In Russia, people have started killing each other over Ukraine. Two men in Kaluga got drunk and started arguing over the invasion of Ukraine. One of the men ended up killing his interlocutor.

Writers, musicians, artists in Russia are writing open letters either in support or in condemnation of the invasion. The aggression against Ukraine is splitting the Russian society and pitching people against each other.

It’s hard as it is to keep the citizens of the multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-linguistic Russian Federation from jumping at each other’s throats every two seconds, and Putin’s actions are contributing to existing animosities and creating new ones.

My father needed to give me 40 enormous files for me to work with. I don’t have my computer with me, and we’ve been trying to figure out a way to let me access these files.

Dropbox, apps, fttps, websites- every possibility was pondered.

Finally, my father had an idea.

“Look, why don’t we just copy the files onto a CD, and you’ll take it with you?” he said.

“Hah,” I said. “I forgot about that possibility completely.”

Technology is not developing in a very good direction, and we often forget that trusted and true old ways sometimes work better than the constant “improvements.”

Another thing that annoys me is hearing the situation in Ukraine described in the language of Facebook status updates.

“It’s too complicated. It’s impossible to understand what’s going on there,” people keep writing in their tweets, posts, and articles.

In reality, things couldn’t be simpler. One country brought its troops into the territory of another country and refuses to remove them. What’s not to understand? What happened in the Maidan, why Yanukovich was ousted, where he is now, etc – none of this changes the central important fact: a country is being invaded.

Look at your own country, whichever it is. I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff going on that is not amazing or that outsiders might not understand. People are protesting or striking, students are agitating, nationalists are sloganeering, the economy is in the toilet, politicians are corrupt, people get jailed unfairly, crime rates are high, somebody is seeking independence. If any of these things are happening where you live, do you think it justifies the neighboring country bringing hundreds of armored vehicles into your town and occupying public buildings?

Ukrainians are just like you. We are human, we are very imperfect, often bumbling, sometimes outright stupid. But none of these very human failings justify a foreign army moving in.

And there’s nothing complicated about this idea.

One very sad thing to come out of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the colonization of the media across the globe by the discourse of the clash of civilizations. I started reading my blog roll 10 minutes ago and already discovered 3 “What’s happening in Ukraine is so totally about the clash of civilizations” articles coming out of the US, UK, and even Spain.

I understand that many people can’t rest easy until they have found some familiar narrative to explain what’s happening but why this particular (and particularly obnoxious) narrative?

All of the countries participating in the conflict, both directly and at a distance, are very obviously from the same civilization. Russia has been colonizing Ukraine, in some form or another, for centuries. What do the weird theories concocted to entertain the unintelligent have to do with this conflict?

I’m sorry for the weird photo, everybody, but I want to show it to my husband and this is the only way. He is one of the few people on this continent who doesn’t have a smartphone or a tablet.

The back story on the inventive outfit is that there is a major snowstorm in Montreal, and I’ve been snowed in at my sister’s place, far away from my clothes. We’ve had to improvise an outfit for me, and these are the only things that fit. I’m meeting a friend I haven’t seen for years tomorrow, and she is bound to think that I’ve lost my marbles. The friend is Argentinean, so I will be hearing about this for years to come.

I’m thinking it would be a brilliant pedagogic strategy to wear this to class.

Putin has crossed over to complete insanity. He is now saying that Ukraine’s proclamation of independence in 1991 was not legitimate. He says it was not done according to the law. Please don’t ask which law because this guy is obviously a law unto himself.

How could it come to this? And how could anybody have been stupid enough to believe that the Cold War was over and the USSR was really done with?

This is one issue where I would have loved to be wrong.

Munoz Molina says that, in his Liberal youth, “taking pride in the autochtonous seemed liked an unfailing sign of stupidity. It was so alien to us that it deserved nothing but contempt.”

I’m totally an old-time Liberal.

Antonio Munoz Molina is a great Spanish writer. I say “great ” not in the sense of “he’s like totally cool” but in the sense that he has achieved greatness. Munoz Molina is not my cup of tea politically but aesthetically he is bizarrely good.

He is also brilliant. Here is what he has to say about the transformation of the concept of culture in the last couple of decades:

Culture used to be something that people acquired through their individual effort. And now it has transformed into a collective space where one happened to be born. It is no longer a project but a destiny. Today, it is a return to the community of origin instead of a solitary emancipation. Culture has become about hiding inside a limited space instead of joining the wider world.

The writer says that the Right used to believe in the essential nature of culture, in the crucial importance of the small community where one chanced to be born. Today, the Left has become the most militant defender of parochialism, rootedness, and essentialism.

P.S. The translation is mine. In the original, this was, of course, a single endless sentence.

When I was entering Canada, I, of course, had to go through the customs.

“Have you been to Canada before?” the customs officer said, staring at my Canadian passport.

I stared at him. He stared back at me. The passport stared at both of us in mute incomprehension.

I keep hearing that Ukrainians removed Yanukovich because he was corrupt. I so wish this were true. But no. If only people had such an intense reaction to corruption.

Yanukovich had to start shooting at an unarmed crowd for Ukrainians to get angry enough to chase him away.

There’s no need to prettify the Ukrainian revolution by ascribing fresh motivations to its participants. Today, bandits are being appointed to govern Ukrainian regions as a strategic move whose value I personally find doubtful. So that’s how much Ukrainians hate corruption.