Monthly Archives: May 2013

Putin – The Charming Colonel President King

22 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Middle East, Psychology, Regions, Russia, Syria

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I like him.

At least compared to Robert Mugabe, among others of that sort, I like him.

When one invents a term like “Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy” or trots out another like “Malignant Narcissism” one might caution — or run for cover as social psychologists tend to do — with the phrase “complex, multi-dimensional”: how much of arrogance, demanding egocentric behavior, grandiose delusion, lack of empathy, messianic passion, paranoia, and resistance to criticism might there be in the mix?

Putin, unlike, say, old Qaddafi, knows containment and restraint.

While the critical wonks will follow the Khodorkovsky story and the world in which old friends are friends indeed, Russia’s charming colonel President (king) Putin runs a modern state, and if imperfectly democratic, still a force of its own and one with which to be reckoned — this as Obama — see previous post — may have by now figured out, not that such a challenge to authority as Masha Gessen failed to warn him (reading recommended: The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin).

The destabilization of Syria has brought untold suffering to Syrians, and while that suffering and its related economic and political costs might serve to compel an average western politician to action, the same may not have the same impact on a post-Soviet autocrat-become-president who may be more interested in the reflection reflection that conveys control and mastery of a situation and further reflects well in terms of practical character, judgment, and statesmanship.

* * *

Obama’s setting out to transform the middle east may be perceived as having backfired: instead of democracy, such as Egypt, for example, have been handed over, even if by election, to the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and the methods, in part, of another dictator, albeit one with perhaps a new political environment for navigation.

Putin cannot be blamed for the chill President Mursi has injected into Egypt’s “Arab Spring.”

Furthermore, in relation to NATO, Putin cannot be blamed for Erdogan’s rise and subsequent neutralizing of Kamalist rivals and unfriendly press.

So in Syria, while the 92,000 dead and 3.4 million homeless may help drag his name into it, he didn’t arm — or allow the arming — of rebels against the regime, did he?

As I type, this header is just about one hour old: “Syria’s rebels blame Russia’s Putin for prolonged fight” (Michel Stors, YNet News, May 21, 2013).  Toward the end, Stors’ notes:

“Russians have never been very popular with Syrians. During an Islamist rebellion in the 1980s they were targeted by the insurgents for supporting the regime. Pale Americans often complained that Syrians, mistaking them for Russians, jeered at them in the streets.”

In the United States, Obama’s America is emphatically not at war with Islam (nor need it be – my own position is very moderate on this and the related complexity in how the Islamic Small Wars work); in Syria, Obama’s America and some rickety fixing between Saudi (Qatari) and Turkish interests have made the United States an enabler, at least, in the effort to expand Sunni Islam and — eye on the ball, please — isolate the Shiite Ayatollah’s Iran.

Putin, who has made his position clear in Chechnya has similarly made it clear in Syria even while aligning Russia toward Israel and away from playing paddy-cake with Islam.

So far, with the recent deliveries of anti-ship and surface-to-air missiles, he’s given the Assad regime (and Maher Al-Assad) breathing space, reduced Iranian capital (in some measure), and playing defense, held Russia’s position; to continue on to “solving Syria” — and this now that he’s more representative of the polyglot desires of the west than the west! — he may have to alter the character of the regime by bringing to it an improved set of contemporary Russian values, the same as to which he responds in his political life today (specifically: the same that keeps Masha Gessen out of prison and eventually turn the Pussy Riot crew back out the streets, presumably toward the end of their two-year term), while sweeping away the terrors of the old Soviet machinery (the development of the FSB and its purposes notwithstanding).

Whether by way of President Putin or not, Russia has come far from what it was in the Soviet Era, but it’s continuing influence wants for reason, and for that oligarchy and money may not suffice; moreover, if Gessen’s portrait of Putin prevails within Putin, that won’t work for history; add this: if he wants to do what he may behind the curtain — back stage, finally – he may have to do it in a way that alters the atmosphere of the conflict even without visible intercession.

Tall order, that.

I think President Putin bright and clever (quiet and strong), and he will find a way to keep Syria in Russia’s sphere as well as make it more democratic, egalitarian, free and tolerant.

* * *

Perhaps I am dreaming.

We shall see.

Rose-colored summary: Putin may not be moved toward western-style intervention, but he may wish to be remembered well, and for that he may engage the Assad family, seek modification of the demands of the challengers, and set Syria on a progressive track.

On that too, we shall see.

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Additional Reference

I placed reference inline on this post, which I think adds to the on-the-fly blogging experience (even that which hails from the second row seat to history).  However, I opened other tabs on this too, and list them here.

Masyuk, Elena.  “Gleb Pavlovskiy: “What Putin is most afraid of is to be left out”.  Novayagazeta.ru, June 11, 2012: Excerpt from the interview: “A leader is the one chosen by others, and a master is a master regardless of whether you choose him or not.”

Wagele, Elizabeth.  “What is Putin’s Personality Type?”  Psychology Today, December 19, 2011.

Wikipedia.  “Narcissistic personality disorder”.  Reference provided neither to condemn nor diagnose, but rather to refer to several of the dimensions involved (in relation to this “complex, multidimensional” topic) in suggesting best political policy courses that must prove psychologically satisfying to the leaders who choose, engage, and promote them.

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Russian S-300s Reach Syria – So?

22 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Israel, Middle East, Regions, Syria

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1. Russian diplomats leaked to the London-based Arab press a report that the S-300 missiles had already arrived in Syria. According to Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Moscow had delivered 200 launchers (probably missiles) and the Syrian missile teams already knew how to use them.

By this leak, the Israeli prime minister was being informed that his journey to Sochi was a waste of time and that the use of S-300 missiles for shooting down Israeli Air Force planes was no longer controlled by Moscow but by Damascus.

DEBKAfile.  “Putin again warns Netanyahu hands off Syria.”  May 14, 2013.

Guilt of parlaying and recycling old news myself, I’m tiring of continuing, but then again, this may be the fate of bloggers watching the world from the Internet’s Second Row Seat to History.

The cool thing: we can gather a lot awfully fast.

Israel Hayom reports an S-300 missile range of 200-Km.

Obama’s attempts to lure Putin into Syria by threatening him with a strengthened Islamist presence on his flank — another Chechnya in its anarchic potential — have gotten an answer by way of the fulfillment of the S-300 procurement: without “stepping in it”, Putin’s latest delivery of surface-to-air missiles to the Assad regime discourages the greater encouragement of revolutionary fervor and anarchy in contested Syria.

If the Assad regime holds out, consolidates its military’s control of military assets, and blocks or destroys its adversaries, democratic revolutionaries and Al-Qaeda types both, Putin wins, sort of — he’ll have to live with history noting him as one who chose to continue supporting a brutal dictatorship; if the Assad’s hold on power continues to fall apart, ah, then those SAMs may fall into hands swayed by the deepest animus toward Israel and the west.

In chess — along with wine, another of Persia’s great refinements — this would be known to the party confronted by the move as a “fork”, which I should think not far from the other “F” word.

Abbas Zaidi’s Wicked Humor and Magical Realism

22 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by in Books, Journal, Library

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Zaidi, Abbas.  Two And A Half Words And Other Stories.  Gowanus Books, 2012.

What might it like to live in an atmosphere rife with bigotry, fear, and hypocrisy accompanied by the author’s and reader’s own cackling laughter?

Slip your mind into Abbas Zaidi’s slim and thoroughly delightful, also wondrously transgressive, first volume of short stories inspired by the south Asian Muslim experience and find out.

Truly, Zaidi’s Two And A Half Words And Other Stories comes off a wickedly good trip from the first mention of “Blessed Companions of the Prophet Street” (“The Shadows”) to the pitch perfect near ending wrap-up, “On that rainy evening, the four minarets of the Shahi Mosque were standing tall in the distance surrounded by the dimly-lit alleys where the ladies of the night, their pimps, and customers were getting ready for business.  I lit a cigarette . . . .”  (“Passions of Khalifa Hakeem”).

From the title story of the collection:

What I remember them saying was that the jhalli kuri in Number 3 had lost her mind after remaining silent and refusing to eat for days.  These words had no meaning for me.  But one night I woke up screaming.  I dreamed that the jhalli kuri was standing over me.

A “mad girl”, a troubled apartment, mysteries . . . .

As this blog swims around in the area of language and politics, I may mention that the volume is not bereft of the latter but for western readers may be uncomfortably startling in its depictions.  At one point, for example, a general notes, “if the Americans want to isolate Iran, courting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda is not a bad idea” and a reporter similarly struck with grand conspiracy theorizing chimes back, “Don’t be surprised if one day a Taliban squad is found blowing up bridges in Beijing in the name of Islam but actually serving American . . . .”

Wealth may be needed to preserve the conditions in which the literary experience of the 19th Century thrived, either that or equal tolerance for impoverishment, for even reading through the dozen expertly crafted short stories contained in Zaidi’s first collection requires time away from the web and time unencumbered by other concerns — call the proper condition “leisured time”: the experience of such work becomes that of a thin but notable and latent powerful new intelligentsia.  For that set — and if you’re here, I hope you’re a part of it — such stories provide both a critique of and a map to the spirit of the world in which the author has lived.

We may never have a perfect world — God forbid it — but in Abbas Zaidi, a part of it may have given the gift of a perfect and perfectly scathing reflector and entertainer.

FNS – NAZI Flag Flies Over Hebron

20 Monday May 2013

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That a Nazi flag would be flying over a Palestinian village near a Mosque should actually be less shocking than the fact that so many are shocked by it.

Walid Shoebat, Walid.  “Nazi Flag flying over Palestinian Village shouldn’t come as a  Shock but does.”  Walid Shoebat, May 20, 2013.

This story has actually had about half a day, twelve hours, to get around the web, but it looks pretty stupid by every public relations and rhetorical guidance possible. As with Syria calling up the ghosts of the Soviet Era, stringing up a Nazi flag on a power line in a refugee-controlled area of the West Bank (where the heck was “the occupation” when that obscenity unfurled?) awakens the racist ghosts of Germany’s woeful Nazi Era.

Some people cannot but help fight old battles in their heads until they erupt in a reality that has only to teach them all over again why those old battles have indeed grown old and irrelevant.

Funding Assad and Related Web Rambling

20 Monday May 2013

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The toll of dead and wounded continued to rise for Hezbollah, which is fighting its biggest battle yet on the side of President Bashar al-Assad.

Barnard, Anne and Hania Mourtada.  “Battle in Syria Pulls Hezbollah Further Into Assad’s War.”  The New York Times, May 20, 2013.

As the Arab world’s bloodiest conflict grinds on, Qatar has emerged as a driving force: pouring in tens of millions of dollars to arm the rebels. Yet it also stands accused of dividing them – and of positioning itself for even greater influence in the post-Assad era.

Khalaf, Roula and Abigail Fielding-Smith.  “How Qatar seized control of the Syrian Revolution.  Financial Times, May 17, 2013.

Talk about hubris.  The Financial Times reports that Qatari ministers have already built a Syrian embassy to host the emmisaries sent by Assad’s opponents.

Not so fast, Tehran might say, having put its billions behind the bloody and dismal Syrian chip that seems “in play” on the middle east’s poker table:

Iran has paid the salaries of the Syrian regime troops for months, in addition to providing Assad with weapons and logistic support, The Times reported citing members of the Syrian opposition.

The price tag on that across time: billions of dollars.

Source: Al Aribya.  “Tehran split over billions spent to support Assad’s regime: report.”  Al Arabiya News, October 1, 2012.

When the above quoted article was written, it noted the death toll in Syria as 30,000.

A year-and-one-half (or so) later: 92,000 dead; 3.4 million homeless.

“The fear is that both the Saudis and the Qataris are competing for influence in Syria by pouring in support to rival groups of jihadist fighters, and that Syria is descending into the depths of hell as a result,” said Simon Henderson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a US research group dedicated to improving American strategy in the Middle East.

Freeman, Colin.  “Qatar ‘playing with fire’ as it funds Syrian Islamists in quest for global influence.”  The Telegraph, April 27, 2013.

The is where Obama, the “Muslim Socialist” as some characterize him, gets into the Benghazi muck that continues to suck down his shoes.

Glenn Beck reported that Glen Doherty, the former Navy Seal who was killed alongside Ambassador Christopher Stevens, told ABC News that he was looking for weapons in Libya. Middle East expert Barry Rubin has said U.S. intelligence confirms that Ambassador Stevens was in Benghazi to negotiate for the return of an American weapons’ system.

Alexander, Rachel.  “Benghazi Betrayal May be a Cover-Up of American Weapons in Hands of Terrorists.”  Townhall, November 17, 2012.

This much I know is true: Syria, so left to roll along with Russian business and military arrangements in the Post-Soviet Era, has deteriorated to the point where there is press right now discussing partition (France 24.  “Battle for Qusair raises threat of Syria partition.”  May 20, 2013).

Syria’s central government has been seriously damaged.

The combined displaced persons and refugee situations are becoming as untenable as they are substantial (BBC reports “Syrian refugees’ situation is ‘desparate’, warns Oxfam” – May 20, 2013).

Related from the BBC: “Syria conflict: Fierce battle for key town of Qusair.”  May 20, 2013: “State television said that the army had set up a protected corridor for civilians to escape the fighting, but activists said many people feared persecution and torture once they entered government-controlled areas.”

While Russia protects its existing contracts with the Assad regime and positions war ships in the area, the “fog of war” — even in the Electronic Information Age, perhaps more so — prevails and within it fighters lose their lives, as do civilians, and civilians lose their homes and there way of living in relation to them.

All that commotion, destruction, and general misery costs a bundle.

From last year on the The Independent site, Paul Conroy, a journalist casualty of the war, describes Assad’s war as a massacre of Homs residents: Fisk, Robert.  “The fearful realities keeping the Assad regime in power.”  The Independent, March 4, 2012.  In the text following the video, Robert Fisk characterized Homs this way:

Once a Roman city, where the crusaders committed their first act of cannibalism – eating their dead Muslim opponents – Homs was captured by Saladin in 1174. Under post-First World War French rule, the settlement became a centre of insurrection and, after independence, the very kernel of Baathist resistance to the first Syrian governments. By early 1964, there were battles in Homs between Sunnis and Alawi Shia. A year later, the young Baathist army commander of Homs, Lieutenant Colonel Mustafa Tlas, was arresting his pro-regime comrades. Is the city’s history becoming a little clearer now?

Earlier this month, CNN reported on Homs: “Eight hundred families and nearly 500 wounded people in the Old District now fear for their lives and many worry they will become victims of reprisal attacks and even sectarian killings, the Revolutionary Council of Homs said.”

Abdelazziz, Salma.  “Syria government reclaims parts of Homs.”  CNN, May 2, 2013.

If you were an attentive reader going down this column, you caught the message twice as regards common trust of the Assad regime: from these reports, it ain’t there.  

Syria’s Civil War is a big ugly animal that gets around, and today its interests are not those of any its path nor, for the most part, of those it has swept into arms.

FNS – A Fast Note On Turkish Freedom of Speech

20 Monday May 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Free Speech

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Within hours of the bombing–in a busy shopping area in Reyhanli, the temporary home of thousands of Syrian refugees–police in Hatay, Istanbul, and Ankara visited newsrooms and presented the court order to media managers to ensure they heed to it. The order banned “every type of voice and visual recording, feeds, print and visual media [records], and data on the Internet” about the Reyhanli incident. The order also banned sharing of information about “the event scene, the dead and the wounded at the event scene, and the contents of the event.”

Öğret, Özgür.  “News blackout deepens Turkey press freedom doubts.”  CPJ Blog, May 17, 2013.

Although the ban was recently lifted, readers who click on the above URL will find a damning story about the character of President Erdogan’s autocracy.

Although a party to NATO security arrangements, a Turkish state evaluated today on its anti-democratic and authoritarian drift would seem a far cry from any European open society.

The good news here may be hinted at by this partial quotation from the same piece: ” . . . but a court in Hatay lifted the ban, just like the Reyhanli court had imposed it.”

In President Erdogan’s Turkey, the autocrat has yet to get a free ride.

Take a look with me at another article posted earlier this year, this one by Al Jazeera:

“There was no [physical] torture but without [a real] reason to be arrested, it was torture to be treated like a terrorist. Everyone is looking at you like you’re a monster,” Zarakolu told Al Jazeera from a café near his home in Istanbul.

DAmours, Jillian Kestler.  “Turkey: ‘World’s biggest prison’ for media.”  Al Jazeera, February 19, 2013.

The speaker authored articles and published books by Kurdish and Armenian writers of their audiences.

The article will go on to note that Turkish authorities believe they have cause in that the journalists swept into its prisons may have additional roles in illegal organizations, and in this day of “advocacy journalism”, that may be true.  Still, it may be too easy to turn the intellectual adversaries of the state into alleged terrorists and thereby remove a part of their ideas and observations from public view.

Measuring strictly in terms of imprisonments, Turkey—a longtime American ally, member of NATO, and showcase Muslim democracy—appears to be the most repressive country in the world.

According to the Journalists Union of Turkey, ninety-four reporters are currently imprisoned for doing their jobs.

Filkins, Dexter.  “Turkey’s Jailed Journalists.”  The New Yorker, March 9, 2012.

Filkins, whom I consider a journalist’s journalist — truly, the best of the best — goes on to note in The New Yorker piece that “. . . more than seven hundred people have been arrested, including members of paliament, army officers, university rectors, the heads of aid organizations, and the owners of television networks” since Erdogan’s rise to power in 2007.

Turkey’s “journalism watch” story, as bad as it may be, stretches across and more deeply into the nation’s education, information, and military communities, effectively transforming Filkin’s noted “showcase Muslim democracy”) toward the too familiar “Muslim dictatorship”.

However, as noted, Erdogan’s efforts toward consolidating his power and controlling the intellectual experience of his countrymen are not unbounded, unnoticed, or without impedance.

What Said Said – A Critique; Also An Old Post About Not Lying

19 Sunday May 2013

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It may be that Said, as he claimed, “scrupulously” recounted his life in his autobiography where at last the true facts of his education and residence emerge. But, as his critics continued to ask, does finally telling his story truthfully wipe away twenty years of lying about it?

Muravchik, Joshua.  “Enough Said: The False Scholarship of Edward Said.”  World Affairs, March / April 2013.

A Facebook friend brought to light this companion piece:

Farooq, Adil.  When Ibn Warraq met Edward Said.  Islam Watch, January 28, 2007.  Excerpt:

“Despite his Arab heritage, there is also a peculiar condescension towards Arabs and Muslims that runs throughout many Said’s works. This is disturbing, given that many Arabs and Muslims share much of Said’s conclusions of who is to blame for their mess. And yet for Said to place much of the blame on Western shoulders strongly implies that Arabs and Muslims are inherently incapable of beginning to sort out their societies; that such people are pathetic, downtrodden children . . . .”

I have not read the work of Edward Said but 1) know the name and 2) know that integrity plays a thematic role in each theater of the Islamic Small Wars.

People lie.

Or just “bend and twist it some”.

They shouldn’t.

What follows I reprint from my old blog.

Ye Who Would Wish to Help Man, Write for God

In the design and engineering of a properly motivated conflict complex, pandering may count first among the evils available to speech.

Of course the Emperor’s clothes look dashing even though he’s not wearing any.

And not one of anyone’s ilk would have burned the Great Library of Alexandria.

Looking for the root of all evil?

Forget about money.

Look here:

  • bluffs
  • cheats
  • concealments
  • deceptions
  • deflections
  • denials
  • exaggerations
  • equivocations
  • false analogies
  • false claims
  • frauds
  • fabrications
  • innuendos
  • libels
  • lies
  • misrepresentations
  • obfuscations
  • omissions
  • understatements

From there, the basics of lying, one might go on to similarly pleasant and damnable behaviors: bribery (and patronage), conning, intimidation — basic infernal leverage, those three.

To get really down and dirty, one might go on to behaviors lending themselves to disinhibition in various dimensions — addiction, eroticism, gluttony, masochism, sadism, etc. — which may involve matters of degree and where to place the sort of limit about which most and one’s self would say, “no more — not another bite!”

Somewhere in my Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy concept, one might notice that the (privately sane) rock star’s public excesses have a way of being contained by concerns for the bottom line, the next show, the continuing good will of the fans, and such, making the wrecking of the hotel room an expensive publicity stunt (it was probably a lot of fun too but not the sort of behavior to bring home to the mansion), and there are internal contrainers too, those little devils that say, “Enough already, that will do for a buzz or a photo-op.”

Those who go beyond, really get Out There, so much so they really need to be caught in a net and caged.

The nanny can’t keep the baby quiet?  Well then, throw a pot of boiling water over her head!

Some of the people seem upset about something?  Send out the army!

Not getting along in or with the modern world?  Blame the Jews!

Probably the first lie, whatever it may be, and getting away with it, creates the first license, and if the one who does it or the culture that indulges the same is not careful, the gyre around greed and power take off.  The militia may not really care, but for $50 per month, they’ll go out on the streets and gun down protestors without flinching, just so long as they’re not outmaneuvered, outnumbered, and outgunned themselves.

Greed or fear may subdue conscience, or so regularly and ruthlessly abuse it as to make it go away (and make it corrosive and shameful in the most hellish ways to have it back and nagging over one’s every breathing moment).

I will tell you it’s frightning when one starts to see the outline of a low-level drudge doling out torture at Evin Prison (reference: Then They Came for Me) and start to connect that with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, an even more potent more private force under the direct control of Ayatollah Khamenei, and then with perhaps less involvement but certainly some presence Russia, Turkey, Syria, and their interest.  That’s a lot of evil come from selling a “Zionist conspiracy” that doesn’t exist (and Jews as devils, except that in realspace, all over real life, really, I and mine are producing publications, engineering miracles in healthcare and other productive areas, and volunteering services involved with every do-good possibility on the planet: in fact, if you happen to see solar arrays decorating floating villages in Peru, do blame the Jews).

In any case, the arms racers and suppliers, legitimate and black market, have their best days.

—-

Let me take you to the other side in my idealism: if you would wish to help people, write for God.

This is not to say don’t take some money for the effort, but if it’s going to be a good effort, put away that tempting contract with the Devil.

Average mediaphiles know the basics:  if in journalism, you will make every effort to publish work that is “clear, accurate, and complete”; if in soft science research, you will do all that may be done to establish expert validity for proposed dimensions and variables in your theories and go on to produce “valid” and “reliable” data as well as fully plausible and challengeable hypotheses and theories.

Perhaps even as pundit with an attitude, curiously about how things work and delving into them to ferret that out may seem more fair to the work than conveniently spooling out a familiar schpeil on a soapbox.

Convenient honest will not be enough to turn the darker tides: in fact, I should think it evil to invent or promote “alternative viewpoints” to influence politics or score social points, all of which is just ass licking whether of individuals or in-groups or ambitious organizations with agendas.  What the heavens — God, nature, the nagging signal from one’s better moral compass —  beg for are accurate and clear analyses and assessments of things as they really are.

A mind in which all things are possible and all possibilies and proposals are equal has absolutely no value to anyone, least of all the whacked-out owner of such confused perceptions and low standards.

No need to be mechanical or neutered, bereft of personal interests and social affinities and alliances: the truth to be observed and reflected in things won’t care, for if you have uncovered a little bit of true story and real knowledge, such a notation, organic and quite independently of your efforts will withstand challenges from many directions and, if surviving, attain growth and stability until debunked, which may never happen, or once settled, grown repetitive and tiresome, and finally played out and punched out by the best who should have beaten it, integrated into something greater.

Leave the cant, parroting, propagandizing to minds already chained by habits, constrained perhaps by their watchers or “handlers”, numbed by bad old desires and dreams, and dependent on “mission approval” for confidence.

Discern, test, assert; be accountable, responsible, universal in reflection and statement; what doesn’t work, stop defending, let it go, adjust; eschew constructivism, embrace coherance; and not least important, leave room for creativity, empathy, and imagination.

Consider even becoming comfortable with the ineffable.

I would not mean to prod any into flying in the face of local or fashionable social conventions and expectations for the sake of it, and yet, if you have stumbled upon a right path where others seem to you lost and walking off the cllifs, go with God — and great good, comprehensive, valid, and reliable data — and invite the lost to scout the new frontier with you.

Enjoy one’s skeptics most of all.

Just don’t toady to them.

Should one as an analyst, writer, or researcher be one’s own best fan, remember: whatever the best findings, the most truthful conclusions, none will change if true, and if not true and undermined by peers, none will repair themselves merely to be kind to you.

Get over it.

Move on.

A Dios.

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