I Ching on Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama (See what happens when a Czech poet dares to ask)

So what do Chinese think abut Putin or, at least, the oracle of I Ching?

The oracle says:

The Flood rises above the tallest Tree. Any direction is better than where you now stand. Like two atoms seeking to occupy the same space, these irresistible forces and immovable objects threaten to ignite a cataclysm that could irreversibly alter your world. This is no time for fatal heroics. You are at Ground Point Zero.

Remove yourself from this situation without delay.

The supporting beam is bending to its breaking point. Disaster looms.

A Dead Sea, its Waters spent eons ago, more deadly than the desert surrounding it: Action prevails where words will fail. You have exhausted every alternative, spent yourself completely, taxed body and mind beyond your former limits.

Survival and salvation lie beyond your reach now. The Old You is just a dry husk. You can't return to it. Metamorphosis is the only grace offered. (Hexagrams 28 and 47)

 For the sake of justice and equal treatment, here is what the I Ching oracle said in my hands about Obama.

While the oracle tries to address itself to a "Superior Person," one has to bear in mind that Obama is not "a Superior Person."

With this in mind, Obama is thus described as an unfaithful and neglected wife, who lacks "a healthy respect for the ripple effects of her/his words and deeds":

To some he serves as a role model. As such, he was in a position to "either help shape the world or tilt it into chaos."

We do know which of the two roads Obama has taken.

 Obama is tilting the world into chaos.

This, I take, is the most salient message from the oracle, which would seem obvious, but it is also good to have one's opinion confirmed by a higher authority ...

As a man who is tilting the world's axis into chaos, Obama is an instrument of the dense storm clouds gathering from the West. But there is still no thunderbolt and no rain. While the storm is building, Obama, the unfaithful wife, focuses on "fine tuning the image he/she presents to the world."

As such, he is assuming a position of a Tantalus stuck in the underworld. All he wants is always so near and yet always slipping and eluding at the same time. Inferior men like him "have gone mad from such [tantalizing] anticipation."

Only the Fates are restraining a man who has lost all his other restraints within.In the absence of grace not granted to him, he is bent on trying to fix the image and pose he is striking against the air and the waters he is submerging into.

The bottom line: Obama is a sidekick of chaos (that's his affair, so to speak) and, in doing so, he is going mad. (Hexagrams 37 and 9)

Note: I Ching does not respond well to spin, projections, presumption, and egos' heavy-handedness.