“Freedom, brilliant spark of divinity,” the refrain sang. “Thy magic energy reunites all that customized has divided. All males develop into brothers, below the sway of thy mild wings.”
When Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the US Congress from Kyiv Wednesday, sporting a inexperienced t-shirt and sitting subsequent to the blue-and-yellow flag of his nation, the speech was additionally an ode to freedom — and a plea for assist to protect it.
As Frida Ghitis wrote, “When America’s prime Democrats and Republicans rose facet by facet to provide Zelensky a standing ovation, we knew the Ukrainian President had made his mark. Zelensky, reminding People what freedom actually means after the nation has spent years devaluing it in petty political battles, proves there’s a new seriousness within the nation.”
“As he has with different audiences, Zelensky tailor-made his message. Think about being struck from the sky, as on 9/11, however day by day, he advised People. He spoke about Pearl Harbor, and he cited Martin Luther King. ‘I’ve a dream …,’ he intoned, I can say, I’ve a necessity. I would like to guard our sky,” Ghitis famous.
Educate the kids
“It is a world-shaking second in historical past,” SE Cupp noticed, “one that may outline a era, one that might change our maps, and one that’s already seeing horrific loss and devastation.” She is ensuring to point out her 7-year-old son a few of the information protection of the Ukraine battle.
“Ideas like democracy and sovereignty, freedom and battle, will be obscure and summary, however as we watch a tyrant march right into a sovereign nation, threatening democracy there and in every single place else, we should present our youngsters what is going on — what can occur to a free folks, and what it seems like when the world unites to defend democratic beliefs.”
As Jill Filipovic identified, “No photographs have captured the hellishness of battle fairly as starkly as these taken within the aftermath of Russian troops bombing a maternity hospital in Mariupol. In a single photograph, a pregnant lady with a bloodied face is staggering out of a bombed constructing; in one other, an ashen-faced lady lays on a stretcher, her left hand cradling her full stomach. The lady within the second photograph and her child have now each died of their accidents.”
Battle takes an enormous toll on everybody however will be particularly merciless for ladies, Filipovic added. “Pregnant girls in battle zones are additionally, like everybody else, below great stress — however that degree of stress can have lethal outcomes for mom or child. And pregnant girls, and notably those that are having problems, merely might not be capable to escape when violence strikes.”
For extra:
Michael A. Newton: Russian invaders are crossing a line
Julian Zelizer: Trump’s ‘America First’ coverage is useless
Dean Obeidallah: Whose facet is Tucker Carlson on?
Roman Badanin: As a Russian journalist, that is the knock I dread
Russia’s invasion
When Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded Ukraine on February 24, many individuals anticipated that Russia’s navy, thought of the second strongest on this planet, would roll over Ukraine in a matter of days. That hasn’t occurred.
In a dialog with CNN nationwide safety analyst Peter Bergen, retired US Gen. David Petraeus assessed the battle to this point. “There are a lot of causes for the Russians’ abysmal efficiency,” Petraeus stated. “They’re preventing towards a really decided, fairly succesful Ukrainian power that’s composed of particular ops, typical forces, territorial forces and even personal residents, all of whom are decided to not permit Russia to attain its targets. They’re preventing for his or her nationwide survival, their homeland and their lifestyle, and so they have the home-field benefit, realizing the terrain and communities.
“However past that, the Russians are simply surprisingly unprofessional. They clearly have very poor requirements relating to performing fundamental tactical duties reminiscent of reaching mixed arms operations, involving armor, infantry, engineers, artillery and mortars. They’re very poor at sustaining their automobiles and weapon programs and have deserted a lot of them. They’re additionally poor at resupply and logistical duties.”
Wanting forward, Petraeus noticed, “Clearly, they don’t have sufficient forces to take, a lot much less to regulate, Kyiv and a few of the different main cities, however they do have missiles, rockets, artillery, and bombs and an obvious willingness to make use of them in a really indiscriminate trend.”
“And so, they proceed the method they utilized in Chechnya, notably with Grozny, and in Syria, notably with Aleppo, the place they depopulated the cities by indiscriminate use of bombs. And it’ll be an endurance contest between the Russians’ willingness to destroy cities and the Ukrainians’ skill to outlive such destruction.”
For extra:
Naureen Chowdhury Fink: Putin is looking in favors from Syria and Africa. It is a harmful transfer
Nuclear nightmare
For many years, a few of the most eloquent and knowledgeable voices warning of the risks of nuclear weapons have been physicians, amongst them Dr. Ira Helfand, previous president of Worldwide Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear Battle, which gained the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985.
This week, he and colleagues Barry Levy and Matt Bivens, wrote, “The world is shocked by the violence in Ukrainian cities besieged by Russian forces, as they undergo below indiscriminate mortar, bomb and missile assaults. However these horrors may result in one thing far worse — escalation to nuclear battle. If we’re going to keep away from this final disaster, we have to work urgently for the elimination of all nuclear weapons.”
There are about 13,000 nuclear warheads around the globe. “Specialists had been decrying these 1000’s of nuclear weapons as an ongoing existential risk to humanity even earlier than Russian President Vladimir’s Putin’s latest warnings that he might use Russia’s nuclear weapons … A nuclear battle between Russia and NATO allies can be an unimaginable tragedy.” In a nightmare state of affairs the place 300 bombs are deployed, 75 to 100 million folks would die the primary day, with the overwhelming majority of survivors dying “over the approaching months from radiation illness, infectious ailments, famine and publicity,” the physicians wrote.
A serving to hand
In April 1999, then Vice President Al Gore introduced on Ellis Island that the US would soak up as much as 20,000 refugees from Kosovo, who had been fleeing Serbian assaults, recalled Mark Hetfield, president of HIAS, which was based because the Hebrew Immigrant Support Society.
Greater than 3 million folks have fled Ukraine “however this time, there was no Ellis Island announcement.” He famous that Vice President Kamala Harris talked of serving to Poland with the wave of refugees coming into the nation whereas President Joe Biden solely spoke of taking refugees on a conditional foundation: “If, the truth is, they arrive all the way in which right here.”
“Phrases matter, actions matter,” wrote Hetfield. “Relating to refugees and management, the USA is falling brief on each fronts. It’s getting late, however the Biden-Harris administration nonetheless has a possibility to reveal American management by welcoming refugees — as an alternative of counting on Jap Europe to shoulder that accountability alone.”
Fallen journalists
Brent Renaud, a filmmaker engaged on a mission about refugees for Time journal’s studio unit, was shot and killed by Russian troopers exterior Kyiv on Sunday, stated the deputy chief of police in Irpin. Photojournalist Juan Arredondo additionally was injured within the capturing.
Renaud grew to become the primary journalist on project from an American information group to die in the course of the battle, in line with The New York Occasions. The subsequent day, Fox Information cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski was killed together with Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra Kuvshynova when the car they had been touring in got here below fireplace. Benjamin Corridor, a Fox Information correspondent, was injured within the capturing.
In Time, Sebastian Junger remembered Renaud as “a highly-regarded freelancer who labored all around the world documenting a few of the most violent and inhuman circumstances civilians are subjected to, together with desperately poor areas of Chicago.”
“With out the work of those courageous folks there might be no such factor as democracy or freedom on this planet — elections can be stolen, battle crimes can be denied, injustices can be hidden,” Junger noticed. “In a world with out journalists, leaders like Vladimir Putin may declare no matter self-serving actuality they needed and stay totally unaccountable for his or her crimes.”
Oily politics
The cruelest irony of the Ukraine battle, wrote Aaron David Miller, is that “at the same time as President Joe Biden’s administration stands up for Ukraine within the face of Russia’s aggression and preaches the values of democracy and freedom, it’s below growing strain to make good and reduce offers with authoritarians.”
With oil costs growing, the battle has deepened concern about provides from “three authoritarian petro-states (Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and the UAE) and elevated the urgency of attending to a nuclear settlement with a fourth, Iran.”
Biden selected to “make the struggle for democracy the central ingredient of his overseas coverage — a grand battle with authoritarians for management within the twenty first century.” However at the same time as he opposes Putin’s battle, Miller wrote, he has to reckon with “arduous, chilly pursuits” as he decides how one can take care of autocrats who can management the circulation of oil. “America’s pursuits will proceed to take priority over values.”
Spring ahead no extra?
With many People nonetheless adjusting to final weekend’s time shift, the Senate handed the Sunshine Safety Act Tuesday to make Daylight Saving Time everlasting. Earlier than the vote, Sens. Edward J. Markey and Marco Rubio wrote, “The results of darker afternoons on our psychological and bodily well being will be critical. The biannual transition of ‘spring ahead’ and ‘fall again’ disrupts circadian sleeping patterns, inflicting confusion, sleep disturbances and even an elevated threat to coronary heart well being.”
“The speed of coronary heart assaults spikes by 24% within the days following ‘spring ahead’ in March, in line with a 2014 examine from the College of Michigan.” They argued that there are additionally financial and psychological well being advantages from a everlasting shift to DST.
Within the Washington Put up, Dana Milbank described the Senate’s passage of the invoice as an accident. “There have been no hearings, no dialogue, no debate, and no vote,” he wrote. “It simply occurred, as a result of no one objected — largely as a result of many senators did not even understand it was occurring.”
“Reporting by The Put up’s Paul Kane and BuzzFeed’s Paul McLeod signifies Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), prime Republican on the commerce committee, had deliberate to object to the ‘unanimous consent’ request to go what he calls ‘unhealthy laws,’ however determined to not on the final minute as a result of he is centered on extra urgent issues, such because the battle in Ukraine.”
“In different phrases, it is Vladimir Putin’s fault that our clocks might change.”
Now it is as much as the Home and President Biden to resolve if the invoice will develop into legislation.
‘Turning Pink’
Within the Pixar movie “Turning Pink,” anytime the lead character “will get riled up, she transforms right into a cuddly, gigantic pink panda.” As Vanessa Hua wrote, “‘Turning Pink’ makes the struggles of this specific 13-year-old common as she learns who she is and desires to be — in the end embracing her pink panda exuberance.”
“The movie is among the many many films and novels launched in recent times that painting characters of Asian descent as absolutely human — flawed, eccentric and dreaming of a much bigger life…” Such depictions resonate at a time when hate incidents towards Asian People and Pacific Islanders have spiked. It has been a yr because the Atlanta spa shootings, by which a White gunman killed eight folks, six of whom had been girls of Asian descent. Prosecutors are treating the case as a hate crime.
“We can not let up on protesting, organizing and voting. We should proceed to help victims and enhance psychological well being companies, and deal with systemic racism and sexism,” wrote Hua. “‘Turning Pink’ provides me hope, although, in its charming problem to stereotypes that may typically lead folks to view Asian People as ‘different’ — step one towards concentrating on them.”
For extra:
Govs. J.B. Pritzker and Phil Murphy: We won’t deal with anti-AAPI hate with out bettering Okay-12 training
March insanity
Christmas morning cannot evaluate with Michael Croley‘s favourite time of yr, the primary weekend of March Insanity. “Earlier than the web, Dad introduced brackets house from his workplace for us to fill out — at all times Xeroxed copies from the Monday version of Lexington Herald-Chief,” Croley wrote. “After I was ten, I gained, and Dad introduced house all of the money and handed it to me.”
“I really like the match for all the explanations any sports activities fan loves the match, however as I’ve gotten older, I do know that I really like the match due to these recollections and the way it stored me near my brother and our father. And we had been already very shut.”
Croley’s older brother Tim typically shared the ritual of watching the NCAA match with him, as they munched on wings and rooted for the College of Kentucky’s Wildcats so long as they had been nonetheless in it.
A yr in the past, Croley added, “As Tim’s well being worsened, neither of us stuffed out a bracket. We watched the video games and we texted. I did not know then that I would by no means fill out a bracket once more. I did not know then that I would by no means spend one other lengthy day with him, watching video games deep into the night time, barely in a position to maintain our eyes open however nonetheless at it as a result of it was March, a sport was in additional time and a 13-seed had a 4-seed on the ropes.
“I hoped towards what frequent sense and medical science advised us since he was first identified with lung most cancers as a result of hope was all we had left by then.”
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AND…
Dangerous enterprise
Title your streaming service, choose your story of fakery and enterprise gone incorrect:
Hulu: “The Dropout”
Apple TV+: “WeCrashed”
Showtime: “Tremendous Pumped”
Netflix: “Inventing Anna”
HBOMax: “Succession”
The most recent episode of “The Dropout” featured actor Amanda Seyfried, who performs Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, proclaiming that her firm was “a faith.” The fictional Apple+ sequence “Severance” made it clearer than ever final week that the mysterious Lumon firm is a cult whereas a trailer for “WeCrashed” confirmed its protagonist Adam Neumann of WeWork, performed by Jared Leto, evaluating himself to God.
Taking a look at just a few of those reveals by means of the lens of historical past, Nicole Hemmer wrote that the themes they discover aren’t totally new, discovering antecedents in Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” the 1955 novel “The Man within the Grey Flannel Go well with” and movies and reveals together with “The Workplace” and “Workplace House.”
However there’s a distinction. Reveals like “The Dropout” and “WeCrashed,” Hemmer noticed, “symbolize a damning examination of the Silicon-Valley-centered, venture-capital-funded economic system. The tales are ready-made for dramatization, tales of hubris and extra that hurtle towards an inevitable crash. However in addition they reveal a deep nervousness concerning the new economic system, a way that, on the finish of the day, it creates in a single day billionaires however little of lasting worth.”
Buyers appear “to haven’t any means of discerning the distinction between visionary and fantastical, and … the least scrupulous stroll away with probably the most cash, even after their ventures fail. After all, enterprise capital additionally fuels the businesses that succeed.”
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