Take notes. Russia is a failed state. We all know what will happen to Vladimir Putin. If you throw one person off the subway, you’re tried for murder. If you go for the whole train car, you’re a historical figure. Vladimir is the state. The drooping eyelids, puffy grey face. Putin is aging in his lair. His backdrop, loyalty. Putin is a suit. If you push one person from the subway car, you get kicked off the subway by the people on the subway. Putin knows. Trump knows. The enfant terribles of the planet build big walls. The Russian people fear that it will not be American mushroom clouds. It will be Russian mushroom clouds. Stalin controlled Russians very effectively. Putin is giving us his best Mona Lisa. All photographs have an inner ear. And a voice. This particular photograph is of someone who contemplates dark tragedy. Napoleon made it to Moscow. But personally, he was a lone wolf in his winter coat. We all know what happened to Napoleon. Women choose poison. Men choose guns. Waterloo was out there waiting. Once inside Russia, there was no turning back. Authority in Russia is absolute. We, too, want a taste of that. But authority in Russia is under siege. From Ukraine. I know this: In order to even begin to know the Russian psyche, consider the lowly potato. When the potatoes being sold are gnarled, mushy, and have worms, you know that this covenant of tragedy is growing hungry. We do not want hungry Russians. We need Russia to take care of its own business.