Tag: Ukraine

Posted on by — Leave a comment

hope rises with the sun

The world is a hot mess right now, and I have to admit that it is eating up a lot of my brain power and making me want to just hide in my safe little sanctuary until it sorts itself out. We’re still dealing with a pandemic, we’ve got monkeypox on the rise, new cases of polio (which we thought we had irradiated), some new virus in China…we’ve got war in Ukraine, a former president who appears to have committed even more crime than we thought, his supporters taking guns to the FBI and calling for civil war (let alone just plain murder of agents). We’ve got Israel pounding Palestine, civilians being killed the world over, continuing gun violence here in the US and a congress who seems to have forgotten they’re supposed to work for us.

It’s a lot, and some days it’s more than I can wrap my head around. Other days, I’m wallowing in it, which isn’t good for anyone.

Still, there is beauty and kindness in this world, we just have to dig a little deeper to find it these days. The sun still rises, the rain still falls (though most of the world really needs more of that), the flowers still open up and people still do good things for one another.

And when you can’t find that kindness around you, the best way to look for it is to be that kindness. It doesn’t have to be a big gesture or cost you a fortune. It can just be the little things, the smile for a stranger, a kind word to someone you pass in the street or stand behind in line. It can be the cup of coffee you bring a coworker who is having a hard time, or the lunch tab you pick up for a friend.

Hope rises above despair, but it needs our help. Find a moment today to hope for something. Bring kindness into the world.

Happy Sunday, Readers. May it bring you peace.

Photo by todd kent on Unsplash

By the way, have you picked up your copy of Thanátou yet?

Thanátou
Posted on by — Leave a comment

a reminder that freedom isn’t free

In the last two years, we’ve heard a lot of people yelling about their freedom and comparing masks and vaccines to nazi Germany. This week, we have had a glaring example of how absurd that actually is.

While the US and Canada are mired under protests about mandates designed to protect the public health, Ukrainians have had to step up to fight for their actual freedom…the freedom to live under their democratically elected government. They have been forced to flee or take up arms against a country so much larger than their own who seems intent on annihilating them.

I see people in the US declaring that this is why we need AK rifles to be available to everyone, completely missing the fact that a) we aren’t at war and b) we are not imminently under the threat of invasion. The Ukrainian government armed its people to defend themselves against Russia.

Automatic weapons have no place outside of war. They have no purpose other than to kill.

We are watching a nation stand up and fight back under nearly hopeless odds. The ingenuity and strength of the Ukrainian people are an inspiration. And still, here at home, we have people whining that being told to put a piece of cloth over their face to protect others is a violation of their “freedom”…and many of them are the same people who are saying that they would defend their neighbors with their guns if the need arose.

And they can not see the irony there.

Freedom isn’t free. It is predicated on a number of principles, including the idea that we must protect our citizens, even from ourselves, especially in a time of crisis.

I hear that the Ukrainians are open to volunteer militias coming to aid them. Maybe some of our right-wing militias should head over, prove they’re actually willing to do the work of defending the freedom that they keep declaring. But, if you’re going, make sure you’re not carrying a deadly virus with you so you don’t kill those you are there to defend.

Meanwhile, I’ll keep my mask on in public to protect those here at home from the same.

I hope your Sunday is filled with kindness and joy, dearest Readers, and that peace comes sooner, rather than later.

Photo by Eugene on Unsplash

Posted on by — Leave a comment

bullies are not welcome

I had planned to write a blog post this morning about settling in to the new routine in the new house, but with all that is happening on the global stage, that seems a bit frivolous. Sure, my day-to-day existence continues onward, as the epicenter of the current global crisis is far away and currently will little impact that routine.

But it is sobering to see the destruction that modern weapons of war are capable of when waged against a democratic country mostly at peace, especially with tensions so high here at home in a US divided along idealogic and political divides that grow deeper each year.

Honestly, I had expected a second civil war here at home before I’d anticipated the start of what could become WWIII. Maybe that was naive of me, or merely typically US-focused. We do have an issue seeing beyond our own borders at times, and I am as guilty of that as anyone, particularly now.

I’ve always been a fan of dystopian, post-WWIII stories, but I have no desire to actually live in such a story. I’m torn in my thinking regarding the US response. I believe on one hand that we must show a strong, united front in support of Ukraine as our ally, but I have no desire to commit our troops to engagement, particularly after we finally withdrew from Afghanistan.

I’m not sure how well sanctions will work against someone like Putin, who does not care one tiny iota about the Russian people and will likely let them freeze and starve while he throws his temper tantrum over a country that fought to cut itself free of the Soviet Union in the first place.

I am also strongly anti-bully, and Putin here is exactly that. He’s a bully on the global stage and he’s throwing the full weight of the Russian military at a smaller country simply because he can. I don’t have any answers here, I’ll leave that in the hands of our elected and military officials who have much deeper knowledge than I do on the subject.

I have a candle lit on my altar today for the people of Ukraine. May the gods protect them. And you, Readers.

Photo by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash