Cancelled books. And music. Naomi's memorial. Springtime outing.
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Amazon is playing games with me. I have posted my review of Women After All four times. It simply disappears. They even don't send me the usual cryptic message telling me that I had violated community standards or something. It is simply gone. Some woke liberal arts major deep in the bowels is disapproving it.
In my opinion, anything that the woke people dislike is definitely worth reading. I point once again to my review on this Substack. I am slowly finishing my review of the much better book Male-Female - the Evolution of Human Sex Differences. Stay tuned. Patiently.
Naomi Wolf wrote about Amazon in her column entitled The Death of Culture – How Lies Killed Books. Independent bookstores used to carry just about everything, including books that the government and the bien pensants thought you should not read, on the theory that we are all adults.
I recently wrote about a Spanish language book printed in Cuba that I had bought extolling the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela. I could have been a wild eyed Marxist, I suppose, but I was simply interested in what they had to say. I have been likewise interested in what Putin's favorite philosopher Alexander Dugin has to say. Even though I panned the book horribly, it I am disappointed that Amazon no longer carries the Fourth Political Theory. Even if just to read my vitriolic prose. Wolf recommends shopping at Barnes and Noble. I can’t - they won’t let me log in from overseas.
Steve Kirsch has a sorrier story. Musician Kylan de Ghetaldi's 16-year archive of music posted on YouTube was scrubbed overnight. What was his sin? This beautiful parody of the Kingston Trio's song from 1959 Charlie on the MTA. Making fun of Anthony Fauci? Sacrilege.
Plans are in place for Naomi's memorial service at St. Patrick's Church in Washington on Saturday. Her uncle John McCleary will read a short statement memories of her on my behalf.
Spring is in the air, and the Russians are far from Kyiv. Yesterday we were able to walk across the low bridge from our Russanovsky Sad to Trukhanov Island. This bridge had been blocked for most of the year while local militias practiced marksmanship in the woods. That's all over. The blackouts also seem to be over. The city of Kyiv cut down street lighting all winter, but is back to normal. The electric trolleys are back in service. More than that, they are running ridiculously frequently to the point that they are almost empty. Making up for lost time?
The bicycle path from Trukhanov Island leads to downtown. Eddie and I bicycled that distance when he was six years old. That's an interesting story. I thought he was following close behind me, but once when I turned around, he was not to be seen. I waited a while but he never showed up. He had gone his own direction. I immediately called Oksana to tell her to make sure that the door was unlocked as I pedaled all over looking for him. I searched high and low to no avail. Just as I was coming home I got a call – Eddie had remembered the way and biked the 3 miles on his own, with some guy helping him carry his bicycle over the train tracks.
I would guess that we will probably bring five-year-old Zoriana with us and make most of that distance this summer. The kids have firm instructions that if they get lost they should stay put in the place where we were last together.
We are also looking forward to canoeing again. The Metro has not stopped at the Soviet era Hydropark amusement center since the beginning of the war. Being closed for a year has to be hard on the concessionaires. I don't see any reason to shutter it this summer – we will see if this returns to normal.
That's the news from Lake WeBeGone, where Marianna spouts a couple of dozen new words every day, Eddie is diligently practicing the piano, and Zoriana's nursery school teachers assure me daily that she is the best reader in the class.
Graham
YouTube is telling all those who cross the line that if you do not do as expected they will delete your entire history. I think Winston in 1984 would understand this. The threat is there, not to delete the one offending transgression but to delete you, entirely. Big Brother and Big Sister, all at the same time. There are alternatives to YouTube but they don't get the eyeballs. How do we break YouTube, that is the question?
They have become a censorship monster.
The tune made it to Rumble https://rumble.com/v2dut1m-mrna-speed-of-science-by-foundring-short-version.html. While YT has become a go-to for DIY stuff, I doubt it will be useful for anything touching politics.
I recall researching years ago the Charlottesville riot because the MSM was not covering it well. I searched YT for citizen recorded videos and found a totally different account about events on the ground. I was perplexed over the actions of the police and national guard. I found many videos that were in conflict with the MSM coverage. Later I found a WaPo article that illustrated the many failures of the police in managing the permitted march by right wing nuts. The violence was not managed. Recent searches find much less as history gets scrubbed away. I did find https://archive.thinkprogress.org/how-police-failed-charlottesville-e191f6eb8e52/ but not as detailed as the WaPo that seems to have disappeared. Also found https://www.propublica.org/article/police-stood-by-as-mayhem-mounted-in-charlottesville and https://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/01/us/charlottesville-riots-failures-review/index.html. Eventually you can find via the Wayback machine, a report https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/c869fb_3e5aaa31f38c4a708afe9375d4cd435b.pdf. I was not able to find the report covered by the WaPo. Much of history appears to be like 1984 - things get redone to suit the latest opinions. Seems that YT has become a bit less useful in a world with much media.