And so CNN has an interview with Antwone Fisher on what boys need to learn in order to become men.

As it turns out, the interview wasn’t too bad: tie a tie, shave properly, and so on.

But things are a far cry from the Czar’s boyhood, when at twelve, he had to ritually kill two aurochs with his bare hands and eat the hearts. And that whole thing with the fire in the church basement.

The Czar thinks that Mr. Fisher’s book on the subject is an unfortunate necessity today for many. The easiest way for boys to become real men is for the father to act responsibly: the boy will readily copy that behavior and become a responsible person himself. This seems obvious, but alas, is becoming rarer and rarer.

Not all of this, of course, is the dad’s fault, and Mr. Fisher agrees: some dads are so busy just trying to make ends meet that the kids see very little of him, and when he is home, he sleeps. But any opportunity to teach boys to be likeable is a good one. The Czar himself has already taught his lads to wield a halberd, the finer points of impaling dissidents to walls, and how to burn horse meat so that it is charred on the outside but blood raw on the inside. The elder one will sack his first Ottoman listening post by fifth grade, we think.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.