Last day of Eastern European History class today. And Boris Yeltsin died yesterday. Sort of sad. I often listen to the Soviet National Anthem on the way to class. Or sometimes Scorpions' "Wind of Change." But my I-pod is broken right now. American conservatives love to write about how evil the Soviet Union was. And certainly Stalin was evil. And certainly the Soviet Union, even before and after Stalin, failed to live up to Marxist ideals, big time. But that's just it. Unlike Nazism, which had an evil ideology, the ideology behind the Soviet Union was not evil. In fact, it was quite noble. Which is why I personally distinguish it in my mind from Nazism very easily. That's why we can fairly debate who was more evil, Stalin or Hitler (I still say Hitler) but we cannot fairly debate which is more evil, Nazism or Communism.

Also sad that David Halberstam died. My buddy Nick got me a copy of his book on Ted Williams, signed, with this dedication: "From one Crimson editor to another." I knew him only as a baseball writer, and he was a great one, but also a great man.

But enough of sadness. It's Yom Ha'aztmaut today! Israeli independence day. Of course, to some, this is Al Naqba (the catastrophe), a day of mourning. The two-sided nature of history. I have tremendous sympathy for the Palestinians and hope that we can achieve a fair, two-state solution soon, and also make sure that Israel's Arab citizens are granted real equality. All that said, Yom Ha'atzmaut is a great day for me. On my wall I have a picture of the two greatest human beings ever, sitting together: Albert Einstein and David Ben Gurion. Heroes. And both of them secular socialist Zionists, like ME! (We can argue whether Einstein was an atheist or not, but he was certainly secular). Also, they're both old at the time and look like adorable puppy dogs.

Am Yisrael Chai!