I believe that old folks, senior citizens, golden-agers, stooped shufflers – whatever you want to call them – tend to project their mental and bodily decay on the world at large, which leads them to disparage the present and overpraise “the good ol’ days.” Of course, their parents did the same, derided those good ol’ days we fondly look back on as doom-ladened even as they themselves waxed nostalgic about World War II or the Great Depression.[1]
And I can’t help but wonder if this tendency might have something to do with moon-faced Vladimir Putin’s waging war on Ukraine as he nostalgically looks back on the post-Stalinist era of his youth, on good ol’ Nikita banging on a UN desk with his shoe, a lapse of protocol that makes Marjorie Taylor Greene’s and Lauren Boebert’s screeching during Biden’s the State of the Union address seem downright urbane.
Putin wants to restore the Soviet Empire, a project not unlike restoring the Blade Runner set. Look, I spent twenty-eight days in the Soviet Union in 1989, and I’d never witnessed a population more depressed, especially in Leningrad where virtually every face I encountered was stamped with despair.
If you’d like, you can click HERE for a side trip that offers more specifics on the despair.
To be fair, Putin did a fairly good job of fostering a middle class, even in a Kleptocracy, that is, up to now.
At any rate, Putin is suffering from some malady, perhaps Parkinson’s, as his shuffling gate and clenched fist suggest, or perhaps he’s had a stroke. At any rate, he’s obviously on steroids, and some have even suggested his belligerence is rooted in “roid rage.”
Given the six-thousand nukes he has at his disposal, it’s pretty damned scary. I remember in the fourth-grade squatting under desks during the Cuban Missile Crisis in duck and cover drills[2].
Now, with my bad back and aching knees, I’m not sure I’m capable of squatting, so let’s pray –if we pray and hope if we don’t – that Putin shows some restraint. He does, I hear, have to daughters via his first wife and four more with a mistress, an Olympic gold medalist gymnast, who, no doubt, is very adept at squatting.
Cheers!
[1] Writeth achy Wesley in his 69th year.
[2] An oldie but goodie: “In the event of a nuclear attack, get under the desk, cover your head with your hands, and kiss your ass goodbye.”
You Do Hoodoo 
Interesting diagnosis of the clinched fist of Putin. I just thought it was about projecting strength. You were a bad a$$ in the little side trip, huh? They say about one in 10 people respond to a situation that could escalate our of control. There was a study on how people get paralyzed in dangerous situations. One scenario involved a concert in which a fire had broken out. Out of the whole club, only one guy was using surviver skills, desperately pointing and yelling “FIRE,” trying to pursuade metalheads to evacuate, but the music drowned him out. I believe it was The Station Nighclub in Rhode Island. It killed 100 people and injured 200.