In case you were wondering what Antony Blinken is up to these days or just want to know which Bob Dylan song title is getting played with in high-level government.

Here's "A font feud brews after State Dept. picks Calibri over Times New Roman/‘The Times (New Roman) are a-Changin,’ read the subject line of a cable from Secretary of State Antony Blinken to U.S. embassies as part of an accessibility push" (WaPo).

Must I rail about "The Times They Are A-Changin'" again? I'll just quote something I wrote back in 2018:

[T]he old song... anchors Bob Dylan in his political protest time, from which he changed. But Baby Boomer politicos have always harked back to it, and it serves them — I'm not including me — right to have that song sung in their face now that they are old and not ready to roll over for whatever advancement the young people think is due.

I don't include myself because I've never liked the forefronting of Protest Bob.

"Persuading Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to take the invasion danger seriously wasn’t easy, initially."

"Blinken spoke to him at the COP 21 climate summit in Glasgow in early November and provided a summary of intelligence about Russia’s plans. 'I basically had the task of telling him that we thought it was likely that his country was going to be invaded,' Blinken recalled. Zelensky was skeptical, according to a State Department official.... [I]n December, Blinken and his colleagues began seriously discussing with allies what steps they would take.... As a result, [Blinken] said, “when the aggression actually happened, we were able to move immediately.”... The Biden administration’s organization of this coalition to support Ukraine may look simple in retrospect. But it was a complicated coordination of diplomatic, military and intelligence resources that pulled together dozens of nations at what may prove to be a hinge point in modern history. Putin thought he could roll through Biden and the West to an easy victory in Kyiv. The Russian leader made a catastrophic mistake in overvaluing his own strength and underestimating the resolve of Biden and his team."

Writes David Ignatius, based on "new details" "Blinken and other officials gave me... this week," in "The secret planning that kept the White House a step ahead of Russia" (WaPo).

"On Saturday, the comedian Trevor Noah stood before a ballroom of 2,600 journalists, celebrities and political figures at the White House Correspondents Dinner, and asked: What are we doing here?"

"'Did none of you learn anything from the Gridiron Dinner? Nothing,' Mr. Noah said, referring to another elite Washington gathering in April, after which dozens of attendees tested positivefor the coronavirus. 'Do you read any of your own newspapers?' By Wednesday, Mr. Noah’s chiding remarks at what he called 'the nation’s most distinguished superspreader event' were beginning to appear prophetic as a growing number of attendees, including a string of journalists and Antony J. Blinken, the secretary of state, said they had tested positive for the virus."

From "Virus Cases Grow After White House Correspondents Dinner/Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken was among the attendees reporting coronavirus infections on Wednesday" (NYT).

This is a Washington Post reporter:

Welp. So I, too, got covid — and it sucks. It could have been the WHCD dinner I was covering or the surrounding events (also covering). Dinner had testing requirement, events did not. And now I’ll be missing a major international work trip I really wanted to do. https://t.co/5l7JxVweXC

— Jada Yuan (@jadabird) May 4, 2022

Why don't we see more of Secretary of State Antony Blinken?

His fleeting expression at 0:40 would be hilarious if the situation were not so dire: 

 

And that "humphf" at 0:56.

When in doubt, say "swift and severe."

The Biden administration's dubious effort to solve the "Havana Syndrome" mystery.

Read this NBC News article about the resignation of the person the State Department put in charge. Pamela Spratlen was a retired ambassador to Uzbekistan: Why was she chosen in the first place? 

At the time, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said she would “help us make strides to address this issue wherever it affects Department personnel and their families.” 

What I'm thinking now, after reading the whole article, is that "to address the issue" did not mean to discover the cause of the syndrome, but to get those affected by it to accept that they would never receive an answer.  Those people "lost... confidence" in her:

Diplomats suffering from Havana Syndrome  this month in a tense phone call with Blinken and Spratlen over continuing stigma and disbelief within the U.S. government about their injuries, more than four years after the incidents began in Cuba.... On the call, Spratlen responded to a question about an FBI study that found no evidence of an attack and determined that the staffers were most likely to be suffering from mass psychogenic illness, or mass hysteria. 

Spratlen responded by saying she had read the study but did not indicate that she agreed or disagreed with its findings — a response that sufferers on the call later described as “invalidating.”

That sounds like her role was to get them to accept their predicament. I suspect that she was appointed to deliver that message, and the "sufferers" don't like it. Here, read her Wikipedia page. What relevant expertise does she have... other than as an appropriate person to inspire quiet acceptance of the FBI study?

Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior CIA officer who says he was hit by Havana Syndrome in Russia in 2017, wrote Tuesday on Twitter that declining to rule out the “mass hysteria” theory was “insulting to victims and automatically disqualifying” from leading the task force.

At least tell us we're not crazy. 

ADDED: Here's the Polymeropoulos tweet:

"Don't say 'hostage' until you know it's a hostage situation. Watch out for fake news."

I said in the comments yesterday, after I'd blogged about something else about Afghanistan and commenters tried to redirect me into the "hostage" situation. 

"Did WaPo report on the hostages? Seems like a bigger deal than [what you've chosen to blog about]," one commenter wrote. I've been irked by comments of the don't-blog-that-blog-this kind since 2004. Maybe you've noticed.

Anyway. This morning, speaking of WaPo, I see this headline over there: "Blinken denies Taliban holding Americans in Afghanistan ‘hostage.'" 

I don't trust Blinken, and I think avoiding the word "hostage" might be something you'd do if you had a hostage situation. So let's read: 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that some evacuation flights out of Afghanistan have been prevented from taking off because they included passengers without valid travel documents, an explanation that undercuts Republican claims that the Taliban is holding Americans hostage....

"The nation’s top national security officials assembled at the Pentagon early on April 24 for a secret meeting to plan the final withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan...."

"... Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with top White House and intelligence officials. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken joined by video conference. After four hours, two things were clear. First, Pentagon officials said they could pull out the remaining 3,500 American troops, almost all deployed at Bagram Air Base, by July 4.... Second, State Department officials said they would keep the American Embassy open, with more than 1,400 remaining Americans protected by 650 Marines and soldiers. An intelligence assessment presented at the meeting estimated that Afghan forces could hold off the Taliban for one to two years. There was brief talk of an emergency evacuation plan — helicopters would ferry Americans to the civilian airport in Kabul, the capital — but no one raised, let alone imagined, what the United States would do if the Taliban gained control of access to that airport, the only safe way in and out of the country once Bagram closed. The plan was a good one, the group concluded.... 'It’s a rational drawdown with our allies,' [Biden] insisted [on July 2d], 'so there’s nothing unusual about it.' But as the questions persisted, on Afghanistan rather than the economy, he grew visibly annoyed.... 'I want to talk about happy things, man.'"

From "Miscue After Miscue, U.S. Exit Plan Unravels/President Biden promised an orderly withdrawal. That pledge, compounded by missed signals and miscalculations, proved impossible" (NYT).

ADDED: If you go into the comments over there at the NYT and you put them in order of "most liked," you'll see an unbroken chain of comments supporting Joe Biden: "It seems to me that the media is being less than fair to Joe Biden over this," "Has it really gone wrong?," "Did the Trump Surrender Agreement with the Taliban provide for evacuation? If it did, what did it say? If it didn’t, why not?," "Frankly I’m dismayed that the media is now declaring this a disaster," "Thanks President Biden for making this brave decision albeit flawed execution. When we end this if there are no US troop live lost and Americans evacuated with as much of our allies. It will be remembered as a very good decision and no one will care about execution like Vietnam withdrawal."

"Antony Blinken, President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee to become secretary of state, deftly sidestepped Democratic invitations to sharply criticize the Trump administration..."

"... and Republican efforts to lure him into controversy, in a confirmation hearing Tuesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.... Firing off his trademark 'yes or no' confirmation questions, [Lindsey] Graham asked whether Blinken considered Iran the world’s 'largest state sponsor of terrorism.' 'I do,' Blinken replied. Did he consider Israel a racist nation? 'No.' Should any U.S. agreement with the Taliban in Afghanistan be conditions-based? 'Absolutely.' What would he tell people in a caravan heading toward the American border? 'I would say, "Do not come."'  Did he agree that China’s repression of the Uighur minority constituted genocide, as the Trump administration declared Tuesday? 'That would be my judgment as well,' Blinken replied. 'We’re on a really good start here,' Graham said. 'I really just very much appreciate this.'"

From "Blinken appears to be sailing to confirmation as Biden’s secretary of state" (WaPo).

"Mr. Blinken has been at Mr. Biden’s side for nearly 20 years, including as his top aide on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and later as his national security adviser when he was vice president."

"In that role, Mr. Blinken helped develop the American response to political upheaval and instability across the Middle East, with mixed results in Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Libya. But chief among his new priorities will be to re-establish the United States as a trusted ally that is ready to rejoin global agreements and institutions — including the Paris climate accord, the Iran nuclear deal and the World Health Organization — that were jettisoned by Mr. Trump." 

From "Biden Chooses Antony Blinken, Defender of Global Alliances, as Secretary of State/The president-elect is also expected to name Jake Sullivan, another close aide of his, as national security adviser, and Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a 35-year Foreign Service veteran, as his ambassador to the U.N." (NYT). 

I'm pleased to see such boring choices. Remember — a couple weeks ago, the news was that Pete Buttigieg wanted the U.N. ambassador job? I was sarcastic about that: "of course it makes sense that his background as mayor of a small city in the midwest sets him up well to deal with international affairs."

IN THE COMMENTS: Rocketeer said:

So will I be the first to start referring to the VP, SOS, and POTUS as Winkin', Blinken and Nod?

Meade read that out loud to me and I immediately recited... 

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night

Sailed off in a wooden shoe--

Sailed on a river of crystal light,

Into a sea of dew.

"Where are you going, and what do you wish?"

I couldn't continue verbatim and I couldn't free-style rhymes about Biden and Harris, so I'm not bragging about my poetry expertise. Just saying I loved those Eugene Field poems when I was a child. I'm just seeing now that Eugene Field's father was the lawyer who represented Dred Scott: 

His father was Roswell Martin Field, an attorney who once represented Dred Scott, an African American man known for the 1857 U. S. Supreme Court case in which he sued for his freedom. Many believe the denial of Scott's bid by the court prompted the U. S. Civil War.

And here's the poem done with animation by Disney and music by Donovan: