8/16/2025

 Saturday, August 16, 2025

D+281/209/-1253

1953 Shah of Persia Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and Princess Soraya fled to Baghdad and Rome

1971 Over 8,000 workers went on strike in Derry, Northern Ireland, in protest against the introduction of internment, which allowed suspected terrorists to be indefinitely detained without trial

In bed at 9:30, up at 4:35, wondering what dirty deal Putin and Trump put together in Anchorage.  70°, high of 86°, thunderstorms ahead😱.

Meds, etc.   Morning meds at 9 a.m.

A note before checking the morning papers, the BBC & NYT.  I almost dread opening the morning papers to find out what dirty deal Putin and Trump put together in Anchorage.  When these two evildoers are smiling, we all need to cringe and shake in our boots.  

Epitaph on a Tyrant,  W. H. Auden, 1907 –1973

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,

And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;

He knew human folly like the back of his hand,

And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;

When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,

And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

My Facebook posting this morning:

 Charles D. Clausen,  today at 10 a.m.

Alas, I fear my predictions are coming true.  Not only has Putin said that he is not interested in a ceasefire, but he also got Trump to say that he, too, is not interested in a ceasefire.  He also got Trump to say that he and Putin agreed on everything except for 'one sticking point.'  Was that  Ukraine ceding territory, disarming, staying out of NATO, and/or changing its government—conditions that Ukraine and its European allies have consistently rejected, or was it all of them?  Any and all of them will prevent what Putin and Trump say they favor, i.e., a Peace Agreement which, in any event would take a long time to negotiate, all the while Russia advances closer to Kiev, killing more Ukrainians, and destroying the country's vital infrastructure.  In sum, Putin got all that he wished for, and more: the red carpet honors, the 'buddy buddy' warm handshake, the ride in the presidential limo, the lead position at the press conference, and of course, not being arrested for war crimes on the warrant from the International Criminal Court, which would have happened in any of the 154 other nations that have signed or fully ratified the Rome Statute creating that court.  On Monday, poor Valodymir Zelenskii will be told again that he doesn't "have the cards" to resist Putin.  Zelenskii and Ukraine are, as we used to say in the Marines, nude, blued, screwed, and tattooed.

Charles D. Clausen,  August 13 at 8:54 AM

One old guy's thoughts about Trump flying to Alaska for "a listening exercise."  What this signals is that he will listen to Putin saying he's not pulling out of Ukraine, which isn't a real country, and he's not interested in a ceasefire.  This will lead Trump to cease support for Ukraine, i.e., supplying military supplies, equipment, and intelligence support.  He will leave the Ukrainians to their own inadequate resources and to such help as they may receive from Europe.  He will base the decision on the need for "realism" and the need to protect the primacy of the U.S.'s own national security.  He will claim that he has done all he could possibly do to end the war, for which he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, but 'you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink,' or something like that, perhaps 'it takes two to tango.'  He will blame Obama for the seizure of Crimea in 2014 and Biden for the invasion in 2022, and remind us and the rest of the world that the war never would have happened had he been in the White House.  He will return to the much safer and more beautiful Washington, now protected from criminals and cleared of the homeless and other irritants by armed troops.  Once home, he will continue to count the money he's making from his crypto ventures and to extort money from businesses and other billionaires for his $200 million ballroom, and life goes on.