28 February—Ah, the good old days! Older readers will remember duck-and-cover drills of the fifties, probably going into the early sixties. I recall them in elementary school starting in 1950. But, even though they were being practiced through the sixties, I don’t think I had to duck or cover after the mid fifties. Not that any of it would have been worth the effort. But it was supposed to make us feel good and secure in an insecure world.

For those too young to remember, the purpose of ducking and covering was to save us from—or at least mitigate the effects of—a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union, which had detonated its own atomic bomb in 1949. Ducking and covering also was supposed to mitigate the effects of natural catastrophes like tornadoes and earthquakes.

Ideally, we little darlings were supposed to quickly crawl under our desks at the teacher’s signal. But the old-style desks in some classrooms didn’t allow for that, so we crouched on the floor with our empty little heads as far under our little bodies as we could get them and hoped for the best.

In all events, the word in the classroom was that no matter what we were ducking and covering for or how we were doing it, as a teacher recently returned from flying a Sabrejet in Korea told us, “Just put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye.” (That’s also good to remember when the airliner you’re on is doing funny things.)

Why bring duck and cover up now? Well, it seems that Ukraine isn’t going gently into Vladimir Putrid’s bad night and the United States, European Union, and NATO, while presumably not sending actual troops to help fight the Russian horde, are doing all sorts of other things that irritate the modern Hitler. So the frustrated говнюк (shithead) has raised the specter of letting slip his dogs of nuclear war. Déjà vu all over again?

Probably empty threats, but you never know, especially given a cunning narcissist who has always been able to get what he’s wanted.

Did I write cunning narcissist? Well, that naturally brings to mind Donald Trump. And here’s another one for the Trump-Russia conspiracy theorists on both sides to chew on. Has it ever occurred to anyone that Trump and Putrid have between them—and possibly Xi Jinping—hatched an ultra-insidious plan for world domination?

Putin-Trump-Xi, the New Axis of Evil—a despicable triumvirate if ever there was one—may very cleverly be broadcasting their apparent mutual distaste and dissension, while secretly plotting a new world order. Secretly? Sure. Except for Trump, of course, who can’t control himself.

What will come of it? Depends . . .