This past Sunday marked the vernal equinox, also known as the beginning of astrological spring. It’s one of the two days of the year — the other being the fall equinox — when day and night are roughly equal in length around the globe.
We would note that “meteorological spring” began March 1, the date used by meteorologists and climatologists to mark the beginning of the spring season.
However, to paraphrase Bob Dylan and Sam Cooke, we don’t need a weatherman (or a calendar) to be aware that a change is coming. Our senses have alerted us for the past few weeks to the impending arrival of spring.
We can see the crocuses that have been emerging, providing a burst of color through the barren ground.
Every morning right around sunrise, we can hear the chorus of birds in the trees, loudly chirping and tweeting after their winter of silence.
On clear days, the sun feels warm and strong, especially if we are on the leeward side of a wall or other structure, protected from the still-chilly March wind.
And even in the city, there is an earthy smell we have known since childhood that instinctively informs our brains that there is a change in the seasons.
To be sure, Mother Nature most likely will have some wintry surprises left for us. This April 1 will mark the 25th anniversary of the April Fool’s snowstorm of 1997 (we’ll write about that next week).
But our senses have told us that Ol’ Man Winter is done and spring is here.
What will we do if (when) Putin uses a nuclear weapon?
With the news that Putin’s Russian army at best is facing a stalemate in Ukraine, the odds that Putin might use a so-called tactical nuclear weapon are increasing daily.
The thing about autocrats is this: Just when you think they’ve gone as far (or as low) as they can go, they cross a new threshold of evil.
We were both surprised and dismayed to read that Russia has nuclear weapons that only are about two percent as powerful as the atom bombs that the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII.
Both the Soviet Union and the U.S. have long-maintained nuclear arsenals with hydrogen bombs that are 2000-3000 times more powerful than the first A-bombs, but we were not aware that both sides also have developed these mini-nukes.
Indeed, Putin can look at our use of the A-bombs in WWII as an example of how to force an opponent into submission. Japan only surrendered after we used the bombs. With the Ukrainains defiantly resolved to fight to the last person, the use of a small nuclear weapon might be the only option left to Putin to win his war.
So what if Putin were to drop a small nuke over say, Kyiv?
What will be the response of NATO and the U.S.?
The world as we know it is being threatened — and thereby controlled — by.a sociopath.
The civilized world can impose all of the economic sanctions it wants upon a despot, but in the final analysis, nukes are what matter, which is why the No. Koreans are trying to get them.
We can only speculate about the future path that the war in Ukraine will take us.
We are entering a deep, dark cave with no light at the end of the tunnel.
Hopefully, that light, when it comes, will not be the flash of a nuclear bomb.