Bucha: Liberating them from what?

The name is so close to Busha , which is so close to about every Slavic word for Gramma. Gramma, whose teared-images in Ukraine have ripped us apart.

A Russian soldier approached a Ukrainian and said “We are liberating you!”

The Ukrainian said, “From what?” 

What makes evil? Wrong question. Always existed.

Snake-Eyed Pootie (must stop denigrating snakes), will he survive Hitler’s Generals’ Assassination plan, which did not work?

Interesting article from the Times of London about the mid level Russian soldiers, the captains and colonels, also the “siloviki”, the strongmen, often from the KGB, as is Pootie. Like Pootie, they seem to have no qualms about sending young men to the their deaths, but if they sense weakness at the very top, they may well act. For the good of the Russian Federation, Pootie be damned.

If there is any justice, which I have long doubted, he will be. Perhaps he can wear his 2000 £ handmade coat, with which he regaled the crowd at his recent pep rally, to keep himself warm on the freezing tundra of Gehenna. 

The siloviki apparently were not happy about that show of opulence.

I was having a play done years back in Chicago at Victory Gardens Theater. That Second World War reference brings to mind tomorrow’s Victory celebration in Moscow and Russia’s “de-Nazifying” of Germany. I put that in quotes because that’s been the excuse for the Invasion of Ukraine. All those swastika-bearers running around Mariopol. Got that wrong. Russian flags going up all over the ruins of that destroyed city. 

My play “The Sovereign State of Boogedy Boogedy”, the title of which seems to more and more describe the state of the world, split the theater’s Board down the middle, with its fierce defenders and equally puzzled detractors. After one performance I was hanging in the lobby when a man came up to me. He was quite complimentary and unknown to me. Then he asked, and I have pondered his question ever since, “You don’t believe in progress, do you?” It threw me, but I finally said, “No, I don’t.” He thanked me and walked away. I did not have the presence of mind to ask, “How do you know, what is there in my play that leads you to that conclusion?” I still have no clue. 

I read today that “Life expectancy in the 1830s and 1840s…for laborers in Liverpool was 15.” There’s some progress, you say. Not so fast. Indentured servants around the globe? One Liverpool then ( how many Beatles did we lose?), one Bangladesh now? 

How about medical advances? Well, there is this little thing called Covid. And pandemics on the way. 

Liberating us from what indeed.

Do we put our faith in the siloviki? Will they take pity on the bushas of the world?

O, yes, I write this on Mother’s/Grandmother’s Day. Peace and Blessings on us all. My sainted mother Evelyn, gone at 92 and divine Busha, Mary Kosach, gone at 98, as well. Progress is damned without them.

Lonnie Carter is a playwright, Obie winner and his signature play is “The Sovereign State of Boogedy Boogedy.”