Blog categories again: One overarching theme seems to be justice, although I haven’t made it explicit. Maybe it’s time to change...

Blog categories again: One overarching theme seems to be justice, although I haven’t made it explicit. Maybe it’s time to change that. Merely adding the word as a category won’t work, but perhaps I could start by reflecting on the theme and how it manifests in a number of past posts.

Tata Kepler, a Ukrainian volunteer and activist, gave a powerful address to the European Parliament on International Women’s Day. She...

Tata Kepler, a Ukrainian volunteer and activist, gave a powerful address to the European Parliament on International Women’s Day. She centered it on the stories of individual women and girls she’s worked with and can’t forget. youtu.be… (13 min.) 🇺🇦

I’ve been tweaking the blog’s categories again, and not all posts are caught up with the changes. This happens with living...

I’ve been tweaking the blog’s categories again, and not all posts are caught up with the changes. This happens with living documents like the weblog or the digital garden.

An explainer for journalists that the rest of us can benefit from: “Understanding Information Disorder” by Claire Wardle,...

An explainer for journalists that the rest of us can benefit from: “Understanding Information Disorder” by Claire Wardle, September 22, 2020, First Draft, firstdraftnews.org….

At First Draft, we advocate using the terms that are most appropriate for the type of content — propaganda, lies, conspiracies, rumors, hoaxes, hyper-partisan content, falsehoods or manipulated media. We also prefer to use the terms disinformation, misinformation or malinformation. Collectively, we call it information disorder.

Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, July 18, 2015: Members of the Native American Women Warriors, a Pueblo, Colorado-based association of active...

Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, July 18, 2015:

Members of the Native American Women Warriors, a Pueblo, Colorado-based association of active and retired American Indians in U.S. military service, at a Colorado Springs Native American Inter Tribal Powwow and festival in that central Colorado city.

Credit: Gates Frontiers Fund Colorado Collection within the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. Further details, including names and ranks, at https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2015633463/.

Enjoyed a Ukrainian concert tonight that Jerry Heil gave in Kyiv last March. Lots of kids in the audience who knew the words,...

Enjoyed a Ukrainian concert tonight that Jerry Heil gave in Kyiv last March. Lots of kids in the audience who knew the words, youtu.be….🎵🇺🇦

“Trump Says Recession Unfortunate but Necessary Step to Get to Depression,” The Onion, March 10, 2025, theonion.com….

“Trump Says Recession Unfortunate but Necessary Step to Get to Depression,” The Onion, March 10, 2025, theonion.com….

Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat offers valuable, but concerning insights into the current disordered information spaces we live in: conversation...

Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat offers valuable, but concerning insights into the current disordered information spaces we live in: conversation with Chris York, Kyiv Independent, youtu.be….

Warm enough to eat outside today!

Warm enough to eat outside today!

Ukraine has been proving the value of U.S. arms these past three years. Now Trump is using Ukraine to demonstrate the achilles heel of...

Ukraine has been proving the value of U.S. arms these past three years. Now Trump is using Ukraine to demonstrate the achilles heel of high-end American arms. Their effective use depends on the U.S. political system, which is proving vulnerable to malign domestic and foreign actors.

This is bad: “US to stop participating in future military exercises in Europe, Swedish media reports,” Kyiv Independent, March...

This is bad: “US to stop participating in future military exercises in Europe, Swedish media reports,” Kyiv Independent, March 8, 2025, kyivindependent.com. Talk of a pivot to Asia is all well and good, but who there will trust us?

📺 I’m in the middle of “The Eastern Gate” [Przesmyk], TV miniseries (Poland, 2025), a gripping and topical spy drama...

📺 I’m in the middle of “The Eastern Gate” [Przesmyk], TV miniseries (Poland, 2025), a gripping and topical spy drama involving the Suwałki Gap. Its star, Lena Góra, is spellbinding as Ewa Oginiec.

If you pretend this isn’t real, it’s very exciting. – Laurie Kilmartin on “Have I Got New for You” (U.S.), s....

If you pretend this isn’t real, it’s very exciting.

– Laurie Kilmartin on “Have I Got New for You” (U.S.), s. 2, ep. 4, March 8, 2025.

Only Orange Choad could side with the Russian Bear and think that doing so makes him look strong. #RussoUkrainianWar...

Only Orange Choad could side with the Russian Bear and think that doing so makes him look strong. #RussoUkrainianWar #RussiaIsATerroristState #ПутінХуйло 🇺🇦

📽️ Watched an excellent film set in the 1930s: “Cradle Will Rock,” dir. Tim Robbins (Touchstone, 1999). Strange to think...

📽️ Watched an excellent film set in the 1930s: “Cradle Will Rock,” dir. Tim Robbins (Touchstone, 1999). Strange to think that its themes of social criticism, politics, the arts, and free speech are more relevant than ever.

Women and Children Working in New York City Tenement Homes, 1908

Photographs of women and their children doing piecework: Lewis Wickes Hine took these for the National Child Labor Committee in New York City in January and February 1908. See individual captions below.

[1] 122 Sullivan St. 2nd Floor rear. Leveroni family. Earn 4 cents a gross making violets. Can make 20 gross a day when children work all day. Father has work. Mrs. Leveroni; Tessie Leveroni, age 9; Stephen Leveroni, age 6; Margaret Leveroni, age 7; Josephine Cordono, age 10. These children work on Saturdays on afternoons after 3 o’clock, and evenings until 8 or 9.

[2] Mrs. Finkelstein, 127 Monroe St. Bessie (age 13), Sophie (age 7). Girls attend school. Making garters for Liberty Garter works, 413 Broadway. Mother, a widow, earns 75 cents a day by working all day until 12 at night. Bessie works until 10 P.M. Sophie until 9 P.M. They expected to work until 10 P.M. to finish the job, although they did not know when more work would come in. Witness Mrs. Hosford.

[3] Widow & boy rolling papers for cigarettes in a dirty N.Y. tenement.

[4] Late at night. Sewing tapes on gloves. The boy helps. Family of five sleep in room where the work is done.

These photos are part of the National Child Labor Committee Collection held by the Library of Congress.

The title of this cover from a prominent German news weekly borrows from a famous Ronald Reagan quote: “Axis of Evil” (Die...

The title of this cover from a prominent German news weekly borrows from a famous Ronald Reagan quote: “Axis of Evil” (Die Achse der Bösen). Only this time a Republican president is casting the United States on the side of evil. The remaining text points to the “danger of war in Europe” and asks “what Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine means for us."¹ The cover also mentions a statement by Joschka Fischer in an interview: “Germany needs conscription again."²

Postscript: 1939

Apropos of Russia’s meat assaults, which throw their soldiers' lives callously away: In the town of Polyarnye Zori in Russia’s...

Apropos of Russia’s meat assaults, which throw their soldiers' lives callously away:

In the town of Polyarnye Zori in Russia’s Murmansk region, members of the country’s ruling United Russia party marked International Women’s Day by giving flowers and meat grinders to the mothers of soldiers killed in the war against Ukraine.

Story via Meduza: “United Russia party gifts meat grinders to dead soldiers’ mothers,” meduza.io/en….

A New Era for Women Workers, Minority Women and Lesbians. 1976 poster by a Seattle organization called Radical Women. Via Library of...

A New Era for Women Workers, Minority Women and Lesbians. 1976 poster by a Seattle organization called Radical Women.

Via Library of Congress, Yanker Poster Collection, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2016649885/.

Does Felonious Husk even think about the probable consequences of his reliance on self-dealt government contracts come the midterm...

Does Felonious Husk even think about the probable consequences of his reliance on self-dealt government contracts come the midterm elections? Do his investors and boards? Add to that the destruction of his cars' reputation, and he is poised to fail hard.

French Senator Claude Malhuret describes what’s happening in the United States in stark terms and explains the consequences of...

French Senator Claude Malhuret describes what’s happening in the United States in stark terms and explains the consequences of Frump’s traitorous behavior for Europe: youtu.be….

#MoscovianCandidate #RussiaIsATerroristState

Sad, but sensible for a country in their position: “Lithuania sends ‘strategic message’ as it leaves cluster munitions...

Sad, but sensible for a country in their position: “Lithuania sends ‘strategic message’ as it leaves cluster munitions convention” by Saulius Jakučionis, Lithuanian Radio and Television (LRT), www.lrt.lt/en/….

British “Votes for Women” postcard (stamped 1912) that centers on solidarity across social class and age. The purple, green,...

British “Votes for Women” postcard (stamped 1912) that centers on solidarity across social class and age. The purple, green, and white was the color scheme of the Women’s Social and Political Union.

Via The Newberry Library, Monroej_Sports_011485.

Conflating Business Acumen, Reality TV Stardom, Electoral Politics, and Governance

For a so-called businessman, His Magnificent Bigly Orangeness seems to know precious little about the relative predictability that businesses need in order to make informed decisions. For reality TV or the kind of show Jerry Springer had, however, constant chaos can increase viewership. Orangeman’s style of television was successful because many people enjoyed his schtick.

The move from television to politics was natural. As long as he didn’t have to know things or govern, he could apply the same loud-mouthed, made-for-TV nonsense to the United States as a whole. NBC having already marketed him for years, it was easy to get his fans to jump on this new bandwagon.

His politics of unrelenting chaos, finger-pointing, scapegoating, grievance rhetoric, and race-baiting has brought him to the White House twice. But achieving such success is not the same as getting the nation’s work done. His style of politics is no way to conduct international relations or basic governance at home.

I know that he likes to have all cameras on him, but the United States has a wealth of experienced and talented people who could do the necessary work and give him all the credit. I’m sure they could also help him produce “must watch” TV moments with himself at the center.

Unfortunately, no people with adequate knowledge and experience are in his administration. He has purposefully insulated himself from alternative viewpoints, while cowardly and venal Republican senators enable the practice. In this way, we get a common-law presidential spouse, First Gentleman Felonious Husk, in addition to the president’s legal spouse, First Lady Trump.

Conscription, Industrial Mobilization, and the Russo-Ukrainian War

Russia’s war against Ukraine has been marked by an effort to avoid universal (manhood) conscription. It is the regime’s war, so to speak (a “special military operation”), not a people’s war.

On the other side, Ukraine uses conscription because it is indeed a national or people’s war for them. It is a fight for their very survival. Russia is even treating each and every Ukrainian as a “legitimate” target. But even Ukraine has avoided calling up younger men. It seems they lack the political consensus to do so.

I thought about this again when Vance made his historically ignorant accusation in the White House that Ukraine’s military manpower situation was so bad that they had to force men into the army. It’s as if Vance had never heard of the draft in the United States. Or he doesn’t know that “conscription” means “draft” in modern U.S. military history. Regardless, conscription is what countries do when they believe the national stakes are extremely high. If Vance had read any histories of war over the past couple centuries, he would know this.

One notable exception to conscription in national or total wars: Britain tried to fight the First World War with only volunteers, and they succeeded up to a point. By 1916, however, they had to institute conscription as well (“Military Service”). Little wonder. That war in particular had a ravenous appetite for men.

I’ve been thinking about the issue of conscription for another reason. Western leaders have spent the first three years of the Russo-Ukrainian War trying to prevent average citizens from feeling any pain. They’ve avoided spending the money necessary to mobilize our defense industries sufficiently to support a Ukrainian victory and form a credible deterrent to Russia (and China).

This avoidance points to one or all of the following developments in democracies and authoritarian kleptocracies alike:

1. The relationship between nation states and their peoples has changed substantially. Are people less patriotic? Maybe they are less willing to follow their leaders’s calls to war?
2. Do nation states care more about consent than they used to? Or have they grown more timid? Perhaps they are acting on an everyday awareness of popular opinion gleaned from social media, for example.
3. Are contemporary leaders more likely to follow popular opinion than lead it? Even Putin and Trump are hardly leading, unless one thinks gaslighting their nations and the world counts.

I have no answer here. It just feels like the post–Cold War era of increasingly volunteer armies and neoliberal economic policies is being challenged by the demands of Mars and his acolytes, even if few have come to accept the consequences of this shift.

Ten seconds of sounds at dusk last week via an iPhone SE. Probably need a microphone, but I thought Id give it a go.

Ten seconds of sounds at dusk last week via an iPhone SE.

Probably need a microphone, but I thought Id give it a go.