An act of murderous petulance

My Sunday viewing was the first two episodes of Sweet Tooth on Netflix. It is the story of a pandemic so bad it brings down civilization. About the same time all children are born with some aspect of an animal – the snout and ears of a pig on one child, feather covered arms on another, furry tail on a third and so on. Society grapples with whether the hybrid kids caused the virus that killed a high percentage of humanity (and are thus worth tracking down and killing) or the virus produced the hybrid kids. Gus is one of the first of such kids. He has antlers, ears, and sense of smell of a deer (the promo says half-human, half-deer, but this much isn’t half). While Gus is still an infant his father takes him to a compound in the woods to keep him safe while he grows up. But when Gus is ten an unfortunate fire attracts the bad men to the compound and Gus is no longer safe. In a way, this is a gay story. Or, to turn that around, gay stories are like stories such as this one of people who are different and have to deal with others who don’t want them around. The series is based on trio of graphic novels by Jeff Lemire. When the Netflix series came out last summer there were eight episodes in season 1 covering (I assume) the first book. I see now there are 16 episodes. In addition to Gus and his safety, the show has featured a former doctor using treatments to keep his wife alive and discovering the human cost of those treatments. There is also a woman who lives at the Zoo (all the animals already freed) and discovers one of these hybrid children at her entrance. But she’s had only about 10 minutes of story time so far. I probably won’t watch the rest of the first season. A story in which the driving conflict is relentless bad men with big guns coming after the lead character is not my idea of a good time. Fending off Ultimate Evil has gotten stale. I’d much rather have a story of conflict on a small scale (in which the evil doesn’t need to be vanquished and eliminated) or a story of inner conflict. Or this story could have been about overcoming the collapse of civilization, how plucky people build a community. That’s a common Science Fiction storyline. Since a good amount of Science Fiction published these days is all about defeating Ultimate Evil I haven’t been buying and reading as much Science fiction. An example of a story driven by inner conflict is the novel Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman. Yeah, there is a movie by that name and based on this book released in 2017, which I saw and enjoyed. When I saw the author had a sequel I bought both books. It is a coming of age story of Elio. He and his family have an estate on the Italian Riviera, and Papa the professor invites a grad student to come each summer for six weeks to help him in his research and to do some of their own as they live with the family and enjoy the town and sea. The summer Elio is 17 the student is Oliver from America, who is 24. Elio spends the first half of the book trying to figure out his attraction to Oliver, whether Oliver attracted to him, and what he wants to do about it. Compared to the movie, in the book Elio seems more smitten, obsessed, and conflicted. He seems to over analyze what’s going on, even when he and Oliver actually become lovers (spoiler alert? Hmm. The two of them together are on the cover of the book (which is the movie poster) – and you have seen the movie, haven’t you?). The end of the book goes further than the end of the movie. It goes so far I wondered why the author bothered with a sequel – or how much of the last 20 pages will be stretched into 250 pages of a novel. In a Ukraine update from Saturday Mark Sumner of Daily Kos noted there hadn’t been major attacks on either side, just small movements. There were also three missiles thrown at Odesa, which is away from the active fronts.

Putin’s war was always a war of conquest. As the days go past, Russian attacks meet ever more resistance, and more civilian areas are targeted for destruction by a frustrated Russian military, the whole story about those “independent republics” [of Donbas] is being discarded. ... Throwing cruise missiles at Odesa isn’t a military tactic. It’s an act of murderous petulance. For all the damage it causes, it’s an expression of how powerless Russia is to actually take the things it wants from Ukraine.

War In Ukraine tweeted:

Russians started forced mobilization on occupied territories of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv regions – Ukrainian intelligence.

Which prompted Sumner to ask:

Exactly how is this supposed to work? Step 1) Take someone prisoner after bombing and shelling their homes. Step 2) Give them a rifle. Step 3) ????

On Sunday Kos of Kos discussed a plan that was broadcast on Russian state TV on how Russia would conquer the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, all formerly oppressed by the Soviet Union. Kos went through the plan point by point and laid out how absurd each step was. I’ll only mention the first point. Russia would inflict a massive radio-electronic strike that would stop all communication and cause NATO radars to go blind. Kos responded that if Russia had such a capability they would have already used it in Ukraine. But it wouldn’t have worked because NATO has so many other ways to assess what is going on. And that isn’t the most absurd. These three countries are members of NATO. Attacking NATO is entirely different than attacking Ukraine. So why did Russian state TV – the mouthpiece of the Russian government – say such things? I also wonder why detail such a plan when they know the West monitors what the state TV says and would thus have ample time to spoil that plan? Kos wrote:

This fantasy conquest of the Baltic countries is symptomatic of Russian thinking—that its former colonies long for more of the same oppression and wouldn’t fight back, would welcome them with open arms. And while anyone who understands the actual military capabilities of NATO vis a vis Russia knows this is laughable stupid, the Russian people don’t. Ukraine was an easy “special military operation.” Russia is so mighty and powerful, that it would similarly be easy to conquer the Baltic states. And Russia’s populace, suffering from economic stagnation, are thrilled to wave the colonialist Soviet flag. War has always been a great distraction for domestic discontent.