I picked a few forsythia twigs the other day for my bride.

She cut the stems and arranged them in water-filled vases. In a few days, they will sprout festive golden blossoms.

One vase sits on a table not far from the big screen TV set showing rescue workers carrying a pregnant woman from a bombed-out hospital in Ukraine.

The image then cuts to another of crying children in the snow. Then it shows volunteers helping an elderly woman cross a makeshift bridge, followed by refugees, mostly women and children, fleeing the Russian invasion.

As you try to process those scenes, the TV program cuts to a commercial with happy country music urging you to eat in a restaurant featuring chicken fries and cold beer.

Wham, the set flickers back to war again as the Ukraine president pleads for U.S./NATO officials to send jet fighters to keep Russian bombers and missiles on the ground. That segment is followed by an expert or politician warning that action might trigger World War III.

The contrasting desperate war images and upbeat restaurant commercials boggle my mind yet it is nearly impossible to ignore them.

The same contrast is playing out in Ukraine. Just three weeks ago, fashionable Ukrainians wearing North Face parkas sipped mocha lattes at Starbucks.

Now, they hide in the bowels of a concrete subway buried deep in the ground to be safe from rockets and bombs. No more do they sip mocha lattes. Now they boil snow for drinking water.

With another click of the remote, we see a well-dressed, well-spoken handsome man or stylish woman telling us it is all happening because the current president did or did not do this or that.

Click to another station and you will see another smiling anchor assign blame to the former president.

Just sneak into the cyber world where you can find someone assigning blame to everyone except, but maybe including, little green men from Mars.

All sides seem to delight in snarky political insults that seem wildly out of place as Ukrainian mothers cradle crying children while seeking safety from tanks and bombs.

I am no longer in the daily news biz. I no longer have inside sources who will share the real skinny on who did what to whom and why it matters.

We are retired and living in a little house on a forested Maine hill not far from the ocean. The Ukraine carnage is some 5,000 or so miles away.

But the war worries me for the images of desperate Ukrainian women and children, coupled with images of brave underdog Ukrainian fighters standing up to massive steel tanks will urge the Western powers to do “something.”

Even the talking heads and politically paid-for pundits are starting to abandon their usual mantras. They seem to be gathering together and urging us to do something.

A couple of weeks ago, I was happy to chuckle as the pseudo-commie liberals and the MAGA gang traded insults. I was even happy to read comments in my favorite newspaper, The Boothbay Register and Wiscasset Newspaper, and their associated websites, echoing the respective snarky one-liners. After all, Americans enjoy freedom envied by the world, freedom of speech, and the press.

But across the pond, in V. Putin’s Mother Russia, a quip opposing the party line could win you a midnight knock on the door, a ride in the Paddy Wagon, and a vacation in the Hoosegow.

And worse, you might not be able to drive your EV to the neighborhood Starbucks for a mocha latte because a line of black steel armored vehicles is in the way.

Diplomats have failed to halt the mess. Holy men and women, from the Vatican to Boothbay, asked the Almighty for help. The European press is having a giggle fest while cops padlock zillion-dollar yachts belonging to Putin’s henchmen. Sunday's talk show polls say the public favors President Biden’ ban on Russian oil and other goods.

A month ago you would have said I was nuts if I suggested the Republicans and Democrats would agree on anything at all. It now appears both sides support doing “something.”

I hope the “something” they do is well thought out, vetted by experts, and enjoys the support of our nation and her allies. And I hope and pray they are right.

For if they get it wrong ...