I wonder what some people may believe Ukraine’s motives are and have been astonished by some of the theories that are currently floating about. Maybe it would help for Americans to remember the 18th Century and our struggle with the British. Freedom and independence were our motives. Does anyone really believe that the appalling loss of life on both sides of this issue was just a whim or power-play on the part of the Ukrainians? Believing that Ukraine is doing something underhanded for publicity is simply paranoid and, in my opinion, wrong and frighteningly stupid into the bargain.
Tyrants have, for reasons that escape me, been becoming more popular across the globe during the past few years. Many people have failed to see that oppression of the type shown by Russia is egomaniacal on the part of Putin, who will never be satisfied with any amount of power he has or steals from others. Look at his track record and then look at President Zelensky, who has remained faithful to the goal of freedom for his people and has shown extraordinary courage to back up his values, despite his personal suffering too. He isn’t hiding behind anything or anyone as Putin is. Putin can’t even sit at a table with his peers unless he is forty feet away at the table’s head. He is simply a tyrant who is used to getting his way, even at the cost of many thousands of lives (as long as HE is safe). Do you think he cares how many of his soldiers have been killed? If you do, then I have several tracts of land I’d like to sell you. If you have any “sound” argument or data about this being Ukraine’s fault, please do share it with me. JB
About John
About John
John Bolinger was born and raised in Northwest Indiana, where he attended Ball State University and Purdue University, receiving his BS and MA from those schools. Then he taught English and French for thirty-five years at Morton High School in Hammond, Indiana before moving to Colorado, where he resided for ten years before moving to Florida. Besides COME SEPTEMBER, Journey of a High School Teacher, John's other books are ALL MY LAZY RIVERS, an Indiana Childhood, and COME ON, FLUFFY, THIS AIN'T NO BALLET, a Novel on Coming of Age, all available on Amazon.com as paperbacks and Kindle books. Alternately funny and touching, COME SEPTEMBER, conveys the story of every high school teacher’s struggle to enlighten both himself and his pupils, encountering along the way, battles with colleagues, administrators, and parents through a parade of characters that include a freshman boy for whom the faculty code name is “Spawn of Satan,” to a senior girl whose water breaks during a pop-quiz over THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS. Through social change and the relentless march of technology, the human element remains constant in the book’s personal, entertaining, and sympathetic portraits of faculty, students, parents, and others. The audience for this book will certainly include school teachers everywhere, teenagers, parents of teens, as well as anyone who appreciates that blend of humor and pathos with which the world of public education is drenched. The drive of the story is the narrator's struggle to become the best teacher he can be. The book is filled with advice for young teachers based upon experience of the writer, advice that will never be found in college methods classes.
Another of John's recent books is Mum's the Word: Secrets of a Family. It is the story of his alcoholic father and the family's efforts to deal with or hide the fact. Though a serious treatment of the horrors of alcoholism, the book also entertains in its descriptions of the father during his best times and the humor of the family's attempts to create a façade for the outside world. All John's books are available as paperbacks and Kindle readers on Amazon, and also as paperbacks at Barnes & Noble. John's sixth book is, Growing Old in America: Notes from a Codger was released on June 15, 2014. John’s most recent book is a novel titled Resisting Gravity, A Ghost Story, published the summer of 2018
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