summer patriot, winter soldier

putin is dead, and russia is destroyed ..... both "fell/fall" off a ten story balcony about a week from now .....

you heard it here, first.

john jay @ 12.31.2022

p.s.   good "riddance" to both.

alleged killer .... phd. candidate in criminology .... my guess is, he kept a "journal" of his killing spree, perhaps photos ....

ego.  "intellectual" curiosity.  arrogance, to see if he could "get away" with the perfect crime.--

my guess is that the alleged killer of the four students at the university of idaho, if he is found to have perpetrated these murders, probably kept a journal, a written description, of his motives, his emotions while committing the murders, and his reactions to having done the killing(s).  he will have wallowed in the details, physical, mental and psychological.   and, continues to do so.

if, in fact, these killings were an "intellectual exercise" then they will have been recorded in some fashion.  to be savored by the killer.  to be flouted, in all likelihood.  to show his "superiority" above others.

is there any reasonable argument against capital punishment in this case?

john jay @ 12.31.2022

msn solataire streak ends at 77 ..... nuthin' to do but start over .....

my longest winning streak ever ended at 127 games, the second longest at 99.   the loss after 99 wins was a toughie  .....   i fought that damned thing for 90 minutes,  and just had to give it up.   i wanted that 100th win, but, it was not to be.    this last one, after 77 wins was not so tough .....  at almost 75 years of age, ah, who cares?   laughing.

i play at about a 93.15% win rate, but, hey, who's keeping track.  i read a thing the other day on the net about a woman who has lost 2 games out of the whole mess of games on the first version of the game.   to me, that is just mind boggling.   now, at one time when still in school, i was a duffer bridge player, really didn't pay much attention to it, and never bother to learn about the game very much.   another friend and i would play at the side tables at tournaments, and we finished sort of in the middling range.  i always told him that he should get a better person to play with, and he said nope, he liked having someone he could blame things on without having anyone question him about the assertion.

we made a good team.   we enjoyed the games, enjoyed the other players, but, we didn't take things too seriously.   we didn't carry any grievances home after the games.  i have heard of chess players who remember every move in games, and bridge players who remembered the lay of the cards from every hand.  i just cannot comprehend that, it is very hard for me to get my head around.  i cannot remember why i walked into a room, ... , a lot more times than i care to remember.   but, i don't dwell on it, because i don't remember it.  remember?   laughing.

but, i do remember that damned 100th game i just could not win.

now, i am pretty bright.  i have all the little test results to "prove" it.   who cares?   it is quite obvious to me that there are just people in the world who have fantastic minds, and memories, and amazing cognitive and computational skills.   i am simply not "burdened" with all those gifts, and since i have absolutely no idea what it must be like, i don't regret not having such things.  how can you miss what you've never experienced?   laughing.   and, why worry about never having experienced it, when it is obvious you are never going to?

sometimes i do wonder what it must be like to be that smart.   but, i don't loose much sleep over it.  i am, after all, nearly 75 years old, dress like a bum, and just "not with the times."   i am not possessed of the old physical plant, and getting sorta frail, and my balance is not so hot.  one of these days my heart is gonna kill me, and i haven't written anything clever to put on my tombstone.   hell, i don't know how i'll pay for it.   i am, as a matter of actual fact, quite content to have a couple of hostess chocolate cupcakes every now and again, and consider myself privileged to enjoy the treat.  so, i don't have everything.  big damned deal.

but, i have learned how to play "star dust" by hoagy carmichael on the guitar, and i am getting better with it.  on balance, that's not so bad.  i'll learn the rhythm line next, and how to comp the scales and such.   and, i'll live with that.   laughing.   like i've got any choice in the matter.

i am still enjoying the ride.   but, i would have liked that 100th game, you know, just for bragging rights.  son of a bitch, as they say.

john jay @ 12.30.2022

p.s.   anybody got any thoughts on what song(s) i should learn next?   i am thinking something by bernie kessel or kenny burrel, both of whom had "good ears" for chord progressions, and turn arounds, and things like that.   i know that chances are you've never heard of those guys, unless you're a jazz or bebop fan, but, lord, how they could make the guitar sing.   they made beautiful music.

i'd try some wes montgomery, but i simply haven't the hands to play the octaves he played ...  just not big enough to reach & span that many frets, to reach the added "intervals," and to do things at the top of the neck w/ my thumb, and at the bottom of the neck with my fingers, ... , all at the same damned time!!  and, in time!!  (that's why they made people with "listening skills."  laughing some more.)

friends, have a good new year.

putin is dead when the russians who control things believe that his death will not result in instability .....

..... of the country and its institutions, and will not threaten their lives.   this perception of political reality will quicken, apace, as putin resorts to more and more assassinations of his supporters.   what good does it do to fear a future that may cost your head, when the present portends that you will loose your head any time soon, anyway?

every day we see someone die "unexpectedly."   in russia.   in the u.s.a.   in this country, that means someone who should know better dies while jogging, against his doctors directive.   in russia, that means you are found floating dead in your swimming pool, with multiple bullet holes in your head from a gun found 10 feet from the water  ...   w/ no alcohol in your system.

apparently, ... (according to an article i just read  ....  it must be true, eh?), ... , russian assassins get a kick out of killing you when it is obvious you have been killed by another, but no one can prove or suggest how it may have been done.   they, ... , apparently, ... , favor exotic poisons that cannot be traced, used in felling healthy persons.

when the people who run things get tired of all of these shenanigans, if and when, putin will die.   i don't see him living much past the end of january, 2023.   by then, it should be clear to all but the most die-hard russian that russia has lost in the ukraine, and cannot win.   and, that crimea leaves the russian sphere of influence as well.

dead ...  by a .22 long rifle slug up his left nostril, is my guess.

john jay @ 12.30.2022 

musings .....

1.)  how is one ever to make any sense out of this existence?   i sat at a window seat at the bakery i frequent, or occasion, who knows, and watched the world go by in all of its permutations.  (well, as many of them as can be fielded on colville street in walla walla, washington on late friday morning.)   it is mind numbing in its complexity, its permutations.***

2.)  as i age, and reflect, i suspect that president george bush ("the elder") probably had quite a bit to do with formulating and building the "deep state," which is basically a consortium of very wealthy types w/ connections, and the intelligence and "police" agencies of the federal government.  he had the tools, the wealth, and exposure to all aspects of the deep state, to include the "intelligence" agencies.    and, the bushes and the deep state got along just fine with obama, because they "made" him, to fit and control the times.   imho.

3.)  i used to think, very strongly, that marxism and the communist party apparatus (apparati)  made russia, and china, into the predatory monsters they have become.  as i age, i suspect that i may have put the cart in front of the horse, because it seems to me that the russian character (talk about a nonsense juxtaposition of terms and concepts) and appetite for totalitarianism just used marxism as a vehicle to give expression to its deeper and darker instincts.

in short, only in russia, can a religious leader, the patriarch of the russian orthodox church, live in a billion dollar mansion paid for by the state and appoint a deformed runt like putin as the chief exorcist in charge of rooting out the corruption of the west, and strut around as though all of this has been ordained by a just god.   it is, in a word, ridiculous.  (kind of like joe stalin becoming an angel, right along with adolf hitler.)

the russians are not russians because of marxism.   the russians are russians simply because they are russians, and in precisely the same way as they have always been russians.   arrogant, murderous, unctuous and absolutely unprincipled.  they are simply predators who kill and consume the wealth produced by others  .....   the same as any lion found on the african veldt.   russians.

and, they are "evil" in the same sense as lions, killing without thinking about any moral standards which might inhibit their appetite for conquest.   the lion has the excuse of being hungry.   maybe that is the way the russian mind "works," as well.

john jay @ 12.30.2022

 

***  and, to top it off, this morning i read that a phd. candidate from washington state university, just across "the line" from moscow idaho where four kids were found stabbed to death recently, has been arrested in pennsylvania.   the suspect was working towards getting an advanced degree in criminology.   and, is arrested as a suspect in 4 heinous stabbings.  co-inkydinky-dentalish?   i doubt it.

can it be possible that 4 young people were killed simply as part of some knot head's idea of an intellectual exercise?   to see if one can get away with the "random murder of strangers, innocents?"

nihilism reigns. 

i read an article on the "golden girls" .....

i liked the show when it was "on."   i watched the show on re-runs, and if i get a chance to watch even now, i watch it.--

i don't know how old i was when in came on.   but, i am a now 74-year old white male protestant conservative.  and, i still watch the show, when i have a chance.

i suspect that i am not exactly the "demographic" envisioned as a viewer by the show's producers.   i always like "mash," even though i really clashed with its politics.    i liked the show w/ jim parsons and kaley cucoa, and "leonard."   i really liked "leonard."   who knows?  and, i absolutely loved the show with what'shisface, the little san-francisco-located detective with the absolute phobia about germs, and being in contact with people, and who was absurdly weird.  (and, i like both his side-kicks, and the police lieutenant who was his constant foil.)

and, i liked bonanza.  and, anything w/ james garner, including "the rockford files."   and, "support your local sheriff."

who knows why a person likes a show, or an actor.   i don't.   and, i don't care much, either.   it is sort of like friends.   you like 'em, and they are friends.   you don't much like 'em, and they are "acquaintances."   there's no rhyme nor reason to it.   it is, in a word, a "mystery" to me.

john jay @  12.29.2022

p.s.   and, yep, not much going on these parts tonight.   laughing.

p.s.s.   and, if vladimir putin walked through my door this evening, i would shoot the bastard without hesitation.   three times, just to make sure.  i know, absolutely, why i would do that.

john's predictions for 2023 .....

(well, at least it is not another all time nba starting five, you can be thankful for that!!)

1.)  russia looses.

2.)  russia looses big, loosing her "annexed provinces," along with the crimea, kaliningrad, georgia and moldova.

2.a.)  the various --"stans" go their own way, gaining in wealth and political independence.

2.b.)  belarus emerges from the ukraine war having successfully navigated a path in which she has averted war with ukraine, and has kept russian troops from occupying her land.   belarus applies for membership in n.a.t.o., and is accepted, after alexander lukashenko negotiates "immunity" and resigns as president.  he ends his days living in a very nice house on the adriatic, fishing on the beach.

a bravo performance.

3.)  the ukraine prevails, having suffered massive destruction, and secures immediate acceptance into n.a.t.o. with full voting privileges.

4.)  the u.s. launches another "marshall plan" reconstruction of a foreign country, along with england, joined by most of the other euro union countries,  and n.a.t.o. countries, with the exception that germany and france and italy abstain from outlaying any cash.   in short, the germans, the french and the italians remain the cynical bastards they have always been.  and, will be, always. ***

5.)  china becomes the new russia.

6.)  africa remains africa.  absolutely no evidence of any meaningful internal reforms.   the dichotomy of tremendous wealth and tremendous poverty remains constant.

john jay @ 12.27.2022

p.s.   i may or may not live out the year  ...  who knows?  (accompanied by a fatalistic shrug.   laughing.   what will be, will be.)

*** i am not a real believer in state "benevolent giving" as being a real historical thing, and neither are the germans, the french and the italians.   being stingy, and self centered, and egoistic, is, after all,  how they got to be the germans, the french and the italians.

an open letter to vladimir putin ..... put up, or shut up, asshole .....

what i just wrote.  i cannot make it any clearer.

john jay, n.e. oregon, u.s. of a @ 12.27.2022

mr. zelensky ..... p.s. to the open letter .....

p.s.  mr. zelensky, i would flat out tell putin no negotiations until the last russian leaves ukraine.   and, to not waste any of my time sending the lick spittle lavro and/or medvedev to talk to any ukrainian diplomats, any time, any where.   and, to let them know, that the issue of reparatons "never leave the table," likewise the issue of war crimes, and the issue of kidnapping children and ukrainian citizens.   they must understand that they do not get to dictate the terms of negotiations in a war that they have lost.  period.

john jay @ 12.26.2022

an open letter to mr. zelensky .....

dear president zelensky:

as the matter has turned out, you have proved a most remarkable man, a man i very much admire for his judgment and steadfast courage.  you have led your country through difficult times.   and, now it is time, for you to lead your country through more difficult times.

you have beaten the russians on the battlefield, and for all their bluff and bluster about prolonging the war and imaginary offenses, they know that they are beaten on the battlefield.   they have squandered their military might, their conventional forces, in the battle of the ukraine.   they know this.   they know that they are beaten militarily.

but, to the russian perspective, they feel/understand that they still have a chance to steal this war, and that is through a pattern of diplomacy promising a desire for peace and continued destruction of your country to try and induce a weariness of war.   what they want the ukraine to do is to grab at any promise of "peace," and by doing so to relinquish to russia what is to russia's advantage.

in short, they want to tire you out, so that they may get from "negotiations" what they cannot win on the battlefield.

don't you let them do that.   they have been through this many times, and they know that you and your country are tired to the bone at a war which to you is an absolute waste and tragedy.   the russian leadership doesn't look at the war in that manner  .....  they could loose another 200,000 men on the battlefield, in order to retain crimea and the donbas.  this is what they want.  and, this is what they want you to give them on the promise of peace.

it is an illusion.  peace.  it is only temporary, and they will take another run at you in 10 or 15 years.   they are, after all, russians.

for you to exist as a nation, for the ukraine to be the ukraine and free of russian domination, you must be willing to fight them at the drop of a hat.  (i suggest that you look to the history of finnland, in order to figure out how precisely to prepare for that, in such a manner that will deter the russian appetite for conquest & domination.)

this is where the going gets very hard for you, and will leave you tired and drained to the bone.--

you must be willing to waste ukrainian lives, to spill ukrainian blood, to exact more blood from the russians, to convince them that you will fight for the retention of every square inch of ukraine's soil.  every time they refer to crimea and the donbas as "russia," you must look them square in the eye, and say, we fight until you leave there, and concede that it is ours, and that you renounce your phony "annexation."  they will bluff and bluster, and waste more russian lives ...  and, they will extract a price from you for your resolve, and that price is more ukrainian life.

your only recourse is to fight them some more.   your only recourse is to kill more russians, and to simply exhaust their ability to fight.   take the fight to russia.  let them know that you will attack them on russian soil.  attack moscow.   attack their mansions on the black sea coasts, where the russian oligarchs live like medieval kings.  (even the patriarch of the russian orthodox church is owned by putin, because of his love for material and not spiritual things.  the patriarch is a billionaire.)   attack those mansions, which is an attack on russian arrogance and pride.

i am american.  in america's military experience in viet nam, america never lost a single battle of any consequence.   yet the viet namese drove us from their land, for one simple reason, winning victory.   and, that reason is ridiculously simple.  they refused to loose, and they refused to bow to our military might, and they refused to let us dictate the terms of victory and a cessation to fighting.

the price they paid was simple.  the paid for their victory in valour, and in their own blood.

this, my very dear sir, is the path that lies before you, and what you must do to beat the bastards.  you must fight them, until you drain their resolve.  they will appear strong, right up until the time they collapse, and then, they will crumble before your eyes.

hit their air bases.   hit their mansions.  kill their criminals until they empty their jails.   and, keep killing their soldiers.   and, don't give into the siren song of "negotiations."   they simply want you to give them, what they are incapable of taking.   and, that is your freedom.

john jay, the state of oregon, united states of america

glory to ukraine!!    slava ukraine!!