barbaric behaviors

The news out of Ukraine this week is so incredibly upsetting. Gergiev, a Putin-friendly Russian conductor was just fired from his leadership of the Vienna Philharmonic tour in the US that starts this weekend. It leaves me wondering if this kind of collective ostracism exerts enough influence to stop that maniac. 

"Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out...and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel. And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for 'the universal brotherhood of man'--with his mouth."

quote via What Is Man? on {Mark Twain on Fb}
Image via {The Mark Twain House & Museum}