There’s a loose cannon out there who thinks as little of his fellow man as his fellow man thinks of him. Oh, and by the way, did we mention, he happens to have 6,257 nuclear weapons within reach of his fingertips, about 30 for every country in the world, were he to choose to distribute them fairly, a thing not likely to happen.

Sphere of influence is what is driving him in Ukraine. “Come home to Mother Russia, stand tall, be proud to be counted as Russian, or I will have to shoot you.”

We tried sanctioning him, but his cookie jar is stuffed with rubles, and any one of his buddies could buy the Taj Mahal were it to come up for sale, and buy the Taj with that cookie jar. This leaves us in a pickle, for as escalation begets escalation, that escalation road closes at some uncertain point. We could trip on a tripwire before we know what we are about, and as we all know, schitskaya happens.

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One way this could end well, as I see it, is if one of Putin’s daughters were to write him a loving, sensible letter something like this …

Dear Papashka,

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Remember the horse you gave me for my 16th birthday that I named Rocinante after Don Quixote’s horse? Well, I didn’t really know at the time exactly why I chose to name my horse Rocinante, but I know now that it was propitious because, Papashka, you are tilting at windmills. This is crazy what you are doing. Papashka, to save the good name of our proud country, you must order a ceasefire today in Ukraine, and a drawdown tomorrow. Should you desire that I issue the orders in your name while you are out back checking the weather, I will be happy to accommodate.

Your loving daucher

Well, my Russian is weak as rooster soup, but when I visited St. Petersburg to lecture at Leningrad University, the faculty there taught me to raise my glass of vodka and toast, “Zadruzboo,” to friendship! Take me back in time, please, to a day not that long ago, when Russia issued a Mark Twain postage stamp, 1960, at the height of an earlier, colder war.

Sanity can prevail, but it might take a letter from a daughter to her father, or something along that line, to save the day, and maybe, by the way … the world.

Does anybody have the number of a good divorce lawyer?

Audio: https://anchor.fm/mcavoy-layne

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