Gramps
Mayor
In this mornings Denver Post of Putin latching onto Alaska and tearing it away from N. America with the excuse it was once Russia's.
reclaiming what once was does sets a bad precedent. Israel comes to mind. Perhaps all of the world's prominent caves should be returned to the cave men or the Western Hemisphere to what remains of the aborigines who were overwhelmed years ago.
If there is a single thing mankind cannot do it's to reclaim the past. You cannot even venture into the past except to visit it to reminisce what might have been if things had gone differently. There might've been times when people could lay claim to ancestral purity but that was long ago before the planet evolved into a giant melting pot. Hitler set his sights on a pure aryan mythology re-coopered from remnants of German societies which modern times had swallowed-up.
History is a tale of land grabs by the strong from the weak. What we're seeing is another case of that today except, perhaps, it is true the Crimean people would prefer being part of Russia. But the Ukraine is a different story. I have met several of them in recent times, all of who are delighted to be a separate nation.
Exactly who's job it is to draw lines in the sand is murky. Logic would suggest it is a European/Asian problem but who among them really wants to plunge the countryside into a standoff that this issue could spawn? It is easy for we on this side of two oceans to be practical since we haven't had our homeland ravaged by war as many of them have.
The Alaska cartoon is, of course, sarcasm because you could bet your last dollar that such a risky venture by Putin would accelerate into one hellova scrap. But it is something to consider if someone does not draw a line in the sand before the stalemate evolves into something terrible.
gramps
reclaiming what once was does sets a bad precedent. Israel comes to mind. Perhaps all of the world's prominent caves should be returned to the cave men or the Western Hemisphere to what remains of the aborigines who were overwhelmed years ago.
If there is a single thing mankind cannot do it's to reclaim the past. You cannot even venture into the past except to visit it to reminisce what might have been if things had gone differently. There might've been times when people could lay claim to ancestral purity but that was long ago before the planet evolved into a giant melting pot. Hitler set his sights on a pure aryan mythology re-coopered from remnants of German societies which modern times had swallowed-up.
History is a tale of land grabs by the strong from the weak. What we're seeing is another case of that today except, perhaps, it is true the Crimean people would prefer being part of Russia. But the Ukraine is a different story. I have met several of them in recent times, all of who are delighted to be a separate nation.
Exactly who's job it is to draw lines in the sand is murky. Logic would suggest it is a European/Asian problem but who among them really wants to plunge the countryside into a standoff that this issue could spawn? It is easy for we on this side of two oceans to be practical since we haven't had our homeland ravaged by war as many of them have.
The Alaska cartoon is, of course, sarcasm because you could bet your last dollar that such a risky venture by Putin would accelerate into one hellova scrap. But it is something to consider if someone does not draw a line in the sand before the stalemate evolves into something terrible.
gramps
