Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny. Grigori Rasputin, often referred to as the “Mad Monk,” was a peasant with a fondness for madeira, cheap steaks, and prostitutes. He seemingly cured the Tsar’s son, Alexei, returning him to health by a gift from God: the power of faith.
Rasputin, living by the Russian proverb “You can’t avoid that which is meant to happen,” accepted his fate and was welcomed by the Empress and her son into the royal household with open arms. However, he was later expelled from the royal household by the Tsar and his handlers for violating another Russian proverb: “Don’t bring your own rules into someone else’s monastery.”
Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny, a 1996 HBO TV movie seen by almost no one, is Alan Rickman’s tour de force. It provides an exquisite emotional interpretation of religious fervor and mystical power. The film brings the myth of Rasputin into the realm of authenticity and historical plausibility.
The film recreates Rasputin’s madness amidst the early 20th-century events that predated and possibly presaged the madness of events set into motion by Lenin in 1917 (Rasputin was murdered towards the end of 1916). These events led to what Orwell succinctly summarized in “Animal Farm” when the new boss replaced the old boss: “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.“
Genre: Biographical, Drama, Historical
Directed by: Uli Edel
Screenplay by: Peter Pruce
Music by: Brad Fiedel
Cast: Alan Rickman, Greta Scacchi, Ian McKellen, Freddie Finlay
Film Location: Budapest, Hungary and St. Petersburg, Russia
ElsBob: 7.0/10
IMDb: 6.9/10
Rotten Tomatoes Critics: -%
Rotten Tomatoes Popcornmeter: 79%
Metacritic Metascore: -%
Metacritic User Score: -/10
Theaters: 23 March 1996
Runtime: 135 minutes
Source: Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb. Graphic: Rasputin Movie Trailer, copyright HBO.
Grigori Rasputin, a Russian mystic, met an inglorious, improbable, and inexplicable end in 1916 at his assassin’s Moika Palace in Saint Petersburg. Although accounts vary, Rasputin’s executioners ostensibly made multiple attempts to murder him. They began with cyanide-laced cakes, which did not achieve their desired outcome. Next, in an attempt to reach a different result with the same measures, they offered him wine fortified with more cyanide. This attained the same result as the first attempt.
Following this, they shot him multiple times, but he continued to move, eventually attacking his would-be murderers. Finally, they wrapped him up in a carpet and tossed him into a freezing river, where he supposedly died of hypothermia.
A less imaginative account of his death suggests that he died from a single bullet to the head.
Rasputin supposedly left a letter, which was read by Alexandra, the wife of Tsar Nicholas II, prophesizing that if he was killed by Russian nobles, the Russian Tsar’s family would be executed within a few years.
Source: Biography, 2021. Graphic; Rasputin, c1910, Russian Empire, public domain.
In February 2008, The New York Times published an anonymously sourced front-page story accusing Senator and Republican presidential candidate John McCain of having an improper relationship with telecommunications lobbyist Vicki Iseman. Both McCain and Iseman denied the allegations.
Critics blasted the paper for running a front-page story based on slender and anonymous sourcing. Steve Schmidt, McCain’s campaign advisor, sneered, “It was something that you would see in The National Enquirer.” A few days after the story ran, Times ombudsman Clark Hoyt criticized it for being short on facts, writing, “If you cannot provide readers with some independent evidence, I think it is wrong to report the suppositions or concerns of anonymous aides…“
Vicki Iseman sued The New York Times for defamation in December 2008. The case was settled a few months later, but the Times did not issue a retraction. They did, however, publish a clarifying note stating that they did not intend to imply an improper relationship between Iseman and McCain. John Dean, writing for Verdict, commented on the absurdity of the defamation agreement, stating, “Rather than apologize and/or retract, they [the Times] would merely say what they said is not what they meant, and that readers should not be fooled into understanding what they read as saying what everybody thought it said.”
Source: Times Hit Piece Dying on Media Vine by Clay Waters, 2008. Who Won…by John Dean, Verdict, 2013.
Thomas Hobbes, a 17th-century philosopher and author of Leviathan, argued that humans are driven by self-interest and the instinct for survival, which can be inherently self-destructive. To curtail our tendency to drift towards chaos and early death, he proposed his social contract theory, where we sacrifice some freedoms to the state in exchange for safety, peace, and security.
Hobbes recognized that surrendering freedoms may lead to tyranny. He said that if the state becomes oppressive, the social contract is broken, and citizens are no longer bound to submit to its authority. He argued that the contract is rational and valid only as long as the benefits outweigh the costs.
Thomas Jefferson used a similar argument in the Declaration of Independence, stating: “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.“
Source: Hobbes’s Moral and Political Philosophy, SEP 2022. Graphic: AI generated.
On Tuesday, 7 November 1944, Franklin D. Roosevelt won his fourth term as President of the United States, defeating Republican Thomas E. Dewey of New York.
Few states in the 1944 election had a primary system in place to vote for party nominees, instead choosing delegates to the national nominating convention through party caucuses or state conventions. The real job of selecting the party’s nominees occurred at the national conventions with little to no input from the voting public.
Democrats, concerned that Roosevelt might not live to complete his term, replaced the sitting left-wing and economically illiterate Vice President Henry A. Wallace with the Missouri Senator Harry S. Truman.
Roosevelt died on 12 April 1945, less than three months into his new term, with Truman assuming the presidency that same day.
Truman ordered the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, less than six months into his presidency, proving that holding the highest office in the land is fraught with uncertainty and requires unimaginable determination and strength.
Graphic: Electoral College Results for the 1944 Presidential Election.
USA Today, in a 2005 story, revealed that the younger Bush White House had paid columnists to promote the president’s ‘No Child Left Behind’ policy, that he signed into law in 2002.
The Bush’s Education Department paid Armstrong Williams, Maggie Gallagher, and Michael McManus thousands of dollars to give favorable coverage in print, radio, and television. Williams was paid the most, $241,000 to write positive NCLB articles for his syndicated column at the Tribune Co., and speak glowingly about it on his TV and radio programs. The Tribune Co., his syndicator, dropped his column after the pay-to-print arrangement was discovered. The media in 2005 considered the pay-to-promote practice insidious, abhorrent, and unethical.
It has been reported that the Biden administration, through a political action committee, has paid at least 1 million dollars to approximately 150 social media influencers to promote its policies. These include Harry Sisson, Vivian Tu, and Awa Sanneh among others, all active on TikTok, X, and Instagram. While these payments and influencers were disclosed, the process has been less than transparent and generally, the influencers do not state upfront what posts are paid for by the Biden administration or the PACs controlled by its administration.
What was considered unethical behavior 20 years ago is standard operating procedure today.
Source: The Top 12 Journalism Scandals by Tony Rogers, ThoughtCo., 2023. The Conversation, 2024. Graphic: Influencers, Morgan MacNaughton/Palette Management.
220 years ago on 11 July 1804 Aaron Burr, Vice President of the US challenged and mortally wounded, in a duel, the US Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton.
Burr claimed that Hamilton smeared his name by stating that he was a dangerous man and should not be in control of a government. Burr demanded a public apology. Hamilton refused to acknowledge, much less apologize to Burr for the alleged smear, triggering Burr to challenge Hamilton to a duel.
The duel occurred near Weehawken, New Jersey, across the Hudson from Manhattan, and both men fired one round. Hamilton was hit in his side near the hip and died the next day from the wound.
Dueling at the time was illegal but Burr escaped without any charges being brought, although his political career lay in tatters.
Source: The Hamilton-Burr Duel by Josh Wood, Origins, 2019. Graphic: Hamilton-Burr Duel after a painting by J. Mund, public domain.220
Ralph Waldo Emerson, author of the transcendental essay, “Self-Reliance” is often credited with saying, “When you strike at a king, you must kill him.” The exact setting and time for the quote is unknown but Ann Althouse believes it was said during a conversation with Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., one of the most widely cited Supreme Court justices, after Holmes attacked Plato. Emerson’s parried with the quote above, meaning that if you strike at the philosopher king you must be thorough.
Niccolò Machiavelli, in his book “The Prince”, didn’t specifically mention the need to “kill the king” however, he did say, “If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared,” and he also added “People should either be caressed or crushed. If you need to injure someone, do it in such a way that you do not have to fear their vengeance.”
Source: The Prince, Machiavelli. Emerson, Althouse Blog, 2019. Graphic: Emerson by Hawes, 1857, Public Domain.
The adage, History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes, or less succinctly, historical, and current events may not unfold in the same manner, but they often follow similar patterns or themes. As an example, the rise of authoritarianism usually follows, and rhymes, with the erosion of democratic norms, intolerance of dissent, animosity towards religious or ethnic minorities, economic instability, isolation of true democratic countries, and war.
This quote is often attributed to Mark Twain but no collaborating evidence for him saying exactly this has ever been found. He did say something similar, in a novel he wrote with Charles Warner, the 1874 The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-Day that “History never repeats itself, but the Kaleidoscopic combinations of the pictured present often seem to be constructed out of the broken fragments of antique legends.” The quote in its entirety is sentence that Twain could never write, it had to have come from his co-author.
Austrian American psychoanalyst Theodor Reik, a student of Freud, published an essay in 1965, “The Unreachables” where he wrote: It has been said that history repeats itself. This is perhaps not quite correct; it merely rhymes. There are recurring cycles, ups and downs, but the course of events is essentially the same, with small variations. It has been said that history repeats itself. This is perhaps not quite correct; it merely rhymes.
Regardless of whomever said, History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes were astute observers of history and life.
Source: Quote Investigator, 2014. Graphic: Publicity photo of Reik, 1920s, public domain.
“At the end of the day, I’m fighting for the things I said I’d fight for.” – Ron DeSantis
Courage to Be Free is the Florida governor’s biography with a good measure of politics, vision and American government thrown in. It’s a simple read from someone selling himself as an authentic American and an honest and ethical broker who supports the citizens through good government.
Ron Desantis was born in Jacksonville, Florida in 1978, married Casey Black in 2009, and has three children, two girls and a boy. He attended Yale and graduated in 2001 with a B.A. A year later he entered Harvard and graduated with a law degree in 2005. During law school he was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Navy. In 2007 he was assigned as a legal advisor to SEAL Team One in Fallujah, Iraq where he was awarded the Bronze Star.
In 2012 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and was re-elected in 2014 and 2016. DeSantis decided not to run for re-election to the House for the 2018 term but instead competed for the Florida governorship which he won. He won re-election in 2022 and as he is term limited by Florida law will not seek that office in 2024. Since he has dropped out of the Presidential race what he does next is an open question.
The first half of Desantis’ book is dedicated to his biography followed by his vision of government and national policy. He draws heavily on the expository essays and articles within the Federalist Papers and their vision for a constitutional republic. The authors of the Federalist Papers, Madison, Hamilton, and Jay argue strenuously for a republican form of government and against direct democracy which one could paraphrase in slang terms as mob rule. DeSantis agrees.
His political philosophy is simple in principle, excoriatingly difficult in execution. Encapsulating his thoughts he states, “The right path forward is not difficult to identify; it just requires using basic common sense and applying core American values…” He follows this up with his blueprint for Florida and America: “Be willing to lead, have the courage of your convictions, deliver for your constituents, and reap the political rewards.” Reaping the political rewards sounds like every politician that has ever walked the face of this Earth and I don’t recognize that as a positive trait.
Literary Criticism:
Courage to Be Free was a number one bestseller in the New York Times, Wallstreet Journal, Amazon, and Publisher’s Weekly shortly after it was released in 2023. Although sales figures are almost impossible to find, for free, the book had an initial print run of 250,000. There hasn’t been a second printing.
Hagiographies are one sided affairs with nary a discouraging word to be found, with sainthood lurking right around the corner. DeSantis autobiography is a hagiography but in fairness one doesn’t provide his opposition with free negative research when your goal is to introduce yourself to the public.
This book had only one purpose, to launch DeSantis into the 2024 presidential Republican primary in the best possible light and as a bonus, get your targeted audience to pay for it by purchasing the book. It admirably accomplishes the task, but it certainly is not a literary masterpiece, rather it reads like a college term paper completed under duress. Simple, direct, with no flowery prose or memorable lines. If you want to learn something about this man, give it perusal, a quick read is all it needs and watch one or two of his Republican primary debates for additional elucidation.
The only reason I read this book was because of the title: The Courage to Be Free. It reminded me of the title of John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage. Kennedy’s book employs a better writing style but that is because Kennedy didn’t author his book. In a previous post I stated who did and I’ll leave it to you to look it up if you are curious. In the end both are about embellishing their respective reputations. Mission accomplished.
