2022
Red Cross Poster with Christkind, circa 1917
"Christmas collection of the Bavarian Red Cross for our men in field gray" reads the caption of this Red Cross poster from Germany during the Great War. The angelic Christkind it features shines bright yellow in the dark Christmas night as she delivers parcels wrapped in field grey to men on the front. Stars twinkle above her, and there is snow underfoot. To her left is a sled heavy with more parcels, and to her right is a dependable, mustached soldier, pipe in mouth, a freshly delivered parcel in his hands.
A photograph taken in Louisville, Kentucky the same year, shows a similar effort by the American Red Cross: women preparing Christmas parcels for American soldiers.
Repository: Library of Congress.
The press conference this afternoon reminds me of what a disaster we averted by showing the orange blob the door after one term. I get frustrated by the slow pace of our response to the invasion (and the horrible laissez-faire federal response to the pandemic nowadays), but oh how much worse this could have been. Meanwhile, I am grateful for the example Ukrainians are providing us, shining light through the cold winter darkness. Slava Ukraini! 🇺🇦
Death Wish for Their Soldiers
I can’t shake these lines from Stasik’s “Lullaby for the Enemy” about Ukraine’s Donbas:
You wanted this land
Now mix with it
You are my land now
Sleep, sleep, sleep . . .
I’m guessing that “earth” would be another translation option.
Potato Harvest
Harvesting potatoes on a collective farm near Kyiv in 1959, via the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2021791980
More than a Euphemism
Perhaps Putin’s phrase “special military operation” should be seen as something more insidious than a euphemism for war. At the very least, it is consistent with Russia’s genocidal aims and practices in Ukraine.
If we take the Clausewitzian metaphor of war as a duel somewhat literally, the Russian invasion of Ukraine becomes a struggle between two equals, two entities with the same dignity, the same right to exist. After all, duels have traditionally been fought between two parties capable of giving satisfaction for a perceived injury by one to the other’s honor. An officer could duel another officer, but not a sergeant, a lowly conscript, or a civilian occupying a more modest social position.
By calling its invasion a “special military operation,” Russia denies Ukraine’s worthiness and sovereignty. It casts Ukraine and Ukrainians as other, fundamentally inferior, or devoid of honor, so to speak. Rejecting Ukrainian statehood outright, the term “special military operation” facilitates what the talking heads in Russia discuss openly on state TV: genocide, the elimination of Ukrainian culture, ethnicity, and language.
At the same time, the term “special military operation” renders Ukrainian resistance illegitimate in Russian eyes. Thus, Russia brands the soldiers who defended Mariupol to the end “terrorists.” And its leaders become apoplectic when Ukraine dares to fire on targets inside Russia and Russian-occupied Crimea.
Given the logic of Russia’s rhetoric and violence, the problem with “special military operation” becomes one not only of euphemism hiding war from Russians. The euphemism also creates space for, even favors, genocidal rhetoric and policy.
Justitia Again
The following cartoon and comment, which I posted on February 5, 2017, did not age well.
After the latest Spiegel cover and all the news it embodies, this cartoon by Sam Machado feels really good, particularly with its use of gender against the U.S. chauvinist-in-chief.
In case you missed it, this report from July 5, 2022, sums up all the damage: “The U.S. Supreme Court term in review.”
The Old House and Barn
My brother took the above photo on his trip to New Hampshire last month. It’s the old barn at the house we grew up in, viewed from a dirt road. Below is a picture he took of that house. It was badly in need of paint nine years ago, when my parents sold it, but it looks like it’s in good shape now. The biggest maple tree out front had to be cut down, but the smallest one isn’t looking so small anymore.
To Everything There Is a Season
It feels strange to be back home in DC after nine months away in rural New Hampshire. And I’m driving back up next week for my father’s memorial service—driving because flying sounds like a terrible option these days.
My father was able to live at home for most of these past months. Facilitating that was a two-person job, mine and my octogenarian mother’s. During his last month, he went from hospital to rehab, which I thought might become long-term care, but his old body had other plans.
Fortunately I already knew his wishes, so all three of us were on the same page when it came time. He was at the hospital when we switched him over to hospice care, a small hospital in the White Mountains, and the staff was brilliant.
My son made it up the last week, as did my sisters and one brother-in-law. Even my brother, who I hadn’t seen in thirty years, flew in. On one of the last days the old man could speak, a nurse told him he was lucky. “I know,” he replied.
So it goes.
Early last fall, during a drive down to a different hospital to pick up my father, my wife called me. Our first grandchild was coming. And then another call: she was there.
Wordpress no longer supported the blog theme I was using, so I decided to start from scratch with a minimalist block theme (Livro) that allows full site editing. I’ve got most of the kinks ironed out now, though it still needs tweaking on mobile phones, in particular. More news and content will follow soon.
We Are the Problem
We blame the virus for
the disastrous condition
of our schools
the catastrophic state
of our hospitals
the ruinous structure
of our workplaces
the collapsing authority
of our institutions
so we need not acknowledge
the virus is not cause
but revealer
of our society’s frailty.
—@PlaguePoems