Goodnight, Vladirmir!

The western-minded citizens of Ukraine toppled a statue of Valdimir Lenin to express their displeasure with their government's recent moves away from Europe and toward Russia. Too bad it wasn't a statue of Vladimir Putin, who  has ruled Russia a lot longer than his illustrious predecessor. Whereas Lenin settled for "revolution in one country," he was succeeded by Joseph Stalin, who devoted his reign to restoring the boundaries of the Russian Empire of 1914. With the help of his compliant allies in the West, Stalin succeeded in his goal, only to have the Soviet Union die of its own excesses in 1991.

Putin has set out to restore the old boundaries, and so far as succeeded in drawing Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan into its "Eurasian Union" as members or candidates for membership, with Ukraine next in his sight. If he succeeds, Russia's western boundary will be 135 miles closer to the English Channel than it was in 1939. Poland should worry: Stalin took half the country in 1945 and put the rest under Moscow's control

I have been laggard about updating this blog because for the past two months Sally and I have been pushing hard on the final draft of Poland's Daughter, the story of young girl's journey through the Second World War in Poland, Soviet Russia, Persia, Lebanon, Egypt, and England, told in chapters alternating with the story of how we met and traveled together, from the dreary northwest of England to Italy's sun-drenched Mediterranean coast.

"But most of all, we were happy!" I write of our summertime idyll. "The sky is always blue in my memory of Lerici - the sunset is always glorious - the moon is always full - and the tide is always high. Sunrise or sunset, Lerici was nostro pezzo del cielo caduto in terra, our piece of heaven fallen to earth. What a distance Basia and I had traveled, from Piccadilly Gardens in the March rain! At Lerici, we lived in an eternal Now, suspended in time and space. Our castle was the center of the universe - and not just our universe, either, but the center of the entire, star-spangled, infinitely expanding cosmos. The sun rose each morning for a single purpose, to light the castle's ancient stones, to bronze our shoulders, and to warm the sand beneath our feet."

Go here for more about the research that went into this book.

It works, but please don't use it!

Fear not; everything is under control!

This is not John Cleese but the Leader of the Free World, whose health-care initiative is in shambles, who didn't know that NSA was tapping the German chancellor's phone or that the IRS was playing politics on his behalf, and who has been making a friend of Iran and an enemy of Saudi Arabia, but who nevertheless has managed to find time for 146 rounds of golf.

"Call Mr. Obama's style indifferent, aloof or irresponsible," writes Brett Stephens, "but a president who governs like this reaps the whirlwind—if not for himself, then for his country."

Toothless Old Man

It seems that Homo Erectus (now there's a name to conjure with!) lasted on earth for the better part of 1.7 million years. If we do as well, Homo Sapiens will still be around in 1,700,2013!

I particularly like Toothless Old Man, second from right. Give him spectacles, a hearing aid, and a cane, and you might see him on Main Street this afternoon!

getting ready for winter II

We don't build a fire during the summer, for obvious reasons, and we don't build one in the winter because more heat will vanish up the chimney than the fire generates. But fall and spring are a different matter, and today was the first gloomy enough to call for the magic!

on getting ready for winter

My woodpile is finished! It's L-shaped, going the length of the garage bay, then along the back. Driest wood at the front (left). The thingus atop the tractor is its exhaust pipe / muffler, which I removed the better to show thirty running feet of firewood, five feet high.