Mea Culpa Mea Maxima Culpa: Asking for Reviews (Big Ask!)
Your Opinion Matters: Help Me Improve My Writing
As an author, I'm always looking for ways to improve my craft and create content that resonates with readers like you. This week, I'm giving away some of my ebooks that got a bad review. But I believe that every book has the potential to connect with someone, and that's where you come in.
I'd love for you to take a look at these ebooks and share your honest thoughts with me. Your feedback is important, and will help me to refine my writing and create better content for you and other readers.
Here are the ebooks I'm giving away this week!
The Tao of Christ
https://www.amazon.com/review/create-review/?ie=UTF8&channel=glance-detail&asin=B0D8L7KZXV Like I said mea culpa.
Encirclement Warfare and Airland Battle
this is a work of popular non-fiction, not academic scholarship. It’s factually true: I wrote it to give ideas to Ukraine about how to do to Putin what happened to Hitler. I would greatly appreciate your review!
Medical Interpreter’s Dictionary
https://www.amazon.com/review/create-review/?ie=UTF8&channel=glance-detail&asin=B0D7FNJMSV
This is a multilingual medical dictionary: somehow, a Russian speaker was unhappy with it… Knowing my position on the Ukraine war that shouldn’t be surprising. A few five star reviews would be wonderful since I truly want medicos to be able to talk to patients in those languages I do know without bias or confusion interfering.
MANDARIN CHINESE WORD GAMES HANZITUTION
https://www.amazon.com/review/create-review/?ie=UTF8&channel=glance-detail&asin=B0DHS2RHJV
A reader probably expected more crossword puzzles even though the cover shows the logic of the book is to find Chinese characters that look at least something like Western characters and then use those as the basis for substitutions (Kou mouth w口rd for example)
Bitcoin: Digital Finance Law
One of my competitors didn’t read the table of contents and imagined everything possible to sink my book and push his. At the time I didn’t care though I would like to correct the record…
Pictogram Palace: A Chinese Character Dictionary
Someone had difficulty with their Kindle and took it out on my book… can you help me out by writing your review?
The Devil's Diplomatic Dictionary
Cold War II? China, America, Global Strategy, and the New Cold War
Some people just hate footnotes.. as we saw in the first book the lack of footnotes led to a 1 star review. As we see in this book the presence of footnotes led to a 1 star review… write your own conclusion.
By reviewing these ebooks, you'll not only be helping me to improve my writing, but you'll also be contributing to a community of readers who are passionate about discovering new books and authors. Your review will help others find their next favorite read, and it will give me the insights I need to create more engaging and meaningful content.
Plus, reviewing my ebooks is a great way to get in touch with me directly. I'm always happy to hear from readers and respond to their feedback. You can reach me through:
* Direct message on Substack, X, facebook or email eric.engle@yahoo.com
Thank you for your reviews!
Fail
Trump will try to impose peace in Ukraine
Fail, [because Putin doesn’t want peace]. {YOU ARE HERE.}
Putin will stab Trump in the back [we’re not here Yet…]
AND THEN WHAT?
Why Peace Between Ukraine and Russia Is a Dangerous Illusion
For years now, it has been increasingly clear that the war between Ukraine and Russia is not merely a geopolitical confrontation but an existential struggle — a war to the death. No ceasefire, no temporary detente, no peace conference — no matter how grand the backdrop or how forceful the mediators — will bring this conflict to a genuine and lasting end. The psychological and strategic forces at work have locked both sides into a zero-sum trajectory. Peace, in this context, is not only unlikely — it is, for the foreseeable future, structurally impossible.
This is not a cynical view. It is a recognition of the psychological and political realities that govern wartime behavior. Among the most powerful of these is the "escalation of commitment" — a cognitive bias wherein people and nations continue a course of action because they have already invested so heavily in it. Combine that with the sunk cost fallacy — the belief that prior losses justify future risks — and the result is a feedback loop in which compromise becomes not only unpalatable but emotionally and politically intolerable.
But war is not fought in theory; it is fought in blood. The sheer human cost exacted on both sides, especially the civilian toll in Ukraine, renders any thought of mutual forgiveness almost grotesque. When loved ones are slaughtered, when cities are razed, when generations of trauma are created in months — how can leaders sell compromise to their people? There is no handshake that can erase mass graves. There is no treaty that can calm a mother’s grief. These are not abstractions. They are daily realities in Ukraine and, to a lesser extent, Russia.
It is within this cauldron that Donald Trump’s peace overtures must be evaluated. While the former president has long signaled a desire to "end the war" in Ukraine — and while it is plausible that he genuinely sees peace as more productive than prolonged conflict — his efforts are doomed from the outset. The fundamental problem is not only that peace is a psychological non-starter for the belligerents themselves; it is also that Trump, like his supposed partner in diplomacy Vladimir Putin, is fundamentally untrustworthy.
Neither man is bound by institutional constraints or a coherent set of principles. Both are transactional actors in a game that rewards betrayal. History, both recent and distant, confirms this pattern. Any deal forged between the two would be a temporary fiction, discarded at the earliest opportunity. Worse, any "imposed" peace that ignores Ukrainian sovereignty or security concerns would only serve to sow deeper resentment and almost certainly provoke future conflict. This is the peace of empires, not the peace of peoples. It is fragile, brittle, and short-lived.
Yet even as we recognize this futility, we must also understand Trump's motives. Unlike some of his detractors, Trump likely does want peace — if for no nobler reason than its cost-effectiveness. In his calculation, wars are inefficient, unpredictable, and politically messy. A clean deal, a staged photo-op, and a burst of economic optimism would serve his interests well. But peace is not something that can be willed into existence by the logic of business. It is a function of trust, accountability, and mutual understanding — all of which are absent in this war and among its would-be brokers. Inevitably, the cracks will show. Putin, emboldened by Western retreat, will overreach. Trump, boxed in by domestic critics and strategic realities, will reverse course. The illusion of peace will collapse, and the United States will likely return to a more robust commitment to Ukraine. The alliance may shift, the rhetoric may change, but the long war will continue, because the structural forces that birthed it have not gone away.
For Ukraine, the strategic imperative is clear. It cannot rely on the goodwill of foreign powers or the fickle whims of political theater. Until the geopolitical tide turns definitively, Ukraine's smartest move is to stay tactically defensive. This does not mean passivity — far from it. Strategic use of drones, asymmetric operations, and a focused diplomatic campaign can sustain pressure on Russia while conserving Ukraine’s power and wasting Russia’s. The battlefield is not only kinetic. It is also informational, economic, and psychological. Ukraine has the tools to endure. What it lacks — and what no one can yet provide — is a trustworthy path to peace.
Peace without justice is hollow and unstable. In a war defined by exterminationist goals, peace is not merely a policy problem; it is a metaphysical one. When one side denies the very right of the other to exist, the only logical conclusion is that peace must be preceded by survival, and survival may well require years of war. In this context, gestures toward peace may feel comforting, but they are not clarifying. They are distractions — and dangerous ones at that.
Ukrainian Drones hit Moscow, Tula, Tatarstan: (translate.google.com is your friend)
https://www.obozrevatel.com/novosti-rossii/rossiyu-snova-atakuyut-dronyi-v-moskve-i-tatarstane-progremeli-vzryivyi-zakryityi-aeroportyi-video.htm
https://24tv.ua/ru/vzryvy-rossii-25-maja-skolko-dronov-atakovali_n2830462
Word of the Day: Assassination
Word: Assassination/ attempted murder/ homicide
1. English: assassination (n), attempted murder (n/v)
2. French: assassinat (n), tentative d'assassinat (n)
3. Spanish: asesinato (n), intento de asesinato (n/v)
4. German: Attentat (n), versuchter Mord (n/v)
5. Estonian: assassinaat (n), katse kuningas murda (n/v)
6. Russian: убийство (n), покушение на жизнь (n), попытка убийства (n/v)
7. Ukrainian: вбивство (n), замах (n/v)
8. Mandarin Chinese: 暗杀 (n/v) - ānshā
Sample sentence translation:
"There was another assassination attempt on Putin. Unfortunately, it failed."
1. English: There was another attempted murder on Putin. Unfortunately, it failed.
2. French: Il y avait une autre tentative d'assassinat sur Poutine. Malheureusement, elle a échoué.
3. Spanish: Hubo otro intento de asesinato a Putin. Desafortunadamente, fracasó.
4. German: Es gab einen weiteren Anschlag auf Putin. Leider misslang er.
5. Estonian: Oli veel üks katse kuningas murda Putinist. Kahjuks ebaõnnestus.
6. Russian: Была еще одна попытка убийства Путина. К сожалению, она не удалась.
7. Ukrainian: Була ще одна спроба замаху на Путіна. На жаль, вона провалилася.
8. Mandarin Chinese: 普京再次遭受谋杀，但不幸的是，失败了。 - Pǔjīng zàici shòu dào móushā, dàn bùxìng de shì, shībài le. (Simplified)
Final line translation (English, French, Spanish, German, Estonian, Russian):
1. English: And that concludes today's word!
2. French: Et avec cela, nous avons terminé le mot du jour !
3. Spanish: ¡Y con esto terminamos la palabra del día!
4. German: Und damit ist das Wort des Tages abgeschlossen!
5. Estonian: Ja sellega lõpeb tänane sõna!
6. Russian: А на этом заканчиваем сегодняшнее слово!