Day 624

Red rubber devil duck

Photo c/o abdymok

I suppose it’ll be just a matter of time before accusations of rigging and taint cloud the air, before blue-ticked shitbloggers on X and their burbling attack runts shit their collective underpants because

ukrainewarupdates

or

Fabrice Deprez

or

The Kramatorsk Diaries

or

Render64

or

Borshch and Bank Vaults.

or

War.News

(over 3,000 subscribers!) aren’t nominated.

But it’s interesting nonetheless to learn that this Substack’s almost weekly photos of our cat Balusha (updated each week at 5 AM CET unless of course I forgot to put one up the week before before which does happen now and again) are in the running for Best Substack Cat Photos in this year’s Photobloggies, an award that comes with a prize of a Red Rubber Devil Duck.

Big day for Balusha all around, as this arrived in the mail. He is now officially sanctioned (indeed, ‘highly recommended’) to bump nasties for bacon.

A small private celebration, with liquified UAH 41 tubes of liver extract and cat nip, will take on Saturday after dinner.

On a more serious note, I took a look this morning at Substack’s collection of blogs dedicated to Ukraine. Wow!

I spent more than one hour reading dozens of entries: from love letters to impotent rage and monumental sadness. I wanted to understand, the confusion, wet bloodlust, the surge of adrenaline and bring it on you fuckers you call that obscene. Then I stood up, coffee cup in hand, and someone was screaming no no no no, and it was me.

I’m all beaten up, defeated.

But…

State Department officials testify on U.S. national security interests pertaining to Ukraine before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. This hearing occurs as the Senate considers supplemental funding for Ukraine.