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Opinion: Zelensky’s message of defiance

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“Freedom, shiny spark of divinity,” the refrain sang. “Thy magic energy reunites all that customized has divided. All males change into brothers, underneath the sway of thy light wings.”

When Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the US Congress from Kyiv Wednesday, carrying a inexperienced t-shirt and sitting subsequent to the blue-and-yellow flag of his nation, the speech was additionally an ode to freedom — and a plea for assist to protect it.

As Frida Ghitis wrote, “When America’s prime Democrats and Republicans rose aspect by aspect to provide Zelensky a standing ovation, we knew the Ukrainian President had made his mark. Zelensky, reminding Americans what freedom really means after the nation has spent years devaluing it in petty political battles, proves there’s a new seriousness within the nation.”

“As he has with different audiences, Zelensky tailor-made his message. Think about being struck from the sky, as on 9/11, however day by day, he instructed People. He spoke about Pearl Harbor, and he cited Martin Luther King. ‘I’ve a dream …,’ he intoned, I can say, I’ve a necessity. I want to guard our sky,” Ghitis famous.

Educate the youngsters

“It is a world-shaking second in historical past,” SE Cupp noticed, “one that may outline a technology, one that would change our maps, and one that’s already seeing horrific loss and devastation.” She is ensuring to indicate her 7-year-old son among the information protection of the Ukraine warfare.

“Ideas like democracy and sovereignty, freedom and warfare, may be imprecise and summary, however as we watch a tyrant march right into a sovereign nation, threatening democracy there and all over the place else, we must show our children what is happening — what can occur to a free individuals, and what it seems to be like when the world unites to defend democratic beliefs.”

As Jill Filipovic identified, “No photos have captured the hellishness of warfare fairly as starkly as these taken within the aftermath of Russian troops bombing a maternity hospital in Mariupol. In a single photograph, a pregnant girl with a bloodied face is staggering out of a bombed constructing; in one other, an ashen-faced girl lays on a stretcher, her left hand cradling her full stomach. The girl within the second photograph and her child have now each died of their accidents.”

Battle takes an enormous toll on everybody however may be particularly merciless for girls, Filipovic added. “Pregnant ladies in warfare zones are additionally, like everybody else, underneath great stress — however that stage of stress can have lethal outcomes for mom or child. And pregnant ladies, and notably those that are having problems, simply may not be able to escape when violence strikes.”

For extra:

Michael A. Newton: Russian invaders are crossing a line

Julian Zelizer: Trump’s ‘America First’ policy is dead

Dean Obeidallah: Whose side is Tucker Carlson on?

Roman Badanin: As a Russian journalist, this is the knock I dread

Russia’s invasion

When Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded Ukraine on February 24, many individuals anticipated that Russia’s army, thought of the second strongest on the earth, would roll over Ukraine in a matter of days. That hasn’t occurred.

In a dialog with CNN nationwide safety analyst Peter Bergen, retired US Gen. David Petraeus assessed the warfare to this point. “There are numerous causes for the Russians’ abysmal efficiency,” Petraeus stated. “They’re preventing in opposition to a really decided, fairly succesful Ukrainian pressure that’s composed of particular ops, standard forces, territorial forces and even personal residents, all of whom are decided to not enable Russia to realize its goals. They’re preventing for his or her nationwide survival, their homeland and their lifestyle, they usually have the home-field benefit, figuring out the terrain and communities.

“However past that, the Russians are simply surprisingly unprofessional. They clearly have very poor requirements relating to performing fundamental tactical duties corresponding to reaching mixed arms operations, involving armor, infantry, engineers, artillery and mortars. They’re very poor at sustaining their automobiles and weapon programs and have deserted lots of them. They’re additionally poor at resupply and logistical duties.”

Wanting forward, Petraeus noticed, “Clearly, they don’t have sufficient forces to take, a lot much less to manage, Kyiv and among the different main cities, however they do have missiles, rockets, artillery, and bombs and an obvious willingness to make use of them in a really indiscriminate vogue.”

“And so, they proceed the method they utilized in Chechnya, notably with Grozny, and in Syria, notably with Aleppo, the place they depopulated the cities by indiscriminate use of bombs. And it is going to be an endurance contest between the Russians’ willingness to destroy cities and the Ukrainians’ ability to survive such destruction.“

For extra:

Naureen Chowdhury Fink: Putin is calling in favors from Syria and Africa. It’s a dangerous move

Nuclear nightmare

For many years, among the most eloquent and knowledgeable voices warning of the hazards of nuclear weapons have been physicians, amongst them Dr. Ira Helfand, previous president of Worldwide Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear Battle, which gained the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985.

This week, he and colleagues Barry Levy and Matt Bivens, wrote, “The world is shocked by the violence in Ukrainian cities besieged by Russian forces, as they endure underneath indiscriminate mortar, bomb and missile assaults. However these horrors may result in one thing far worse — escalation to nuclear warfare. If we’re going to keep away from this final disaster, we need to work urgently for the elimination of all nuclear weapons.”

There are about 13,000 nuclear warheads all over the world. “Specialists have been decrying these hundreds of nuclear weapons as an ongoing existential risk to humanity even earlier than Russian President Vladimir’s Putin’s latest warnings that he might use Russia’s nuclear weapons … A nuclear warfare between Russia and NATO allies can be an unimaginable tragedy.” In a nightmare state of affairs the place 300 bombs are deployed, 75 to 100 million individuals would die the primary day, with the overwhelming majority of survivors dying “over the approaching months from radiation illness, infectious illnesses, famine and publicity,” the physicians wrote.

A serving to hand

In April 1999, then Vice President Al Gore introduced on Ellis Island that the US would soak up as much as 20,000 refugees from Kosovo, who have been fleeing Serbian assaults, recalled Mark Hetfield, president of HIAS, which was based because the Hebrew Immigrant Help Society.

Greater than three million individuals have fled Ukraine “however this time, there was no Ellis Island announcement.” He famous that Vice President Kamala Harris talked of serving to Poland with the wave of refugees coming into the nation whereas President Joe Biden solely spoke of taking refugees on a conditional foundation: “If, actually, they arrive all the best way right here.”

“Phrases matter, actions matter,” wrote Hetfield. “On the subject of refugees and management, the United States is falling short on both fronts. It’s getting late, however the Biden-Harris administration nonetheless has a possibility to exhibit American management by welcoming refugees — as an alternative of counting on Jap Europe to shoulder that accountability alone.”

Fallen journalists

Brent Renaud, a filmmaker engaged on a undertaking about refugees for Time journal’s studio unit, was shot and killed by Russian troopers exterior Kyiv on Sunday, stated the deputy chief of police in Irpin. Photojournalist Juan Arredondo additionally was injured within the taking pictures.

Renaud grew to become the primary journalist on project from an American information group to die in the course of the battle, according to The New York Occasions. The following day, Fox Information cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski was killed together with Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra Kuvshynova when the automobile they have been touring in got here underneath fireplace. Benjamin Corridor, a Fox Information correspondent, was injured within the taking pictures.

In Time, Sebastian Junger remembered Renaud as “a highly-regarded freelancer who labored everywhere in the world documenting among the most violent and inhuman circumstances civilians are subjected to, together with desperately poor areas of Chicago.”

“With out the work of those courageous individuals there might be no such factor as democracy or freedom on the earth — elections would be stolen, war crimes would be denied, injustices would be hidden,” Junger noticed. “In a world with out journalists, leaders like Vladimir Putin may declare no matter self-serving actuality they wished and stay completely unaccountable for his or her crimes.”

Oily politics

The cruelest irony of the Ukraine warfare, wrote Aaron David Miller, is that “whilst President Joe Biden’s administration stands up for Ukraine within the face of Russia’s aggression and preaches the values of democracy and freedom, it’s underneath growing stress to make good and reduce offers with authoritarians.”

With oil costs growing, the warfare has deepened concern about provides from “three authoritarian petro-states (Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and the UAE) and elevated the urgency of attending to a nuclear settlement with a fourth, Iran.”

Biden selected to “make the combat for democracy the central ingredient of his international coverage — a grand battle with authoritarians for management within the 21st century.” However whilst he opposes Putin’s warfare, Miller wrote, he has to reckon with “laborious, chilly pursuits” as he decides the best way to take care of autocrats who can management the move of oil. “America’s interests will continue to take precedence over values.”

Spring ahead no extra?

With many People nonetheless adjusting to final weekend’s time shift, the Senate handed the Sunshine Safety Act Tuesday to make Daylight Saving Time everlasting. Earlier than the vote, Sens. Edward J. Markey and Marco Rubio wrote, “The results of darker afternoons on our psychological and bodily well being may be critical. The biannual transition of ‘spring ahead’ and ‘fall again’ disrupts circadian sleeping patterns, causing confusion, sleep disturbances and even an elevated risk to heart health.”

“The speed of coronary heart assaults spikes by 24% within the days following ‘spring ahead’ in March, in line with a 2014 examine from the College of Michigan.” They argued that there are additionally financial and psychological well being advantages from a everlasting shift to DST.

Within the Washington Publish, Dana Milbank described the Senate’s passage of the invoice as an accident. “There have been no hearings, no dialogue, no debate, and no vote,” he wrote. “It simply occurred, as a result of no person objected — largely as a result of many senators did not even comprehend it was occurring.”

“Reporting by The Publish’s Paul Kane and BuzzFeed’s Paul McLeod signifies Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), prime Republican on the commerce committee, had deliberate to object to the ‘unanimous consent’ request to go what he calls ‘unhealthy laws,’ however determined to not on the final minute as a result of he is centered on extra urgent issues, such because the warfare in Ukraine.”

“In other words, it’s Vladimir Putin’s fault that our clocks may change.”

Now it is as much as the Home and President Biden to resolve if the invoice will change into regulation.

‘Turning Pink’

Within the Pixar movie “Turning Pink,” anytime the lead character “will get riled up, she transforms right into a cuddly, gigantic purple panda.” As Vanessa Hua wrote, “‘Turning Pink’ makes the struggles of this explicit 13-year-old common as she learns who she is and desires to be — in the end embracing her purple panda exuberance.”

“The movie is among the many many films and novels launched lately that painting characters of Asian descent as totally human — flawed, eccentric and dreaming of a much bigger life…” Such depictions resonate at a time when hate incidents in opposition to Asian People and Pacific Islanders have spiked. It has been a yr for the reason that Atlanta spa shootings, through which a White gunman killed eight individuals, six of whom have been ladies of Asian descent. Prosecutors are treating the case as a hate crime.

“We can’t let up on protesting, organizing and voting. We should proceed to help victims and enhance psychological well being companies, and tackle systemic racism and sexism,” wrote Hua. “‘Turning Red’ gives me hope, though, in its captivating challenge to stereotypes that may typically lead individuals to view Asian People as ‘different’ — step one towards concentrating on them.”

For extra:

Govs. J.B. Pritzker and Phil Murphy: We can’t address anti-AAPI hate without improving K-12 education

March insanity

Christmas morning cannot examine with Michael Croley‘s favourite time of yr, the primary weekend of March Insanity. “Earlier than the web, Dad introduced brackets house from his workplace for us to fill out — all the time Xeroxed copies from the Monday version of Lexington Herald-Chief,” Croley wrote. “Once I was ten, I gained, and Dad introduced house all of the money and handed it to me.”

“I like the match for all the explanations any sports activities fan loves the match, however as I’ve gotten older, I do know that I love the tournament because of these memories and how it kept me close to my brother and our father. And we have been already very shut.”

Croley’s older brother Tim typically shared the ritual of watching the NCAA match with him, as they munched on wings and rooted for the College of Kentucky’s Wildcats so long as they have been nonetheless in it.

A yr in the past, Croley added, “As Tim’s well being worsened, neither of us crammed out a bracket. We watched the video games and we texted. I did not know then that I might by no means fill out a bracket once more. I did not know then that I might by no means spend one other lengthy day with him, watching video games deep into the evening, barely in a position to preserve our eyes open however nonetheless at it as a result of it was March, a recreation was in additional time and a 13-seed had a 4-seed on the ropes.

“I hoped in opposition to what widespread sense and medical science instructed us since he was first recognized with lung most cancers as a result of hope was all we had left by then.”

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Jeffrey Toobin: Iowa and New Hampshire’s preposterous reign over the Democratic primaries may soon end

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AND…

Dangerous enterprise

Title your streaming service, choose your story of fakery and enterprise gone improper:

Hulu: “The Dropout”

Apple TV+: “WeCrashed”

Showtime: “Tremendous Pumped”

Netflix: “Inventing Anna”

HBOMax: “Succession”

The newest episode of “The Dropout” featured actor Amanda Seyfried, who performs Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, proclaiming that her firm was “a faith.” The fictional Apple+ collection “Severance” made it clearer than ever final week that the mysterious Lumon firm is a cult whereas a trailer for “WeCrashed” confirmed its protagonist Adam Neumann of WeWork, performed by Jared Leto, evaluating himself to God.

a couple of of those exhibits via the lens of historical past, Nicole Hemmer wrote that the themes they discover aren’t completely new, discovering antecedents in Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” the 1955 novel “The Man within the Grey Flannel Swimsuit” and movies and exhibits together with “The Workplace” and “Workplace House.”

However there’s a distinction. Reveals like “The Dropout” and “WeCrashed,” Hemmer noticed, “characterize a damning examination of the Silicon-Valley-centered, venture-capital-funded economic system. The tales are ready-made for dramatization, tales of hubris and extra that hurtle towards an inevitable crash. However in addition they reveal a deep nervousness concerning the new economic system, a way that, on the finish of the day, it creates overnight billionaires but little of lasting value.”

Traders appear “to haven’t any method of discerning the distinction between visionary and fantastical, and … the least scrupulous stroll away with probably the most cash, even after their ventures fail. After all, enterprise capital additionally fuels the businesses that succeed.”

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