No, I did not go to the protest. I did not leave the apartment until around 8 PM. The back stiffened up, so I napped and then spent time with the heating pad. I finish with a headache, such a one that I want to do no more writing than you will find below.
Steve Schmidt: Photo gallery: “Hands Off” protests
Closer to home, from The Muncie Star Press: 'Hands off' protesters gather at Wheeling Avenue and McGalliard Road
From Can Europe save Ukraine? (The Article), I learned:
How strong are the Three? Let’s look at their economic strength. The GDPs of the Three are about 3 trillion dollars for France and the UK and 4 trillion for Germany. Russian GDP stands at around 2 trillion, one fifth of the joint GDP of the Three. This means they can stand fast, they can outlast Russia.
Let me just say a few words about Putin’s most chilling pronouncement. He said that he will put all the men who fought in the Ukrainian Army against Russia on trial for treason in special courts. And that is not without parallel. It has been done before. The most notorious example in the Soviet Union is the Volga-Moskva canal under Yagoda and Franco’s Mausoleum built in Spain by prisoners of the ex-republican army. Putin would be delighted to put that threat into practice. As for Zelensky and the Three: it is time to act.
Yeah, Putin is the victim and Ukraine started the war. No, he sees Ukraine as an affront to Russian imperialism.
“The book wasn’t put together to make anyone comfortable”: An Interview with Louis Bourgeois by Mike Puican (Another Chicago Magazine) makes me glad of where I did my prison time, but it is time for you who think prison is the solution to crime to think otherwise.
Unit 29: Writing from Parchman Prison is a collection of writing and artwork not for the faint of heart. Anthologist Louis Bourgeois entered one of the country’s most notorious prisons, Mississippi State Penitentiary, also known as Parchman, and led writing classes for those who would be considered the worst offenders, those in solitary confinement. For three years, Bourgeois worked with over fifty inmate students individually, going from cell to cell. Many of these men had never read a piece of literature, let alone written one. As Bourgeois told me, “We’re talking about poverty gone insane and distilled in this place.” The result is a collection remarkable for the humanity expressed by those living in one of the most bleak and cruel environments imaginable.
***
Finally, what would you like the reader to take away from reading this book?
I want the reader to be disturbed. I don’t want them to feel okay about reading it. We’re talking about the actual reality of Parchman, regardless of the crime. We’re talking about poverty gone insane and distilled in this place. The book wasn’t put together to make anyone comfortable, even enlightened people. The reader should come away being physically affected by the writing.
Gaming Japan's bloody past (Engelsberg ideas) did not go where I thought it would - but I had no idea of any controversy over Assassin's Creed - other than a history of Japan I already knew. Then came the final paragraph.
It is tempting to suggest that Ubisoft’s inclusion of violence against a Shintō shrine has been read in Japan as yet another instance of foreigners either misunderstanding or deliberately disrespecting Japanese culture. One can see their point, and perhaps on balance they were right to remove the shrine-smashing scene from their game, as they are reported to have done. At the same time, given the extraordinary power of video games to immerse people in the past and whet their appetite for history, it would be a great shame if we find ourselves being presented with sanitised versions of the past. Confusion about who we have been risks feeding confusion about who we are now.
Americans have little stomach for the bad and dark and ugly aspects of our history. Most of the attacks on "woke" culture have been about sanitizing our history - brushing out the slaves and the dead Native Americans and laboring men killed by the government seems their ultimate goal. Trump's anti-DEI pogrom has already moved against the achievements of American women, people of color, and the Enola Gay; for Trump only white men have earned their regards and distinctions. American is living proof of what happens when we confuse what we are with what we were.
As with Canada, so with Australia? The new reality dawning in Australia: it can no longer rely on the US (The Guardian)
An Australia Institute poll released this month found three in 10 Australians (31%) think Donald Trump is the greatest threat to world peace (more than chose Vladimir Putin (27%) or Xi Jinping (27%)).
It found nearly half of all Australians (48%) were not confident the Trump administration would defend Australia’s interests if Australia were threatened, compared with only 16% who were very confident that it would do so.
And China is closer than the US; presumably China, not the Solomon Islands, would be attacking Australia. We are learning just how scared the world is of us. Scared people tend to militantly react to what scares them.
Thanks to Trump, we cannot be sure these kinds of alliances would benefit America.Patience advocates building new alliances in the region, forging stronger ties with other liberal democracies, in particular South Korea and Japan, and developing a “sophisticated diplomacy” with China.
“I think Australia is in very serious trouble because of this naive belief in America. We’ve been such fools living in this imagined American paradise for so long.”
The American imperialism directed towards Denmark and Canada is not just morally wrong. It is strategically disastrous. The US has nothing to gain from it, and much to lose. There is nothing that Americans cannot get from Denmark or Canada through alliance. The very existence of the base at Pituffik shows that. Within the atmosphere of friendship that has prevailed the last 80 years, all of the mineral resources of Canada and Greenland can be traded for on good terms, or for that matter explored by American companies. The only way to put all of this easy access in doubt was to follow the course that Musk-Trump have chosen: trade wars with Canada and Europe, and the threat of actual wars and annexations. Musk and Trump are creating the bloodily moronic situation in which the US will have to fight wars to get the things that, just a few weeks ago, were there for the asking. And, of course, wars rarely turn out the way one expects.
... We are the only ones ever to have invoked article 5, the mutual defence obligation of the Nato treaty, after 9/11; and our European allies did respond. Per capita, almost as many Danish soldiers were killed in the Afghan war as were American soldiers. Do we remember them? Thank them?
As this blog is about my continuing education, let me say what I learned from that article:
- That with Trump, the art of the deal is to start a war rather than to say please.
- That we demand a thank you from Zelenskyy for American weapons, but cannot thank Denmark for it people killed on our behalf,
- That Trump has not only defecated on his own doorstep, us, but on the world.
- That I know as much world economics as the people who came up with Trump's tariffs.
There are multiple problems with this – not least that it vastly oversimplifies the drivers of trade deficits. Trade deficits occur when a country buys more than it sells abroad. The US has run a deficit persistently since the 1970s. Typically trade deficits balance over time, as they create downward pressure on a country’s currency (as the result of demand for foreign currency, to buy imported goods, outstrips demand for domestic currency).However, sitting atop the global reserve currency – used throughout the global financial system for payments and international trade – the US has managed to run larger trade deficits than other nations would be able to.
But I already knew the gist of this paragraph:
“This is not serious trade policy or grand strategy,” said Tooze. “The boss hates trade deficits and his team of willing sycophants came up with a formula, however idiotic, that ticked the box.”
My left eye throbs. No idea how long before the ibuprofen kicks in. This is what happened to this Saturday night.
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