The Jews of Ukraine keep publishing open letters, begging Putin to stop “protecting” them by invading their country.

Of course, the Jews understand that the last thing in the world that preoccupies Putin is their well-being. The letters are aimed at those members of the international community who are eager to believe Putin’s lies.

It makes every sense for Jews to support Ukraine’s sovereignty, given that the independent Ukrainian Republic of the 1918-20 championed the rights of Jewish people in a way unparalleled in all Russian-speaking territories before or since.

David Cameron is suggesting that the freedom Russian politicians have to move around Europe should be curtailed and their visas should be revoked.

I don’t understand why we keep hearing these great suggestions but are not seeing any actions that would put the suggestions in practice.

Or maybe I’m simply in denial and don’t want to see the painfully obvious.

Have you heard about the #banbossy campaign started by the eminently boring Sheryl Sandberg? I mean, I’m very happy that Sandberg is managing to make a pile out of people’s lack of extreme intellectual sophistication. I always support people’s attempts to enrich themselves by legal means. But can anything be sillier than this campaign?

The whole idea is based on the ancient sexist stereotype that women are tender flowers who need to be approached with extreme care because their unstable psyches can collapse at any moment. The most popular form of bastardized feminism these days is that which strives to remove every aspect of reality which might hurt the tender feelings of fair damsels.

The real winners, the only actual winners, are people who know how to sell. If you can’t sell, you need to stand as close as possible to those who can. The distance between you and somebody who is good at sales is the same as the distance that separates you from relative comfort and security.

This is neither good nor bad. This is simply capitalism.

Reader Stille reminded me that I haven’t been quoting Tony Judt recently. And she’s right, he is really good. One of the historian’s greatest strengths is his talent for using just the right words to transmit his message. See this for instance:

The irrational, occasionally surreal quality of Soviet economic practice was faithfully reproduced throughout the bloc.

This is the best description of Soviet economy that I have ever seen.

If you want to say “a Ukrainian woman”, do you say “una mujer ucraniana” or “una mujer ucrania”?

And if you say “Ukrainian people”, is it “ucranianos” or “ucranios”?

I always say “ucranianos” but El Pais says “ucranios” on every page. I hate this new-fangled “ucranios” like I can’t tell you. Where did it come from?

“My friend Ol. will be voting for Quebec Solidaire,” I told my father.

“Oh God, how can he, how can he?!?” my father exclaimed.

“Look,” I said, “today I spent time with Ol who votes Quebec Solidaire. Then I had dinner with my friend O. who is pro-Palestine. And now I’m sitting here with you who votes Harper. And it’s all good.”

I’m in Montreal, and I’m running around trying to meet everybody I know and miss here, so my access to the Internet is spotty.

I just caught a glimpse of a website that showed the bandit Khodorkovsky speaking in the Maidan in Kiev in support of Ukraine’s sovereignty. The website I glimpsed seems to have mentioned that Khodorkovsky was practically in tears. The last thing we need is support from bloodthirsty criminals for our cause. Can this animal just go die already? Jeez. Practically the only good thing Putin ever did was placing this cannibal behind bars.

This is not a good development. A cause supported by people of this caliber loses all legitimacy.

Somebody please tell me I imagined this. Pretty please?

At first, Putin’s propagandists were going to invade Ukraine to save it from Ukrainian neo-Nazis. When no neo-Nazis were found in quantities that would make them sound at least vaguely threatening, a search began for a more convincing threat. Now, Putinoids are planning to save Ukraine from the evil Americans and scary Germans who supposedly organized and financed the Ukrainian protests.

Let’s see what fresh threat they will invent tomorrow. I’m hearing that the Uzbeks are plenty threatening. Or the Québécois. I mean, have you seen the Québécois? They are scary as hell. Or they can be once Putinoids do their work.

I keep hearing that toppling the statues of Lenin was a big mistake on the part of Ukrainian protesters.

I am convinced, however, that this was the most hopeful moment of the last 20 years in Ukraine.

Countries that experienced a totalitarian regime have only two possible scenarios ahead of them. They either address their totalitarian past and undergo the process of public reckoning and expiation, or they pretend that the past never happened. The latter are doomed to stagnating in corruption, aimlessness, cynicism, hatred and poverty for decades to come.

If Ukrainians have started to realize that the country’s tragic history needs to be discussed and, most importantly, judged, this means they have a chance of getting out of poverty.

All of the oil and gas in the world will not help Russia get better until the Russian people bury the corpse of Lenin and jail some of the Communist criminals.