We cannot change the hearts of the people, but we can make war so terrible that they will realize the fact that however brave and gallant and devoted to their country, still, they are mortal and should exhaust all peaceful remedies before they fly to war. Excerpt from a letter by Major General William Sherman to Lieutenant General Ulysses Grant after Sherman’s leveling of Atlanta and his destructive March to the Sea.

In bombers named for girls, we burned
The cities we had learned about in school–
Till our lives wore out. A short poem by Randall Jarrell quoted in The Guns At Last Light, The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 ( Volume Three Of The Liberation Trilogy) by Rick Atkinson

The brave Ukrainian resistance is a front in a larger fight: for the essential democratic principles that unite all free people. These principles are essential for a free society, but have always been embattled. Every generation has had to defeat democracy’s mortal foes. A Tweet, allegedly from President Biden @POTUS United States government official 46th President of the United States,

Great start to the season. We gave it our all and ended up with the best result we could have. Well done to the Ferraris, great to see them share the podium. Big week of work ahead but I know we got this Tweet by Lewis Hamilton @LewisHamilton Plant-Based Diet. Love Animals. Constantly searching for my purpose, for adventure, open-mindedness, and positivity

We, humans, have been warring against our fellow humans since we were all hunters/gathers. War may be as old as humankind but, for me, this winter has seemed like a winter of only war. First our Civil War, then everybody’s World War II, and then today’s real war between Russia and Ukraine, with its daily horrors. Now that war, the real war, is bleeding into spring.

Last January, I read my Christmas book from Michele. It was To Rescue The Republic Ulysses S Grant, The Fragile Union, and The Crisis Of 1876 by Bret Baier (chief political anchor for Fox News Channel). It seemed like a slightly different take on Grant with the emphasis on Grant’s last days as President. Surprisingly, at least to me, this Grant biography was written by a conservative. Surprisingly because Grant’s rehabilitation has always been a liberal cause while the Confederacy, Bobby Lee, and, The Lost Cause – allegedly about States Rights – have been championed by Conservatives. It is gratifying to read about Grant’s role in saving our country while he was President even if the book was written by a Fox News guy. The book had the usual narrative of Grant’s leadership during the Civil War, but, with the Russian build-up of forces in the background, it was especially troubling to read, again, about the carnage of our Civil War.

In February, I started The Guns At Last Light, The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 by Rick Atkinson. It is volume three of what he calls The Liberation Trilogy I had read the first two books of the trilogy years ago and liked the first one, An Army At Dawn, very much. It had a lot of new information, for me at least, and was beautifully written. I didn’t like the second book as much but, now I think, this was because the endless carnage in Italy, which was the center of the book, seemed unnecessary and endless. So I was surprised and pleased anew, at the quality of Atkinson’s writing in this book. But this book feels nastier, maybe more truthful is a more truthful way to say it. Part of it is that the buildup to the Russo-Ukraine War and the attack on Ukraine has made a European war seem more real and part of it is that wars evolve and escalate and by 1944, World War II had escalated to the point that the killing of non-combatants had become routine.

As an aside, I knew a guy who was a photographer during World War II, photographing bomb damage from the plex nose of a British de Haviland light bomber. I asked him how he justified killing German civilians and he said that they were “willing to do anything to win and that involved killing as many people as possible.” (For the record, the British Bomber Command and the USAAF 8th Air Force killed about 410,000 non-combatants – mostly women and children – in what the British called “their city programme”. End aside.

As the Russo-Ukraine war grinds into its second month, I’m reminded daily that killing people is not an unfortunate byproduct of war, as we are told, it is the principal goal. War is a catastrophe for all involved. Killing people and destroying infrastructure is the point of war. No matter how virtuous the cause, no matter how right we are – or righteous, for that matter – war is still one of the worst things that can happen to a people, it is right up there with pestilence and famine. But pestilence and famine are, sort of, natural occurrences, and war is man-made. Almost always – no, always, really – the result of one man. One man who we all say is crazy but really isn’t, he is just a selfish son of a bitch.

Looking at pictures of trashed Mariupol, I’m afraid that this war will get worse for the people of Ukraine. Our fear of Putin starting a nuclear war seems to have resulted in our giving the Ukrainians just enough lethal equipment to push back at the Russian bear, but not enough to actually have a decisive win.

I am ready for a diversion from the horrible day-to-day reporting of the carnage from Ukraine and I’m hoping it will be an interesting Formula One season. This year, Formula One is making its biggest change to the regulations in, probably,  forty years, and, for the first two races, that has been a game-changer. During the last forty years, the cars had become very similar in design and performance so a game-changer is most welcome. One of the old similarities was that all of the cars left a big and turbulent air wake – for lack of a better term, think of a boat wake in 3D – and that wake made it very hard to follow close to another car and, of course, even harder to pass. The great majority of the new regulations were designed to change that. 

Last year, the main downforce holding the car on the road was generated by the front and rear wings which are upside down airfoils and the underneath of the racecar was flat. This year, the wing regulations make the wing force weaker with the main downforce being generated by the bottom of the car. Each team had to design this year’s car based on what they thought would be the best design direction to take but, each team built their car in isolation and they had no idea what the other teams were doing. Two cars that were at the bottom last year, Haas – the only American team – and Alfa Romeo, are doing much better and Mercedes which was fastest at the end of last year, is now much slower.

What makes this interesting to somebody like me who is interested is that, as the actual racing starts, all the teams are seeing what the other teams thought was the right answer and are changing and upgrading at a frantic rate. It should be fascinating.