So, According to BBC World, the Otherwise Ineffectual, Even Fairly Incompetent, & Certainly Unimpressive, U S Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, Is to Head to the Middle East (Israel and Egypt Etc) Next Week 'to Seek to Help De-Escalate Tensions Between Israel and the Palestinians'

Yeah, right: while he and his hapless Administration do all in their power - I mean, ineffectual weakness - to meanwhile hasten/precipitate WW111 with Russia! 

What planet are these people on?!?!?!? 

I mean, really?!?!?!?

Call Putin a Madman - & He IS - As Much as You Like...But Please Don't Turn Around the Next Moment & Pretend That Such a Madman, When Pushed Up Against the Proverbial Wall & When Push Comes to Literal Shove, Won't Be Equally Irrational When It Comes to Launching Nuclear Weaponry Upon Ukraine and Ukrainians...

Whether so-called limited, tactical - or strategic - weapons, in the long-range, long-term consequences/ repercussions thereof it's all essentially the same. In such a scenario it's hard to not foresee WW111 as then being not all that far  - God forbid - away.

Do I - Should ANY - 'Rational Actor'/Sensible Person Regard It As 'Just Another (Mere) Coincidence' That the Worst Winter Storm, Apparently, in 50-Odd Years Has Of Late Been Wreaking Havoc Across Canada & (Especially) the (North/North-Eastern) United States? Yeah, Right (As the 'Ole Kiwi Billboard Sign So Rhetorically Puts Matters (Admittedly, in a Wholly Different Context)!

The fact that Insurrectionist-in-Chief Donald J Trump has just been - at long-overdue last - (effectively) shafted by his own side in the Congressional Committee reviewing/'prosecuting' the consequences of January 6th, 2021, making things *extremely difficult/problematic if not ultimately impossible for him to make a comeback in 2024...

...alongside the (likely to prove extremely significant and **fraught) concurrent fly-in visit of Ukrainian President Zelensky...

I'd respectfully like to suggest 'just might happen to be' 'events' which the Almighty in His omniscience well knows will yet prove to be important milestones in the countdown to midnight upon the in/famous doomsday clock...

*However Yours Truly feels obligated to add, as he has on numerous preceding occasions, that he has a vague (and highly uneasy) suspicion that 'the Donald' will yet - like the proverbial Phoenix arising from the ashes - manage to pull yet another rabbit out of the hat (to shamelessly mix my metaphors), and run for/win back the American presidency come late 2024...

...even in the highly unlikely circumstance that ***'his own' Republican Party ultimately disowns him and he is forced to stand as an independent...

**See my various blogposts thereabouts upon this and my other main blogsite, i.e.

http://davidedwinisms.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/)

...or upon my newest blogsite:

'News in a Nutshell: Summing Stuff up Succinctly'.

***In name only, as any even highly superficial observer, political pundit or otherwise, well realizes that Trump has never ever been a true dinkum 'Republican' except in name only.

Though One Can Hardly Fault (Ukrainian President) Volodimir Zelensky From Making the Most of a Unique Opportunity to (However Briefly) Exit Ukraine & In the Process Secure Some More Much-Needed Moral Support/Military Help in the Ongoing Battle for His Cherished Homeland, U S President Joe Biden "Ought to Know Better" as Tolkien's &/Or Peter Jackson's Cinematic Take Upon 'The Lord of the Rings' Has Treebeard Woefully, Ruefully Intoning (As, in a Not Wholly Dissimilar Context, a Much Larger War for Middle Earth was About to Break Forth): Thus Publicly, Globally Sticking the Proverbial Borax in the Very Face of Russian President Vladimir Putin AIN'T LIKELY TO END WELL - & THAT'S PUTTING THINGS RATHER MILDLY!

Leaving Putin thus shamefully humiliated just ain't the way 'to win (any more) friends and influence people'!

So, as My Sister Opined Half a Dozen Years Ago (In What I Then Took to be a Present Reality) the Japanese Government is Planning to Dump Nuclear Waste into the Pacific for 30-Some Years in the Very Near Future? God Help Us All - For He'll Most Surely Need to!

As the 'Star' (i.e. Shooting Star/Fleeting Meteor) of Donald J Trump's Fortunes (Temporarily, Anyhow) Seems to Wane, Look Out For Possible Last-Minute, Gridlock-Breaking Entries into Presidential Race at Republican Convention of Two Rather Dark & Handsome Horses to Enter to Assume Republican Presidential Leadership Mantle: Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton and Virginia Governor 'Youngkin' (Whose Proper Name Presently Escapes Me!)...

Only Eric Blair (George Orwell) In the Nastiest Nightmares - & Soul-Destroying DAY-Mares - of Winston Smith (As Portrayed So Vividly in His Prophetic '1984') Could Have Foreseen A Day In Which Tracking Technologies Were Used to Spy On (Otherwise Unsuspecting) Folk (Transgressing Cultural Norms)...

Which seems to be what climate warrior Al Gore has in mind with his (what can only be described as) Machiavellian plan to track (evidently for public naming and shaming if not prosecuting and/or boycotting) carbon transgressors...

God help us all!

It's A Bit of a Worry When Donald J Trump Can Get Back on Social Media (Twitter, Facebook Etcetera), When the Ongoing On-Line Efforts of Yours Truly - Whose Consistent (But Fair & Reasonable & Non-Partisan) Blogposts Over Many Years Vis-a-vis Would-Be Revived Russian Tzar Putin, Re-Anointed Chinese Emperor Xi, and Former & Would-Be American President 'God On Earth' Trump Leave Impartial, Dispassionate Observers In No Doubt Whatsoever Where I Stand Upon These Three Rascals/Despots/War Criminals - Cannot *Any Longer See the Light of Day

At least from my homebase, but I don't hold out that much hope in general thereabouts either, realizing it's but a matter of time till Google et al pulls the plug on all my efforts wheresoever they emanate from...

But no, it ain't a conspiracy, folks - I'm really not all that important in the overall scheme of things...it's just their user-unfriendly way of dealing with anyone they happen to perceive has passed their use-by date...though even more likely it's just a matter of their random de-selection of anyone who happens not to fit into ye regular mould (of cellphone/smartphone use) these days...

Yeah, and ain't all that techno-savvy to boot...

Of COURSE NZ Labour & the Greens Want a Lower Voting Age - to Enfranchise Those Who Would Be Their Natural Supporters/Voting Base...ANYONE WOULD (in Their Collective Footwear): It's Called Stacking the Deck (in One's Own Favour), (or Gerrymandering), or Screwing the Scrum (in the Vernacular): DUH!

But Woe Betide ANYONE - Myself Included - Who *Would Dare to Lecture Ukrainians Upon Their Noble, Self-Sacrificing, Nationwide Efforts to Stand Against the Russian Imperialists...**&, Having Done All (in Their Power), to (Yet) Stand...

*For who of us in similar circumstances would not aspire to be as noble and self-sacrificing for the greater good?

**To paraphrase the apostle Paul's wonderful depiction of the ultimate results of donning the Christian's personal armour (and wielding their spiritual weaponry).

No-One Can Blame Ukrainians - & What a Wonderful Rout of the Russian Invaders/Aggressors Whilst the Entire World, *It Seemed, Was Mourning the Loss of Queen Elizabeth the Second...But Regrettably There Are Not, There NEVER CAN BE Any Real Winners in War: Not Now, Not Ever

But all kudos to Ukrainians not only holding their own, but fighting tooth and nail to the(ir) very death(s) of potentially every last man, woman and child (as it were) and on a seemingly never-ending basis...

*4 billion worldwide watchers (as reported) - over half the potential global audience - is surely no mean feat...

*"The Conflict [in Ukraine] is Dangerous Because Neither Side Can Afford to Lose...And It Could [Easily] Escalate to Nuclear War."

Most thinking people have - long since - realized the latter, and Yours Truly has himself long since realized not specifically the former (sentiment), as such, but rather, that whenever Ukraine achieves significant cut-through/breakthrough(s) militarily against Russia...

...it sadly and **all too predictably merely serves as grist to Putin's mill, providing him with some more much-cherished resentment and therefore reason to hit back hard and mercilessly upon Ukraine and Ukrainians...

*The response (upon TV1 +1) reported upon their 6p.m. news bulletin tonight of a foreign policy analyst named Kosturov (I believe) to the re-newly escalating (globally-impacting) crisis in Ukraine.

**The reason I fear and tremble whenever I hear otherwise refreshing and reinvigorating news reportage of the ongoing significant counter-offensives and spectacular military victories of the Ukrainians over the Russians...

...such as occurred not only in recent days but especially during the global 10/11-day 'recess' recently when a transfixed world stopped to reflect upon the legacy of Queen Elizabeth the Second...

...during which even a petty prima donna and tinpot thug such as Vladimir Putin felt constrained by 'etiquette' not to react in an unseemly fashion and retaliate right away...

There Is Indeed Simply NO WAY to Calculate, No Way to Guess(timate) HOW MUCH SHEER EVIL One (Severely Unhinged) Individual Can Do, HOW MUCH SHEER EVIL One - WICKED, NOT 'MAD' (Let's Call It As It Is, & Not Tender Any Excuses, Rationalizations, Justifications or Pretexts) - Person Can Perpetrate Upon an Unsuspecting World...

And that man is presently in the process of contemplating exponentially escalating the Russian assault upon Ukraine...

 

Occasionally True Courage Is Realizing/Knowing When You Need to Leave - & Preferably Doing So Without Further Ado

Though their numbers are relatively minimal, even statistically insignificant, 'God speed' to all those Russian men who realize the writing is indeed upon the wall for their once great nation and have voted with their feet to depart before things turn totally bad...

...even if doing so may well seem to be a matter of sheer enlightened self-interest...

A False Narrative May Well Seem A Very Small Matter, Even A Rather Trifling Concern...But As Regards Vladimir Putin & His (Re-)Newly-Declared Designs Upon Ukraine...Hey, IT COULD WELL MEAN The End of Life on Planet Earth As We've Come to Know it...

Yes, no small matter indeed!

While a 'limited nuclear strike' upon that brave wee nation needn't necessarily result in worldwide conflagration...

...to even write that seems a horrifyingly cold and calculating observation to make about the situation, one 'penned' as one with no 'skin in the game' so to speak, who indeed has the luxury of not waking daily to renewed horrors and terrors and outrages and all the rest...

God be with you all, people of Ukraine...

For God Only knows at this stage of things you'll need it, and no mere human assistance will avail any longer...

Indeed, Elizabeth Windsor's Long Life of Unstinting Service and Devotion to Duty - Right to the Unbitter End - Comes, It Hardly Need Be Said, As a Refreshing Interlude to an Insane World in an Age of Self-Gratification & Selfies...

 What more can one say/possibly add...?

Yes, For a Split-Second (or Several) - In Fact for a Full 10-11 days (& Nights) or So - the Entire World Seemed to Simply Stop in its Collective Tracks...& Pay Well-Deserved Homage & Respect to a Woman Whose Life Served as a Welcome Respite and Much-Needed Diversion/Distraction/Respite from A Covid-Obsessed, War-Weary World Which In Every Respect Has Been Going to Hell in a Handbasket...

Though the WHO Head at the United Nations today quickly got back to regular business...

lickety-split!

How Very Fitting That the ONLY BRITISH MONARCH To Effectively Anoint (As In Invest) ANY Female Prime Minister Has Ultimately Confirmed *ALL THREE the United Kingdom HAS EVER HAD...& To 'Crown' This Feat [Pun Entirely **Un/***intended] By Moreover ****Transferring her Leadership Mantle (Metaphorically-Speaking, Not Literally) To *****ANOTHER ElizABETH...Shortly Before Departing This Life...(And Incidentally, Elizabeth Windsor Hardly Looked Frail & Fragile In So Doing, But Hale & Hearty & Remarkably Chipper, Unlike the Predictable After-the-Fact 'With Profound Benefit of Hindsight' Media Commentary to the Contrary)

*Incidentally none of whom from the 'gender-affirming', 'unsexist' Labour Party...

**/***Verily not initially, but rather as an afterthought, having already chosen such an apt term (though only for its general usage).

****'Conferring' (the prestige contained therein) might well be more accurate.

****But what a comedown to a Liz Truss from the giddy heights of a Winston Churchill!

Lest Any Mere Human Think to Draw Glory to Him or Herself, NO MERE HUMAN HAND Tore Down That (Berlin/East-West) Wall...No, An Unseen Hand Saw Fit to That...

Yet I don't happen to believe that My Lord - "meek and lowly in heart" as He Himself declared - would see it as in any way detracting from His own glory to share a hearty "Thanks, you good and faithful servants", to those who shared/participated in the incredible events which became like a domino in their effects in the late nineteen-eighties, ultimately culminating in the collapse of the USSR in 1990-1991...

And, yes, Mikhael Gorbachev was an instrumental part in those events, even a pivotal tool in His Maker's hands...

Your Own Nation May Not Mourn Your Passing, Mikhael, But a Watching World - AT ONE TIME, ANYWAY - Witnessed Your Bravery, Honesty, Integrity - And Depth, Insight & Clarity of Vision - & For the Briefest of Moments Fantasized...About a World (& Country) Which Could Have Been - But Now Is Lost Forever: R.I.P., Mr Gorbachev: Not All the (Very) Good Die Young

A Great Man of Historical Moment Has Passed Away/On Today, the Larger-Than-Life One-Time Soviet Leader, Mikhael Gorbachev...In Whose Shadow America's Ronald Reagan and Britain's Margaret Thatcher Glowed Vicariously...

And may it ever be well noted that the West abjectly failed the test of due nobility when it came to the crunch, sowing the seeds of division which have at long last come back to haunt them - then sowing the wind and finally reaping the whirlwind...

As (I believe it was Jeremy Sachs?) today noted upon the award-winning New York City-based broadcast 'Democracy Now' - and indeed, absolute truth be told, as I have ever, long since thought/believed - that one-time foreign affairs diplomat for the United States of America mentioned vis-a-vis the noble efforts of Gorbachev & Co/Et Al to secure desperately-needed financial assistance for the Soviet Union (no more) in the lead-up to (and aftermath of) the ultimate break-up of the USSR...

...it was sadly never forthcoming...

....inexplicably rejected 'without a reason' (unlike that simultaneously approved for Poland)...

No, proud, self-righteous America - self-declared and universally acknowledged 'victor' in the decades-long Cold War between the two nations (and their worldwide acolytes) - just could never quite bring itself to eat humble pie and help its age-old foe when it came to the crunch and really mattered...

...to bite the bullet and bury the hatchet and thus effectively end longtime-cherished and deeply-held East-West ill-feeling, accordingly bringing an end to resultant hostilities for good (for time and immemorial)...

And the rest as they say is history...

To All Those Claiming the Religion of Christ, the Man Who - With Everything at Stake, Before He Literally Was Hoisted Onto a Stake - Clearly Declared "My Kingdom is Not of This World; Else Would My Servants Fight, that I Would Not Be Delivered Unto the Jews", the Pertinent Question We Need to Keep On Asking Ourselves (Over & Over Again) In This Day of Political Partisanship & Contentious 'Christianity', Is This: 'Does Our Religion Inform Our Politics, Or Does Our Politics Inform Our Religion?'

Depending upon which way we answer/respond will verily reveal which way we will go when the second (sea-)beast power comes into his own, which seemingly is not all that far away... 

So Are You Still Telling Me That Your Religion is a 'Religion of Peace'?

But sadly the Christian religion itself has likewise spawned aplenty just such grotesque manifestations... 

Vis-a-Vis Salman Rushdie: As George Orwell (Eric Blair) Once Put It (So Simply & Succinctly) - & As I Myself Quoted (Him As Saying) Not All That Long Ago: "Free Speech Means Having the Right to Tell You What You Don't Want to Hear."

Nuff Said. End of story.

*R.I.P. Western freedoms of expression...Long live Salman Rushdie & Co.

*Not suggesting I agree with such a sentiment, but sadly that's where the West is rapidly heading...

'Unborn Child' by Seals & Crofts

Oh, little baby, you'll never cry

Nor will you hear a sweet lullaby.

Oh, unborn child, if you only knew

just what your momma is plannin' to do

You're still a-clingin' to the tree of life

But soon you'll be cut off before you get ripe.

Oh, unborn child, beginning to grow

Inside your momma, but you'll never know 

Oh, tiny bud that grows in the womb

Only to be crushed before you can bloom.

Momma, stop! Turn around, go back, think it over

Stop! Turn around, go back, think it over

Stop! Turn around, go back, think it over.

Oh, no, momma, just let it be

You'll never regret it, just wait and see

Think of all the great ones who gave everything

That we might have life here

So please bear the pain.

Momma, stop! Turn around, go back, think it over

Stop! Turn around, go back, think it over

Stop! Turn around, go back, think it over.

Nuff Said.

And How About That Grand Old Ancient Civilization, the Sometimes Dormant, 'Sleeping' Chinese Dragon? Does That Reference in the Book of Revelation - the Apocalypse - to An Almost Inconceivable Army of 200 Million Fighting 'Men' (One Day Crossing the Euphrates River, the 'Border Crossing' if you will Between East & West) - Have Any Bearing Whatsoever Upon Events On the Not Too Distant Horizon? Like Hal Lindsay Et Al, Yours Truly Admittedly Has Always Wondered Just a Tad

And, Doubtless Even More Concerning/Relevant to Folks Worldwide, I Do Believe that Those - Such as Hal Lindsay of 'The Late Great Planet Earth' Fame, the Worldwide Church of God (In Its Earlier, Decalogue-Upholding 'Tradition', Anyhow) ET AL - Were/Have Been Unerringly & Sadly 100% Accurate in Pinpointing the Identity of Ezekiel's Prophetic Depiction of Gog & Magog: the Chief Prince of the Uttermost North Etc...Can You Guess Which Nation (to the North of Israel) Meets All the Criteria/Specifications for Fulfilling This Last Days' Scenario, A Nation Like No Other 'Serving' as the Bringer of Armageddon to Pass?

I will leave you and yours to piece the puzzle together, but believe you me, between the dude running this world power and the one to soon again lead out in the US of A...

...we're all in deep doggy doo-doo, and descending deeper therein from here on in...

As I've often said to casual acquaintances, the only way out for any of us is to look up, there's help nowhere else...

Or as one wag once put it, 

look inside and be depressed...look around and be discouraged...look up and be delivered...

Admittedly that's not quite right, but you (hopefully) get the gist of the thought...

The 'Last Trump' Is On Its {I.E. His} Way, I'm Sad to (Have to) Say...

The penny finally dropped, just the other day...

Having previously written extensively vis-a-vis my (?inspired?) insight concerning the mysterious import of two disparate phrases in my good 'ole King James Bible...

i.e.

'the last trump'...'the trump of God'...

I finally 'clicked' only a day or two ago...

...that 'the last trump' is - admittedly, only arguably; prophecy's fulfilment is really only seen clearly and unmistakably with the age-old benefit of hindsight; but nevertheless - the return of Donald J Trump in 2024 to finish the job he began in 2016 - and our world with it? -

the term signifying some sort of rupture/interregnum/interlude/intermission (if you will) between his first and second/subsequent impactings upon our world...

...as I say, to finish the job he began, and quite possibly/probably our 'lil 'ole world alongside it...

Though I neither have the time now nor the facility to easily locate a flurry of previous blogposts upon selfsame subject - without this additional 'insight' - I suggest you scroll down the (rather limited) number of my previous blogposts herein (especially back to the one entitled (I believe) 'Having the Last Laugh' a couple of years back) and various others upon my second (original) blogsite, david edwinisms, i.e. http://davidedwinisms.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/) over the same last 5-6 years or so...

...if you value some (arguably) up-to-date info upon some rather major happenings in our world in the not too distant...

Postscript:

Though ever since the very night of (or perhaps the day or so following) Presidential Election 2020 I pretty well immediately surmised that 'the Donald' will be back - and with a vengeance - in 2024; however it was only just the other day that the 'theological rationale' for that stance is now readily apparent...

'Not In It To Win It: Why Choosing Sides Sidelines the Church': Has This Fellow (American Andy Stanley, Pastor of North Point Community Church) Hit the Bullseye With This Tome Capturing Today's Zeitgeist, Or What!

It's hard to imagine a more relevant and desperately needed addition to contemporary literature upon the relative rights and wrongs of the church's involvement in politics, especially in the West...

Thankfully - Praise God - May the 9th Has Now Come and Gone...Without Further Ado - But Exposing Vladimir Putin As the Nearest Thing to a Nazi (Aside from Sissii Internationale & Its Fellow-Travellers Les Kebabs & Hocus Bedlam) That Our World Has Had the Misfortune to Witness in Recent Times

Medvedev, Russia's One-Time (Like Putin, On-Again, Off-Again, On-Again) President/Prime Minister, & Sometime 'Good Guy' to Putin's 'Bad Guy' Persona...Has Sadly/Regretfully/Regrettably But All Too Predictably Now Fully Given Himself Over to the Evil Side...

Yet he cannot avoid or evade the ultimate consequences for his treachery (to all principles of human decency), and so - like his leader - will one day (all too soon) reap precisely what he has sown...

 

Pray All You Like to the Virgin Mary, (Good Catholic) Folks...It Won't Bring Ukraine Back Together Again...Anytime Soon

And likewise for your superstitious rosary beads...

But praying (intensely and fervently, passionately and perseveringly) - with fasting - to the Lord Jesus just may accomplish what you're seeking...

It's certainly worth a try.

For Once, Let's Hear it for a Bit of Honesty on the Global Stage, For Actually Telling it Like it is For a Change, For Effectively Wearing One's Heart Upon One's Sleeve...

Yes, it's quite unkosher, a real 'no-go' area these days - which of course is perfectly understandable in a day and age of deep-seated duplicity and double-dealing... 

Putin Deserved EVERY BIT Of President Biden's Heartfelt Remarks the Other Day - the Usual Growing Senility Observations of the Western/World's Media Notwithstanding - And Indeed MUCH, MUCH Worse...However (Which Admittedly Contradicts What I've Just Posted Upon DavidEdwinisms) Some Things One/You Simply Cannot - Or, Rather, Oughtn't - Say In Global Geo-Politics...Unless You Wish to Be 'Remembered'/To Go Down in (Admittedly, To Be Non-Existent History) As One of the Chief Causes of World War 111

"Is It Nothing To You, All Ye That Pass By? Behold, And See If There Be Any Sorrow Like Unto My Sorrow..."

Sometimes it's pretty well impossible to go beyond, to improve upon the language of the sacred writer...

Today's the Ides of March - Hey, Who'd Have Guessed?

 Ask not for whom the bell tolls, Vladimir, it tolls for you (and your ilk), Mr Putin...

Though A Lifetime/Lifelong Pacifist, How Can ANYONE Reasonably Fault Ukrainians One & All For Rising Up As One WO/MAN & Defending Themselves, Their Nation, Their Cherished Freedoms & All They Hold Dear...From the Barbarians At (& Beyond) Their Very Doors...MAY GOD ON HIGH GRANT THEM DELIVERANCE & VICTORY

Yes, It's David Versus Goliath All Over Again...But Methinks the Russkies (Or More Accurately, Putin & Minions) Have This Time Bitten Off A Little More Than They Can Reasonably Regurgitate...

Calling in the Hellhounds - Putin to Isis: Hey, They'll Respond - Look at Syria (from 2015 on)...& Don't Forget What Putin's Government Did to Grozny, Chechnya (from 1999)...& to Georgia (in 2008)

Birds of a feather (ever) flock together (or some such metaphor)...

No, that's grossly insulting to your average bird...

Infinitely more apt would doubtless be the biblical reference to the very last days of Earth's history, at/after which point of time there are corpses galore...

And the gospel writer simply adds:

...wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together...

Or maybe even the vultures, for that matter...  

Vladimir Putin - Perfecting Machiavelli to a Fault: Putin Bided His Time, Patiently Awaited The Perfect Moment, Saw His Ideal Opportunity, Then - At Length - Quickly Moved In, When the Way Was Clear: When the West/U S of A Had Effectively, Uncategorically Given the All-Clear...Realizing There'd Be No Repercussions For So Doing - Following the Publicly Given Verbal Assurance to People Worldwide That, In Any Event, They Wished to Avoid Nuclear War, Having No Intention to Initiate Such - and Accordingly, Inevitably, WW111 - If Russia Invaded Ukraine (As It Was Then Looking Increasingly Likely to Do)...

But what else could - any - American  government conceivably, responsibly do? 

'Good Faith Negotiations' Between Putin & Ukraine (Or Any Sovereign Nation, For That Matter)? Yeah, Right (As A Common New Zealand Billboard Well Declares)!

Or as the Dad's Army team might have expressed matters: "[Just] who do you think you're kidding/fooling, Mr Putin?"

Forget About Nostradamus, One Person - An Ancient European, No Less (Or, Perhaps, As Some Suggest, A Composite of So Many (& Various) 'Wise (Wo)men' Throughout the World, Down the Centuries, Even Millennia) - Had Vladimir Putin 'Down Pat' (In 'Clairvoyant' Vision, As it Were): Aesop of the Timeless 'Aesop's Fables'...

Indeed, of the 40-odd fables in our (my and my four siblings') beloved edition of the same (1965 edition), thus far I have found - and made reference to 9-11 (of these) in various related blogposts - fully 20 (half) have some bearing upon the present situation...

'Wisdom Is Better Than Weapons of War; But One Sinner Destroyeth Much Good."

It goes without saying, I suppose, that Solomon clearly foresaw our day (among others).

In a Tragic Twist of Historical Irony, Russian President Boris Yeltsin's Incredible & Unsurpassed Act of Courage Helped Bring Soviet Tyranny and the Soviet Empire Itself to an End...Whilst His Unfortunate Naivete and Gullibility As Per His Successor Has Helped to Inadvertently Resurrect & Reinvigorate - & Ultimately, By Force, Re-Unite - It

Two Images That Will Ever Remain a Study in Contrasts: Boris Yeltsin Standing Alone Before a Russian Tank Singlehandedly Opposing the Might of the Soviet Empire (In the Midst of the Infamous 1990/1991 Colonels' Coup); 3 Decades Later Those Selfsame Tanks Surrounding the Brave 'Wee' Nation-State of Ukraine As It Singlehandedly Seeks to Resist That Selfsame Russian Might - Russian Tanks & Might, Ironically (and Tragically) Enough, Ultimately Authorized and Commandeered by THE VERY MAN Whom Then President Yeltsin 'Inadvertently' - 'Ignorantly' - 'Unknowingly' Helped Install In That Very Role!

Make no mistake: If it were possible, Yeltsin today would be turning cartwheels in his grave and forever ruing his ghastly mistake...

But sadly one cannot undo history.

Yes, Boris Yeltsin's ONE Mistake - And It Was a Whopper - His (Inadvertent) Gift to Russia and the World-at-Large that Keeps on Giving...Was His Anointing of His Successor, An All Too Successful KGB Agent

A failing which gregarious folk with a sanguine nature like Yeltsin have an unfortunate tendency towards...a tendency all too ably assisted by the demon drink...in Russian parlance good 'ole vodka! 

The Redoubtable Boris Yeltsin, One of Russia's Great(est) Leaders of All Time - Disparaging 'Trendy Leftie' Western Pundits and Commentators Notwithstanding - Bequeathed to Our Present World a Frankenstein(ian) Monster of a 'Gift' in His Anointing of Vladimir Putin as His Successor (to Subsequently Reign Over the Russian People)...

But this great defender of freedom and liberty, whose courage knew no bounds and saw him face down the barrel of a Soviet tank in a show of 'blinkmanship' that saw him lionized throughout the world (and doubtless Russia and the USSR's then 15 component republics prior to their wholesale splintering off), was evidently also naive to a fault (or more likely taken in a by an all too adept and cunning, subtle and sophisticated master of intrigue and dissimulation)...

...and the rest is history, as they say...

Putin Playing the World For a Bunch of Suckers...& It Appears He'll Get Away Handily With His Little Strategem...Though America Comes Away with No Glory

 Where the people of the Ukraine - and all the (15) former Soviet Republic nation-states - are mere pawns in his sordid, tawdry game of baltic chess...

He has y'all checkmated before he even begins...so better to give up folks while you're ahead - and at least save your lives...

Or, 'Be wise, and let him who can(,) be clever'.

See 'the Hungry Lion and the Wise Fox' (in Aesop's Fables, 1965). 

Boris, I'd Blithely, Ignorantly Supposed You'd 'Transgressed' Once or At Most Twice: Potentially *14 Times Is Not Only Bad Luck - With An Extra One Thrown In For Good Measure - But Would Appear To Prove That You've Now Truly Channeled That Trans-Atlantic 'Lookalike' (Not Only 'Hairwise'), But Are Now Trying to Emulate Him (the Donald, That Is) In Defending the Utterly Indefensible...If That Works For You - And My Confidence In Your Esteemed Political Party Convinces Me IT ULTIMATELY WON'T - Then (Assuming Trump Can Do the Selfsame & Return, Triumphantly, in 2024, As I Well Suspect & Have Long Since Maintained On Numerous Occasions Since Election 2020), What Can Any Reasonable Person Say? That Pigs Can Fly, Yes, Even Peppa Herself!

*The number of such occasions that the authorities are apparently investigating to establish whether anyone, and specifically who, might have breached the Government's well-signposted covid rules. (According to the New Statesman's online report of the other day, though this morning BBC world radio mentioned the number at 12.) Accordingly, since '13' is halfway between the two, perhaps it is bitter irony that that number has ever been seen as signifying bad luck...

And how's the following to put the icing on Boris' birthday cake: I realized yesterday that that day (here in New Zealand-time) - the 2nd day of the 2nd month in the year 2022...

could well be seen as signifying the following: since 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 +2 = 10...

May I respectfully suggest - to both Prime Minister Johnson and his venerable colleagues (both new and old) - that all roads now seem to lead to 10 Downing Street...

Or should I rather put it this way: all fingers of accusation (and 'leads' the police are following up) point unerringly in that particular direction...

No kidding!

For All Those Dumbfounded/Flummoxed/Flabbergasted/Bamboozled & Otherwise Mystified & Plain Perplexed By the Ongoing Rise & Fall & Rise (Like Reginald Perrin) - As a Phoenix from the Ashes of Defeat & Dishonour & Inglorious Ignominy - of Donald J Trump...Witnessed Again Yesterday (New Zealand Time) on Newshub's 6 p.m. Bulletin (As He Addressed A Stadiumful of Diehard Supporters), DON'T BE, Folks: Sadly But Perfectly Predictably - As In The Republicans Polled (In This Instance) Who Supported Him With 49% As Against Potential Rivals Rick De Santis (On 14%) and Mike Pence (On 13%): People Want 'The Real Deal' Not Some Sham Imitation...It's Really THAT SIMPLE. And As For That 'Margin of Error' 1% (45% to 44%) Lead of President Joe Biden Upon Him Among the Electorate-at-Large? Unfortunately, Folks, That Means That Election 2024 Is Already Too Close to Call, Or, As Aotearoa New Zealand's New Opposition (National Party) Leader Christopher Luxon Might Have Expressed Matters: "It's Game On!"

Equally sadly, however, it's the rest of us on Planet Earth who stand to be the collateral damage fallout...

Though I Could Frankly Care Less About the Matter in Question/ Contention, I Agree With the Fellow (Canadian Music Columnist Dale Eatamon?) Who Noted This Very Morning on RNZ National Radio's Morning Show The Irony That Those (Such as Joni Mitchell, Creator/Composer Extraordinaire of My Blogsite's Signature Song '(From) Both Sides Now') "Who Come From That (1960s') Era of Freedom and Free(dom of) Expression...[Apparently] Now Support Censorship"

Speaking of Unpartisan Decision-Making (in the Political, or at least Governmental, Arena): Hands-Off to the Much-Maligned U S Supreme Court for Recently (Just the Other Day or Two) Determining that DONALD J TRUMP Does, Indeed, Have a Very Real Case to Answer at the Bar of American Justice, That He Does Verily Warrant/Justify Being Investigated for His Own (Extremely Dubious & Problematic) Role in the Events of America's (Literal) Epiphany January 6th Last...

Go the Donald...not!

Or, rather: May he go directly to jail...not pass 'Go', and not collect $200 on the way.