Ghosts

The closest thing I’ve seen to ghosts is the stray dogs that live here on the beach and elsewhere. Unlike their domestic counterparts, they do not bark, tug on leashes, get hit by cars or dirty the sidewalks. They move unobtrusively among humans (and their domesticated companions) without breaking their unfathomable routines. They truly live in a world of their own, entirely oblivious to the tension-filled spaces of modern life while, at the same time, feeding off what humans carelessly discard along the wayside.

It works both ways. No attention is paid to the strays as well. It’s as if they don’t exist – like lizards, birds. I find it curious that there’s a building sporting an “Animal Welfare” sign barely a block from the beach where sick dogs abound, locked in their own private agonies. I see them day after day, scratching and biting themselves, their tumors growing; some have lost their fur entirely; some nurse broken legs; others are nearly blind.

In Russia, Obama will encounter the ghost of the Cold War still raging. Whereas it has all but passed on in the West, in Russia it’s still banging the pots inside the halls of the KGB. Our president will be hard pressed to persuade Putin to stop feeding that particular dog. That’s because it still rankles them that they lost (albeit fair and square).

Obama’s offer of peace will not connect. It lies outside their capacity to understand that America’s prostrations are not a trick. No one can be so deluded as to think that Marxism still has merit. They’ll see Obama as a trickster. Hasn’t he already managed to trick the American people into electing someone who appears to believe that economic success is the source of all evil? Hasn’t he been doing his utmost to unravel that which has taken centuries to build? “No way can we trust a man like that”, they will conclude. “We’ll humor him, but our policy of vigilance won’t change. Besides, America is more valuable to us as an enemy. In this way we’ll have someone to blame when our own corrupt policies begin to fail.

“Still, it’s a pretty good ploy; you must admit - black man without pedigree; a messiah who is said to hate his own. One who claims he would run the old failed experiment all over again – for what? Peace? Revenge? Bloody-mindedness?

“It’s too much to expect of us to believe. And all this from a nation that only six month ago still fought the good fight respectably. And if it turns out to be true, it’s even worse: the unraveling of a once-great nation, creating a vacuum we can’t possibly fill.”