As a rootless former newspaperman turned blogger I have the unfortunate habit of doomscrolling the Innertubes as though I were still slumped at a copy desk, trolling for eye-grabbers to dump onto the front page.
This was bad enough when the choices were limited to The Associated Press, a smattering of lesser wire services, and the local sots slobbering into their keyboards after an early dinner of budget lager with a side of Marlboro.
Today the well is bottomless, and anyone with a cheap phone can haul up a bucket of something better left unseen and unremarked upon.
But now and then something of another quality entirely turns up, and the search proves worthwhile.
Case in point: At The Atlantic, Anne Applebaum writes that Ukrainians, like the Irish, have long been the subjects of other empires and have evolved something of a go-fuck-yourself attitude as regards authority, duly constituted or otherwise.
And according to The Guardian, that’s exactly what a baker’s dozen of border guards on Snake Island told the Russian navy when it came calling and ordered their surrender.
They died for their impertinence. But man, what a way to go.
Mad Blog Media 