforts though none dare say a word against Trump even to this day.

Though I personally would be all for hoisting them all on their stinking petards Biden is basically ignoring them because this is no time to act divided.  This is to his credit, and may even help him in his sinking poll numbers.

But this is about more than political advantages as those scenes of the suffering Ukrainians which Beagles and I find so painful attest.

But now NPR has gone into pledge drive mode so I have switched to CNN and there is the map of Ukraine with those bloody red areas and those dark black arrows piercing inwards from Russia, Belarus, and the Black Sea. but there is a glimmer of hope in the words of the expert about the prowess of the Russian army, incompetent, untrained, clumsy, blundering, and there is your glimmer of hope.  

I still have a lot more to say, but it will have to wait until Monday morning.  Until then I will be watching and hoping.