Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
Word on the street is that today in Kyiv a woman knocked down a Russian drone from a balcony with a jar of cucumbers. Clearly we need to send the Ukrainian people more cucumbers!
One hopes these trends continue, that the people of Ukraine, depending upon antiquated technologies, guerrilla warfare, and home-court advantage, can stop, thwart, and functionally defeat one of the world’s largest and best-equipped military forces. Sadly, a desperate and internationally ostracized Vladimir Putin is now running a terror campaign, targeting civilian population centers in order to compel everyday Ukrainians to demand that their political and military leaders capitulate in order to halt the bloodshed of innocents.
I would like to think that even if Putin succeeds in his military campaign, his country will lose. US, UK, and EU sanctions are functionally disabling the Russian economy. The ruble has lost most of its value, Russian banks have been barred from buying and selling goods and commodities, and tens of billions of dollars in accounts have been seized by authorities in the countries where Putin and his band of oligarchs have been storing the money that they have functionally embezzled from the Russian citizenry. It’s like everyone has been given simultaneous permission to respond to Russian corruption and aggression, rather than just going along with it.
I need to meditate on why I feel such glee when Russian oligarchs’ villas and yachts are sized by Italian authorities, as was the case in the last 24 hours. Alexei Mordashov, who Forbes calls the richest man in Europe, had one of his yachts impounded in the Italian city of Imperia. Over the last few decades, Mordashov, whose name almost sounds like that of a Harry Potter villain, has been buying up mining companies, banks, telecom companies, and even American steel companies. Even though he was worth almost $30 billion before the ruble crashed, a divorce court in St Petersburg revealed that he was paying only $620 a month to support his ex-wife and son. I’ve concluded that vengeful people with obscene wealth are not to be trusted.
When it comes to class issues, western journalists have highlighted the middle-class status and even the race of the Ukrainian refugees fleeing the country. One expert on the BBC, Ukraine’s Deputy Chief Prosecutor, David Sakvarelidze, said, “It’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed.” A senior foreign correspondent for CBS, Charlie D’Agata, said that Ukraine “isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades.” Instead, D’Agata said, “This is a relatively civilized, relatively European — I have to choose those words carefully, too — city, where you wouldn’t expect that or hope that it’s going to happen.”
To speak the obvious out loud, we would not “hope” that unprovoked shelling a civilian areas would not take place in any part of the world, even outside Europe. The value of people is not determined by their country of origin or the pigmentation in their skin or hair. Also, isn’t Mesopotamia, the area that is now Iraq, known as the “Cradle of Civilization”? As James Baldwin used to say on the lecture circuit, in the 1960s schoolchildren were taught about American patriots who took up arms to establish and defend their country during the American Revolutionary War, but politicians and the press simultaneously lamented that people of color, African-Americans and indigenous people here in the United States, would propose similarly protecting themselves from violence.
When I read someone on Twitter say that watching the war coverage in Ukraine is so unsettling because Americans have never been bombed in their own cities, I am reminded of watching TV news footage of the May 1985 bombing of an entire Philadelphia city block by the police in that city. The police thought it justified to use explosive demolition devices that are typically reserved for war combat, if even then. The goal was to bomb members of MOVE, a black liberation group. Eleven people were killed, including five children. Sixty-one homes were destroyed. And we did that to ourselves. So obviously if you ask the people of Philadelphia or Birmingham, Alabama, Americans have known the sort of violence that is taking lives, dividing families, and breaking hearts in Ukraine.
All these groups of people, like the technologically-outgunned but plucky Ewoks or Na’vi that we cheer for in our movie theatres, deserve our sympathy and support.
I hope you and your families continue to be safe and healthy.
Dr. Andy
I hope you get to see this week’s Pub Quiz. I welcome new subscribers and celebrate my sustaining supporters! Expect questions on topics raised above, and on American kingdoms, people named Clark, US capitols, mothers with two jobs, Ecuador, collaborations, double-doubles, boldness, significant plays, revolutions, Cuban anniversaries, farmlands, tarmac stays, noisemakers, problems with Texas, Canadian imports, apologist lamenters, superheroes, wind speeds, military installations, peninsula, musical groups, “Art” projects from 50 years ago, sunsets, people with white hair, blindfolds, The Beatles, baseball players who never got to meet particular presidents, folds, home games, first dances, current events, and Shakespeare.
Thanks to all of you who came to fill up the Natsoulas Gallery on Poetry Night this week. I had to miss it because Covid. Our next event is on St. Patrick’s Day. I remember when that day was such a big deal around here.
P.S. Here are three questions from last week’s Pub Quiz:
- Mottos and Slogans. What tire company uses the slogan “A Better Way Forward”?
- Internet Culture. What Apple product is being used to track people and cars?
- Newspaper Headlines. What mobile application will now let users share their real-time location with friends: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Friendster?