Well, that didn’t take long, and sadly, the result is less than surprising. Staff Sergeant Gordon Black (U.S. Army) has been found guilty by a Russian court of theft, assault, and threatening to kill his former girlfriend in Vladivostok. He pled not guilty and claimed self-defense, admitting that he did hit her but only after she drunkenly attacked him and tried to prevent him from leaving the apartment they had been sharing. He has been sentenced to three years and nine months in prison, and has said he will appeal the verdict and sentence. Meanwhile, he’s not going anywhere.
As stated in my earlier post today, Russia has another American hostage in their prison system . . . another human life with which to barter.
It sounds like the opening line of an old joke. But in this case, unfortunately it isn’t.
We’ve all made bad choices throughout our lives, some simply foolish and embarrassing, others perhaps more costly. But how many of us have truly been left wishing we were dead, rather than having to pay the high price of one really, really, really stupid mistake?
In the case of Staff Sergeant Gordon Black, that may be precisely what he has been thinking lately. Because this is the young American soldier — on his way to his home base in Texas but with two weeks’ leave after being stationed on assignment with the U.S. Army in South Korea — who decided it might be smart to detour first, without authorization, to visit his Russian girlfriend . . . in her home town of Vladivostok. Which, in case you weren’t aware, is in Russia.
Soulmates?
It was a movie-script meeting: young, naive American soldier walks into a bar where he meets a beautiful Russian woman who, for some reason, has been living in South Korea for five years and is currently working in this bar. They strike up an acquaintance and soon begin a romance that lasts until she returns to her native Russia. They continue communicating, and not long afterward he tells her that his tour of duty is ending and he will be returning to the U.S. for reassignment. But he has those two weeks of leave time, and she invites him to visit her in Vladivostok.
And here is where his brain becomes overwhelmed by his libido, and he decides it would be just peachy if he were to travel home to the U.S. by way of Russia — traveling first through China — without bothering to seek the requisite authorization from the Army. Which is what he does, in May of this year.
Initial Reaction: “You’re kidding . . . right?”And then the realization: “Holy f*ckin’ sh*t!!!
And so he steps off of the plane in Vladivostok, spends some time with the lovely Aleksandra, only to be confronted in his hotel by the local police and detained on charges of “criminal misconduct” — specifically, theft, assault, and threat to kill. And he never does make it back home, because it seems his “girlfriend” has accused him of all of the above.
Now comes the best part. By the time his trial is scheduled in June, he has allegedly admitted to the theft, though not to the charges of assault or threat to kill.
He confessed??!!! Are you serious??!!!
Apparently so . . . and in this case, his stupidity has kicked in without any encouragement from his libido — but quite likely with a good bit of “encouragement” from his captors. He confessed to having taken 10,000 Russian rubles, but with the intention of returning it before leaving Vladivostok. (Don’t get too excited about the amount — that’s just a little over $100 U.S. money.) Did they promise to go easy on him if he admitted to the least of the three charges? Quite possibly. But please don’t tell me he actually believed them!
His trial has started over there in the Primorsky territory in the far eastern region of Russia bordering China and North Korea, while his family, the U.S. Defense Department, and the rest of the world await the outcome.
Under Arrest
*. *. *
So now, Russia has another American hostage, ripe for questioning immediately and possibly for trading later. Each and every one of the political hostages, as far as we know, has continued to vehemently deny the charges against them. But not Staff Sergeant Black. Is he frightened? Well, who wouldn’t be? Perhaps the difference is that, unlike the others, he is actually guilty of something . . . at the very least, of having allowed himself to be trapped into this position in the first place. Did the Army not teach these young soldiers about “honey traps” before sending them overseas? And if so, wasn’t he paying attention? How many other “boyfriends” has his beloved Aleksandra enticed — or tried to entice — from the U.S. Army base while working at that bar? It’s the oldest trick in the world.
*. *. *
I have the utmost sympathy for Sergeant Black, as I do for anyone being held in a Russian prison on trumped-up charges. But in this case, he has to realize that he is responsible for his own poor decisions.
So is there a moral to this story? Well, of course there is! (I didn’t go through all of this just to leave you hanging.) The moral to Sergeant Black’s tragic tale has been heard before, in the immortal words of Forrest Gump’s beloved Mama:
“Stupid is as stupid does.” *
Unfortunately, what Staff Sergeant Gordon Black did was incredibly stupid.
Oh, what the hell . . . I have no patience with political correctness, so let’s just call it what it is. I’m short. I’ve always been short, and the older I get, the shorter I get. That’s not such a bad thing when you start out life as Shaquille O’Neal; but when your maximum adult height was 5’2 and 1/2” (that 1/2 inch was very important to me), shrinking is not something you look forward to. You know it’s inevitable, but so is death, and no one is going to be able to make you feel good about either one.
But there’s no need to rub it in!
You’re probably thinking that there are so many worse burdens that one could have to carry through life than just being vertically challenged, and you’re right. I have all of my limbs, all of my senses (except perhaps the one known as “common”), and no wart on the tip of my nose or Cyclops eye in the middle of my forehead. My brain is in reasonable working order, and I’ve already lived many years longer than predicted by the actuarial tables at the time of my birth. And yes, of course I’m grateful for all of those things. But still . . .
It could always be worse.
*. *. *
When you’re five years old and entering first grade (there was no kindergarten in my town in those days so everyone started first grade at five), it’s hard to suddenly find that you’re an object of special attention. My curse was twofold: first, my older sister had taught me to read, write, and do basic arithmetic from the age of three, so I was considered bright, which always makes you something of a pariah among your classmates; and second, I was short, which meant I always had to sit in the front row so I could see the blackboard and the teacher . . . and she could see me. And being of a somewhat mischievous nature, that made it really challenging to carry out my devilish little plots and schemes . . . although I did get better at it as I got older.
“What, is that all?” — I hear you ask. Uh-uh. Not by a long shot. Because, having been given a jump-start on the “three Rs,” I was deemed as wasting my time with all the “normal” kids in first grade, and they skipped me in the middle of the school year to second grade, because that’s what they did in those days. I was six by the end of the school year, when I was promoted to third grade with all the eight- and nine-year-olds.
Do you know how much a child grows in two years? To a short kid like me, it’s a lot. And here were all these big kids, and here was shrimpy me, sitting in the front row as usual . . . and having to stand on a freakin’ step stool to reach the freakin’ blackboard! But I hung in there. And since I was still just 16 when I graduated from high school, I never did catch up in height to most of my classmates — not that I was ever going to anyway.
How mortifying!
On the up-side, however, I did get to date the really cute short guys. You know, all the ones with Napoleon complexes . . .
Crap!!!
*. *. *
Then at last it was off into the real world, where I wore the highest heels my feet and back would tolerate, and still wound up looking most people directly in . . . the neck. I lost count of the strangers whose eyes I nearly poked out with my umbrella as I tried to navigate among the crowds on rainy days. And I know people got sick to death of hearing me ask for help hanging my coat on the hook that was always just that much too high, or to retrieve the file from the top file cabinet drawer.
Did I say it could always be worse? Yes, I did . . . and I know whereof I speak. Because having all five lumbar vertebrae fused later in life just added to the normal age-related shrinking thing. I have, by actual measure, now shrunk 4-1/2 inches (there’s that all-important half-inch again), to an impressive 4’10” in . . . what? I hesitate to call it “height” . . . let’s say, “vertical presence.”
And in just one minute of Google research, I learned today that I am officially — according to the advocacy group Little People of America — qualified as a Little Person. Just barely, as 4’10’ is their maximum acceptable height (average is 4 feet) . . . but still qualified, even though I wasn’t born with the condition known as dwarfism. Finally, after all these years of not fitting in, I have found my place among those wonderful, feisty, hard-working, smart, talented, lovable short folks.
So, screw all you tall people. I’m off to see the Wizard . . .
There I was, happily embarked on a more light-hearted note this week, when I decided to read Monday’s news reports. And there he was — my beloved Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesman — shooting off his mouth once more on behalf of his vozhd, Vladimir Putin. And when Dmitry speaks, I’ve found that it’s useful to pay attention. So let’s check out the latest from my hero . . . my source of all wisdom . . . my No. 1 favorite bullshit artist: give it up for Dmitry Sergeevich Peskov. (Round of applause, please.)
PESKOV, Dmitry Sergeevich
*. *. *
So . . . WOW!
According to Reuters (June 17, 2024), “The Kremlin said on Monday [that] a remark by NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg that the military alliance was holding talks on deploying more nuclear weapons was an ‘escalation of tension.’
“Stoltenberg told Britain’s Telegraph newspaper that NATO members were consulting about deploying more nuclear weapons, taking them out of storage and placing them on standby in the face of a growing threat from Russia and China.”
So this is an “escalation of tension,” eh? Well, it might have been . . . if it weren’t in reality a natural response to all those not-so-subtle hints at the use of nuclear weapons previously tossed around by Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev (Russia’s latest and loudest cold-war warrior), and by Vladimir Putin himself. Those weren’t “escalations of tension”?
Not An “Escalation of Tension”?
And when Medvedev again proclaims that Russia “was not bluffing when it spoke of the possibility of using tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine and warned [that] Moscow’s conflict with the West could escalate into all-out war . . . [that] Moscow’s conflict with the West was developing according to the worst case scenario and that ‘nobody today can rule out the conflict’s transition to its final stage’” [Reuters, May 31, 2024] — that’s not an escalation of tensions?
If it isn’t, I’d like to know what the hell is!
Dmitry Medvedev: “We’re not bluffing.”
For example:
When Russia massed its troops on the Ukrainian border and staged an all-out invasion of that sovereign nation on February 24, 2022 — that wasn’t an escalation of tensions?
But when Ukraine mobilized to defend itself, and sought help from its Western allies — that was aggression?
And when Ukraine refuses to simply give away pieces of itself because the bully on the playground demands it — that’s an escalation of tensions?
When NATO members, including those countries directly abutting Ukraine, dig down deep to help their democratic ally by providing non-nuclear weapons to prevent the spread of Russia’s territorial ambitions — that’s an escalation of tensions?
Flag of Sweden Being Added At NATO Headquarters
In the sick, twisted, Byzantine mindset of Vladimir Putin and his minions, that’s what we — the nations of the free world — are expected to believe. But we don’t . . . and we never will. Because we know better.
Take that message back to your boss, Dmitry Sergeevich.
In the early days of my blog, I wrote two very long chapters on my summer in Zlata Praha (Golden Prague) in 1991. There was so much that was simply magical about a city with a “modern” history going back more than a millennium; that in more recent times had survived the Nazi occupation of World War II and the 23-year Soviet occupation of 1968-1991; and that really knew how to celebrate the departure of the last of the Soviet troops . . . the very week that I arrived.
Old Town Square, Prague
But during a recent mental meandering through some of the more amusing episodes of my travels during the ‘80s, ‘90s and ‘00s (“aughts”?), two things somehow stood out from the Prague days . . . both involving dogs. And since wa-a-ay more people didn’t read my first posts than actually did, here are those two tales again. They still make me laugh, but I don’t know — maybe you had to be there, because . . . well . . . that’s Prague.
*. *. *
Meeting the Neighbors. I had been sent overseas for a few months by my American law firm to work in our newly-established Prague office. My apartment there was on the second floor of a generic Soviet-style building near the foot of a ridiculously steep hill. The hallway light operated on a timer and had to be switched on each time I entered the building or left my apartment, if I didn’t want to commit suicide on the uneven stairs. The apartment itself had a fairly large bedroom, and a small living room, where there was a wardrobe with a man’s clothes still hanging in it. (I never did find out who they belonged to, and no one ever came to claim them.) There was also a tiny bathroom where the hot water ran reddish-brown for several minutes before clearing enough for a quick shower. A sit-down bath was out of the question. The kitchen contained a working refrigerator, stovetop and sink; but I never learned to use the oven, which showed temperatures in centigrade, or the Russian-made microwave, which I was sure would zap me with some sort of deadly rays if I dared try.
My Old Neighborhood in Prague
But none of that mattered, as I only slept, showered, and changed clothes there. The rest of my time was spent at the office, followed by dinner every evening with one or more of my co-workers at any of the many outstanding restaurants the city had to offer, and sightseeing all weekend, every weekend. So there wasn’t a lot of opportunity to become acquainted with the neighbors.
But there was the night I met the Dobermans. No, not the nice Jewish couple next door; these two were from upstairs. When I got out of the taxi in front of my building after dinner one evening, there was a small group of men standing nearby, just talking and enjoying the mild summer air. One of them called out to me, but he was speaking Czech and I couldn’t understand him. Thinking they were just being neighborly, I gave them a friendly wave as I opened the door to my building . . . and was confronted in the pitch-dark hallway by two humongous, solid black, barking, snarling, drooling, straining-at-the-leash Doberman Pinschers, ears up and tails down, obviously looking for someone to kill. Someone like me.
Startled out of my wits, I did what anyone would have done when facing imminent death: I let loose with a primal scream . . . the dogs’ owner screamed in response . . . the dogs barked louder . . . and all the while the men on the street were roaring with laughter. That was what they had been trying to tell me: look out for the dogs, who had just come back from their evening walkies. And when my neighbor and I finally stopped screaming, we joined the others in laughing at ourselves. The dogs — who lived directly above me — finally turned off the bark machines, and my heart rate slowed to a survivable 120 or so. The Doberman couple turned out to be sweethearts, once they got to know me, and their owner was a very pleasant guy . . . though I would have preferred to meet them some other way. Any other way.
Howdy, Neighbors
*. *. *
And then there was . . .
The Minister’s Dog, who proved to me that in Prague, even a tragedy can end with a good laugh.
Dogs are treasured as pets in Europe, just as they are here in the U.S. And that included the dog belonging to the Czech Foreign Minister.
We had an American attorney working with us — a bright but spoiled young woman from a well-to-do family, who never quite adapted to the easy-breezy way of life in Prague. Our law firm had been retained by the new Czech government to advise and assist in formulating a new constitution and legal framework, and she — we’ll call her Valerie — had been assigned a desk at the Foreign Ministry where she worked pretty much full-time. As a convenience, she brought her lunch to work every day and kept it in the Minister’s refrigerator, as did many others.
Now, I have to insert here that Valerie was, shall we say, less than popular with the Ministry staff. She had way too much Attitude, with a capital “A.” On the day in question, the Foreign Minister was leaving town on government business, and had brought along his beloved dog — a terrier, I believe — to hand over to a friend who was going to care for the pooch during his master’s absence. The Minister parked in his usual spot in front of the building, opened the driver’s-side car door, and before he could turn around, his dog ran out into the street — and directly into the path of an oncoming vehicle. The poor baby was killed instantly as his owner watched, helpless.
Needless to say, the Minister was devastated, but was unable to cancel or postpone his official trip at the last moment. So he had to make some hasty arrangement for his dog until a burial could be planned for the following week. And this being Prague, the solution turned out to be . . . well . . . unique.
When Valerie arrived at the Ministry for work a little later that morning, no one took the trouble to warn her that anything was amiss. She went directly to the kitchen to put her lunch into the refrigerator, and had one item that needed to be kept frozen. So she opened the freezer door . . . and let out a SHRIEK that must have been heard in Belgium. Because in the freezer — staring sightlessly out at her, arms and legs akimbo, a silvery frost already forming on his fur and his little black nose and protruding pink tongue — was the Minister’s dog. The Minister’s dead dog. Sad . . . stiff . . . broken . . . bloody . . . undeniably, irretrievably dead doggie . . . without so much as a blanket or a newspaper to cover his sorrowful condition. And the shrieking continued, while all around her, Valerie’s co-workers were laughing their asses off. Not at the dog, of course, but at her. They really didn’t like her.
NOT the Minister’s Dog, Just a Cool Facsimile
You will be relieved to know, incidentally, that that sweet, unfortunate, cryogenically-preserved canine received what was reportedly a lovely burial the following week in the Minister’s home town, alongside all of his previous pets. I assume he was thawed first. The dog, not the Minister. Requiescat in pace — R.I.P., little pup.
Unlike myself after my meeting with the Dobermans, Valerie never did quite get over her canine encounter. It wasn’t so much the initial fright; but that woman really knew how to carry a grudge.
And Prague seemed intent on getting back at Valerie for not being happy there. Sometime during the summer, we suffered a city-wide power failure for nearly an entire day. As the locals were fond of saying, “Oh, well . . . that’s Prague.” While the rest of us enjoyed a lunch at a nearby restaurant, consisting of cold cuts and fresh vegetables, with potatoes cooked slowly over a huge collection of candles (Czech ingenuity at its finest), Valerie was stuck in the elevator at the Ministry. Stranded alone in the car, she again displayed her usual aplomb in times of crisis: she screamed, pounded the elevator door, screamed some more, repeatedly pushed the buttons to all the floors . . . and continued to holler for someone to get her the %#*#& out of there. When stressed, it seemed her upper-class upbringing went directly down the drain. She was, of course, ultimately rescued. But no one was in the least surprised — or in the least saddened — when she finally was granted a transfer back to the States.
Homeward Bound
*. *. *
But that was just Prague. Valerie may have considered it to be a living theatre of the absurd; but to me it was an endless tapestry of humanity at its best, and life as it is meant to be lived: freely, joyously, and always hopefully.
As reported just two days ago, there is an update on the status of HOSTAGE Evan Gershkovich . . . and it isn’t good. After being held in Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison for 441 days, without evidentiary support, he has finally been told that he will be returned to Yekaterinburg, where he was initially arrested, for trial on the charge of espionage.
Quite obviously, “due process of law” is defined differently in Russia than in the United States, or in the rest of the free world — 441 days without being formally charged!
Evan Gershkovich, Prisoner
For more than a year, Gershkovich has been the subject of intense negotiations — initiated by the United States — for a prisoner swap. He came close earlier this year, when there was talk of a “package deal” — Gershkovich, fellow American HOSTAGE Paul Whelan, and possibly Russian dissident Alexei Navalny — in exchange for Russian hit man Vadim Krasikov, convicted and imprisoned in Germany for the flagrant daytime assassination of a Chechen warlord. But that negotiation collapsed when Navalny suddenly and mysteriously died in the Siberian penal colony where he was serving combined 30-year sentences on bogus charges of “extremism.”
Vadim Krasikov
Why the sudden movement by the Russian legal system (such as it is) on Gershkovich’s case? In the labyrinthine mind of Vladimir Putin, there could be any number of reasons. The one that leaps immediately to my mind is an ultimatum: there is something he wants, and wants badly enough to use an innocent young man’s life as collateral. And — like a child on the playground — if he doesn’t get his own way, he’ll simply take his toys and go home.
But the stakes here are not a game. And Putin knows it. So, as always, we wait for him to show his hand.
Just sayin’ . . .
Brendochka 6/16/24
*. *. *
And please — once again — let us not forget the other HOSTAGES, still wasting away in various Russian prisons and penal colonies for the simple act of disagreeing with Vladimir Putin’s increasingly onerous edicts. It is for them that this regular Sunday posting is written.
To those known . . .
Vladimir Kara-Murza – HOSTAGE Evan Gershkovich – HOSTAGE Paul Whelan – HOSTAGE Ilya Yashin – HOSTAGE Robert Woodland Romanov – HOSTAGE Boris Akunin – HOSTAGE Marc Hilliard Fogel – HOSTAGE Asya Kazantseva – HOSTAGE Ilya Barabanov – HOSTAGE Alsu Kurmasheva – HOSTAGE Aleksandr Skobov – HOSTAGE Antonina Favorskaya – HOSTAGE Oleg Orlov – HOSTAGE Boris Kagarlitsky – HOSTAGE Oleg Navalny – HOSTAGE Ksenia Karelina – HOSTAGE Ksenia Fadeyeva – HOSTAGE Lilia Chanysheva – HOSTAGE Vadim Ostanin – HOSTGE Sergei Udaltsov – HOSTAGE Konstantin Gabov – HOSTAGE Danuta Perednya – HOSTAGE Olesya Krivtsova – HOSTAGE Staff Sgt. Gordon Black – HOSTAGE
. . . and those hundreds of others whose names remain unknown to me . . . you are not forgotten, nor have you been abandoned. The fight continues on your behalf.
18-oz. box of Shredded Wheat – $5.31 52 ozs. (not even half a gallon) of milk – $5.65 15 ozs. (just shy of a pound) of butter – $5.41 1 baking potato – $0.84 1 can Progresso Minestrone – $3.43 1 Stouffer’s frozen entree (single serving) – $4.31 1 3.6-oz. cup of Haagen Dazs ice cream (my guilty pleasure) – $1.93
I’m over $25 already, and I only have some odds and ends and a dessert. Okay, and a couple of extra bowls of cereal. But no meat, no veggies, no fruit yet — not even a loaf of bread ($4.97). So what is wrong with this picture?
Nothing, if you’re wealthy. But how many of us are? Come on . . . raise your hand if you’re filthy stinkin’ rich. Nobody? I thought not. Because those one-percenters aren’t reading my blog or surfing on Facebook. They’re snacking on caviar and champagne aboard their yachts on the Mediterranean, when they’re not working 24/7 to earn their next hundred million.
*. *. *
So what’s my point? Um . . .
Wait a minute . . . I know I had a point here somewhere. It was . . . Oh, right! It wasn’t to moan and groan about inflation, or Medicare, or Elon Musk’s most recent $48,000,000,000 (that’s $48 Billion) compensation package from Tesla — although I could find a few choice things to say about that last one.
No, it’s just that the cost of this week’s groceries brought me back a few years . . . actually, a lot of years . . . to when I was 13, and my grandmother came to stay with us while my mother was in the hospital for ten days.
First, Mother wasn’t in danger of dying. In fact, she wasn’t even sick. She was having cataract surgery on one eye, which in those days was a huge deal: both eyes patched so she couldn’t watch TV, read, or see anything at all. And her head was sandbagged so she couldn’t move it. It was horrible. The last thing she needed was to worry about my sister and me, so our Bubbe came down from Rhode Island to D.C. to make sure we didn’t destroy the apartment, or run off with a couple of losers from the neighborhood. And to cook for us, which was the best part. I know I’ve mentioned her cooking before, more than once.
Just like Bubbe’s
So while Mom lay immobilized in the hospital, we ate like princesses. And while I was at school and my sister at work during the day, our already clean apartment got cleaned again to within an inch of its life, while the neighbors gathered in the hallway to try to determine where the incredible side-by-side odors of cleaning products and stuffed cabbages were coming from.
On her second or third day there, Bubbe found her way, by herself, to the grocery store for provisions, for which our mother had given her money before leaving for the hospital. And when I got home from school that day, she was practically in tears.
“Bubbe, what on earth is the matter?”
“Oh, your mother’s going to be so mad at me. I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, tell me what you’ve done. It can’t be that bad.”
I figured at the very least she had broken one of my mother’s treasured Hummel figurines.
Taking a deep breath — more of a sob — she finally blurted out: “Well, I went to the store. You know, the one up the street?”
“By yourself? You should have waited for me to go with you!”
“What am I . . . a little girl you should have to walk with me? I can go to a store by myself. Anyway, I bought a chicken for roasting, and a brisket, and some potatoes and carrots and onions, and a few other things . . . “
“Yeah, yeah, fine. But what’s the problem?”
More inhaling/sobbing. Then, finally: “She’s going to kill me. I didn’t know everything was so expensive here. I spent five dollars!”
Five Whole Dollars
Oh! My! God! She spent five dollars!
And I did what any loving, respectful granddaughter would have done to make her grandmother feel better: I laughed. Because even in those days (somewhere in the 1950s), five dollars — the cost of a loaf of bread today — was not a lot for groceries.
After Bubbe stopped yelling at me for being so rude and unfeeling, I was able to calm her down by explaining to her what we usually spent on a week’s groceries, and everyone felt better. And we three ate like royalty for several days on that same five dollars.
To keep things in perspective, however, let me explain that my mother and my sister each had office jobs that paid — before taxes — $50 a week. Our rent, as I recall, was something like $75 a month for an ordinary, un-air-conditioned, two-bedroom apartment. And my mother managed to put aside the money to pay for my weekly piano lessons.
It was a very different world then. We didn’t have a car, so we walked or rode the bus everywhere. We didn’t have desktops, laptops, iPads or iPhones, so we read a lot more books and played board games. And we talked to each other . . . face-to-face . . . about everything.
Quality Family Time
And we didn’t know about cholesterol, or sodium, or ketoacidosis, so when Bubbe told us to “clean our plates because there were children starving in Europe,” we happily complied. I never pointed out to her that my eating every bite of my dinner wasn’t going to help those poor starving children; it would have broken her heart. And I couldn’t do that; I loved her too much.
The ten days passed quickly — though not so much for our poor, sandbagged mother. She did survive it, of course, and by the time she had the cataract removed from the other eye years later, it had become an outpatient procedure and my sister and I were old enough not to need a visit from Bubbe. In any event, she had passed away by then, taking with her the secret of how to feed three people for a full week on five dollars.
*. *. *
So would I give up my air-conditioning, my car, my electronics, and all of today’s other sources of comfort and instant gratification to go back to those simpler days? I know my answer to that question. What’s yours?
In my day, it might have been two Roy Rogers for one Gene Autry. But for generations, kids have been swapping trading cards, or Hot Wheels, or a couple of Twinkies for a bag of chips.
In today’s adult world, the hot commodity is people.
This week’s news, even for Putin’s Russia, is so far beyond the pale as to be nearly inconceivable. But they have gone and done it: they have — after detaining him without formal charges for more than a year in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo Prison — formally charged Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich with espionage, accusing him of spying for the CIA. If convicted, he could receive a sentence of up to twenty years in prison. (See my blog post of March 27, 2024, if you’re not familiar with his case.)
Evan Gershkovich, American Journalist
Russian prosecutors said the FSB (Federal Security Service) had “established and documented” that Gershkovich was acting on CIA instructions in “collect[ing] secret information” about a Russian tank factory. According to the charges, he had “carried out the illegal actions using painstaking conspiratorial methods.” [Anna Chernova, Christian Edwards and Jennifer Hansler, CNN, June 13, 2024.]
Is this happening now because, during the past 14 months, their investigators have found some new, plausible evidence to support these charges? Nope.
Is it because Gershkovich has actually confessed to some activity that could reasonably be construed as spying? Definitely not.
Or is it because the Russian standard for the acceptable parameters of a journalist’s job is so detached from reality and from worldwide accepted norms as to be unrecognizable? No, it isn’t even that — not in this case.
To put it as simply as possible, Evan Gershkovich, hostage, has now become Vladimir Putin’s No. 1 pawn in a deadly game of political chess. They want a swap. We are amenable to a swap, and in fact have been trying to negotiate a resolution for over a year. But what they want is not a fair trade . . . nor is it a simple one. What they apparently desire in exchange for this innocent journalist is a vicious, admitted killer-for-hire: Vadim Krasikov, a former colonel in Russia’s FSB, successor to the KGB, currently serving a life sentence in Germany following his conviction for assassination of a former Chechen fighter in broad daylight in Berlin in 2019.
Vadim Krasikov, KGB Killer
To Russia, however, this butcher is a hero. In Putin’s own words, delivered in his now notorious interview with the equally notorious right-wing nut job Tucker Carlson: “Listen, I’ll tell you: sitting in one country, a country that is an ally of the United States, is a man who, for patriotic reasons, eliminated a bandit in one of the European capitals.”
Could you ask for a clearer example of a double standard? He has already succeeded in getting back infamous arms dealer Viktor Bout in exchange for basketball star Brittney Griner, despite refusing to include American Paul Whelan (and possibly Russian dissident Alexei Navalny) in that negotiation. (Those talks fell through when Navalny suddenly and mysteriously died in the Siberian prison camp in which he was serving a 30-year combined sentence.) And now Putin wants another of his ignominious criminals released.
But there is a major problem in this case, and that is that Krasikov is not in America’s jurisdiction; he is in prison in Germany. And yes, Germany is our ally, and a member of NATO. But it is not our puppet, or anyone else’s. We cannot order Chancellor Scholz to install a traffic light on Berlin’s Friedrichstrasse, much less release a convicted murderer in a deal with Russia. It just doesn’t work that way.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz
And even if we were able to convince Chancellor Scholz that it would be in everyone’s best interests to do so, wouldn’t he be well within his rights to expect a little something in return? Perhaps there’s a German citizen being wrongfully detained in Russia on some spurious charge? Or maybe there is nothing — not a single thing — that Germany wants from Russia at this point in time. Whatever the circumstances, this is a three-way negotiation, not simply a tit-for-tat between Russia and the United States.
It’s complicated.
And in the meantime, Evan Gershkovich sits in Lefortovo Prison, awaiting transfer to an equally dismal facility in Yekaterinburg where he was originally arrested, and where he will look forward to further incarceration and ultimately to a sham trial and an inevitable guilty verdict. And more and more hostages keep piling up in Russia’s archipelago of prisons and penal colonies, while the best we and our allies can do is negotiate within the limits of international law.
Sometimes, life simply isn’t fair.
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Postscript: And if you happen to be a fan of irony, or farce imitating reality, or simply a good laugh, I’ve got one for you. Earlier this week, Tatyana Moskalkova, Russia’s Human Rights Commissioner (and if that isn’t an oxymoron, I’ve never heard one), appealed to senior United Nations and other officials “to take action to secure the release of Russian nationals still held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.” [Reuters, June 11, 2024.]
Russian Human Rights Commissioner, Tatyana Moskalkova
Writing on the Telegram messaging app, she said she had met in Moscow with relatives of the hostages still being held (of whom there were originally eight, three having already been released): “In one conversation, one of the mothers told me details of the situation of those being held.” Following that meeting, she appealed to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross “for the rapid return home of our compatriots.” [Reuters, id.]
Seriously??!!!
Well, perhaps she’d like to discuss a swap with the head of Hamas in Gaza for some of the hostages being held by her own government; I’m sure there must be an Islamist or two somewhere in Russia. Then she and Putin would find out how it feels to be on the receiving end of someone else’s middle finger.
I know what you younger readers are thinking: “How can she possibly remember back that far?” Well, that’s one of the many, many, many strange and unexpected things about getting older. You can’t remember whether your socks are supposed to go on your feet or hang from your ears; but you recall every last detail of every date you had from the time you were thirteen, including what you were wearing. It’s kind of cool, really.
So yes, I can recount practically every hour of that 18th day of March of nineteen-whatever-year A.D. it was. Birthdays were still a big deal then, and more so because my birthday was also my sister Merna’s half-birthday (and vice-versa, obviously). She was five and a half years older, and we had spent most of our lives fighting as only sisters can do. But when it was her birthday or mine, it was dinner together in one of Washington’s finest restaurants. And that year it was my favorite: Costin’s Sirloin Room, in the National Press Building at 14th and F Streets, N.W. The building is still there, but sadly, the restaurant isn’t. It’s too bad, both because the food and service were phenomenal, and because I believe they hung a plaque in my honor on that marble column. I’m not sure, though, as I never did return after that day . . .
The National Press Building
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s back up to earlier in the day. I was working in a small law firm, and had made sure everyone knew it was my birthday so that I would be deluged with “Happy Birthday” greetings as soon as I walked in the door that morning. I didn’t let anyone take me to lunch, though, because I was — as usual in those days — on a strict diet; and knowing I was scheduled for a huge dinner that evening, I had decided a liquids-only fast was in order until then.
But champagne is liquid . . . right? And my boss — a wonderful guy named Frank — had brought a bottle specifically for the occasion. At around 4:30, he declared the working day over, and he and I withdrew to his office, popped the cork of that bottle . . . and finished it off, just the two of us — me on an empty stomach — after which I drove home. (I know, I know, but I was young and stupid . . . not that that’s a legitimate excuse, but we’ve all done things we’d rather not confess to . . . )
So I drove home, fixed dinner for my two little ones, changed into something pretty, left the kids with my mother, and took off to fetch my sister and begin the evening’s festivities. And I felt fine.
Now, about that something pretty. It was a silk “tent” dress, above-the-knee length, and made to be gathered and belted at the waist. And at the time, I was a tiny size six, with kind of an hourglass figure: Dolly Parton on top, Scarlett O’Hara in the middle, and almost — but not quite — Kardashian on the hips, but without the huge dirigible in the rear. So that dress got belted as it was meant to be. In case you’re wondering, the dress plays a starring role later in this drama.
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There was an extra person with us at dinner that evening: the boyfriend of a friend of Merna’s who was visiting from the west coast. He was anticipating a really good meal, but not the floor show that went with it . . .
A page of the actual menu. Check out the price!
I recall starting the evening with one — just one — whiskey sour, then launching into my favorite Costins meal: fresh-baked crusty rolls with their secret-recipe cheese spread, salad, and a whopping slab of prime rib practically hanging off the edges of the plate. The baked potato, loaded with sour cream of course, was on a separate plate. And when I think of it now, I want to vomit.
These days, I’d be full after a piece of bread and the salad; but back then, I had an appetite like a longshoreman’s, and I hadn’t eaten since yesterday. So that beautiful, juicy, perfectly rare hunk of bovine was not going to waste . . . to my waist, maybe, but not to waste. (Don’t you love the English language?)
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After finally putting down our forks and knives and allowing the waiter to remove our plates with the few remaining scraps, we were in the middle of a very pleasant discussion of the dessert menu when I announced to my dinner companions that I was not feeling very well. Merna took one look at me, stood up, took me by the arm, and we headed back to the ladies’ room at the other end of the restaurant. And about halfway there, we came to that big marble column I mentioned earlier . . .
Almost, but not quite.
I felt myself going. I reached for the column . . . and missed. As I slid slowly toward the floor, my first and only thought was, “Oh, Merna’s going to be so pissed.” The next thing I knew, one of the wonderful Costin’s waiters was standing behind me, hands in my armpits, trying to pull me up onto my feet. And then I had a second thought: “My dress!” It was short, it was silk, and it was sliding rapidly north. As the waiter pulled me upward, I grabbed the skirt of the dress and pulled down. He pulled up; I pulled down. He pulled up . . . Well, you get the picture. I finally managed to reach a vertical position without having exposed too much of my Kardashian end (I hope), just as the waiter guided me two steps to my left and into a chair . . . at a table across from two men apparently engaged in an intense business discussion.
“Well, hello there.”
No, they didn’t actually say it — in fact, they didn’t say anything. They were dumbstruck. But never one to let a moment pass without some sort of comment, I looked at them, somewhat glassy-eyed, mumbled “I’m not drunk, honestly” . . . as my forehead hit the table and it all went dark once more. Luckily — the only real bit of luck during this entire time — there was no food on my side of the table.
Yeah, sort of like that.
I was told I was only out for a moment. When I sat up — and offered an abject apology to the two men, who still hadn’t uttered a sound — I was able, with Merna’s support, to make it back to the ladies’ room, where I splashed a little cold water on my face and sat for a few minutes. Then — and I still can’t believe I did this — we returned to our table, where I ordered a huge slice of Costin’s famous rum pie and washed down every last crumb with a cup of tea.
And then I drove home.
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There was something magical — in an evil sense, not a good one — about that 30th birthday. For whatever reason, it hit me hard, as though the number 30 indicated the end of the best years of my life. For the next four or five years, I told people I was “29 and holding,” until my smart-mouthed daughter — by then aged eight or nine — said to give it up; no one was going to believe me for much longer anyway.
And so it goes. The following decades were somehow easier, and in fact, some of my best years were yet to come. I guess I just adjusted to the idea that I wasn’t Peter Pan. It’s either that, or drive yourself and everyone around you batshit crazy. Sometimes I would still jokingly tell people I was 29 and holding, and you know what? My daughter was right . . . they didn’t believe me.
Forever Young
Since every story needs a moral, I suppose mine is simply this:
Tempus fugit . . . and we are all destined to fugit with it. No sense trying to lie about it.
One of the many places in this wide world that I’ve always wanted to see is Australia. Long before “Crocodile Dundee” came along to alter my perception of what a real man should be, there was 1960’s “The Sundowners.” What could be sexier than Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr going toe-to-toe in the Outback? And as though that weren’t enough to entice me, there was the young man in my office who went there on vacation in the early ‘80s, came home, sold everything, and went back to Australia to stay. When last heard from, he was deliriously happy.
The Crocodile Man
So yes, I’d love to see it. But to live there? Well, that’s a whole other ball game. It’s not the rigors of living in the Outback, or what we Americans would call the countryside. I’m a city girl, and I would undoubtedly choose life in Sydney, or Brisbane, or the capital city of Canberra. (Bet you thought it was Sydney, didn’t you?) And it’s not because of the climate, or the economy, or the governmental structure — they’re all fine. I wouldn’t even have to learn a new language — just some local idioms. I already know the chorus to “Waltzing Matilda.” So it’s none of those things.
No; quite simply, it’s . . . the wildlife.
Talk about diversity! And there are many, many more.
Aside from the familiar — and oh, so lovable — kangaroos and koalas, and wombats and wallabies, there is a list as long as my arm of the strangest, most baffling, and often most terrifying land, sea and air denizens. And while I’ve always been an animal lover, I’ve come to realize that that does not include all animals.
Thanks once more to the wonders of Google, I found a list of about 50 that are native to Australia, most of which I’ve never heard of, and a few I can barely pronounce. If I were talented enough, I’d probably write a little poem for each animal in the style of the inimitable Ogden Nash. (Examples of his: “The cow is of the bovine ilk; one end is moo, the other, milk.” And, on the subject of courting: “Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.” How do you compete with that?)
Maybe another day. For now, just allow me to introduce you to some of the most unusual, and mostly really scary, critters from the Southern Hemisphere.
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It’s not poetry, but I do have a silly tune running through my brain now, written by Sheb Wooley in 1958 about a mythical creature: “It was a one-eyed, one-horned, flyin’ purple people eater . . .” Let’s try this, to the same tune:
“It is a duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed marsupial . . .”
I tried to work in “egg-laying mammal” and “semi-aquatic” as well, but they didn’t fit. And this very real creature, by the way, has the additional asset of an uber-cute name: it is called Platypus. You’ve no doubt heard of it, but probably never encountered one unless you live in Australia. And did you know it’s also one of the few species of venomous mammals, having a spur on its hind foot that carries a reportedly very painful venom? So if you do happen to see one, I wouldn’t recommend challenging it to a kick-boxing match.
The Unimaginable, Un-rhymable Platypus
By the way, I tried really hard to find something — anything — that would even vaguely rhyme with “platypus,” but failed miserably. Where is Ogden Nash when you need him? (Sadly, deceased for some 50-plus years.)
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One absolutely adorable little fellow I ran across is the Quokka. He is described as “a small hopping marsupial with an almost human-like smile, earning it the nickname ‘the world’s happiest animal.’ It has a rounded body, greyish-brown fur, small ears and large dark eyes.” Don’t entertain thoughts of ever owning one, however . . . they’re listed as endangered.
A happy little Quokka: He just quokks me up!
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And now from the benign to the deadly, since they are the reason I will never set foot on Australian soil (that, and the cost of the plane fare):
The Tasmanian Devil — no, not “Taz” of Looney Tunes fame — earned its name because of “its blood-curdling screams, eerie growls, black color, foul odor, and aggressive behavior. It is the world’s largest carnivorous marsupial and prefers to eat dead animals.” Yeah, okay . . . got it. Stay away from the Devil.
Tasmanian Devil
Box Jellyfish. The most venomous animal in the world. Did you hear that? The most venomous animal in the world. Do you want me to repeat it in ALL CAPS?!! Its sting can kill a human in less than two minutes. It lives in the warm waters off the coast of Australia and the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and — I guess this is supposed to be reassuring — “is not aggressive toward humans.” But it lives in warm, shallow waters that are popular with swimmers, so sometimes sh*t happens. Its most recent known victim was a 14-year-old boy who died of its sting in 2022. I can take a hint.
Box Jellyfish
Redback Spider. The second most dangerous spider in the world. It’s the females — the ones with a red stripe on top of their bodies — that you have to watch out for. The male is tiny and harmless, and is often eaten by the female after mating. A bite from a female can be fatal to a human. Frankly, when it comes to spiders, I never get close enough to look for a red stripe or any other marking.
Female Redback Spider
And not to be outdone is the No. 1 deadliest and most aggressive spider in the world: the Funnel Web Spider, whose bite can kill a human in 15 minutes — 15 long, agonizing minutes during which you’re praying for the Deity to just take you already. It looks like any old black spider to me, which makes it doubly dangerous. Its diet consists of crawling insects and small animals. Being a fairly small animal myself, I’m giving this one a wide berth.
Funnel Web Spider
Eastern Brown Snakes. I generally like snakes, but I’ll pass on this one. The second most venomous snake in the world, they are responsible for the most snakebite fatalities in Australia. They feed on vertebrates, frogs, lizards, birds, mammals, and eggs. Got that? Vertebrates. Mammals. Doesn’t that include people?
Eastern Brown Snake
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Okay, I’m seeing a definite trend here. Australia is not a destination of choice for the squeamish, or those who prefer to live to a ripe old age. That would include me, so you now know why my dream of someday seeing the land down under will most likely never come true.
But, not to be too morbid, let’s close with a couple of cuties I hadn’t heard of previously.
Black Swan. Well, actually I had heard of this one — in my all-time favorite ballet, Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake.” She was the evil swan, Odile. But the real black swan is “a large water bird with striking black plumage, a long neck, and a red bill. It makes high-pitched musical bugle-like sounds. [It] is omnivorous, feeding on aquatic plants, insects, and small animals.” Black swans can reach a top flying speed of 80 k.p.h., and often fly in a wedge formation. They have an impressive lifespan of up to 40 years. Charmingly, one of several names for a group of black swans is “a ballet.” A ballet of swans. Probably not a coincidence.
Black Swan (San Francisco Zoo)
And finally . . .
Antechinus. This is a cute little mouse-like marsupial, usually grey, brown, black, or golden-colored. It preys on insects and small animals, and at first seemed rather innocuous . . . until I read that “They have a suicidal oversexed sexual behavior.” You read that correctly: The male literally mates itself to death!
So how have they not screwed themselves into extinction?
Antechinus (either female, or prepubescent male)
I think that’s as good a place as any to end this.
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