Thursday Afternoon Cigar

A Santa Damiana was set ablaze this afternoon.

We are reading Robert Conquest's Stalin: Stalin: Breaker of Nations. In Chapter 5, Revolution, Conquest explains how 1917 might have been the year for the Revolution, but Stalin wasn't much part of it. It seems that Stalin was either active in remote regions, or a bit AWOL at other times during the challenges of 1917. While the word "ditherer" isn't used, it comes across just the same. History is best explained if there is a current example, and we'll spend the rest of this cigar trying to think of a more recent leader that always seemed distant and unattached from major events.

Oh, unrelated, yesterday was Day 70 of the Gulf Oil Spill, and the day's news was that the Obama Administration approved the offered help from several other nations.