tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83959591135688290452024-03-18T14:12:55.520-04:00Veteran AFVeteran of four wars, four enlistments, four branches: Air Force, Army, Army Reserve, Army National Guard. I am both an AF (Air Force) veteran and as Veteran AF (As Fuck)Neil Gussmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667154945595202472noreply@blogger.comBlogger2202125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395959113568829045.post-57710574720408627492024-03-18T13:36:00.002-04:002024-03-18T13:36:24.690-04:00Exhibit of Contemporary Art from Ukraine and Talk by Vladislav Davidzon at Abington Arts<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh6yVRlajRpjHvpNsNmzzYyqCwQPyrwEPDkasSWuoLYbMaZYdwER65Icq-kXUZnrk0i9VqZEbHQo2VfCvZuF4C1zV7xa4sK9dLsfzGwMNTdevAkBdGhuMyVlZUQcRGk6OF_rZFM-b5DvcWQxV9lKbxtlN-2zIi9jeKdOxvrBehceteBTQo_LwE-EBPmjD3v" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh6yVRlajRpjHvpNsNmzzYyqCwQPyrwEPDkasSWuoLYbMaZYdwER65Icq-kXUZnrk0i9VqZEbHQo2VfCvZuF4C1zV7xa4sK9dLsfzGwMNTdevAkBdGhuMyVlZUQcRGk6OF_rZFM-b5DvcWQxV9lKbxtlN-2zIi9jeKdOxvrBehceteBTQo_LwE-EBPmjD3v" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiIgqEytVHhojRzaU9miXCuuI5DvtvTkeKwNJKkjH62xqm_613HCv3uQHuwlFrsPGt8fQBBD39Mof9NJvbxAzd0E-mo5nCMi4wMCxbwdszxKKslpv5rnnGdC8HzyMD_g-IrV3_AMrADDHVSbtdjKbcQr5vzNj2nRM64rriIa-BO0k7wPIwRBjjdRlnOKMnz" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="190" data-original-width="266" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiIgqEytVHhojRzaU9miXCuuI5DvtvTkeKwNJKkjH62xqm_613HCv3uQHuwlFrsPGt8fQBBD39Mof9NJvbxAzd0E-mo5nCMi4wMCxbwdszxKKslpv5rnnGdC8HzyMD_g-IrV3_AMrADDHVSbtdjKbcQr5vzNj2nRM64rriIa-BO0k7wPIwRBjjdRlnOKMnz" width="320" /></a></div></div><br /></div>I went to <a href="https://abingtonartcenter.org/annual-juried-show-2024-affirmation-of-life/">"Affirmation of Life: Art in Today's Ukraine" at Abington Arts</a> in Jenkintown, PA. The exhibit is on display through April 15.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEglTRboaUzJIDYfgDmrUWTetTSy8GUasjX4YHYLXv9-YwDUxyfLVo0Y-n0gHn4gKP0MH6V-GRZHBcjMu96Q6iDMrbAYihhnipVSdNzHaXTpV-hB9uvfbbvBgwf_ch4C7OY7hWatjo3VvjA_F3ILOcHLMdNq-ZUbdKwYJPEN-5FLP6T5X9Coh2uUTcmP001O" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="194" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEglTRboaUzJIDYfgDmrUWTetTSy8GUasjX4YHYLXv9-YwDUxyfLVo0Y-n0gHn4gKP0MH6V-GRZHBcjMu96Q6iDMrbAYihhnipVSdNzHaXTpV-hB9uvfbbvBgwf_ch4C7OY7hWatjo3VvjA_F3ILOcHLMdNq-ZUbdKwYJPEN-5FLP6T5X9Coh2uUTcmP001O" width="180" /></a></div><br /></div><p>Yesterday, Journalist and Author Vladislav Davidzon spoke at the exhibit about the history of Ukraine and the current state of the war. The talk centered on the complex relationship of Jews in Ukraine before and during the war and the relations between Ukraine and Israel before and since the Russian invasion on 24 February 2022. </p><p>He talked about the history of Jews in Ukraine and The Holocaust with clarity and historical detail. As with all Eastern European countries the tragedy was immense and complex. He also addressed the accusation by Russian of Nazis in Ukraine. Davidzon gave numbers and background to show the (small) scope of Nazi organizations before the invasion, and how those groups joined the rest of the nation to fight the Russian invasion. He also spoke with encyclopedic knowledge about the Nazi collaboration during World War II in Russia as well as Ukraine and other countries.</p><p>After the talk, I ordered Davidzon's book: <span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Jewish-Ukrainian-Relations-Birth-Political-Nation-ebook/dp/B0CS6H3SB9/ref=sr_1_1?crid=38FFPA3524GIQ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.dfrxdonwYVrdNnrONzRcbFfSEllbvLO6u3vQI0AvfbTGjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps.3pRIQmqup-aa72YPfTbNkraJ0zouhggbfG-x8JKhfG4&dib_tag=se&keywords=vladislav+davidzon&qid=1710782567&sprefix=vladislav+%2Caps%2C385&sr=8-1">Jewish-Ukrainian Relations and the Birth of a Political Nation: Selected Writings 2013-2023</a> on Amazon. </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #0f1111; font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white;">Next month when I return to Capital Hill with the <a href="https://americancoalitionforukraine.org/">American Coalition for Ukraine</a>, I will be better informed to discuss why as an American Cold War veteran I support Ukraine and it's fight against Russian invasion and tyranny. </span></span></p><p><br /></p><p>The first paragraph of Davidzon's Wikipedia page showing more ofthe range of his work:</p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 17.5px;">Vladislav Grigorievich Davidzon</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 17.5px;"> (born 7 March 1985) is an artist, writer, editor and publisher, film producer best known for his journalism and chronicling on </span><a class="mw-redirect" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Former_Soviet_Union" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #3366cc; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 17.5px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Former Soviet Union">post-Soviet</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 17.5px;"> politics with an emphasis on cultural affairs.</span><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-1" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1; text-wrap: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladislav_Davidzon#cite_note-1" style="background: none; color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">[1]</a></sup><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-2" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1; text-wrap: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladislav_Davidzon#cite_note-2" style="background: none; color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">[2]</a></sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 17.5px;"> Davidzon is the former publisher and editor-in-chief of </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 17.5px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Odessa_Review" style="background: none; color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;" title="The Odessa Review">The Odessa Review</a></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 17.5px;">, an anglophone publication that focused on the cultural life of </span><a class="mw-redirect" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odesa,_Ukraine" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #3366cc; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 17.5px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Odesa, Ukraine">Odesa, Ukraine</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 17.5px;">.</span><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-3" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1; text-wrap: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladislav_Davidzon#cite_note-3" style="background: none; color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">[3]</a></sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 17.5px;"> Davidzon is a nonresident fellow with the </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Council" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #3366cc; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 17.5px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Atlantic Council">Atlantic Council</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 17.5px;"> at the Eurasia Center and is the author of </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 17.5px;">From Odessa with Love</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 17.5px;">, a novel about modern Odesa.</span><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-auto_4-0" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1; text-wrap: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladislav_Davidzon#cite_note-auto-4" style="background: none; color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">[4]</a></sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 17.5px;"> He is known for his daily practice of keeping an artistic </span><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-5" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1; text-wrap: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladislav_Davidzon#cite_note-5" style="background: none; color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">[5]</a></sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 17.5px;"> daybook/diary</span><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-6" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1; text-wrap: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladislav_Davidzon#cite_note-6" style="background: none; color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">[6]</a></sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 17.5px;"> and also for his work as a collage artist.</span><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-7" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1; text-wrap: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladislav_Davidzon#cite_note-7" style="background: none; color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">[7]</a></sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 17.5px;"> In March 2022 he burned his Russian passport</span><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-8" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1; text-wrap: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladislav_Davidzon#cite_note-8" style="background: none; color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">[8]</a></sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 17.5px;"> in front of the Russian embassy in Paris with former Estonian </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toomas_Hendrik_Ilves" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #3366cc; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 17.5px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Toomas Hendrik Ilves">President Toomas Hendrik Ilves</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 17.5px;"> holding the lighter.</span><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-9" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1; text-wrap: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladislav_Davidzon#cite_note-9" style="background: none; color: #3366cc; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">[9]</a></sup></p><p>---</p><p>Another lovely poster of the Affirmation of Life Exhibit:</p><p></p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEic18ZweGRhg-bLLqDbxbDdI311tpilFa0ZkMiifpR5HofyyMfXIdxCFfQ2827EouOnb9rLd8JaVEwyDc0HN9O4QgHpeaFt5q0x69JN3jy6unLi00c05YTC-kI7fEt7NXOvPEsNVjpU1BzvXRYoJXEFWbwnYxHiUyntq3PEFXmek9hG-7ZkT8PRs1IXP5dF" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEic18ZweGRhg-bLLqDbxbDdI311tpilFa0ZkMiifpR5HofyyMfXIdxCFfQ2827EouOnb9rLd8JaVEwyDc0HN9O4QgHpeaFt5q0x69JN3jy6unLi00c05YTC-kI7fEt7NXOvPEsNVjpU1BzvXRYoJXEFWbwnYxHiUyntq3PEFXmek9hG-7ZkT8PRs1IXP5dF=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Neil Gussmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667154945595202472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395959113568829045.post-59504045384382010572024-03-17T22:49:00.002-04:002024-03-17T22:49:15.689-04:00"You must be important!" A moment outside a local diner.<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18.75px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Today I rode to two Honor Guard ceremonies. After the second ceremony, I went to a restaurant a half mile away. When I left, a woman held the door for me. That actually happens a lot when I am in a dress uniform. Women hold the door for me. </span></p><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="animation-name: none !important; background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; transition-property: none !important; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;">Outside she looked at my uniform, waved in the direction of my medals and said, "You must be important. I mean, look at that stripe down your pants legs. Impressive." </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="animation-name: none !important; background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; transition-property: none !important; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;">I said she was right. Leaders have the stripe, enlisted soldiers do <span style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;"><a style="animation-name: none !important; color: #385898; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;" tabindex="-1"></a></span>not. (I could have added that generals have two stripes, but that seemed like Too Much Information.) </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="animation-name: none !important; background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; transition-property: none !important; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;">She smiled and said, "I knew it! Now you be careful on the roads!" I was putting on my bike helmet as she spoke.</div></div>Neil Gussmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667154945595202472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395959113568829045.post-56677742992054238882024-03-10T19:13:00.002-04:002024-03-18T10:40:58.431-04:00Walking and Creating Habits<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZtwIGOVeSrOPtALte2JzCUWeI70GHNITMKhzon6t7yhU7wM6kMj1ar_GuVwFocwDeFbBpchQ-dufUbnRwE3G1wFsgf8bgn4uWrIsDY06QISrxmGhCdpJ8Dn-iwwSExECbZ8XOaUbndnRMhH24xMPzmIzSIZKXIgMRDRjQ2xkqOckcm45zCNXlKfcNszFl/s228/download-2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="158" data-original-width="228" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZtwIGOVeSrOPtALte2JzCUWeI70GHNITMKhzon6t7yhU7wM6kMj1ar_GuVwFocwDeFbBpchQ-dufUbnRwE3G1wFsgf8bgn4uWrIsDY06QISrxmGhCdpJ8Dn-iwwSExECbZ8XOaUbndnRMhH24xMPzmIzSIZKXIgMRDRjQ2xkqOckcm45zCNXlKfcNszFl/s1600/download-2.jpg" width="228" /></a></div><br />Aristotle was the first philosopher to say that we are what we do. I have brilliant friends who disagree with this premise, but I believe it. All of my adult life I have begun new habits to reach goals or simply because it seemed like the right thing to do in the moment. <p></p><p>On May 14, 2020, I took the first of 19.9 million steps as I left Lancaster General Hospital and walked home from surgery. The surgery reassembled the 20-odd pieces of my shattered elbow to 70 percent of its former function. </p><p>I decided on that day I would walk 40 miles per week. Importantly, I decided I had to walk at least 40 miles per week, not and average of 40. More on that later.</p><p><b>Starting New Habits</b></p><p>For me, making habits often starts with a decision in the moment that lasts for years. </p><p>In February of 1986, I quit smoking. I had a cigarette after breakfast and never had another one. I started running a few months before I quit--about eight miles per week. The two weeks after I quit, I ran 65 miles so I would be less likely to start smoking again. Eventually running injuries led me to begin riding a bicycle. </p><p>In 1987, I went from riding 1.5 miles and gasping afterward in the spring to 40-mile rides in the fall. In 1992 and 1993 I rode from Lancaster to Canada. The bicycle habit reached 10,000 miles per year from 2002 to 2006. I still ride every week and whenever I can.</p><p>In the fall of 2007, when I re-enlisted in the Army, I started training for the Army fitness test. I ran sprints and shorter distance to increase my speed on the two-mile run--the Army standard distance. I also did 100 pushups and 100 situps every other day. </p><p>In November of 2012, my wife told me she was going to do an Ironman Triathlon. I decided I would too. I had never swam the length of a pool. I never swam at all except dog paddle as a kid and in Army Water Survival Training. I got a coach and swam five days a week until I could swim 2.5 miles without stopping (176 lengths of a 25-yard pool). I also had to run long distances. </p><div><b>Ending Old Habits</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Since every week has just 168 hours and for much of this time I had a job, making new habits meant ending others. When I started riding a bicycle seriously, I sold the last of the 12 motorcycles I owned between 1972 and 1992. Motorcycles are so inherently dangerous that I practiced panic braking and high-speed figure 8s twice a month. When I rode the bicycle so much I did not ride the motorcycle regularly, I sold it. </div><div><br /></div><div>I took my last Army fitness test in 2014. By 2015, I stopped doing pushups and sit ups and pretty much stopped swimming. By 2017 I stopped running. In 2019 I got a knee replacement, so I will never run again. </div><div><br /></div><div>In 2016, I started doing Yoga. After two years, my bad knee kept me from practicing. I tried to start again after my 2019 knee replacement, but the other knee hurt, so yoga ended. Around 2019 I started Duolingo language practice and I started meditating. Both of those continue to this day.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>What Do You Do?</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>We ask each other what we do for a living because what we do for 40 or more hours per week defines who we are. I retired nine years and quickly found it is much less defining to say what I did than what I do. </div><div><br /></div><div>For the first years of my retirement I often answered parent when asked the "What do you do?" question. From 2015 to 2021 the first job in my life was either caring for my struggling sons or getting help with caring for my sons. </div><div> </div><div>In 2022 I started making combat medical kits for soldiers in Ukraine. I worked in a warehouse in New Jersey 2 to 4 days a week for most of the year. Since November of 2022 I have had no central focus, just helping with Ukraine when I can. Later this year I will be all but full time working for President Biden, Senator Casey and all who support Ukraine. I will also work against all of Putin lovers. </div><div><br /></div><div>After that I am likely to move to Panama for a while and make new habits. But not walking and riding. They will very much continue wherever I am. In the 46 months since I left the hospital, I have walked just over 10,000 miles or just over 50 miles per week. The weather in equatorial Panama is either hot or hot and raining so I should be able to walk and ride a lot. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div> </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Neil Gussmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667154945595202472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395959113568829045.post-24822695228831363942024-03-07T16:25:00.000-05:002024-03-07T16:25:09.941-05:00Beautiful Sky Over the Moment of (Near) Death: War and Peace, End of Part I <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT7dmCFOlgTMo67LFVCrqOf8-wI8_Q2y9N6fem8_I0E1A_haFAu4YaCDyrFjZ1sy6mEJMy_GDPLbCWLhF4cFQ9v4j2_amInSZdsliT655MR4dlDQLzmRYde82h8I0nBeMrdhlFzsvSoVhH6dlOetqLWZuq8TezhQK0-tmLwAk6OfiU4Hi-1FyflnZhu0m3/s460/Vyacheslav-Tikhonov-and-V-001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="242" data-original-width="460" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT7dmCFOlgTMo67LFVCrqOf8-wI8_Q2y9N6fem8_I0E1A_haFAu4YaCDyrFjZ1sy6mEJMy_GDPLbCWLhF4cFQ9v4j2_amInSZdsliT655MR4dlDQLzmRYde82h8I0nBeMrdhlFzsvSoVhH6dlOetqLWZuq8TezhQK0-tmLwAk6OfiU4Hi-1FyflnZhu0m3/w640-h336/Vyacheslav-Tikhonov-and-V-001.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The Emperor Napoleon and Prince Andrei Bolkonsky</div><p></p><p>In the final scenes of Volume 1 of <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/11/26/movable-typeshttps://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/11/26/movable-types"><i>War and Peace</i> </a>Prince Andrei Bolkonsky lies on his back bleeding from a head wound and looking at the beautiful sky. Napoleon rides through the battlefield, surveying the carnage of his defeat of Russia and Austria at Austerlitz.</p><p>Before the battle Prince Andrei admired Napoleon. But lying on his back with the shaft of the unit flag in his hand he feels himself dying and that this world has no longer has meaning for him. He sees Napoleon and does not care. </p><p>Napoleon thought Andrei was dead, but seeing him move, he orders Andrei to be taken to an aid station. The agony of being lifted onto stretcher convinced Andrei he was, in fact, alive.</p><p>Reading this passage, I remembered lying on my back on the side of Route 230 northwest of Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. In the middle of an S-turn my Suzuki 550 motorcycle shook and flipped into the air. I was launched at 75mph, bounced and skidded and rolled to the ditch on the opposite side of the road. The visor of my full-face helmet had been scraped away. I looked straight up at a lovely, blue mid-June sky with scattered, puffy clouds.</p><p>I felt no pain. At first the peace and beauty of the sky, the silence around me, led me think I was dead. Some moments later, I knew I was alive when a man who was painting his house ran up and covered me with a drop cloth. He said, "Don't move" and told me help would be there soon. I looked down and saw the ligaments inside my knees, the skin was burned away on the left side of both knees because of the way I landed. Seeing inside my knees woke the pain. My moment of eternity was over. </p><p>In his book <a href="https://lithub.com/the-nearest-thing-to-life/"><i>The Nearest Thing to Life</i> James Wood </a>surveys dozens of novels to show how real life is brought to life in fiction. He uses scenes with Prince Andrei illustrate the beauty of the reality brought to life in novels. </p><p>The delight of re-reading Tolstoy after 25 years is in the scenes of pain and pathos and beauty he paints so well.</p><p><br /></p>Neil Gussmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667154945595202472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395959113568829045.post-47324445560775374002024-03-04T16:26:00.000-05:002024-03-04T16:26:09.779-05:00Ukraine Community Day at Penn<p> </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEigjRr20Gvo8YPgOy0Yw9JEBZiTricCkPOk7xDcqPv-cA_jX8q1t33fMSspl70d72lERhxxDwTAtcr-XSuiZ7twAiba6yWo0cQCfR6QlxjnWgqZES4WO5eFUcI7l_1naAWmdB1ud0nGklahnKSQ6poJ2mM4y0i9U0HRiR__pGatSLkf0V9WlhQGBED0zi89" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="153" data-original-width="329" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEigjRr20Gvo8YPgOy0Yw9JEBZiTricCkPOk7xDcqPv-cA_jX8q1t33fMSspl70d72lERhxxDwTAtcr-XSuiZ7twAiba6yWo0cQCfR6QlxjnWgqZES4WO5eFUcI7l_1naAWmdB1ud0nGklahnKSQ6poJ2mM4y0i9U0HRiR__pGatSLkf0V9WlhQGBED0zi89" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Prometheus Choir</div><br />Yesterday, I went <a href="https://pennlivearts.org/event/ukrainiancommunityday">Ukrainian Community Day</a> at the <a href="https://facilities.upenn.edu/maps/locations/annenberg-center-performing-arts">Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on the University of Pennsylvania</a> campus in Philadelphia.<p></p><p>By the time I arrived, I could only watch the performance on a video screen in the lobby with others who arrived late. Which made me very happy to see that the Ukraine event had filled the auditorium which has seating for more than 900.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgQaCk5r22zog2Hynndc22eVgkYjhUjpIKTlIx3t_EC51oneBeNLBDk6a91kycmlHT9-8517GW6QUD1my1BxywjOh7s13DdVVzc0SsszTV9CyvzIw1355gHWHwAwI2gCYTpft3rPi3OZdxz0V-woW9m2iyuXS8VrjEBP7kwkMiO28Q9cnZtZMfIfghBh7wS" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="4284" data-original-width="5712" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgQaCk5r22zog2Hynndc22eVgkYjhUjpIKTlIx3t_EC51oneBeNLBDk6a91kycmlHT9-8517GW6QUD1my1BxywjOh7s13DdVVzc0SsszTV9CyvzIw1355gHWHwAwI2gCYTpft3rPi3OZdxz0V-woW9m2iyuXS8VrjEBP7kwkMiO28Q9cnZtZMfIfghBh7wS" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p>On the wall of the lobby hung fourteen drawings under the title Etching Room 1: Safety Instructions. </p><p><i style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Jost, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">Safety Instructions </i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Jost, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">is the first-ever U.S. exhibition for Kyiv-based artists Anna Khodkova and Kristina Yarosh, founders of the print studio Etchingroom1. Infused with subtle humor and sharp sarcasm, </span><i style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Jost, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">Safety Instructions</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Jost, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;"> is an artistic exploration into the fragility and transience of safety within the modern world. Employing diverse techniques, including etching, silkscreen and drawing, the 14 graphic works on display make their public debut in this very special exhibition.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Jost, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">On view through June, </span><i style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Jost, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">Safety Instructions</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Jost, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;"> is part of </span><a href="https://pennlivearts.org/events/ukraine.php" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2789ff; font-family: Jost, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Ukraine: The Edge of Freedom</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Jost, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">, exploring the country’s stunning artistry and rich cultural history while uplifting artists calling attention to the challenges the nation has been facing.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Jost, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;" /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYLsmIiNLG0RSHBpdc6GqZOLHP7dXJvGCI3UwsCLgfVvjixmEyLD3Aykqx_uiMJhR33Hxz95JslPJCa4qjF7vrUUXkq8KuTo5dBB9TRMa6zncN10YPvZm93ckHymX17TgT4gtZuCEYKXjxWEPFRBrCkJRvPQIOaXkJs_k9aAYL4WZUsrlE3yT3_DGJKNqo/s640/UKR%20Penn%203%20march%20-%20%20-%201.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYLsmIiNLG0RSHBpdc6GqZOLHP7dXJvGCI3UwsCLgfVvjixmEyLD3Aykqx_uiMJhR33Hxz95JslPJCa4qjF7vrUUXkq8KuTo5dBB9TRMa6zncN10YPvZm93ckHymX17TgT4gtZuCEYKXjxWEPFRBrCkJRvPQIOaXkJs_k9aAYL4WZUsrlE3yT3_DGJKNqo/w480-h640/UKR%20Penn%203%20march%20-%20%20-%201.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqy5KYhp87yXivxkbH51zVBi4-ucUplLTorEkw-hKZRWBzVQs0xGf3y1p4a9o1JiZ9cQe7zg8w_6G7KtBHr15a7GUo-qc4PIfJB3-k8lz0b39YGvMq6dYISPCrTcXZLZF3zDOy6ZAsp57pxTMjXKDF7dborLDxw_c1UwSABsJu9LL0dlT7NStf2jFZQyVI/s640/UKR%20Penn%203%20march%20-%20%20-%202.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqy5KYhp87yXivxkbH51zVBi4-ucUplLTorEkw-hKZRWBzVQs0xGf3y1p4a9o1JiZ9cQe7zg8w_6G7KtBHr15a7GUo-qc4PIfJB3-k8lz0b39YGvMq6dYISPCrTcXZLZF3zDOy6ZAsp57pxTMjXKDF7dborLDxw_c1UwSABsJu9LL0dlT7NStf2jFZQyVI/w640-h480/UKR%20Penn%203%20march%20-%20%20-%202.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhllpt-FBDm9xUcfrONzUoSUZvq4WZDh-vlquHfW1WpM3aD0mPj9_XT1qgm4Dc8CznHbQWSBxxfxdPu9tRk71EmVWKfkdeJi_rSkafU3wUnv4QRsB6WGSPSrxqj94pJpI3uGAJ56qxvGm2mgOkq5zjUTI0ECMDgs2gTFH-JzLKm-2S1DNrh3csV-Ejfh8Cg/s640/UKR%20Penn%203%20march%20-%20%20-%203.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhllpt-FBDm9xUcfrONzUoSUZvq4WZDh-vlquHfW1WpM3aD0mPj9_XT1qgm4Dc8CznHbQWSBxxfxdPu9tRk71EmVWKfkdeJi_rSkafU3wUnv4QRsB6WGSPSrxqj94pJpI3uGAJ56qxvGm2mgOkq5zjUTI0ECMDgs2gTFH-JzLKm-2S1DNrh3csV-Ejfh8Cg/w640-h480/UKR%20Penn%203%20march%20-%20%20-%203.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnN2u3405kMB4RSB2FlJo4vuTfN2VPkyfYt5rXdfJbbjTtk51XG8D7bpdt_JZma4cUssXNqJFxvD5A6P7nPls4ZcnGPA0teBu14jnmGOnqub4NkM5E3_ynN9TIpyWoCTTUbKhx2akoaUK7wZLl5IHPN_oFw-2UWXFka2wt0-XBTPOZS6dWKGguarfh1DTl/s640/UKR%20Penn%203%20march%20-%20%20-%204.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnN2u3405kMB4RSB2FlJo4vuTfN2VPkyfYt5rXdfJbbjTtk51XG8D7bpdt_JZma4cUssXNqJFxvD5A6P7nPls4ZcnGPA0teBu14jnmGOnqub4NkM5E3_ynN9TIpyWoCTTUbKhx2akoaUK7wZLl5IHPN_oFw-2UWXFka2wt0-XBTPOZS6dWKGguarfh1DTl/w640-h480/UKR%20Penn%203%20march%20-%20%20-%204.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwcn8EKI3wzYy3YGRJGihyphenhypheniDCv3muDvZfVMua95O5lZt-y1WAKVfjwmOAwrVSIC3tNoS66Kc1Cw4_a15pBQsEyNFDkdG196ABu5teANN7TsciVCr4damwmz1rXjo3kDc9t-7Fjt7nRwKIhzTw-EJdTBXwQ-FCPh9sJCUuCTiW8k8U5C42H_JenFBX906Z5/s640/UKR%20Penn%203%20march%20-%20%20-%205.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwcn8EKI3wzYy3YGRJGihyphenhypheniDCv3muDvZfVMua95O5lZt-y1WAKVfjwmOAwrVSIC3tNoS66Kc1Cw4_a15pBQsEyNFDkdG196ABu5teANN7TsciVCr4damwmz1rXjo3kDc9t-7Fjt7nRwKIhzTw-EJdTBXwQ-FCPh9sJCUuCTiW8k8U5C42H_JenFBX906Z5/w640-h480/UKR%20Penn%203%20march%20-%20%20-%205.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx0Xu9dcw3nYn0dJIPzss56S9rswv15dDdIC6qLyaNSOW-NXlZ8AcO6GhjxNa8PQIXqdPHwdmdPxZvo79K3h-sTx7IoHEzzHn0KX6rbemQbqNs9M-TlZW_E85Rt0UQB3JMtt3-64ogyrhyphenhypheng93zlo4HaB2ed0wkzUQ8cMUiRImnVagv5-NtKDndgiiqrGQM/s640/UKR%20Penn%203%20march%20-%20%20-%206.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx0Xu9dcw3nYn0dJIPzss56S9rswv15dDdIC6qLyaNSOW-NXlZ8AcO6GhjxNa8PQIXqdPHwdmdPxZvo79K3h-sTx7IoHEzzHn0KX6rbemQbqNs9M-TlZW_E85Rt0UQB3JMtt3-64ogyrhyphenhypheng93zlo4HaB2ed0wkzUQ8cMUiRImnVagv5-NtKDndgiiqrGQM/w480-h640/UKR%20Penn%203%20march%20-%20%20-%206.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Jost, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;"><br /></span><p></p>Neil Gussmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667154945595202472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395959113568829045.post-10272139278042705192024-03-02T19:17:00.003-05:002024-03-15T18:47:08.872-04:00Honor Guard: Real Military Life<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4EGRLHa9N30-UimVYLkFOiyF_YSpYyjMJBGzFRRsQDnfBVNqNDZ8yo9HCEBS_FU2z_tRFSoSz7v7jqL_UKJKvSki5-1V_F46wBslyFwcM0nu2mqS9Da1B3Jr97I7vzXXj47a44-FnlMrCK0sLJHXO8Pzdc_yYLaOrI5jNI4ggilCcPQsvfzwibsXAC7Vi/s1984/Honor%20Guard.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1093" data-original-width="1984" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4EGRLHa9N30-UimVYLkFOiyF_YSpYyjMJBGzFRRsQDnfBVNqNDZ8yo9HCEBS_FU2z_tRFSoSz7v7jqL_UKJKvSki5-1V_F46wBslyFwcM0nu2mqS9Da1B3Jr97I7vzXXj47a44-FnlMrCK0sLJHXO8Pzdc_yYLaOrI5jNI4ggilCcPQsvfzwibsXAC7Vi/s320/Honor%20Guard.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>I recently had a <a href="http://rrveteranshg.org">Red Rose Veterans Honor Guard </a>service on a cold afternoon in Lancaster. We all arrived before our time to report. The time we gather is a half hour before the graveside ceremony begins. </p><p>We practice the ceremony for a few minutes. We concentrate on the very precise way we fold the flag. Then in a very military way, we wait. This particular ceremony happened right on time. I have been to others that were delayed from a few minutes to almost an hour. </p><p>All of us are required to leave our phones in the car, so we actually talk to each other. And we don't take selfies. I have my phone shut off in my jacket pocket because I ride a bicycle to the ceremonies. I am the only one who has ever ridden to the ceremonies, so there are no bike rules. </p><p>At the most recent ceremony I attended, I met another Tanker. He is younger than I am so we trained on and served in different tanks. But we still spent years in turrets and had a lot of fun talking about "the best job we ever had."</p><p>After I left the active duty Army at the end of1979, I grew a beard and was a civilian for almost two years. Then I joined a reserve tank unit for three years. I was not ready to re-enlist in the active-duty Army, but 12 weekends and two weeks in the summer sounded just right, especially because I could fire tank guns at least twice a year. </p><p>Now that I am well past any sort of military service, participating in a ceremony to honor fellow veterans a few times a month gives me a lot of joy, and just enough feeling of being back in the military. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Neil Gussmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667154945595202472noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395959113568829045.post-68325419526142100232024-02-25T22:43:00.004-05:002024-02-26T22:17:34.505-05:00March for Ukraine on Ben Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Ngv_9qfFSw2C5kocPcN9MyJatwY32mJHuu6Tud7FmVcJJBHR_Vh_0WwLqOPMyRFgXZXGUoEja54USyMblA75zLqM4RRldnvf6I6-NSMg8G9oDC6ewDjgbbQaeho7EWrjoOM9FrT5105-dhYUdHybiG8SJ5H4SQ_SSTeQBnV7mavJfYyzl4Vh6oNcV5Xt/s640/UKR%2025%20feb%20phila%201%20-%20-%202.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="262" data-original-width="640" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Ngv_9qfFSw2C5kocPcN9MyJatwY32mJHuu6Tud7FmVcJJBHR_Vh_0WwLqOPMyRFgXZXGUoEja54USyMblA75zLqM4RRldnvf6I6-NSMg8G9oDC6ewDjgbbQaeho7EWrjoOM9FrT5105-dhYUdHybiG8SJ5H4SQ_SSTeQBnV7mavJfYyzl4Vh6oNcV5Xt/w640-h262/UKR%2025%20feb%20phila%201%20-%20-%202.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>More than a thousand people gathered on the famous steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art today to support Ukraine in its war against the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022. <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK06Hd0XUgoGCl8QA58fFXCBnLk-Af5OowHXF3J_kz6t9O6GUPjdqSYaf8xWpF_5eko26hVwlFP8DyRr0hlkX-NYwkqRj2iWZ1yLZZKRy0-jr-4IzNvokSJ9cO8E2rlyC_ZAVDjs5kPWT96t3iDlTU0Qj0OUFLm8pUqJbQTPZVxkCzTtptEMLAFtnIROzg/s640/UKR%2025%20feb%20phila%201%20-%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK06Hd0XUgoGCl8QA58fFXCBnLk-Af5OowHXF3J_kz6t9O6GUPjdqSYaf8xWpF_5eko26hVwlFP8DyRr0hlkX-NYwkqRj2iWZ1yLZZKRy0-jr-4IzNvokSJ9cO8E2rlyC_ZAVDjs5kPWT96t3iDlTU0Qj0OUFLm8pUqJbQTPZVxkCzTtptEMLAFtnIROzg/w640-h480/UKR%2025%20feb%20phila%201%20-%20-%201.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/news/ukraine-rally-philadelphia-art-museum-steps-parkway-march-independence-hall-20240225.html">Philadelphia Inquirer</a> wrote about the event today. A very good article. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqW1ySU1utdw7dM2nSjHtI-sKX5l-YPY9Ckvpuv6wMkWIRBMwxxg8L3OcA77n8jnmqSIsXHd2RXx6XsMz8vvrCuTbmM2FXLesJ0XzwCXsiOpZI7u_yE8od9FOFRerewGQRf4DXipda85lt3MpCYg91hshWkiVCD8Y12YqGfksIh6Yz4ROQnDJDRgSDvgdJ/s640/UKR%2025%20feb%20phila%202%20-%20%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="301" data-original-width="640" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqW1ySU1utdw7dM2nSjHtI-sKX5l-YPY9Ckvpuv6wMkWIRBMwxxg8L3OcA77n8jnmqSIsXHd2RXx6XsMz8vvrCuTbmM2FXLesJ0XzwCXsiOpZI7u_yE8od9FOFRerewGQRf4DXipda85lt3MpCYg91hshWkiVCD8Y12YqGfksIh6Yz4ROQnDJDRgSDvgdJ/w640-h302/UKR%2025%20feb%20phila%202%20-%20%20-%201.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZPR1srFkFWQGW_8LMrjkqAfgYPYeruVnUVYxIzPqX4gPBCraBV4Sd4QNFS8CgOMO6Abv6hYPJKK9xlEm5Qtqi6ZRjyojk9fRuujt07EEXRs0CjqXdxbmBaoOwgeSlZDYFpOZbUIfjSh-79zXPF1gPvMqZv7GZ-epFWf6046WesugYwqJWlzqWj0gQMdTO/s640/UKR%2025%20feb%20phila%202%20-%20%20-%203.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="203" data-original-width="640" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZPR1srFkFWQGW_8LMrjkqAfgYPYeruVnUVYxIzPqX4gPBCraBV4Sd4QNFS8CgOMO6Abv6hYPJKK9xlEm5Qtqi6ZRjyojk9fRuujt07EEXRs0CjqXdxbmBaoOwgeSlZDYFpOZbUIfjSh-79zXPF1gPvMqZv7GZ-epFWf6046WesugYwqJWlzqWj0gQMdTO/w640-h204/UKR%2025%20feb%20phila%202%20-%20%20-%203.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>The marchers lined up with three long flags forming a procession that stretched several hundred meters along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway between the art museum and the Franklin Institute.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXwaL12DnoRsFKI3Vbv7xkO5PVyc5gOzrVegfYEpK4jVhPU3Olf7vFlXMbjmnz7sBNJZ6Tdz_FJlLUk4du1mYvPqUjoaUVscGUbaCmDXTijdsiZC4rAOlUCvqOKAad738CfFp-MunAFS4Su-6kKlE8AG-ccCO-WYZimq1XeCc-94FtbByI5RiKyq3JKHlu/s640/UKR%2025%20feb%20phila%202%20-%20%20-%204.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXwaL12DnoRsFKI3Vbv7xkO5PVyc5gOzrVegfYEpK4jVhPU3Olf7vFlXMbjmnz7sBNJZ6Tdz_FJlLUk4du1mYvPqUjoaUVscGUbaCmDXTijdsiZC4rAOlUCvqOKAad738CfFp-MunAFS4Su-6kKlE8AG-ccCO-WYZimq1XeCc-94FtbByI5RiKyq3JKHlu/w640-h480/UKR%2025%20feb%20phila%202%20-%20%20-%204.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6EadyjIcrHt-cYySPzjPBMS4ZJMx1LRsZI6OuwUC_Eulln-Wi2ENNtBy2vws43SSxPDbN-oRkMWdLYrOJvwu4OMERf2JinzNtHDZqfAB9EkwItVnI9k91-DfEG6GWIv6ByaarpZeIeGn-dKCJW_LyvykyihG7v31qOwp35J47rDa38tGQ5YH2-itONWKZ/s640/UKR%2025%20feb%20phila%202%20-%20%20-%205.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6EadyjIcrHt-cYySPzjPBMS4ZJMx1LRsZI6OuwUC_Eulln-Wi2ENNtBy2vws43SSxPDbN-oRkMWdLYrOJvwu4OMERf2JinzNtHDZqfAB9EkwItVnI9k91-DfEG6GWIv6ByaarpZeIeGn-dKCJW_LyvykyihG7v31qOwp35J47rDa38tGQ5YH2-itONWKZ/s320/UKR%2025%20feb%20phila%202%20-%20%20-%205.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtqm57qg35ogHJmDpIPGHNFq9IABM_SUhPaHY5H0TK_VLaV_Q0kBmnzIr3w7KkNSwvF2AyOCXbMUijEKjJ_lnAB31nt6rZgA4zKRyBb89WfaD0uaaCzxa6QhWPvvk5wpxwjFJl2T-DyNGP9VObg7Rd5TYVucgcAh0BK-2H2YOUKR4PR3exV40le6BKXflt/s640/UKR%2025%20feb%20phila%201%20-%20-%203.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtqm57qg35ogHJmDpIPGHNFq9IABM_SUhPaHY5H0TK_VLaV_Q0kBmnzIr3w7KkNSwvF2AyOCXbMUijEKjJ_lnAB31nt6rZgA4zKRyBb89WfaD0uaaCzxa6QhWPvvk5wpxwjFJl2T-DyNGP9VObg7Rd5TYVucgcAh0BK-2H2YOUKR4PR3exV40le6BKXflt/s320/UKR%2025%20feb%20phila%201%20-%20-%203.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0-8ngPF2cZ9uRkOIls-BGb77Q2dm_c1y2HGrc15Pq-He0cETmcSqTfR-Cf685FGaH0rcuEeLzl7QIDKtfdDW9vQdxHOCIzW3pCxWKgdY4mwzdViAqX9HXE_c7ctYjmLvlf1xzLtXTSWvyVOuCkndPsJyOqJD50u_BtJxG_vui-jwigeJ7Pz_7IX3Je3o3/s640/UKR%2025%20feb%20phila%201%20-%20-%204.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0-8ngPF2cZ9uRkOIls-BGb77Q2dm_c1y2HGrc15Pq-He0cETmcSqTfR-Cf685FGaH0rcuEeLzl7QIDKtfdDW9vQdxHOCIzW3pCxWKgdY4mwzdViAqX9HXE_c7ctYjmLvlf1xzLtXTSWvyVOuCkndPsJyOqJD50u_BtJxG_vui-jwigeJ7Pz_7IX3Je3o3/w640-h480/UKR%2025%20feb%20phila%201%20-%20-%204.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBjWkRfLLZCKgwSmMCxn41uGHJCcZwMzrzXkVdfTRBmbsE_C77N1jj2cc6bMZ5FqcL0GZZmVwfrNT7COSRNGxkrLyKsPYHwJsDQ8MF7JZdd8ilXW_w3LpilzElydu9okaxjaPHlzr5k-YroJ_r0Lik6Gl6kyWtqqYGCgGHDUitHVnsInb2qwsL8acgFarY/s640/UKR%2025%20feb%20phila%201%20-%20-%205.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="237" data-original-width="640" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBjWkRfLLZCKgwSmMCxn41uGHJCcZwMzrzXkVdfTRBmbsE_C77N1jj2cc6bMZ5FqcL0GZZmVwfrNT7COSRNGxkrLyKsPYHwJsDQ8MF7JZdd8ilXW_w3LpilzElydu9okaxjaPHlzr5k-YroJ_r0Lik6Gl6kyWtqqYGCgGHDUitHVnsInb2qwsL8acgFarY/w640-h238/UKR%2025%20feb%20phila%201%20-%20-%205.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu6vHKeRnNHYayKjlSdyVkOWxhWn9CWGVu1szjsSZ-8rnXbl-G4rDV46FQnEgIRZL4wo-8TfoexJiJXf0YXF0iRZX6zjrVQUczWD-O71DtVViuRHLY4d0wf7XHx8lvR3avpDQzEbv2xiRHsHCvFEqHi8EYw9i2K8bnZO2i7r9cZsr3avSiWQ1o0YJXzCkq/s640/UKR%2025%20feb%20phila%201%20-%20-%206.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu6vHKeRnNHYayKjlSdyVkOWxhWn9CWGVu1szjsSZ-8rnXbl-G4rDV46FQnEgIRZL4wo-8TfoexJiJXf0YXF0iRZX6zjrVQUczWD-O71DtVViuRHLY4d0wf7XHx8lvR3avpDQzEbv2xiRHsHCvFEqHi8EYw9i2K8bnZO2i7r9cZsr3avSiWQ1o0YJXzCkq/w640-h480/UKR%2025%20feb%20phila%201%20-%20-%206.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Neil Gussmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667154945595202472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395959113568829045.post-35007214527561391652024-02-24T19:47:00.002-05:002024-02-26T22:17:48.322-05:00More than Two Thousand Mark the 2nd Anniversary of Russia's Invasion of Ukraine at the Lincoln Memorial<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFe5GNnjJqhiJlUm96d3e1WhfO4Ch0d_qZHL1Qr5IKNTwQQFD8AOIwzKWfaU194GfFEKYDazME4xmHdlOJn28X4njAEV6K2ZFH0gZ8vRhYia255uHnvampzdlmuqOz03gyxqI_zxaNvJi3LhJL1jNktDzQ4LWgEZxhvGv4Pif26UPFlc23dhOyqEHHauJu/s640/UKR%2024%20feb%20DC%20-%20%20-%2010.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFe5GNnjJqhiJlUm96d3e1WhfO4Ch0d_qZHL1Qr5IKNTwQQFD8AOIwzKWfaU194GfFEKYDazME4xmHdlOJn28X4njAEV6K2ZFH0gZ8vRhYia255uHnvampzdlmuqOz03gyxqI_zxaNvJi3LhJL1jNktDzQ4LWgEZxhvGv4Pif26UPFlc23dhOyqEHHauJu/s320/UKR%2024%20feb%20DC%20-%20%20-%2010.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>Today more than two thousand people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial on the Capital Mall in Washington DC to mark the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYKLAJuYVHvgYCge1RXhe5-5kcpAn53SwGPzEotpJpRp33re-B3s4npaMv75YL0T9gJu5-d2ZMXhUxRDTKTeaxbWDNpE6q64IwAYC4LCTaCAVy9pwloNWsMPsodmOI6Cwg_nt60ABELI60nBBtXb9IqmYR24Lrkf-HwonDYqp-NThc_Ei1oozlgfQz_1HG/s640/UKR%2024%20feb%20DC%20-%20%20-%209.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYKLAJuYVHvgYCge1RXhe5-5kcpAn53SwGPzEotpJpRp33re-B3s4npaMv75YL0T9gJu5-d2ZMXhUxRDTKTeaxbWDNpE6q64IwAYC4LCTaCAVy9pwloNWsMPsodmOI6Cwg_nt60ABELI60nBBtXb9IqmYR24Lrkf-HwonDYqp-NThc_Ei1oozlgfQz_1HG/s320/UKR%2024%20feb%20DC%20-%20%20-%209.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>The event celebrated the courage and tenacity of the people ofUkraine in their struggle against Russian invasion and atrocities. <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTHAqQA7vE5kLFHDdgoz4Nbrwf3NI9TMDG-UYeL4GL9b5nIG4pjTd7E7vjS1K8tSwWqgEiwjL-f78rK8AcBQvEZhbpo3fF552I1f8Xk_YaYyjZ5KVjY1T6J8AZ3FB1ueoN2S2DEHfLghQ86kQQmVMXw4iw9bRQYf5d24K3pD7a-un3yOdV_TvMGtP6d_OP/s640/UKR%2024%20feb%20DC%20-%20%20-%208.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTHAqQA7vE5kLFHDdgoz4Nbrwf3NI9TMDG-UYeL4GL9b5nIG4pjTd7E7vjS1K8tSwWqgEiwjL-f78rK8AcBQvEZhbpo3fF552I1f8Xk_YaYyjZ5KVjY1T6J8AZ3FB1ueoN2S2DEHfLghQ86kQQmVMXw4iw9bRQYf5d24K3pD7a-un3yOdV_TvMGtP6d_OP/s320/UKR%2024%20feb%20DC%20-%20%20-%208.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOpKfCYxmzsuAlu70DbEAVIqYVHTzAkp3ad0NWUJRqiOFbHH1TUTvA3IKr4DGK8v_fhC42RblN3v0vrGcd9JQqU2QxVJBwBwBOSlGkeiBmmsurbiZLiWymw5h3OWCYhBXV2u_I1r6zWB6PFyzoEjrpNSeJkAzvFNxgXrc7iD-GJl7MKsiEBa_yG7ij4Dx6/s640/UKR%2024%20feb%20DC%20-%20%20-%206.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOpKfCYxmzsuAlu70DbEAVIqYVHTzAkp3ad0NWUJRqiOFbHH1TUTvA3IKr4DGK8v_fhC42RblN3v0vrGcd9JQqU2QxVJBwBwBOSlGkeiBmmsurbiZLiWymw5h3OWCYhBXV2u_I1r6zWB6PFyzoEjrpNSeJkAzvFNxgXrc7iD-GJl7MKsiEBa_yG7ij4Dx6/s320/UKR%2024%20feb%20DC%20-%20%20-%206.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>It was clear from the signs, that while the majority of Americans, more than 70%, support Ukraine in its defense of its own nation, Trump and the cowards who worship him want to abandon Ukraine and all other American allies. <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-Swak76679c3hN1xz0A2r8bHM5c7JjQee4piOrRMC9ALPvSF2ZI_uS5dldauEOXFKxGKF_wKPQBYeJimy7d6L-pR5Gnn9fwAeDmxEhTeSed4xu2Kedcy8YlraFtSd9YGMqhlFOeJ55MAHVO1e90mmtT12bhwYfyvrWSKiqnpDv9mQy0TuXrYgxATr9mNs/s640/UKR%2024%20feb%20DC%20-%20%20-%205.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-Swak76679c3hN1xz0A2r8bHM5c7JjQee4piOrRMC9ALPvSF2ZI_uS5dldauEOXFKxGKF_wKPQBYeJimy7d6L-pR5Gnn9fwAeDmxEhTeSed4xu2Kedcy8YlraFtSd9YGMqhlFOeJ55MAHVO1e90mmtT12bhwYfyvrWSKiqnpDv9mQy0TuXrYgxATr9mNs/s320/UKR%2024%20feb%20DC%20-%20%20-%205.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8xM1IU8m_jsvOVWRC8dyk-c3X1z6iBRoSPKGMhiu_JR6hhxjln3x2SzBaOXgfxuYQMbTtn7zSTLvU2zD1JV_t3ozDoLyB1zt0JPCxvbc7c15QxNZBE_DUWgjvbScDiet2eBjUAiDrkjnKSAR_A5ZzzWWZossz0-PmJrcYg_U7G0mSoI7NLbAoHFK9TqHW/s640/UKR%2024%20feb%20DC%20-%20%20-%204.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8xM1IU8m_jsvOVWRC8dyk-c3X1z6iBRoSPKGMhiu_JR6hhxjln3x2SzBaOXgfxuYQMbTtn7zSTLvU2zD1JV_t3ozDoLyB1zt0JPCxvbc7c15QxNZBE_DUWgjvbScDiet2eBjUAiDrkjnKSAR_A5ZzzWWZossz0-PmJrcYg_U7G0mSoI7NLbAoHFK9TqHW/s320/UKR%2024%20feb%20DC%20-%20%20-%204.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0HWPsk6oZMGZiocqM4lSr7cn9HOavG24xlBEwxRaUpg2JcR4bub2XDZSDAwAAbx4opG9YbEZQw9k59I-oT4XW09dmLKyCR06BE-w2c7ksH9e7COY4aGwCzqkvZCgHyHnIpeI4-0vaY3mrh0-YbAVsghBz_IhjooTTKabRnNoWualX6RQRnQLLmMmg4ouJ/s640/UKR%2024%20feb%20DC%20-%20%20-%203.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0HWPsk6oZMGZiocqM4lSr7cn9HOavG24xlBEwxRaUpg2JcR4bub2XDZSDAwAAbx4opG9YbEZQw9k59I-oT4XW09dmLKyCR06BE-w2c7ksH9e7COY4aGwCzqkvZCgHyHnIpeI4-0vaY3mrh0-YbAVsghBz_IhjooTTKabRnNoWualX6RQRnQLLmMmg4ouJ/s320/UKR%2024%20feb%20DC%20-%20%20-%203.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqXTdMsWxF9s8oQ_u8PBjDMpt39t_JfskAtA9T78jsNj6Wlsk0uyq4x5Yk2jTzooC6rwj2qoxamiL4SVZsaow1z6585TA1XwYEQhLfycOwzv2zxhNsbjE6WgLO4mJNGGdIrKuP5dYHasrIx0mo7o2kQMgmD2qUQJ-RxKWiJV29Ic7POcO_idJJyDK3nDHF/s640/UKR%2024%20feb%20DC%20-%20%20-%202.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqXTdMsWxF9s8oQ_u8PBjDMpt39t_JfskAtA9T78jsNj6Wlsk0uyq4x5Yk2jTzooC6rwj2qoxamiL4SVZsaow1z6585TA1XwYEQhLfycOwzv2zxhNsbjE6WgLO4mJNGGdIrKuP5dYHasrIx0mo7o2kQMgmD2qUQJ-RxKWiJV29Ic7POcO_idJJyDK3nDHF/s320/UKR%2024%20feb%20DC%20-%20%20-%202.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAfq9LbGCN6V2jhFEgEbeLonJe9tJAgFMNM70e8wEpcFCs9dQIO3TggWg8gpl-1KvL47YfseZR8c4CE6WAbGl_aqkCiIJ-5Lvleet9Fm93a_XKU-9KNm_q1A0zF4dXdih68VHZ8GNJzh9_f2eEXFw9rxlr40q5kn13ECxP4_2Hqdc2ukSOweVTuN6Nj48D/s640/UKR%2024%20feb%20DC%20-%20%20-%201.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAfq9LbGCN6V2jhFEgEbeLonJe9tJAgFMNM70e8wEpcFCs9dQIO3TggWg8gpl-1KvL47YfseZR8c4CE6WAbGl_aqkCiIJ-5Lvleet9Fm93a_XKU-9KNm_q1A0zF4dXdih68VHZ8GNJzh9_f2eEXFw9rxlr40q5kn13ECxP4_2Hqdc2ukSOweVTuN6Nj48D/s320/UKR%2024%20feb%20DC%20-%20%20-%201.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXOjxf-XsHKgHGsdHlrDGk_k1VmHM5QaCautxQQn5BEKlR6zFo_Ge1MrThSIhN8PcrKdsx-C-n-uVxO1qX1NnljIAB0NyfuG1ul-l4mH8YSe_qtTVz8KeGUV4qp5j6WISl3e4OmTBZtAjrbAm7Ii3nf4F1l9-DpmI9cuc-e3yMQx5x-zBAhfaYD8YHD1XL/s640/UKR%2024%20feb%20DC%20-%20%20-%2011.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXOjxf-XsHKgHGsdHlrDGk_k1VmHM5QaCautxQQn5BEKlR6zFo_Ge1MrThSIhN8PcrKdsx-C-n-uVxO1qX1NnljIAB0NyfuG1ul-l4mH8YSe_qtTVz8KeGUV4qp5j6WISl3e4OmTBZtAjrbAm7Ii3nf4F1l9-DpmI9cuc-e3yMQx5x-zBAhfaYD8YHD1XL/s320/UKR%2024%20feb%20DC%20-%20%20-%2011.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFAuqZyop1TUmi_QCkyZeRtr49xdgBFSNGXsbRAlphoisYXfpwnOKHPIMsmg5OlCFBTcamOUOC9__uuc9_FaJSufbraS4sgXjlU7j-FhWBPgthGnSyHOmy7fn_d920eekT_q4H0qwa3Qg34yClPPoJeLIJsQGfqxIkAqWYaA1hBs0A5QNGrjDySwkP9wUg/s640/UKR%2024%20feb%20DC%20-%20%20-%207.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFAuqZyop1TUmi_QCkyZeRtr49xdgBFSNGXsbRAlphoisYXfpwnOKHPIMsmg5OlCFBTcamOUOC9__uuc9_FaJSufbraS4sgXjlU7j-FhWBPgthGnSyHOmy7fn_d920eekT_q4H0qwa3Qg34yClPPoJeLIJsQGfqxIkAqWYaA1hBs0A5QNGrjDySwkP9wUg/s320/UKR%2024%20feb%20DC%20-%20%20-%207.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Glory to Ukraine!!!</div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p>Neil Gussmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667154945595202472noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395959113568829045.post-15628803068970437732024-02-19T20:09:00.001-05:002024-02-26T09:21:19.171-05:00President's Day Standing with Ukraine at the Pennsylvania State Capital<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkkxz6kOxiED8WBB8lku9wGZ3KO6_L3_9q-K6RYfvovXWS9EstYPUxD2U4qtXBJGB7EL1ZqsrlPgtv4fmw1BU4Vnay5jBCZW7mkkOWxtoGQfr1mWtPhXG5UjPYnai68FntTDX_NAbs-entk-HpVktZlHU2PP1ZQ6k025Fut5WoltwZzLr__5SnZN3tHI3b/s640/UKR%2019%20feb%20Harrisburg%20-%20%20-%204.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkkxz6kOxiED8WBB8lku9wGZ3KO6_L3_9q-K6RYfvovXWS9EstYPUxD2U4qtXBJGB7EL1ZqsrlPgtv4fmw1BU4Vnay5jBCZW7mkkOWxtoGQfr1mWtPhXG5UjPYnai68FntTDX_NAbs-entk-HpVktZlHU2PP1ZQ6k025Fut5WoltwZzLr__5SnZN3tHI3b/s320/UKR%2019%20feb%20Harrisburg%20-%20%20-%204.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Today I went to the Human Chain of Solidarity with Ukraine on the steps of the Pennsylvania State Capital in Harrisburg.<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrpOkEBtgfiT5U7uMCXUxNscjf51vzJF-FpS5nEuWCTz1jHoBua2-QjVEpYwKmUOylJhi43HgdU1IoLsLri_MjMQz_BFCWn76RE6bU7H3M2vXRSYp-8lWNe6zWqDafbxCHOCzeHk6Amr1X9ilPNLWQHM0p2Wt9iVovDQPGjLOUq858hPbiPxsXukr8b5bG/s640/UKR%2019%20feb%20Harrisburg%20-%20%20-%2010.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrpOkEBtgfiT5U7uMCXUxNscjf51vzJF-FpS5nEuWCTz1jHoBua2-QjVEpYwKmUOylJhi43HgdU1IoLsLri_MjMQz_BFCWn76RE6bU7H3M2vXRSYp-8lWNe6zWqDafbxCHOCzeHk6Amr1X9ilPNLWQHM0p2Wt9iVovDQPGjLOUq858hPbiPxsXukr8b5bG/s320/UKR%2019%20feb%20Harrisburg%20-%20%20-%2010.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><div>We stood from 5-6 p.m. facing the setting sun in the west. The Capital dome was lit in rose and amber by the setting sun as the assembled group sang the Ukraine National Anthem. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSm4Gc8xQxalKAKqvnXFf_pq47jp-T_9yz6-TWozaccDSQuhIZOx9g4Ttmt1yzK58lF5Bn8sh8NVBcvWWTLctHi7YMrKxGSQIIxlzwT_7emlKUCCQDWqySYPeahnp7R8Bvpywd9sQne7g35Z4uoGt5kLLPDoKlDBqVvjZePWhdKBZHJZPv7NYFwe6WpUdC/s640/UKR%2019%20feb%20Harrisburg%20-%20%20-%201.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSm4Gc8xQxalKAKqvnXFf_pq47jp-T_9yz6-TWozaccDSQuhIZOx9g4Ttmt1yzK58lF5Bn8sh8NVBcvWWTLctHi7YMrKxGSQIIxlzwT_7emlKUCCQDWqySYPeahnp7R8Bvpywd9sQne7g35Z4uoGt5kLLPDoKlDBqVvjZePWhdKBZHJZPv7NYFwe6WpUdC/s320/UKR%2019%20feb%20Harrisburg%20-%20%20-%201.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div>Many of those attending are Ukrainian, some refugees, some American citizens working help Ukraine from here. </div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZYjZi2wjMkKNhS-ICuosM0UiMzaFVERUdLvZcY3-cXuYUrRxHj-FtyrFeLk9_DZA5eDHWUf8vkXycX44fC-uDye1WdP0K4qZPawSRlL39pKexFzl86u7kZ2oOvTvVRJmqXtX7RMsjCKdi-oChk9fI85j4YntxM_PUywJDE082B0MoeqSWIit9EyeDCPmn/s640/UKR%2019%20feb%20Harrisburg%20-%20%20-%202.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZYjZi2wjMkKNhS-ICuosM0UiMzaFVERUdLvZcY3-cXuYUrRxHj-FtyrFeLk9_DZA5eDHWUf8vkXycX44fC-uDye1WdP0K4qZPawSRlL39pKexFzl86u7kZ2oOvTvVRJmqXtX7RMsjCKdi-oChk9fI85j4YntxM_PUywJDE082B0MoeqSWIit9EyeDCPmn/s320/UKR%2019%20feb%20Harrisburg%20-%20%20-%202.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9KFf0RtjeIqhjA0njGH-gx2kNImB5l8pP0CwIT5QvoD5ESYXVPlq3UXFHexS3TNQ7R2g8ygM82D4ThCFx8-CJ4R237ZVRlXB4InFaHQD5Gyq7n0_CxtEfqMJZTPIc49G1wILFO86ndW5agJHKKnMYnaM1wbKGkJZ3HjgD60u6M5zt7NdQNtBM_lu564LU/s640/UKR%2019%20feb%20Harrisburg%20-%20%20-%205.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9KFf0RtjeIqhjA0njGH-gx2kNImB5l8pP0CwIT5QvoD5ESYXVPlq3UXFHexS3TNQ7R2g8ygM82D4ThCFx8-CJ4R237ZVRlXB4InFaHQD5Gyq7n0_CxtEfqMJZTPIc49G1wILFO86ndW5agJHKKnMYnaM1wbKGkJZ3HjgD60u6M5zt7NdQNtBM_lu564LU/s320/UKR%2019%20feb%20Harrisburg%20-%20%20-%205.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQAsAt7qYJnCuF4KXq841rvh2cNeBx29wZHMmgmYPfk-FIY2m_gCsGEfYg-klAx2g2yCqpYSmaZIlhYt10u5YzuunJrhWkYuWYc437MlR0o5Ef5-B4RLHetICJkjhCX0MRgsKP9HbNzAwdI_RxIAwLbpeWgf59DGl6rawSWjW0QEG0iT7_P7YPxSXJdQW1/s640/UKR%2019%20feb%20Harrisburg%20-%20%20-%207.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQAsAt7qYJnCuF4KXq841rvh2cNeBx29wZHMmgmYPfk-FIY2m_gCsGEfYg-klAx2g2yCqpYSmaZIlhYt10u5YzuunJrhWkYuWYc437MlR0o5Ef5-B4RLHetICJkjhCX0MRgsKP9HbNzAwdI_RxIAwLbpeWgf59DGl6rawSWjW0QEG0iT7_P7YPxSXJdQW1/s320/UKR%2019%20feb%20Harrisburg%20-%20%20-%207.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>On Saturday and Sunday this week, many of us will be in both Washington D.C. and Philadelphia at events marking the second anniversary of the Russian invasion. <br /><p><br /></p></div>Neil Gussmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667154945595202472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395959113568829045.post-86118593782275222412024-02-13T09:59:00.002-05:002024-02-13T09:59:23.508-05:00<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNW0zfIFiqadmzqLxuBKMaJfyKV1zyukqKRw5lI3XekV-R1pd6VdrAeNfiE3IFgXWK1eMcJlOOyPg0Fuqr0naQh_BZM-ECWNXEUo6ugZkEMZmXiTVtEHTec3iysrN_VvXsQy47Yx3_O_5auAYevNRlAGUrj80KrzXffN0-ectNn_s3VceKe2RLkHveYzIF/s180/War%20and%20Peace.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="180" data-original-width="119" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNW0zfIFiqadmzqLxuBKMaJfyKV1zyukqKRw5lI3XekV-R1pd6VdrAeNfiE3IFgXWK1eMcJlOOyPg0Fuqr0naQh_BZM-ECWNXEUo6ugZkEMZmXiTVtEHTec3iysrN_VvXsQy47Yx3_O_5auAYevNRlAGUrj80KrzXffN0-ectNn_s3VceKe2RLkHveYzIF/w264-h400/War%20and%20Peace.jpg" width="264" /></a></div> <p></p><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="97l6e" data-offset-key="ddsj8-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin-bottom: 8px; transition-property: none !important; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ddsj8-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative; transition-property: none !important;"><span data-offset-key="ddsj8-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;">I am re-reading "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy. I am 300 pages into the 1996-page Pevear and Volokhonsky translation. </span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="97l6e" data-offset-key="94n8v-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin-bottom: 8px; transition-property: none !important; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="94n8v-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative; transition-property: none !important;"><span data-offset-key="94n8v-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;">Tolstoy was a lieutenant in the Russian Army during the Crimean War (1852) and writes about war with the horror and humor of a combat veteran. </span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="94n8v-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative; transition-property: none !important;"><span data-offset-key="94n8v-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="94n8v-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative; transition-property: none !important;">In the first war section of the book, the Russian army meets the French in Austria just after the Austrian army is smashed by Napoleon. The Russian general Kutuzov has beats Napoleon in the first battle, but is forced to retreat. One of the cavalry squadrons attacking the French includes the young cadet Nikolai Rostov. </div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="94n8v-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative; transition-property: none !important;"><br /></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="94n8v-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative; transition-property: none !important;">Rostov draws his sword and rides to the attack with his squadron in his first combat action. In moments his horse is shot from under him and falls on him. Rostov's arm is bruised and possibly broken in the fall. His arm is numb. He struggles to his feet holding his limp arm. He sees French soldiers running toward him. He realizes they are going to capture of kill him. His thoughts are a swirl. He thinks, 'Everyone loves me. My mother, my sisters. My friends. How could they want to kill me. I have a happy life.'</div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="94n8v-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative; transition-property: none !important;"><br /></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="94n8v-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative; transition-property: none !important;">He snaps out of the reverie and runs, escaping in trees and shrubs at the edge of the battlefield. </div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="94n8v-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative; transition-property: none !important;"><br /></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="94n8v-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative; transition-property: none !important;">In that swirl of confused thought, Tolstoy captures the crazy extremes of combat. One moment the young soldier is riding to glory, the next he thinks of his mother on the point of death. </div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="94n8v-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative; transition-property: none !important;"><br /></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="94n8v-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative; transition-property: none !important;">I cannot judge the veracity of the scenes in Moscow parties and dinners, but they come alive for me in the backstabbing intrigue of the powerful. </div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="94n8v-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative; transition-property: none !important;"><br /></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="94n8v-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative; transition-property: none !important;">Tolstoy is amazing. <br /><span data-offset-key="94n8v-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;"><br /></span></div></div>Neil Gussmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667154945595202472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395959113568829045.post-8358115195029717482024-02-06T05:41:00.000-05:002024-02-06T05:41:32.183-05:00David Bentley Hart in 2011: "the devil is probably eerily similar to Donald Trump—though perhaps just a little nicer."<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLofRPIOXNppFSnJwRpbLA4odarU2gwp9TP6XOjAbCMsinp9RV3voNxcUUFTInfpOC7SaaL9HRx0x4gwNRWek25oDeMRzPeTv7oQol5vE0AG7-W4EfKSmkL9vnnsqrTmCvuJse56eUrsQjyKqdRR3zIWZTHm769KbjyQIeqjYcrC6yNdukL6FkB2OnAoEz/s318/download.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="318" data-original-width="318" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLofRPIOXNppFSnJwRpbLA4odarU2gwp9TP6XOjAbCMsinp9RV3voNxcUUFTInfpOC7SaaL9HRx0x4gwNRWek25oDeMRzPeTv7oQol5vE0AG7-W4EfKSmkL9vnnsqrTmCvuJse56eUrsQjyKqdRR3zIWZTHm769KbjyQIeqjYcrC6yNdukL6FkB2OnAoEz/s1600/download.webp" width="318" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">David Bentley Hart, Eastern Orthodox Theologian</div><p>From 2003 to 2020, the Eastern Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart wrote a column for <i>First Things</i> magazine. </p><p>In 2011, Hart ended one of his columns with a comment on Donald Trump. Hart continues to hold his low view of the former President. The essay ends with a 46-word sentence comparing The Donald to The Devil. </p><p>By the way, <i>First Things </i>magazine now leads the worship of Trump for conservative Catholics. </p><p>Here is Hart on Trump:</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #fcfcfc; box-sizing: border-box; color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;">... Donald Trump... You know the fellow: developer, speculator, television personality, hotelier, political dilettante, conspiracy theorist, and grand croupier—the one with that canopy of hennaed hair jutting out over his eyes like a shelf of limestone.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #fcfcfc; box-sizing: border-box; color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;">In particular, I recalled how, back in 1993, when Trump decided he wanted to build special limousine parking lots around his Atlantic City casino and hotel, he had used all his influence to get the state of New Jersey to steal the home of an elderly widow named Vera Coking by declaring “eminent domain” over her property, as well as over a nearby pawn shop and a small family-run Italian restaurant.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #fcfcfc; box-sizing: border-box; color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;">She had declined to sell, having lived there for thirty-five years. Moreover, the state offered her only one-fourth what she had been offered for the same house some years before, and Trump could then buy it at a bargain rate. The affair involved the poor woman in an exhausting legal battle, which, happily, she won, with the assistance of the Institute for Justice.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #fcfcfc; box-sizing: border-box; color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;">How obvious it seems to me now. Cold, grasping, bleak, graceless, and dull; unctuous, sleek, pitiless, and crass; a pallid vulgarian floating through life on clouds of acrid cologne and trailed by a vanguard of fawning divorce lawyers, the devil is probably eerily similar to Donald Trump—though perhaps just a little nicer.</p><p> </p>Neil Gussmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667154945595202472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395959113568829045.post-19398303838481269372024-01-30T17:02:00.001-05:002024-03-08T11:04:45.068-05:00Six Easy Pieces by Richard P. Feynman<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAe-ncIUl8NY8sgTL6LTe3N4StYb4mHxvcgJEu5ykBDrbhVh9fTuKvBzgL2Ehe-A_TScJdllLeIXNiCDyiL3O8lH8yuIc7xMwwZKObF9RNWrEdefJVeN81j_IcB_if9xPIFljuJ1E9hqDmFFxqxa-A5TpxLSX3kg0Fljfdqnff8paxTVe_QpNfjmo7kaOX/s475/5553.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="316" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAe-ncIUl8NY8sgTL6LTe3N4StYb4mHxvcgJEu5ykBDrbhVh9fTuKvBzgL2Ehe-A_TScJdllLeIXNiCDyiL3O8lH8yuIc7xMwwZKObF9RNWrEdefJVeN81j_IcB_if9xPIFljuJ1E9hqDmFFxqxa-A5TpxLSX3kg0Fljfdqnff8paxTVe_QpNfjmo7kaOX/s320/5553.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>Reading Richard Feynman gives me the feeling that I can understand a little bit of the mystery and beauty of science. I thought I would read the short introductory paperback before deciding whether I should attempt the three-volume <i>Feynman Lectures on Physics</i>.</p><p>After reading <i><a href="https://armynow.blogspot.com/2022/08/qed-strange-theory-of-light-and-matter.html">QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter</a></i>, I wanted to read more of Feynman and again have that feeling I could really comprehend modern physics. It is like riding in a strong tailwind on a bicycle. I am zipping along above 25mph and can think for a moment I am really that strong, at least until I turn into the wind and feel merely human again. </p><p>Feynman give me a science high. </p><p>In the first lecture, <b><i>Atoms in Motion</i></b>, he says, </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"> Each piece, or part, of the whole of nature is is always merely an <i>approximation</i> to the complete truth, or the complete truth so far as we know it. In fact, everything we know is only some kind of approximation, because <i>we know that we do not know all the laws</i> as yet. Therefore, things must be learned only to be unlearned again, or, more likely, to be corrected.<br /></p></blockquote><p>On page 2, I know what science is. Two pages later the section titled <i>Matter is made of atoms</i> begins:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">If in some cataclysm, all of the scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generation of creature, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the <i>atomic hypothesis</i> (or the atomic <i>fact</i> whichever you wish to call it) that <i>all things are made of atoms--little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling each other upon being squeezed into one another. </i>In that one sentence, you will see, there is an <i>enormous</i> amount of information about the world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied.</p></blockquote><p>Entertaining and brilliant. The rest of the book bubbles with insights, elucidating basic physics, showing the connections of all the sciences to each other, then a chapter on energy in its many forms, followed by gravity--the weakest force, ending with quantum mechanics. </p><p>I am going to read another Feynman book this week. </p>Neil Gussmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667154945595202472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395959113568829045.post-26146913994821803842024-01-24T12:09:00.001-05:002024-01-24T12:09:00.150-05:00How General Erwin Rommel Rationalized Supporting Hitler<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAzXxzQ4Bzus46VTSP7Vyj2W0kOhES9jy-k2QBfZiyI6hrwkbotRmmZZyICSkODlLSoDNEA9wTcOx5xtDV_-dvYrdQnBx1nzUbRWQDNfYBUHvW70kL82wCFysCdcHYyVsqdhNMomC0xlIUrshzK306eDZ1qAWk_STVGeEKIOK6Jz3TVJ4qEcrrL2bx-Rub/s4032/IMG_6155.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAzXxzQ4Bzus46VTSP7Vyj2W0kOhES9jy-k2QBfZiyI6hrwkbotRmmZZyICSkODlLSoDNEA9wTcOx5xtDV_-dvYrdQnBx1nzUbRWQDNfYBUHvW70kL82wCFysCdcHYyVsqdhNMomC0xlIUrshzK306eDZ1qAWk_STVGeEKIOK6Jz3TVJ4qEcrrL2bx-Rub/s320/IMG_6155.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><p>I am reading a book about the careers of the of the most well-known generals of World War II. All of them were decorated young officers in World War I. They made the army their career, serving in diminished armies until the late 1930s when war put all three in command of great armies. </p><p>Rommel is known as the Desert Fox, really his worst performance as a commander, and for joining the failed plot to assassinate Hitler after in 1944. But he was for Hitler before he turned against him. His path to making peace with Hitler has chilling parallels with today. </p><p>From the book:</p><p><span class="TextRun SCXW264533883 BCX0" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-US" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; color: windowtext; font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; line-height: 20.925px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; white-space-collapse: preserve;" xml:lang="EN-US">In 1932, the Nazi Party's achievement in becoming the largest party in the Reichstag was not greeted with concern by the Army Officer Corps, but with hope. Although I do not like their methods, wrote Oberst Karl Kuhn of the General Staff in his diary in November 1932, most of my acquaintances see developments as good for Germany and good for the army. </span><span class="EOP SCXW264533883 BCX0" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":160,"335559740":279}" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; color: windowtext; font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20.925px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> </span></p><div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW264533883 BCX0" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; clear: both; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web", Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px; position: relative; user-select: text;"><p class="Paragraph SCXW264533883 BCX0" lang="EN-US" paraeid="{cd9824d8-228d-4d4d-8b6c-186d6509d557}{108}" paraid="1538050856" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; font-kerning: none; margin: 0px 0px 10.6667px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; user-select: text; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;" xml:lang="EN-US"><span class="TextRun SCXW264533883 BCX0" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-US" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; line-height: 20.925px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;" xml:lang="EN-US"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW264533883 BCX0" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;">Most of the soldiers seemed to agree, although most seem more concerned with the implications for their pay and accommodation. The officer corps had reservations about the Nazi Party and its leadership, the tub-thumping rhetoric of Adolf Hitler feeding widespread distrust of the former First World War corporal, but many were willing to see what the Nazis could </span><span class="NormalTextRun AdvancedProofingIssueV2Themed SCXW264533883 BCX0" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-image: var(--urlAdvancedProofingIssueV2, url('data:image/svg+xml;base64,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')); background-position: left bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;">come up with</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW264533883 BCX0" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;"> to solve chronic German problems. </span></span><span class="EOP SCXW264533883 BCX0" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":160,"335559740":279}" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20.925px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;"> </span></p></div><div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW264533883 BCX0" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; clear: both; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web", Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px; position: relative; user-select: text;"><p class="Paragraph SCXW264533883 BCX0" lang="EN-US" paraeid="{b72981e8-7785-4e42-b123-eb1d0ef2feb1}{109}" paraid="1913544180" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; font-kerning: none; margin: 0px 0px 10.6667px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; user-select: text; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;" xml:lang="EN-US"><span class="TextRun SCXW264533883 BCX0" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-US" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; line-height: 20.925px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;" xml:lang="EN-US"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW264533883 BCX0" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;">Berlin based </span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW264533883 BCX0" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;">Oberstleutnant</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW264533883 BCX0" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;"> Paul </span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW264533883 BCX0" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;">Uckleman</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW264533883 BCX0" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;"> wrote in his journal that he thought Hitler is no gentleman and described his colleagues as brutes, thugs, and men on the make, using vile tactics and supporting questionable policies. Nevertheless, </span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW264533883 BCX0" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;">Uckleman</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW264533883 BCX0" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;"> also wrote that </span><span class="NormalTextRun AdvancedProofingIssueV2Themed SCXW264533883 BCX0" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-image: var(--urlAdvancedProofingIssueV2, url('data:image/svg+xml;base64,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')); background-position: left bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;">perhaps Hitler</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW264533883 BCX0" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;"> is the man to destroy the Communists and help revive Germany and the army. </span></span><span class="EOP SCXW264533883 BCX0" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":160,"335559740":279}" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20.925px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;"> </span></p></div><div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW264533883 BCX0" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; clear: both; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web", Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px; position: relative; user-select: text;"><p class="Paragraph SCXW264533883 BCX0" lang="EN-US" paraeid="{e3442bde-b87a-490e-ad23-42141741dc1c}{246}" paraid="250967684" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; font-kerning: none; margin: 0px 0px 10.6667px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; user-select: text; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;" xml:lang="EN-US"><span class="TextRun SCXW264533883 BCX0" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-US" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; line-height: 20.925px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;" xml:lang="EN-US"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW264533883 BCX0" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;">It was a view that </span><span class="NormalTextRun AdvancedProofingIssueV2Themed SCXW264533883 BCX0" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-image: var(--urlAdvancedProofingIssueV2, url('data:image/svg+xml;base64,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')); background-position: left bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;">seems to have</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW264533883 BCX0" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;"> reflected Erwin Rommel's own thinking about the Nazis. Hitler and his party were distasteful, but they were better than the alternatives in their offer of an enticing vision to end internal crises, bolster the economy and provide a muscular nationalism that would break the Versailles Treaty shackles reinvigorate the armed forces and redraw Germany's borders. As Rommel’s biographer Ralf Georg </span><span class="NormalTextRun SpellingErrorV2Themed SCXW264533883 BCX0" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-image: var(--urlSpellingErrorV2, url('data:image/svg+xml;base64,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')); background-position: left bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;">Reuth</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW264533883 BCX0" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;"> has argued, the most influential part of the army hoped that Hitler would become vanquisher of the discord that had traumatized German society since 1918.</span></span><span class="EOP SCXW264533883 BCX0" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":160,"335559740":279}" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20.925px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;"> </span></p></div>Neil Gussmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667154945595202472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395959113568829045.post-44112233501182108522024-01-22T14:23:00.003-05:002024-01-22T14:23:34.308-05:00The Purpose of Life? To Live--Yogi Sadhguru<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWhhCpSctypxNbfXp7dIrv9FsgpaPnAd0SlnUIxcG95KKhXoRx6b_kf46ZyPE-Dez00e2CTlKMfL9X8uiLgTvQx5_qwBp-O-cLBBImCUBcxXtux3rnSVSuFfIuLn2mwBoqJ2RcYEfHnTdQh95OnLljTspaUiBiL_qOpe2nw7A93mmQcFEDOFN06AU8TriI/s253/download.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="253" data-original-width="199" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWhhCpSctypxNbfXp7dIrv9FsgpaPnAd0SlnUIxcG95KKhXoRx6b_kf46ZyPE-Dez00e2CTlKMfL9X8uiLgTvQx5_qwBp-O-cLBBImCUBcxXtux3rnSVSuFfIuLn2mwBoqJ2RcYEfHnTdQh95OnLljTspaUiBiL_qOpe2nw7A93mmQcFEDOFN06AU8TriI/s1600/download.jpg" width="199" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Yogi Sadhguru</span></div></div><div><br /></div><div>A friend sent me a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ7ZvPghdy8">YouTube link</a> of Yogi Sadhguru answering the question, "Does life have a purpose?"<br /><br /></div><div>His answer surprised and delighted me. Although I have read widely in Jewish, Christian and Buddhist literature, Hindu teachings never attracted my interest. But Yogi Sadhguru could be Rabbi. He has such clarity. If you are interested, you can either listen to the YouTube video above or read the transcript below. </div><div><br /></div><div>"Does life have a purpose?"</div><div><br /></div><div>No. </div><div><br /></div>Isn't it fantastic that if there's no purpose, you have nothing to fulfill, you can just live? <div><br /><div>No, but you want a purpose? And not a simple purpose. </div><div><br /></div><div>You want a God-given purpose. It's very dangerous. </div><div><br /></div><div>People who think they have a God-given purpose are doing the cruelest things on the planet. </div><div><br /></div><div>Yes or no. </div><div><br /></div><div>They are doing the most horrible things and they've always been doing the most horrible things because when you have a God-given purpose, life here becomes less important than your purpose. </div><div><br /></div><div>My life is important. Life is important. When I say life. I'm not talking about your family, your work, what you do, what you do not do at your party. I'm not talking about that. </div><div><br /></div><div>A life, this is life, isn't it? Life is within you or around you. The ambiance of life. You are mistaking the ambiance of life for life, your home, your family, your workspace, your party. This is all ambience of life. This is. Not life, isn't it? </div><div><br /></div><div>Yes or no. </div><div><br /></div><div>You're mistaking the ambiance for the real thing, no? Life is important. Because that's the only thing you know. You don't know anything else. Do you know something else? Rest is all imagined stuff, isn't it the only thing there is? That this is being and alive and that's all there is. So, is this important? </div><div><br /></div><div>It is of paramount importance. Not you as a person. That's not important, but you as a piece of life is very important. Because that is the basis of everything. When I say that is the basis of everything in the universe exists for you. Only because you are, isn't it? </div><div><br /></div><div>Yes or no. </div><div><br /></div><div>The world exists for you only because you are otherwise it won't exist. In your experience. So, in every way, this is important. So, what is the purpose of this? </div><div><br /></div><div>See if you had a purpose and if you fulfilled it after that, what would you do? After that, what would you be bored? It is just that life is so intricate and so phenomenally intricate. That if you spend 10,000 years looking at it carefully; you still will not know it entirely. If you spend a million years looking at it. With absolute focus still you will not know it in its entirety. That's how it is. </div><div><br /></div><div>Is there a meaning to it? The greatest thing about life is that there is no meaning to it. This is the greatest aspect of life that has no meaning to it, and there is no need for it. To have a meaning. It's the pettiness of one's mind. That it is seek a meaning. Because psychologically you will feel kind of unconnected with life. If you don't have a purpose and meaning. </div><div><br /></div><div>People are constantly trying to create these false purposes. Now they were quite fine and happy. Suddenly they got married. Now the purpose is. The other person. Then they have children. Now they become miserable with each other. Now the whole purpose that I go through, all this misery is. Because of the children. Like this it goes on. These are things that you are causing and holding as purposes of life. </div><div><br /></div><div>And is there a God-given purpose? What if God does not know you exist? No, I'm just asking by chance. I'm saying in this huge. Which God is supposed to be the creator and the manager of these 100 billion galaxies, in that this tiny little planet? And you suppose he doesn't know that you exist? What to do? Possible, or no? I'm sorry I'm saying such sacrilegious things. But is it possible, or no? </div><div><br /></div><div>What if he doesn't know that you exist? What if he doesn't have a plan for you? Suppose he doesn't have a plan for an individual plan for you. Don't look for such things. The thing is the creation is made in such a way. </div><div><br /></div><div>That creation and creator cannot be separated. Here you are a piece of creation at the same time, the source of creation is throbbing within you. If you pay little attention to this process of life, you would not need any purpose. It will keep you engaged for a million years.
If you want.
There is so much happening. So much means so much unbelievable things are happening right here. If you pay enough attention. A million years of existence, it will keep you busy. Or more. </div><div><br /></div><div>Right now the need for purpose is come because you are trapped in your psychological structure, not in your life process. Your psychological structure functions from the limited data that it's gathered within that it rolls. And right now. </div><div><br /></div><div>Your thought and emotion has become far more important than your life, isn't it? So isn't it so? So because of this you seeking. A purpose as an. Escape from the trap that you have set for yourself. It is a trap set by you. You can easily come out of it. If the trap was set for you by somebody else, difficult to come out because they'll set the trap in such a way that you cannot come out, isn't it? I'm talking about life, not marriage. </div><div><br /></div><div>So this is a trap set by you. This is easy to come out, but that is the whole thing. Why it is so difficult is now you're identified with the trap. </div><div><br /></div><div>You like it. </div><div><br /></div><div>You like it because it gives you a certain sense of safety and security and protection and individual identity if you. Build a cocoon around yourself. It gives you safety, but it also imprisons you. Walls of self preservation or also walls of self imprisonment. When it protects you, you like it. When it restricts you, you do not like it. </div><div><br /></div><div>That is why we have doors. We like the wall because it's protecting us. But we have doors, so that way we can open it and get out when we want to. It doesn't matter how nice it is, we still want to go out, isn't it? So that is how it is with every trap that you set. It doesn't matter how nice it is, you still want to go out. </div><div><br /></div><div>So the psychological wall that you have built which gives you some sense of identity, which gives you some sense of being a person, an individual person, and which gives you security. Beginning to experience it like a trap somewhere, you want to break it. So one way of not breaking it is to find a purpose. </div><div><br /></div><div>Those who find a purpose in their life, they become so conceited. </div><div><br /></div><div>They will live within their own traps forever, thinking that they're doing the most fantastic thing. First thing you need is balance. If you have balance. Then you can try if you don't have balance it's better you stay on the ground. It's not safe for somebody who is not balanced to climb high. It's best you stay close to the ground. </div><div><br /></div><div>You should not climb. </div><div><br /></div><div>So first thing is to establish a balance. Then you're losing your psychological structure. Then you're losing your psychological structure without balance, which lot of people are doing today. </div><div><br /></div><div>Why does somebody want to drink alcohol or take a drug. Because it loosens your psychological structure. And makes you feel liberated for a moment but without the necessary balance. You have not worked for the balance, but you got freedom. Freedom without balance is destruction. Anarchy, isn't it? </div><div><br /></div><div>So first thing is to work for is balance an enormous sense of balance. Where even if you dismantle your psychological structure, you can simply live here, dismantling your psychological. Structure is an important process because that is your trap. That is your security. That is your stability. At the same time, that's your trap. Because the walls are set, you feel secure, but that's also your trap. </div><div><br /></div><div>If you dismantle your trap. You also dismantle your security, isn't it? You also dismantle your sense of purpose. You also dismantle everything that matters to you. So that will need balance without balance if you dismantle it you will go crazy. </div><div><br /></div><div>But don't look for a purpose because if you look for a purpose you're seeking madness. If you find one. You are surely mad? If you think you found a purpose in life you for sure have gone crazy. Because only the insane people have purpose. People who have purpose are insane in many ways. These are things that you create in your mind and believe it's true, isn't it? </div><div><br /></div><div>Right now, fighting for my country is my purpose. Right now, if it's necessary, I will fight knowing fully well it's an unnecessary bloody fight. Just then you will fight only to the extent it's necessary. If you think this is your purpose you would want to destroy the whole world for. What nonsense you believe in, isn't it? Something is needed. We'll do it. With absolute involvement, there's no other purpose. </div><div><br /></div><div>The purpose of life is to live and to live totally. To live totally does not mean party every night to live totally means before you fall dead every aspect of life has been explored. Nothing has been left unexplored. Before you fall dead even if you do not explore the cosmos, at least this piece of life, you must know it in its entirety. That much you must do to yourself, isn't it? That's living totally. That you experienced the whole of this, all dimensions of what this is. You did not leave anything untouched. You just do that. That will take a long time. </div><div><br /></div><div>That's enough. A good enough purpose for you.</div><div><p> </p>
</div></div>Neil Gussmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667154945595202472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395959113568829045.post-80059125455788891912024-01-18T12:42:00.001-05:002024-01-25T14:10:26.630-05:00Supporting Ukraine on Capital Hill--Meeting Lawmakers<p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhC8SpzzGdEyjEm37STzEjuyWKJf4IbIcrCrCv6DygLqHATwjGUcpmtMkJpiMAob-tsTfAlE6XhraqIr2LrD7qjufwTrZbWF5_pdAfLkCCueQWBBJrmDryY9Rvt3xEXamWkZ_NXcd7oQ2zYgpyJqpQ1Erp-mOw6hK2FlJcknCeSFmraqR_5LWxwkm9-T7iD" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="447" data-original-width="640" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhC8SpzzGdEyjEm37STzEjuyWKJf4IbIcrCrCv6DygLqHATwjGUcpmtMkJpiMAob-tsTfAlE6XhraqIr2LrD7qjufwTrZbWF5_pdAfLkCCueQWBBJrmDryY9Rvt3xEXamWkZ_NXcd7oQ2zYgpyJqpQ1Erp-mOw6hK2FlJcknCeSFmraqR_5LWxwkm9-T7iD" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>At Congressman Lloyd Smucker's office </i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>(my representative), advocating for aid for Ukraine</i></span></div><p>Yesterday, I joined members of the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/AmericanCoalitionForUkraine">American Coalition for Ukraine</a> to ask members of the Congress representing Pennsylvania to support the Ukraine in its war against Russian aggression. The group I was part of visited the offices of Congressman Lloyd Smucker, Senator Robert Casey, Senator John Fetterman, and Congressman Guy Reschenthaler. </p>Our message: Ukraine needs ammunition and missiles urgently.<p></p><p>The response from each of the staffers we met with was support for Ukraine, but then came the various expressions of regret. The Republican congressmen face opposition within their own party. The phrase "in the current climate" summed up that regret saying in effect, We wish we could do more, but..."</p><p>Both of the senate staffers were in support of Ukraine and fighting against Republican opposition in both the Senate and the House. We heard Senator Fetterman is "extremely disappointed" with the "dysfunctional House of Representatives." He considers the abandonment of Ukraine support by Republicans "reprehensible" and "unAmerican." </p><p>When I was at the last Ukraine Action Summit October 22-24 of last year, the Fetterman visit was the best. He stood with us on the steps of the Senate and declared complete support for Ukraine. <a href="https://armynow.blogspot.com/2023/10/fetterman-backs-ukraine-100-ukraine.html">I wrote about that visit here</a>. For those of us who spent six years protesting Senator Pat Toomey, the best result of our protest is that Toomey did not run for re-election and John Fetterman took his place in the senate. </p><p>Fetterman is just as strong on his support for Israel. The walls of his office are covered with posters of the hostages taken by HAMAS terrorists on October 7. Those released are on one side, those still held are on the other. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEihNxDVJyCok-etUjSI2ByKgrmgexy7InPM_gX3uEejQjVNnR1FMxTwcXpcWd-SGWsY2-RtgXh8ueP3sWFB5_fYfOWN9EhP1eMgISJtr0CVzPkWHGb9XGllxphdUgWhDoAoPeDIY5SU_BZUh0ipVyYghp_CIXfEIjsQbgJAY-3eo5P0m0KnoWa5845H_cG6" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEihNxDVJyCok-etUjSI2ByKgrmgexy7InPM_gX3uEejQjVNnR1FMxTwcXpcWd-SGWsY2-RtgXh8ueP3sWFB5_fYfOWN9EhP1eMgISJtr0CVzPkWHGb9XGllxphdUgWhDoAoPeDIY5SU_BZUh0ipVyYghp_CIXfEIjsQbgJAY-3eo5P0m0KnoWa5845H_cG6" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg8EFGd9L9y2y6ko9W-rit1C5tou8gyTxasIS5SKuHTDOyijNF4d0Z-fsaO3xW0FcwGD78MCjWs4UZD2GicCgWihA3-iYov34G7--Dh_LI6PuzzA_Is1Cm0VCPPxFy8gROO4Pk1vL8VwsX0Dmj1ZwEcbsnAoB5MxhhW2xn2WaDWAhrvCHhMbWmf6bWpxemx" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg8EFGd9L9y2y6ko9W-rit1C5tou8gyTxasIS5SKuHTDOyijNF4d0Z-fsaO3xW0FcwGD78MCjWs4UZD2GicCgWihA3-iYov34G7--Dh_LI6PuzzA_Is1Cm0VCPPxFy8gROO4Pk1vL8VwsX0Dmj1ZwEcbsnAoB5MxhhW2xn2WaDWAhrvCHhMbWmf6bWpxemx" width="320" /></a></div><p>I have another Congressional visit tomorrow. I will write about that as soon as I can. </p><p>I believe Ukraine is the front line of the defense of freedom and democracy against Russia and her authoritarian allies in Iran, China, North Korea, Hungary, Turkey, and all of those within America who support tyranny. </p><br /><br /><p></p><p><br /></p>Neil Gussmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667154945595202472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395959113568829045.post-54046124154078442532024-01-12T22:16:00.000-05:002024-01-12T22:16:35.523-05:00Dark Tourism <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7b0MxqwOw-NItCJ8PRx1YTMyACTGtDI3LzmozKLq5QvhGn4Qf2aBej2fQyz5hypHu45RmDf5szd6ewF1zpZWqXfuEmMOaN-WAe5JQTVN1ov1HGhJyXyf-3-BL10xjGKK4l5Tl_-kpKnGssnVkWW6LQe86yNCEgGjrB0MkMSrJhYWsEey-_HtFl4WwHOkM/s300/download.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7b0MxqwOw-NItCJ8PRx1YTMyACTGtDI3LzmozKLq5QvhGn4Qf2aBej2fQyz5hypHu45RmDf5szd6ewF1zpZWqXfuEmMOaN-WAe5JQTVN1ov1HGhJyXyf-3-BL10xjGKK4l5Tl_-kpKnGssnVkWW6LQe86yNCEgGjrB0MkMSrJhYWsEey-_HtFl4WwHOkM/w400-h224/download.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Monument in the Dachau Concentration Camp</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Tonight after services at my synagogue, I talked to a member of the congregation about about visiting Nazi death camps. She never visited a death camp. She is thinking about joining a tour led by our Rabbi that will visit several death camps in 2025. <p></p><p>We talked about how much death camps were part of the towns and cities where they were located. Auschwitz is inside the city area of Oswiecim, Poland. Both times I went to the camp I thought how strange it was to hear the bells of the Catholic Church while walking through a death camp. </p><p>The Flossenburg camp is in an area that was very pro-Nazi in Bavaria. the camp was part of the community. The camp managers bought food and other supplies locally, as happened at most death camps, and made no effort to hide the slave labor and death in the camp. </p><p>A couple of years ago, I spoke to a professor who studies Dark Tourism: visiting places known for death and tragedy. Ten visits to nine different camps and a dozen other museums and memorials put me right in the definition of Dark Tourist. </p><p>Tonight the Rabbi talked about January 12, 2024, as the 100th day since the terrorist massacre, mutilation and kidnapping of more than 1,400 Israelis. At every death camp, the guides make clear that all Nazi death camps had other prisoners in addition to Jews. But at every camp, Jews were the lowest of the various prisoners. They were most likely to be tortured and humiliated by design or by whim. </p><p>When HAMAS terrorists invaded Israel torture and sexual violence and mutilation were the plan. The Holocaust began with humiliation and led inevitably to extermination. HAMAS has the same agenda. </p><p>May the IDF destroy them completely. </p><p><br /></p>Neil Gussmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667154945595202472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395959113568829045.post-49124519236812154112024-01-06T21:48:00.004-05:002024-01-06T21:48:47.714-05:00Transcript of Niall Ferguson on "Honestly with Bari Weiss" <p> </p>Niall Ferguson on "Honestly with Bari Weiss" <div>Transcript </div><div><br /></div><div> Bari Weiss
Niall, welcome back to Honestly </div><div><br /></div><div> Niall Ferguson
Oh hello. What an unexpected call. </div><div><br /></div><div>Bari Weiss Now everyone who listens to this show surely knows the name Niall Ferguson, but in case you're new to this podcast, Niall is a historian. He's an opinion columnist at Bloomberg. He's a senior. Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, he is the author of something like 20 books. Most recently, he published doom, the politics of Catastrophe. And he is also and most importantly, one of the founders of me of a new university, which is the University of Austin, or UATX. There you go for a plug, Niall, we. I really appreciate you being here.
Niall Ferguson
Good to be with you, Bari. </div><div><br /></div><div>Olly Wiseman (Honestly co-host) OK, so we thought that we sort of go through some of the hot spots and then ask you to tie together what all of. These things mean. Obviously, there's so much going on in the world right now that I think many people can feel almost overwhelmed by one of those. The War in Ukraine, Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, and I can't believe. This but next month is. Going to mark the two years. Anniversary of that war hundreds of thousands have died in that war, and Russia, as of today, and we're at the very beginning of 2024, appears to be winning. There are also these horror stories I keep reading about Zelinsky calling up really older men to serve who are sort of being ripped out of lines at the grocery store and sent to the front. Lines and Zelensky. Saying that he needs an additional half a million troops even still, and in the meantime, at least among many people I know, it's anecdotal. Polls, though, seem to back this up. Americans seem less and less supportive. Of a war that maybe two years ago they hadn't sort of viscerally supported. Who does this go in your view. </div><div><br /></div><div> Niall Ferguson
Well, when the war began nearly two years ago, I thought the best analogy might actually be with the Korean War. You have to frame what we're going through as Cold War two in my view, and Ukraine was the first hot war of the second Cold War. And in just the same way that in 1950, the outbreak of a hot war made many people understand better. The world that they were in, I think that was true when the war broke out in Ukraine. It's obvious that Russia would not have launched that offensive without Xi Jinping's OK, that was what Putin got before the offensive was launched. And without Chinese support, Russia would not be able to sustain the war effort. Massive. Exports of microprocessors and other things keep the Russian war machine going. The problem with the analogy, and that was why I drew it, was what happened. Career because what happened in Korea was you had a year of extraordinary kinetic warfare and then two years of attrition affected stalemate and then a kind of Armistice, not really a full-scale piece that left the country divided with an extremely dangerous border. And it's still there as we speak. And I I've always felt that that was a plausible outcome for Ukraine, and not by any means the worst-case scenario, because after all, South Korea ended up being a very prosperous country despite. Something and Ukraine might manage that, but it's going to be very hard for Ukraine to win this war now for the reason you gave the United States has essentially lost interest. It's stopped supporting financially Ukraine and Ukraine is always to be truly running out of ammunition. This is a war of attrition. Therefore, Zelensky needs bodies. He needs men because the Russians have. A lot of them, and that that was always one of the asymmetries of this conflict. So, I expect the war to drag on through 2020. 4/2 at some point. What happened to the kids of the Korean? What was Stalin died. That was one of the ways in which the war was possible to end. I don't know whether Putin will oblige us by dying at some point soon. If he doesn't, I think this drags on. There's a worst-case scenario, of course, which would be that Russia begins to make significant gains. Significantly degrades Ukraine's infrastructure. It's failing to do that right now with a massive air campaign, but if you just take that analogy as something to work with, I think we're entering that phase of our version of the Korean War that. Will be called. </div><div><br /></div><div> Bari Weiss
Stalemate and Niall, one thing that we'll be looking out for in 2024 is what happens here in the US, but to what extent does Ukraine's future hinge on the election in November? I mean, is that going to make a big difference for? Me or the other? Well, people were. </div><div><br /></div><div> Niall Ferguson
Saying that in. Ukraine, when I was last there back in September, but it turns out you don't need. Donald Trump to get reelected for the aid to Ukraine to stop stopped. Ready and the election is, what, 10 months away? I think it's possible that the aid will restart cause Congressional leadership does not want to leave Ukraine entirely reliant on the Europeans, which right now it is. So. It's not entirely over Trump's real. I'll give at this point 55% probability. Would be a terrible blow for Ukraine. Not necessarily fatal Europeans understand. I've been spending a lot of time in Europe at the moment that they now have to face the possibility of being on their own. All that fine talk of strategic autonomy which we used to hear from President Macron will have to become a reality very swiftly. The alternative, they now realize, is too awful to contemplate, because if Ukraine loses after all the fine rhetoric of 2022 that puts Russia in an extremely threatening position for the whole of Europe. And remember, one thing that Putin has shown is that sanctions don't stop. A great power which Russia is not a superpower anymore. It's a great power with the backing of a superpower, Russia has mobilized in a way we haven't really seen in a very long time. And that large scale military mobilization is going to put Putin in a very threatening position. So, the Europeans can't really afford for Ukraine to be completely defeated. Because it will require them massively to increase their own defense budgets, which from a domestic political point of view is very difficult. </div><div><br /></div><div> Olly Wiseman
Indeed, you mentioned what's at. Stake for Europe? What? Is at stake for. The world more broadly. If Ukraine loses this war in a significant. </div><div><br /></div><div> Niall Ferguson
Well, it wouldn't be the first time that the United States said we'll back you and your independence and your democracy for as long as it takes. And then that turned out to be for as long as we feel like it. You know, as the South Vietnamese, the United States not done terribly well since the late 1960s. In honoring this kind of commitment. Read the Quiet American and you'll find a certain familiar ring to it. Think of Afghanistan and the Biden administration's track record is much worse than you'd think. If all you read was the New York Times because it failed utterly to deter the Taliban from very quickly reasserting their hideous. Barbaric regime. In 2021, it failed to deter Putin from escalating his invasion of Ukraine, and it failed to deter Iran from unleashing its proxies against Israel. And my question for 2024 is. Who will they? Fail to deter this year because there is more that they can. </div><div><br /></div><div> Bari Weiss
Fail to deter well, now that segues perfectly into. My next question, which is about China and. It feels as though she. Thing is becoming more and more explicit about Taiwan and what China's plans are. I think the US official kind of intelligence prediction is that they think the range when kind of might try and take Taiwan might be between 2025 and 2027. Obviously, there's a chance that she acts earlier than America. Aspects so. What do we do with all this information? With all this forecasting? What's your feeling about where things stand and what we should be doing to be prepared for that? </div><div><br /></div><div> Niall Ferguson
I remember two years ago all the experts on Russia said no, no, no. Putin's not going to launch a full-blown conventional force invasion of Ukraine. And I was one of the few people who said. War is coming. I have a similar feeling the experts say China's not ready to make a move until in Taiwan. Until 2027, Bill Burns, director, Central Intelligence, has said this couple of times and I just wonder about that because as you say, she has most recently in his new year. Said that, this is still his priority, the Taiwanese election is. Is a way. And it seems. It is likely that a candidate will win. William Lai, who has in the past expressed his support for the idea of Taiwanese independence. That seems like a good pretext. As you get. For launching some kind of action. I think the mistake many experts make is assuming that action means full blown amphibious invasion. That's a really difficult thing to do across the Taiwan Strait and I don't think the People's Liberation Army is remotely ready to do it, but they don't need to do that. They just need to blockade Taiwan and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it's sometime this year. China imposes some kind of economic blockade. If I were advising Xi Jinping, I would say do it. You'll never have a better opportunity. You'll never have an administration that will be more wrong suited if you do it, they're not ready. They've talked to talk about Taiwan. Remember Joe Biden on more than one occasion has sounded like he has an. Unambiguous commitment that to the defense of Taiwan after 50 years, where the United States kind of ambiguous about its commitment and yet at the very time when. The US is least. People honor such commitments. This is not the 1990s, when Bill Clinton could send a naval force and the Chinese were like, whoa, back down. Chinese now has the capacity to sink US aircraft carriers. If Joe Biden finds himself in an election year having to send a naval force across the Pacific to run that. Blockade. It's the Cuban missile crisis. Only this time we get to be the Soviet. And Joe Biden gets to be Khrushchev, and that that analogy is another Cold War analogy that I find useful. Cuba was an island just off the United States, tried to effectively turn into a missile base, and John F Kennedy imposed A blockade called it a quarantine. But it was a blockade. And this naval force. We sent. The closest we came to World War Three in the whole of the. If there's a Taiwan crisis of the sort, I'm imagining it will be like the Cuban missile crisis, with the rules reversed, the Chinese will be the ones doing the blockading, and we'll be accused of sending a naval force and risking World War three. So, I hope I'm wrong about this. I hope Bill Burns is right. We don't really have to worry about this until 2027, but. Let's put it this way. Our intelligence experts have been wrong in the past and I wouldn't be entirely surprised if there was a Taiwan crisis potentially this month.</div><div><br /></div><div> Bari Weiss
Wow. Yeah. In the Middle East, it feels like there. Potential escalations the whole time, which the US just kind of ignores, which are those attacks on U.S. troops. Let's move on to that region and focus on the focal point of the conflict there, which obviously is the Gaza Strip and the war between Hamas and Israel. Give us your sense of what stage that war is at, what the next phase of the war looks like, what you think will happen next in Gaza. </div><div><br /></div><div> Niall Ferguson
Well, I think so far as I can tell from sources I have. That's the idea is to strike him up. It is not. Being given as much time as it would like. But the noises that come out of Washington along the lines of all these needs to get done, you. Have to stop. I don't think. Those noises are being accompanied by anything that really would stop Israel finishing this war, insofar as it's possible to destroy Hamas, I think it's happening. The problem is that there is another theater that can explode into life at any point, and that's the Lebanese border with Israel, where Hezbollah has a far greater, far powered disposal. The IDF would certainly like to act preemptively against that. It's not really able to for a political reason. That is something that Washington won't condone. So, I think the critical question is not what happened in Gaza. I think that's now fairly clear. I think it's what happens with Hezbollah in Lebanon that is crucial and the fact that Israel is taking the first steps against Hezbollah is, I think. </div><div><br /></div><div> Bari Weiss
What do you think the odds are of that kind of escalation and a broader sort of regional escalation in the kind of worst-case scenario involving Iran? And I guess the US? Some not necessarily direct conflict, but something approaching that. </div><div><br /></div><div> Niall Ferguson
And the US is. Extraordinarily reluctant to get into any kind. Of a war with Iran. Another administration might have taken October the 7th as the opportunity to impose major costs on Iran, and I think that would have been the correct thing to do. But this administration has been, from the outset, to me, inexplicably wedded to the idea that it could resuscitate the Iran nuclear deal, that projects of the Obama administration, and it never has really exerted to seek serious pressure on Iran. So, I worry a lot that this. Reluctance to confront the source of the trouble. Which is Tehran? One means that Iran's proxies have a sense of impunity. It's not only a must, but also not only Hezbollah, The Who sees in other proxies are feeling, you know, this is our moment because there's not really significant pressure being exerted on Iran itself.</div><div><br /></div><div> Olly Wiseman
You know, if you're Israel, post October. 7th and one of the great lessons are you can't actually allow a jihadi genocidal group to remain at one of your borders. Isn't the lesson there that Israel must at some point strike Hezbollah to say nothing of Iran? </div><div><br /></div><div> Niall Ferguson
That would be strategically logical. The problem is. That Israel is so reliant on the United States and has been throughout its history, that it's very hard for it to act unilaterally in defiance of a very clear instruction from Washington. So, I think there's a real tension there that may persist throughout the year until the new administration comes along and says back to where we were, but that may not happen. As I said, it's 55% probability at this point in my view that. Trump is elected. I think Trump's election is really important, potentially because of its consequences for all that we've discussed and his. To reelect of Trump is very bad news for Ukraine. It's probably quite good news for Israel. I'm not clear what it implies for Taiwan so. It will be. A significant change, but. It won't be all one way, and that's one of the things that makes the interplay between domestic politics and geopolitics so difficult this year. </div><div><br /></div><div> Olly Wiseman
So, we, we've touched on Ukraine, we've touched on China, we've touched on Israel and the broader Iranian threat through Hamas and all of these other proxies. And I wondered if you could help us connect the dots. You tweeted something that I. Thought was really. Scary, but rang very true to me on. New Year's Eve. Here's what you said. Future historians will marvel at all this. It will seem obvious by 2033, if not sooner, that the Pax Americana faced a well-coordinated challenge from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea in the early twenty 20s. The first move was the invasion of Ukraine, the second was the war of Iran's proxies against Israel. The third will most likely be a Chinese challenge to American primacy in the Indo Pacific. Perhaps if Xi Jinping is bold, a blockade of Taiwan, can you elaborate a little bit more on what you mean when you say well-coordinated, like how? How much are they coordinated? </div><div><br /></div><div> Niall Ferguson
No2 world leaders have met more frequently in the last decade than Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. And I can assure you, they're not discussing the respected merits of Russian and Chinese cuisine. The fact that they met immediately prior to the offensive against Ukraine at that, at that meeting, there was a kind of no limits partnership. Declaration is surely evidence enough. The fact that Iran is a major source of drones for the Russian air assault on Ukraine is further evidence. The fact that the attacks on Israel were preceded not only by meetings in Tehran, also leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, not to mention Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but also by Chinese intervention, which is in some ways quite novel in the Middle Eastern diplomacy. To bring about some kind of rapprochement between the Saudis and the Iranians, all of this I. Think is part of a. The jigsaw that you can put together without knowing the classified information, obviously that people inside the government know a lot more than I do and I'm sure Jake Sullivan, as national security adviser, has far deeper insights than I can ever have. And I think on the basis of open-source Intel. Clear that there is coordination and although there is no ideological homogeneity between these regimes, China, which still nominally Marxist-Leninist communist regime, Russia, which is some kind of imperialist nostalgia trip back to Peter the Great. And Iran and Islamist Shia theocracy. And they don't have anything really in common except that they want American predominance to end and Pax Americana, which you know has had its. Effect haven't been such a bad international order that one would wish it to be replaced by a Chinese version. I certainly don't want to live in that world, and I wouldn't have thought you believers in the Free Press would want to either, so that's really where I think I would argue we are going. It's a major challenge to American predominance. The Biden administration said. We understand that better than Trump because we understand alliances and these alliances are our superpower, and that seemed to be. Who would reflect Ukraine? Because the Western alliance, broadly defined, also including Japan and some Asian countries, did come together, and it's supported Ukraine very strongly through that first-year party. Totally. But I don't think that alliance will look remotely as strong if things escalate in Israel. It's already pretty fragmented on the Palestine, Palestinian, Israel question. And as for Taiwan, I don't think any Europeans will show up if there's a crisis over Taiwan. And so, the Pax Americana, insofar as it was about. American economic might, plus alliances. I think it's more vulnerable than at any time since the end of World War 2. </div><div><br /></div><div> Olly Wiseman
Isn't it one of the other great distinctions between Cold War one and Cold War two? Are demoralization, like I'm sure you saw the videos meal of the past few days, the spectacle of young progressives marching in the streets of American cities praising. The hoochies of Yemen. Literally to say nothing of their praise of Hamas and back then maybe I'm have a revisionist idea of things, but it seemed like that. General Young Americans and Young American Liberals were on the side of the West, and it was self-evidently good that our freedoms were good and better than their lack of them. Is that a real shift, or am I just looking at the past with rose colored glasses? </div><div><br /></div><div>Niall Ferguson
Think you are a bit. I mean, I think what's interesting about Cold War two is it seems to be going faster than Cold War one. So, we've kind of we're racing from the Korean War to the Cuban missile crisis. And when it comes to young people's attitudes, we somehow got to 1960. Yay already, because if you go back to 68. There is this enormous revulsion against the Pax Americana from within, and instead of chanting their support for our math, they were chanting their support for Ho Chi Minh right on the Harvard campus. Then in that, in that sense, part and parcel of, yeah, I mean, part of part of the Cold War is the useful idiots that you'll always find. </div><div><br /></div><div> Olly Wiseman
It was ever thus, right? </div><div><br /></div><div>Niall Ferguson
On the Harvard campus and. In that sense, I think there's a kind of familiarity to this pattern, but I do think that it's easier, much easier for China to mobilize. And sentiment or anti-Israeli sentiment through social. Media than was ever. Possible in the first Cold War and. That that. Means that I think our task is harder. The way I. Would put it is cold. War Two has a lot in common with Cold War one, but economically the other side is much stronger. And it was true in Cold War one. Secondly, I think we are more divided and more capable of being divided and. In that sense, I think that there's a decent chance we'll lose. Cool. Do and that's what people find really hard to visualize. The reason people are worried is kind of think oh we you know we we're always going to win it's going to be fine. Don't worry and I'm like no I used to contemplate the possibility of losing the United States did not inevitably win Cold War when it looked like it was losing for most of the 1970s by 1979. It really looked like it was in trouble, and I think we just don't get across to people what losing might be like and why it might be bad. Ukrainians understand what losings like because they saw Bucca. They saw the bodies in. The streets of Bucca. It's really not what losing is like because they know that October 7th is like the dress rehearsal for Holocaust too, but we don't really know what losing would mean. And young Americans absolutely have no concept. Now, young Americans are so complacent about freedom that they're basically against it now, which is a kind of bizarre turn of events. And so, I kind of want everybody to read books like SSGB lend date and fantastic. He imagined Britain losing World War 2. What it would be like if the Germans had taken over. That's great. As it completely captures what it would have been like, we need a bit more about what it would actually be like if we lost. Suppose just let's just. Imagine that there is a Taiwan crisis, and they send two aircraft carrier groups, and the Chinese have sync both the carrier. And the US finds it has to sue for peace, and Taiwan has taken over, and seizing ping. Does the ticker tape parade through Taipei? What then? What does that mean? And I think a lot of people haven't really got anywhere close to thinking that through. They don't realize that they are losing. He seemed to be #1 losing the Pax Americana has massive costs. Like suppose suddenly the cost of borrowing for the United States government is no longer where it currently is. Suppose the. Dollar is no. Longer just seen as the fact that. The world's number one currency, all of. Could make life a lot worse. Supposing the Free Press was no longer really capable of operating because of the sustained campaign against it. Run out of Beijing. These are the things that people don't spend enough time thinking about because they are just complacent. Assume that somehow. All of this stuff is going on over there in in Ukraine and in Israel and Taiwan, and somehow, we'll be fine. But the reality is we will definitely not be fine anymore. We than we would have been fine if the Soviets. Had won the first Cold War. </div><div><br /></div><div> Bari Weiss
Well, Niall, let's just. Take that cherry thought. And with I'm.</div><div><br /></div><div> Niall Ferguson
I don't want to be cheery? I want everybody to be to be scared because unless you're properly scared, you won't take the requisite actions to avert. Bari Weiss I peed my pants during that. </div><div><br /></div><div>Olly Wiseman Let's ask you one final short question, which you can use to scare. Listen as if they're not already terrified like me, and that is, this is a, you know, 2024 predictions podcast. So, I want you to paint the picture of January 1, 2025, and tell me how things looked in Cold War. Two like, what's your best guess in terms of how we're doing in a year? </div><div><br /></div><div> Niall Ferguson
Before Democrats stormed the capital in protest against the obviously stolen election. Yeah, I mean I would. Say when you're doing predictions over. 12-month time horizon. The important thing is to remember that most things won't be massively different. So, Europe will still be kind of stagnating. The growth will be down. There may be a recession and parts of Europe and the far right will be gaining ground. So that's a kind of easy prediction. And Putin will still be President of Russia. Modi will still be Prime Minister because their elections are a foregone conclusion. So, lots of this is kind of. Easy to foresee. The hard thing to foresee is decision Ping. Take a risk in Taiwan. Suppose he does. He does by this time next year we'll know if the United States was able to deter or prevent or reverse the Chinese move, or whether. Buy this. Trying to walk. And so, it will be quite that will be the key I think, because I think the Ukraine war won't be over, Russia won't have won, Ukraine won't have won, Israel will still be dealing with the remnants of Hamas. It'll be either at war with Hezbollah or on the brink of it. Some of this is not going to change massively and. I don't think the Biden administration is radically going to change in its final year in office. So, I think Taiwan is what to focus on and if you have been to Taiwan, I really like Taiwan because Taiwan shows that the Chinese can do democracy. Well, and they do market economy really well. The question is, can they do defense really well and at this point the answer is probably not. And so there is a I think a real probability that there is some kind of Taiwan Strait crisis in the coming 12 months and on that will hinge I think the future of this. This Cold War that we've been discussing, there's other stuff one could talk about. Labour government in Britain, but that's all chump change by comparison with that.
Olly Wiseman
Niall Ferguson, thanks so much. </div><div><br /></div><div> Niall Ferguso Thank you very much indeed.</div>Neil Gussmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667154945595202472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395959113568829045.post-35839295147836057772024-01-03T08:25:00.003-05:002024-01-03T08:25:31.027-05:00Jefferson Davis Was Not Tried for Treason: America still suffers from that decision<p> </p><div>The following is the beginning of a long article in the New Yorker magazine on December 4, 2023. If you want to read more, send me an email at ngussman@yahoo.com and I will send you a copy. </div><div><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;">What Happened When the U.S. Failed to Prosecute an Insurrectionist Ex-President
After the Civil War, </span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy, was to be tried for treason. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Does the debacle hold lessons for the trials awaiting Donald Trump? </span></div><div><br /></div><div>By Jill Lepore
December 4, 2023
</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Jefferson Davis, the half-blind ex-President of the Confederate States of America, leaned on a cane as he hobbled into a federal courthouse in Richmond, Virginia. Only days before, a Chicago Tribune reporter, who’d met Davis on the boat ride to Richmond, had written that “his step is light and elastic.” But in court, facing trial for treason, Davis, fifty-eight, gave every appearance of being bent and broken. <div><br /></div><div>A reporter from Kentucky described him as “a gaunt and feeble-looking man,” wearing a soft black hat and a sober black suit, as if he were a corpse. He’d spent two years in a military prison. He wanted to be released. A good many Americans wanted him dead. “We’ll hang Jeff Davis from a sour-apple tree,” they sang to the tune of “John Brown’s Body.”
Davis knew the courthouse well. Richmond had been the capital of the Confederacy and the courthouse its headquarters. </div><div><br /></div><div>The rebel President and his cabinet had used the courtroom as a war room, covering its walls with maps. He’d used the judge’s chambers as his Presidential office. He’d last left that room on the night of April 2, 1865, while Richmond fell.
Two years later, when Davis doddered into that courtroom, many of the faces he saw were Black. Among the two hundred spectators, a quarter were Black freedmen. And then the grand jury filed in. </div><div><br /></div><div>Six of its eighteen members were Black, the first Black men to serve on a federal grand jury. Fields Cook, born a slave, was a Baptist minister. John Oliver, born free, had spent much of his life in Boston. George Lewis Seaton’s mother, Lucinda, had been enslaved at Mount Vernon. Cornelius Liggan Harris, a Black shoemaker, later recalled how, when he took his seat with the grand jury and eyed the defendant, “he looked on me and smiled.” </div><div><br /></div><div>Not many minutes later, Davis walked out a free man, released on bail. And not too many months after that the federal government’s case against him fell apart. There’s no real consensus about why. The explanation that Davis’s lawyer Charles O’Conor liked best had to do with Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, known as the disqualification clause, which bars from federal office anyone who has ever taken an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and later “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” O’Conor argued that Section 3’s ban on holding office was a form of punishment and that to try Davis for treason would therefore amount to double jeopardy. It’s a different kind of jeopardy lately. </div><div><br /></div><div>In the aftermath of the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, legal scholars, including leading conservatives, have argued that the clause disqualifies Donald Trump from running for President. Challenges calling for Trump’s name to be blocked from ballots have been filed in twenty-eight states. Eleven cases have been dismissed by courts or voluntarily withdrawn. The Supreme Court might have the final say.
The American Presidency is draped in a red-white-and-blue cloak of impunity. Trump is the first President to have been impeached twice and the first ex-President to have been criminally indicted. </div><div><br /></div><div>If he’s convicted and sentenced and—unlikeliest of all—goes to prison, he will be the first in those dishonors, too. He faces four criminal trials, for a total of ninety-one felony charges. Thirty-four of those charges concern the alleged Stormy Daniels coverup, forty address Trump’s handling of classified documents containing national-defense information, and the remainder, divided between a federal case in Washington, D.C., and a state case in Georgia, relate to his efforts to overturn the 2020 Presidential election, including by inciting an armed insurrection to halt the certification of the Electoral College vote by a joint session of Congress. </div><div><br /></div><div>His very infamy is unprecedented.
The insurrection at the Capitol cost seven lives. The Civil War cost seven hundred thousand. And yet Jefferson Davis was never held responsible for any of those deaths. His failed conviction leaves no trail. Still, it had consequences. If Davis had been tried and convicted, the cloak of Presidential impunity would be flimsier. Leniency for Davis also bolstered the cause of white supremacy. First elected to the Senate, from Mississippi, in 1848, Davis believed in slavery, states’ rights, and secession, three ideas in one. Every state had a right to secede, Davis insisted in his farewell address to the Senate, in 1861, and Mississippi had every reason to because “the theory that all men are created free and equal” had been “made the basis of an attack upon her social institutions,” meaning slavery. Weeks later, Davis became the President of the Confederacy. </div><div><br /></div><div>His Vice-President, Alexander Stephens, said that the cornerstone of the new government “rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man.” Trump could win his Lost Cause, too.
Davis fled Richmond seven days before Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox. “I’m bound to oppose the escape of Jeff. Davis,” Abraham Lincoln reportedly told General William Tecumseh Sherman, “but if you could manage to have him slip out unbeknownst-like, I guess it wouldn’t hurt me much.” After Lincoln was shot and killed, on April 15th, his successor, Andrew Johnson, issued a proclamation charging that Lincoln’s assassination had been “incited, concerted, and procured by” Davis and offering a reward of a hundred thousand dollars for his arrest.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Neil Gussmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667154945595202472noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395959113568829045.post-20163717221291551052023-12-27T17:14:00.002-05:002024-01-01T12:34:59.535-05:00Top Blog Posts of 2023: Meeting Friends and Perennial Favorites<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR9hG2gfHNOyLbj4DHNThN4vKPU5a6SYsFxcy7nkM2cSSwY4l6BFIS2rKpMGW9Q2_zjs_OjzISSSzGRDSuq9lPVCXiaKxdTSEEA9dHVBwmT4iMOjRR4lQyvSePWUWDn6GuDj1aFA64KL2uY1E0K4ZT5nz5DMBlYZKfa9fvTfCelQTffk6NBft5Y-m0twKe/s960/69822688_10218211732676765_291473570381430784_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="694" data-original-width="960" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR9hG2gfHNOyLbj4DHNThN4vKPU5a6SYsFxcy7nkM2cSSwY4l6BFIS2rKpMGW9Q2_zjs_OjzISSSzGRDSuq9lPVCXiaKxdTSEEA9dHVBwmT4iMOjRR4lQyvSePWUWDn6GuDj1aFA64KL2uY1E0K4ZT5nz5DMBlYZKfa9fvTfCelQTffk6NBft5Y-m0twKe/s320/69822688_10218211732676765_291473570381430784_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>In 2023, various stories from my blog were opened more than 20,000 times. The two most popular with more than 1,500 reads each were the story about Larry Murphy's amazing rear-wheel-only landing of a Chinook Helicopter on the roof of a shack on the side of mountain in Iraq. A local artist turned the photo into the painting above. <a href="https://armynow.blogspot.com/2019/09/on-10-november-2003-crew-of-chinook.html">The story is here</a>.</p><p>The other most-popular post is titled "Task, Conditions, Standards" the basis of all Army training. <a href="https://armynow.blogspot.com/2016/03/tasks-conditions-and-standards-how-to.html">That story is here</a>.</p><p>Next are several stories about meeting friends, new and old.</p><p>The <a href="https://armynow.blogspot.com/2023/05/hannah-arendt-center-summer-social.html">Summer Social at the Hannah Arendt Center </a>at Bard College this summer.</p><p>In Paris, following a Facebook post, I went to a gallery opening featuring my high school classmate and artist<a href="https://armynow.blogspot.com/2023/02/meeting-high-school-classmates-at-paris.html"> Paul Campbell and his wife Susan</a>. </p><p>Several years ago, I was a guest on the Cold War Conversations History Podcast. I <a href="https://armynow.blogspot.com/2023/02/cold-war-manchester-tour-from-ian.html">visited Ian Sanders </a>and got a tour of Cold War and World War II Manchester, UK. He also treated me to lunch with fish and chips and mushy peas!</p><p>On the same trip I caught up with <a href="https://armynow.blogspot.com/2023/02/catching-up-with-great-science-writer.html">Katharine Sanderson</a>, a writer for <i>Nature</i> magazine I have know for almost 20 years. </p><p>I write often about books but they are not usually popular posts. But this post about the <a href="https://armynow.blogspot.com/2017/01/band-of-brothers-book-and-video.html">book and HBO video series <i>Band of Brothers</i></a> has been read every year since I wrote in 2017. </p><p>In 2016 I wrote a post based on an essay by C.S. Lewis. He says during most of history in most places, <a href="https://armynow.blogspot.com/2016/05/for-most-countries-at-most-times-people.html">men looked at military service with dread</a>. The American all-volunteer Army is a big exception. The essay got a few hundred readers in 2016. Not much since, then all of a sudden in December 2023, more than 120 new readers. Who knows why now? </p><p>The most popular post I ever wrote was about <a href="https://armynow.blogspot.com/2017/12/who-fights-our-wars-sons-of-veterans.html">Myles B. Caggins getting promoted</a> to Colonel. He retired early this year, but I still get people reading his story. </p><p>Happy New Year to all. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Neil Gussmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667154945595202472noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395959113568829045.post-34866772824515747642023-12-21T10:17:00.001-05:002023-12-21T10:22:04.315-05:00Books of 2023, Part 2<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzaiDuVUgBO3h-tYW_Be7-jjySB1fUz2K5XT3TTwwpxr3ptx3py2_h770QZtoPHK_wGPHz4AUnvJe38lSpKXWNj2_nvj7TctZ2n7KuTVz8w5Sq4S9ZtEM1M_rqQAUlODljKRoA3O6xY8xQMU9Gu7cCJaUZ5FV3lW3njIRgFhGWvl6VWTygggqAV8z-WJ-S/s350/Anxious%20people.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="232" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzaiDuVUgBO3h-tYW_Be7-jjySB1fUz2K5XT3TTwwpxr3ptx3py2_h770QZtoPHK_wGPHz4AUnvJe38lSpKXWNj2_nvj7TctZ2n7KuTVz8w5Sq4S9ZtEM1M_rqQAUlODljKRoA3O6xY8xQMU9Gu7cCJaUZ5FV3lW3njIRgFhGWvl6VWTygggqAV8z-WJ-S/s320/Anxious%20people.jpg" width="212" /></a></div><p></p><p>Part Two of my 2023 update begins with fiction and a book recommended by my daughter Lauren; <i>Anxious People </i> by Fredrik Backman. This book is so funny I was laughing on every other page. Read and laugh out loud! I wrote about the book<a href="https://armynow.blogspot.com/2023/08/anxious-people-novel-by-fredrik-backman.html"> here</a>.</p><p>After watching the movie <a href="https://armynow.blogspot.com/2023/06/living-movie-about-dying-written-by.html">"Living" by Kazuo Ishiguro</a>, I re-read <i>The Death of Ivan Ilych</i> by Leo Tolstoy, on which the movie is (loosely) based. It is such a lovely story that and a haunting view of life and death. </p><p>After reading a story about the main character dying, I read <a href="https://armynow.blogspot.com/2023/07/eternal-life-in-very-different-novels.html"><i>Eternal Life </i>by Dara Horn</a>, about a woman who could not die. It was strange and beautiful and reminded me of novels I read fifty years ago. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPvXGozyNuirM45owee3kFBGgJRWfNIai6U6e3AHVsim3fA4grUy9_yDqOZ8OhNVvYpz5nKm7LCfYvVqk2WZddRRGmOTIe4R8qG7vLops4AEZsrkL-wocFm-cS8rIRZnXrnAErBKfdHs-ejd1qXqGi9dc26Jiy8fz0a8nGvTAMyqAXWTxjL93A8cKqbS-W/s288/The%20Death%20of%20Ivan%20Ilych.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="288" data-original-width="175" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPvXGozyNuirM45owee3kFBGgJRWfNIai6U6e3AHVsim3fA4grUy9_yDqOZ8OhNVvYpz5nKm7LCfYvVqk2WZddRRGmOTIe4R8qG7vLops4AEZsrkL-wocFm-cS8rIRZnXrnAErBKfdHs-ejd1qXqGi9dc26Jiy8fz0a8nGvTAMyqAXWTxjL93A8cKqbS-W/s1600/The%20Death%20of%20Ivan%20Ilych.jpg" width="175" /></a></div><p>Poetry for 2023 includes a seventh re-reading of <i>Inferno</i> by Dante Aligheri, Shakespeare's <i>Sonnets</i>, <i>Thank You For Your Service</i>, poems about the Vietnam War by Richard Epstein, and <i>Beowulf</i> translated by Seamus Heaney. </p><p>In philosophy, I read <i>The Jewish Writings</i> by Hannah Arendt, a book of hers I had not read before. I read two books with the title <i>Free Will.</i> One was the "Oxford Very Short Introduction" to the subject which I read after reading <a href="https://armynow.blogspot.com/2023/02/philosophy-discussions-on-way-to-nyc.html">Sam Harris' book</a> of the same title. I deeply disagree with the premise of the Harris book, which is that we have no free will. But in one of the weird coincidences of modern life, I subscribed to his podcast last month after hearing his long essay on the events of October 7. I could not agree with him more on Israel and the necessity of destroying HAMAS and all other Jihadist groups if we want to live in a civilized world.</p><p>In the category biography I read <i>Oppenheimer</i> by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin. It's the book on which the movie "Oppenheimer" was based. I saw the movie four times in three countries, the last time with French subtitles. The book has much more depth and reveals even more of the complexity of Robert Oppenheimer's character. The two complement each other well. </p><p>I also read <a href="https://armynow.blogspot.com/2023/07/teenager-escapes-holocaust-joins-us.html"><i>Someday You Will Understand</i> by Nina Wolff</a>. It is a biography of her father who escaped The Holocaust, came to America and served in the American Army in World War II. The book is based on her father's letters. It's an amazing story of survival and building a life in America after the war.</p><p>Another biography of a very young man who became a great man twice was <i>Hero of Two Worlds</i> by Mike Duncan, a biography of the Marquis de Lafayette, the young French general who made American independence possible and then helped to pull France together after the fall of Napoleon. </p><p>Finally, my favorite book of the year: <a href="https://armynow.blogspot.com/2023/12/eternal-hell-does-not-exist-says-david.html"><i>That All Shall Be Saved</i> by David Bentley Hart</a>. In the book Hart, an Eastern Orthodox Theologian asserts that there is no eternal Hell. Further he says that Hell is contrary to the character of God and is a terrible thing to believe about God. </p><p>Hart made me realize that the belief in an eternal Hell is so deep in western culture that I believed in Hell even as a vaguely agnostic teenager. Not sure about God, sure about Hell. </p><p>A beautiful part of Hart's argument is that God intends every person who ever lived to live forever, together. He deals with Hitler and other horrible people in the argument. And says that belief in eternal Hell means being separated forever form those we love: which ever side of the Heaven/Hell divide we would end up on. </p><p>Before I read this book, I re-read <i>Inferno</i> and felt even more revulsion at Dante's celebration of eternal punishment, which only echoes the theology of Thomas Aquinas. Hart showed my why I was so repelled.</p><p>I agree with Hart completely and since reading the book have looked at the world differently. </p><p>I wrote about the other books <a href="https://armynow.blogspot.com/2023/12/books-of-2023.html">I read in 2023 here</a>.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Neil Gussmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667154945595202472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395959113568829045.post-47642254220772902052023-12-16T21:59:00.003-05:002024-01-23T22:28:33.121-05:00Books of 2023, Part 1<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhJKOiBNEwvLh_r4bfxodmSSsBzc25fNRM06_SwKeWRJny0j-qtCYd6ivDvjqtP-kQoHk1SN2_IzfD2KNBPP2Pq35oa3Q9z5JQ7Jca9xnyySeel5G23_jOwRZwRiUxDMqJwOZtRkilp72Rtvo6R88fxRla8_38qcMfiR1z2wF_acA8MEs-TgX_6DCKiMPca" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhJKOiBNEwvLh_r4bfxodmSSsBzc25fNRM06_SwKeWRJny0j-qtCYd6ivDvjqtP-kQoHk1SN2_IzfD2KNBPP2Pq35oa3Q9z5JQ7Jca9xnyySeel5G23_jOwRZwRiUxDMqJwOZtRkilp72Rtvo6R88fxRla8_38qcMfiR1z2wF_acA8MEs-TgX_6DCKiMPca" width="180" /></a></div>With just two weeks before the year ends, I should finish my usual fifty books in 52 weeks. I am currently at 47, but very close to the end of a book <i>The Lion and the Unicorn</i> a book of essays by George Orwell and <i>The Ionian Mission</i> the 8th book in the <i>Master and Commander</i> series of novels by Patrick O'Brian. I started re-reading the series this year.<p></p><p>I hope to finish <i>Churchill and Orwell</i> by Thomas Ricks before midnight on December 31 for the final book.</p><p>In addition to the eight <i>Master and Commander </i>novels, I read two naval histories by Ian Toll. One is about the birth of the American Navy titled <i>Six Frigates. </i>The other is <i>The Conquering Tide</i> about the war in the Pacific between 1942 and 1944. A total of ten books about war and life at sea.</p><p>Six of the books I read were on science including <i>The Dawn of Everything</i> the long book about the origins of life and humanity--with some very tough criticisms of the most popular books in the genre: <i><a href="https://armynow.blogspot.com/2018/11/first-meeting-of-sapiens-book-discussion.html">Sapiens</a></i> and <i>Guns, Germs and Steel. <br /></i></p><p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgqaxGiFfL7MbvDVYLVFlJ4KDM0Xe1tieaKnRjbi8FXQo8BzMtxI1uGsSfE5tTPVQqF2Q5M3892lMcQ-4vpI1vcuJC2hRXZFT6_qQlMlYQwuOq0PES0nKojqvmbsqvyWpd8VlPxR1FLBk5O9oaMIA0bj2NrLsSJV5n6LoYAWegq0tn2-EIZDeMHTqqT417Z" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="299" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgqaxGiFfL7MbvDVYLVFlJ4KDM0Xe1tieaKnRjbi8FXQo8BzMtxI1uGsSfE5tTPVQqF2Q5M3892lMcQ-4vpI1vcuJC2hRXZFT6_qQlMlYQwuOq0PES0nKojqvmbsqvyWpd8VlPxR1FLBk5O9oaMIA0bj2NrLsSJV5n6LoYAWegq0tn2-EIZDeMHTqqT417Z" width="320" /></a></i></div><p></p><p>Eight were on politics, including the delightful <i><a href="https://armynow.blogspot.com/2023/10/in-1997-italian-novelist-umberto-eco.html">How to Spot</a> a Fascist</i> by Umberto Eco and <i>Identity</i> by Francis Fukuyama. I also re-read <i><a href="https://armynow.blogspot.com/2020/01/re-reading-prince-for-10th-time-so.html">The Prince</a></i> for the 11th time and <i><a href="https://armynow.blogspot.com/2018/12/three-books-by-historian-timothy-snyder.html">On Tyranny</a></i> for the 5th time. </p><p>That adds up to 26 books and the three largest categories. Next Post will include poetry, fiction, philosophy and faith.</p>Neil Gussmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667154945595202472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395959113568829045.post-87644133252044389182023-12-11T10:29:00.002-05:002023-12-11T10:29:26.204-05:00Eternal Hell Does Not Exist: Says David Bentley Hart and I Agree<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjdOFwjGDzE3hZgog6dPXVl6x7ivH2OKwiVGG7dreGgwGc0Y3ponqir_M2Spi3RwfOhWPD9gBJ0m0JCTloS9sEDQa5WPsoH4PUkjS7WThbnZ5EBDw1t-IuBJspz0Ob1u_HGMTt15OYPzG48ULad8gZRDkGD05TI-lZybGVneDdpvahu3jCk7qcKipadRcI-" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="184" data-original-width="274" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjdOFwjGDzE3hZgog6dPXVl6x7ivH2OKwiVGG7dreGgwGc0Y3ponqir_M2Spi3RwfOhWPD9gBJ0m0JCTloS9sEDQa5WPsoH4PUkjS7WThbnZ5EBDw1t-IuBJspz0Ob1u_HGMTt15OYPzG48ULad8gZRDkGD05TI-lZybGVneDdpvahu3jCk7qcKipadRcI-" width="320" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>In the book <i>That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell and Eternal Salvation,</i> the Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart asserts that there is no eternal Hell. </div><div><br /></div><div>I had an odd accumulation of ideas on the topic of an eternal Hell, but never doubted that Hell existed, even early in my life when I was not sure that God existed. Some of the loveliest poetry ever written is a travelogue of journey down through Hell, up Mount Purgatory and into Heaven itself by Dante Aligheri. </div><div><br /></div><div>Earlier this year I re-read <i>Inferno</i> and <a href="https://armynow.blogspot.com/2023/03/putting-people-you-love-in-hell-dante.html">was repelled by the way Dante and Virgil his guide happily torment those already in Hell. </a></div><div><br /></div><div>Reading Hart showed my why I was so uncomfortable and gave me clear reasons that eternal Hell does not exist. The best of these reasons is that God is going to somehow keep all of the souls that have ever been born. Hart says that was the whole intent of creation: to eventually bring everyone into eternity. </div><div><br /></div><div>Hart deals with the objections head on. What about Hitler? I could do not justice to his reasoning, but Hart shows the problems with believing that even Hitler will somehow be tormented eternally. </div><div><br /></div><div>My belief for many years was that Hell existed, but everyone in Hell chose to be there. I got this from CS Lewis' novel <i>The Great Divorce.</i> Hart mocks the idea that we could choose Hell and asks how anyone could take the limited information even the most brilliant person has and choose eternal Hell? He's right. We are all mostly ignorant and bound by time and space.</div><div><br /></div>Earlier this year, I read <i>That All Shall Be Saved</i> twice. The Kindle version has more than fifty highlighted passages. I read the book with my friend Cliff and am hoping to have a larger discussion about the book in the future. <div><br /></div><div>The book is written by a Christian for Christians, but many Jews and others believe Hell exists. Some of us have quite a list of people we think should spend eternity there. For anyone who believes an eternal Hell exists, Hart's book is eye-opening. </div><div><p>Since October 7, I would have happily consigned every member of HAMAS to Hell along with every Nazi and a host of other criminals. But I now believe, with Hart, that even the worst people who ever lived will not be in eternal Hell, because the kind of god who would put limited beings in an eternal Hell is not the God of Israel. </p><p><br /></p></div>Neil Gussmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667154945595202472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395959113568829045.post-10038728645827539192023-12-07T06:58:00.000-05:002023-12-07T06:58:24.074-05:00Henry Kissenger and The Nazi Pope: Long Lives Addicted to Power<p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHLELCuHWcZE2wJAyymeAk9yqg8M_e0smARQXI-L8mni0LvDRioheP2HPn2zB8PAmPaTR53CzfQZ3uCPdSuEx4Lzw7pLFjXjTTGvbGZ9GdJK6gnb9geOgI6lie_hkYj3fzUdajfif5G2p95rkMNECWCESt_WYYEwJPzeSEHSxV9wyZ90-doFFYhQsGgo3p/s346/The%20Pope%20at%20War.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="228" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHLELCuHWcZE2wJAyymeAk9yqg8M_e0smARQXI-L8mni0LvDRioheP2HPn2zB8PAmPaTR53CzfQZ3uCPdSuEx4Lzw7pLFjXjTTGvbGZ9GdJK6gnb9geOgI6lie_hkYj3fzUdajfif5G2p95rkMNECWCESt_WYYEwJPzeSEHSxV9wyZ90-doFFYhQsGgo3p/s320/The%20Pope%20at%20War.jpg" width="211" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Two terrible twins in my mind and probably no one else's are Henry Kissenger and Pope Pius XII, the pope who bowed to the Nazis to preserve the Vatican and ignored the pleas of Catholics in France, England, Poland and other countries. He also never said the word Jew or acknowledged The Holocaust during World War II. The Pope's wretched performance in World War II is well documented in <a href="https://armynow.blogspot.com/2022/08/the-pope-at-war-secret-history-of-pius.html"><i>The Pope at War</i> </a>by David I. Kertzer. <div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjqwdwhwQ_HT2898uPI53j4JqJ8GFleUzUpTQ-CQAO2aKXWZFB26MegVHKjasFdYe6URlnsJANMIVr432uWlbz0l1pKrVDUDxJq72Qx_kqB93Jfbwjp6iJ_0bwRLwf-4LpFGkCYathnk5KLbm_c6tS4n4Sak_yoGT3HBZ448IvhGacQuJChFTGtXKnL1qqf" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="194" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjqwdwhwQ_HT2898uPI53j4JqJ8GFleUzUpTQ-CQAO2aKXWZFB26MegVHKjasFdYe6URlnsJANMIVr432uWlbz0l1pKrVDUDxJq72Qx_kqB93Jfbwjp6iJ_0bwRLwf-4LpFGkCYathnk5KLbm_c6tS4n4Sak_yoGT3HBZ448IvhGacQuJChFTGtXKnL1qqf" width="180" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Eugenio Pacelli, Pius XII, chose preservation of The Vatican over preservation of Catholic lives. </div><div><br /></div><div>In 1957, Henry Kissenger wrote his best book, <i>A World Restored--</i>arguably the book that defined his life's work. In that book Kissenger wrote about the Treaty of Ghent in 1814 and how it restored stability to Europe. Kissenger decided stability was the proper goal of diplomacy. No moral considerations could stand in the way of stability: the same reasoning that Pius XII used to put the preservation of The Vatican over the lives of Catholics and Jews in Nazi-dominated Europe.<br /><p></p></div><div>Kissenger was in his mid-30s when Pius XII died in 1958 at 82 years old. Kissenger lived longer, reaching 100 years, but both men clung to power and relevance until their last breath. </div><div><br /></div><div>After his pro-Nazi war years, Pius XII conspired with surviving Nazis by supporting the "Rat Line" that got Nazis and their looted wealth out of Europe to South America after World War II. </div><div><br /></div><div>Kissenger in his preference for stability opened relations with China and brought great prosperity to the communist nation, assuming that the world would benefit by bringing China into the world economy. Fifty years later, China has the second largest economy in the world and is using it to build it its Navy and Army and threaten its neighbors, most notably Taiwan. Building up a totalitarian country leads to a more powerful totalitarian country. </div><div><br /></div><div>Kissenger's path to the Vietnam peace deal includes abandoning our allies and giving consent to dropping more bombs on Cambodia and Laos than America dropped on Nazi Germany and its allies during World War II. </div><div><br /></div><div>In his 90s, Kissenger still craved relevance. He insinuated himself into the Trump administration through Jared Kushner--giving credibility to the biggest abuser of power for personal wealth ever to work in the White House. Kushner's Saudi Sovereign Wealth deal may exceed Trump himself in abuse of power. </div><div><br /></div><div>Both men chose power over every moral consideration. Both strove for relevance until their dying breath. Each made the world a better place by breathing no more. </div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Neil Gussmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667154945595202472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395959113568829045.post-87221704611200583082023-12-04T01:29:00.002-05:002024-02-17T09:30:15.569-05:00Austria 1938--The Sudden Betrayal<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYJ36fhr7qlPhk_QwlauFSTagmKSRdPcwsK8xX-e8nTsbh662d-UuW7WbmhRY3mqpiyupbOQjbhVSNkAyIIcBDbNlK45nlTswQAjnc97TEXJ7gzndl2pq-0iJyeXQY4lw6jcqzty9plT23AfkA_cLJS0oyNIwKCC4epEV7vOI0fJkb99jiWhQ-RDCgWPYH/s264/download.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="264" data-original-width="191" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYJ36fhr7qlPhk_QwlauFSTagmKSRdPcwsK8xX-e8nTsbh662d-UuW7WbmhRY3mqpiyupbOQjbhVSNkAyIIcBDbNlK45nlTswQAjnc97TEXJ7gzndl2pq-0iJyeXQY4lw6jcqzty9plT23AfkA_cLJS0oyNIwKCC4epEV7vOI0fJkb99jiWhQ-RDCgWPYH/s1600/download.jpg" width="191" /></a></div><br /><p>In September I walked through this square in the center of Vienna where Hitler spoke from a balcony announcing the <a href="https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/life-in-nazi-occupied-europe/foreign-policy-and-the-road-to-war/anschluss/"><i>Anschluss</i> </a>(joining) of Austria and Nazi Germany. This sudden tragedy haunted <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sound_of_Music_(film)">"The Sound of Music"</a> one of the annual movies of my childhood. </p><p>When Trump was elected, I read many <a href="https://armynow.blogspot.com/2018/12/three-books-by-historian-timothy-snyder.html">books and articles</a> about how The Holocaust happened. Each country was different. Each was a tragedy. In some ways, Austria was the worst.</p><p>Jews in Austria, Vienna in particular, had very good lives. They lived in a country of long cosmopolitan tradition. So when the Nazis took over on March 11, 1938, the change was sudden, dramatic and terrible. Teenagers planning to be in college the following year were in ghettos. Many lost one or both parents to suicide or beatings. Doctors, lawyers, professors, artists, writers and others middle class professionals were broke, shunned by all, their property confiscated, humiliated in public. </p><p>While no one could have believed in 1938 how bad The Holocaust would be, Jews in other countries had experienced years of prejudice and open violence. German Jews knew that rural white Christians, Catholics and Jews, led the coalition that put Hitler in power, knowing that Jews would suffer and die if he took office. Once the Nazis invaded Poland, Jews across Europe knew they were in mortal danger. They had months, sometimes years, to adjust to knowing the entire world hated them.</p><p>Austrian Jews went from citizens to pariahs overnight. Which is why, I believe, the suicide rate was so high among Austrian Jews. Their world collapsed overnight. </p><p>As an American Jew, I can barely imagine what it felt like to be a Jew when Nazis ruled much of Europe and had millions of sympathizers here in America. Anyone who thinks it was easy for Jews in America between the World Wars should read <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/08/books/review/dara-horn-people-love-dead-jews.html"><i>People Love Dead Jews</i> by Dara Horn</a>. </p><p>Since 2016, I have experienced an emotional kinship with Jews under the Nazis. When Trump was elected and put the Nazi-enabler Steve Bannon in the White House, I was alarmed. When Trump winked at the Nazis in Charlottesville, I thought America would show the true Nazi basis of "America First." The Tree of Life Synagogue shooting by a Trump lover is so far the worst violence against Jews. </p><p>From Trump's election to October 7 of this year, I joined more than 300 protests from New York to Washington, but mainly in Philadelphia. The only protest I have been to since October 7 was the Pro-Israel Rally on the National Mall. </p><p>Beginning on October 7 and since, many organizations I protested with have become open Jew haters. They have cheered HAMAS. The Jewish babies burned in their cribs, the Jewish women raped and killed, the slaughter of families in their homes is not even tragic, it is an acceptable cost. </p><p>So I can no more ally with those groups than I can join with the Republicans who want to abandon Ukraine and support Christian Nationalism. </p><p>Since October 7, <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/fringe-left-groups-express-support-hamass-invasion-and-brutal-attacks-israel">Black Lives Matter, the Democratic Socialists of America, the World Workers Party, </a>all of whom I have joined at protests, are now my enemy. If I am to ally with any feminist organization, I will want to see their condemnation of the barbaric violence against women on October 7. </p><p>HAMAS celebrated their rape and torture and murder on videos they posted on social media. <a href="https://armynow.blogspot.com/2023/11/transcript-of-hamas-terrorist-bragging.html">A transcript of one is here</a>. </p><p>The feeling I had on October 7 hearing BLM, DSA and other progressives is the sudden betrayal with an echo of <i>Anschluss. </i>Anyone who can cheer for HAMAS is the same as a swastika-wearing Nazi to me. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p><p><br /></p>Neil Gussmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667154945595202472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8395959113568829045.post-44486517866688802402023-12-01T03:48:00.005-05:002023-12-01T03:51:14.970-05:00On Tyranny 1<div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given in times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want than offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do. </span></div><div><br /></div><div>Anticipatory obedience is a political strategy. Perhaps rulers do did not initially know that citizens were willing to compromise in this value or that principle. Perhaps a new regime did not have, did not at first. Have the direct means of influencing citizens one way or another after the German elections of 1932, which permitted Adolf Hitler to form a government or the Czechoslovak elections of 1946, where the communists were Vic. </div><div><br /></div><div>The next crucial step was anticipatory obedience, because enough people, in both cases voluntarily extended their services to the new leaders, Nazis and Communists alike realized they could move quickly toward full regime change. The first heedless acts of conformity could not then be reversed. </div><div><br /></div><div>In 1938, Adolf Hitler, by then securely in power in Germany, was threatening to annex neighboring Austria after the Austrian chancellor conceded it was the Austrian's anticipatory obedience that decided the fate of Austrian Jews. Local Austrian Nazis captured Jews and forced them to scrub the streets to remove the symbols of independent Austria. Crucially, people who were not Nazis looked on with interest and amusement. </div><div><br /></div><div>Nazis who had kept lists of Jewish properties stole what they could. Crucially, others who were not Nazis joined in the theft. As the political theorist Hanna Erent remembered, when the German troops invaded the country and Gentile neighbors started riots at Jewish homes, Austrian Jews began to commit suicide. The anticipatory obedience of Austrians in March 1938. Taught the high Nazi leadership what was possible. </div><div><br /></div><div>It was in Vienna that August that Adolf Eichmann established the Central Office for Jewish Immigration. In November 1938, following the Austrian example of March, German Nazis organized the national program known as Kristallnacht. In 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, the US took the initiative to devise the method of mass killing without orders to do so. They guessed what their superiors wanted and demonstrated that. What what was possible? It was far more than Hitler thought. </div><div><br /></div><div>At the very beginning, anticipatory obedience means adapting instinctively without reflecting to a new situation, to only Germans do such things, the Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram contemplating Nazi atrocities. Wanted to show that there was a particular authoritarian personality that explained why Germany behaved as they had. He devised an experiment to test the proposition, but failed to get the permission to carry it out in Germany. So we undertook it. Instead, in a Yale University building in 1961. </div><div><br /></div><div>At around the same time that Adolf Eichmann was being tried in Jerusalem for his part in the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews. Milgram told his subjects some Yale students some New Haven residents that they would be applying an electrical shock to other participants in an experiment about learning. In fact, the people attached to the wires on the other side of the window were in on the scheme with Milgram. And only pretended to be shocked as the subjects thought they shocked the people they thought were the participants in a learning experiment. </div><div><br /></div><div>They saw a horrible sight, people whom they did not know against, they whom they had no grievance. Seemed to be suffering greatly pounding the glass and complaining of heart pain. Even so, most subjects followed Milgram's instructions and continued to apply what they thought were even greater shocks until the victims appeared to die. </div><div><br /></div><div>Even those who did not proceed all the way to the apparent killing of their fellow human beings left without inquiring about the health of the other participants. Milgram grasped that people are remarkably receptive to new rules in a new setting. They are surprisingly willing to harm and kill others in the service of some new purpose if they are so instructed by a new authority. I found so much obedience, Milgrim remembered that I hardly saw the need for taking the experiment to Germany.</div><div><p> </p><p><br /></p></div>Neil Gussmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667154945595202472noreply@blogger.com1