​What Russia’s withdrawal from a key Ukrainian city means for the war

"Ukrainian troops entered the southern city of Kherson, days after Russia announced its retreat from the regional capital it has occupied since close to the start of the war. The Ukrainian military said Friday that Kherson was now back under Ukrainian government control. Earlier this week, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu had said all Russian troops would withdraw from the city of Kherson to the eastern side of the Dnieper River, territory that Russia still controls. Ukrainian officials initially expressed some skepticism about a Russian retreat; they had recently worried that, though Russia had shown signs of a possible withdrawal, it might instead be a feint to lure Ukrainian forces into a costly urban battle. So the sentiment among Ukrainian leaders was basically: Ukraine will confirm a full-on Russian withdrawal when it sees it happen. ...”

VOX

Aljazeera: Russia’s Kherson retreat marks tectonic shift in Ukraine war (Video)

NY Times: Ukrainian forces enter Kherson City as Russia says its retreat is complete. (Video)

Why Interpol Overturned U.S. “Red Notice” on Prigozhin

Guardian - ‘We fight propaganda with art’: the Georgian festival hitting back at Putin

Footage verified by The New York Times shows civilians in Kherson’s main square greeting and cheering on some of the first Ukrainian troops to enter the city.

​Two Weeks of Chaos: Inside Elon Musk’s Takeover of Twitter

"SAN FRANCISCO — Elon Musk had a demand. On Oct. 28, hours after completing his $44 billion buyout of Twitter the night before, Mr. Musk gathered several human-resource executives in a ‘war room’ in the company’s offices in San Francisco. Prepare for widespread layoffs, he told them, six people with knowledge of the discussion said. Twitter’s work force needed to be slashed immediately, he said, and those who were cut would not receive bonuses that were set to be paid on Nov. 1. ... Twitter, which is under financial pressure from debt and a slumping economy, is now unrecognizable compared with what it was a month ago. Last week, Mr. Musk slashed 50 percent of the company’s 7,500 employees. Executive resignations have continued. Misinformation proliferated on the platform during Tuesday’s midterm elections. A key project to expand revenue from subscriptions hit snags. Some advertisers have been aghast. ...”

NY Times

The Sea at L’Estaque - Paul Cézanne (1876)

"’It’s like a playing card,’ wrote Cézanne of the Mediterranean fishing village L’Estaque, where he stayed in 1876: ‘red roofs against the blue sea.’ Those words illuminate this painting. A playing card is a flat surface with no pretensions to be anything else: hearts or clubs, the images are simply shapes on a plane. The way he paints the houses and sea here creates a similar effect. The sea doesn’t recede in waves like an ocean painted by Turner but stands up in a solid wall of blue. This unyielding hard water is juxtaposed with the yellow walls, red roofs and oval leaves of the ‘foreground’ in a way that makes them all seem equal, just like symbols on a playing card. Cézanne exhibited this painting with the impressionist group yet he is pushing further than they did, into a sun-blasted future where space no longer exists.”

National Gallery

2011 August: Paul Cézanne, 2014 November: Cézanne: Landscape into Art, 2015 March: Madame Cézanne, 2017 June: Portraits by Cézanne, 2017 November: Inside Paul Cézanne’s Studio, 2018 April: The Lurchingly Uneven Portraits of Paul Cézanne, 2021 July: Cézanne Drawing

​Kherson: As Russia retreats, Ukrainians still fear a trap

"Not long after the Russians announced they would be pulling out of Kherson, a text popped up on my phone. It was from a resident of the city, who wanted to remain anonymous, giving me her impressions of what was happening. ‘I've seen the announcement and I'm really surprised,’ she wrote. ‘Of course, I hope things are going to get better, but during these eight months of occupation I learnt not to believe a word the Russians say. They lie so much about everything.’ She could see Chechen fighters, loyal to Moscow, moving around the city, many wearing civilian clothes. Her concern, like so many of her fellow citizens, was that Russia's announcement could be a trap - designed to draw Ukrainian troops into a killing ground. ...”

BBC

Aljazeera: Russia’s withdrawal from Ukraine’s Kherson city explained in maps

NY Times: ‘You can see them on the streets.’ One Kherson couple says some Russian soldiers remain in the city.

GRID - The Ukraine War in data: Russia has lost more than 1,400 tanks in Ukraine; many armies don’t have that many

YouTube: Kherson withdrawal is ‘another victory for Ukraine’: NATO Secretary  11:33

Ukrainian soldiers near Kherson believe Moscow is trying to lure them into a trap

​The Passion of Questlove

"... Right at 1 a.m., he was greeted by a magical locomotive — chugging along so rhythmically that it almost seemed to dance, flipping gray buildings it passed into psychedelic colors — for his regular dose of peace, love and ‘Soul Train.’ Because ‘Soul Train’ was the only show, besides ‘Sesame Street,’ that he was allowed to watch as a child, and because Thompson, who you might better know as Questlove, grew up into the sort of adult who relies on an extensive knowledge of music to make sense of the world, his childhood memories are impossible to separate from which episode of ‘Soul Train’ was playing at the time. The two are knotted together so intricately that the archive of the show and the archive of his brain are the same. ...”

NY Times: The Passion of Questlove (Audio/Video)

W - Questlove

Stax Records

"Stax Records is an American record company, originally based in Memphis, Tennessee. Founded in 1957 as Satellite Records, the label changed its name to Stax Records in 1961. It also shared its operations with sister label Volt Records. Stax was influential in the creation of Southern soul and Memphis soul music. Stax also released gospel, funk, and blues recordings. ... It featured several popular ethnically integrated bands (including the label's house band, Booker T. & the M.G.'s) and a racially integrated team of staff and artists unprecedented in that time of racial strife and tension in Memphis and the South. ...”

Wikipedia

Soulsville: How It All Began (Video)

amazon: Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story

Former schoolteacher Estelle Axton, shown here outside Stax in 1968, co-founded the studio with her brother, Jim Stewart in a former movie theater on McLemore Avenue.

​‘Russia kaput!’: Ukraine brigade eyes victory as enemy retreats from Kherson

"On the edge of a copse, Danilo and two fellow soldiers stared intently at a screen. On it was a live video feed from a drone. ‘It’s quite simple to use. We put the drone up, call in an artillery strike and see where it lands. Then we adjust the position,’ said Danilo, a member of Ukraine’s 63rd Mechanised Brigade.The drone offered a panoramic view of the city of Snihurivka, occupied since the spring by Russian troops. There was an industrial estate, buildings and a grain silo, used by the enemy as a lookout point. The latest attack missed its target. ‘We were 300 metres off,’ said Danilo, pointing to the feed that showed a puff of grey smoke. The trio were standing next to a white satellite dish connected to Elon Musk’s Starlink system. Immediately behind them was a well-developed network of first world war-style trenches, dug beneath a line of bare autumn trees. For months the Russians were a mere kilometre away, hidden in civilian houses and dugouts. ...”

Guardian

NY Times - Phantom Retreats and Stolen Bones: The War of Deceit in Ukraine

NY Times: ‘Go ahead with the pullout of troops,’ Russia’s defense minister says.

LitHub: Four Ukrainian Writers on Literature, Solidarity, and the Future of Justice

YouTube: Ukraine war: Russia orders troops to withdraw from Kherson city

Aljazeera: Talks with Russia? No way, say Ukrainians

A woman stands in front of the 'memory wall of fallen defenders' in downtown Kyiv 

November 2022 lunar eclipse

"A total lunar eclipse occurred on Tuesday, November 8, 2022. The southern limb of the Moon passed through the center of the Earth's shadow. Occurring only 5.8 days before apogee (on November 14, 2022). The next total lunar eclipse will take place on March 14, 2025. A lunar occultation of Uranus happened during the eclipse. It was the first total lunar eclipse on Election Day in US history. This event was referred in media coverage as a ‘beaver blood moon’. The eclipse was completely visible over the Pacific and most of North America. It was seen on the rising moon in Australia, Asia and in the far north-east of Europe, and on the setting moon in South America and eastern North America. ...”

Wikipedia

What time is the Blood Moon total lunar eclipse on Nov. 8? (Video) 

NY Times: A Total Lunar Eclipse in Early Tuesday Skies (Video)

​BSA Images Of The Week: 11-06-22

"It’s New York City Marathon Day! 50,000 people running through the street, which is not much different from the Macy’s One Day Sale – except it’s outside.  ... The city pays tributes to its heroes in different ways, and NYC street art loves Biggie Smalls more than anyone, along with folks like Spike Lee and Jean Michel Basquiat. This week we spotted a few new ones among the bevy of new street art beauties we discovered below. Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: Jason Naylor, Homesick, Savior El Mundo, King Baby, Mutz, Glare, Banksy Hates Me, Ashley Hodder, Raisa Nosova, Qzar, Spin, INU, Cheatz, Ultraboyz, Humble, Carlos RMK, and Yuzly Mathurin.”

Brooklyn Street Art

Ukraine war: Kyiv Mayor Klitschko warns of evacuations if power lost

"Kyiv residents should be prepared to leave the city if there is a total loss of power, mayor Vitaliy Klitschko has said. In recent weeks, millions of Ukrainians have intermittently been left without electricity and water as Russian air strikes target vital infrastructure. Rolling power cuts are also in place to avoid overloads and allow for repairs. Some 40% of Ukraine's energy system has been damaged or destroyed by Russian attacks on power plants and lines. President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that Russia could be ‘concentrating forces and means for a possible repetition of mass attacks on our infrastructure, energy in the first instance’. The Geneva Conventions, which outline humanitarian standards for treatment in war, state that attacks should not be carried out against ‘civilian objects’. Speaking on Ukrainian television, Mayor Klitschko branded Russia's targeting of infrastructure as ‘terrorism’ and ‘genocide’. ...”

BBC (Video)

Guardian: Russia’s war is now focused and defensive. Ukraine must prepare for a tough winter

POLITCO: Ukraine frets about US midterms (Audio)

NY Times: Opinion | Guest Essay | The War in Ukraine Will End, and That’s When We’ll See the True Tensions in Europe

NY Times: As Battle in Skies Escalates, Ukraine Warns Russia Is Seeking Iranian Missiles (Video)

Kyiv residents fill up water bottles after their homes were left without water due to Russian missile strikes.

Hollow City: Edward Hopper’s portraits of urban alienation

"Urban hellscapes, New York ones in particular, look more heavenly in the soft glow of hindsight. Seventies Manhattan, formerly Exhibit A for how the country was going straight to shit, is widely remembered as a wonderland, quattrocento Florence for punks. ... Edward Hopper’s drawings and paintings of New York are all but synonymous with quiet desperation: the distinctly big-city feeling of being gray and alone in a loud, colorful place. But look at Nighthawks—based, Hopper said, on a restaurant on Greenwich Avenue, not far from where he lived—and tell me you don’t long for this prehistoric land where you never have to wait for a seat and distraction has yet to conquer the world. At first, Edward Hopper’s New York, an exhibition at the Whitney Museum, a few blocks from where that restaurant once stood, seems like a straightforward case of grass-is-always-greener thinking. ...”

The Baffler

Whitney: Edward Hopper, New York

2008 July: Edward Hopper, 2010 October: Finding Nighthawks, 2010 December: Modern Life: Edward Hopper and His Time, 2012 Wednesday: Through Edward Hopper's eyes: in search of an artist's seaside inspiration, 2013 July: Hopper Drawing, 2014 May: INTERVIEW: “An Interview with Edward Hopper, June 17, 1959″., 2014 September: How Edward Hopper “Storyboarded” His Iconic Painting Nighthawks, 2015 February: Edward Hopper's New York: A Walking Tour, 2015 September: Edward Hopper life and works, 2016 May: "Night Windows," 1928, 2016 July: Sunday (1926), 2016 September: Drug Store (1927), 2018 January: Seven A.M. (1948), 2018 February: Jo Hopper, Woman in the Sun, 2019 August: Pennsylvania Coal Town (1947), 2020 January: Queensborough Bridge, 1913, 2021 July: ​The Mournfulness of Cities, 2022 October: The Waning Years of Edward Hopper

Room in New York, 1932

Tyler Mitchell featuring Marshall Allen - Dancing Shadows (2021)

"Dancing Shadows is the latest release from bassist Tyler Mitchell.  On it he is joined by several fellow Arkestra members — percussionist Elson Nascimento, drummer Wayne Smith, and the incomparable Marshall Allen on sax and EVI. These four are joined by two saxists, Chris Hemingway on tenor and Nicoletta Manzini on alto, who come from more traditional modern jazz backgrounds and offer balance to the others, who have spent so many years plumbing the Afro-futurist cosmos. They also foreground the fact Sun Ra's music is not just strange and avant-garde. It was originally intended to appeal to the sensibilities — 50s jazz, swing, and R&B — of audiences who needed cajoling and pop toe-tapping to before reaching the more outre dimensions of the music. ...”

SquidCo (Audio)

amazon

YouTube: Dancing Shadows, A Call for All Demons

​Kyiv prepares for a winter with no heat, water or power

"KYIV, Ukraine — The mayor of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, is warning residents that they must prepare for the worst this winter if Russia keeps striking the country’s energy infrastructure — and that means having no electricity, water or heat in the freezing cold cannot be ruled out. ‘We are doing everything to avoid this. But let’s be frank, our enemies are doing everything for the city to be without heat, without electricity, without water supply, in general, so we all die. And the future of the country and the future of each of us depends on how prepared we are for different situations,’ Mayor Vitali Klitschko told state media. Russia has focused on striking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure over the last month, causing power shortages and rolling outages across the country. Kyiv was scheduled to have hourly rotating blackouts Sunday in parts of the city and the surrounding region. ...”

POLITICO (Video)

Guardian: In Kyiv, I saw Ukrainians on the frontlines of a very real culture war

NY Times: Even as Challenges Mount, Europeans Stick by Ukraine

NY Times: Russia Reactivates Its Trolls and Bots Ahead of Tuesday’s Midterms

Now Is Not the Time to Negotiate with Putin

A man sits in a cafe during a blackout in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Nov. 4, 2022

The History of Jazz Visualized on a Circuit Diagram of a 1950s Phonograph: Features 1,000+ Musicians, Artists, Songwriters and Producers

"The danger of enjoying jazz is the possibility of letting ourselves slide into the assumption that we understand it. To do so would make no more sense than believing that, say, an enjoyment of listening to records automatically transmits an understanding of record players. One look at such a machine’s inner workings would disabuse most of us of that notion, just as one look at a map of the universe of jazz would disabuse us of the notion that we understand that music in all the varieties into which it has evolved. But a jazz map that extensive hasn’t been easy to come by until this month, when design studio Dorothy put on sale their Jazz Love Blueprint. ...”

Open Culture

21 Grams - Alejandro González Iñárritu (2003)

"21 Grams is a 2003 American psychological drama film directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu from a screenplay by Guillermo Arriaga. The film stars Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Danny Huston and Benicio Del Toro. The second part of Arriaga's and Iñárritu's ‘Trilogy of Death’, preceded by Amores perros (2000) and followed by Babel (2006), 21 Grams interweaves several plot lines in a nonlinear arrangement. The film's plot is about the consequences of a tragic hit-and-run accident. Penn plays a critically ill mathematician, Watts plays a grief-stricken mother, and Del Toro plays a born-again Christian ex-convict whose faith is sorely tested in the aftermath of the accident. The three main characters each have ‘past’, ‘present’ and ‘future’ story threads, which are shown as non-linear fragments that punctuate elements of the overall story, all imminently coming toward each other and coalescing as the story progresses....”

Wikipedia

21 Grams: A Focus Features’ 20th Anniversary Film For Hispanic Heritage Month

21 Grams: Review by Peter Travers, Rolling Stone, Review by J. Hoberman, The Village Voice, Review by Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com

YouTube: Official Trailer: 21 Grams

LAFC finds Hollywood ending, beats Philadelphia on penalty kicks for first MLS Cup title

"LAFC beat the Philadelphia Union to win its first MLS Cup in unbelievable fashion Saturday at Banc of California Stadium. Here’s what you need to know:

• LAFC got a 128th-minute equalizer from Gareth Bale to bring the game level at 3-3 and force penalties, where backup goalkeeper John McCarthy, a former Union player and Philadelphia native, made two saves to lead the Black and Gold to an unreal win.
• McCarthy, who was named MVP, was substituted on after starting keeper Maxime Crepéau was carted off with an injury — and got a red card — late in extra time.
• LA is the eighth team in MLS history to win both the Supporters’ Shield and MLS Cup in a single season. ...”

The Athletic (Video)

LA Times (Video)

LAFC goalie John McCarthy dives to block a shot during Saturday’s penalty-kick shootout against the Philadelphia Union.

America’s Quintessential Maverick Composer, at 100

"Many of the musical and philosophical characteristics that defined Lou Harrison, who would have turned 100 this year, as a quintessential American maverick composer come through in ‘La Koro Sutro’ (’The Heart Sutra’). Harrison’s early fascination with Eastern spiritual thought and culture culminated in pieces like this 1971 choral work. The text is one of the most beloved Buddhist scriptures, describing the pathway to attaining nirvana. ... ‘La Koro Sutro’ is ambitious and large-scale, lasting nearly 30 minutes, yet somehow personal and modest, too, with a kind of innately American directness. The musical language is steeped in Asian elements, ancient modes, pentatonic scales, chantlike choral writing and systems of 'just' (what Harrison considered the more natural) tuning, rather than the tempered intonation common to Western music for centuries. ...”

NY Times (Audio)

2008 September: Lou Harrison, 2012 January: Music from Canticle No. 3., 2017 July: Lou Harrison: A World of Music

Lou Harrison, the American composer, in 1973.

How Republicans Fed a Misinformation Loop About the Pelosi Attack

"WASHINGTON — Within hours of the brutal attack last month on Paul Pelosi, the husband of the speaker of the House, activists and media outlets on the right began circulating groundless claims — nearly all of them sinister, and many homophobic — casting doubt on what had happened. Some Republican officials quickly joined in, rushing to suggest that the bludgeoning of an octogenarian by a suspect obsessed with right-wing conspiracy theories was something else altogether, dismissing it as an inside job, a lover’s quarrel or worse. The misinformation came from all levels of Republican politics. ...”

NY Times

​Why Vladimir Putin Would Use Nuclear Weapons in Ukraine

"On October 23rd, the Russian defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, made phone calls to the defense ministers of four NATO member countries to tell each of them that Ukraine was planning to detonate a ‘dirty bomb’—that is, a conventional weapon spiked with radioactive material—on its own territory. Three of the four recipients of this information—France, the United Kingdom, and the United States—responded that day with an unusual joint statement denouncing the claim. (Shoigu’s fourth interlocutor was Turkey.) Russian leaders and propagandists, who covered the phone calls in some detail, don’t necessarily think that anyone, anywhere, will believe that Ukraine would use a radioactive weapon against its own people just so it can blame Russia for the attack. Shoigu’s phone calls were preëmptive, another example of Russia creating information noise, sowing doubt, asserting the fundamental unknowability of the facts of war. On Thursday, Vladimir Putin said that he had personally directed Shoigu to make the calls, and this claim underscored their true meaning: Russia is preparing for a nuclear, or nuclearish, strike in Ukraine. ...”

New Yorker

Guardian - ‘I am staying here’: Kherson residents defy Russian call to evacuate city

GRID - Putin, his commanders and Russia’s nuclear option in Ukraine: What you need to know

NBC News: Russia softens nuclear rhetoric over Ukraine (Video)

​Qatar World Cup: What was promised and what is actually being delivered

"’The promise given was a necessity of the past; the word broken is a necessity of the present.’ Florentine diplomat, historian and philosopher (a genuine Renaissance man) Niccolo Machiavelli would have been good at winning bids for major sporting events. A World Cup for all of Italy? Sure. Us, the Duchy of Milan, Papal States, Venetian Republic, we’re all Italian brothers. A dozen new stadiums? Absolutely — why not 15? New roads? Of course, we’ll pave them with gold! ...”

The Athletic

NY Times: The World Cup is Weeks Away. Will Qatar Be Ready?

NY Times: Qatar Offered Fans Free World Cup Trips, but Only on Its Terms (Video)

Broadway–Lafayette Street/Bleecker St Transfer

"The Broadway–Lafayette Street/Bleecker Street station is a New York City Subway station complex in the NoHo neighborhood of Manhattan on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line and the IND Sixth Avenue Line. It is served by the 6, D, and F trains at all times; the B and M trains on weekdays; the <6> and <F> trains during rush hours in the peak direction; and the 4 train during late nights. The complex comprises two stations, Bleecker Street and Broadway–Lafayette Street. The Bleecker Street station was built for the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), and was a local station on the city's first subway line, which was approved in 1900. ...”

W - Broadway–Lafayette Street/Bleecker Street station

Museum of the City of New York: The Broadway-Lafayette Transfer and the Evolution of the City’s Subway (Sep. 2012)

Tour the Best Spots Along the West Village’s Swanky Bleecker Street (Oct 2018)

YouTube: Broadway/Lafayette-Bleecker St Transfer

A Capital Draped in Darkness

"KYIV, Ukraine — As night falls and darkness descends on Kyiv, the flashlights on smartphones begin to flicker on like fairy lights, leading the way home. Dogs wear glow sticks around their necks; flower merchants switch on headlamps to show off the vibrant colors of their lilacs and peonies; and children are outfitted in reflective clothing for safety. The streets of this capital city, illuminated with nightlife only weeks ago, are now shrouded in darkness and shadows after sunset. That’s the result of the rolling power outages Ukraine has put in place to prevent a complete collapse of the national energy grid, after repeated Russian bombardments. Failing on the battlefield, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has stepped up his campaign to break the nation’s resolve by degrading daily life, with strikes aimed at disabling critical infrastructure like electric power. That included a missile strike this week that disabled the pumps that drive water, leaving most of the city without water for a day. ...”

NY Times

Bernard-Henri Lévy and the Heroes of Ukraine, Ukraine: Trench warfare in 21st-century Europe - Report by Marc Roussel

Guardian: Russia will rejoin UN grain corridor from Ukraine in humiliating U-turn (Video)

NY Times: Putin Says Ukraine Doesn’t Exist. That’s Why He’s Trying to Destroy It.

The darkened bell tower of the Cathedral of Saint Sophia, in October.

Creatures in an Alphabet – Djuna Barnes (1981)

"Djuna Barnes (1892-1982), the lesbian Modernist recluse, always a sideline figure, has come into something of a revival in recent years. She was a writer’s writer, influential, admired by T. S. Eliot, John Hawkes, Malcolm Lowry and William Faulkner, among others. Her novel Nightwood has been reprinted and hailed as a forgotten classic but the rest of her corpus is given vanishingly little attention. Any reader worth their salt is interested in her and Nightwood is in the upper reaches of my to-be-read pile, but my introduction to her came a couple of years back with her strange swan song, 1982’s Creatures in an Alphabet. ...”

Pseudo-Intellectual Reviews

amazon

​The Best Reissues on Bandcamp: September/October 2022

"Our latest round-up of the finest new reissues Bandcamp has to offer features the re-release of an era-defining American classic and excavated rarities from Italy, Thailand, and beyond. ... Ahmad Jamal, Live in Paris (1971), Transversales Disques’ stellar Live in Paris series continues with recordings of the Ahmed Jamal Trio. Like the French label’s previously released performances by Pharaoh Sanders and Archie Shepp, this session was laid down at Grand Auditorium Studio 104, Maison de la Radio. It includes three compositions performed by the pianist, including ‘Manhattan Reflections,’ with Jamil Nasser superbly assisting the richness of Jamal’s play on double bass and Frank Gant on drums, encapsulating the borough’s big city cool. ...”

Bandcamp (Audio)

​How Holocaust historians are unearthing Ukraine’s present

"Kyiv, Ukraine – On the eve of Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine, two organisations – one French, the other Ukrainian – began one of their regular meetings in Paris to discuss plans for a Holocaust memorial complex at Babyn Yar, the site of mass killings during the Nazi occupation of Kyiv. Russian President Vladimir Putin had not yet announced the beginning of what he refers to as Russia’s ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine, but the writing was on the wall, says Patrick Desbois, a French Catholic priest who has devoted much of his life to researching the Holocaust and more modern atrocities elsewhere, including in Guatemala, Syria and Iraq. ... News of atrocities committed by Russian soldiers soon emerged, and Desbois’ Paris-based Holocaust research organisation, Yahad-In Unum, began to shift focus to history in real time, deploying its well-honed skills to investigate possible war crimes under way. ...”

Aljazeera (Audio)

NY Times: Did Germany Learn From Its Russia Trouble? The Test May Come in China.

BBC: Inside a US military cyber team’s defence of Ukraine

NY Times: The U.N. and Turkey work to restore the suspended grain deal.

The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in Lubmin, Germany. Mr. Scholz this year halted the project, which would have linked Germany with Russia, providing a steady stream of natural gas.

 

Toasting fork

"A toasting fork is a long-handled fork used to brown and toast food such as bread, cheese, and apples by holding the pronged end in front of an open fire or other heat source. It can also be used to toast marshmallows, broil hot dogs, and heat hot dog buns over campfires. Toasting forks were traditionally made from metal such as wrought iron, brass, or silver, and later from steel, but handles of wood or ivory might be used to prevent the heat of the fire being conducted to the hand. Food is pierced with the prongs of the fork and held over the fire until it turns brown. The toasting process requires care and attention to ensure that the item is evenly cooked and not burnt. Many toasting forks had a built-in suspension ring on one end, which allowed them to be hung when not in use. ...”

Wikipedia

YouTube: Forging a Toasting Fork

Wrought iron toasting fork (c.1900)

A Dose of Rational Optimism

"There is a masterpiece in J. Bradford DeLong’s Slouching Towards Utopia, and a very interesting muddle. Humanity, the Berkeley economist argues, spent nearly the entirety of its history condemned to poverty by an insufficient supply of calories and a chronically excessive birth rate. But in the ‘long twentieth century’—the period between 1870 and 2010—an almost miraculous transformation took place: more and more people lived longer, healthier, more prosperous lives than ever before. Arenas of intellect and creative expression that were once accessible only to the most privileged of elites became the common experiences of mass cultures. Humans did not find utopia, DeLong argues, but we stumbled in its general direction. ...”

DISSENT

amazon: Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century  - J. Bradford DeLong

Russia ends civilian pull-out before Kherson battle

"Russian officials say they have completed an operation to move civilians out of the occupied southern city of Kherson ahead of an expected battle with advancing Ukrainian forces. At least 70,000 civilians are said to have crossed to the left (eastern) bank of the Dnipro river, in what Ukraine has called forced deportations. ‘We're preparing Kherson for defence,’ one Russian militia commander said. Meanwhile, Russia said it had mobilised the required 300,000 reservists.Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told President Vladimir Putin that 41,000 of those called up had already been deployed to the battlefield in Ukraine. The numbers have not been independently verified. The minister's comments come amid growing public anger across Russia over the mobilisation drive. ...”

BBC

Aljazeera - ‘Too loud to be true’: Is Russia setting a trap in Kherson? (Video)

LitHub - Poetry After Bucha: Serhiy Zhadan on Ukraine, Russia, and the Demands War Makes of Language

Guardian: What happened in the Russia-Ukraine war this week? Catch up with the must-read news and analysis (Video)

Ukrainian forces have made big gains in Kherson region but the wet weather is slowing down their progress

Delroy Wilson – Dancing Mood at King Tubby Studios (1966)

"Just wanted to share this sorta ‘rare’ clip of Dub/Rocksteady artist Delroy Wilson covering his song ‘Dancing Mood’ at OG King Tubby (King Tubby was one of the lead pioneers of Dub genre) Studios. Being big fans of Jamaican music development we thought we’d share and inform a few of you on some ‘1’s and 2’s’ of Jamaican music culture. ...”

UNION (Video - Live)

W - Delroy Wilson

allmusic: I'm in a Dancing Mood (Audio)

​The story of the two young faces on an 1861 Turtle Bay row house

"It’s a charming scene on the facade of 328 East 51st Street: a boxy bas relief sculpture of two short-haired young children. One holds what seems to be a pet, perhaps a kitten, while the other looks on and touches it with tenderness. Such a sweet depiction in a domestic setting would lead you to assume that the children were part of a family that once resided in the house, built in 1861 between First and Second Avenues. ...”

Ephemeral New York