12/7/2021

MDF&P, JRB,

            I’m getting my booster today. Yeah, me! I have to drive over to Sacto to get it so I am planning to do several errands as well. I try to be strategic when I use my car, to get as much accomplished as possible so I can minimize my carbon footprint. How are you doing with minimizing yours?

            As I am writing this, you are talking with VVP. I hope that goes well. Experts disagree about his intentions. Heck, he probably changes his intentions frequently. I feel sorry for the people of Ukraine, being caught in the middle of all of this. Did you know that Ukraine means “border land” & they have been the frontier between competing empires for centuries? At one point, Kyiv was the most powerful state in Europe. Since then, the Cossacks have tried to dislodge various foreign rulers & since 1783 the tsars have tried to “russify” it. Catherine, the Great, sent German farmers there to “dilute the Turkish population” &, as you know, in 1932, Stalin tried a similar thing. Some say the Ukraine is a “trauma wrapped in a trauma.” President Zelensky was a Russian-language comedian, so there must be a lot of Russian speaking folk there. So maybe VVP is on to something when he says that the Russians and Ukrainians are one.

            I hope you can tell him that WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER You might also ask him to stop selling weapons to the Tatmadaw. I don’t know what else you can say to him. I’m not sure the EU can afford to cut off all economic ties to Russia since they need VVP’s oil to heat their houses. Perhaps listening is the best you can do for now. I’m finding that strategy works well when I talk to my mom these days. She’s half-Russian & tends to be quite opinionated. She sometimes softens her stance if I can find the right question to ask. That might work with VVP.

            BYBS,