Saturday Soother – April 9, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Perhaps the most important selfie ever? Via POTUS

A few items for today. First, the Senate confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court on Thursday, making her the first-ever Black woman and former public defender to serve on the nation’s highest court. Every Democrat voted for her, plus three Republicans: Sens. Lisa Murkowski (AK), Susan Collins (ME) and Mitt Romney (UT). When the vote was over, the Senate chamber erupted with applause, but not by most Republicans.

Here’s a video of the many Republican Senators walking out amid applause for the new Associate Justice:

It was a bad moment for the White Nationalists of the GOP. Is it Wrongo, or has the Republican Party turned itself into a fountain of sexual innuendo and legal intrusion into our lives? Robert Reich agrees:

“…it’s part of their culture war, and culture wars sell with voters (and the media) eager for conflict and titillation. A culture war over sex sells even better. It lets Republicans imply that Democrats are somehow on the side of sexual “deviants” who endanger the “natural order…a culture war over sex allows Republicans to sound faux populist without having to talk about the real sources of populist anger — corporate-induced inflation at a time of record corporate profits, profiteering and price gouging….[and] stagnant wages…and by focusing on pedophilia, gender identity, gay people, and abortion, Republicans don’t have to talk about Trump and January 6.

Hate, whether against Justice Jackson or aspects of American culture, is like a hard drug. It’s destructive to the users and to everyone around them. And they will always need bigger hits of it.

Second, Tim Snyder posted about the Russian policy guiding its war in Ukraine: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Russia has just issued a genocide handbook for its war on Ukraine.  The Russian official press agency “RIA Novosti” published last Sunday an explicit program for the complete elimination of the Ukrainian nation as such.  It is still available for viewing, and has now been translated…into English.”

Snyder says that since the war began, “denazification” in Russian usage simply means the destruction of the Ukrainian state and nation.  A “Nazi,” as the genocide manual explains, is simply a human being who self-identifies as Ukrainian. According to the handbook, the establishment of a Ukrainian state thirty years ago was the “Nazification of Ukraine”.

The genocide handbook explains that the Russian policy of “denazification” is not directed against Nazis in the sense that the word is normally used. The handbook grants, with no hesitation, that there is no evidence that Nazism, as generally understood, is important in Ukraine. It operates within the special Russian definition of “Nazi”: A Nazi is a Ukrainian who refuses to admit to being a Russian.

The money quote from Snyder:

“As a historian of mass killing, I am hard pressed to think of many examples where states explicitly advertise the genocidal character of their own actions right at the moment those actions become public knowledge….Legally, genocide means both actions that destroy a group in whole or in part, combined with some intention to do so.  Russia has done the deed and confessed to the intention.”

Perhaps then it isn’t a surprise that Russia quit the UN Human Rights Council on Thursday shortly after it was suspended for atrocities in Ukraine. The UN General Assembly voted 93 to 24 to suspend Russia on Thursday, with 58 abstentions. What Snyder has reported deserves a global audience. It seems that throwing Russia out of the UN should be the next step.

Enough of this week’s news. It’s time for our Saturday Soother, a precious few moments when we avoid the political yelling and focus on gathering ourselves for the coming week.

We’ve finally heard the peepers on the Fields of Wrong. The lawns are greening up, buds are on most trees and bushes, and it’s turkey romance season. We have a resident group of seven female and two male turkeys. This week, the males are preening around and spreading their tail feathers while the females run in the opposite direction. We expect that will turn into fraternization next week.

To kick off your Saturday, take a few minutes and brew up a mug of Two Dog coffee ($17.50/lb.) from Clearwater, FL’s Blazing Bean Roasters. Now grab a seat by a window and watch and listen to another arrangement of classical music by the Korean group LAYERS who we have featured before. This time, listen to their take on Bizet’s “Fantasy” from his opera “Carmen”. Here it is arranged for two cellos, violin, and piano:

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terence e mckenna

The Republican walkout is especially petty. And if we look back at the refusal of McConnell to consider even a hearing on Obama’s nominee for Scotus – at least Dems had the reason to harbor resentment. But republicans won. This is the resentment of the winner.

Ottho Heldring

Republicans – Repugnicans. Except for the party’s “radical fringe” who cast their vote for Jackson.