In that second she saw that she could bear anything, but only if no one knew that she had anything to bear.

Nella Larsen, Passing

Between 3,000 and 5,000 Russian troops have been killed or captured near Lyman today.

Cue Tucker Carlson telling us on Monday how this was a gigantic victory for Russia. Russian propagandists have stopped trying to spin it as a victory, which leaves Tucker as the only doofus on the planet still believing in it.

There are two groups of people who keep calling on the Western countries to seek the “off-ramp” with Russia: Russian bots or congenital idiots. There is no exit ramp if you aren’t driving and have nothing that the driver wants.

Right now, today, at this moment, Russians are in the process of accepting that they will start a nuclear war. They are normalizing and justifying it in their minds. This started a while ago and it’s reaching a stage of placid acceptance now. This is scary but hiding from this fact behind feel-good fantasies is useless.