Dispatches from Vilnius

I was curious what Oliver Stone thought about the war in Ukraine and dug this article up from March.  His comments have been printed elsewhere.  It comes from an interview with Robert Scheer for KCRW, an LA member station of NPR.  He had made himself into a contrarian by defending Putin's invasion of Crimea back in 2014, feeling it was justified.  However, he no longer seems to be so supportive of Putin after invading the whole country.  He had claimed the US and NATO had no evidence of this massive troop build up along the border, likening it to the WMD claims as a pretext for invading Iraq. Of course, it hasn't changed his position on the US and NATO.  He believes Putin was "baited" into this war, "empowering the worst conclusions the West can make."  For the past eight years, NATO has been giving Ukraine a substantial amount of military assistance and logistical support in its ongoing war in the Donbas. Stone isn't alone in his view.  John Pil...

While the rest of Europe is going through an excruciating heatwave, here in Lithuania the problem is apparently too much rain.  I never thought I would hear farmers complain about rain, but one guy was on television last night lamenting that his fields are too wet for his heavy machinery.  Maybe?  However, we went to the farmers market this morning and it was awash in produce.  Prices have jumped up but I don't think that's because of the rain. I've enjoyed it, as the rain has come mostly in the evening and early morning hours.  Days have been mostly sunny.  I don't have to water the lawn, just mow it more than usual. I know to cut it when the clovers in bloom.  I give the bees a few days to take their fill.  Plants are going crazy. We had a cannabis spring up out of nowhere this summer.  It grew to nearly two meters high before my wife cut it down, fearing it might draw too much attention from our neighbors.  It was garden variety hemp....

A German friend sent me a link to an article by Timothy Snyder on the current situation in Ukraine and how it relates to the United States.  It brought to mind a book of his that I read several years ago, The Reconstruction of Nations , in which he charted the different roads toward nationhood of Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine.  The running thread was the attempt of all these countries to get out from under the shadow of "Mother Russia."  While Snyder felt there were opportunities missed between the wars, in the end they all achieved their basic goal.  Until recently anyway.  Now, we see an extension of Russian authority in all three countries to one degree or another. The war in Ukraine has reached a temporary stalemate.  Neither side appears able to proceed without massive casualties, so they dig in along their respective lines.  This is a situation very similar to the civil war in the Donbas from 2014-22, only now Russia claims these captured territ...

I hate to say it but I've never been a big fan of Michael Jordan.  Sure, he was a great player, maybe even the greatest, but his arrogance both on and off the court really annoys me.  I've made it a point not to watch  The Last Dance  precisely for this reason.  I see I'm not alone in that Scotty Pippen was also  taken aback  by how heavily the documentary series was skewed in Michael's favor. The GOAT debate comes up every year.  Sportswriters provide a myriad of reasons why Jordan should be regarded as the greatest of all time.  It's too bad Wilt is no longer around to shoot down most of those arguments .  Jordan is coy enough not to give credit to himself .  He says he wished he could have played against these previous greats, as he imagines they wished they could have played in his era.   It is Bill Russell who makes the most salient point.  There were only 12 NBA teams back then.  Competition was tough....

Intended as a joke but ominous just the same, Elon Musk once told Mark Cuban he wanted more kids to populate Mars .  You can imagine little ten-year-old Elon with a National Geographic map of Mars pinned to his wall, plotting out his colonization of the red planet back in the early 1980s.  He's been singularly obsessed with this vision ever since. I suppose he eventually read Frank Herbert's Dune series , imagining himself as Paul Atreides.  Arrakis felt a lot like Mars.  The planet became very popular in the 60s with the first probe in 1964.  We were finally able to get images and it looked a lot like our rocky deserts here on earth.  NASA captured more images with its  orbiters in 1971, resulting in the NG Mars map that came out in 1973.  Subsequent rover missions in 1975 and 1976 resulted in the first terrestrial images with much speculation over the seeming human face and what were initially believed to be pyramids on the red planet. The ide...

This war is revealing all sorts of interesting things.  I had no idea Germany was so dependent on Russian oil, coal and gas.  I thought Germany had at least phased out coal power plants but here they are reactivating them to preserve precious gas supplies.  Germany has presented itself at the forefront of the green revolution.  It turns out they are hardly better than Poland or Slovakia, notorious coal reliant states, and lag behind the EU average when it comes to renewable energy .  Little Lithuania, which was slow to adopt sustainable energy, fairs much better than Germany per capita, drawing nearly 27% of its energy needs from renewable sources.  Germany a pathetic 19 per cent.   You would think that Germany would have spent those milliards of euros on wind turbines and solar panels rather than the Nord Stream 2 pipeline .  Now they are stuck with a decommissioned pipeline under the Baltic Sea that is of absolutely no value to them. ...

A lot has happened the past week.  I could stretch it out over several posts but chose to let it meander where it may in the following discourse.   Let's start with Boris.  We all knew he had nine lives but it seems he finally played out his last one , unable to hold onto the top seat of his party after another stinging set of revelations.  This was an administration spinning wildly out of control to begin with, and I'm not convinced having a new person at No. 10 Downing is going to make anything better for the Tories.  Boris wasn't the root of the problems, just the most visible example.  Still, he had his bright spots.  The guy could connect with the people, as we saw in the special election.  He steadfastly supported Ukraine, even to the point of making surprise visits to Kjiv, where he became a hero.  Even in defeat, he still holds his chin up as if daring anyone to hit him again.  If nothing else, you have to admire his pluck. ...

It's hit and miss when ordering used vinyls through discogs.  For the most part, I've been satisfied with what I have received, but occasionally the sellers stretch the condition of the media and sleeve condition.  Such was the case with a recent copy of Stephen Sills self-titled first album, with special appearances by Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton.  The sleeve was in pretty bad shape, corner cut out, tape marks, and some writing on the cover, but the seller still listed it as VG. I've slowly assembled an album collection again.  I've got over 200 titles up in the attic, which I play from time to time on my Rega Planar 1 turntable.  I had initially thought of buying a used turntable, but after all the problems my son and I had with the old Pioneer turntable I bought him, I figured it was best to start fresh, and I haven't been disappointed.  The Rega plays great!  I moved the turntable upstairs as Daina doesn't really appreciate my taste of music....

When the Kremlin  fires a $5 million cruise missile into a shopping mall , you can only wonder what the pay off is here?  Typically, a military would save their most expensive munitions for the combatants' military targets.  However, the intent appears to be to stoke enough fear in the Ukrainian population so that the government is willing to make territorial concessions.  This is Mikhailo Podoliak's take on the latest civilian bombing, which of course the Kremlin has denied.   Having made few territorial gains after its initial onslaught, the Kremlin is now taking pot shots at civilian targets all over the country, as far away as Lviv, in an effort to create chaos and stoke fear.  The only problem with this strategy is that Ukrainians have become inured to the attacks, having had to endure them for over four months now.  Podoliak says the strategy isn't working as Ukrainians are not willing to concede these territorial losses. Russia has a wide...

It seems we are getting hit from all sides these days.  Hard to focus on any one aspect of the news.  Our main interest remains Ukraine but I can't help but wonder what is happening to America?  The stunning Supreme Court decisions at the end of the summer session are mind numbing.  Siding with states on one decision and individuals the next.  The conservative justices don't seem to fully understand what the Constitution means and are basing their decisions on ideology.  Even they are split on some of these decisions as we saw Neil Gorsuch lash out at his fellow conservatives over the fate of tribal lands in Oklahoma.  The USSC authorized Oklahoma to be able to prosecute certain crimes on tribal lands thanks to Chief Justice Roberts ever-vacillating stances. The Native American reservations have long been semi-autonomous republics.  The federal government has jurisdiction over their affairs but states have none.  However, the reservations oc...