February 25, 2022

"Breathe.... Get moving.... Nourish yourself.... Stay connected.... Or sign off...."

= "5 ways to cope with the stressful news cycle" (NPR).

Does that help?!

It seems lame. Yes. But, really, do you think, when you are watching the news from Ukraine, you are somehow helping? Do you think have a duty to rubberneck, to pay attention, to cry tears from afar, to construct arguments blaming the other side [Biden/Trump] for doing/not doing things that wouldn't have made a difference? What are you doing?

29 comments:

gilbar said...

What are you doing?
i'm reading posts, from my friends with husbands/sons in the military, where they're saying:
PLEASE do not ask us about what is going on with Ukraine/Russia, and especially DO NOT ASK if our spouse will be involved. We don’t know, and frankly would rather not think about that. We also don’t know any more information than you do about what’s going on, and even if we did, we couldn’t share anyways. Yes we are worried, no we don’t want to talk about it. Just say a prayer for us, the countries, and all the people involved🤍

So, I'm praying that there won't be a Lot of body bags

Heartless Aztec said...

one side you have the Ukrainians who handed out flowers to Hitler's armoured columns as they invaded in June of 1941 and are an ostensibly corrupt nation today. On the other side you have the heirs to the Bolsheviks who starved millions of Ukrainians to death and are today an openly corrupt oligarchy. So we're counting brewed up armored vehicles, indiscriminate aircraft knockdowns and distant explosions and hoping that somehow both sides of this shitty war lose and that they both learn some type of karmic lesson. But we don't think that's going to happen. Pity the poor and helpless civilians hunkering down and God bless their unfortunate children. Prayers to all.

Achilles said...

I am just going to remind people that voted for Joe Biden this is 100% on them.

Gas prices go to 100$ a barrel.

Putin invades people.

It is clockwork.

Democrats and the Mitt Romney party caused this.

You are terrible people.

pchuck1966 said...

Joe Biden is in charge! He is a foreign policy expert ™.


That should make everyone feel better.

Jaq said...

Looks like they overcooked their listeners a little bit.

BothSidesNow said...

Have always been curious about this -- what is the reason for following the news closely? At the beginning of the US, only a small % of the people had the right to vote, yet my impression is that even people without that right kept up with events to an extent. Certainly there was a very active and opinionated press and lots of phamphlets. So it is not all about voting.

Am reading a bio of George Kennan. In 1946 he toured the country giving lectures on the Soviet Union. He spoke to a group in Gettysburgh, and described them coming to his lecture "unencumbered -- bless their hearts -- by any pretensions to knowledge of the subject or by any inordinate sense of responsibility about it." Love the image of people unencumbered by "any inordinate sense of responsibility" for a pressing matter. It captures something deep about America. People are meant to be able to go about their lives, work, be members of their community and place of worship if they choose, and not be overly involved in what others consider to be the pressing issues of the day. Silence really is not complicity -- at least not in America.

rhhardin said...

Althouse exactly echos Jeselnik Thoughts and Prayers.

Achilles said...

What are you doing?

Not a whole lot different to be honest.

I think I am going to hang out at the house this weekend and call a lid just like President Poopy Pants.

The people that supported installing this obviously failing puppet are just shitty people.

Gravel said...

I'm aware that I can't help the current situation. But what I can and will do is use the information I gather to remind every knucklehead who thought Biden was going to improve our foreign policy standing just exactly how wrong they were. I hope to educate them so that they don't make the same damn fool mistake again in three years.

Achilles said...

AP reporter points out that Biden's "Sanctions" on Russia are a joke.

This war was agreed on before Joe Biden gave permission for a "minor incursion."

I want to know how much the Big Guy got this time.

2 scoops?

retail lawyer said...

I'm listening to NPR. Less racial grievance reporting than usual, experts who disagree with Biden - and disagree with each other. They don't know what to do. They just reported, on "The World", that the reporter saw a man in Ukraine with the biggest gun she ever saw. "I think it was a pistol. I don't know much about guns". Later in the same show, a reporter was discussing the prohibition on leaving the country on men from 16 to 60, without commenting on the sexism, or wondering what the border guards will do with Trans Women. I mean, trans rights are human rights! OMG, it appears Ukraine is forcing men and boys to be Kyle Rittenhouses. NPR is bewildered!

Chris Daley said...

I'm watching for several things. First as someone with a long standing interest in military history I'm trying to understand what is happening from a strategic point of view. It is strange to see the names of places I associate with the war in the east 1941-1945 rising up again.

Second after the invasion started the best source of information turned out to be Twitter videos so I've spent more time looking at Twitter than I normally do. And doing that I realized there is massive amounts of propaganda pouring out of Twitter on onto the mainstream media. And this is primarily pro-Ukrainian propaganda which is being repeated without any attempt at fact checking by the western media which is understandably sympathetic to the Ukrainian cause. After the first day of the fighting I came to the conclusion that nothing being reported in the western media is without a major colorations in favor of the Ukrainians. So now I'm studying and trying to recognize the blatant propaganda.

In both cases you have to dig through a lot of crap to get to the pony.

Unclebiffy said...

If NATO will not expend any blood or treasure to defend why should we care? If you’re sitting home fretting about the Ukrain you are allowing yourself to be manipulated.

JAORE said...

During the Iranian Hostage crisis an Atlanta radio station asked everyone to turn on their headlights to show support for the hostages.
My (now) ex-wife did so. She also left them on when she parked her car at work.
I got the call to fight through Atlanta rush hour to get her car started. The old battery was dead as a door nail, so I bought a battery and installed it.
I then asked her how many hostages were freed due to her "support".
[I did mention she is my EX-wife, didn't I?]
No frikkin' telling what she's doing for Ukraine.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Mostly I blame Biden for talking about Russia incessantly withOUT actually doing anything constructive. Like he did with Afghanistan. The only promises he’s kept are to reverse every Trump EO regardless of its utility. Let’s go Brandon!

Howard said...

Shoveling snow All day works. Still not quite done. Hydration and calorie break.

Leland said...

I'm on a cruise. No stress here. What is happening is totally predictable. You can expect China to recognize reality and invade Taiwan. The question is how long Putin will wait to retake Georgia and Azerbaijan? The latter already had a civil war last year, and we remember the US doing nothing when Putin annexed part of Georgia.

BUMBLE BEE said...

I'm waiting for the DNC's reach around, and a kiss! Good summary here...
https://brownstone.org/articles/a-new-age-of-barbarism/

BUMBLE BEE said...

Waiting For The Sun...
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/02/25/dr-ben-carson-on-masking-kids-whole-generation-of-pathological-people/
New generation of "crack babies"? Called "mask babies"? Hope "Ukraine" memory holes all the evidence of the first Biden year.

rehajm said...

Just a correction…the other side is Trump. Your responsibility begins when you take the oath.

The both sides bullshit is bullshit…

Freeman Hunt said...

"But, really, do you think, when you are watching the news from Ukraine, you are somehow helping? Do you think have a duty to rubberneck, to pay attention, to cry tears from afar, to construct arguments blaming the other side [Biden/Trump] for doing/not doing things that wouldn't have made a difference? What are you doing?"

This is why I dropped out of closely following the news. One might as well catalog wisps of smoke.

Occasionally a wisp might remind one of something solider, something worth cataloging. But people stare at the smoke too long, and they start seeing apparitions in it, often the faces of boring politicians, modern avatars of good and evil.

rcocean said...

If the NPR liberals can handle 4 years of Trump, they can handle anything. They've aleady been to hell and back.

Seriously, I'm hoping that tommorrow Ukraine will surrender and end this whole thing. They can't win, and stringing it out is just getting people killed. I don't find any heroism in it, its just stupid.

If I'd be around during WW II on the homefront, I would've tuned out after US troops reached the Siegfried line in September '44. The World leaders should've negotiated a surrender. It was all waste from that point on. Of course the guys at the top are never the ones dying and they always string it out.

MayBee said...

Performative brokenness drives me crazy. Imagine watching what people are going through in Ukraine and thinking "I must *nourish* myself". It's at its worst in crises like this -- turning other peoples' crises into your own. But it's all over. I have friends on Instagram who feel everything they say must end in an empowerment statement for other people. "I'm having a hard time being a new mom, so I wanted to post this because it is something we don't talk about." Yes we do. Just vent if you want to vent. It doesn't need to be turned into a helpful life lesson for others.

In our town, we've recently had a teen who was missing and then tragically found dead. Someone on Facebook had the nerve to post that she loves being an empath, but it was hard that day because she was *literally* feeling the pain of his family, and it was tearing her apart. This is how people talk now. "I'm an empath. I can literally feel your pain"

It's all narcissm isn't it? Masquerading as self help, self care, and empathy.

Gravel said...

It’s easy to tell when democrats have absolutely, completely, and utterly fucked the pooch: that’s when Howard attempts vainly to redirect the conversation. Snow shoveling? Be silent, fool.

wes george said...

What? Hello? Yes, you have a duty to be aware of how the world really is today. Especially as Americans, because you are the primary global power. How you vote matters. You have to be informed to vote. Not just informed by your favorite opinion columnist digesting the news for you, but by the seeing the facts on the ground unfold, with your own eyes.

Every election we put the fate of this planet in the hands of a Biden or a Trump. Then return to worrying about pronoun selection. If democracy means anything, if liberty and the Bill of Rights means anything: Then this is on us. This is on our ignorance of how geopolitical power is wield in the real world. And how dangerous human nature can become when left unchallenged to fester in the hands of totalitarians. You had a hand in this too.

This is the first major European war since WWII. It could blow up overnight into WWIII. NATO has announced today that a cyber-attack from Russia will trigger Article 5. Putin is a totalitarian madman with his finger on the nuclear button issuing threats not heard since Khrushchev pounded his shoe on the table at the UN. Putin rolled ICMBs through downtown Moscow a few hours ago just to keep things interesting.

Meanwhile, the blitzkrieg has bogged down. His conscript army has low morale, they didn't know the Ukrainians would shoot back. Reports are that 1,000 to 2,000 Russian soldiers have died, in just TWO days, making this the worst two days of causalities for Russian since WWII. Putin's rounding up anti-war protesters in the streets of Moscow.

France has sent in special forces into Kyiv to defend their embassy and perhaps to offer shelter to the Ukrainian government. Poland is smuggling in weapons. So are we. Non-enlisted Ukrainian citizens are fighting in the streets hand to hand with Russian troops... This is an existential crisis with vast global & future history implications for you and me. Remember 911? Sept 12 was a whole new brave world. Same for 224, only on a global scale. It's not just about the Ukraine.

I am disappointed that some Americans, many whom I admire for their insights, can be so insular or do I sense a state of denial?

M Jordan said...

I blame Biden.

Bunkypotatohead said...

Ignorance is bliss.

Achilles said...

rcocean said...

Seriously, I'm hoping that tommorrow Ukraine will surrender and end this whole thing. They can't win, and stringing it out is just getting people killed. I don't find any heroism in it, its just stupid.

I disagree.

Russia cannot occupy a nation of 41 million people with 130000 troops. If they are armed and fight back.

Putin's only option then will be mass casualties or defeat.

He is already arresting peace protestors.

Critter said...

Nothing in this war is surprising, just as the result is obvious. My only interest beyond praying for the human lives lost in the machinations of the elites, is to mark the people who line up supporting the Biden administration. I’d love to see full details of the financials for these people. For that matter, have we seen the reality of why the wife of the former mayor of Moscow sent Joe Biden through Hunter Biden $5 million? Why are media not connecting these dots? For that matter, why are we not seeing video of Hillary Clinton giving the reset button to Putin?

The mainstream media wants us to believe that this horrible event has no historical roots? Yet they let Kamala Harris get away with not addressing the pressing invasion of America when she claims she is researching the root causes of illegal immigration.