On November 5, 2024

 

It’s a holy day

    this November 5.

The nation quavers,

Butterflies pause and puzzle

    at the energy in the air.

Demons fly

    and angels watch

As millions perform the ritual,

    claiming free will.

 

The Earth does not wobble on its axis.

The time of trial ends,

     and we live on, guilty and innocent,

     to face November 6.

                            Anne Linstatter

Alexei Navalny, Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr., and on

Screen shot from MSNBC, Feb. 16, 2024

We begin the season of Lent with the execution of an innocent man, a man like Jesus, who gave his life for his people.  Say his name: Alexei Navalny.

Both spoke truth to power, and both were executed.

Like Martin Luther King Jr. 

Like Mahatma Gandhi, Jamal Khashoggi, and so many others.

CNN re-aired a documentary about the 2020 poisoning of Navalny by Vladimir Putin.

Here's a timeline of Navalny's recent actions:

Aug. 20, 2020 - Nalvalny is poisoned on a flight within Russia.

Sept. - Nov. 2020 - Team of researchers discovers who participated in the plot-- and that the murder was clearly ordered by Putin.

Dec. 14, 2020 - Researchers disclose plot via many social media platforms.

Dec. 21, 2020 - Researchers play an audiotape of one of poisoning team disclosing the plan while secretly being recorded.

Jan. 17, 2021 - Navalny returns to Russia to continue to challenge Putin's stranglehold on Russia.

Feb. 16, 2024 - Navalny is murdered in a Siberian prison weeks before the next presidential election in 
Russia.

Navalny gave his life to fight Putin's stranglehold on Russia. 

See also:

"Putin saw an existential threat in Navalny" by Nathan Hodge.

"Inside the mind of Vladimir Putin" documentary with host Fareed Zakariah.