This has been a gory week for Mankind, what with  an on-going existential war in Ukraine and a newly minted existential war in the Middle East. And a mournful week for this Blogger; a Russian American, lets call him Gleb, died.  He knew this Blogger from the    old, swashbuckling days; he had driven this Blogger to CHECKPOINT CHARLIE, so that this Blogger could be picked, up by East German tourist guides and escorted out of freedom into Communist dominated East Berlin. He had a long pre-death; during most of it, he lamented the state of America, not the state of the American economy, nor the state of the SAG/AFTRA strike, but the literal state of American thinking. He thought American thinking had devolved into an infantile, delusional paralysis, living out episodes of SESAME STREET, with all the realistic American thinkers driven into premature exile. Gleb was a devout Russian Orthodox, with Sister Elizabeth Romanov as his patron saint. Elizabeth had joined an order of nuns after he

As this Blog is being written, Israeli authorities are confirming that over 700 Israelis have been killed; since HAMAS invaded Israel, on October 7, 2023, from its home base, in Gaza. HAMAS attacked Israel on the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Yom Kippur war; the war which began when Egypt and Syria surprised a confident Israel, with a widespread attack. The 700 dead in two days is equal to 33,000 Americans dead in two days of fighting on American soil; that is American Civil War proportions. Under the cover of a massive aerial assault, involving over 3,000 missiles, launched against Israel; HAMAS attacked Israel by land, bulldozing the border wall, which separated Gaza and Israel, by sea, using speed boats to attack the Israeli coast and by air, using gliders to airlift fighters over the border. Obviously, someone in the HAMAS military command spent some time watching    YOUTUBE videos on Eisenhower’s D-DAY invasion. In John Ford’s masterpiece, THE SEARCHERS, there is a mome