Guess I'd been reflecting on how close CBO and EMO (if I'm doing justice to the ru meaning?) sound to me. But I was already complaining at the formation of the DHS that it sounded remarkably parallel to an infamous organisation:

  Department  Ministerium
  of          für
  Homeland    Staats-
  Security    sicherheit

so I'm probably just a whiner and malingerer.

There's always the general lesson; even if Hillel[0] didn't get nailed to a stick[1] for preaching it, he doesn't seem to have many followers in, say, Likud.

A more specific lesson for the Old Country would be The Frogs Who Desired a King?

I've lifted^Wliberated this from somewhere, but can't remember where atm: the trouble with revolutions is that when they succeed[2], you rapidly discover that you didn't need a better government, you needed better people.

One reason I haven't finished the Durants' The Story of Civilization yet is that if you binge it, you rapidly discover that despite the pleasant turns of phrase, it's largely 13'549 pages of people treating each other poorly.

Pedantry to (nothing but): ERII could at least take a Landy offroad[3], even if in practice, as a lady, she often left it up to her chauffeur.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillel_the_Elder#/media/File:H...

[1] I do love the characterisation in Master & Margherita which makes it sound like Mr. INRI was maybe on the spectrum (come to think of it, M&M is another frame story, but with the fantastic and realistic elements reversed)

[2] as the US 1776'ers, the Girondins, and the Mensheviks (to take just 3) might know?

[3] making her more accomplished than the modal Chelsea Tractor driver?