Recent Stuff and Ukraine

Greetings!  Long time, no write.  We've been overwhelmed with grief for the Ukranian people.  Knowing what is going on there tends to make life here seem somewhat frivolous.  We've been doing stuff, but writing about it seems superficial.  Note, I'm not saying anyone who is posting is frivolous, I'm saying that I feel that way.  Anyway, in no particular order I have a few photos of recent events.

This is something of which we were not aware.  It's a laser distance measure.  It's really good for measuring windows for blinds or shades, so much easier than bending the tape measure in the corner and trying to decide how many 16ths there are.

We once again bought craft paper and non-slip shelving stuff to make drawer liners.  I hate it when stuff slides back and forth when you open and close a drawer.  I can not tell you how much easier this was to do with the laser measuring device.

The new counter for the dining room storage area came and was installed.  The previous piece of granite, which was a remnant they just put in there, was not attached.  The de-install went very quickly.

Now the laptops and the phones have a lovely place to charge their batteries.

Are these not cool looking clouds?

Tonight there was a decent sunset.  Sunset has moved north so now it's easier to see it out of the kitchen window.

Ok, so that was my recounting of some of our days.  Now I'm launching into stuff about Ukraine I want to remember.

A few days ago I said "Ukraine" sounded odd to my ear, that it should be "the Ukraine" and I wondered why that was.  It's because I grew up hearing the area referred to as "the Ukraine", because it was a region of Russia.  So, like we say "the Palouse" we said "the Ukraine."  Now they are their own country and they asked the rest of the world very nicely to drop the "the."

Why are we now calling Kiev, Kyiv?  We in the west, with our limited ear are still saying it wrong.  From Duolingo we learn the following. "The Russian name for Ukraine's capital is Киев (Kiev), which, as you would expect, uses Russian sounds. (Just like English speakers use English sounds to say Madrid, Istanbul, and Reykjavik!) But the Ukrainian name of Ukraine's capital is Київ (Kyiv), which, naturally, uses the native Ukrainian sounds to say its own capital's name. The letter и is like the English "i" in "kit," and the letter ї is pronounced "yee": put it together, and you have "ki-yeev" and spell it "Kyiv" in English."  In the US the best we can do is Keev.

 I have a lot of hate in my heart for the people that won't provide Ukraine with more airplanes.  I understand that a no-fly zone can only be put in place if there is no adversary with whom you will be fighting, but I still do not agree with the decision not to provide planes to them.  How is a plane different than the Javelins and Stingers?  Now the pointy heads are talking about how Russia will completely collapse maybe in 30 days, or by summer.  The Ukrainians will all be dead by then.  Like I have said before, we're not a good ally.  

Sabine wrote a post in which she took issue with the media that keep saying this is the first European land war since WWII.  There seems to be no memory of the break up of Yugoslavia, and the terrible fighting and shelling that occurred.  I guess they are not sufficiently European to be considered.  It just pisses me off.  The amount of denigration that Eastern Europeans get from the Western cohort is disgraceful.  I wonder if that's why they're not getting the jets.

The evacuation route Russia agreed to for Mariupol was mined.  The other Putin approved evacuation routes from Ukraine go into Belarus and Russia.  He's bombing cities from Russian territory with dumb bombs as well as cluster bombs. This photo is from the front page of the New York Times, they're not even trying to hide what they are doing.  Putin really is a monster.

Who can find Chechnya on a map?  I had to look it up.  After Russia finally quelled armed dissent in Chechnya after many years, Ramzan Kadyrov was placed in charge.  They're an Islamic country, men have multiple wives, women have no rights and are frequently married off to men several times their age.  Honor killings are done without consequence for the murderers.  Kadyrov maintains a fighting force to control his domain and has shipped some of them to Ukraine.  The leader of the group of fighters that was sent was killed the first day.   I think the installation of Kadyrov says a lot about Putin, none of it good.

The 40 mile long convoy remains stalled.  Here is a possible cause.  They are not doing maintenance in Russia and the tires are shot.  The big trucks need to be moved at least once a month to activate the system that puts air in the tires.  Trucks need to be parked close together to keep some of the sun off the sidewalls.  Things need to be lubed, and cared for.  Since their tires are in such bad shape, they must stay on the road.  There is a good twitter thread on the subject here.  It's also quite likely that they are out of fuel.

This is nice, but sad.  

That's it!  That's all I've got.