Last night, earlier this morning really, I attempted to fall asleep. The pain in my back raged and a cold pack soothed me. I slept for awhile, awoke, made coffee, then considered the collection of unfinished books gathered about my chair.

Stalingrad was the winner. I restarted it, as much to refresh my memory of what I had read so far of Vasily Grossman’s work. This is the epic novel of the epic battle that determined the outcome of that cluster of simultaneous wars that we call World War Two. Just as we cannot escape Sarajevo twenty eight years previous to this calamity, we live with this catastrophe even today.

Stalingrad, the battle, was fought by hundreds of thousands of ordinary people. Invading Germans, their Ukrainian Hiwis, ( Hilfswilliger), volunteer support troops, faced Russians and other ethnicities of the Soviet domain.

I think of Stalingrad today, nearly eighty years later, as Russians and Ukrainians face off , yet again. Not that far West, past the Don, are these eternal killing fields, where the Slavic world bleeds herself out.

Pick a side. Either one will do. Cheer on this ghoulish festival. Get bored eventually. Then go back to the NBA playoffs, or the NHL playoffs. Perhaps cricket in India is more to your liking. The deaths will continue, even after you’re bored.

I’m married, one month shy of twenty one years. I feel incredibly lonely. I’m going crazy.

That’s all.

So I am an old guy. Things happened with my ability to move gracefully, quickly and without pain. Now I can’t and don’t move those ways.

I went to my neighbourhood cricket ground and watched live cricket for the first time. It was fun until… a ball came in my direction. I got out of the way, but fell on my face, and, well, it isn’t bad, but it isn’t without pain. That and the fact that my lack of agility could get me in even bigger trouble, if I don’t deal with it.

Pain is keeping me awake and I’m obsessing on the mess in Ukraine. Both sides can’t just stop. Barbarism must be dealt with through more barbarism. That will fix it. The USA will continue to supply Ukraine with weapons and Ukraine will supply the cannon fodder. But this situation will persist until it … Who knows?

I was watching a Daffy Duck cartoon wherein he’s fighting the Nazis. Now there’s a cartoon about why it’s a smart idea to re-enlist in the 1950’s Army. Not bad. This was between Korea and Vietnam. There was plenty to do. A commercial came on touting the glories of Door Dash.

I’m not sleepy yet, but I am bored.

Ever since I don’t know when, human beings have been dividing the world into the Us’s vs. the Them’s. Here are just a few of the binaries(1/0): Greeks vs. Trojans, Persians vs. Greeks, Germans vs. Everybody Else, Commies vs. Free World. Now we have the Russians vs. the Ukrainians, and, by extension, Us.

If you believe Joe Biden and/or Sean Hannity, you trust their analyses of geopolitics to know that the corrupt oligarchs of Ukraine are the Good Guys. They bribe the Bidens, and make possible contracts to the armaments industries to restock the Defence Department’s warehouses. They give the media talking heads a chance to air out the same talking points of the Foreign Policy/War template that they’ve used since Pearl Harbour. The other pole of the Them’s has a new name tag (Russians). Everything else about the game is the same.

We don’t understand that the Ukrainians pose an existential threat to the survival of Russia and her culture. By getting chummy with the agnostic, morally flaccid West, the Ukrainians are importing the materialist values that, in the hands of Lenin, Stalin, et. al., nearly destroyed Russia in the Twentieth Century. Marxism was, and is, a Western secularist and atheist philosophy that posits an eternal struggle, with redemption made manifest only in murder “revolution”, starting with the martyred Romanovs.

Think about this. Other nations/cultures might not want what we have to offer. As outsiders, our critics notice the free exchange of ideas has become a joke in the USA. If one disagrees with the CDC, Fauci, Barack Obama, the Clintons, you are giving out disinformation or misinformation. You must be censored, so that the “free exchange” of ideas may continue. It’s another version of burning the village to save it. We talk a good game of freedom, but all that freedom jive is over at the tip-off.

We all know what a sonofabitch Putin is. Just don’t talk about our January 6 political prisoners, who killed Seth Rich, the Hunter Biden laptop, just for starters. Washington is a degenerate, and decadent court. Pseudoscience reigns, as transgender ideology, and climate science resist any legitimate scrutiny or debate. Do what a Yale educated lawyer, (John Kerry), says around climate change. Nobody believes that down means up any more or that 2 + 2 = 5. At least outside the Beltway, they don’t.

The conceit that we are the good guys in all our secular, agnostic, licentious,promiscuous, materialistic, militaristic glory just doesn’t cut it any longer. And if our pole of the binary is false, why are we even playing the game?

OK. We’re coming up on Good Friday. The Crucifixion of Our Lord sickens me. This was nothing out of the ordinary in the Roman World. This was a world where unwanted babies were allowed to die. Some things never change.

J wanted me to spend “time” with her while she watched Emergency!, a 70’s show of fictionalized stories about ER doctors, nurses and paramedics. All in all, it wasn’t a bad series, except the music set the dramatic tone with lots of brass. Completely unsettling. After half an hour of this, I wanted to die.

Two mentions of death in the first two paragraphs should tell you that my head is not in a good space. It got hot in Richmond, not unusual, where Spring morphs into Summer after about three weeks. We’ll sweat it out till about Hallowe’en. 

I might watch a World War Two documentary where the Bad Guys get what they deserve. Or cartoons. Maybe cartoons would be better. The manic antics of Daffy Duck are absolutely therapeutic.

I could not stand another minute in bed with J. There, I said it.

I went to a doctor, a PA, actually who told me the best way to manage my joint pain is to exercise. I need to break the cycle of inactivity.

OK Makes sense. Somewhere, mixed with the physical pain, is the heartache, the tears of tragedy. I can’t call the Russo-Ukrainian War anything else. This is Eastern Europe at its worst. We Americans think more violence fixes violence. But this violence is Redemptive Violence. We’ve figured out a way to prolong a crucifixion.

And that’s just one slow agony among many, some personal, some collective. I guess I’m in the right mindset for Passiontide.

I need this Resurrection, this Easter.

Who in the Taliban government in Afghanistan has the Climate Policy portfolio?

The people across the street fly a Dallas Cowboys “Lone Star” flag eleven months of the year. In June they fly a Pride flag. In a neighbourhood of Steelers and Washington fans, the Cowboys flag elicits more controversy.

In the event of Nuclear War should one go to the supermarket to stock up on bread and milk, as one does before a blizzard or hurricane?

In the etiquette of the Officer/Gentleman Class of the Nineteenth Century, an insult to a man’s wife would follow with that husband slapping the offender. A challenge to a duel was implicit.

The affront would then be resolved on the Field of Honour, where the parties would fight, with sword or pistol, often to the death.

We frown on this behaviour today. Understandably.

Still how do we take responsibility for the gravity of our words? Libel and Slander suits are often litigated between a plaintiff’s attorney and the insurance company’s attorney. An out-of-court settlement, with a non disclosure agreement (NDA) is the rule, rather than the exception.

The absurdity continues.