Zoriana’s birthday. School is a hard slog. Not much new about war or covid.

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Today is Zoriana’s fifth birthday. We went shopping for roller blades on Saturday. She has worn them around the house every morning since. Obviously a well-chosen present. She is to the point where she is able to walk all over, even up and down the stairs, without falling down. Next step will be to go outdoors and see if she can actually skate.

She also got a pair of new shoes. This is a big deal – babysitter Anna was so good at buying used stuff that she could not recall ever getting new ones. She spent a long time picking them out and treats them as something special. That alone justifies the price.

September is a hard time for schoolchildren. Although Eddie had assignments all through August, not too many got done and we didn't press him much. Now it's time to get serious.

Kids in public school spend the first week or so getting re-acclimated. It's a time of review before things get serious. I am not giving Eddie that sort of a break. He already knows what he needs to do.

The first chapter of math was a review. He understood the material but made stupid mistakes. That's his weakness – he doesn't check his work. It took three days to do a one day assignment.

The next two assignments were so easy we just did them orally. In the buildup to studying prime numbers, they had him identify by sight numbers that are divisible by two, five and 10.  Duh!  He has known the difference between odd and even numbers for a couple of years now. Not knowing where it was going, I told him the way to tell immediately if a number is divisible by three or nine: the sum of the digits is a multiple of three or nine.

It turned out that was the next chapter, so we did that one orally as well. The following chapter, however, has some substance. It is getting into prime numbers. I am sure that they are building to prime factors. We are also getting into division with remainders. That's Eddie's assignment for today. Looking at three, four, and five digit numbers to figure out as easily as possible whether or not they are prime.

The assignment I have given myself is to read his biology book.  Ukraine is smart – all of the textbooks are available online for free download.  I have previously mentioned that I'm impressed at the level of work they expect from the kids. This presents a challenge for me as a teacher. I have to read the book and understand it. I have spent the last couple of days reading 15 pages of Ukrainian.

The way a person learns a foreign language depends on how they're going to use it. With every other language the requirement has been first to speak it. With Ukrainian it is reading and writing. Everybody I deal with speaks English or at least tolerates my Russian. Eddie's textbooks, however, are only in Ukrainian. I must perforce learn the language in order to teach him.

I am impressed to note that the primary language here in Kyiv has changed from Russian to Ukrainian just over the course of the time I have been here. There was not much anti-Russian sentiment until 2014. There was fear, resentment and anger after Russia took over Crimea and the People's Republics. There was certainly no love for the Russians even there, but what was left of Ukraine seemed to be viable.

The Russians are now forcing the men in these occupied areas to join the Russian army, something they have no desire to do. It is patently unfair. Putin knows better than to try to force the young men of his major cities – Moscow and Petersburg – to fight this stupid war. But he has no compunction about using the men of the recently conquered areas. This includes the men who are left in Mariupol, Melitopol and other parts of the South that fell only this year.

Throughout history Russia has brutally forced soldiers to fight, giving them a choice between facing the enemy in front of them and armed enforcers standing behind them in case they thought about retreat. It is not an effective way to motivate men. Russia doesn't care – it considers them expendable in any case. Russia’s brutality in this war will be remembered for generations.

You may have noticed that Bob Homans paradoxically has less and less to say about the war as it heats up. We assume there's a lot going on but we just don't know what it is. Reports from optimists such as Denys Davydov give us cautious encouragement.

There is similar news on the Covid/vaccination front. The needle brigade hasn't given up, but fewer and fewer people are signing up for the jabs. Britain just made the common sense decision to stop mandating them – even stop giving them – to young children. The shots are available in Ukraine but there is no pressure to take them.

There is also a strange stillness in Washington prior to the elections. The pundits say that Biden presented the Republicans with a very fat target with his recent “red” speech. I agree with David Cole's assessment that they don't seem to know what to do with it.

Team reality has its own problems. Robert Malone has been granted a bully pulpit by his standing up against the establishment. Many who should be his allies are questioning his position, some calling him "controlled opposition." I find it disheartening, especially coming from Peter and Ginger Breggin, whose book I really liked. If I'm forced to take sides in this internecine squabble, I would tend to pick the Robert Malone /Peter McCullough /Mattias Desmet side. But I really don't want to.

I'm spending my time putting together a video, now entitled The New Normal and the Meaning of Life.   The dramatic changes forced on us over the past three years are no more than in acceleration of changes that have been being forced for several decades. I don't think we are going to be able to hold back the tide. I have written that I agree with Ed Dutton that this is a matter of evolution.  Toby Rogers offers another suggestion that is at least worth reading – American politics is so bizarre because it's actually just two large groups of vaccine injured people fighting against each other.

The Meaning of Life video points out that only a minority of us seem to be terribly interested in having children. Even among those who do, people who want the children to be like themselves and to carry on a society are a minority.

There are two convergent forces. The global vaccination campaign is, at least to some degree, killing and sterilizing people many of whom didn't want to have children in the first place. Their interests in life are for the most part different than mine. That's why it makes sense to outline my interests before I go into two subsequent videos about how the changes that are taking place now will affect the world my children grow up in, and what Oksana and I and they should do to prepare for the new world to come.

Which brings me full circle. The first thing I should do is prepare my children well.   Today that means studying math, biology, history and geography and learning how to write about the latter three.

That’s the news from Lake WeBeGone, where the good-looking woman is off teaching music to kindergartners, the strong man is slogging through Ukrainian, the boy is off to music lessons, the birthday girl is being celebrated at her kindergarten and grandma is coddling Marianna, who has a sniffle.

Graham