Category Archives: News to use

Useful news for all to advance knowledge of the world and how it works

Get up and (not) go, How to drink more water and not spend all day peeing – Globetrotting Grandpa

Source: Get up and (not) go, How to drink more water and not spend all day peeing – Globetrotting Grandpa

‘I am burning with shame’: Protester in Russia slams Ukraine invasion | Euronews

A protester in Russia says he is “burning with shame” over his country’s invasion of Ukraine.

The man was speaking at an anti-war protest in the eastern city of Yekaterinburg on Saturday, where at least 69 people were arrested.

“I’m ashamed,” he said. “I haven’t been able to live normally for several days. I’m burning with shame. I’m infinitely ashamed of what is happening. It’s scary for those who аre there and for those who are here.”

“It can’t be any worse,” said a woman. “We are the aggressor state. And people are dying because of us. And it disgusts me.”

Source: ‘I am burning with shame’: Protester in Russia slams Ukraine invasion | Euronews

Some on the far-right in the US oppose Ukraine, why? – analysis – The Jerusalem Post

The problem is that in the West people must choose sides, so Ukraine is bad because it is backed by the “Left” in the West and thus the far right must dislike it.

An added aspect in US domestic politics is the sense that former US president Donald Trump was impeached for his involvement in Ukraine, and was also accused of being pro-Putin.

Therefore the far right that is sympathetic to Trump tends to like Putin, and also think Ukraine is some kind of center of corruption, used by “globalists” like George Soros to push some kind of “European” agenda.

In this narrative, Ukraine is not really a cause for freedom fighters because it isn’t really a good democracy – it is “flawed” and has “oligarchs.” What about Russia’s oligarchs and lack of democracy? That doesn’t matter in this telling, because the assertion is that defending Ukraine “isn’t in our interests,” and we are being lied to about it being a democracy.

In this narrative also there is some memory that the cause of Ukraine was embraced by the Obama administration, and that the pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown by an Obama-backed Euromaidan protest.

Since some on the Right despise Obama, Ukraine’s current government must be bad. Since Trump was maligned for being linked to Russia, and since Ukraine is a “Biden/Obama project,” Ukraine is bad and Russia is right to invade.

This interweaving of US domestic politics therefore is not really about Ukraine, it is about getting back at domestic rivals. If the US center-left likes Ukraine, then the far right must support Russia in this domestic international foreign affairs proxy war.

When we dig deeper into the bizarre logic behind it, we find voices at the recent conservative CPAC convention that the US has no reason to care for Ukraine, thousands of miles away.

Some right-wing commentators have created this kind of straw man argument, positing that: “We are told to hate Putin, but why should I hate Putin? He didn’t cause the opioid crisis in America.”

This false dichotomy says that Putin isn’t really an enemy of the US, so just let him be in eastern Europe and that’s fine. This isolationist agenda generally sees Ukraine as simply “not our problem,” and is in line with 200 years of American isolationism that sees European wars as Europe’s problem.

Source: Some on the far-right in the US oppose Ukraine, why? – analysis – The Jerusalem Post

‘I’ve seen the corpses, but I haven’t left Kyiv’ The first few days of Russia’s war against Ukraine — through the eyes of the capital’s residents — Meduza

It’s now been four days since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Yesterday, Russian troops advanced into Kyiv and continued shelling the city. As fighting took place on the streets of the Ukrainian capital, Meduza reached out to different Kyiv residents for eyewitness accounts of this past week’s events. Some of the people we spoke to were hiding in shelters, others had decided to join territorial defense groups, and some were evacuating the city altogether. Here are their stories.

Source: ‘I’ve seen the corpses, but I haven’t left Kyiv’ The first few days of Russia’s war against Ukraine — through the eyes of the capital’s residents — Meduza

For the Love of His County

Grounds For Hope

Dear readers, please sign the petition for NATO to close the airspace over Ukraine. Your signature can make a difference. THANK YOU!

https://www.openpetition.eu/petition/online/people-around-the-world-ask-nato-to-close-the-airspace-over-ukraine

Cold misty night under heavy bombardment 
On guard as shells get close
Feet strong on the ground but a trembling heart
Cold sweat under the soldier’s clothes.
      Fireballs of exploding missiles 
      Glowing in the dark like a beacon of fear
      Roaring like awoken and fire-belching devil 
      Claiming lives, claiming souls – it’s a war. 
Holding Kalashnikov close to his heart
Stumbled in a dust cloud and a missile crater
Soldier fights for the love of his country and freedom
With a boy fighting for Vlad out of fear.

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3412500-ukrainian-serviceman-skakun-blows-up-henichesk-bridge-to-stop-advance-of-tank-column.html

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Jamaicans anxious as the government attempts to get nationals out of Ukraine · Global Voices

Confusing messages, including pleas for help and accusations by some that the Jamaican government has not provided enough assistance for its citizens, have been reverberating across social media, with much of the concern centred around Jamaican university students in Ukraine.

Most of them are medical students, living primarily in Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine, as the cost of studies there is a fraction of what it would be in the United States, or even at the University of the West Indies campus in Mona, Jamaica. One student described his struggle to board a train, while back home, students’ parents were consumed with anxiety over their children’s plight.

The issue was clouded by allegations on social media — which sparked considerable outrage — that the government had offered students loans to get back home, which they would have to repay.

Source: Jamaicans anxious as the government attempts to get nationals out of Ukraine · Global Voices