Material belongings and simplicity. This anachronistic war.

20220514

One of you wrote:  "Here is a video by a guy of Mongolian ancestry who grew up in San Francisco and now lives in Kyiv. He bought a Porsche in this video really cheap. Something to consider for someone who lives on Rusanovka Sadii."

I am not tempted to get a car, whatever the price. My driver's license expired six years ago and I don't miss it. Keeping a car maintained is a pain and bother. During the nine years I had a valid license I rented a car perhaps four times for vacations. If we want to take a driving vacation we can apply the thousands of dollars I have saved not owning a car and simply hire a car and driver.

I have enough pains and bothers. The septic system is constantly needing attention. Oksana has agitated for nine years now for a permanent fix. At considerable expense, we have permanently fixed it about four times. I am quite content to accept that it will never be perfect and to call the guy to pump it whenever necessary. She says that will be every week. I told her I am willing to wait and see if that's true.

Yesterday's problems were that the hose connection leaked and one of the faucets on the lawn wouldn't turn. I am reluctant to undertake projects like this because I can never do a job to everybody's satisfaction. I did pretty well – got two valves working again and refitted the hose to the snap-on connector so water did not squirt back up the hose, where the fly is perched in the picture below. Not good enough. Despite my observation that snap-on connectors just about always leak, household opinion is that it ought to be totally dry.

Today's problem is that the lawn swing that we didn't need anyhow and Eddie and I spent a couple of hours taking apart, carrying home by wheelbarrow and putting back together ripped. That sort of thing happens when children jump up and down on old fabric. I have taken the fabric seat off; the bare frame is taking up space on the porch.

Now we face the time-consuming job of finding somebody to sew a new canvas seat, or simply junking this thing. My guess is that after much travail we will not find anybody to fix it, and it will eventually add to the extensive pile of unused stuff at the back of the lot. A mother lode for the guys who come around every few months collecting scrap metal.

Back to cars, I have owned 30 of them over the course of a lifetime, including top-end Mercedes and BMW sports cars.  The Mercedes was just the ticket 50 years ago for the autobahns. It took more maintenance than I had anticipated, but I was lucky to find a German mechanic who loved the car and took good care of it.

The BMW was an even more beautiful and exotic piece of work, but totally impractical even in the United States. I sold it to a Jaap de Hoog who had me ship it to the Netherlands and so far as I know still treasures it. For my part I'd rather spend my time and money raising kids than fussing with machines.

Today I finished my Amazon  review of Rupert Smith's The Utility of Force, which I posted separately. Though he describes industrial war very thoroughly, he wrongly concluded in 2005 that the world would not see another one. Putin didn't get the word. That's exactly what we are seeing today.

Industrial wars work best with conscripts who believe in and represent the country.  That appears not to be so for Russia in this war.

That's the news from lake WeBeGone, where the strong men simplify, simplify, and the good-looking women complicate, complicate.  The above average children are attentive students of the roles appropriate to their genders.  I should be happy I will not be around when my sons-in-law want somebody to commisserate with.

Graham