Eleventh Life

Late evening, July 4th, 2022:

This is where the post-World War II ethos, that assumes a landscape of fundamentally lawful, secure, and peaceful prosperity, may end.

I read about the death of Svitlana Zhulina on the same day Putin held a rally to celebrate the invasion of Ukraine that killed her.

I’ve had enough. We’ve had enough. And false civility may be appeasement. I just don’t know.

Mass graves, shadows of the past.

Lousy for the rest of us.

No not that one I have something else in mind: winter when the bomb goes off after a blizzard feet of snow melt 15 miles out a circular…

A short story.

Our life accumulates around us in the growing bulk of things left behind as we balance the present with the curation of our own past.

The president of Russia lied about the political reality in Ukraine and his justification for invasion, to the world, and to his soldiers.

Resurrecting the barbarous tradition of systematic pillage, plunder and rape to motivate a poor army and retain the fealty of soldiers.

Ukrainians need weapons and partnership in their fight, but, perhaps, they also need more cameras.

War strips away not just life, but also death; the other death someone would have had.

Bluntly denying truth is hard to counter and highly effective for those willing do it.

The pretense of acceptablility extreme wealth buys.

So much technology is designed to hold our attention no matter what, to keep us constantly connected, notified, distracted, interrupted.