“I have no way of telling whether [Putin’s] rage has been provoked»” Bergoglio wonders, «but I suspect it was maybe facilitated by the West’s attitude” [“Un’ira che non so dire se sia stata provocata — si interroga —, ma facilitata forse sì”]
“I don’t know if it is the right thing to supply the Ukrainian fighters” [” all’interrogativo se sia giusto rifornire gli ucraini”]
“What seems indisputable is that in that country both sides are trying out new weapons. [” La cosa chiara è che in quella terra si stanno provando le armi.” Corriere Della Sera, 22 Maggio 2022]
“This is a historic day in the life of our country, one that stirs our thoughts, emotions and prayers. For nearly fifty years, America has enforced an unjust law that has permitted some to decide whether others can live or die; this policy has resulted in the deaths [sic] of tens of millions of preborn children, generations that were denied the right to even be born (…) We thank God today that the Court has now overturned this decision.” U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, 24 June 2022
Archive for Russian invasion
¡cuida tu vestido y no hables tanto, Jorge!
Posted in pictures, Travel with tags anti-abortion organisations, Catholic Church, Corriere della Sera, Jorge Bergoglio, pope, Protect Abortion, Roe v. Wade, Russian invasion, sects, Solidarity with Ukraine, Supreme Court, US politics, Vatican, Vladimir Putin on June 26, 2022 by xi'anRussian war on civilians
Posted in Statistics with tags booby traps, cluster munitions, Geneva Conventions, land mines, Russian Federation, Russian invasion, Solidarity with Ukraine, Soviet era, Stop the War, The New York Times, Ukraine, war crimes, World War II on June 24, 2022 by xi'ana journal of the plague and pestilence year [back to 1980]
Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Travel, University life with tags book review, books, cherry tree, Chun Doo-hwan, clafouti, COVID-19, Daniel Defoe, film review, Gwangju massacre, homecooking, Iain Pears, Instance at the Fingerpost, Journal of the Plague Year, Korea, Korea TV series, murder mystery, North Africa, pandemics, Russian invasion, Solidarność, Ukraine, Université Paris Dauphine on June 21, 2022 by xi'anRead Havoc in its third year, best surprise of the [book] year so far! I picked this book from the exchange box in Warwick, presumably before COVID-19, but only started reading it on my last trip. While it starts as a murder mystery set
Cooked cherries in clafoutis from our tree for a week, before birds cleaned it dry.
Watched Taxi Driver, (모범택시) a Korean TV series (inspired from the cartoon The Deluxe Taxi) that I found most disturbing in its ambiguity about vigilante justice, hence interesting to a point, and the surprising movie 26 years, also based on a graphic novel, as it is about children of victims of the1980 Gwangju massacre, who are seeking to assassinate the former and responsible Korean president Chun Doo-hwan. (Who actually died only last year.) The film is quite interesting for this historical foray in not such a distant past. (The massacre took part on the same year as Solidarność was created and repressed, which I remember much more clearly, I am afraid.) And for being produced by crowdfunding, as usual investors were afraid of the political contents. The last 12 minutes of the film actually list all 15,000⁺ donors! The scenario is imperfect, despite characters being well constructed, and the final, never-ending, scene is a drag. Since the former president was still alive 26 years later, the story was doomed from the start, unless falling into alternate reality as in Inglorious Basterds…
war crimes [Amnesty report]
Posted in Statistics with tags Amnesty International, cluster munitions, Kharkiv, Russian invasion, Solidarity with Ukraine, Ukraine, war crimes on June 13, 2022 by xi'ana journal of the plague and pestilence year [continued]
Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Travel, University life with tags @ScientistTrump, asparagus, black tea, book review, Canley, Chinese tea, Coventry, COVID-19, Daniel Defoe, homecooking, Hugo Awards, ice cream van, Indian food, Journal of the Plague Year, Locus Award, pandemics, pasta alle vongole, Russian invasion, Ukraine, Université Paris Dauphine, University of Warwick on June 10, 2022 by xi'anHad a full week in Coventry for the first time in a while, thanks to my CDT masterclass on GANs and other acronyms. Arriving on a Bank Holiday in a Math Science Building only populated by a few graduate students. And stayed in an Airbnb rather than the traditional math house, which afforded me a picture of the local community as warmer and drier weather meant more people on the street in the evenings (and more lawnmowers as well). Including discovering that the traditional UK ice cream van [which I had first seen & heard in a Birmingham suburb in the mid 1970’s summers] had not gone extinct! One was touring the neighbourhood every night with the customary chime. (Also spotted what strongly looked like a home delivery of drugs, without the chimes.)
Read Half-Witch, by John Schoffstal, which I bought for no clear reason quite a while ago and only read in the past fortnight, maybe because I was somewhat put off by the unusual cover. The contents were unusual as well, a sort of modern take on a Grimm’s fairytale, with a complete lack of attention to realism, and a witty sarcastic tone for a coming of age story where a young girl manages goblins, witches, an hopeless Trinity, a similarly hopeless father, and plenty of nasty people, by outwitting them all. Also quickly went through two (Tor gifts) novellas A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers, which I enjoyed tremendously as a Zen tale, following a tea monk!, and Unlocked, by John Scalzi, which is a sort of prequel to Lock In I read eons ago. Where half-a-page viewpoints follows the unraveling of a World pandemic that first looks like a super-flu, follows air routes to reach all countries, had a high fatality and high contamination rates, and is kept under control by the massive investment of governments… Reading this in 2022 is presumably much more exciting than when it appeared, as the setting sounds prescient and follows to some extent what happened with COVID, except for the US President to react much more efficiently than the Agent Orange “in charge” at the time.
Did not cook the first green asparagus I found at the market, as they are great eaten raw in a minimalist salad. Also had a great spaghetti alle vongole in a local Italian restaurant, if far from an Italian pricing!