Putin: Required Background Reading

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If you really want to understand what Vladimir Putin is doing to Ukraine, you should read about what he did in Chechnya shortly after he attained power. Anna Politkovskaya was a brilliant Russian journalist who was unafraid of speaking truth to power. She wrote a number of criticisms of Putin that were so to the point that he had her murdered in front of her apartment in 2006.

Oh, there was a murder trial, to be sure. And Putin, in true Caligula fashion, tsk-tsked at the crime. (You can read his lying words here in a post I wrote eight years ago.) Several people were sentenced, but they were no doubt thugs who had outlived their usefulness to the Motherland and were disposed of to protect the presidente.

Anyhow, this is the book I recommend you read. It is called A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya. I doubt that it is still in print, but you can likely find it in a good library or order it on the Internet from a used book site like Abebooks.Com or Addall.Com. What Putin is doing to Ukraine now is what he did to Chechnya in the First and Second Chechen Wars.

If you are hoping that the bloodletting will end soon, don’t bet on it. When things don’t go his way, Mr. Vladimir thinks nothing of widespread rapine and destruction and certainly doesn’t care what YOU may think.

I was thinking of adding a picture of Putin, but you surely know by now what that ugly mother looks like. I would rather honor Anna Politkovskaya because she was brilliant, brave, and fearless. Not to mention beautiful.

Flying Mercator

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Patrick Smith’s Ask the Pilot blog raises some interesting issues regarding the effects of the war in Ukraine on global aviation:

THE RUSSIAN invasion of Ukraine is impacting commercial aviation on multiple fronts — as wars tend to do. It remains to be seen how long the effects last, or how deeply they’ll be felt. Will NATO countries join the fight? Will tourists shy away from European destinations in general? Even in a best case scenario, this is the last thing the airline industry needs, just as the coronavirus pandemic appears to be winding down.

For starters, Russia has closed off its airspace to foreign carriers. The big issue here isn’t so much the cancellation of flights to and from Russian cities, but rather those routes overflying Russian territory, especially the country’s northern areas, including Siberia. Russia is a gigantic piece of land, and hundreds of long-haul flights overfly these regions weekly on routes connecting Europe and North America with Asia.

This might not make sense if you’re looking at a flat map or atlas; you need a globe to better visualize it. The shortest distance from the U.S. to India, for example, goes more or less due north, up over Siberia and down through the very heart of Russia. A flight from the U.K., France or Germany headed to Japan, China or Korea, similarly relies on Russian airspace.

United Airlines has suspended its flights to Delhi, but on the whole it’s the Asian and European airlines who are feeling the pain. Most flights between the U.S. and Pacific Rim cities can be re-routed without much trouble. This isn’t so for flights between Asia and Europe. Alternate routings are possible — down through the Gulf, across India and such — but they’re substantially longer, in some cases requiring a stopover. Not only does this increase fuel costs, it wreaks havoc with logistics, crew staffing and scheduling. Longer travel times mean that passengers can no longer make onward connections, and so on. It’s a very expensive problem, with disruptions rippling through an airline’s operation.

It seems that airlines will be reduced to plotting flights using Mercator projection maps, being deprived of the right to fly over Russian airspace. That means longer, more roundabout flights and greater expense of fuel. Read Patrick’s full post for more info.

Wretched Excess

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Burger at Las Vegas’s Heart Attack Grill

I have mentioned the Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas recently. Today, I called my friend Bill Korn, who was marveling at the menu of the place. Granted that Vegas is no stranger to wretched excess, but the Heart Attack Grill draws people to it who should—if they value their lives—be more careful about what they eat.

On Monday, Presidents’ Day, I was shocked to see the place full. Customers were chowing down on mountains of sugars and fats wearing hospital gowns and sitting in wheelchairs, being served by sexy waitresses in full nursing garb. It is a known fact that at least two customers have died at their tables from meals they should have avoided.

Standing outside on a cold and windy day, I shook my head and wondered what has happened to the American people.

Look, Guys, those nurse/waitresses are awfully cute, but they won’t accompany you to Valhalla or wherever it is that people who make bad decisions about their lives go.

There is something about Vegas that seems to cater to the worst side of the American id. Technically, sex for hire is against the law in Clark County (but not in nearby Pahrump and other rural towns in Nevada). But there’s nothing illegal about giving you obscene amounts of food.

Sometimes I think one gets more out of Vegas by observing than by participating. Come to think of it, we didn’t do any gambling, either.

Because It Is Bitter…

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The following poem by Stephen Crane is short and cryptic. But it sticks in one’s craw. And the last two lines were taken by Joyce Carol Oates as a title for one of her novels.

In the Desert

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;

“But I like it
“Because it is bitter,
“And because it is my heart.”

Of Sunflowers and Patriotism

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I feel humbled by the patriotism of the Ukrainian people in the face of a Russian invasion. This came home to me when I saw a viral video on YouTube of a Russian grandmother in a knit hat confronting a Russian soldier. She offers him a handful of sunflower seeds to stuff in his pockets, so that when he is felled by Ukrainian bullets, from his body will spring sunflowers, which are the national flowers of the Ukraine.

The video is not of particularly good quality, but it makes its point clearly:

Several years ago, Martine and I went to a Ukrainian church festival at the Cathedral of Saint Vladimir in East Hollywood. We were the only non-Ukrainians there, but we were made to feel welcome. Songs were sung and patriotic poems were recited. We didn’t understand a word of them, but we were impressed by the people in attendance—and the food that was served.

I hope that somehow the Ukraine comes out of this mess in one piece, and that Vladimir Putin is punished for his cruelty. Ours is not a world where justice normally prevails, but, if anyone does, the Ukrainian people deserve a break for display unity and goodness in an otherwise damaged world.

For Chocoholics Only

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The Ethel M Cactus Garden

During the whole two years of the pandemic, I had difficulty convincing Martine to take any road trips with me (except for one day trip to Santa Barbara last June). I was interested in going to Las Vegas as I had read a couple of books about the Mafia control of the casinos in the 1970s and the early 1980s. But there was one argument I had which changed her mind: We would visit the Ethel M Chocolate Factory in Henderson, NV, just off the highway to the Boulder Dam.

That did the trick. I have eaten some scrumptious chocolate in my time, but none better than the candies produced by Ethel M. The “M” stands for Mars, the company which also produces M&Ms and is allied with Wrigley. As I understand it, Ethel Mars was the mother of the founders of the Mars candy empire, and the Ethel M Company is a subsidiary dedicated to her memory.

Martine at Ethel M’s Wall of Chocolates

It is fun to visit to factory—not only for the world class chocolates and the free yummy samples—but also for the extensive cactus garden which is maintained by the company.

This was perhaps our third visit to the Ethel M factory, and hopefully not our last.

Electrifying

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That’s a strange picture of me, sitting in the electric chair at the Mob Museum in Las Vegas. You may recall I wrote about the museum a couple weeks back (click here). Martine and I visited it last Tuesday and spent all day walking its three floors of organized skulduggery.

Little did I know when I sat down on the electric chair that my head size (normally I wear a size 7½ hat) would shrink by half. Now, instead of a hat, I go around wearing a thimble on my head. There was also a gas chamber chair, but I resolved not to sit in it lest my head size would shrink even further.

I thought that the museum would concentrate on crime in Las Vegas, but it actually covered the whole spectrum, concentrating particularly on the Mafia, but also including such figures as John Dillinger and Machine Gun Kelly.

We liked the museum so much that we think it is one of the best historical oriented museums we have ever visited. It ranks right up there with the three Presidential Libraries Martine and I have seen (Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and John F. Kennedy).

America as Seen from the “Fremont Experience”

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The Fremont Experience at Night

I fully expected that our trip to Las Vegas last week would make for some great people watching. That it did, in spades. We were in the downtown area at the Plaza Hotel, which is at the west end of Fremont Street and of the four-block Fremont Experience. Even though we were in town on a Monday through Thursday after a three-day weekend, the Fremont Experience was crowded. I attribute this partly to the cold temperatures and biting winds, which made the enclosed space a particularly desirable destination.

Here’s what I noticed about the tourists in downtown Vegas:

  1. Most of the tourists were obese. Those who were proud of their fat congregated in large numbers at the Heart Attack Café, where they sat in wheelchairs wearing hospital gowns and being waited upon by sexy “nurses.” By the way, the restaurants went in for quantity more than quality of food.
  2. Among the men, a large percentage had beards and frequently extensive tattoos—and not a Maori in sight!
  3. Many of the older tourists (and some of the younger ones) were in fancy motorized wheelchairs. Some of these disabled visitors (or did they just get tired of walking any more?) were grotesquely obese.
  4. It seemed to be de rigeur for most of the males and some of the women to be always clutching super-sized cocktails as they walked around. In fact, I was surprised how much drinking was going on at all times.
  5. Very few tourists were to be seen even one block north or south of the Fremont Experience. Martine, who did not like the Experience, was happy to walk around it to get to our destinations.
  6. There was loud pop music everywhere, mostly of the “Wall of Sound” variety, which gets on one’s nerves after a while.

Probably the tourists we saw were not representative of most Americans. If they were, I think I would feel even more isolated than I usually do.

Fortunately, Martine and I enjoyed ourselves even though we were not obese lushes tattooed liked escapees from a carnival.

Putin Screws the Pooch

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I cannot help but think that Vladimir Putin has made a serious misstep in his assumptions regarding Ukraine’s willingness to abide by his thuggish behavior. The Russians made the same assumptions that Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney made when we invaded Iraq in 2003: We were not in fact welcomed with flowers and candy, and, moreover, we are still there.

Ukraine has been an independent republic for some 33 years, and their independence as an idea has taken root among the Ukrainian people. Also, I don’t think the Russian army will be 100% behind committing atrocities against fellow Slavs who are also Orthodox Christians.

My guess is that Putin has also underestimated the will of the United States in opposing him after dealing with the likes of Donald J. Trump for four years. Biden may not be a genius, but compared to the Lardfather, he has a four-digit IQ.

The Long Way Back

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Back in the mid-1990s, Martine worked as a civilian employee at the Twentynine Palms Marine Air Ground Combat Center in the Yucca Valley. I remember when I picked her up there shortly after the 1995 Oklahoma City terrorist bombing and went with her through back roads in the Mohave Desert to Las Vegas.

On Monday as we were driving to Vegas on Interstate 15, Martine wondered how far we were from Twentynine Palms and expressed interest in seeing it again. So on the way back, I took the same route through the Mohave. Going southwest from Vegas, we took the I-15 south, got off on the Nipton exit and after several miles, turned right onto what was posted as Cima Road. From there, we turned onto the Morningstar Mine Road and took it until it ended at Kelso. There, we turned left onto Kelbaker Road headed south to Amboy. That ended on the old Route 66, the so-called National Trails Highway. Turning right, we drove several miles to Amboy, site of the Bristol Dry Lake, which is mined by National Chloride. After Bristol, we crossed the railroad tracks and turned left on Amboy Road, which took us into Twentynine Palms.

Road Map of the Mohave National Preserve

This route was picturesque, especially with the Joshua Trees along Morningstar Mine Road and the huge Kelso Dunes, but it added over a hundred miles to our trip back, and had me driving to L.A. on Interstate 10 during evening rush hour.

It was worth it, however. Martine got a chance to see how Twentynine Palms had changed over the years. In short, it was more populous, but still looked pretty much the same.

Martine Reminiscing with USMC Flag

I realize I haven’t said anything about Las Vegas yet. So I’m going backward. Stay tuned for more details about our trip, which will appear in the usual helter skelter order.