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...

 Today is Ernest Borgnine's birthday. This Blogger had just finished an extremely stressful assigment; as a break from stress, he became a gofer on an independent film, THE YOUNG WARRIORS, shot in Canada. Since he was the oldest gofer in living memory, he became the driver to the lead of the film, Ernest Borgnine. He was the kindest, funniest guy you ever dealt with, without pretension or crassness or phoniness. We were shooting in  a very small town outside of Vancouver; at night, he would go food shopping by himself. This Blogger, and a hired local goon shadowed him for safety's sake. That was a waste of time; the  locals were enthralled, and he was patient with their requests for pictures, and autographs. Naturally, he had great stories about  Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden,Ward Bond, Nicholas Ray, Victor Mature, Susan Hayward, Valerie French,Glenn Ford, Randolph Scott, Burt Lancaster,Gary Cooper, Charles Bronson,Robert Aldrich, Spenc...

  THE MAXEY CHRONICLES is publishing a series of Blogs on World War II, A VERY BRIEF HISTORY OF WORLD WAR II. This Blog is on Imperial Japan. "The statistics of the war are almost mind-numbing. Estimates differ, but up to 70m people died as a direct consequence of the fighting between 1939 and 1945, about two-thirds of them non-combatants, making it in absolute terms the deadliest conflict ever. Nearly one in ten Germans died and 30% of their army. About 15m Chinese perished and 27m Soviets. Squeezed between two totalitarian neighbours, Poland lost 16% of its population, about half of them Jews who were part of Hitler’s final solution. On average, nearly 30,000 people were being killed every day." How best to understand Imperial Japan in World War II?  Stanley Ketchel. The best way to understand Imperial Japan is to view it as a historical embodiment of middleweight champion Stanley Ketchel.  ‘  Stanisław Kiecal  (September 14, 1886 – October 15, 1910), better k...

The great American writer and essayist Joan Didion has died, at 87. Truly it can be said, she witnessed  appointments in Samarra. "The Appointment in Samarra" (as retold by W. Somerset Maugham [1933])   The speaker is Death   There was a merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me.  She looked at me and made a threatening gesture,  now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate.  I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me.  The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went.  Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and sai...