TOO LATE

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/02/24/world/russia-attacks-ukraine

Today, our esteemed president Biden said the words that should have been said a decade ago, as a matter of fact the day, Mr. Yeltsin got into his car and drove away from a waving Putin after giving him the reins. I saw the scene of Yeltsin's departure in a documentary and will never forget the look on Putin's face as he watched Yeltsin recede into history and Russia be left at his disposal to steer as he chose. Putin is a KGB dude and felt deeply betrayed by his superiors as he kept calling to them that the sky was falling during the last days of the USSR and heard only silence. Putin never forgave the US for breaking up the USSR. And he is still pretty loud. The look in Putin's eyes the day he saw Yeltsin off was that of pure glee, one that plainly said he didn't need to call up to anybody now. Now, he would restore USSR to its former glory. What he doesn't get is that the glory of the USSR was based on the utopian idea of Communism; Putin's is built on ego.

The US should have known this and removed Putin a long time ago, when he was just a little tadpole and not this immovable frog he has grown into. 

Now, the people of Ukraine will pay. A terrible a shame again because of the US's short-sightedness and arrogance on one side, and indifference on the other. 

LET THE BOOGENS RUN THE CITY

Alvin Bragg took office as Manhattan district attorney on Jan. 1. The Trump investigation began under his predecessor, Cyrus R. Vance Jr. 

Credit...Craig Ruttle/Associated Pres

 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/23/nyregion/trump-ny-fraud-investigation.html

OK PC police come and get me. Have you noticed how everyone in the position of power in NYC is black? Like there isn't one qualified white person? Ignorant, incompetent idiots, oh but they can't be, they are black!

MONEY FOR THE STUPID

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/18/health/sacklers-opioids-lawsuit.html

The last couple of days, two articles in the the Times online have really gotten my goat. This one talks about the Sacklers, the pharma pill pushers having upped their settlement offer with those who got hooked on their pills to one billion dollars! The article the day before reported on more student debt being cancelled but only for those who were "tricked" by their for profit dishonest upper education institutions. 

Well, as a starving writer who can't even afford to pay a decent editor to edit my recently completed novel, this shit really gets me. Why do people have to pay other people for being stupid? Only stupid people go to those colleges; smart ones go to hundreds that are actually legitimate institutions of learning. So, why does the government compensate not all students but some students? It pays the stupidest of students who can't tell a hoax when they see it.

The Sackler article takes the cake. By free will you take pill pusher's pills, get addicted, use more, devastate your life then sue the pill pusher? The pill pusher was just doing its job. No one held a gun to those people's heads to take pills, but oh they do feel so good, until they don't. After a 2010 emergency ulcer operation I was given all the oxycodone I wanted. I didn't become addicted because they constipate you and I'm very attached to my regular bowel movement (sorry to be gross). But when I was given the pills like they were candy, it was public knowledge that they are addictive. The doctor told me so, the literature online told people so as well. Now, I wish I had become addicted. I could have paid an editor and realized my life long ambition. Oh, well in this country one pays for being smart. 

WHAT IS ART?

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/16/world/europe/russian-painting-eyes-security-guard.html

Vandalism to some is improvement to others. Is this painting worse for the eyes or better? Do the eyes just change what the painting is trying to convey, or erase it? And ultimately what is art? And why? I personally find this story endlessly amusing, especially for people who take things too seriously. And that is why I don't follow the stupid trend of investing in art. The value of art is so subjective that the price can never be fixed or guaranteed. 

GOOD JOB THE NEW YORK TIMES

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/opinion/factory-farming-chicken.html 

I believe that humans are omnivores; like our cousins, the chimps, we have the teeth structure to prove it. But only humans torture their food for greed. I have limited my consumption of meat to beef and chicken, always free range when I buy to cook at home. At restaurants, it's harder to hold to principles. I commend the Times for putting this horrific issue on its front online page and bringing it into the mainstream. I hope we all think about these images when we eat our next meat meal

Your comment has been approved! Thank you for sharing your thoughts with The New York Times community. Shadi Mir | NYC Thank you for bringing this issue to the forefront and hopefully to the attention of mainstream consumers of conventionally raised meat. I believe, humans are omnivores (our teeth structure proves it), but to treat live animals as inanimate objects in name of profit is monstrous. I hope the government passes regulations to limit this kind of animal exploitation.