Eric Sangster

Whatever you think I am, be sure; I am the ghost of a church mouse. This manifestation allows me to squeek through space and time, lightly. On little mouse feet. The striped snake with its tail in its mouth, the one that lives between the frames of time, was giving me a ride. It was luck, really, that allowed me to see the thread of an event that will either happen soon, or has happened recently: the American presidential debate of 2024. The snake has some NASTY parasites, so I was compelled to avoid one, and dove into a plush velvet curtain fold, somewhere backstage. The two participants were in some clandestine meeting. I heard the tail end of the arrangements being made by their assistants. There had been some pleading and an exchange of cash. Shhhhh, here they are now! “Donald, we’re not married,” Kamala said sternly. “Yeah but you don’t understand, if there are an infinite number of universes, then somewhere, we are,” Donald pleaded. “Donald, we are not married, you are married t...

Hopefully, if Donald is deporting people, this will get me a ticket to Colombia!  (La Guajira, please!)   Donald, what did you do? I watch Donald at a rally. He lands another great gag! Delivered like it was freshly stolen. The crowd loves it. This is their Donald. The board room god, that blesses the one who is most loyal with a chance to be the apprentice. Donald deserves to be both judge and prize. It’s like a fairy tale! A fairy tale reinforced week after week after week after week. The make-up is his armor, his hair stylist, is his poet. They respond to their Donald. Wow! Well, give the devil his due. I wonder, when the crowd roars approval, does that make you forget your fear for a little bit? I imagine you have some fear, don’t you? I was running some simulations the other day, and I was surprised by a whopper! Please understand, when I say running simulations, I mean I was engaged in self-aggrandized pretending. Anyway, I think Donald so...

Dear Reader, I saw a notice of a cultural festival soon to be enjoyed in Ukraine! Sounds fun. If I were in Ukraine, I would make plans to go. So many things about Ukraine are unavailable to me. It will never be my country. I will never know anyone from there. I can admire Ukrainian courage and resilience, but I can offer no assistance. I am in possession of arguments that I cannot make. It is not my place. It’s not out of sadness that I complain, but envy! What an opportunity for the young people to define how others will experience Ukraine! How will our friends know us, if we do not show them? Look at the branding of the United States. Early in our history we had great characters that portrayed virtues available to every American at the time. Paul Bunyan manifested the power of human industry, while Johnny Appleseed mapped out freedom of movement, and marked the hidden treasure trove it led to: free enterprise! Many more examples exist over our short history, sh...

The Republican party has kept immigration open as an issue for a long time. Who killed e-verify? House Republicans have gotten so used to killing immigration deals, they thought that by tying Ukrainian aid to an immigration deal, it would kill it. Amazingly, Senate Republicans got an awesome bill. Mike Johnson killed the bill. He had to keep immigration open as a wedge issue for the upcoming presidential election. (Or, I suppose it is possible that he killed the bill to benefit Putin, who exerted influence over Johnson via Trump. The latter possibility would mean that a foreign interest controlled American policy for two months.) I have to admit, it is remarkably effective! Prevent reasonable solutions through legislation by obstruction, make absurd demands, and when election season comes, the Democrats are to blame for the ‘problems of immigration.’ I could imagine using it, but I am not a demagogue. If I were, then imagine the sway I could wield! To be king, si...

The liberation of Crimea! Who has been reading my letters to Santa? Needless to say, I love it. Okay, Dear Reader! How the five eyes smile upon us! The villain has calculated the costs are too high, and will try to sue for unjust peace while occupying Ukrainian land. When Taras got together with the Brotherhood of Cyril and Methodius, he was driven by the injustice of Slavic slavery by Russian imperial interests. In his time, some 150 years before ours, the Russian attempts at subjugation had been going on for hundreds of years. By 1846, Catherine II was a distant memory, but her shortsighted use of the ways of the Horde will never be forgotten. Then as today, Ukraine has been under constant threat of being taken into slavery. Russia must not benefit from a single grain of Ukrainian sand. A peace now will be a mirage. The martial effort will indeed cease, but the caustic attempts at influence will continue forever. The Russians will continue to at...

Breath is a secret of strength. When I want to lift something that is very heavy, I stand over it and breathe in and out like a goon. It helps. Lucille Ball knew this secret, but also knew that most people don’t know this secret, the secret of strength. She knew that occasionally, she could trick someone into deep breath, and that they would experience the blast of the secret. Surprised by joy, their body could be tricked into invigoration! If life is motion, frequency and occasionally, delay—then let us live in action. Action in the face of adversity. If courage is righteous action in the face of fear, could it be that somewhere, over the course of human time, laughter has protected the infancy of this virtue? (Does our language, Dear Reader, have a phrase that means laughter in the face of fear?) How delightful for our generous comedians! Laughter may fuel courage. Did you hear the recent joke of President Zelenskyy? A child, who was a patient a...

The mechanism of poetic thought. Dear Reader, may I share with you an insight that might not be right? I have been reading poetry, and one of the things that I read recently, spoke about how poetry can shape an existing message into a new form, sculpting it into something interesting enough for the mind to contemplate anew! What a beautiful form this Ukrainian art has! I have thought of this before, and I remember that I agree! It could not be tedious to renew the memories of Ukrainian aesthetic. Like a musical prodigy’s gift, some virtue grows when shared. Also, how wonderful to repeat logical truths that cannot be perverted by the enemy. Ukraine is defending itself from a murderous invasion. Ukraine has a right to defend the integrity of her borders. Ukraine not only fights for her survival, but to protect the life of her citizens. The Russians attack to destroy life, indifferently. Ukraine’s endeavor is righteous. Putin wages asymmetrical informational ...

A disjointed vision. This is my blog, and this one is for me in the future. The attention economy (~a particular denomination, Russian, 2024), has been used to control a populace. Large industrial scale endeavors in the face of an influence onslaught may be impossible in the future. In your time now. Does strife rip through control systems designed for and dependent upon cooperation? Imagine, a vector that can disrupt command and control, disrupt development, disrupt deployment of solutions, indeed, can paralyze decision making authority in the Congress itself. Would the manifestation appear to be obstruction? Could it be distinguished from obstruction? Come to think of it, I would push obstruction memes to the dimwitted legislators of all of my enemies, and hope they took the mind virus bait! Additionally, the Bloodletter visits again. The dimensional traveler played a strange song that recounted some kind of final battle. It was neat! I think...

I have a history with firearms. I enjoy plinking. I don’t hunt much anymore, but everything that I have ever killed with a firearm, I have eaten. I had the good fortune of being taught well, and having the early experience of a gun’s true purpose. That awareness brought a fear of the weapon, and a great responsibility. Perhaps you can see through my eyes, this time. Shall we walk on a crisp fall morning, among the brown soybean? Hunting disturbs a pleasant walk. But there are other eyes to see through as well. Can you imagine the heartbreak of a parent who has lost a child? Their experience with firearms is so different, it might as well not even be the same discussion. Human beings online are so different in person. I have never met a human being who would not be moved by such an experience, and so I extend to you the courtesy of knowing you have sufficient empathy to see this vision yourself. Imagine you are that parent, and I appear before you, with a time machine. You and I can go ...

Putin’s evil wager has cost humanity dearly. And even though costs burden him like never before, he can still prevail in his murderous folly. All he needs is a sufficient number of dead souls. As I was trying to put myself into the mind of Putin, something troubled me deeply. I am not religious, and I cannot imagine that Putin is either. How could he be? Putin’s actions during his ignoble life not only guarantee his damnation, they all but insure he will endure eternity as a prince of hell.  For the murder he has caused, and the corruption of his own people, who if you are a believer, must also answer for their sins. The very people he sends to their deaths, casually indifferent to the horrors they perpetrate in Ukraine. The evil they commit must also damn them to hell, his slaves in life, and if the stories are true, his slaves in hell. The dead souls will serve him forever. (An infernal coin, each side printed with Putin’s face! One side earth, the other side hell. As the coin is...

If Donald Trump gets in, I’m not worried about the world ending. It won’t. I’m worried about Donald Trump’s peace. Will he destroy all of the evil of the world with his super powers when he becomes president? If he could, he should do it now. At least you and I would. No, the evil of the world will survive Donald Trump’s election. In the dark corners of Trump’s poorly illuminated administration it will find places to hide. Perhaps tucked away behind press releases celebrating Donald’s immense achievements! What is going on with Ukraine? Who cares?! It’s infrastructure week, again! Well, Donald Trump has proven Ronald Reagan wrong again! America doesn’t need to seek peace through strength! Donald Trump reminds us that we can achieve peace through the cold conformity of slavery! Well, slavery may be too harsh a term, although conforming slaves are peaceful. Maybe we can accomplish it by delegating our responsibility as the arsenal of democracy, to the Russians. After all, according to Do...

You may have noticed, I like to imagine things. Ukraine needs investment.  The people of Ukraine are suffering.  After liberation, investment will roar, but is there anything that can be done now?  My mind is an empty vessel, so I will imagine a meeting where I can once again, beg for wisdom! I walk into a well lit room, and begin speaking with someone who has been in the news lately.  He is an advocate for a friend to Ukraine, Kamala Harris.  (I will be voting for Kamala Harris, without question.)  Anyway, Mark Cuban has been acting as her advocate lately, and it is of him, whom I speak. He is an American business man.  I extend him the courtesy of believing him to be intelligent and truthful.  I also expect that he has spent much more time than I have considering money, and so I defer to his imaginary judgment.  But his wisdom is valuable, he did not become rich by giving it away.   It is with this eye, that I value the gift of hi...

I was thinking of the Powell Doctrine. In reviewing the famous questions posed by Colin Powell, preceding the engagement of American forces, I started to wonder what underlying objectives were important to consider. I believe the good man wanted to reduce the damage that he knew was inevitably done by war. It seems that he advised getting it over as quickly as possible, so that fewer human beings die. He suggested only risking the lives of our warriors when they could be given a clear and obtainable objective. What also seems important is the provision of overwhelming forces, to drive the enemy to capitulation. From my perspective as an advocate of Ukraine, no effort should be spared to end Russia’s murderous occupation. But I appreciate the commitment of American troops is unrealistic. Our provision of material assistance to our ally constitutes our participation in a proxy war against Putin and Russia. We have a duty to our ally to help them achieve victory. Just as they would do for...

I have been sleeping again. This time, in my mind’s eye, I walk alongside the 16th century’s best diplomat in an orchard outside of Florence. He invites me to hold a mirror up to myself, and imagine a world of principalities, and armies. What practical advice he has! And it is so nice to get the support of being able to do absolutely anything at all, to keep my little principality. He advises I keep my word lightly, but that I lean on the populace heavily. Sounds good to me! I sit at an ornate desk of the period, and write letters with the feather of a cherub. The orders fly! The steady ticking of the clock becomes a snare drum’s roll. Airborne orders cloud the sky! I become accustomed to wealth, power, influence, authority, control, and correction. I quickly see the wisdom of maintaining my principality at all costs. I dispassionately direct my subjects to use their means for my ends. And finally, the speeding passage of time brings me to my own end. My life is over, and my principali...

I am not accustomed to prayer. Recently, I demonstrated my ignorance in the manners of prayer by accidentally leaning on the crutch of vulgarity as I was communing with our Lord. I was praying for Donald Trump, and he messed up on YouTube, in real time during my prayer attempt. I expect to be punished. So in order to avoid that, I have decided to approach future prayer with more purity, almost like a child, reading an embroidered thing (vyshyvanka) upon their Grandmother’s wall. Father in heaven, hear my prayer. Keep Ukraine in your loving care. Be their guide in all they do, And let them know we love them, too. That should get me out of the doghouse with the old man. Here is the prayer above, read by a digital voice below!  The words are always my own!    

Autonomous munitions are right around the corner. Follow any war hipster, and you will see someone get hit by a sacrificial explosive drone.  That drone was almost certainly operated by a human being, connecting their intention to the machine with a radio signal sent from potentially ten miles away or more.  An infantry soldier, without anti drone equipment, has almost no chance against a single drone, much less four at once.   Right now, the dependence upon a radio signal protects many.  Electromagnetic signals can be jammed.  Which is why I would simply train my drones using machine learning, to see what an infantry man looks like, and where to fly to blow off their leg.  The quad copters of today, put to horrifyingly effective use by the Ukrainians, are the sketches of children compared to what is on the horizon. And electronic countermeasures are much more difficult to implement against a drone that requires no radio communication. I believe that C...

Thanks to our allies, the Ukrainians, and in no small part to our own State department, Russian influence campaigns are now common knowledge in the attention economy. I was recently easily able to end the comments of several pro-Trump sock puppets in a live chat by typing this phrase: “Trump belongs to Putin, his influence seems to affect the dimwitted.” To a sock puppet, the illusion of credibility depends in large part in the immediate flash of an idea in a few lines. The sock puppets were silenced temporarily, because they understood Putin’s connection to Trump. Also, had they continued to crow for Trump, they would have been the dimwitted ones. Again, because Russian influence is now common knowledge in the attention economy. There are memes that rip across our awareness, and we superficially accept them as if we had always lived by them. How sophisticated we are, with all of these memes whipping about! Of course, the understanding is shallow, and rarely evaluated. But in this case...

Donald Trump gave another embarrassing speech. While on the campaign trail, Donald Trump took the opportunity to try and make some splash. This time, he pretended to know things about other countries, and what was going on in the world. I remain unconvinced. In Donald Trump’s speech, he criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a salesman. I imagine Donald has a sore spot there, as he was impeached for trying to extort Zelenskyy. I refer to impeachment classic, not ‘new’ impeachment. He had two, if you don’t recall. Anyway, after defaming President Zelenskyy as the best salesman in the world, he went on to lie about the amount of money the United States has invested in Ukraine. Well, he may not have been lying. He could also be stupid. I am an advocate of our American ally, Ukraine. President Zelenskyy is not the best salesman in the world, he doesn’t have to be. The righteous endeavor of the Ukrainians is obvious. As are the consequences of allowing Putin to gain from his ...

How unjust.  My beautiful Washington Post suffers from a business model that rewards her virtuous burden of veracity with poverty.  After creating a system to monitor current events with RSS feeds some fifteen years ago, I watched the ripples of ideas across American media.  I saw, in real time, as headlines appeared.  It was expected that the wire services would be copied.  A new revelation to me was that the ideas from the Washington Post and the New York Times represented the lion’s share of information reflected shortly thereafter in electronic publishing selling commercials.  Sounds fine.  But it is not.  The ethos of our august institutions was being hijacked by lies and influence campaigns, that ran right along side the poor imitations of great ideas from our newshounds.   The lack of regulation of our attention economy has left the world saddled with a vector for disinformation and misinformation.  In my time observing curre...

Taras Shevchenko was an amazing human being. He was a poet, an artist, and a lover of Ukraine. I was admiring some of his art recently, and I came across an interesting work . It was an engraving depicting King Lear. I had no idea the scope of his talents! His knowledge and insight as a poet, informed his graphical art, I am convinced. When I first saw this engraving, I didn’t realize it was King Lear, but the scene was cool! There was some old guy, being helped by a Jester, with a cloud of thorns over the old man’s head. Upon seeing the title, I recognized Shakespeare’s tragedy. In the Bard’s tale, King Lear divides his kingdom among his three heirs, and it ends badly. He makes his decision, ultimately loses his family, and what was once his kingdom, lies in ruin. In the end, the jester is his only loyal attendant. And that is the scene shown by Taras! A great lesson, by an insightful artist! I take his lesson to heart, and consider the importance of a unified force. We are forged tog...

I was sleeping again. In my dream, I was a mouse! I was outside on a fall day, and there was a farmer who was very cross with some cute little kittens! (Thankfully, I was immaterial and up in a tree during this observation.) As he laid out several filthy, burlap bags for the kittens, the bald farmer said something.  I couldn't make it all out, but he said it very politely.  Something to the effect of, “By entering these bags, you will serve the interests of the farm. And there is cash inside.” I had doubt that those kittens would find anything but grief in those bags, and as I was about to cry out, they started to act! They were all sorts of colors and types. Black kittens, yellow kittens, calico kittens, gray kittens, and tiger kittens! Kittens with brown eyes, kittens with green eyes, kittens with blue eyes, and kittens with yellow eyes. One had a book of matches. All of them were playing stupid. “Duh, what’s a bag?” A Tiger asked, as it rolled upside down. Its ...

I can’t write women’s dialog.  I know I can’t.  I don’t even try.  Shall I prove it to you?  No, though I don’t suffer the shackles of dignity, it would shame even me! A certain pity!  I have an excellent idea for a story for She-Hulk.  Well, it’s actually a story about Jennifer.  You see, I think super powers are neat and all, and what little girl wouldn’t want to lift a battleship over her head!  But the powers themselves don’t make the hero.  Virtue does.  I know, I know, I am so bankrupt of ideas, I must find one so out of fashion it can be described as ancient. Jennifer, through no fault of her own is given terrifying super powers.  In my comic book world, the She-Hulk does not twerk, she is a force of destruction.  In my story, Victor Von Doom is the one who is responsible for Jennifer’s affliction, and as he is flying her to his country, she awakens, becomes enraged and destroys the plane.  She falls onto Sardinia, ...

Dear Reader, it won’t surprise you to find that I was wrong, again.  (What love a rapscallion like me must require, a burden for all but the deepest fonts of forgiveness.)  I used to say to myself, aspiringly, that I was an acolyte of Diogenes.  Ironically, I may still end up living in a large ceramic pot. But I can no longer call myself a student of that great man.  What was that Dear Reader?  Any idiot can be a student?  Then I have found my calling, indeed!  But how can I, with any intellectual integrity, profess to be a student of Diogenes, when my emergent disagreement with him is so fundamental? Perhaps it was the recognition of failure, thinly veiled as a celebration of poverty in the beginning.  My detractors would certainly describe it so.  But in reality what brought me to the sunlight of Diogenes was heartbreak.  I had endeavored to be able to provide for a family, and the love of my life, who couldn’t have cared less about me...

First and foremost, I am an advocate of Ukraine. I defer to Ukraine regarding any cessation of hostilities. The process of democracy is intended to drive self determination. I believe that Ukraine has earned the right to exercise it, fighting on behalf of the world. I wouldn’t dream of telling them what to do. To the diplomats of the world who have worked so hard, thank you. Your endeavors, like so many others, go unsung. Your work is important, and I enjoy the peace of your innumerable successes, again thank you. If I may put forth my humble (and do I mean humble!) opinion for your consideration? Ultimately, I am happy to defer to your best judgment. I suggest that any work that includes freezing the conflict as it is, would be immoral, as it would place Ukraine in a persistent destabilized state, and Putin has always taken advantage of destabilized states. Pressing our ally to submit to a temporary peace deal is suggesting we gift our enemy with the most precious resource: Time. Time...

There are things in my head that I like to go back to and look at.  It’s funny how some things form up there.  I must be adding details as time slips by, and eventually, when something intrigues me, I finally look up to observe it.  In this way, I see something as a result of the aggregation of time.  A perspective, that cannot be obtained in any one moment in time, but rather, emerges from all of the moments, collected. Recently, I took time to think about the European Union. I thought about all of the great people who worked toward the common goal of cooperation to improve their lives. Of course, I have no idea who these people were, but I see the artistry in their handiwork. A carefully sculpted body, its only intention to support, with no meaning beyond its ability to maintain a cohesive cooperative structure.  But expressing boundless virtue through each independent nation, well defined and beautiful.  I wonder if any of these countries could survive i...

While reading about the Holodomor in Ukraine, I came across the witness testimony of Halyna Huba.  On a website called, ' Share the Story, ' she and other survivors of the genocide told us of their experiences.  I fix it here so that I can look back in the future, and remember. Lately I have been very concerned about the subject of Ukrainian erasure. Halyna Huba's statement:  "My mother’s sister’s oldest daughter, Varvarka, came and told us that six children had died within six weeks. They didn’t know what to do anymore and came to us for help, but we didn’t have anything. So they returned home. We didn’t know what had happened to them for a long time. In the summer, father took a train to see them, to find out what had happened. When he came home he said that Uncle Fedir died after the children had died. They buried him in their own garden. They also didn’t go to the collective farm and they were also persecuted for not joining. So my aunt, her daughter and her oldest...

I propose for this sketch, to see Russia as having a persistent character through time.  I look at Russia as a perennial autocratic bureaucracy.  From the time of the Czars, through the General Secretary, to the forever president of today.  The person at the head of that bureaucracy completely served by the machinery of state.  Implementing any destruction, any evil, for his ends.  And they always try to hide it. Is it hard for you to see Ukraine?  When I look, even with deep appreciation for the newest recruits to democracy, I see what appear to be intentional obfuscations.  Russian influence has been trying to hide the evils that they do for as long as there as been Russian influence.  Have you ever heard of the Holodomor?  (The Ukrainian word for hunger is holod; mor means death.  So ‘hunger-death.’  Or death by starvation.)  A genocide visited upon the Ukrainian people by the Soviet Union.  It doesn’t surprise me if it...

I speak now, specifically to my fellow Americans, all of them.  I begin by apologizing for not recognizing your excellence before!  I apologize if you haven’t had the opportunities you deserve.  I for one, have every confidence that you will do your nation proud, when given the chance.  I have something to say, would you do me the honor of listening? We are not a nation of murderers.  Stop trying to shoot Donald Trump.   I begin by imagining the bleak scenario in which you succeed in your shameful endeavor.  You, most certainly, are dead at the hands of one of the members of our excellent Secret Service.  You have altered history, and committed murder not to save democracy, but for self aggrandizement.  You cannot serve democracy and commit assassination.  If you believe in American democracy, assassination is not only unnecessary, but absolutely immoral.  You would, by your act of murder, not only rob millions of Americans of ...

Content on this blog  by  Eric Sangster  is marked with   CC0 1.0 Universal   Please feel free to read this blog and use any content you find here. Anyone can use it for any purpose, attribution is not necessary.   If you find anything that might help you spread a message, just take it.

Before the recent presidential debate, and in my mind's eye, I see Donald Trump, in a luxurious, dark office, with scarlet carpet, surrounded by his counselors.  They are preparing for his debate. 'Please, sir.  Whatever happens, whatever she says, don't take the bait.  She will say something intending to make you angry.  Don't take the bait.' Another joined in, in this vision, 'Sir, by not taking the bait, you will make $600,000.00, over night!' Yet another appears from behind the second, waving a brightly colored graph, exclaiming its title:  Trump Makes Internet Record .  'Sir, all of the professors at M.I.T. have determined that if you do not take the bait when Kamala Harris offers it, you will win the internet.  For all time.' Something they have said has stirred Trump.  'Oh, yeeoow, yeah that hottie.kam!  Is she from India?  Look at that hair.  Hey, go get her picture from Time for me.' Weeping is heard from afar.  One sp...

I believe that public speaking is a fine skill to practice, and what better subject matter, than speeches?  With this noble intent, I set forth! Ronald Reagan is held in great esteem in the United States, and I believe he loved his country.  And his rhetoric at the Berlin wall, unquestionably, serves as proof, that words can matter.   But they can’t be meaningless, they must ring true in the ear of the listener.  When President Reagan called for that wall to be torn down, his words not only rang true, many of the listeners must have recognized the same yearning in themselves, that the words expressed!  “Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate.  Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” Inspiring.  Such insights must have required a tremendous understanding of the complex international interests at play, and more importantly, the interests of the people.  I hear those people cheering President Reagan’s statements.  They cheered because they agreed!...

People of France! I approach you not as an envoy of the United States, but as a pauper, come to ask and learn. Have you met the people of Ukraine? Ah, wonderful! Then you need not be convinced of their quality, for to meet them is to love them. It is on their behalf that I seek guidance today. I have heard of some difficulty in policy concerning the conflict facing our world. I submit that lives could be saved by the effective, responsible, but most importantly, immediate free use of weapons against positions currently attacking Ukraine. I present the Ukrainian martial history of responsibility in this conflict. It doesn’t require my advocacy. What blessings could my worthless words add to it? It is not out of a generosity of spirit that I attribute responsibility to my ally, it is our shared history. They obey the rules. Recruiting them into democracy has been wonderful! Now, beautiful France, I remember you. I know that my freedom today is a direct result of yo...