Hm. Hard to hide from Tōnatiuh with pissant cloud cover like that.
Summertime, summertime, sum-sum-summertime. …
Funny how it just kinda sneaks up on us every year. Maybe not.
One minute we’re enjoying a refreshing 65-degree spin on the old bikey bike; the next, Tōnatiuh has cranked up his celestial broiler and is basting us with our own sweat.
“Can you crank up the a/c? Some of us can’t peel down to nylon shorts and wife-beaters.”
The sun god called in sick for the last day of spring. I went out for a short trail run 8-ish and the cool temps and overcast skies made for a most enjoyable outing, if running — even at my casual pace — can ever be termed “enjoyable.”
But yesterday he was back to stoking the furnace and it looks like highs in the mid- to upper 90s for as far as the weatherperson’s instruments can see. Ninety-four yesterday, and b’gosh and b’golly it looks like more of the same today, only more so.
International monitors said early Friday that there was no immediate sign that radiation had leaked from the Zaporizhzhia plant. The Ukrainian emergency services agency said the fire had been contained to a training facility on the perimeter of the complex.
Oh, good. But wait, there’s more:
The company that oversees the complex, Energoatom, warned that any statements being made by workers from the time of the [Russian] takeover could be being made under duress. The company also warned against trusting statements from local officials.
Clearly we are in for many more interesting early mornings pre-coffee as Voldemort Putin continues doing the bidding of the Union of Soviet Socialist Voices in his head.
Our collective ignorance about this fellow, his notions, motivations, and base of support, is maddening. Noting the attack on the Zaporizhzhia complex last night I kept my big yap shut, crossing my fingers and hoping that Europe would not find itself suffering the sort of steep decline in tourism that comes with your basic nuclear disaster.
Because what is there to say? Beyond “We don’t know what the fuck he’s up to” and “There isn’t much we can do about it,” that is?
Over at The Atlantic Tom Nichols makes the case for staying calm.
The day may come, and sooner than we expect, when we have to fight in Europe, with all the risks that entails. If we are to plunge into a global war between the Russians and the West, however, it needs to be based on a better calculus than pure rage.
Sanctions and military assistance short of actual war with Russia will not save Kyiv, he concedes. But neither will letting this smirking Cossack goad the West into giving him anything that will cause the Russian people to back him up instead of knocking him over.
Russians seem to have an endless capacity for enduring suffering. But every pot bubbles over sooner or later if the fire gets too hot for too long.
Will some hero let off a little steam by busting a cap between this devil’s horns? Stay tuned.
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.
I arose in the dark of the morning to see a dusting of snow on the yard and the blinking lights of an aircraft as it traversed a slice of moon.
“Hell’s goin’ on around here?” I inquired of Herself, as is my practice.
“Fuckin’ Russians,” she grumbled.
“What are they doing?”
“Dominating the news cycle.”
And so they are.
I loathe the smell of fascism in the morning, whether it’s ours or theirs, and especially when it arrives before coffee. The overactive imagination screens a clip of some brass hat in the Pentagon going full George C. Scott (Buck Turgidson or George Patton, take your pick).
But as options go, our menu seems as limited as the bill of fare at a soup kitchen.
Sure, do what you can to choke off Russia’s income — Stoli sales will slump, theatrically, if only because we’ll need the money for gasoline. Africa is going to find itself short of grain. Lots of little people living in various valleys await the shit monsoon from above.
But I don’t expect the oligarchs are sweating much, unless they’re in the sauna.
Oh, they might not be able to strut their stuff on the Riviera for a while, but there’s always the Crimea. Plenty Krugerrands in the lockbox. Shop online from the dacha. Na zdorovye!
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