;)
March 20, 2022
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Pedal Power! A lone bicyclist slowed down the fake "Freedom Convoy" Saturday as the truckers attempted to disrupt traffic again in D.C. Thanks to Akhilleus for the link. And do see his commentary below. Funny thing is, the truckers were all pissed off when somebody disrupted their own disruption. Lacking any self-awareness or sense of humor, the truckers began blaring their horns at the biker. Turning up the volume is the bully's Plan B. At one point, a pick-up truck pulled up alongside the leisurely bike-rider (who, sadly, was not wearing a mask!) & the driver asked him what he was doing. "You've got a bunch of trucks behind you!" the pick-up driver shouted. The biker responded, "Say what? I can't hear you. It's too loud!" BTW, this is not the first time a biker has stymied a fake "Freedom Convoy." Six weeks ago in Vancouver, B.C., courier Tyrone Siglos slowed down & stopped a convoy in that city. He rode his bike slowly, completely stopping from time to time in order to split up the line of trucks between lights. He said he stopped for as long as 20 minutes or a half-hour at one point.
The New York Times' live updates of developments Sunday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here: "Firing rockets and bombs from the land, air and sea, Russian forces continued to bombard the besieged coastal city of Mariupol on Sunday even as they were also forcibly deporting thousands of residents of against their will to Russia, according to city officials and witnesses. With the Russian advance on Ukraine's major cities stalled and satellite imagery showing soldiers digging into defensive positions around Kyiv, the fierce fighting in the coastal city showed no signs of easing. The bombing of a theater where an estimated 1,300 people were seeking refuge on Thursday was followed on Sunday, according to local officials, by a strike on a drama school where 400 people were hiding." ~~~
~~~ Marie: According to CNN, there are some reports that the Ukrainians who have been forced into Russia are being sent to concentration camps deep inside Russia.
Jane Arraf of the New York Times: "... tens of thousands of young, urban, multilingual Russian professionals who are able to work remotely from almost anywhere, many of them in information technology or freelancers in creative industries," are leaving Russia. Many are going to Yerevan, the capital of Armenia to plot out their next moves. "The speed and scale of the exodus are evidence of a seismic shift that the invasion set off inside Russia." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Masha Gessen has an article in the New Yorker that seems to be on a similar topic; if someone who has a New Yorker subscription would like to link Gessen's article in the Comments section, that would be greatly appreciated. ~~~
~~~ MEANWHILE. Marc Fisher, et al., of the Washington Post: "... the reality is setting in for Ukrainian Americans eager to bring their relatives to safety that despite government pledges of solidarity, getting into the United States is a lengthy and cumbersome process that remains largely unchanged from before the war, according to those trying to bring relatives into the country and advocates who are helping them.... Some lawmakers and advocacy groups are urging the Biden administration to expedite the arrival of Ukrainians. But officials say the refugee system is not built for speed, as the U.S. vetting process often takes years." MB: Our State Department bureaucracy has been a quagmire for decades. There's no excuse for it. State left behind thousands of Afghans because of the sometimes four-year process of vetting even our known friends there. Even if you're an American citizen, you may have had to wait months for a new passport or visa (to a friendly country).
Marie: Last weeks, someone wrote in the Comments that Arnold Schwarzenegger was exhibiting delusions of grandeur when he made a video urging Russians to oppose the war. As is too often the case, I didn't know enough about the topic to address it. However, this morning Jake Tapper said on CNN that Schwarzenegger has a huge following in Russia. So it would seem his video might do some good, after all.
Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "Republicans are intensifying their attacks on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson after weeks of publicly reserving judgment on President Biden's Supreme Court nominee, ahead of historic hearings on the first Black woman to be put forward as a justice. Republican leaders, wary of engaging in a potentially racially charged spectacle that could prompt a political backlash, have promised a more dignified review of the latest Supreme Court candidate, after a series of bitter clashes over the court. But in recent days, with the approach of the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearings on her nomination that begin on Monday, their tone has shifted." MB: Leading the pack of wolves in that smarmy little insurrectionist Josh Hawley.
~~~~~~~~~~
Putin's War Crimes, Ctd.
The Washington Post's live updates of developments Sunday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates for Sunday are here.
Loveday Morris, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Volodymyr Zelensky defiantly told Moscow the time had come for 'meaningful negotiations on peace' as a barrage of Russian attacks continued across his nation over the weekend.... There was no immediate response from Moscow, which has been frustrated in its effort to enter Kyiv and topple Zelensky's government. As Russian tank columns stalled in the wake of Ukrainian resistance, which relied significantly on U.S.-supplied weapons, Moscow continued its strategy of siege and terror, killing civilians, bombing apartment buildings and kidnapping local officials.... At least 40 people were killed when a Russian bomb hit the barracks of a military facility in the city of Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine on Friday morning, according to journalists who documented the scene hours after the attack.... Moscow claimed it had for the first time fired a Kinzhal hypersonic missile, a long-range weapon that it says could not be intercepted by a defense system. Moscow said the missile was used to attack an underground arms depot in western Ukraine, a claim that had not been verified."
Khrystyna Bondarenko, et al., of CNN: "Residents of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol are being taken to Russia against their will by Russian forces, the Mariupol City Council said Saturday.... Captured Mariupol residents were taken to camps where Russian forces checked their phones and documents, then redirected some of the residents to remote cities in Russia, the statement said, adding that the 'fate of the others is unknown.' 'What the occupiers are doing today is familiar to the older generation, who saw the horrific events of World War II, when the Nazis forcibly captured people,' Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko said in the statement."
The New York Times' live updates of developments Saturday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here: "Russian forces made significant gains in Ukraine, advancing into the port of Mariupol, destroying an underground weapons depot and leaving a barracks in ruins following one of the deadliest rocket strikes on Ukraine's military in the nearly month-old war."
Patrick Kingsley of the New York Times: "Along Russia's borders, in post-Soviet countries like Georgia that remain caught between Russian and Western influence, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has presented governments with a strategic dilemma. Apart from Belarus, none have backed the Russian offensive. But nor have they strongly opposed it -- fearful of upsetting a dominant neighbor that is a major source of trade and remittances, a guarantor of some countries' security and a potential aggressor to others. A small, mountainous country of 3.7 million people at the southeastern extreme of the European continent, Georgia is perhaps running the narrowest gauntlet.... Russia [is] in de facto control of roughly a fifth of Georgian territory.... But [the government's] cautious approach has put the Georgian government at odds with most of its population -- creating a far more pointed clash between majority opinion on Ukraine and government policy than in most other European countries."
U.K. Toby Helm & Daniel Boffey of the Guardian: "Boris Johnson has caused fury among political leaders across Europe -- and outrage among opponents of Brexit at home -- after he compared the resistance of the Ukrainian people to Russia's invasion to the UK's decision to leave the EU.... [At a speech to a Conservative conference, Johnson said,] 'And you say that we're better off making accommodations with tyranny.... And I know that it's the instinct of the people of this country, like the people of Ukraine, to choose freedom, every time.... When the British people voted for Brexit, in such large, large numbers..., it was because ... they wanted to be free to do things differently and for this country to be able to run itself.' The remarks caused astonishment not only because Ukraine applied last month, after the Russian invasion began, to become a member of the EU, but because the comments suggested that the EU was itself a form of tyranny...."
Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "It took just 14 seconds to approve an order moving Americans' clocks an hour ahead, permanently." It also took a conspiracy between Senators Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), the presiding officer, with a little help from the incompetent Sen. Roger Wicker (Miss.). And in that 14 seconds, as Sen. Tommy Potatohead opined, the Senate had initiated a remarkable change that would create "more sunshine." "The former football coach apparently believes the Senate time-change bill altered the rotation of the Earth -- by unanimous consent." Thanks to Ken W. for the link. ~~~
~~~ Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life. Marie: There are, I'll admit, too many things I don't know much about. I'm in awe of the people who do understand these things, and many of you readers are among those awesome people. But what is it like to be Tommy Tuberville, whose knowledge of the universe would seem to be limited to the four corners of a football field? Perhaps more unsettling, Tommy doesn't know what he doesn't know, and he is happy to offer his childish misunderstandings about many things: like the three branches of the U.S. government, which Tommy volunteered were "the House, the Senate, and the executive"; or the cause of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which Tommy told constituents was, "It's a communist country, so [Putin] can't feed his people, so they need more farmland."
The Winter of Their Discontent Has Turned to Spring -- and More Discontent. Charles Homans of the New York Times: "... the ['Freedom Convoy''s] protest is perhaps most notable as a window onto the evolution of the American right in the wake of Donald J. Trump's presidency, and one that Republican politicians are watching. Although organizers insist that their demonstration is nonpartisan and narrowly focused on Covid restrictions, in practice, it is animated by a broad, familiar array of conservative and right-wing issues and grievances. Complaints about schools mix with far-right conspiracy theories and refusal to accept the 2020 election results.... This week, one side of the stage [at the Hagerstown, Maryland Speedway, where the truckers and sundry followers are encamped,] was piled with books written by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist; while near the other, a vendor sold stickers saying 'WHEN I DIE DON'T LET ME VOTE DEMOCRAT.' On Wednesday evening, Dr. Paul Alexander, a former official in Mr. Trump's Health and Human Services Department..., called for President Biden to pardon the defendants facing charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol." MB: I don't suppose any of this comes as a surprise to you.
Washington Post Editors: "Violent and threatening political rhetoric, normalized and encouraged by ... Donald Trump, is metastasizing in the Republican Party. As nearly a third of GOP voters tell pollsters that violence might be required to 'save our country,' some officeholders and candidates who espouse menacing views are rewarded with fundraising and social media success. Too often, mainstream party leaders -- the very voices who should be drawing the line at hate speech -- are silent. Silence is complicity.... History provides abundant evidence that rhetorical violence begets actual violence. By countenancing vile, dehumanizing, bloody-minded rhetoric, Republicans are paving a dangerous road to the future."
Beyond the Beltway
Kim Bellware of the Washington Post: "On Monday, Ohio became the 23rd state to enact a law eliminating permits as a requirement for concealed carry. The Buckeye State closely followed Alabama, where Gov. Kay Ivey signed a similar law on March 10. The back-to-back wins for gun-rights advocates who want to see fewer restrictions on the Second Amendment signal how partisan divides and relentless activism at the state level are significantly reshaping the landscape around gun possession." Experts attribute the lax permitting to increased polarization: Republican primary candidates try to out-extreme one another.
Michigan. Meet Your Fellow American. Tresa Baldas & Arpan Lobo of the Detroit Free Press: "... the COVID-19 vaccines, and the thought of them becoming mandatory..., pushed the alleged Gov. Gretchen Whitmer kidnap plotters over the edge, an undercover FBI informant testified Friday.... 'Buildings that manufacture vaccines -- blow them up,' [defendant Brandon] Caserta is heard telling [the informant known as] Dan [in a recording played in court]. He also called for killing police officers who would enforce vaccine mandates, and killing the lawyers who support vaccines by cutting off their heads.... Caserta was so angry about the vaccine that he wanted to target groups responding to the pandemic, including contact tracers, doctors and companies manufacturing the vaccines.... 'Doctors who advocated mandated vaccines -- bullet to the face,' Caserta is heard saying in recordings captured by Dan.... Caserta ... wanted to identify those participating in contact tracing. 'I don't call it contact tracing, I call it constitutional trampling,' Caserta said in a recording made in Aug. 2020 during a meetup in Munith. 'We create a dynamic where no one wants to be a contact tracer because they might f****** die.'... 'I want Zionist banker blood,' Caserta is heard saying in one recording, likely referring to an antisemitic conspiracy theory that 'Zionists' have infiltrated the government...." ~~~
~~~ Marie: The most amazing part, to me, is that these guys don't think they are toughs who are plotting to pull off heinous crimes; no, they think they are super-patriots who are going to save the country and the Constitution by slaughtering public officials, healthcare workers and "Zionist bankers."
News Lede
You Are Not Safe in the U.S.A. Washington Post: "Two people were killed and three others wounded in a shooting outside a popular Norfolk[, Virginia,] restaurant early Saturday morning, police said. Sierra M. Jenkins, a 25-year-old journalist for the Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press, was among those killed, her employer and police confirmed.... When officers arrived they found five people had been shot. One of them, Devon M. Harris, 25, of Portsmouth, was pronounced dead at the scene." ~~~
~~~ The Virginian-Pilot story is here. The reporter is Jane Harper, who was called in to the paper when editors couldn't reach Jenkins to cover the shooting.
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Reader Comments (12)
More properly, a Thursday Sermon, some lines of which were previewed on RC, now delivered here on a Sunday:
It’s March 17th, and the luck of the Irish is on my mind.
First is my Irish grandmother of the twinkling eyes, whom I was very lucky to have close by throughout my childhood—and now it’s our country that is very fortunate to have a president who happens to be mostly Irish.
Unlike his predecessor who set the United States on a course to have the highest Covid death rate among other wealthy countries (nytimes.com), President Biden took seriously the pandemic that disrupted the entire world, and he’s presently heading the world’s response to Putin’s invasion of a democratic Ukraine that has killed thousands and created over 3 million refugees.
That response has NATO and over 100 other countries condemning the invasion (the guardian.com). Many have rushed to offer Ukraine military and humanitarian support. While we don’t know how the conflict will end, there’s good reason to believe the world would have reacted very differently if the man who tried to weaken NATO and who chose to believe Putin over his own intelligence agencies had still been president
I have long been skeptical of the Great Man theory of history. So many factors are at work in human affairs that Great Men are often more result than cause, faces that bubble to the surface of history’s stewpot and then come to stand for the age in which they lived.
But individuals do make a difference. So does fortune. Despite his substantial popular vote victory, Biden is president by virtue of only 44,000 votes in three key states, Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin (npr.org).
How different Ukraine's and our history would be if not for those few votes in a couple of states.
Great man or not, Biden’s five-eighths Irish pedigree seems to have brought us and the world considerable luck.
And I'm told that today is the Vernal Equinox, the sun perfectly obedient and aligned, rising directly from the East this morning and promising to set directly West.
Guess that proves once again that despite all the evidence to the contrary, God's still in his heaven and all's still right with the world.
Still, I sometimes wish we were under new management.
Peter Schjeldahl has been the art critic for the New Yorker for years. Here he takes on the paintings of war–-mainly those of Goya but then veers off on citing the late John Keegan, the historian who wrote extensively about wars and the fates of common soldiers. He details the specific vicissitudes of those who fought at Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme–- and unillusioned about the justifications, however compelling, that sent men into harm's way and kept them there whether from incentives of patriotism or, failing that, remorseless coercion.
Keegan, he says, like Goya, leaves you with the belief that he sees war-making as hardwired in humanity. Cause or not cause, war , he says, is something that people do because they can: it "reaches into the most secret places of the human heart."
Set aside for a moment, says Peter, the fact that the conduct of a war can ennoble even when the outcome is likely doomed, as is generally believed of the Ukrainians, led by the astonishing
Volodymyr Zelensky.
He ends his essay by bringing back Goya's "Disaster" which depicts a glowing female figure supine, and apparently lifeless, amid a mob of standing monsters. The caption reads: "Truth has died." The following, final image "Will she rise again?" repeats the same composition. The woman's posture and hopeless situation are unchanged. Only in this one, she has opened her eyes.
Ken: Lucky lad to have known your Irish grandmother–-mine died before I was born nor did I know my Irish grandfather because of the same fate. His father, Patrick fought for the Union in our Civil War and was killed.
@Ken Winkes: You're right about the vernal equinox. I thought it was today, but when I checked the Googles in the wee hours, something I read said it was yesterday, so I thought I'd missed it. Thanks to your comment, I rechecked the Googles, and they are now aligned with you! And I'm left to play catch-up.
@PD Pepe: I don't believe war in inevitable. Even in the face of genuine disputes in which both (or more) sides have seemingly valid grievances, issues can be -- and most often are these days -- resolved peacefully. To me, war is an outdated concept. Settling disagreements by violent means is, IMO, an unnecessary evil. So is just using the threat of violence.
Sunday morning free association
This morning I sat down with my cup of tea to listen to the Mozart Requiem. These days seem to be requiem-rich. We have madmen on both sides of the world either spreading death and violence, or openly advocating it as balm for their blackened, withered souls. But first, a little George Bernard Shaw.
Right near the top of the Mozart, he introduces the chorus in the Introitus, with a blast from the trombones. I rarely hear those notes without recalling Shaw (who started out as a music critic) referring to the “terrible trombones” in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” that announce the statue of the Commander, a man he had killed, coming to life and dragging him off to hell. Such a comeuppance is dearly to be wished for more than a few of contemporary crushers of truth and life.
Then I recalled that Shaw, in his play “Man and Superman” included a lengthy scene in which the statue, talking to the Don Juan character about that killing (if he hadn’t have slipped, the Don would never have nailed him), stops a moment to say something like “Gee, that sounded a lot better with the trombones” haha. Shaw was a funny guy, and since I’m in free association mode, and thinking about Shaw and death, his epitaph—one of my favorites—which was finally carved into his stone after he died at 94, was “I knew if I stayed around long enough, something like this would happen”.
Quite. Death is inevitable. Taxes, contrary to the popular saying, are not. Not if you’re a tax evader like Trump or some filthy rich oligarch. (Does Putin pay taxes?)
But I digress (which I suppose is another inevitability when free associating)…
Shaw’s play, referenced above, is chock full of his favorite topics, one being the advancement, or not, of the human species. His title comes, no surprise here, from Nietzsche’s cogitations on the Übermensch, one of those ideas that has suffered all manner of misuse and misrepresentation. As with many friends, we love them for certain things and in spite of others. The fucking Übermensch is one of those things for me with Freddy.
No doubt self possessed, solipsistic narcissists like Putin and Trump love to see themselves as supermen, superior beings, above it all, not bound by rules, laws, or conventions. By extension, the authoritarian loving sycophants who support them believe that they themselves are above the law as well. Trump and the right wing in this country continue their move toward an ideology that prescribes death for their perceived enemies. It’s unclear whether Trump or his supporters in congress and on wingnut media outlets believe that it’s okay to murder those who don’t goosestep along with them, but it really doesn’t matter. There are enough thugs out there who are just fine with this notion.
Hannity and KKKarlson and most of these dangerous media proponents of “We win, or you die”, along, presumably, with Trump, spout this crazed bullshit for profit. For others, it’s about power and control. Just read the jumble of mixed messages coming from the traitors, haters, and conspiracy nuts. It’s a dark, mad, muddy toxic soup, but the central ingredients are fear and paranoia, and death is more than a byproduct. Putin kills for personal prestige. Trump allowed hundreds of thousands to die to win an election. MTG, the Bundys, and too many others advance death to appeal to the crazies.
Requiems all around.
But listening to all the greatest requiems, Mozart, Brahms, Verdi, one cannot escape the clear message that these are more paeans to life than to death. Mozart’s musical language, a model of clarity and beauty, celebrates life. I suppose we can take comfort in the recognition that the species, by the late 18th century, was advanced enough to produce such excruciatingly beautiful music, celebrating life and the human spirit.
Unfortunately, what we have today is too much celebration of death.
Give me Mozart any day. Oh, and another cup of tea.
One more bit of free association (a musician joke):
A three legged turtle and a trombone player pass each other on the street. What’s the difference?
The turtle’s probably going to a gig.
Ba-dum-bum.
Here's the Gesen New Yorker link:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/03/28/the-russians-fleeing-putins-wartime-crackdown
Meanwhile, the big, bad, diesel guzzling Freedom Convoy, or whatever risible name they go by, descended on DC to impede traffic and generally gum up the works for, um, freeedom, or something, maybe Covid masks, maybe BLM, who the hell knows? However, their attempt to stymie traffic in the capital was itself stymied by a single guy on an environmentally friendly bicycle.
Haha. Were these macho men pissed! You can hear them raging against being neutered by one guy on a bike, leisurely slowing down the honking mass of morons. “You can’t fuck with my right to fuck with everyone else! Waaaahhh!”
Great stuff.
https://mobile.twitter.com/ShutDown_DC/status/1505312396839206912
@Ak, from a retired trombonist: Steve Goodson at the saxgourmet.com has a nice collection of trombone jokes, and musician humor in general. To wit, Who is that girl on the trombone player's arm? A tattoo.
However, humor aside, here is a quote reprinted in our local paper relevant to world news:
I’M NOT ONE for comparing the crimes of autocrats. But purely for variety’s sake I’ll nominate for a Gellhorn Prize the first talking head on MSDNC or CNN who, instead of calling Putin the new Hitler, refers to him as Russia’s Dick Cheney…
— Jeffrey St. Clair
Now for more really bad news, perhaps illustrating that the Ukraine war is just a little more of the same old same old, an article in the Sunday NYTimes on the War for the Rain Forest. Brings to mind a quote from a true prophet:
“When the last living thing
Has died on account of us,
How poetical it would be
If Earth could say,
In a voice floating up
Perhaps
From the floor
Of the Grand Canyon,
"It is done."
People did not like it here.”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Whyte,
Thanks for the reference to the Gellhorn Prize. Was familiar with Gellhorn but not with the prize named in her honor.
Looked it up. That googling led me to this:
https://consortiumnews.com
Something else I didn't know about and thought might be of interest to RC readers, who like myself, didn't know about it.
Ken et al., I have bookmarked my favorite journalism sites, including some that are more op-ed than news. Almost all were discovered by links in our remarkable local (Boonville CA) newspaper (theava.com), whose banner claims it to be America's newspaper (some truth) and includes "Fanning the Flames of Discontent." After reading an article on America's Best Weeklies I subscribed ,while still living in Minnesota before we considered this area for retirement. The 80 y/o publisher is an old time liberal socialist (as opposed to a reactionary socialist) is fearless, sometimes irresponsible, and is an attack dog against local corruption. Every community should have such a paper, but keeping them afloat is a losing battle. Unfortunately it has a paywall, but I think some archives may pass if anyone were interested. Mendocino County Today is the section with the red meat.
Whyte,
Good trombone joke. Reminds me of another musician joke: What do you call a drummer who has broken up with his girlfriend?
Homeless.