It’s been a busy week, and the topics just keep splashing themselves irresistibly across the daily headlines. In no particular order, since they’re of equal importance, I’m already working on:
– Viktor Orban and the Habsburg Empire. – What is BRICS, and why should we be worried about it? – Putin and the Houthis — and why we’re already worried about them.
And we’re just heading into a new week, presumably with more to come. I’m so glad I don’t get bogged down in the subject of U.S. politics — there wouldn’t be enough memory in my iPad.
Sunday, and another American has been sentenced to 13 years in a penal colony in Russia . . . though this one is a criminal case, once again arising from alleged drug violations. The prisoner is Travis Leake, a musician and musical producer fronting for Russian band Lovi Noch (“Catch the Night”), who was initially arrested in June of 2023.
Michael Travis Leake
Charged with — and now convicted of — drug smuggling, the former U.S. paratrooper pled not guilty, saying, “I don’t understand why I’m here. I don’t admit guilt, I don’t believe I could have done what I’m accused of because I don’t know what I’m accused of.” [Sergey Gudkov, CNN, July 18, 2024.]
Though his case is not seemingly politically-motivated, Leake now becomes yet another piece of merchandise in Russia’s growing assemblage of assets to be used in its ongoing “trade war” with the United States — the commodity being human lives.
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The update, of course, is the conviction of Evan Gershkovich on bogus charges of espionage, and the court’s sentence of 16 years (the prosecution had asked for 18) to be served in an as-yet-unnamed prison. No surprise here, though it still feels like being gut-punched.
Evan Gershkovich
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And the wait for information about Vladimir Kara-Murza drags on. It has been 17 days since his July 4th transfer from his punishment cell at IK-6 penal colony to the prison hospital, under secretive and mysterious circumstances. And nearly a week since there has been any word from prison officials or Kara-Murza’s attorneys as to his condition, or even his whereabouts. To say that the situation is intolerable would be a gross understatement. The memory of Alexei Navalny is too recent, too painful . . . and too similar.
Vladimir Kara-Murza
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There are others, of course. But the one who has been held HOSTAGE the longest — just over five and one-half years — is former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan. Arrested on charges of espionage on December 28, 2018 (Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Paul), he was not sentenced until June of 2020. He is now one-third of the way through his 16-year sentence, and is more than deserving of recognition as the most patient of the Americans on this list . . . and of a spot at the top of the “swap list.” Hang in there, Paul; your day will come.
“Hostage of the Week” – Paul Whelan
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And, as always, we pay our weekly tribute to all those HOSTAGES locked away in Russian prisons for strictly political reasons:
Vladimir Kara-Murza Evan Gershkovich Alsu Kurmasheva Paul Whelan Ilya Yashin Staff Sgt. Gordon Black Robert Woodland Romanov Boris Akunin Marc Hilliard Fogel Asya Kazantseva Ilya Barabanov Aleksandr Skobov Antonina Favorskaya Oleg Orlov Boris Kagarlitsky Oleg Navalny Ksenia Karelina Ksenia Fadeyeva Lilia Chanysheva Vadim Ostanin Sergei Udaltsov Danuta Perednya Olesya Krivtsova Konstantin Gabov Sergey Karelin Sergey Mingazov Michael Travis Leake
. . . and the hundreds of others whose names remain unknown to me. You have not been, and will not be, forgotten.
My favorite Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov — well, actually the only Kremlin spokesman we ever hear from — delivered some very un-funny news yesterday in reference to a Russian military delegation presently in North Korea, reportedly for the purpose of “implementing agreements reached during President Vladimir Putin’s recent visit to Pyongyang.” [Reuters, July 19, 2024.]
So why are you smiling, Dima, you big putz? You think plotting the end of civilization is a joke? Do you??!!!
No! Not Funny!
Well, he didn’t actually refer to the end of the world . . . not in so many words. But in June, Russia and North Korea did sign a “comprehensive strategic partnership” pact including a provision for “mutual defense in case of aggression against one of the countries.” And this is what Dmitry had to say about that yesterday:
“Work is underway, including in implementing the agreements reached during President Putin’s recent official visit to Pyongyang. It was a rich, informative and productive visit, and now the two sides are working to implement the agreements that were reached. Our delegation’s trip occurred as part of those agreements.” [Reuters, id.]
Stop that! It’s not a joke!
All right, fine. “So the west has NATO. Why shouldn’t other countries have similar mutual defense pacts?” — I hear you ask.
Well, for starters, NATO isn’t threatening to blow up our globe if things don’t go their way. Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin have done just that from time to time.
Second, have we seen the other provisions of their pact? Is it really just a “you-cover-my-ass-I’ll-cover-yours” equivalent to NATO’s Article 5? What don’t we know?
Third, who will be monitoring the principals? NATO has 32 members; this agreement, it appears, has just two parties. What are the safeguards against overreaction?
And finally, there is the all-important trust factor. Can you honestly tell me that you believe either of these two best buddies would put the other’s interests — or anyone’s interests — before his own? Have they ever?
Why does everyone keep grinning??!!!
It’s not a question of whether they deserve backup; it’s a matter of who’s providing that backup. If Putin says he doesn’t like U.S. policy toward . . . oh, let’s say, the Houthi rebels in Yemen . . . what’s to stop Kim from going batshit and reaching for that red button to help out his friend? Or vice-versa?
And we all know what would happen next.
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So, Dima, do you really find it amusing that these two aggressors, each with his finger on the nuclear button, have chosen one another as their defense partner?
You do realize that, in a worst-case scenario, they’d be signing your death sentence as well, don’t you?
I’ve only been privileged to visit England once, and then I was limited to London. It was a five-day trip in April of 1990, for a conference that my law firm was co-sponsoring on doing business in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union — and I fell in love with the place. Most of my time was spent at the conference, of course; but there were still enough hours in the day, and evening, to manage a good bit of fun: seeing the sights, riding the Underground (or Tube, if you prefer), shopping, closing a disco in Piccadilly at 3 a.m., dodging the amorous advances of a portly, overbearing Soviet official . . .
Parliament, Big Ben, and the iconic London phone booth
Well, best to stop there. Suffice it to say, it was a memorable trip. I found London to be charming and civilized, and Londoners very much the same, except for the concierge in the Mayfair Hotel and one waiter in a restaurant, both of whom insisted upon correcting my American terminology. Even the food, contrary to what I had always heard, was quite good. And by some miracle, the weather held out for us as well. My only regret was that there wasn’t time to get outside of London; I never did see Oxford, or Stratford-on-Avon, or Stonehenge. Or any of those lovely little villages that are the locale of so much murder and mayhem on one of my favorite British TV shows: Midsomer Murders.
“DCI Tom Barnaby” (right) and “DS Ben Jones”
Aha! Do I hear people nodding in agreement? I thought I might. I still watch the re-runs, and I have to say, I did prefer Tom Barnaby to his cousin John. But I refuse to open the floor to a vote on who was the best Sergeant, because I thought each was wonderful in his own way, and I missed them all when they moved on. But what I loved most were the quirky villages and the . . . oh, what’s the best adjective here? . . . the bizarre characters. Those villages hid more psychopathic, sociopathic, murderous, bullying, polygamous, adulterous, fetishistic, incestuous, jealous, hateful, scheming, lying, covetous, simply miserable people within a few square kilometers than one would expect to find in the entire city of London.
What fun!
I believe the late Queen Elizabeth summed it up best when she met some of the cast members of what she said was her favorite TV show, and asked, “Tell me: is there anyone left alive in Midsomer?”
Mired in the Merry Mayhem of Midsomer Murders: Eating dinner from a tray while watching TV, like the rest of us
These were not simply one-and-done murder mysteries — every killer was a serial killer, often out of necessity, when he (or she) had to cover up one murder by then killing off a possible witness . . . or several. And the methods they devised to bump off those poor victims left one wondering about the sanity of the writers who dreamt up the concoctions. Such as:
– Shrink-wrapped, packaged in a shipping container of cookies, and shipped off to Denmark. – Buried alive in wet concrete. – Smacked in the head with various heavy, solid objects. – Pushed off a roof. – Scared to death by a fake ghost. – Beheaded. – Hung up on a meat hook alongside the fresh beef. – Tied down and pelted with bottles of champagne launched by a conveniently handy catapult.
– Drowned in various liquids, some of them disgustingly viscous. – Burnt to a crisp. – Locked in a commercial freezer. – Locked in a commercial clothes dryer. – Locked in a room filled with gas fumes. – Locked in an iron maiden.
– Garroted with piano wire, curtain pulls, or whatever was handy. – Run through with a lance that happened to be sitting around. – Poisoned with deadly mushrooms or little blue venomous frogs. – And sometimes merely shot with a rifle, a shotgun, or a crossbow.
The British — particularly the aristocracy — seem inordinately fond of their antique weapons, don’t they?
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And the characters themselves? With all of their manias, phobias, fetishes, and other psychological aberrations, they were beyond the imaginings of even a Dostoevsky or a Stephen King. There are too many to mention, but I do have a favorite pair: the Rainbirds. Featured in the very first season, they were a mother-and-son pair that would have made Sigmund Freud jump for joy. They met an unpleasant end — together, as they would have wanted it — but happily, the writers were able to bring them back from the dead in a later season. Well, not actually reincarnated, but cast as the nearly identical sister of the original Mrs. Rainbird and an equally obnoxious son, though not quite as evil.
If you have somehow missed this delightfully different series, I strongly recommend it. But be sure to begin at the beginning, with “The Killings at Badger’s Drift,” and say hello to the Rainbirds.
Yes, that’s the England I didn’t get to see . . . which is probably for the best. I was better off in the city, where my biggest worries were getting run over by a double-decker bus, or embarrassed to death by a very British concierge.
Evan Gershkovich has been convicted of espionage and sentenced to a term of 16 years in a Russian prison. In addition, he was fined costs equivalent to $77 (U.S.), and certain of his personal belongings — including his iPhone and his notepad — were ordered destroyed. Not simply confiscated . . . destroyed.
Evan Gershkovich
Talk has now turned to the possibility of an exchange of Gershkovich for someone the Russians want released from a foreign prison: quite possibly Vadim Krasikov, presently serving a life sentence in Germany for the brazen daytime assassination of a Chechen emigre in Berlin.
And all of this is of the utmost importance. But we must not let it distract us from the equally urgent situations of others presently being held on false, purely political charges in Russian prisons:
– Vladimir Kara-Murza (British-Russian) – Alsu Kurmasheva (American-Russian) – Paul Whelan (American) – Marc Hilliard Fogel (American) – Staff Sgt. Gordon Black (American) – Robert Woodland Romanov (American-Russian)
With the exception of U.K. citizen Vladimir Kara-Murza — whose situation is dire as he is kept incommunicado, in unknown physical condition, in the prison hospital at Prison Colony No. 7 in Omsk, Siberia — we hear little or nothing about the U.S. citizens being wrongfully imprisoned. And that silence is terrifying for them and their families at home.
Vladimir Kara-Murza
Negotiations for exchanges may be underway for some or all of them, and if so, those talks are understandably not made public until they are concluded. But in the meantime, the prisoners and their loved ones live in a vacuum. There must be no letup in the pressure to bring them home.
It was a foregone conclusion. In Russia, where the conviction rate is 99%, an acquittal would have been a miracle. The only surprise today is the speed at which the trial was concluded and the verdict announced.
Evan Gershkovich
Sentenced today to 16 years in prison, Gershkovich is now eligible for a possible prisoner exchange, according to statements earlier made by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. How long that might take is anyone’s guess.
American Paul Whelan has been waiting for four years.
The physical condition of Vladimir Kara-Murza, a British-Russian citizen, continues to decline while he languishes in a prison hospital in Siberia.
Alsu Kurmasheva, a joint U.S.-Russian citizen, remains a hostage in their vast prison system.
And there are more.
It is time — no, it is past time — to bring them home!
Reading the subtle signs, one almost dares to hope.
The trial of American journalist Evan Gershkovich — on specious charges of espionage — had been scheduled to resume in Yekaterinburg, Russia, in mid-August. But it was suddenly accelerated and rescheduled for yesterday, July 18th, reportedly at the request of Gershkovich’s attorneys.
“Palace of Justice” – Yekaterinburg, Russia
In a legal system so heavily weighted against the accused — the conviction rate stands at 99% — this seems, to say the least, an odd turn of events. In addition, hints are now being given of behind-the-scenes negotiations proceeding toward a prisoner exchange in the foreseeable future.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday that the “special services” of Moscow and Washington are discussing such a possibility. Previous mentions of a trade included the caveat that there would have to be a verdict in Gershkovich’s case before any decision could be reached regarding a swap. One wonders, then, whether the sudden decision to move the trial date up by a month might have anything to do with ongoing negotiations. After all, the harsher the verdict against Gershkovich, the more valuable Russia’s bargaining chip would be.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
Of course, wondering is all we can do at this point. The negotiations — if indeed they are proceeding — are kept at a level of secrecy very much the same as Gershkovich’s trial itself. At Yekaterinburg’s “Palace of Justice,” no one other than the active participants is allowed in the courtroom. The public was told that the defendant is present; however, members of the press were not even allowed to see him prior to the hearing, as they were at the first session last month. Counsel are prohibited from commenting on the proceedings. (I have no idea what would happen if someone were to violate that constraint, but thus far in this case, no one has.)
We have been told that closing arguments are to be delivered today, Friday, July 19th. There is no estimate given as to when the court’s verdict may be expected. So, again, the world waits.
When dealing with Russia — and especially with the Russian justice system — waiting can become a full-time occupation.
The trial of Wall Street Journal’s Evan Gershkovich on bogus charges of espionage was scheduled to resume in mid-August. But the Russian court in Yekaterinburg granted his attorneys’ petition to move the hearing forward, and it will now take place today, July 18th. Taking into account the time difference (I am on the U.S. east coast), it has probably already begun.
Evan Gershkovich
The trial, as is customary in these cases, is being held behind closed doors. There is little chance that Evan Gershkovich will receive anything but a guilty verdict, and — barring a miracle — we will simply have to await word as to the length of his sentence.
And so the travesty that passes for law and justice in Russia continues. But so do our efforts to find a means to bring our hostages home.
When I think of all the years I blindly and adamantly avoided all social media — judging it a total waste of my valuable time, and worse, a dangerous grazing ground for scammers and hackers — I can’t believe I’m actually writing this! My friends and business colleagues couldn’t understand how I — an otherwise fairly intelligent and up-to-date human being — could be so far behind the times. And I couldn’t understand how they could allow themselves to be sucked into such meaningless twaddle (as I thought of it).
Yet, here I am, addressing you on Facebook. How did that happen? What lightning strike caused such a dramatic change of mind and heart?
Quite simply, it was something called boredom. And a blog.
Newly retired, with lots of time on my hands, I needed to fill the hours that had once been occupied with a long morning rush hour, work (the kind that paid a living wage), and an even longer evening rush hour. That was about ten hours a day. There were factors that made it impossible for me to do the traveling I would have loved after retiring, so I looked for something closer to home. And I began to write.
The Picture of Optimism
First I wrote a book. That took about two years. And there it now sits, in a big pink three-ring binder: 300-plus pages of non-fiction in search of a publisher or a literary agent willing to read it. Anyone have any ideas? I’m good with words; I don’t know sh*t about promoting myself.
And then I had an epiphany: I could publicize the fact that I’d written this book by writing a blog. It wouldn’t require a publisher or an agent up front, and it would, of course, go viral — just like those vapid little “influencers” who tell you what cosmetics to use and what TV shows to watch and what cruises to take. Surely I’m worth as much as they are. Right?
Well, apparently not. I love writing my blog every day and — as I hit that “Publish” key, and “Share” to FB — feeling that thrill of anticipation that this is the one that will do it for me. And I adore the half dozen or so loyal friends who actually show up to read my words.
But no publisher. No agent. No viral. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
Still, it hasn’t been a total loss — not by any means. Because aside from the nearly orgasmic pleasure of reaching for that “Publish” key every day, I have — to my everlasting surprise — discovered so much just from scanning through FB’s endless variety of offerings.
For example, just today I learned . . .
– that actor Donald Sutherland would have been 89 years old today . . . if he hadn’t died last month.
The Late Donald Sutherland
– that some guy I never heard of is happy to help out around the house because he appreciates everything his wife does.
– that some crazy lady I never heard of is happy to welcome the black bears that regularly show up on her porch and climb her trees.
– that the British royal family is always “freaking out” about something or other.
– that there is a thing called the “Great Pumpkin Tabletop Tree,” featuring Peanuts characters, for your Halloween decor — and it will only set you back $139.99.
– that Kanye West’s new wife showed up nearly naked in public again . . . and again wasn’t arrested.
Sorry, folks — nothing to see here.
– that someone I knew years ago had some yummy food today.
– that another woman I don’t know loves her grandchildren.
– the meaning of the lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody. (At last, something useful!).
– how to paint flowers on a rock.
– where to buy all sorts of weird stuff.
– that a lot of people get sucked into buying all sorts of weird stuff. Every single day.
– that David Hasselhoff is 72. (Whoa!)
“The Hoff” (in 2022)
– that AI still has trouble replicating people’s hands . . . and the stairs in “Tiny Houses.”
– that Tiny Houses apparently don’t have bathrooms or closets.
– that there is a frightening number of Bridezillas (and other “zillas”) out there.
– that baby animals are adorable. (Okay, I already knew that.)
– that a lot of sleazy people will do anything for publicity. (Knew that, too.)
– that a lot of stupid people will gladly bare their souls to the world, and actually ask millions of other stupid people they’ve never met for life-altering advice.
– and that once you post something on FB, unless you delete it, it never really goes away; it just keeps getting re-posted, and re-posted, and re-posted . . .
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And that’s just a small fraction of the content that’s out there, every single day. And I haven’t even mentioned all the ads for everything from the good stuff (like beautiful leather-bound books) to junk that will fall apart when you take it out of the package — if the package ever arrives in the first place and then you have to deal with your credit card company to get them to back out the charge so be really careful who you order stuff from because some of them aren’t really everything they say they are.
Not to mention names, but . . .
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There is an up-side, though. Just as I was beginning to think I’d been right all along, and that social media was a big fat waste of time and energy, I realized that I’d actually found a bunch of old friends (a few, sadly, in cemeteries) that I’d lost touch with years ago. And reconnecting with the live ones has been an indescribable joy.
Facebook has also enabled me to keep in touch with what’s going on in my neighborhood and general vicinity. I might otherwise never have known about the local Fourth of July festivities, or the upcoming repaving of our nearby main road. Or that an old friend has become a grandmother for the first time, and another is living the good life in Spain.
So I’ve decided that scrolling through Facebook is like shopping at a big discount store: you have to plow through a lot of tref before you finally get to the good stuff. But the good stuff can be amazing.
It’s not encouraging, but there is word from Vladimir Kara-Murza’s wife Evgenia . . . which I suppose is better than the long stretches of silence we’ve come to expect from the Putin regime.
Vladimir Kara-Murza (before transfer to hospital)
We know — but only learned after the fact — that on Thursday, July 4th, Kara-Murza was transferred from his “punishment cell” in the “special regime” prison colony at Omsk, Siberia, to the adjoining prison hospital, where he was held incommunicado for six days. Even his attorneys, who flew the 1,000 miles from Moscow to Omsk to meet with him, were told that he was unavailable and “still being evaluated.” Finally, on Wednesday, July 11th, his local Omsk counsel was able to see him, reporting that he was “stable” but “angry.”
And now another six days have passed with no updates. If anyone has been able to contact him since the 11th, I haven’t seen it reported in the mass media. But Evgenia Kara-Murza is not being quiet. She has described her reaction to the first news of his having been moved:
“I was very scared. You know, we’ve seen this before. Vladimir is a personal enemy of the Russian state. He still has the longest sentence served in modern Russia for political reasons, and his sentence might actually get longer in the coming months, years, because I think that they’re about to open a fourth criminal case against him. So, 25 years is not the limit for the Putin regime, and I know how they see him and I see how they treat him..” [Tom Watling, Independent (UK), July 16, 2024.]
25 Years of This (Illustration from New York Times)
But knowing that her husband was still alive brought little relief to Mrs. Kara-Murza. “When you think of a hospital, you think of a safe place, right? This hospital has nothing to do with what you think of as a hospital. He’s still in solitary. And the fact that he says that he’d rather be in his solitary cell at the prison colony of a strict regime, I think says a lot. Everything else is just as it was at the strict regime prison colony, only now he can barely see his lawyer on top of everything else and I am sure that he’s not being provided actual help.” [Watling Interview, id.]
Evgenia Kara-Murza has said she fears that time is “running out” for her husband, and that this transfer to the hospital is further evidence of Russia’s power over him. “There is no one else, besides the late Navalny, who is not allowed out of solitary for almost a year. So yes, of course, every time he disappears, even for a short period of time, I am extremely worried.”[Id.]
Knowing what happened to Alexei Navalny in February — when he was reported by the authorities at his prison camp to have died of “sudden death syndrome” — can anyone blame her?
The Blog About Everything … and Sometimes Nothing 