Always stay on the sunny side of battle: So Ukrainian military commanders paused and adjusted, focusing more on wearing down the Russian forces with artillery and long-range missiles than charging into enemy minefields under fire. Day after day, the Ukrainian military reports on dozens of strikes aimed at taking out Russian command-and-control centers, ammunition depots, troop concentrations, air defense systems, rocket launchers and logistical operations. On the ground, Ukrainian forces have been trying to break through Russian lines south of the Ukrainian-held town of Orikhiv, in an effort to drive toward the Sea of Azov and the heavily fortified city of Melitopol, which at the crossroads of two major highways and a crucial rail line. The Ukrainians are also pressing toward the sea along another axis, in the direction of Berdiansk, a port city about 70 miles east of Melitopol. The Ukrainian military has reported progress in that direction but that has largely been measured in yards not miles. The village Ukraine captured on Thursday, Staromaiorske, lies about 95 miles north of the Berdiansk.

Don't enter if you are easilly offended.

Did you think I was obscure, because I am not an image, strange how people want words, words that give off emotion and a tinge of truth and a hell of a lot of honesty. This is the home to many good and bad, they come and I satisfy them mostly.

Once upon a time was now and the future.

In your dream the fat lady screams, the sirens begins as lights flicker, cats scatter after the rats who have been chewing everything. Rats are very hungry.

If blue sky meant opportunity, if you complied with my request, or did you love your devilry, as if no higher law was desire, and the emerging goblins holding buttons, the inhumanity is shocking. How do we prepare for the lice living in our hair, the monsters on the street, and vibrating mufflers, anything?

What did you expect?

And I look at the world, not so amazing usually. The people less amazing is sadly true in my eyes and ears. Yet what is left on this planet is why I remain. A small beautiful slice of pie in a horrible dystopia.