Day 443
Truly, this view has been art directed on a grand scale: budget no object, die-cuts and spot lam, gold foil and tip-ins.
To get from here (right here, where I am right now) to the road leading southeast to sunflower fields, one must traverse a not insignificant stretch of flat-as-a-pancake fields via a road that is well maintained but narrow, at both ends of which one will find hairpin turns and at least one steep incline.
At the other end (that is to say, on the other side of the fields from where I was then, right there) there lies, at the conclusion of a series of two sharp turns, a point where the view from the road just sort of bursts open, and at once one’s eye is met with a gigantic yellow field.
This year turning the corner will become value-added. Multimedia. I have found the exact spot on the road to punch Play so that we turn the corner at exactly 0:56 into Trop Vite Oublier by Edith Crash.
A cursory review of the "post-holiday" news feed in Russia has led practicing philospher Vladimir Pastukhov to “fix a new level for blocking the ability to critically perceive the surrounding reality by the philistine masses.”
In Russia, that is.
He designated the new tectonic shift as "immortality syndrome.”
The point this time is not that people finally believe in the immortality of Putin - that would be nothing. After all, the sacralization of the leader is part of Russia’s historical tradition. But this time, it seems, ordinary Russians believe in their own immortality, and this comes against the backdrop of more news about increasing numbers of casualty reports from the front.
Calls for the use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine is nothing new. Leaders of the propaganda parade in Moscow have been calling for at least partial obliteration of parts of Ukraine since at least Day 14
.Many ordinary Russians still think nuclear weapons can be used safely, with complete impunity and without retribution.
After all, Ukraine does not have the bomb, but we do, which means that we can and must use it in order to prevent new victims. The paradox is that now, with each new funeral, irritation grows - of course, against Ukrainians, who, for incomprehensible reasons kill Russians, but also against their own leaders, who inexplicably are afraid of erasing Ukraine from the map, killing more ethnic Russians in the process.
Writing for the Guardian on May 10, political writer Timothy Gorton Ash tells us not to be scared, but prepared.
Although nobody knows exactly what’s going on inside the Kremlin black box, intelligence-based analysis suggests that Putin has wargamed and rejected the option of using tactical nuclear weapons, as this would bring no clear military advantage and alienate China and India.
Opining for The New York Times a day earlier, historian Timothy Snyder said chatter about being atomized is meant to convince us that nuclear powers can’t lose wars.
In other news, Kyiv Mayor Vitalii Klitschko this week took his German friends on a tour of Russian missiles shot down during recent rocket attacks on the capital.
He showed off the hypersonic Kinzhal missile blown out of the sky last week by the MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missile (SAM) system. More than a year ago, unnamed U.S. defense experts told us the system was too complicated for Ukrainians to operate.
Remember this
?:
Why the US Won’t Give Patriot Interceptors to Ukraine. (March 10, 2022)
Each time I see your post the towering day count reminds me that sometimes these things don’t just end, they need to be brought to an end. What the final day tally will be, I don’t think anyone can guess - if only the number could/ would get smaller. Great writing and dedication. Thanks. Peace... some day.