chicken kyiv

Clearly recalling a college professor explaining to the class the nuance of how Kosovo was stressed was a political issue, this highly glommable extract from the impeachment hearings on the native pronunciation of Kyiv (Київ) really appealed to us. Exonymy is potentially problematic enough on its own but is doubly compounded with the introduction of geopolitics and proxy warfare. If anything good comes of annexation and awkward alliances, it would be the dropping of the definite article the and that the capital is unnuanced more pronounced as Keeve.

do ut des

Continuing to charaterise the impeachment proceedings as a coup d’etát and in the wake of particularly compelling testimony by a seasoned career diplomat whose work was undercut by Trump’s backchannel, a group of thirty of Trump’s staunchest supporters stormed closed-door meeting being held in secure chambers to disrupt the testimony of another witness with Ukraine connections, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence.
By bringing cell phones into a classified environment, members—with a distinct lack of collegiality—compromised security and caused the witness’ accounting to be delayed for several hours. Grown weary of playing the apologist though too cowardly to cross him, Republicans refused to give anything but the thinnest, tacit support for Trump’s call to hold the next G7 summit at his tacky resort which prompted Trump more than the self-dealing Ukraine (or Kurdish concessions inter alia) and how that affair is unwinding to accuse his party of not fighting for him. Loyalist responded to this lament by barging in to the hearing room, again characterised as a star chamber despite how the scandal under investigation makes Nixon’s subversion of the democratic process seem rather adorable, and ordering pizza. After five hours, the witness was allowed to give her statement in private.

the conversation i had was largely congratulatory, was largely corruption, all of the corruption taking place

After given a pass (albeit temporary) on the question of Russian collusion, a signals officer elevated a matter of grave concern through his chain-of-command and the channels provided to redress such worries.
Not a leak but a whistleblower complaint, though there was a bottleneck met with push-back from Trump appointees refusing to present the worries to Congress—the filing strongly suggests that during multiple telephone calls with the newly elected Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Trump pressed authorities there to launch an investigation into his apparent contender Joe Biden through his son’s chairmanship on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, accusing both, without evidence, of corruption.  Amid calls for the full transcripts to be released, Trump admitted that they took place—even suggesting that the US is withholding a quarter of a billion dollars in military aid to the country (during joint exercises) if they fail to produce some dirty laundry on the Bidens. Aside from intensified calls for the impeachment (a minor update) of Trump over this treacherous and anti-democratic behaviour, White House advisors also fear that giving up this one transcript would set a precedent to publish all such private discussions, checking presidential candor, including dialogue between Trump and Putin or Trump and the Saudi royals.

голос води

Commissioned for the 23 March annual observance of World Water Day (previously), a group of one hundred sound engineers and musicians—including the group DakhaBrakha—teamed up to create a tone poem from the waters of Ukraine, designing special accompanying instruments to capture the character of currents coursing down the Carpathians. More to explore at Calvert Journal at the link above and for those of you who missed the commemoration like we did, it’s your cue to appreciate and collect the music of your local body of water.

xристос воскрес! воістину воскрес!

dakhabrakha

The always brilliant Everlasting Blört directs our attention to a Tiny Desk Concerto from NPR of the Kiev-based quartet, whose name means “give-and-take” in Old Ukrainian and whose sound and soul reflects the “chaos” of incorporating the unexpected. If the vocal bridge from the last number, “Divka-Marusechka,” has a familiar holiday ring, that’s because it is referencing a traditional folk chant called “Shchedryk” (Щедрий вечiр, Bountiful Evening)—a New Year’s Eve carol appropriated by the West through intermediaries in 1919 as “Carol of the Bells.” Much more to hear at the group’s website at the the link above.

intercalary days

As the calendar winds down and makes ready to welcome a new year, we pause to take a look at a few non-standard dates, evoked for neat calculation and exceptional circumstances. 0 January is the manner for referencing the coordinates of astral bodies—used in tables for stellar navigation and astrology—the day before the start of a calendar year while still keeping the annual ephemeris inclusive.
Furthermore, for practical purposes, the epoch of computing and programming only reaches back to 1900—and though they had intended the starting point of 0 January to be New Year’s Eve 1899, because the year 1900 was erroneous reckoned as a Leap Year (it is a Common Year under the Gregorian Calendar but a Leap Year under the Julian system, in use in some jurisdictions until 1923) 0 January 1900 is actually the penultimate 30 December 1899. While most of Western Europe transitioned from the Julian to Gregorian calendars by excising a week of Sundays—not at all in a coordinated effort either—the Swedish Empire, seeing hardship elsewhere, announced it would gradually catch up, by phasing out leaps days over the following four decades—from 1700 to 1740. Conflict and conquest, however, made keeping an accurate count of cheat days difficult and at one point—in 1712—Sweden observed 30 February. Ultimately, in 1753, and despite the earnest efforts of civil servants calendar synchronisation was complete, by fast-forwarding from 17 February to 1 March.

7x7

писанка: a collection of traditional Ukrainian folk design on egg shells ahead of 8 April Orthodox Easter

walking simulator: virtual tourist have free range over the landscapes created for immersive gaming experiences—even the old, abandoned levels and worlds from long shelved titles

worldcon 76: finalists announced for the 2018 Hugo Awards for science-fiction and science-fantasy plus the 1943 Retrosepctive Hugo Awards, via Super Punch

rotten tomatoes: the US has decided it will no longer regulate genetically-edited crops if it can be show that the tweaks are just a short-cut to selective breeding programmes, via Slashdot

fermi’s paradox: an illustrated lesson in astrobiology from Maki Naro and Matthew Francis

tears of a clown: downfall of a once flush service-sector career field

a is for attenborough, b is for brexit: design agency counters with an alternative abecedarium of twenty-six coins to the Royal Mint’s rather pedestrian release of the A to Z of Britain

import/export or war and cheese

The Atlantic features a short documentary from Ben Garfield on the self-proclaimed saviour to Russian turophiles named Oleg Sirota, a former IT professional who realised his true-calling once trade embargos were enacted on all sides in response to the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the importation of European cheese was banned.
While I’m pretty sure that this is very much against the spirit of the legal protections extended to geographically distinct food products, Sirota is supplying otherwise unavailable varieties of Italian, French and English cheeses from his factory, the profile does present some interesting questions on patriotism, nativism and opportunism. Cheese is an especially interesting item to “traffic” because of its cultural resonance and attachment to a specific location and given the fact that for a perishable item, it is pretty portable and was among one of the first food traditions that people exported.

donbass

Disconcertingly the Russian prime minister has issued a statement in reaction to Dear Leader’s reluctant signing into law a bill continuing sanctions against Russia, North Korea and Iran (Dear Leader had reservation because he believed that Congress was undermining his executive authority and as a businessman who founded a company worth many billions, he was far more qualified than the legislative branch to negotiate a deal with foreign powers) that characterises the decision as a trade-war.
Dear Leader could have tried vetoing the bill but given almost universal bipartisan support to levy the embargo, which began in 2014 in response to the annexation of the Crimea, but that would have been even more damning confirmation of collusion and there was support enough to overturn any attempts to block its passage. The previous US administration expelled dozens of Russian diplomats and commandeered some of their property holdings that weren’t accorded extraterritorial status, but at the time, the Russian response was not symmetrical or immediate. Instead, Russia barred US citizens from adopting Russian orphans, ostensibly, over gay marriage—with adoption understood as code for sanctions throughout. Just now, the American mission to Moscow is being told to reduce staffing by half and its properties are being seized. The continued embargo foremost jeopardises the profitability of the Russian energy sector by making it harder to seek investors and business partners for its natural gas pipeline to western Europe. The broadly accepted narrative holds that Russia was motivated to interfere with the US presidential election with an aggressive social media campaign of sophistry to make Dear Leader appear to be the more palatable alternative.

freundschaft ist magisch

The president-elect’s recent interview with the European media (Bild and the Times of London—the former not exactly a bastion of journalism with the reputation of being tabloid press) praising Brexit and calling NATO obsolete have been causing much consternation, especially in Germany. Perhaps the good cop/bad cop routine with cabinet appointees not of the same mind meant to assuage fears is another pathetic prop or ill-advised piece of theatre to distract from more fundamental issues—which frankly no one needs or has time for: it didn’t take Sarah Palin long to see through Trump’s job-creation claims as gimmickry—or to divert attention from other opposed but equally laden agendas.
The individual points argued here I’d defer to the readers (Germany’s resolution to abandon nuclear energy was already public sentiment and was not engineered to make Europe dependent on Russia oil and gas, and I think that world security is of far more weight and consequence than of fooling some of the people all of the time), but it is nonetheless interesting to recall that from the opposite end of the political spectrum, Germany’s last chancellor became quite chummy with the leader of Russia. It is hard to say if this relationship influenced any of his policy decisions before vacating office in 2005 for his successor Angela Merkel, but Gerhardt Schröder took on a special project with a Gazprom subsidiary right after retiring from government, defended Russia’s actions in Ukraine—likening it UN intervention in Kosovo, and has been seen partying with Mister Putin. Maybe Mister Putin is just fun to pal around with and as a private citizen Herr Schröder could do whatever he wants but I wonder if certain things weren’t set in motion based on this friendship—and it’s better to cultivate that rather than animosity, unless the price of that bond becomes too dear. Incidentally (and it’s rather hard to draw these comparisons with some who led a grand party coalition with the Greens for seven years and assembled a pretty astute cabinet of ministers) but now that I think about it, Schröder is four times divorced and once sued a newspaper for intimating that he dyed his hair. I’d wager that Trump, despite the vast political chasm, would be far less critical of the former chancellor than he is towards the current.

supergau

Today marks the thirtieth anniversary of massive meltdown of the experimental nuclear reactor at Chernobyl, which is being marked by remembrance and memorials in Ukraine. A host of other events occurred on this fateful date, as Doctor Caligari informs, including the first on screen appearance in 1956 of a radioactive monster called Godzilla for American audiences, and the 1937 carpet-bombing of a Spanish village that inspired Pablo Picasso to create Guernica. It is also national pretzel day in the US and Brot Tag in Germany.  Be sure to follow the Cabinet to stay abreast of history repeating.

i find your lack of faith disturbing

In response to a law passed by the Ukrainian parliament, Quartz magazine reports, back in April that prohibits the public display of Communist propaganda, a statue of Vladimir Lenin outside of a factory complex in Odessa slated to be destroyed has instead been redesigned as a homage to Darth Vader. The figure even emits free WiFi for the residents.

unionists and publicans

Writing for the Spectator, columnist Mary Dejevsky has found a more apt, although much more uncomfortable, analogy for the tension and territorial integrity that’s no rarified metaphor or theoretical matter triangulated among Russia, Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula.
Rather than resorting to popular but inhibiting comparisons to Nazi aggression or Czarist Russia, Dejevsky suggests a more contemporary parallel to another triad composed of Ireland and Britain and the creation of Northern Ireland. The correlation is of course not a perfect fit either, history being untidy, but I believe that by avoiding abstractions that strip away civility and humanity and making matters more personal (the UK certainly would not have tolerated any meddling in these internal affairs), one is better outfitted with the vocabulary to talk about matters, even if the received-language is already chilling enough in one direction.

pax populi

Back to World War III—though it’s hard to say when the declaration came, the sort of false urgency lent to housekeeping items that really could and ought to be tabled until cooler consideration can be paid, like breaking the internet or pushing through a shambles of a shady trade deal with international ramification usually seem to herald its beginning—it seems that the US is poised to directly, rather than its usual proximate warfare, supply armaments to certain factions in Ukraine.

The whole business seems pretty murky and shrill propaganda won’t allow matters to settle enough for any party to gain their bearings. Naturally, this announcement is also an overture to the broader coalition of the West to join in, willingly or not. I cannot think of an instance, at least during the American Century, when arming terrorists/unionists/rebels/freedom-fighters (depending on one’s point of view) has ever served to calm the fighting and did not escalate the violence. Arguably, US support for al Qaeda bankrupted the Soviet Union and ushered in Glasnost and Perestroika, but of course that backing had unintended consequences, whose inheritors are at the war’s other front. I don’t pretend to know what course to take, even if there wasn’t the little strip-tease of opposing world-views, but I do know in many instance no action is wiser and not at all the same as inaction, much more in line with the popular peace we’ve consented to. There’s a real danger in conflating the belligerents, and distinctions will be lost while circling one’s wagons, forgetting that one faction is looking for the barest sign of provocation and the other already has every justification it needs.

overheard or something's rotten in the state of denmark

During the weekend's NATO summit in Wales, at least one member state publicly reserved her judgment, wanting to defer any driven decision-making so that better informed heads might prevail. It was the subject of much derision for the Czech government to demand further, independent investigation into the predominate characterisation about Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
It may not be so straightforward as the media portrayal that's the confirmation of consuming fears and consummate heroism, the president demurred, citing self-surety of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction destruction proving not so incontrovertible in the end. Another representative went so far as to ridicule that the Czech Republic might want to consult its intelligence apparatchik, if it had one. I do not think the protest of the Czech government was lost on its audience, since the presiding secretary-general was eleven years ago, as the prime-minister of Denmark, a vocal supporter of Iraqi-Attacky II, exclaiming that there were WMDs—it's true. In all fairness, a lot of people were likewise duped and even more vehement about it.  Vikings are the progenitors of the people of Denmark, although the term never referred to a tribe or ethnogenesis but was rather the infinite form of a verb—vikíng, to go on (overseas) expeditions. I certainly hope that such exchanges do not prevision the return of Cold War tensions and that NATO could be a power for good—however, it is rather an uncomfortable fact that had NATO not tried to push its envelop eastward and court Ukraine, Russia probably would not have responded apparently in-kind.

chicken kyiv oder rollsplitt

While the US and the EU are at odds as to the better means of sanctioning Russia's encouraging the Crimea to assent to annexation, there seems to be precious little traction from outside pressures. Obviously this invitation was well choreographed and premeditated, and whether the aggressions are opportune, taking advantage of an uprising off-set, or merely staged and coinciding with the world's focus on the Winter Games (or a negotiation of both) is unclear.
 A balmy winter in western Europe that could have better weathered the valves being shut off for delivery of natural gas from Russia or America's announcement to scale back the army and military presence in Europe, deemed stable and no longer interbellum and relics of the long, Cold War being cannibalised for adventures further east. It's a bit of a reach but I wonder if this was not some sort of double-bluff, a head-fake, to bolster new Europe's alignment with the West, and legitimize America's missile shield in Poland and mission-creep elsewhere.

This sort of psychological battle for hearts and minds seems like a very real possibility, given Russia's counter-wooing of satellites like Moldova, with an offensive to expose the hollow promises of joining Europe, demonstrating that economic integration is other than rosy, including Russian-influenced embargoes on Moldovan wine exports. In exchange, the nations, which in turn harbour break-away republics with limited recognition like Transnistria or Georgia's South Ossetia in 2008, are portrayed as presented with false taunts and alternative life-styles. Regardless of circumstance or politicking, citizens reserve the rights to secede, devolve or resist, but this sort of partitioning is a bit scary on both sides, interest reserved—whether or not one is just spinning diplomatic wheels.

reductio ab hitlerum

Apparently at one point during his conversation with the US president, the Russian premiere invoked that the invasion of the Crimean peninsular was executed for the protection of ethnic Russians living in the area. Immediately, this elicited a petition by many Russians and Russian-speakers residing there, refusing those overtures, stating they needed no protecting and felt, on the contrary, very secure and welcome.
Though no further violence has actually yet been perpetrated with the occupation of the region, the next maneuvers are unclear, and I am sure that someone, somewhere has pointed out the obvious, said the argument that's no popular or considered logically flawed, but isn't this current reasoning parallel at least to the invocation of “protecting the ethnic Germans” in 1939 in Gdansk in Poland or in the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, Japan declaring Korea a protectorate in 1905 before formally annexing the country in 1910, or the acts of others that one cannot call to the carpet, not to mention dozens of trespasses committed in the name of US interests and for earlier empires? This invasion was premeditated and not a spontaneous response to an opportune moment of civil disarray and the defanged counter-balance is left with few tenable options, even in terms of economic sanctions—considering Europe's dependence of Russian natural resources and especially allied China's favourable assessment of Russia's actions, able to levy painful usury as the financier-in-chief of the world's accustomed lifestyle. Ukraine, despite the odds, could however offer resistance, having a respectable arsenal in comparison regardless of the spread of their antagonist, but this possibility is being decimated by Russians recruiting Ukrainian force individual by individual, luring them away with a passport and citizenship.

gordian knot or charge of the light brigade

The situation in the Crimea is escalating quickly, and I think outside intervention (or subvention) might prove unwise, if not unwelcome. The country is clearly divided among western and eastern region, including the strategically important peninsula on the Black Sea, separated by a narrow strait from Russia. The divide, however pronounced it may be, is not a think just the struggle over segments of the population seeking closer allegiance with the powers of Europe and the West and a nostalgic segment with closer ties to the old, united regime of the Soviet Union, convinced that Ukraine is and has always been a part of Russian proper, is not the only cogent factor, I'm afraid:
Ukraine as a whole is only second to the whole expanse of Russia in terms of industrial and agricultural output within the former Soviet footprint. Though economic independence could eventually be amended into a beneficial partnership, those traditional attitudes that reign in the Crimea (a cartographic flip-book of sovereignties since the Crimean War of 1853 that pit Russia against the Ottoman Empire, the UK and France over access to the Holy Lands—the most technologically advanced and reported—photographs included—conflict that the world had yet seen) are bundled, irretrievably with a logistical system that certainly makes Russian dominant influences loath to see the country become more Western orientated. Not only is the Black Sea fleet based there, the network of petroleum pipelines that deliver gas from Russia to Europe transit through all points of the nation—and not only at snarl-point that connect the Azov with the Black Seas. If this conduit were lost or supply interrupted, even for a short while, the knock-on effects would be devastating for the region and countries dependent on Russian oil. It is tragic to say, but I think conflicts are ignited over far less and diplomacy and freedom are the first casualties. The effectiveness of outside observers I fear might prove dismal at best—even though this is not an internal affair, and Ukraine may have to sacrifice its territorial integrity, ceding along political divides, lest the commemorations beginning this year take on an all too real charter.

the more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems that will slip through your fingers

I really have not followed the now disputed presidential election results for the Ukraine and the subsequent havoc and calls for a recount.  I only try to keep up with the politics because opposition Julia Timoschenko reminds me of Princess Leia, and her challenger, the ostensible winner, makes me think she's up against some dark sith lord or power-hungry Grand Moff Tarkin, that she's rallying the Rebel Alliance against the Evil Empire.