While technically prisoners of war, reports of Russia’s inhumane treatment of Ukrainian POWs — in violation of the Geneva Conventions and all international rules of war — clearly classify them as hostages.
And this week, 500 more — along with two Ukrainian civilians —have been returned home. In exchange, Ukraine released the same number of Russian POWs in a two-day swap near the front lines of the war.
Home At Last
One Ukrainian soldier, speaking to his mother on the phone as he stepped out of a bus onto Ukrainian soil, was heard to say simply: “I am at home. That’s it, I am home.” [Al Jazeera and Reuters, March 6, 2026.]
U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff said that the exchange was the result of recent negotiations held at Geneva, and that:
“Discussions remain ongoing, with additional progress anticipated in the weeks ahead.” [Id.]
Something to look forward to, indeed.
*. *. *
But it is yet another Sunday with no further news concerning those on our list of political prisoners. So once again, we send them greetings and assurances that they are not being overlooked during this time of crisis, not only in Ukraine, but now also in Iran and the surrounding regions. They include, among many others:
Prisoners of War:
The 19,500 Kidnapped Ukrainian Children The People of Ukraine
Immigrant Detainees in Russia:
Migrants from the Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan
Endangered Exiles:
Mikita Losik Yulia Navalnaya Countless Journalists and Other Dissidents
Andrei Chapiuk Uladzimir Labkovich Andrzej Poczobut Marfa Rabkova Valiantsin Stafanovic Yuras Zyankovich
In Georgia:
Mzia Amaglobeli
In Russia:
The “Crimea 8”: — Oleg Antipov — Artyom Azatyan — Georgy Azatyan — Aleksandr Bylin — Roman Solomko — Artur Terchanyan — Dmitry Tyazhelykh — Vladimir Zloba
James Scott Rhys Anderson (British) David Barnes (American) Gordon Black (American) Hayden Davies (British) Anastasia Dyudyaeva Antonina Favorskaya Konstantin Gabov Robert Gilman (American) Stephen James Hubbard (American) Sergey Karelin Timur Kishukov Vadim Kobzev Darya Kozyreva Artyom Kriger Michael Travis Leake (American) Aleksei Liptser Grigory Melkonyants Nika Novak Leonid Pshenychnov (in Russian-occupied Crimea) Nadezhda Rossinskaya (a.k.a. Nadin Geisler) Sofiane Sehili (French) Igor Sergunin Dmitry Shatresov Robert Shonov Grigory Skvortsov Eugene Spector (American) Joseph Tater (American, disappeared) Laurent Vinatier Robert Romanov Woodland (American)
With all of the world’s accelerating problems hogging the headlines in recent weeks, I realize that I have been neglecting the lighter side of life . . . including the travels of my favorite Canadian/Russian family, the Feenstras.
Strolling Toward the Atlantic in Florida – February 2026
When last viewed, they — parents Arend and Anneesa and six of their nine children — were traveling by RV through the southeastern United States, on a side trip of their months-long visit to their homeland of Canada.
Why and how they were able to leave their new home in Russia for such a prolonged, indefinite period remains a mystery, as does the reason for this detour into the U.S. But, as he does when broadcasting from the farm in Nizhny Novgorod, Arend has been narrating their travel videos as well.
While he occasionally mentions doing some “work” for unnamed “friends” along the way, there are no specifics; instead, the focus is on the rather boring scenery of what, to me, is the least fascinating corner of the U.S. — and I’ve been through most of it (excluding Hawaii, unfortunately).
On the Highway
Passing Through Town
Don’t get me wrong; there is much to see in the region: Civil War sites in Atlanta, Savannah, Richmond and Charleston; Mardi Gras in New Orleans in February; the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville; Elvis Presley’s “Graceland” home in Memphis; Disney World in Orlando.
Some of those, like Mardi Gras, would probably have been too “woke” for their tastes; others such as Disney World, are very expensive. I get that. But their entire journey seems to have been limited to visiting a few small museums, nature preserves, beaches, and a whole lot of hardware stores and farm equipment dealers . . . keeping to themselves or visiting with like-minded friends and online viewers, rather than becoming acquainted with a broader spectrum of America and Americans.
Communing With Nature
They don’t seem to have tried expanding their travel experience into new realms, which — back in the time of my world travels — was the whole idea of going somewhere different. Since they’re traveling on a budget, and preparing their meals in the RV or at campsites, I wonder whether they’ve even treated themselves to some good ol’ Southern cooking. (My personal favorite: fried green tomatoes. Yum!)
To each his own, of course. If this is what they truly enjoy, fine; but it seems a shame to have come so far and missed the opportunity to show their children something new and unusual besides palm trees . . . and palmetto bugs the size of mice.
A Native Floridian: Giant Palmetto Bug
What, then, was the purpose of the trip? Simply to say they had seen X number of U.S. states? That doesn’t seem logical. Arend has talked about meeting with some of their viewers along the way; perhaps they’ve been proselytizing, encouraging other conservative families to make the move to Russia. What great public relations that would be for their benefactor Vladimir Putin, on whose good nature their very survival in Russia depends.
And then there are the commercials. In each video I watched today, there was an overt ad for one company or another. There was one for an app called “PlantMe,” which allows you to identify plants, trees and flowers on your smartphone. Another was half of a video devoted to a detailed tour of the Tractor Supply Company, with an obvious plug for their wide range of John Deere equipment and merchandise.
Starring in a Commercial
But the most mystifying ad was for something called “Gentlebands.com” — wedding bands that, in addition to being “bold and unique,” also “symbolize your love with a band as extraordinary as your journey.”
Arend’s words (or the sponsor’s) . . . not mine.
Reenacting the Wedding?
So the social media fame the Feenstras have gained since moving to Russia has apparently proved profitable. And there’s nothing wrong with that . . . many TV and movie celebrities are seen in all sorts of commercials. It must surely help to pay the bills while they build their farm in Nizhny Novgorod into a profit-making enterprise.
I’m now looking forward to their return to Ontario to reunite with their older children, and eventually to fly back to Russia in time for the spring planting season — assuming all of that winter snow their tenants, the Pulleys, have been dealing with has melted.
In a world overwhelmed with daily reports of wars, natural disasters, and political corruption, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep from descending into despair, or to visualize a future with any prospect of improvement.
But young Anne Frank managed to hold on to a sliver of hope while hiding out from the Nazis during World War II, knowing that at any moment they might find her and her family in their secret room (which they ultimately did). She kept her sanity and spirit by writing her deepest thoughts and feelings in a diary, which was posthumously published after the war and remains a source of inspiration to this day.
One of her entries expressed her own difficulty in retaining a measure of hope:
“It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
– Anne Frank, “The Diary of a Young Girl”
Anne Frank (1929-1945)
Anne was barely into her teens when she began her diary, and it is easy to dismiss her optimism as youthful inexperience and naiveté. But her writing exhibits an intelligence and a maturity far beyond her years; so maybe she sensed something that we don’t, or that we have forgotten.
Maybe, after all, the vast majority of individuals are inherently decent, and the evils now being perpetrated by a relative handful of tyrants will — like Anne’s war, and all of the world’s previous “times of trouble” — pass into history, to be replaced by an era of peace and prosperity.
But it is up to us — the peaceable majority — to bring that about. And, if and when it does happen, it will also be up to us to keep it that way.
When Donald Trump coined the term, “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” he meant it to apply to people who disagree with him, who must therefore — in his view — be deranged. But in fact, it is the perfect definition of his own mental state. And the last couple of months have brought clear evidence of it, as he attempts to gobble up country after country: Greenland, Panama, Canada, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba.
The conclusion is as plain as day:
HE THINKS HE’S PAC-MAN!
Pac-Man
Emulating the voracious little computerized glutton of the 1980s, Trump began his culinary orgy by practicing on his home turf, swallowing whole the U.S. Congress, Supreme Court, Departments of Defense, Justice, and Health & Human Services, several major media outlets, a couple of universities, and one or two law firms, among others.
Once they had been digested, he was ready to start on the rest of the world. Totally frustrated by the lack of enthusiasm from the highly intelligent people of Canada and Greenland, and seemingly having lost interest in Panama, he decided to approach his next targets in a more, shall we say, forceful manner.
For a while, he got his jollies by remotely picking off small boats suspected of carrying drugs in the general direction of the U.S., double-tapping the few survivors of the initial blasts, and claiming victory in his “war on drugs.” But that just whetted his appetite for more.
Literally pulling out the big guns, he sent a military SWAT team to Caracas, captured the president and first lady as they slept, killed 100 or more Venezuelan defenders, and declared that he was now in charge of the country’s government . . . oh, and by the way, its massive oil reserves.
Arresting Venezuelan President Maduro
Following that success, he apparently forgot that he was supposed to be the “Peace President,” left Ukraine to its own devices, and dove right into his next adventure. Like a gambling addict at the high-stakes blackjack tables in Vegas, he figured he was on a roll. And since he’d already made diplomatic overtures and verbal threats to Iran . . . well, what the hell . . . why not take it to the next level?
Never mind that denuclearization talks were ongoing, and showing significant progress. And forget about the alleged “obliteration” of that country’s nuclear capabilities some months earlier. He insisted that they were nearly up and running again (a physical impossibility, but so what?). And where was the fun in talking? So, from his weekend retreat in Florida, where he was hunkered down with his team of “expert” strategists — and already having decided that Iran was presenting a clear and present danger to Israel and the United States despite all intelligence reports to the contrary — he sent his bombers to Tehran, where they executed a clean strike on the reigning Ayatollah.
During the week since then, as his forces have continued to attack — and, to no one’s surprise other than Trump’s, as Iran has retaliated against neighboring U.S. allies — he has leap-frogged from allegations of “imminent nuclear threat” to “regime change for the sake of the Iranian people” and back again, not quite sure which excuse would play better with the American voters. But yesterday, the truth came out: he insists that he will get to decide who will be in charge of Iran’s government hereafter. And it’s okay with him if it’s another religious leader, despite the fact that it would clearly mean there would be no real regime change.
A Few Possibilities for Iran
While much of the world expresses fear that we may be on the brink of World War III, Trump optimistically predicts “total victory” in Iran within a few weeks at most, saying:
“Iran is not the same country it was a week ago. A week ago they were powerful, and now they’ve been indeed neutered.” [Dana Bash, CNN, March 6, 2026.]
He also said choosing a new leader would be a piece of cake:
“It’s gonna work very easily. It’s going to work like [it] did in Venezuela. We have a wonderful leader there. [Delcy Rodriguez is] doing a fantastic job. And it’s going to work like in Venezuela.” [Id.]
(He obviously didn’t read my article where I tried to explain to him that Iran is not Venezuela. Oh, well . . . I tried.)
Asked whether he would be amenable to having another religious leader in Iran, he responded:
“Well I may be yeah, I mean, it depends on who the person is. I don’t mind religious leaders. I deal with a lot of religious leaders and they are fantastic.” [Id.]
And when questioned on whether he would insist on the creation of a democratic state in Iran, he said:
“No, I’m saying there has to be a leader that’s going [to] be fair and just. Do a great job. Treat the United States and Israel well, and treat the other countries in the Middle East — they’re all our partners.” [Id.]
“What the f*ck . . . ?!!”
Next — sounding more and more like an old Soviet leader announcing the country’s next five-year plan — he moved on to the subject of Cuba:
“Cuba is gonna fall pretty soon, by the way, unrelated, but Cuba is gonna fall too. They want to make a deal so badly. They want to make a deal, and so I’m going to put Marco (Rubio) over there and we’ll see how that works out. We’re really focused on this one right now. We’ve got plenty of time, but Cuba’s ready — after 50 years. … I’ve been watching it for 50 years, and it’s fallen right into my lap because of me, it’s fallen, but it’s nevertheless fallen right into the lap. And we’re doing very well.”
*. *. *
Sadly, this is a man in need of a rubber room, and a long, long rest. But instead of retiring peacefully to his Mar-a-Lago playground, he is playing Pac-Man with some of the world’s most volatile nations.
But even Pac-Man’s seemingly insatiable appetite ran into impediments. Remember the four ghosts: Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde? With any luck, Trump’s “ghosts” — the United Nations, NATO, the EU, and the American people — will figure out a way to stop him before we all go up in flames.
Yesterday was the 73rd anniversary of the death of one of the most evil men who ever lived: Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili — better known to the world as Joseph Stalin.
Joseph Stalin (1878-1953)
Although the world has changed in countless ways since Stalin’s time, the nature of dictators has not. And nothing could be more illustrative of that fact than one brief sentence attributed to him, allegedly spoken as he shrugged off the millions of deaths caused by his purges, political arrests, government-created famines, and foreign invasions:
“One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic.”
These days, there are those in power who do not even accord that minimal respect to an individual’s death, instead blaming the victim regardless of the circumstances. (Remember Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti?)
As for Stalin’s statistical millions, today we have only to look as far as Ukraine, Gaza, and now Iran.
My first reaction, of course, was an unrestrained “Hallelujah!!” And then I read the rest of the article.
You know what I’m talking about: yesterday’s announcement that Kristi Noem had finally been removed as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
Former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem: One Rant Too Many
Along with most of the rest of the country, I had a mental image of her back on the farm, wielding a double-barreled shotgun instead of an automatic weapon, searching for another poor animal to shoot because she no longer had human beings in her sights.
As House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries succinctly put it:
“ICE Barbie is gone. Good riddance.” [BBC, March 5, 2026.]
But alas! She was not to disappear completely . . . at least, not yet. Instead of total banishment for her sins, she was given a new job — one that seems to have been hastily created especially for her — as Special Envoy for something called “The Shield of the Americas,” described by Donald Trump as “a new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere.”[Id.]
. . . whatever that is. We have yet to be told anything about it: its purpose and mandate, under which government agency it is being established, how it is to be funded, or whether the post of “special envoy” is permanent or temporary. But for the moment, the bigger question is what finally caused Trump to give her the boot.
It wasn’t the mass roundups of law-abiding immigrants along with the few who were actual criminals; nor was it her alleged affair with her unofficial, unpaid “chief of staff,” Corey Lewandowski. It wasn’t even the killing of two innocent American citizens in Minneapolis. In the long run, her undoing appears to have been her big mouth, her craving for the spotlight, and one too many lies — the latest one reflecting on Trump himself.
Her viciousness, her vengefulness, and her limitless capacity for sheer cruelty have become legendary during her tenure with DHS. But her performance before Congress, during hearings in which she was called out by Democrats and Republicans alike, finally laid bare the extent of her crimes, including the expenditure of DHS funds for her use of a leased luxury jet, allegedly intended to be utilized for deportation of illegals, but somehow outfitted with a rather anomalous luxury bedroom.
Revealing Kristi’s Hideaway
She also made the mistake of becoming too fond of the spotlight, spending millions of DHS dollars on ads in which she was prominently featured — something that was certain to irritate Trump, who, as everyone knows, reserves the spotlight for himself.
And then there was the lie: the one that said those ads had been approved by Trump, when — according to a White House source — they had not. [Id.]
Bad move, Barbie.
“Oh, shit!”
The question now naturally arises: Why is she being reassigned, rather than just fired outright? My guess would be that firing her would create the impression that the White House was aware of — and thus complicit in — those of her official acts that were blatantly illegal. It would also leave her vulnerable to criminal prosecution, in turn opening a whole new can of worms for the administration.
As if the Epstein Files weren’t enough.
So instead, the White House did the usual dance — I call it the “Two-Step Shuffle” — typical of government administrations everywhere. By removing her from the public eye and replacing her with someone relatively unknown, they hope we’ll just forget about her. And they may be right; after all, we have so many other items on the agenda: a couple of hot wars, a reincarnated cold war, the economy, measles outbreaks, Chinese advances in AI technology, and the nasty-looking rash on Trump’s neck, to name just a few.
Incidentally, Noem’s aide and close friend Corey also lost his job in the shuffle. It is not yet known where he will wind up; but really . . . who cares? Judging from his history, it’s just one more in a long series of professional failures.
Co-workers and BFFs Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski
Finally, about her proposed replacement at DHS: the junior Senator from Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin.
A member of the Republican Party and a Trump supporter (of course), Mullin, age 48, was elected to the Senate in 2022 in a special election to serve the remainder of the late Jim Inhofe’s term. His educational background is limited; he is the only serving member of the Senate without at least a bachelor’s degree, having dropped out of college to take over the family’s plumbing business when his father became ill. He later earned an associate degree in construction technology from Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology. At the end of 2021, his reported assets ranged between $31.6 and $75.6, primarily from the sale of his plumbing-related companies to a large multi-state company. [Wikipedia bio.]
Senator Markwayne Mullin
Even more interesting, though — in addition to stories of his fiery temper — is his hard-line stance on immigration, which completely aligns with Noem’s and Trump’s. Following ICE’s fatal shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Mullin placed the blame on the victim, posting on social media:
“Obstructing federal law enforcement is a felony. Most Americans follow ICE instructions without thinking twice.” [Ana Faguy, BBC, March 5, 2026.]
And about the killing of Renee Good, also at the hands of an ICE officer in Minneapolis, he said that the officer “didn’t have an option,” because Good was driving a vehicle that he (Mullin) said should be considered a deadly weapon. [Id.]
So, even as we celebrate Noem’s departure, it’s probably safe to assume that there won’t be any noticeable changes at DHS, with Mullin ensconced as Acting Secretary pending Congressional confirmation of his permanent appointment.
That confirmation, of course, is not a given, even with a Republican majority. There is always the hope — though admittedly a slim one — that Congress will do the right thing.
Even Vladimir Putin’s masterminds of trickery and deceit are bound to screw up now and then. And sometimes when they do, it’s good for a laugh . . . though probably not so much for them.
In this case, it has to do with Putin’s well-known paranoia, his constant moving from one location to another in order to disguise his actual whereabouts, and a potted plant.
RFE/RL Photo – March 4, 2026
The clever folks of Systema — the Russian investigative arm of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) — have just outdone themselves in the “no detail too small” department.
As the U.S. and Israel embarked on their ill-conceived war against Iran, Putin apparently attempted to convince the world that he was at work in the Kremlin as usual, unfazed by distant affairs. To accomplish this, he had himself photographed at his desk, smiling and appearing completely at ease.
RFE/RL Photo – March 4, 2026
But it is well known that Putin has at least three such offices in different parts of the country — identical in the most minute detail, down to the desk pen and other trinkets.
And the Chinese evergreen plant in the corner, next to the flag.
The problem? The plant is real. And living plants grow, or lose leaves from time to time. And, according to Systema, this one — photographed on four separate occasions — would seem to have lost some large leaves and then miraculously regrown them and lost them again, all within the space of a few weeks. Unless they’re not the same plant. [Andrei Soshnikov, Svetlana Osipova, Anton Bayev and Systema, RFE/RL, March 4, 2026.]
So where was Putin on the day in question? We don’t know for sure. But for some reason, he felt it necessary to obscure his location, as he so often does. Maybe he was mourning the loss of his friend and ally, the Ayatollah. Or perhaps he was celebrating the sudden repositioning of his country as the world’s largest producer and exporter of available oil and gas, at least for as long as Iran is cut off by the U.S. and Israeli forces.
Not that it really matters where he was a couple of days ago. But it does point out the fallibility of even the most astute, careful planners . . . and the foolishness of underestimating the skills of the adversary.
“You can run, but you cannot hide”
Perhaps someone should send Putin three identical, artificial Chinese evergreens. He’ll just have to remind his people to dust them all on the same day, because Systema is watching.
Because today’s quotes are not meant to inspire, soothe, or amuse; I intend them to infuriate you. They are words spoken in recent days, by living people who should know better but obviously don’t . . . or simply don’t care, because they have long since sunk to the lowest levels of human degradation imaginable.
Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth: Partners in Crime
Forget, for the moment, people like Putin, Xi, Kim, Assad, Maduro, and even the recently deceased Ayatollah Khamenei. Evil to the core, all of them. But even they have (or had) the common sense to display a little sympathy — insincere though it may be — when speaking of the dead.
But not Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth. Oh, no. They don’t even attempt an appearance of possessing an iota of human feeling for anyone other than themselves — not even for the people they have ordered killed or, worst of all, for the young American military troops they have sent into harm’s way to fight a war they had no legal or moral right to start in the first place.
You know what I’m talking about: the illegal, unjustifiable invasion of Iran for purposes yet unknown — purposes that seem to keep changing as they think up new excuses to palm off on us. Evidence of a renewed nuclear buildup and an imminent attack against U.S. interests? (Not according to the best intelligence sources.) Regime change out of concern for the freedom of the Iranian people? (You can’t be serious!) Rushing to the “defense” of Trump’s friend Netanyahu? (Maybe, though it’s not at all clear that Israel needed defending at this moment in history.) All that lovely oil? (A distinct possibility . . . or at least an extra perk.)
Surely not a Nobel Peace Prize . . . you get those for preventing or ending wars, not for starting them.
Sorry . . . not this year
No matter the excuse du jour, what stands out in the five days since the invasion is their callous attitude — not only to the unconstitutionality of their actions, or the cost to the American taxpayers, likely to run in the billions of dollars — but toward the lives of those who will do the fighting, and the dying, while the two perpetrators of the atrocity sit safely in their gold-plated bunkers, watching it play out in real time on their TV screens.
Sorry to be so long-winded, but I’m sure you’ll understand why I needed to vent when you read these quotes. Even if you’ve seen some of them before, when you group them together, they really hammer home the baseness of the speakers. So here they are:
TRUMP (on NBC News, Sunday): “We have three, but we expect casualties, but in the end it’s going to be a great deal for the world.”
TRUMP (on a video, Sunday): “And sadly, there will likely be more before it ends. That’s the way it is. Likely be more.”
HEGSETH (at a Pentagon briefing, Wednesday, criticizing the media for focusing too much on the six dead soldiers): “But when a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it’s front-page news. I get it; the press only wants to make the president look bad. But try for once to report the reality.” [Aaron Blake, CNN, March 4, 2026.]
*. *. *
Of course, we shouldn’t be surprised. These are not Trump’s first disgusting insults of the servicemen and women of whom he is supposed to be Commander-in-Chief. He has had the temerity to demean former Vietnam POW John McCain by saying he was only considered a war hero because he was captured, adding, “I like people that weren’t captured.” He has referred to dead and injured soldiers as “suckers” and “losers,” and told one grieving Gold Star widow that her late husband “knew what he was signing up for.” [Id.]
But coming from a long line of draft-dodgers, why would we expect any better?
Early morning insomnia, followed by intermittent grogginess, with a likelihood of becoming comatose later in the evening.
Clearly, that was not the weather report; it was a rundown of my day today.
Me, at 3:00 a.m., 4:00 a.m., 5:00 a.m. . . .
I am a confessed night owl — not recovering, not trying to recover, just resigned to the fact that my body clock runs on a different cycle than most people’s. I’m generally in bed by about 2:30 a.m., asleep by 3:00 (or sooner), and ready to greet the day some time after noon. Being retired does have its advantages.
Last night, however, I was still looking over at the clock at 3:00, 3:30, 4:00, 4:30, 5:00, and finally 5:30, when my bladder told me I’d better get out of bed or I’d regret it. So I got up, did as Mother Nature suggested, and decided not to go back to the bed that had been victimized by three hours of my thrashing around trying without success to find a comfortable spot.
I wasn’t sick, and I wasn’t upset about anything in particular . . . well, except, you know, the daily news. But nothing I could point to specifically. I was just wide awake. So I went into the den, turned on the light, shut the door, and picked up the book I had just started yesterday, figuring my eyelids would begin to droop after a few pages.
But it’s a Dan Brown novel — you know, the author of The Da Vinci Code — so about 90 pages later I was still wide awake and thoroughly engrossed. I finally put the book down and picked up a crossword puzzle book; I’ve been known to fall asleep while working my way through those when my eyelids are already at half-mast.
Three puzzles later, and all I had accomplished was the consumption of a good deal of sugar-free, decaffeinated liquid, and an intimate acquaintance with the names of some obscure European rivers and words containing three sets of double letters. (FYI, the only one with three consecutive sets of doubles is “bookkeeper.”)
Okay, by now it’s 8:00 a.m., the sun has been up for over an hour, and Ma Nature is calling again. After another trip to the w.c., I decided to give Morpheus one more shot, and finally did fall asleep . . . only to dream that I was having trouble sleeping. My eyes snapped open — literally — just before 1:00 p.m., and although I had only had about four hours of slumber, I figured I’d face the day and probably drift off later for a little chair nap and the usual stiff neck that inevitably follows.
But no. As groggy as I’ve felt all day, my eyes still won’t shut, despite more reading, crossword puzzles, a late lunch, and now tapping away on my iPad. I don’t know for sure what’s causing the problem, but if I had to guess, I’d say it’s probably Donald Trump’s fault.
Seriously . . . isn’t everything?
“Who . . . me?”
I guess I’ll just start on tomorrow’s blog until dinnertime, and see what happens.
And maybe I should skip the coffee Haagen-Dazs tonight.
One can always count on the words of the late Sir Winston Churchill for a touch of irreverent humor or a bit of good advice.
Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
He certainly needed both humor and wisdom to help him as he steered his country through the horrors of World War II. And in a speech at the Harrow School in 1941, with the worst years of the war still ahead of them, he had these words to offer the young students:
“Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never — in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”
– Sir Winston Churchill, “Never Give In! The Best of Winston Churchill’s Speeches”
His speeches inspired a generation of men and women who would go off to fight the enemy in foreign lands, and at home when the battle was brought into their own back yards. And we would do well to listen to his words again today, as we fight different, but not dissimilar, battles against evil.
The Blog About Everything … and Sometimes Nothing 