Too Stupid To Know...

 I am somewhat suspicious of most translators.  Not because I think they're lying, but because I do believe that when a translator stumbles into a particular phrase or topic where their own internal checks and balances start screaming "what the 1$%^6`1 did that nutjob just say?" they may find themselves playing down the overall lunacy.

I found myself truly wishing that was the case the other day when old Vladie decided to drop the "living room" and "ethnic Russian" bombs on the world.  Now, as my son often says, had someone only bought a few of Hitler's early paintings, what would the world have become if that absolute evil had instead spent his lifetime as a painter?  I'm not certain he wouldn't have found some way to create hell on earth for some people, but I don't think he'd have gone full Hitler.  Had wee Vladie perhaps found something constructive to do with mud or crayons or his hands, perhaps we would be spared of what is likely to come out of the Ukraine in the next few months.

And I feel incredibly sorry for those who have to listen to this tyrant's blatherings and put them into another language for those of us who do not speak Russian.  I'm no linguaphile - or whatever it is people who enjoy learning other languages are called in this one.  I had any love of the mechanics of our language beaten out of me at a young age by nuns and others who made the experience so much more like ... well, I'd much rather have had nails driven into the soles of my feet than listen to yet another lecture on how to diagram a sentence.  

You would think that the artful arrangements of the various pieces of language in such a way as to demonstrate it's construction would be fun to someone like me.  Right.  As noted above, I'd prefer pain.  To this day, I do not look at a sentence and see the pieces.  Instead, I hear rhythm, and music, and flow.  And I can look at a sentence and rewrite it in my head to make it sound "proper".  Not according to a set of rules I've absorbed and can spout back at you, but rather, because I read.  I read a hell of a lot.  And I don't get hung up on the rules of the road, but I do rather appreciate a well-constructed sentence.  I couldn't tell you why the sentence works - but I can write a fair number of my own to express coherent thought without becoming hung up on which rule takes precedence, or whatever.

I also know that beginning a sentence with the word "And" is not proper, correct, or well-constructed.  But it is a style which I have become accustomed to because my brain is rather continually several miles in advance of the thought burning out the tips of my fingers on the keyboard.  Which sometimes makes it pretty damned difficult.

And yes, I am dithering rather than staring down the barrel of yet another loaded gun pointed at our collective heads.  I am aware that, because Moscow chose to violate the treaty they signed that prohibited anti-ballistic missile systems, their capital is likely better-protected than we are.  Though I am also hopeful that this will not be the event that causes the world to end.  We all know bloody well how useful hopes are when confronting the specter of the end of the world as we know it.  Unlike REM, I do not find the prospect worthy of song.  I have a few more years I'd like to live, and see how things go on.  I'd like to see my children grow a little older, a little more content, I'd like to spend a lot more time with my wife, and I'd like to see a few more sunrises and sunsets, and see if they allow me to wax closer to poetically.  Though I doubt any rhymes I might produce would rise above the water level in the standard septic tank, but that's a far more interesting sort of tank to me than whatever the Russians are likely to drive into Ukraine.  

I do deeply hope that the US has transferred a heck of a lot of those tank-busting tools like missiles to the Ukraine forces defending their homeland.  I would also hope that a fair number of my fellow countrymen would take note that if one chooses to deliberately misinform people, consequences might be extremely costly for those who choose to live in lie - rather than the truth.

As for those who insist "truth" is variable, I shall submit the following thesis - that is, if you approach any group of people and ask them whom they wish to hold responsible for their lot in life, a fairly large majority of those who are what I would consider adults would state they want to be in control of their own destiny.  When I say "adults" I am not simply tossing out a chronological definition.  We all know people who might have aged beyond a certain number of years and yet lack the experience or intelligence to conduct themselves in any way approaching responsible behavior.  I see it nightly on the news as some individual who has managed to acquire a weapon lacks the maturity or intelligence to recognize that the consequences of using that weapon to harm someone else might well end the other's life - but far too many who do commit this sort of crime fail to realize they have also ended their own lives in that which we should probably consider polite, and intelligent, society.

Sure, some of those who have made themselves outcast will argue that it was because the person they chose to eliminate was in some way disrespectful or dismissive of them or someone whom they held dear.  But is it truly necessary to kill someone because they frowned when they looked at you?  Or if they lost their balance and bumped into you accidentally?  I understand wishing to retaliate if someone physically or in other measurable ways harmed you or yours.  But if the slight that you perceive as worthy of their death was that egregious, then certainly many others around you would concur and assist.  If you are the sole perpetrator of the act, then perhaps the act might be a reaction far beyond proportional.  

For those who do not yet understand a proportional response, well, that's what adults do.  If someone rolls their shopping cart over my foot and it hurts, I might well say a few utterly inappropriate words - but unless that individual sought to and succeeded in physically and permanently harming me, I'm far better off allowing them to go on in their day.

Because if I chose to beat holy hell out of them instead, what have I accomplished?  Will they recognize their punishment is absolutely right and just in response to their act?  Or will they become angry because they lost an eye, several teeth, need to walk with some sort of aid, if they can at all?  Or will they seek retaliatory revenge?

Revenge isn't the answer, or the end, to anything.  It's merely an extension of the inevitable consequence that Og did to Gog - or Cain to Abel, if you will - or whomever you choose as your example.  

I doubt the Ukraine will continue to exist for much longer in the current configuration.  I can hope that the world will succeed in getting through to the average Russian human so they realize that a country led by old Vladie is not one that's likely to promote long lives.  There will be many who will again come home dead.  If they wish that to be their future, again, well, that is their lot.  However they should be aware that if they wish to see many dead bodies, it might be possible to deliver such a display to them without the expense of travel - and the level of property damage in their own neighborhoods might match that which they might rather see on television - or far away.  

Be careful what you wish for, because in this world, it's all deliverable.  Not just by Doordash or Uber, Fedex or Amazon, or UPS, either.