At War with Russia
The past week has been horrid. I can barely watch the news it’s so upsetting.
My wife, on the other hand, is a news junkie. She keeps it running all day long. I suspect it is the ICU nurse in her. She is used to monitoring situations that could easily go sideways in minutes. She is used to knowing what to do if they do. I don’t think she would know what to do if the US, Nato and Russia started shooting at each other. Back in the day, when I was a kid, the advice was to duck and cover.
My wife is kindly wearing earphones during the day so I don’t have to overhear the news. At 4 PM, I emerge from my studio and we watch Nicole Wallace together on MSNBC. I can handle the news if Nicole delivers it and I have a martini in my hand.
I am very frightened. Some part of me believes it is quite possible I am going to die soon.
While on Block Island, during the first few days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I was taking sunrise walks along a stretch of beach that looked out over the Atlantic to the east. I couldn’t keep myself from imagining cruise missiles streaking past on their way to annihilating my country. So much for soothing ocean vibes.
The older I get, the more afraid of dying I am. I try not to be. I tell myself to live the moments as they come; enjoy them; revel in them. It is the better way to think of things, but of course, that is not easy.
Every night I watch interviews with brave, confident, terrified, and/or desperate Ukrainians. Some of them have been on TV successive nights. Each time I see them, I wonder, will I see them tomorrow? Or will the Russians have caught up with them? It is traumatizing to watch, even from such a distance, the horrors being inflicted on the Ukrainian people. More than a million refuges. Cities being reduced to rubble. How many dead?
A great part of my despair comes from not knowing how the world exits this situation without blowing itself up. The US and NATO have been clear and consistent in saying they will not put troops on the ground or planes in the air to help Ukraine. Everyone understands that direct combat with Russia is World War III and nobody imagines that would end well for either side or humanity in general.
But, if one arms one country against another; if one organizes the collapse of that other country’s economy; if one supplies intelligence, even if it stops short of targeting that other country’s assets; if one is doing everything one can to bring that other country to its knees; isn’t one at war with them?
Nightly, the punditry asks, what is the end game? Where is the off ramp? To date, none of them has been able to give me hope there is one.
I go on being afraid.
A wartime diary by Yevgenia Belorusets - Artforum International
In the morning, when I was still in bed, I saw a video clip of a Russian soldier operating a Grad system: a multiple-rocket launcher that the Russian army has been using to attack peaceful districts in Ukrainian cities. The soldier in the video was crying. He said he wanted to apologize to his young daughter because he may be guilty of killing children in Ukraine.
The essence of liberalism is an attempt to secure a social order not based on irrational dogma, and insuring stability without involving more restraints than are necessary, for the preservation of the community. Whether this attempt can succeed only the future can determine.
A History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell. Loc 290.
… and we are still trying to find out, though liberalism is severely strained at the present moment…
March 3, 2022 - by Heather Cox Richardson
Tonight, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham crossed that line when, on Fox News Channel personality Sean Hannity’s television show, he called for someone to assassinate Putin. He then repeated his comment on Twitter. This was an astonishing propaganda coup for Putin, enabling him to argue that he is indeed in a war with America, rather than engaging in an unprovoked attack on neighboring Ukraine. This is exactly what the Biden administration has gone out of its way to avoid.
It was an astonishing moment… and also an interesting one. It undermines the position of the U.S. and our partners and allies, but in whose service? After initially opposing Trump’s reach for the presidency, Graham threw in his lot utterly with the former president, who has many possible reasons both to undermine Biden and to keep Putin in power. Perhaps Graham’s comment was intended to help Trump. Or perhaps Graham might have simply made a colossally stupid mistake. Whatever the case, the enormous implications of his statement make it one that would be a mistake to ignore.
And so, when a loved one dies, this deepest part of us grows wild with rage at the universe — a rage skinned of sensemaking, irrational and raw, unsalved by our knowledge that the entropic destiny of everything alive is to die and of everything that exists to eventually not, even the universe itself; unsalved by the the immense cosmic poetry hidden in this fact; unsalved by the luckiness of having lived at all against the staggering cosmic odds otherwise; unsalved by remembering that only because ancient archaebacteria were capable of dying, as was every organism that evolved in their wake, we and the people we love and the people we lose came to exist at all.
… it occurs to me that the line is thin between what is perceived to perish and what is not perceived to perish… yet… at the present moment we believe all things everywhere will perish… how can that possibly be true?…
… i am looking through the photography posts i have been unable to look at while on Block Island because of the miserable internet connection out there… it is, given the moment, a guilty pleasure… but, it is soothing… something about it helps me deal with the moment… especially as i gaze at images of the feminine in all its glorious and varietal forms… my feminine is drawn out… i believe in the feminine, Marjorie Taylor Green and other women like her aside… i suppose i believe in the feminine being feminine… i hope for the nurturing side of the feminine… not the bellicose side… i prefer that Mars stay with the men and Venus with the women… but of course, it is not like that… the feminine morphs into the masculine and the masculine morphs into the feminine… we are all capable of war and nurture…
The 2/22/22 Exhibition: Pairs and Diptychs - LENSCRATCH
Today’s post celebrates this unusual day in history when the twos line up to create a “Twosday”. In numerology, the number 2 is associated with heightened intuition and sensitivity, as well as the strength and power that comes from connection and collaboration. The U.S. will also see its first-ever Pluto return on Feb. 22, 2022, which could mean big things for your career, so start manifesting! … an exhibition centered on twos… a remarkable number of provocative images of women in twos, either two by two or in the mirror…
Wish i could reach this level of relaxation…
A New Book on Niki de Saint Phalle Presents the Artist In Her Own Words
In Drug Journey, an unpublished manuscript written in 1995, Niki de Saint Phalle wonders, “Does one have to go through catastrophe to arrive at vision?”
… if the world of this day is any indication… perhaps…
What Volodymyr Zelensky’s Courage Says About the West - The Atlantic
There can be something a little distasteful about Western onlookers (myself included) cheering on Ukrainians for a cause that our countries are not willing to join, a stance that risks raising the price of a peace that will be paid only with Ukrainian blood. Nevertheless, it is possible to recognize this, to be inspired by what Zelensky represents, and then to be shamed by his example.
Here is a nation and a leader willing to sacrifice so much for the principle of independence and the right to join the Western world. And yet, much of the West is jaded and cynical, apparently devoid of any such mission, cause, or sense of idealism anymore. What is it that the West believes in now? When you think of the great liberal heroes of our age, Angela Merkel and Barack Obama, say, they are actually deeply pragmatic conservatives, constantly hedging, calculating, and balancing interests with little grand vision or cause to pull their policies together. There is much to be said for this type of governance: As Helmut Schmidt, the former chancellor of West Germany, once quipped, “Whoever has visions should go to the doctor.” Visions led to the Iraq War, for example. Yet conservative pragmatism is also deeply limited, allowing adversaries like Vladimir Putin to take advantage, exploiting caution and shortsighted selfishness.
What Changed Germany’s Mind - The Bulwark
Putin’s blatant and unprovoked assault on Ukraine changed that calculus. Now, no one in their right mind could possibly blame Germany, so it is finally safe to act. Germany can play a key role as a supporter of Ukraine, both by sending arms to help the poor people in Kyiv and throughout the country and by rearming itself, as Scholz has promised to do, to meet the obvious threat from Russia.
Is anyone else struggling to feel right now?
I am. The last seven years have been extraordinarily numbing, a relentless march of spiritually draining events. I can’t remember a more difficult stretch of time in my life. Maybe during the Vietnam war? 1969 was a remarkably bad year. I was young and oblivious back then, I don’t remember thinking or feeling much about it.
For the last seven years I have been witness to the rise of populism and the dispiriting and painful march of Donald Trump to the White House. I have been witness to his even more painful and dispiriting administration. I have been witness to his efforts to steal the election, corrupt every branch of government and then conjure the January 6th riot. I have been witness to the manifest inability of our system of checks and balances to actually check and balance. I continue to witness the growing threat of authoritarianism in my country, even as we rally the world to assist the imperfect Ukrainian Democracy and decry Vladimir Putin, an authoritarian thug. And just now, a commentator on MSNBC raising the spectre of Putin spoiling for a direct confrontation with the United States and then what, nuclear war?
Apparently, nature loves to pile it on thick so lets add in the Pandemic. I have witnessed that human tragedy, lived in fear of my fellow human beings and suffered through the resulting social isolation.
As I watch the events unfold in Ukraine I have been finding it hard to generate much emotion about it.
As I pursue my artwork, I have been finding it hard to get very excited about anything I make.
I am exhausted by the times. I am exhausted by the relentless flow of dispiriting and/or threatening events both at home and abroad. I have little emotion left to expend towards anything.
Or so I thought.
And then, this morning, something remarkable happened. Tears filled my eyes as I read accounts of the incredible bravery of the Ukraines, and how the war was not going as smoothly as Russia had planed (and all our military planners and pundits had expected). As I read about how Ukrainian colors are being projected on buildings and displayed in cities around the world in solidarity; about how concerts everywhere are being opened with the Ukrainian National Anthem; about a Ukrainian boy resolutely playing the piano as the bombs fall; about Ukrainian wives, daughters, mothers, grandmothers making molotov cocktails; about 12 Ukrainian soldiers choosing death over subjugation by telling a Russian war ship to “go fuck yourself!” rather than surrender and live. Yes, tears filled my eyes.
It’s too much to hope that this will be a David and Goliath story. But, something seems to have been awakened. For myself, I realized I had begun to give up hope that authoritarianism’s relentless rise around the world was stoppable and that even in the United States we might not be able to turn it back. Russia’s aggression in Ukraine seemed destined to plunge the world into darkness that would outrun my time on the planet.
Yes, it is perhaps too much to hope that David can slay Goliath here, but the Ukrainians have given me hope even so. Their valor has brought tears to my eyes. Their example tells me yes, we can turn back tyranny. It starts by giving it a bloody nose.
Stones, Sand, Water
Sand, stone, wind…
20220225-03
231.8 lbs…
… i have been experiencing huge frustrations in my blog flow… on Block Island, i am limited to my iPhone as a collection/production device and virtually everything is harder and behaves in ways that are downright annoying… i can’t seem to find the right connection flow between Feedbin and Ulysses, for example… or between Feedbin and any other app… everything is glitchy… everything happens in a partial way that isn’t suitable to me…
… add to that the incredibly useless internet connection we have out here and my frustration is at a maximum…
… i can’t wait until we get home…
… i don’t hate Block Island… there is lots to love about it… but over the course of two weeks the ways in which being here frustrate me begin to wear my patience thin…
… the war in Ukraine proceeds… H is worried it will lead to nuclear war… i am not so worried about that at the moment… what i worry about is that the rise in oil prices and the further stress the conflict and our reaction to it will put on the world production and supply system will come together with already strong authoritarian impulses to bring about the election of a Trumpian president if not Trump himself… it would be a disaster for the world as i and H know it…
… rain and sleet overnight… a winter storm, that on BI, sounds worse that it really is… back in Beacon, it looks like something approaching a foot of snow and then a little icing on top of it…
… i have put together a nice set of wind swept beach and stone photographs… i have a lot of work to draw from for this week’s photo poem…
20220225-02
… if Donald Trump continues to be enabled by the Republican party, Republican voters, and America’s conservative propaganda machines, then we may very well be led once again by this man, giving him the chance to follow through on his promise to break-up the NATO alliance and put a stake through the heart of our democracy once and for all.
… my wife is concerned about the possibility of nuclear war… i am more concerned about the above… i feel we are heading into a perfect storm of voters preferring a Trumpian alternative to the present administration…
20220225-01
From this morning…
230.2 lbs…
… weight gain not a surprise… little exercise yesterday due to rain and intense wind… pasta for dinner… wine for dinner… a precipitous drop from the day before yesterday indicating a water weight shift… still… the broad trend is down…
… the drums of war beat louder… Biden has indicated that he believes Putin has decided to invade Ukraine and will target Kiev… we plunge into the unknown…
… 45 keeps loosing in court…
… John Durham walks a court filing back just a smidge…
… Dinner with M and PW last night… made Bucatini all’ Amatriciana last night… served with an arugula, red onion and orange bell pepper salad… i put a little too much red onion in which also didn’t seem to get less sharp from soaking in cold water…
… PW saying they didn’t understand what Putin gains from a Ukraine invasion… invading and subduing a population that doesn’t want you is bound to be messy, even if your force overwhelms in the early days… i couldn’t think of a good answer… i don’t know what he gains other than a confrontation with NATO and much of the free world…
… yesterday morning H, i and the dogs drove around the island experiencing the storm… i stood for a while at the top of the stairs down to Mohegan beach/bluffs… the wind was blowing so hard the stairs were shaking… elemental… i made some pictures and a couple of videos…
… in an effort to be able to produce an image poem for posting on Sunday, i discovered that images can be rearranged in the photo app that comes with the iPhone… from here until we go home, my efforts will be concentrated in that app, possibly beyond… it is certainly how to keep up while traveling…
Late afternoon sun through an orange bell pepper…
229.2 lbs…
… and now the dog wants to go out, have his treats… the wind is howling… it is raining… i don’t want to take him out… can i get away with not doing that?… let’s see if he gives up, even though i am pretty sure that he wont…
… HCR depressing today… pointing out how ready the current Republicans are to pursue authoritarianism… Newt Gingrich rearing his ugly head…
… the dog wins…
… dogs walked and treated… wind not as bad as i was imagining it… pretty gusty, but not knock-me-off-my-feet gusty…
… i have so much anxiety about the country i live in and those who care only about power, not democracy… it is horrible to be going through this now, at the latter stages of my life… to think that in a few years time life could be very different… the country could be very different… all, or mostly, because of the white male patriarchy… i begin to sound like a broken record…
… that my weight is down almost two pounds today is pleasing to say the least… a two pound loss over 24 hours is mostly water… still, its the right direction since i stopped drinking and became more careful about what i am eating…
… last night i grilled a pork chop which H and i split and roasted a colorful medley of sweet potato, orange bell pepper, and red onion (which really should be called purple onion) with fresh garlic cloves… should have added some rosemary to it, which i had… next time…
… i slept well last night… up once to the bathroom… slept seven hours total which is on the max side for me…
Southeast Lighthouse…
20220217-04
By the light of the moon…
20220217-03