My plan to be out and about yesterday fell by the wayside. I never left the house. The day turned out to be a compelling sports one.

The NCAA Tournament! College basketball at is best. I watched all the games. Sharing them at one point with the Valpraso Professional Golf Tournament.

All the basketball games were close. Nail biters.

I was especially interested in the Duke game. Duke v. Michigan State. Duke won by 9 points, pulling away in the last 2-3 minutes.

Initially Duke was down by 4-5 points with less than 3 minutes to go. After the game, Duke coach Krzyzewski admitted he thought the game was lost. “The ship was sinking” as he described it in a post game interview.

He took no credit for the victory. He said it was not coaching that won the game. It was the grit and determination of the players.

The Sweet Sixteen next.

Saturday offered what turned out to be another great game. Number 15 St. Peter’s played #7 Murray State. St. Peter’s had beat #2 Kentucky a few days earlier. Rare for a #15 seed to beat a #2.

Saturday, St. Peter’s delivered another surprise victory. They beat Murray State.

St. Peter’s is the Cinderella team of the tournament. A very low ranked slowly moving to the top.

We are all underdog fans. I hope St. Peter’s wins in the Sweet Sixteen round.

Then goes on to win the whole thing!

There was pro golf yesterday afternoon. The Valparaiso.

A close one. A playoff required involving Sam Burns and David Riley. Burns a winning pro for some time already. Riley looking for his first win.

Burns won on the second playoff hole.

The victory pushed Burns into the #1 ranking overall worldwide in professional golf. He replaced Dustin Johnson who had been #1 for 7 years.

Riley will win in due course. Shots well.

Kelenskyy said in effect that if the next round of negotiations between he and Putin fail, it will be World War III.

Putin continuously advises one of the reasons he went into the Ukraine was fascism. Leading one to think he is asserting fascism was rampant in the Ukraine.

Sounded like he was lying.

It turns out Putin is a fascist in his own right. “His fascism” dominates his political thinking. Something I was not aware of till yesterday.

The fascism is philosophically based. At the outset, understand I am not a philosophical genius. I hated my philosophy courses in college. Mentally they were difficult for me to handle. Not my cup of tea.

Therefore I can merely share what I have discovered and suggest if you want to know more, read the subject matter yourself. Heavy stuff not making sense to me.

Let us begin with Trump. Recall his first wife Ivana wrote in a book after their divorce that Trump kept a Hitler authored book by his bed. Not Mein Kampf. He read a few pagers every night.

Putin’s fascism is derived from Ivan Illyin. A religious and political philosopher. He died in 1954.

Illyin viewed Hitler as a defender of civilization derived from Bolshevism. Note Putin labeled would be a descendant of Red Russianism, another way to describe Bolshevism.

Nevertheless, Illyin approved of the way Hitler had derived his anti-Semitism from the ideology of White Russians.

In 1933, Illiyan published “National Socialism. A New Spirit” in support of the takeover of Germany by the Nazis.

If you are confused at this point, so am I.

I suspect to clearly understand what “fascism” Putin talks about re the Ukraine, you must understand how Illyin is considered to be the major ideological inspiration for Putin.

I suspect two things come into play.

First, in 1917 Russian groups jostled in revolutionary fashion for control of the new Russia. The Reds and Whites. The Reds were then and are now the Bolsheviks of today. Intellectually, Putin’s fascist thought frame is derived from Bolshevism.

The confusion arses immediately bcause the first thought is Putin is a Hitler fan. Not so. He is opposed to that type fascism. And that type is the one he relegates to the Ukraine.

The second item to consider is that Putin believes God is Russia. Yes, God is Russia. Not Russia is God.

Illyin’s basis for the God involvement is heavy. Bear with me. I am merely going to set it forth. I leave any further digging up to you.

“In the beginning the word was God. The God made youthful mistakes. He made the world to compete with himself, but instead soiled Himself and lied in shame. God’s, not Adam’s, was the original sin, the release of the imperfect…..Modern life, with its pluralisms and its civil society, deepened the flaws of the world and kept God in exile.”

Heavy stuff. I find it difficult to understand. If any of you do comprehend Illyin and his Putin impact, write and share your conclusions with us.

Perhaps only Putin and a handful of others understand the fascism distinction which Putin believes.

Enjoy your day!