in which vlad putin drives a truck over his own dick

Posted on March 14, 2022 by greg

First, let’s admire the courage and determination of the Ukrainian military and the civilian volunteers. I think we all knew Ukraine would put up a fight; we all knew they were scrappers. But damn.

Their resistance has been inspiring. And let’s be honest, it’s also been intimidating as fuck. “Here, carry these sunflower seeds in your pocket so the ground on which you die will flower.” That’s ice cold, right there. That goes beyond Josey Wales ‘plumb, mad-dog mean’ levels of scrappiness; that’s deep into Keyser Söze territory. We’re talking grim poetic borderline pathological resistance. And it shows.

Just over seven thousand US troops died in twenty years of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Russia has lost more than that in three weeks.

I say Russia ‘lost’ that many troops, but it would be more accurate to they’ve ‘thrown away’ that many. It’s increasingly obvious the Russian military is hollow. The inside has rotten away. A couple decades of systemic corruption left a facade that appeared solid and sturdy, but masked a military that was drastically unprepared for sustained military operations.

What it comes down to is this: the Russian army doesn’t have enough trucks.

We hear a lot about Russia’s 190,000 troops involved in the invasion, the majority of them are support personnel. In the military we refer to this as “tooth to tail”ratio–the number of support troops (the tail) necessary to keep combat troops supplied and fighting (the tooth).

Russia is big. Really big. So big that it takes forever to get from one side to the other. Because of that, their military depends on railroads to rapidly move equipment from one place to another. Trains are more efficient; the army can move military units and supplies around inside Russia pretty quickly. But that all stops at the Russian border. Beyond the border, it comes down to trucks and truck-like supply vehicles.

We know that in the weeks leading up to the invasion, the Russian army amassed a LOT of troops and supplies on their border with Ukraine.

So this is what you need to know. The standard Russian military truck is the Ural-4320. The Ural-4320 is a multi-use truck; there are armored versions to carry troops, versions to transport fuel, and it’s also used as a platform for the BM-21 rocket launcher. But mostly, it’s just a really solid truck used to haul stuff. It has a top speed of around 50mph and can carry about 6.5 tons of material on hard surface roads.

Now, let’s say Ukraine’s road/highway network will allow a Ural-4320 to move at a sustained 45mph, which may be a wee bit optimistic. Let’s say it takes an hour to load six tons of supplies (food, ammunition, replacement parts for armored attack vehicles, medical supplies, fuel, etc.). It takes another hour to dive 45 miles into Ukraine. Another hour to unload supplies. And one more hour to return to the supply depot. That’s four hours.

Let’s say that truck can make four trips per day–sixteen hours. The other eight hours will be spent on stuff like truck maintenance, drivers eating and sleeping. That’s the very best case scenario. That’s assuming nothing disrupts the process–no ambushes, no caltrops in the road, no flat tires or engine issues, no loading or unloading problems, no refueling issues. That means Russian combat troops and assault vehicles can expect to be resupplied up to four times a day. If they’re only 45 miles from the Russian border.

If elements of the Russian army are 90 miles from the Russian border, the very best case is they could only count on resupply twice a day. At 180 miles, only once a day.

Kyiv is about 230 miles from the border.

We see lots of photos and videos of tanks and other armored vehicles destroyed by the Ukrainian army–and yay for that. But perhaps more importantly, they’re taking out resupply trucks at an astonishing rate. That’s one reason we’re seeing so many abandoned Russian vehicles and tanks. No fuel, no food for the troops, no ammunition to fight.

Russia will do as much damage as it can in the hope that Ukraine will give up, but it doesn’t have enough trucks to keep it up or take it very far. And the Ukrainian army won’t relent enough to allow the Russians to establish safe supply depots inside Ukraine. It’s not very dramatic, but in a contest between Ukrainian grit and Russian trucks, the trucks lose. And if the trucks lose, so does Russia.

just to explain why i took a photo

Posted on March 10, 2022 by greg

Last week while out noodling around I came across a tank. When I say ‘tank’ I mean a decommissioned military tank. An M60 battle tank, to be exact. It’s fairly common when the military starts scrapping old tanks, they offer them to small towns to use as memorials, or to ‘decorate’ public parks or town squares or wherever the hell a small town would like to park one. The US military stopped deploying M60s in 1997.

But this isn’t about the tank, really. It’s about how I photographed it. Which was like this:

A friend asked me a couple of questions about the photo. First, what the hell is this a photograph of? Second, if it’s a photograph of a tank, why didn’t I include the whole tank? Those are valid questions. But they’re difficult to answer.

They’re difficult to answer for several reasons. The primary reason is that I’ve been shooting photos for so long that I rarely actually think about composition. I just kind of know what I want in the frame. Another reason it’s difficult to explain is because shooting a photo seems like it’s just a matter of releasing the shutter (or, with a cell phone, poking the whatsit that initiates the photo). But that moment is the result of a fairly complex process.

I wasn’t paying much attention to the process when I shot this, but I’ll try to recreate my thinking. Obviously, it began by getting out of the car to look at the tank because…well, there was a tank and I wanted to look at it. As I walked around it, I was attracted to that cascade of squarish shapes made by the building–so many different-sized squares of different textures. Then there was that white circle that sort of balanced the round rear tread wheel of the tank. And then there were those sweet vertical lines of the chimney and the light pole. And then I was drawn to that tiny splash of red, and that diagonal slant of the roof of the shed, and even the spade leaning against the light pole. All of those things appealed to me, both individually and as a collective.

I’d be lying if I said I noted all that stuff in that order, but when you’re lining up a shot it’s like your brain is ticking off boxes in a list. That works, that works, that doesn’t–so move a bit, that works. And then there’s some point when your synapses seem to agree that you’ve got all–or most–of the stuff you want in the frame, and you take the photo.

I’d probably have taken that photo even if the tank wasn’t there, because the light and the geometry appealed to me. But it was the tank that drew me to that spot and to me, that wee bit of tank is important to the composition. So, to me, it’s still a photo of the tank. The rest of the tank is implied.

Wait…I think I can explain this better. That same day, I took a photo of an old, rusted out Ford panel truck. Three photos, in fact, but only one photo mattered. Here’s the first photo.

There’s nothing wrong with this as a photo. Again, I composed it intuitively, without a lot of thought. It’s got good lines. The curve of that tree is nice; it sorta kinda follows the shape of the truck. There’s a decent balance to the composition. It’s a perfectly adequate photo, a decent documentation of an old, rusted out Ford panel truck. Nothing wrong with it, but not terribly interesting.

So I got closer. Changed the perspective.

Again, there’s nothing wrong with this photo. Again, the composition was casual but deliberate. However, you’ve probably seen ten thousand photos almost exactly like this. A rusty wreck of a vehicle–an artifact of an outdated civilization cast aside in a living environment that will continue to grow while the artifact slowly degrades into nothingness. The best thing about this photo is that it places the panel truck in a larger landscape, which emphasizes how out of place it is. But basically, there’s nothing new to see in this photo.

So I got closer and changed the perspective again.

This is the photo that mattered. I took a bit more care with the composition. I knew I wanted the rust, I knew I wanted the suggestion of a large landscape through the windows, and I knew I wanted the lines of the shattered window and those bubbles formed by the thin layer of ice.

The actual old, rusted out Ford panel truck wasn’t really important; it’s the idea of the old, rusted out Ford panel truck that mattered. It’s a photo of an abandoned vehicle in the same way the first photo is a photo of a tank. The old, rusted out Ford panel truck is implied; you only need to see enough of it to hint at its existence.

The photo of the tank and the final photo of the panel truck are both photos of things that don’t belong there. Was I actually thinking of that when I took those photos? Nope. But after you’ve shot enough photos, a sort of algorithm develops in your brain. It’s like you know at the cellular level that everything in the frame matters, so you become very deliberate about what you keep in and what you keep out.

What you choose to include and exclude is grounded on why you’re shooting the photo. And that’s the thing. You may not be consciously aware that you’re shooting a photo of things that don’t belong where they are, but there’s some chunk of your brain that’s is actively registering that fact. If the tank or the panel truck were what mattered, you’d just photograph the tank and the panel truck. But you keep looking and moving and shifting around until your brain is at least semi-satisfied. Then you take the photo.

Okay, I’ve made the mistake of re-reading this (which I generally try to avoid in these blog posts). It sounds to me like I’m talking bullshit here (which is why I generally avoid re-reading these blog posts). But I’m still convinced that this is how I shoot photos. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve approached something that I wanted to photograph–that I felt was very photographable–and then walked away without taking a single shot because I couldn’t get what I wanted in the frame. There was something in the frame I didn’t want, or something I wanted but couldn’t include. My mind knew it, even if I wasn’t immediately aware of it.

The photographer Marc Riboud once said, “I photograph the way a musician hums.” That makes sense to me. Musicians, even when they’re just idly humming, know without thinking which notes work and which notes don’t. The wrong note ruins the composition.

And there it is.

a conversational history of vlad and the boys

Posted on March 7, 2022 by greg

PUTIN: Lawdy, I surely do miss the days when the Soviet Union was kicking ass and taking names. I remember when Grozny was part of Mother Russia, not just some town in the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.
CHECHNYA: Yeah, sorry, not sorry. Here’s your hat, there’s the door.
PUTIN: I think I’ll take Chechnya.
BILL CLINTON: Don’t do it. Don’t you do it.
PUTIN: I think I’ll do it.
CHECHNYA: Over my dead body.
PUTIN: Okay. Haha smiley face. [Takes Chechnya]
BILL CLINTON: Damn it, Vlad.
PUTIN: Well, it was unfortunate that a whole bunch of people died, but Chechnya looks really good on my trophy wall. Can’t make an omelet, and all that.
PUTIN: You know, I’m thinking there are parts of Georgia that would look real sweet on my mantle.
GEORGE W. BUSH: Georgia? What?
PUTIN: Not that Georgia. We got us a Georgia of our own.
NOT THAT GEORGIA: Hey! We’re standing right here.
PUTIN: Not for long. Haha smiley face.
GEORGE W. BUSH: Don’t you do it, Vlad. Just don’t.
PUTIN: Hell, son, I won’t take it all. Just bits of it. Won’t nobody even notice.
PUTIN: [Takes Abkhazia and South Ossetia]
GEORGE W. BUSH: Damn it, Vlad.
PUTIN: I mean, I really like Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but there’s something missing. You know what would be cool? Crimea. I’ve always wanted a warm water port. Sevastopol is cute as a button.
UKRAINE: Dude, Crimea is part of Ukraine.
PUTIN: Oh. Well, bless your little heart.
OBAMA: Don’t do it, Vlad. Don’t you dare do it.
PUTIN: My Uke homey Viktor Yanukovych is okay with it.
UKRAINE: We already kicked Viktor Yanukovych’s whole ass out of the country!
PUTIN: I think I’ll take Crimea.
OBAMA: Vlad…I’m serious here. Vlad…
PUTIN: [Takes Crimea]
OBAMA: Damn it, Vlad.
PUTIN: It was just Crimea. I left the rest of Ukraine, didn’t I? And Sevastopol is, like, the best warm water port ever. I think I’m going to keep it.
TRUMP: It’s okay with me, buddy.
UKRAINE: Hey, whose side are you on, Trump?
PUTIN: Trump is SO TOUGH on me. Haha smiley face.
TRUMP: They speak Russian in Crabeum, don’t they? I mean, they must be Russian, then. What do I care? What’s in it for me?
UKRAINE: Crabeum? What the fuck? And where are those weapons you promised us?
TRUMP: You’ll get the weapons. But first, I need a favor.
UKRAINE: Motherfucker.
CONGRESS: Uhhh, you know, we authorized those weapons. You can’t use them as blackmail.
TRUMP: Jeeze, okay, okay. I was just joking.
PUTIN: I really really like my new Crimea, but if I had me a Donetsk and Luhansk, then I’d almost have a complete set.
UKRAINE: No you don’t. Donetsk and Luhansk are totally part of Ukraine, you prick.
BIDEN: Vlad, I wouldn’t. It would be a mistake.
PUTIN: Would it? Would it really? Haha smiley face.
BIDEN: Don’t be stupid, Vlad.
PUTIN: [Takes Donetsk and…wait, what?]
UKRAINE: We’ll hit you so hard your kids will be bruised. If we had a stick, we’d jam it so far up your ass it would tickle your tonsils.
BIDEN: We’ll give you a stick, Ukraine.
PUTIN: What the fuck?
UKRAINE: Putin, go fuck yourself. With this stick. And, oh yeah, this Javelin missile.
PUTIN: What’s going on here?
BIDEN: Told you. Should’ve listened.
PUTIN: Okay, okay, listen, here are my conditions for a cease fire.
UKRAINE: Putin, you feculent fuck, if you have anything worth saying, we’ll read it in your entrails.

saturday, noodling around

Posted on March 3, 2022 by greg

I don’t know what you did last weekend, but I drove 75 miles to the small former coal town of Humeston, Iowa. Why? Because there’s a tiny cafe. Almost every small town has some sort of tiny cafe or diner. But this one–the Grassroots Cafe–serves a grape salad that’s so good you want to lie on the floor and kick your feet in the air. And the bread pudding would make angels weep that it exists for mortals on the earthly plane.

Humeston is a really small town. Population: 465 in 2020. It was the home of the Humeston and Shenandoah Railroad, which in 1881 ran 113 miles from Humeston to (guess where) Shenandoah, Iowa. In its glory days, the H&S RR ran 14 classic 4-4-0 steam locomotives, hauling mostly coal, grain, livestock and occasionally passengers to the slightly larger town of Shenandoah, where the railroad joined up with the Missouri, Iowa, and Nebraska Railway system. (You may be wondering, “Greg, old sock, what is a 4-4-0 locomotive?” I wondered the same thing and I googled it. You can do the same thing. Don’t be lazy. And stop calling me ‘old sock’.)

By the late 1920s, the H&S RR was beginning to fade. The advent of the automobile (and, more importantly, the truck), combined with improved roads, the gradual decline of local coal, and the beginnings of the Great Depression, strangled the small railroad business. The railroad died slowly and in sections, but by the mid-1940s, during the Second World War, it was essentially gone. As the railroad died, so did the town’s population.

Although the railroad is gone, the track left behind became Iowa’s first rails-to-trails bike path. Thirteen and a half miles, from Humeston to Chariton. Unfortunately, it’s also Iowa’s worst-maintained bike path. About half of it is gravel and cinder; the other half is…well, just grass. Sometimes overgrown grass. It’s doubly sad because it’s one of the few bike trails with covered bridges.

On arrival in Humeston, I gave in to an impulse. Sometimes you just have to give in to your impulses. You know how it is. You’re on the road, you see a train, you pretty much have to say, “Train” out loud, even though anybody with you can see the damned train. Same with horses and cows (and, I don’t know, maybe sheep? Yeah, probably sheep). Even if you resist saying it aloud, there’s a part of you that’s thinking and wanting to say “Cow” when you see a cow. It just happens.

The photographic equivalent of saying “train” or “cow” is shooting your reflection in a window.

Obviously, I gave in to that impulse. My first thought was that Humeston should be photographed in black-and-white (why yes, I DO have an app I use just for b&w photography–doesn’t everybody?). But the day became so sunny and bright (though still brutally cold) that I quickly abandoned that idea and shifted to my standard photo app.

And my first photo was, yes, a reflection selfie. There’s no point to it; you just have to do it sometimes. Usually, you do it once and that’s enough; you won’t have to do it again for weeks or months. The impulse has been fulfilled and you can get on with your life. But there are occasions when the itch just doesn’t feel properly scratched until you’ve done it a few times.

Yes, three (3!) reflection selfies in Humeston.

So I wandered around on the streets of Humeston briefly (briefly because 1) it was savagely cold and 2) there isn’t enough of Humeston to wander around at length). It feels like a small town, to be sure, but it doesn’t feel like a small town in decline. Sure, some of the shops are empty, and some are a wee bit worse for wear, but everybody I met was cheerful and there was a sort of bright enthusiasm to the limited commerce. The aisles of the general store (yes, there’s a general store) were so exuberant that they were almost hallucinatory.

As much as I love to visit small towns, I always find myself wondering what it would be like to grow up in one–and deciding it would be awful on so many levels that you’d need an abacus to count them. I have absolutely nothing to base that on, and the people I know who grew up in small towns generally have nice things to say about the experience. But damn.

On the way home from Humeston, we passed through the town of Lucas, Iowa, where we saw this charming little brick building. Of course, we decided to stop and look.

Lucas is so small it makes Humeston feel like a metropolis. Before it was a town, it was just a station on the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad line. The station was established in 1866. A decade later, the Whitebreast Coal and Mining Company sank a mine near the station. There was a rich deposit of coal, and by 1880, they’d opened a second coal mine and created a company town. If you’re not familiar with the concept of a company town, it’s basically a town in which practically everything–all the stores, the housing, the local services–are owned by a single company that’s also the sole (or at least the primary) employer. If you wanted to buy a shirt or a loaf of bread, if you wanted to have a boil lanced or a tooth extracted, you paid the money you earned from the company back to the company, before returning to the house you’ve rented from the company.

By 1890, there were 1300 people living and working for the Whitebreast Coal and Mining Company in Lucas. But here’s the thing about coal. Once you dig it up, it’s gone. A coal mine without coal is just a big fucking hole in the ground. The last productive coal mine in the Lucas area closed in 1923. By 1930, the population had dropped to about 500. In the 2020 census, the population was only 172.

There were three antique/craft stores in Lucas. None of them were open during our brief stop, nor was the John L. Lewis Mining Labor Museum (union organizer John Lewis apparently got his first job as a coal miner in Lucas). I doubt that Doc Bell is still in business, but his office is still standing. If you look, you can recognize the bones of the old company town that existed here a century ago.

That was my Saturday. A day spent not doing much of anything–just noodling around in small towns, thinking about stuff, shooting shop-window selfies. In other words, a day well spent.

jesus suffering fuck, this guy, I declare

Posted on February 28, 2022 by greg

I’m sitting here this morning, minding my own business, right? Drinking my coffee and noshing on some sort of unpronounceable chocolate cookie I bought at the Grand European Market (yes, that’s actually its name), reading the news, getting pestered by the cat, just like every morning. Then I come across this bullshit:

This shouldn’t surprise me. I mean, Comrade Trump–he’s an ignorant, lying sack of shit. Ain’t nobody surprised by that. And that bit about NATO dues? That’s probably just an example of his ignorance. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if Trump actually believes NATO nations pay ‘dues’. Like it’s a membership at one of his golf clubs. We’re probably lucky he’s not complaining about NATO not paying green fees.

But “There would be no NATO if I didn’t act strongly and swiftly“? Fuck me with a chainsaw. This is the guy who wanted to withdraw the US from NATO, something he’d even talked about during his 2016 presidential campaign. That talk didn’t stop after his election. In fact, both the House of Representatives and the Senate were alarmed enough that they passed bills that would require Congressional approval for the US to withdraw from NATO. For him to claim credit for the continued existence of NATO is utter bullshit.

But this is where the real delusional thinking comes into it: “[I]t was me that got Ukraine the very effective anti-tank busters (Javelins)“. We all know Trump tried to withhold those Javelins unless Ukraine’s recently elected president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, cobbled together some sort of dirt on Joe Biden (or his son). We know he actually froze the military support for Ukraine, and it remained frozen until a Federal whistleblower spoke out and basically forced Trump to release the funds and gear. This was money and weaponry Congress had approved, and Trump illegally froze it in order to cheat on a coming election. I mean, c’mon–the motherfucker was impeached for trying to pull that shit. You’d think Trump would remember that. You’d think Republicans would remember it.

But no.

Happily, Ukraine got its Javelins (sadly, they need to use them). Also happily, Ukrainians have given us a handy phrase to respond to bullshit like Comrade Trump’s statement. Іди на хуй. Go fuck yourself.

some semi-related thoughts on Ukraine

Posted on February 27, 2022 by greg

First off, this is just fucking nuts. I think we can all agree on that. I mean Russia (and when I say ‘Russia’ I mean that motherfucker Vlad Putin) is conducting what is essentially a war of conquest–the type of war that pretty much disappeared by the beginning of the 20th century. Russia is basically saying “Ukraine has shit we want, they’re not going to give it to us, so we’re going to take it.” It’s a large scale gangster war.

Nations (and gangsters and racist police officers) could get by with that shit back in the day before ubiquitous online real-time videography. Not anymore. Now there’s always somebody with a camera and an internet connection to record and distribute the violence. And not just the violence, but the ugly result of the violence. And not just the violence and the ugly result, but also the failures–those times when the violence rebounds against the violent.

A dead Russian soldier smells as bad as a dead Ukrainian civilian

Ukrainians are using tech to undermine Russia’s superiority of numbers. They’re using Google Maps traffic reports to identify streets where Russian military convoys are disrupting traffic–and a convoy that’s moving slowly is a target. Ordinary people are using cell phones to send and receive military intelligence in real time, to coordinate not just attack plans but also places for non-combatants to shelter. They’re using social media to support and encourage each other, to gain international support, and to undermine the morale of Russian troops and the Russian population.

They’re making videos of ordinary Ukrainians confronting and threatening Russian troops. The woman who offered Russians sunflower seeds to carry in their pockets so flowers will grow from their dead bodies. The guy who said they’d play football with the heads of Russian soldiers. They’re making videos of Russian troops surrendering, of Russians being ambushed and killed–videos of dead Russians. It’s brutal and ugly, to be sure. But Russian soldiers will see it on social media. The parents of Russian soldiers will see it back home. They’ll see the bodies of their sons, mangled and burnt. And some of those parents will take to the streets to protest the war. Anything that discourages the aggressor is probably worth it.

Another weird and awful benefit of modern tech. All those combat video games have taught young Ukrainian how to fight an urban war. They know how to create and use choke points, they know the benefits of sniping (an ounce of sniper is worth a pound of suppressing fire), they know the difference between cover and concealment and how to use them, they know not to stay in one place, they know the vulnerable points of tanks and armored vehicles. They’ve used those skills in games, and while there’s a massive difference between knowing stuff in a game and implementing it in real life, the knowledge is there and it’s useful. It’s horrible that young Ukrainians need that knowledge, but it’s good that they have it. This is an urban war in which Playstation and Xbox have been training tools.

Nobody really wins when civilians have to take up arms

The thing is, in video games death is just a delay. In video games, you’ve always got a fair chance of winning. Russian troops may not be very well trained, they may be poorly equipped, they may have serious logistical issues regarding supplies (like food, fuel, ammunition), they may have morale issues, they may not be a very effective fighting force, but there’s a lot of them. Numbers matter. And no matter how dedicated and clever and determined the people of Ukraine are, the odds are against them.

There’s a great deal of bold talk about how Putin has already lost–and there’s a lot of truth there. Putin has fucked Russia’s economy for years, he’s fucked the reputation of Russia. But Russia still has the power to seize Ukraine. They have the power to install a puppet regime. What they don’t have is the power to peacefully occupy Ukraine. So yeah, in that sense, Putin and Russia have already lost. But that doesn’t mean Ukraine will win. Or even survive as anything other than an underground resistance movement.

I do think, though, that this could be one of those inflection points people keep talking about. I think this invasion could teach the democratic world that we can no longer sing the praises of democracy and claim to value human rights AND continue to conduct business as usual with dictators and tyrants. Tolerating authoritarian regimes because there’s something in it for us–that’s just encouraging those regimes to flourish. We can’t continue to treat economics and human rights as separate, unrelated issues.

Democracy may be an unwieldy and awkward and inefficient system of governance, but it’s infinitely preferable to an efficient dictatorship. The people of Ukraine understand that.

11 points to hell

Posted on February 23, 2022 by greg

Remember back when the 2020 presidential election was heating up and the Republican Party decided they didn’t need to put together a party platform? You know, because Trump. Whatever angry wasp thought Trump had at any given moment, that was the party platform.

Now Senator Rick Scott of Florida has decided the GOP needs to spell out what they’d do if Republicans gain control of the government. He came up with an 11 point plan, and after reading it all I can say is Jesus suffering fuck. I mean Jesus suffering fuck.

Okay, my expectations were low to begin with. I mean, Rick Scott is Rick Scott and Florida is Florida…so lawdy, right? Rick Scott, remember, was forced in 1997 to resign as CEO of Columbia/HCA, the largest private for-profit health care company in the US, after the Dep’t of Justice found the company had engaged in widespread fraud and fined them US$1.7 billion (billion, you guys), the largest health care fraud settlement in U.S. history. This is the guy who designed the new GOP agenda.

You can read the entire appalling thing here, if you can stomach it. To give you an indication of how unrelentingly dreadful it is, this is how it begins:

The militant left now controls the entire federal government, the news media, academia, Hollywood, and most corporate boardrooms – but they want more.

It starts with paranoia, then it gets…well, even more paranoid, with excursions into the delusional and an occasional stop on the WTF highway. Scott includes a long list of stuff that the militant left (by which I have to assume he means Democrats) “plan to destroy.”

American history
Patriotism
Border security
The nuclear family
Gender
Traditional morality
Capitalism
Fiscal responsibility
Opportunity
Rugged individualism
Judeo-Christian values
Dissent
Free speech
Color blindness
Law enforcement
Religious liberty
Parental involvement in public schools
Private ownership of firearms
Pickleball

Okay, he didn’t include pickleball. I made that up. I made it up for a reason. Scott wrote that his plan wasn’t for “the faint of heart” because it “will be ridiculed by the ‘woke’ left, mocked by Washington insiders, and strike fear in the heart of some Republicans.” So I just wanted to get the ridicule and the mockery started. I’m sure pickleball will be just fine. Probably.

So you may be thinking, “Greg, old sock, what, exactly, is Scott’s 11-point plan to stop the militant left from destroying everything but pickleball?” I’m glad you asked. And stop calling me old sock. The plan is as follows:

Our kids will say the pledge of allegiance, salute the Flag, learn that America is a great country, and choose the school that best fits them.
Government will never again ask American citizens to disclose their race, ethnicity, or skin color on any government forms.
The soft-on-crime days of coddling criminal behavior will end. We will re-fund and respect the police because they, not the criminals, are the good guys.
We will secure our border, finish building the wall, and name it after President Donald Trump.
We will grow America’s economy, starve Washington’s economy, and stop Socialism.
We will eliminate all federal programs that can be done locally, and enact term limits for federal bureaucrats and Congress.
We will protect the integrity of American Democracy and stop left-wing efforts to rig elections.
We will protect, defend, and promote the American Family at all costs.
Men are men, women are women, and unborn babies are babies. We believe in science.
Americans will be free to welcome God into all aspects of our lives.
We are Americans, not globalists.

You may be thinking, “Wait, that’s not a plan at all; it’s just a list of jingoistic slogans and stupid talking points in response to the angry inventory of conservative grievances and fears.” To which Rick Scott would reply, “Yes, exactly, and shut up.”

Scott does go into more detail on each of those eleven points. For example, Point One is about education, and Scott assures us that under Republican control, “Public schools will teach our children to love America because, while not perfect, it is exceptional, it is good, and it is a beacon of freedom in an often-dark world.” And also, “We will not allow political or social indoctrination in our schools.”

You may be thinking, “Greg, old…uh, isn’t that contradictory? Teaching kids to love America, isn’t that political and social indoctrination?” To which Scott would respond, “No, shut up, why do you hate America?”

Another example, Point Ten on faith and religion. Under the Republican Party agenda, Scott assures us that “We will stop investing federal retirement dollars with ‘woke’ fund managers and companies that put left-wing politics ahead of profits” and “the Second Amendment was established in order to protect the freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment.”

You may be wondering, “What in the salted caramel fuck is he talking about? What’s that got to do with religion or faith? I mean…retirement funds? Guns? What? I mean, what?” To which Rick Scott would replay, “We are NOT GLOBALISTS!” And who could argue with that?

The thing is, some Republican have realized that it was a mistake not to put together a party platform in 2020. The junior Senator from Florida has taken it on himself to provide Americans with his 11-point plan to “steer America to a bright future of prosperity and peace.” And by “a bright future of prosperity and peace” he means “a grimdark dystopian tomorrow under the rule of authoritarian zealots.” It may not actually be a plan, and it may be borderline insane, but, you know…baby steps and all that.

** “Temba, his arms wide” is from the Star Trek episode “Darmok” and I think that’s all the explanation I’m going to give. You have Google; look it up. Lawdy, you’re an adult, aren’t you?

this ukraine business

Posted on February 22, 2022 by greg

Okay, Ukraine and this invasion business. From what I can tell, it’s a result of three things: 1) Putin’s ego, 2) fear of democracy, and 3) water. I know a little bit about the region and its history, but I’m not by any stretch of the imagination even remotely expert on the affairs of Russia and Ukraine.

That said, I’ve been mostly skeptical about the notion of Russia invading Ukraine–not because I think Putin/Russia (and at this point in time, those two are basically conjoined twins) respects Ukraine’s territorial integrity. I’ve been skeptical because I couldn’t figure out what Russia would get out of an invasion that would be worth the price.

Putin’s not stupid. Sure, he’s got a massive ego, and he may long for the days when Russia was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics–when Russia was feared as a super power. But I can’t see him trying to reconquer all the former Soviet Republics just to recreate those days. I sorta kinda figured threatening an invasion would get him the global attention he thinks Russia deserves. I thought Putin would feel the threat would be enough to show the world that Russia is still a major player on the stage of world affairs. I thought a few weeks of saber-rattling would do the trick.

Apparently not. So back to the original question: what’s in it for Russia? I suspect Putin, like all tyrants, has a genuine fear of representational democracy. That’s one reason Russia helped Comrade Trump in the 2016 election. I mean, yeah, having an ignorant, egocentric, mendacious, greed-head president like Trump would be a boon to Russia, but the horrible genius of their election interference was that just making him a viable candidate was enough to weaken the entire electoral process. Helping Trump was the equivalent of injecting poison into a healthy body. It didn’t kill us (yet), but it’s compromised our immune system.

For Putin, having former Soviet Republics like Ukraine thrive under democracy is a threat. Don’t forget, Putin earlier tried to gank Ukraine’s democracy through political interference. Back in 2004 Russia supported Viktor Yanukovych when he ran for president of Ukraine. Like Trump, Yanukovish won. However, the election interference was so blatant that the Ukraine Supreme Court ordered a run-off election, which Yanukovych lost. But they tried again in 2010, when Yanukovich ran against Yulia Tymoshenko. That time, Yanukovich won.

Paul Manafort (the guy wearing handcuffs)

How did he win? He hired an American political operative as his campaign manager. Paul Manafort. In 2018, as part of a plea agreement (on charges of eight counts of tax and bank fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and witness tampering) Manafort admitted he’d conducted a media campaign against Tymoshenko, accusing her of anti-Semitism and corruption in order to undermine her support. Tymoshenko was eventually imprisoned. (This is where I note that Manafort was originally Comrade Trump’s campaign manager, and the Trump campaign is probably best remembered for this slogan related to Hilary Clinton: Lock her up. This is also where I note that Trump, after he lost the 2020 election, gave Manafort a full pardon for his crimes–which also dismissed the criminal forfeiture proceedings involving Manafort’s 10-bedroom, 6-bath US$11 million home at Bridgehampton, Long Island, his apartment in New York’s Chinatown, and his townhouse in Brooklyn. Who says crime doesn’t pay?)

After his election, Yanukovich implemented a number of Russia-friendly policies that were so unpopular the Ukrainian people rose up against him. Yanukovich fled to Russia, where he now lives. Ukraine now has a fairly and democratically elected president. And that has to both piss off and terrify Putin. So yeah, good reason to invade, right there.

But there’s also the water issue. Until a couple of days ago, I was unaware that Crimea (a part of Ukraine which Russia invaded and seized in 2014) was dependent on the North Crimean canal for irrigation and feedstock water. (Hell, I wasn’t even aware that the North Crimean canal even existed.) Not long after Russia seized Crimea, the government of Ukraine began to reduce and limit the flow of water to Crimea. Between that and a long period of drought, crops on which Russia relies have begun to fail.

So this is what we’ve got. Russia needs water, Ukraine has control of that water. Russia fears democracy, Ukraine is pro-democracy. Putin is an egomaniac wanting to restore the legacy of Mother Russia, Ukraine was part of that legacy. So yeah, an invasion isn’t all that surprising.

But here’s the problem: what do we do about it?

I have no idea. Sanctions against Russia and Russian oligarchs, obviously. Really harsh sanctions. Military and intelligence support for Ukraine, also obviously. Troops? I’d hate to see us in a shooting war with Russia; their military is second rate at best, but if you’re killed by a second rate military, you’re still dead.

I’m just glad we have President Uncle Joe running this show. If Comrade Trump were in charge, there’d be massive gobs of extra shit in this shitshow.

EDITORIAL NOTE: Yeah, NATO. I wasn’t ignoring the whole NATO thing. I just think Putin’s issue with NATO is a subset of his fear of democracy.

gregfallis.com

it's this or get a real job