This morning’s New York Times report on the war in Ukraine is a meditation upon the logic of war. “Stand with you, period” President Biden, in a passionate speech from Warsaw on Saturday, proclaimed the West’s complete support for Ukraine. “We stand with you, period,” Biden said. “Not doing enough” The next day, Ukraine’s…
I watched the 94th Academy Awards last night, a bit reluctantly. The Academy Awards show, as such shows go, become absurd in the bid to out-do themselves. Each year the aspiration is for more of a spectacle than anything done in the past. The need to produce “a show” to attract advertisers competes with…
“Even if you’re alone, you’re destined to do it…” Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, 46, the lead singer of Okean Elzy and perhaps Ukraine’s biggest star, was supposed to be preparing to play the band’s latest album to packed venues across the world from April… Since, he has sung in Odessa near the Duc de Richelieu monument…
What does it take to become human, to bridge the gap between… zoe and bios, physiology and biography, nature and spirit, the somatic and symbolic? For us life is meaning and meaning is life. —Inner Experience and Worldly Revolt; Arendt’s Bearing on Kristeva’s Project by Noëlle McAfee, Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy The…
It is Friday morning. After rising, switching on the iphone, a text message was waiting. A friend asked if I could meet him at Limestone Coffee Shop at 7. I had ten minutes. I pressed ahead with the bowl of cheerios, grabbed my coat and was out the door. Arriving at the coffee shop…
Thought written, represented is a passage through evil, …the most profound way of avoiding radical evil… the stoppage of representation and questioning. -excerpt, New Forms of Revolt by Julia Kristeva, pp 9 The Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy Saturday morning comes with brilliant sunlight and cold. The cold is reminder that winter…
Shaking inwardly again this morning. The day is beautiful. For many days my life has been beautiful. There have been some dark days, dark existentially, a time when I could not foresee a way forward. Nevertheless by act of faith, absurd as it felt, I carried on. Near by were others who believed that…
Zelensky turned down a US offer of evacuation, the Ukraine Embassy in Britain said Saturday on Twitter. “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride,” Zelensky told the US, according to the embassy. — CNN Until his surprise election in 2019, Volodymyr Zelenskyy played a president on TV. Today, the 44-year-old is…
Saturday morning, gleaming sunlight upon pure fallen show, and at Starbucks I wrestle with words again. Each day presents a new contestation to say what is sayable. Before turning in last night I noted that on television an interview conducted with a female Ukrainian diplomat. By all appearances it was a measured, sober, responsible…
“Western leaders and diplomats,” she wrote, “think they live in a world where rules matter, where diplomatic protocol is useful, where polite speech is valued. All of them think that when they go to Russia, they are talking to people whose minds can be changed by argument or debate. They think the Russian elite…
