Columns
Alexei Navalny
Forty-seven-year-old lawyer and politician Alexei Navalny died in a Russian prison February 16, 2024. He was serving a nineteen-year sentence for opposing and exposing the corrupt government of Vladimir Putin. Navalny had survived an August, 2020 poisoning through treatment at a hospital in Berlin, Germany. He voluntarily returned to Russia in January, 2021 where he was arrested and imprisoned. He is survived by his widow Yulia neé Abrosimova Navalnaya who has staunchly supported Alexei’s courageous public struggle for justice. Yulia vows to continue their Quixotic crusade. Why continue and what has Navalny’s life mattered are pervading questions?
Navalny was born in Russia June 04, 1976. His family has roots in Ukraine and Navalny spoke Russian, Ukrainian and English. Navalny’s daughter became a student at Stanford University in 2019 and Navalny was on a fellowship to Yale University in 2010. Most likely Navalny’s ties to Ukraine and America factored into the Russian government’s constant campaign to denigrate, marginalize and punish his populist words and actions opposing Russia’s autocratic rule including its invasion of Ukraine.
Navalny had to know his return to Russia would lead to his imprisonment and probably death. He surely also knew his valiant struggle was a mere beau geste that was akin to flinging flowers at the crush of Russian tanks. And he could have had a comfortable and financially rewarding life with his wife and two children in several western countries. So, once again, why?
In Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote that was the inspiration for Dale Wasserman’s musical The Man of La Mancha, the feckless hero is fantasizing while in prison waiting to face the Spanish Inquisition. Navalny was not a foolish romantic in a frozen Russian gulag awaiting Putin’s tender mercies. Navalny undoubtedly realized his inevitable fate if he persevered in his one-man quest for justice. He also surely knew his and his family’s sacrifices would do little to change the course of history.
So we who watched his holy crusade from a safe distance are left to puzzle out, Why? What, if anything, did it all mean? What do the sacrifices of anyone who casts themselves against the barricades of injustice in a seemingly impossible dream mean?
The music and lyrics of Mitch Leigh and Joe Darion ask and answer this ageless mystery of why some people give everything for an ideal:
“This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far
To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into hell
For that Heavenly cause
And I know if I’ll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will be peaceful and calm
When I’m laid to my rest
And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star”
To soldier on when the battle looks unwinnable is what makes people and life worthwhile. As Robert Frost might say, it is the struggle, not the outcome, that matters. Alexei Navalny faced the unbeatable foe of Putin’s Russia with full knowledge his efforts’ likely result would not be immediate change. What makes him heroic is his fortitude to strive anyway. And, if enough people are inspired by his quest, perhaps it will not have been in vain.
Not So Fast Chiefs
On Monday morning, February 19, 2024 as Kansas City Chiefs football coach Andy Reid was savoring his team’s Super Bowl victory along with his third breakfast pastry, team Executive Officer Clark Hunt hurried into Reid’s office and presented him with a legal notice from one Trump-appointed Federal District Judge in San Francisco, the sole Republican in California. Coach Reid read the following Petition as his blood pressure soared:
“All persons affiliated in any way with the National Football League team the Kansas City Chiefs are ordered to immediately Cease and Desist claiming victory in Super Bowl LVIII pending a Score Recalculation Petition filed by the San Francisco 49ers in this Court by its CEO Jed York.
The Petition alleges there was and is an on-going conspiracy involving certain persons connected with members of the Chiefs organization, the game officials and the replay technicians, to make it falsely appear that an extra point try by 49er kicker Jake Moody was blocked by Leo Chenal of the Chiefs. This AI-created illusion resulted in the 49ers’ regulation time score being a 3-point lead instead of 4. The one-point differential allowed the Chiefs to tie the game with a field goal and send it to overtime where the Chiefs prevailed with a touchdown.
The cabal’s illusion was created with Russia’s new space satellite that was ostensibly launched to monitor American satellites. However, thanks to U.S. Congressman Mike Turner who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, it was publicly disclosed that Russia had conspired with megastar Taylor Swift and Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce to steal the Super Bowl for the Chiefs so that Swift could use the largest TV audience since the moon landing to endorse Joe Biden for President.
This conspiracy was exposed by Presidential Candidate Donald Trump who had received a telephone call from Tucker Carlson after he met with Russia’s Vladimir Putin the week before the Super Bowl and was told by Putin of the plan. Trump had attempted to warn the world of the nefarious plot, but as he had cried wolf about the stolen election of 2020 so often his statements were discounted by every media outlet except FOX News.
Regardless, to ensure the Constitutional right of every American to worship freely at the shrine of NFL football, until Congress can fully investigate the possibility of a clear and present danger to America, this Court orders the Chiefs, what the heck, I’ll just make my Order apply to everyone everywhere, to Cease and Desist from claiming the Kansas City Chiefs won Super Bowl LVIII. Any violation of this Order may incur the wrath of this Court and a finding of Contempt.
Surely, Elon Musk and his Artificial Intelligence compatriots can have an answer to this vital issue before the next Super Bowl. In the meantime, this Court will closely monitor this case until after November, 2024.”
Femme Fatales
William Shakespeare is the English language’s greatest writer, in part, because he was our greatest psychologist. No one understood and used irony as did Shakespeare. Hamlet, with Shakespeare’s tongue firmly planted in his cheek, laments, “Frailty thy name is woman”. Hamlet who is the unquestioned definition of vacillation, “To be or not to be,” is casting shade upon his mother, Gertrude. Gertrude was complicit and conspired in the murder of her husband, Hamlet’s father also named Hamlet, the King of Denmark, so she could marry his younger brother, Claudius. Gertrude also helped Claudius defeat her son’s rightful claim to inherit the crown. Hamlet, Act 1, scene ii.
But the first woman to conspire to lead mankind down the primrose path to destruction was Eve, Genesis, Chapter III, vs 1-24. Thanks to Eve’s perfidy with the serpent, Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden, women were assigned the pain of childbirth and we all lost eternal life. However, there are many who agree with Mark Twain who wrote in his book Pudd’nhead Wilson:
“Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world.”
Then we have nefarious Delilah, Book of Judges, Chapter 16, vs 4-31, who as an agent of the Philistines in Gaza, wheedled out from Samson the secret to his great strength then set him up to be weakened and blinded. In World War I the Germans used Margaretha Geertruida Zelle (Mata Hari) to spy on the Allies. She was executed in 1917. Also, Tokyo Rose (Iva Ikuko Toguri D’Aquino) and Axis Sally (Mildred Sisk) sought to dispirit the Allied soldiers in the Pacific and Europe in World War II.
Perhaps the most famous conspirator against her country was Helen of Troy. According to Homer in the Iliad, Helen betrayed her husband, King Menelaus of Sparta, by eloping with Paris, a son of King Priam of Troy. Helen’s misguided loss of control, “Launched a thousand ships” and led to a long war between Greece and Troy.
By now, Gentle Reader, you have noticed a pattern of female conspirators who used their womanly wiles to bring about disasters. What my wife, Peg, and my sister, Jane, who proofed this column pointed out was the author of Gavel Gamut and all those who “documented” the sins of the distaff conspirators were male. My rejoinder to Peg and Janie is, “The facts are the facts and pointing them out does not, in and of itself, show evidence of misogyny”.
Therefore, when that paragon of cable news, Jesse Watters, claims Taylor Swift is in league with the Biden government to affect the 2024 presidential election and that Taylor Swift along with Travis Kelce are conspiring to steal Super Bowl LVIII for the Kansas City Chiefs, I say, “So?”
I know there may be a couple of people who could be influenced by Taylor and Travis but would Shakespeare deign to write a plot as convoluted as the Rolling Stone magazine credits right-winger Rogan O’Handley with:
“Far right influencer Rogan O’Handley went so far as to suggest that if the (Kansas City) Chiefs won the Super Bowl, Swift and Kelce would trigger an apocalyptic chain of events that would kill millions. ‘You MUST defeat the Chiefs’, O’Handley wrote in an X post addressed to the San Francisco 49ers. ‘If you don’t, Mr. Pfizer (Travis Kelce) and his girlfriend (Taylor Swift) are going to tour the country as world champions helping elect Joe Biden. WW3 will likely follow in a 2nd Biden term and millions will die. The fate of the free world rests upon your shoulders.’”
Of course, Mr. O’Handley was probably just writing from the perspective of a 49er fanatic in the same ironic/sarcastic vein as most who are having fun with the Taylor and Travis phenomenon. Unfortunately, in today’s America we often do not afford our cultural adversaries a sense of humor. Therefore, some of the cable news pundits see doomsday via public voyeurism of a private relationship. However, Mr. O’Handley and the rest of the 49er faithful, let me remind you that Joe Montana and Jerry Rice will not be in the San Francisco lineup for this Super Bowl, but Patrick Mahomes and Rashee Rice will be. So, good luck to you.
Now, the fate of the free world may hang in the balance if Taylor and Travis are not prevented from their alleged coup. But there are plenty of other threats to our democracy. So, I say to Travis, GO CHIEFS, and to Taylor, YOU GO GIRL!
Equal Protection
CNN reports that Americans’ confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court:
“[I]s at its lowest ebb in terms of public opinion in the history of Gallop polling.”
CNN attributes much of this lack of faith in the competence and integrity of the Court to the overruling of Roe vs. Wade in 2022. Then, even three members of the Court publicly dissented and accused the six-member majority of playing politics. Justices Breyer, Kagan and Sotomayor dissented in Dobbs v. Jackson that overruled Roe and stated:
“Today, the proclivities of individuals rule. The Court departs from its obligation to faithfully and impartially apply the law.”
The essence of the dissenters’ warning was that the majority was denying options to America’s female population in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. A similar issue is the gravamen of the current issue before the Supreme Court in the matter of whether the 14th Amendment can be used to deny Donald Trump the right to run for president. Or, as is more important, whether the federal or each state’s government can deny American citizens the right to choose whether to vote for him.
People on both sides of Trump’s possible candidacy raise the alarm that our democracy is in peril if Trump is or is not allowed to run. Many who lost confidence in the Court over the denial of a “Woman’s right to choose” are sounding the siren against Trump’s choice to run. And many who celebrated the loss of Roe’s protections of a woman’s options in maternity matters, are up-in-arms at the prospect of denying Trump the right to run.
What Americans are saying by their low opinions of the Supreme Court validates both sides’ fears that our democracy may be teetering. For the essence of democracy is freedom of choice. When the U.S. Supreme Court addresses the matter of Colorado’s position that its voters cannot be trusted to make their own choices, we will all be watching. Perhaps we will find that regardless of how the Court decides Trump’s fate, the canary in the coal mine of democracy will be at risk. Because we all believe that everyone should have the freedom to choose what we do. And our government’s duty, especially the Supreme Court’s, is to guarantee no one has the power to deny others their right to make a different choice. Nowhere is that bedrock of our democracy more crucial than in free and open elections.
A Dead Reckoning
When my sister and brothers and I have gathered in our hometown for reunions we and our extended families are often drawn to the cemetery where our parents have reposed for several years. Although none of us still lives where our lives were formed, we know it will always be our hometown because Mom and Dad are there.
Invaders who wish to extinguish an original culture’s claim to their homeland know that as long as the graves of the conquered remain, there will always be a visceral connection to the land. Conquest of a people can never be absolute if evidence of the past remains buried in the land. That is why General Patton in the 1970 movie ordered guards to keep American soldiers’ graves from being robbed. As Patton said, “Our graves are not going to disappear as those of the Greeks, Romans and Carthaginians who earlier conquered North Africa”.
In America we have always known that one of the best ways to defeat the claims of Blacks and Native Americans to land we want to occupy is to plow over burial sites, such as was done after the Tulsa, Oklahoma massacre of 1921. As Nora Krikler wrote in her 2023 article, Killing the Dead – the Logic of Cemetery Destruction During Genocidal Campaigns:
“Cultural violence is not a side effect of genocidal campaigns; rather, it is fundamental to the logic and process of genocide itself.”
According to a CNN report published January 20, 2024, “The Israeli military in Gaza has desecrated at least 16 Palestinian cemeteries during its ground offensive in Gaza …”. Video showed Israeli bulldozers leveling large swaths of burial grounds. Bodies were dug up and scattered by earthmoving equipment and tombstones were destroyed.
Plato may have declared, “That only the dead have seen the end of war”, but even being killed could not save the Palestinians from Israel’s relentless program to obliterate many years of Palestinian culture from Palestine. Israel’s war on two million Palestinians in Gaza is reminiscent of Hitler Germany’s 1940 occupation of Poland where over 400,000 Jews were forcefully detained and subjected to executions, starvation and resettlement.
It is reliably reported that Israel’s military had for a year possessed Hamas’ supposed secret plans of exactly how Hamas would attack after years of Israeli occupation and repression. Also, for eight months before October 07, 2023 Israel had been working with the east Indian government to take in Indian temporary workers to replace the thousands of Palestinian guest laborers Israel is now denying entrance to Israel. It appears the government of Israel had been planning a possible Gaza operation for at least eight months prior to October 07, 2023.
Since October 07, 2023 Israel has systematically destroyed hospitals, schools, universities, historical monuments, churches, mosques and 25,000 Palestinians, mainly women and children. Now Israel is even digging up the Palestinian dead to further eliminate them from their homeland. With Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing to expand the state of Israel, “from the river (the Jordan) to the sea (the Mediterranean)”, elimination of all evidence of Palestinian culture, including graveyards, is simply part of the total pogrom.
However, Israel might be wise to take an historical perspective on how Nazi Germany treated Jews. As Napoleon Bonaparte warned, “You must not fight too often with one enemy or you will teach them all your art of war”. In other words, as Hitler found to his chagrin, ultimate power has always been a myth. Someday your slave may become your master.
Brain Food
Peg and I like snow. We almost bought a vacation home in the picturesque hamlet of Craftsbury Common, Vermont where her folks are buried. We also looked at locations at Lake Tahoe. Both areas are inundated by winter snows. Vermont’s property taxes were steeper than the snow and only the truly wealthy or truly reckless can buy property in Tahoe. Therefore, we chose Osage County, Oklahoma. Oklahoma does not provide as much snow but it has some and one can enjoy a balanced budget. However, we still are captivated by stories of those hardy humans who find ways to at least survive huge snowfalls such as occur in Nevada-California’s Sierra Nevada mountains and in the mountains of South America’s Andes.
As Peg was sending me out to get more firewood during our recent blizzard, I reflected on our visits to the site of the Donner Party’s ordeal in Truckee, California on the Nevada Border. Most of you know of the Donner Party and of its most salient sociological history. In 1846 eighty-seven pioneers from Illinois followed their western dream but only about fifty of them made it to California. Many of the hardy trekkers died in the deep snows from cold, hunger and illness. And they had to rely on their deceased companions to do so. According to survivor accounts archived at the Donner Party Museum, all parts of their departed fellow humans but their brains provided sustenance. Apparently even starvation was not enough incentive to force down brains.
While Peg and I have been to Donner Pass several times we have not visited the site of another tragic but inspiring experience of humans surviving the deepest of snow thanks to their deceased friends and family. That occurred in 1972 when a plane carrying a Uruguayan rugby team and others crashed about 11,500 feet above sea level in the Andes Mountains. Peg and I found this fascinating true story as related in the film Society of the Snow as we sat in front of a roaring fireplace and sipped wine, red, of course.
The movie that we found channel surfing in the vain hope of finding a football game, as they had all gone Peacock, told the survival story of how eighteen out of forty-five persons on a chartered Uruguayan Air Force flight crashed into a deep mountain snow field. Those who survived for the seventy-two winter days did so, in part, by harvesting the flesh of those who died in the crash or over the days thereafter.
What the amazing depiction made clear was that had the survivors been able to ask those who had not survived, the deceased would not have faulted their living companions. But they would have given of themselves to help those who were barely hanging on through cold and hunger. Of course, none of us wishes to be in the position of either the deceased or the survivors. But it is inspiring to think we too might have the courage and generosity to serve in either role.