Foreboding – Photo: L. Weikel

It’s Wild Outside

Wow, it’s wild outside. The wind is whooshing, whipping, sighing, and occasionally pelting rain down upon us. It doesn’t take a meteorological degree to know that the temperature outside is plummeting and we’ll be back to taking walks with neck gators and mittens augmenting our winter jackets.

Yeah – this is March weather. Wild and wooly. Unpredictable. Possibly a little scary with the way it can turn on a dime.

I knew I should’ve tried harder to take a photo of Pacha and Brutus this morning. They were absolute maniacs, reveling in their newfound freedom, tearing around the yard tackling each other, spinning, whirling, rolling, and occasionally flipping end over end (ass over tea cups?) (or is it ass over teakettle?). Not only were they exuberant over the mild temperatures, they also seemed completely buzzed by the rising winds and the cacophony of sensual overload they brought. It was as if the pups were experiencing the unsettling effects of our version of the Santa Ana winds.

Everywhere You Look

It seems like everywhere we look we can find evidence of behavior that could fall into the ‘Santa Ana’ category – that defies belief. I guarantee that on any given day you can find at least a dozen stories of people saying or doing things that just make you say, “What the hell are they thinking?” And in some cases, “Who do they think they are?”

Of course, it’s one thing to be dealing with two seven month old puppies hell-bent on tackling each other and ripping their chew toy away from each other. It’s quite another to be dealing with a national leader who cynically keeps his people propagandized and weak, lies with impunity, and deliberately thumbs his nose at all civilized rules of engagement, creating a culture of abject terror.

I find Putin’s nuclear posturing and veiled threats the worst kind of despicable. There’s no negotiating with a person like this. He’s incrementally taking more and more and more, without fear that he’ll be stopped, all because he the rest of the world now looks upon him as having been touched by the Santa Anas.

“Will he?” “Won’t he?” “He wouldn’t dare.” “Oh my God, he went there.”

He will use any excuse to ‘go there.’ He’s at the point where no good can come of this war; there can be no saving of face. He will decide he’s been dissed by us (and by that I also mean NATO) when he feels like it. While we dither and choose not to take advantage of the 40 mile long convoy being stuck in the muck because we refuse to breach a ‘no-fly zone,’ he will spontaneously decide to deem some random effort of support to Ukraine an equally egregious breach. And then do what he wants.

In the meantime, how many people will be permanently uprooted from their homes, from their families? How many cities, bridges, airports completely destroyed?

Where’s the Line? Photo: L. Weikel

Taking a Stand

It isn’t as if good faith negotiations are taking place. This entire fiasco is built on pretext and lies. Supposed cease-fires and evacuation routes are a mirage and enable the invaders to perpetrate even worse crimes against civilians (like leaving IEDs that look like children’s toys).

We can’t be afraid of someone who would order such atrocities. We can’t insist on playing by the technical rules when he refuses to play by them as well. What point is there for rules of engagement when only one side honors them?

My gut tells me he will wreak death and destruction for as long as he can and then decide on a whim, on a pretext, that the West has stepped over the line – a line he arbitrarily chooses. And then he’ll do what everyone is tiptoeing around right now. Why? Because he totally doesn’t give a shit. Not about his people, not about the Earth.

And there’s nothing we can do to change that reality. I hope we don’t sacrifice Ukraine to the “surely he won’t do that” crowd.

(T+90)