When You Know, You Know.

Today, the 27th opportunity to impeach or involve the 25th amendment. Maybe tomorrow.

My, how good President Zelenskyy’s English has become. Years of practice now, he’s confident in simply conducting interviews in English. Here with Kristian Welker showing her brain expanding so much her eyes have little room left for them in her head.

With so many years logged on the war scene, is it any wonder people who never cared about Ukraine, think well, it was Soviet,… I actually don’t have any idea why any country would be ignored or tossed to Putin as too much trouble. The 1% of budget it might take. Oh, yes, the propaganda says 10% of our budget and often more.

Perhaps white people attacking white people is just too confusing to sort. I don’t see any real obvious Jews in there either. Remember when Putin tried to tell us it was those Nazi Jews? That “Z” thing? Anyway, here we are,… Putin isn’t stopping and Trump is eyeing the minerals beneath the ground… sounds like the repugnant grab of Gaza he jaws about. He wants the minerals there as well as the beachfront property and you know where else? Greenland and hello…. our own national is protected from bulldozing, mining, development until it isn’t.

Countries like women have a right to be left alone to decide their own lives. To be captain of their fate without being pushed off course or stolen from. “Nice little bread basket you’ve got there Ukraine. How’s about a pinch? Just little dinner roll? Breadsitck?”

From the man who knows Putin best,…no, not Trump,… Zelenskyy, “The risk that Russia will occupy Europe is 100 percent.” Take it to the bank. Eye-popping indeed if it’s the first time those words connect with your brain. Putin is planning terrible things he is let to restock his ammo. Let some kids grow to be age of conscription.

But then there’s the why these jerks keep hammering at. It’s hard to stay on track, recall the rules before so badly bent. Cutting to it - Cruz posits, Denmark should give us Greenland because if Greenland decides to cut away from Denmark they get nothing. So sell it to us now while they get some $$$. US currency I’ll bet to sweeten the deal. Trump would never insult Denmark with an offer of stupid crypto. Right?

It works at the swap meet, amiright?

All the news about Elon Musk and the inability to meaningfully slow him through the courts is true and it’s frustrating. And no, life just doesn’t go on. We have some preliminary actions to take. Make room in life to take the time and participate to reject what we can and resist the wave to dilute democracy and have America aligned with the core values, foundational principles of Russia. They are not like the United States just far away. They might have a MacDonald’s in Moscow,… is that why people think their history or customs are just window dressing? A decorated egg is not just a decorated egg.

Fabergé eggs aren’t just eggs. “Their resulting creation was an extravagant variation on the Russian Orthodox tradition of exchanging decorated Easter eggs.” Mother was raised in the Russian Orthodox tradition by her Ukrainian parents. It’s confusing at best for the grandchild, me, a New York Jew living in Arizona. To us, the eggs are pretty,… for Easter maybe, if you celebrate that stuff anymore or have kids, you’ll color some. These are the fancy ones.

True enough, the cultures of Ukraine and Russia share a love of embroidery, ballet, music, dance in the folk tradition, the struggle for freedom under an oligarchical regime. Similar languages too but the war is forcing a separation. Below more, and just for the record, Russia enjoys the fruit of the confusion and similar backgrounds.

However, the identity choice for Ukrainians was still not settled once and for all. After Stalin’s death, Ukrainians in the USSR were allowed to pursue careers not only in “their own” republic but also at the federal level of the Soviet Union, almost to the same degree as ethnic Russians. Virtually all Ukrainians were fluent Russian speakers, and increasing numbers of them switched to Russian as their first language. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the political authorities in Kiev (re-named Kyiv in 1995 in English) engaged in determined nation-building, but even as recently as 1996, there were solid grounds for calling Ukrainian nationalism “a minority faith,” as Andrew Wilson did. Four years later, Wilson remarked that ethnic identities in Ukraine were “still blurred.” And finally, in the summer of 2021, as noted, identity links between Ukrainians and their northern neighbors remained so strong that a sizable group of Ukrainians agreed that Ukrainians and Russians comprise “one people.”

Disconnected from my Ukrainian roots, I believed in the 1960’s and 70’s that I was of Russian or Ukrainian descent. With a shrug I wondered what’s the diff? Indeed, I think Ukrainians were disconnected from their distinct story. A satellite, a state. A real distinction or not? The Soviet Union. Again sounds like the United States. Na uh. Foundational principles and core values of the state. That means what the government rules fro it’s citizens and in relations with the world.

There’s the land, and there’s the government and there’s the people. We are really getting a dose of it right now as our Canadian friends don’t want to have anything to do with Trump and him calling their PM, Justin Trudeau, governor. Shame on us. Oh, not You? Think again.

People are freaking here for good reason. We can all relate.

People fearing their government here now. It’s what really separated us, why we have the immigration challenges we have to solve. People can’t be running from shore to shore never finding help except by the kindness of others along the way. People are people are people are people. What happens to people when their government is against them and in a separate agenda is well known. We must be thinking already, to break free.

Offered here is the story of Rudolph Nureyev. It’s long and worth every moment to learn more about what the people of Eastern Europe face now if history even rhymes. He dances but the story is for freedom that Musk simply doesn’t understand.

The role of the ballet in Russia and may also be surprising to many as the East has many less opportunities for a contemporary culture to grow from their own traditions. But would they? Any new things are borrowed from the West. Innovation in getting needs met only. Indeed it was the impossibility for artists to work creatively but follow orders for the glory of the state.

The modern dance Russia attempted after the first wave of dancers left, looked to be propaganda only. By demand and by formula is no way to make dance or art of any kind. That was the signal for Nureyev to go. Below Léon Bakst designs for the “Ballet Russe,” the company and first wave that landed first in Paris.

The Russian revolution, then the second all eventually giving way to communism.

Remember hearing of White Russians before the drink?

Born in St Petersberg in 1881, Anna Pavlova was the most-celebrated dancer of her time. Pavlova studied at the Imperial School of Ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre from 1891, joined the Imperial Ballet in 1899, and became a prima ballerina in 1906. In 1909 she went to Paris on the historic tour of the Ballets Russes (by chorepgrapher Diaghilev). Pavlova became a dancer at the right time, as Tsarist Russia maintained magnificent imperial schools for the performing arts. Pavlova continued to dance independently with her own company throughout the world.

Ana Pavlova brought her work to Tombstone, AZ, dancing at the “Birdcage Theater” and in NYC. My aunt saw her dance. Here she is doing maybe surprising things rather than the photos you have seen, if any. Pavlova, was not just the swan lady. Very inventive. It’s why she left. She wanted to be left alone to do her work. In a transactional world it looks like she’s just fooling around.

Nureyev, although long gone from our earth passing away in 1993, would have been only 86 today had he lived. I mention it because that Tartar child was born in 1938, in a world that is light years away in poverty and opportunity from what many in the US understand. I have gleaned that we have generations that don’t understand what it means to live in a war torn place or where the government does nothing for you. No roads, unless you’re in Moscow. Little heat. Poverty. No malls. Look.

The only road to get across the country unpaved until 2015. Ten years ago. Suddenly, maybe, Biden and Buttigieg are looking like heroes?

It’s not understandabe how people have forgotten the recent past and how different it was. How we went without and didn’t know it. A phone call to the UK was 5 dollars a minute in about 1959. $5 in 1959 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $54.23 today. Governments made the contracts to make it all possible. You reallllllly want to go to Mars?

Here is a treat. Pretty certain the Balalaika didn’t make the trip over on the Mayflower, but it’s still hotly enjoyed today in other places and dates back to about 1700. Although this video was made in 1999, in Germany, by now we also know how it is we see it,.. probably, is because it was made by Russian players,… in Germany.

The Balalaika is the small guitar like instrument and it’s the bass one too. They are made in all the in-between voices as well. More, on the orchestras too.

Thanks for being here. I wouldn’t be here without you.

❤️