"capo dei capi"- a Mafioso term, boss of bosses- One of the puzzling enigmas about the Founding Fathers (Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Adams, Madison)  is why they deferred to Washington? He was not a particularly great general; in retrospect he seems dull, pedestrian and aloof(his best friend was his slave). He literally botched the New York campaign against Howe...why wasn't he fired then? Or at Valley Forge? Why did they need him? Why would the Revolution need an incompetent General? He certainly was not a Cromwell.....but then again, maybe he was. The Revolution needed Washington because he was a mean s.o.b......in fact, this Blogger believes, he was the meanest of all the Founding Fathers. They deferred to him, because they were afraid of him. The incident revealing Washington's meanness  was the Pennsylvania Line Mutiny.  There was a mutiny among the Pennsylvania troops; Washington crushed it, without too much effort. He then order...

  This Blogger respects Russians; as Frederick the Great stated :” It takes two bullets to take a Russian soldier out; one to kill him and one to  stop him.” This Blogger   likes Russians; even though once, in Moscow, during the Soviet era, his incredibly attractive tour guide, aka KGB agent, told him and his brother   that they were in danger of being hit, fatally, by a Soviet car crossing a Moscow street. T his Blogger’s brother told her that he had ridden in a Soviet Car, the LADA; and that he could damn well survive any hit by that piece of junk. She laughed. That night, this Blogger’s brother slept in his room, under his bed, drunk. This Blogger admires the way Russians do business; when Soviet diplomats were kidnapped in Lebanon, the KGB paid the ransoms immediately, without complaint. Shortly thereafter, Beirut was flooded with Soviet agents and Soviet bribes; the kidnappers were identified. They were abducted, tortured and  castrated; their d...

Ukraine is Russia’s Ireland   Ukrainians are Russia’s Irish.   However, it is worse for the Ukrainians than for the Irish; since there is no Irish Sea separating Ukraine from    Russia, just vast vistas of grains.   Imagine if you will, how much more England would covet Ireland, if Ireland contained Camelot and Avalon, Stonehenge and Westminster Abby, Stratford on Avon and Blenheim  on its soil, and not British soil.   That is Ukraine’s existential problem in a nutshell; on its current land, it contains the mystical ground which gave Russia, the LAY OF IGOR’S CAMPAIGN; the first two Saints canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church, Boris and Gleb,  were from Kiev. The Russian Orthodox Church itself started in Ukraine . The scene of Russia’s first great military victory, as a great European power, is located in Ukraine, Poltava.   On current Ukrainian soil, is the mystical ground which gave Russia-RUSSIA. Ukraine is Ireland; Russia is Grea...