We are in for 19 months of relentless, insultingly transparent spin by way of which a patently incompetent man will be purveyed as commander in chief for another four years.

In 1928, almost one hundred years ago, French intellectual, Julian Benda wrote this amazing book on the subject. A true Tolstoyan, he starts his study of this treason with quotation from Tolstoy.

There was much mirth in the West this week when Vladimir Putin’s Victory Day parade through Red Square included just one tank, itself a relic from a museum. The inference was that Russia has lost so much military kit in Ukraine that it is a shadow of the military superpower the Soviet Union used to be.

Having initially brushed off Beijing’s diplomatic efforts, the Biden administration appears to be having second thoughts.

ABU DHABI, April 16 (Reuters) – Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Sunday again proposed establishing a group of countries not involved with the Russia-Ukraine war to broker peace, saying he had discussed the matter with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping earlier this week.

May 9—U.S. war veteran Col. Frank Cohn (ret.), now 97 years old, is an optimist on a mission. He fought against the Nazis in World War II and met Soviet soldiers at Torgau on the Elbe River on April 25, 1945, when the two armies met. On the occasion of the victory in Europe over the Nazis, Cohn says: “While it is probably a false hope, I am an optimist, and I hang onto the time when things looked bright for all of us—back in May 1945. Yes, there was terrible devastation all around us, but the spirit was correct. We were going to go forward and repair the world, we were allies, we were friends…. Now, I go and participate to bring back that moment. It is not an easy thing to do at my age, but I must do it as long as I can, because someone young might catch that simmering glow of a short-lived peaceful world surrounded with friendship, and in remembrance, perhaps years far in the future, say with the political power that he or she might have attained: ”We can do this again!'”

Let us all remember today and give thanks to Russia’s noble sacrifice.

There are various groups that are described using the term “Gang.” Some are indeed related to criminal activity, but others linked to music, design, etc.
For example, there’s the “Gang of Four” English post-punk band or “Gang of Four” design patterns in computer science.

I wrote that poem in reaction to my being honored to lay the wreath of roses at the Stalingrad War Memorial in a Ceremony in August of 1989 right after I got off the Volga Boat and then spent the day travelling around the town including touring the Front Lines and the Museum

Each year since May 9th, the world holds an annual celebration called Victory Day signalling the end of the last world war.