8:38 p.m. Seven Oscars for “Everything Everywhere All at Once” — let the backlash begin! Just kidding. No matter the film, sweeps are always a mixed bag — a bit hard on the live audience (so many films left behind), a bit boring for the television audience (so many speeches by the same people), but it’s always amazing when a movie that is so beloved by the audience finds that echoed at the Oscars. Mary McNamara in the Los Angles Times  

“The world is opening up to the fact genius does not stem from individuals like us, standing on stage. Genius emerges from the collective. We are all products of our context.” Daniel Kwan, I think, although it is possible that it was Daniel Scheinert, one of the Daniels – as they call themselves – during their acceptance speech of the Best Director Oscar for ,

We got hit with another only-once-in-a-hundred-years- storm several days ago; it was one week to the day after the last once-in-a-hundred-years- storm. This time the rain gauge registered four inches of rain over about three days. Until then, I was planning on writing about the Academy Awards, but, both times, our power was knocked out (and the second time, we had no water). Usually, our power outages are in the summer when the days are long, the nights short and warm, and the Diablo winds are blowing from the Sierras to the Pacific. This time, it was very wet and freezing (OK, 44°may is not freezing for everybody, but it is freezing for us, although inside the house, it only got down to the mid 50°s). I don’t remember this ever happening before, but Michele reminds me that about 30 years ago, we were growing? babysitting? collecting? Killifish and we had to heat water on the stove to keep their tanks warm. She doesn’t remember, but the indications point to a winter blackout.

Whether this happened in the winter before or not, we were miserable in the cold dark. At one point, over working on a puzzle by camping light, one of us said, “how could this be more miserable?” The other answered something like, “Well, if we were in Kyiv, the windows could be blown out with it snowing outside.” “And no fireplace or gas stove…” “…and Russians randomly shooting rockets at us.” Trying to put together a puzzle in dim light may not be optimal, but it is almost infinitely more manageable than what some people, my age or older, are going through right now in Ukraine.

We had no TV, but we had the Academy Awards to think about, and I love the Academy Awards even when it is a bit boring. This year, it did help that the only horse I had in the game was Everything Everywhere All At Once, and, this year’s Academy Awards were mostly about Everything Everywhere All At Once.  I have no idea if it was the best movie released last year, but it was the best movie I saw and Michele and I saw several good movies (we even saw Top Gun on the big screen).

Except for Tár and Elvis, both of which we want to see and hope to see soon, we saw all the Best Picture nominees. The Fabelmans, All Quiet on the Western Front, and Top Gun: Maverick were all good movies, but none of them seemed to me to be what I would call Award Movies. Still, they were typical Award Movies back when The Academy used to only like big-budget movies made by prominent directors with big stars. That’s changed, however, this year, Everything Everywhere All At Once won -duh! – last year, the winner was CODA, and before that, Nomadland, and before that, Parasite.

The last two movies nominated for Best Picture did fit the new paradigm, Women Talking, which I thought was excellent, and The Banshees of Inisherin. We saw The Banshees of Inisherin primarily because it was Irish and Michele has been on an Irish kick recently by way of preparation for going to Ireland this summer. Banshees starts charmingly and we – I, at least – sort of expected a homier version of In Bruges but it isn’t. Banshees is more of a parable of the Irish Civil War which we can often hear in the background. Watching the movie, the sad and senseless actions by the characters seemed to only escalate the conflict, so I guess it is an effective parable for war but it was not my favorite movie by far.

The week before the Academy Awards, we watched Everything Everywhere All At Once again and loved it. In a way, it is a throwback to big Hollywood movies like Titanic and Gladiator, but it is also intimate and, in the end, very moving. Michelle Yeoh, as expected, was terrific in the lead, but Jamie Lee Curtis and Ke Huy Quan were also great. If you haven’t seen it, check it out.

President Putin’s craven lust for land and power will fail.  And the Ukrainian people’s love for their country will prevail. Democracies of the world will stand guard over freedom today, tomorrow, and forever.  For that is what’s at stake here: freedom. Excerpt from a February 22, 2023 President Biden speech in Poland.

The Luhansk People’s Republic has been liberated from the neo-Nazis almost completely. Fighting in the Donetsk People’s Republic continues. Over the previous eight years, the Kyiv occupation regime created a deeply echeloned line of permanent defenses. A head-on attack against them would have led to heavy losses, which is why our units, as well as the forces of the Donbas republics, are acting competently and systematically, using military equipment and saving lives, moving step by step to liberate Donbas, purge cities and towns of the neo-Nazis, and help the people whom the Kyiv regime turned into hostages and human shields. Excerpt from a speech by Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered on Wednesday, February 22, 2023.

Today I would like to praise the warriors of the 15th regiment of the National Guard who are defending the Luhansk region and not only defending our positions, but also destroying the enemy in such a way that they are really limiting the offensive capabilities of the invaders in a particular direction. Thank you, guys!..In the area of Maryinka in the Donetsk region, the warriors of the 79th separate air assault brigade are particularly effective, holding off enemy attacks every day and night. Almost half of all attacks in this area take place in that area. Our warriors stand strong. Thank you! Excerpt from a speech by President Zelenskyy on February 22, 2023.

This horrible war by Russia has been going on for over a year with no end in sight. I want to comment on the war, if for no other reason than to mark the anniversary, but what is there to say that people who know more than I do haven’t already said? This is the most documented war in history, everybody has a video camera, and hundreds, probably, thousands of people are recording their daily lives, both on and behind the front.

I do want to comment on the first sentence in the paragraph above, however, in which the most horrifying part is no end in sight. When the American Civil War started, people in the North thought it would not last very long. They thought the war’s end was just one decisive battle away, but four years later, the same people thought, “Just one more battle.” I don’t know, but I suspect that all wars seem like they will be over soon when they start. And, sometimes, that may be true, but not usually, and not in this war. Usually, the wars go on and on until both sides are exhausted, and one side is decimated, then, maybe, only six months more. The countryside is left in ruins, and the people that are left are traumatized. As much as I don’t want it to be true, the Ukrainian war will be no different.

When Ukraine stopped the initial Russian attack, a year ago, and then drove several Russian elite units back across the border, it seemed to me that the war would be over soon, just like the Northerners before the Civil War, I thought that with just one more decisive battle, the war might be over. The needless terrorizing of random Ukrainians might stop. In early May, with the Battle of Kharkiv, then again in September with the Russian rout, it seemed an Ukrainian victory was just around the corner. Now, a year after it started, it looks like this war will go on forever. It seems everybody is digging in for the long term, and the killing will go on.

All this butchery because of a violent sociopath who is intent on destroying the whole of Ukraine rather than what? being wrong? being embarrassed? Pretty much all Putin has left is to push untrained, poorly led, and under-equipped troops into the Killing Zone, where tens of thousands are being slaughtered by the better-trained and superbly led Ukrainian Army. According to David Petraeus, former CIA director and US Army general, Putin thinks that Russia can out suffer the West. Of course he is not the one suffering. Don’t get me wrong, Putin is still scary and what makes him scary is that he seems to believe his own bullshit.

He is wrong, however. Ukraine will out suffer Russia. I have no doubt about this. Ukrainians have no choice but to take all the suffering that Russia can deal out; they have nowhere to go. However, that is not the only reason Ukraine will win; they are killing Russians at a much higher rate than Russia is killing them; Ukrainians are much more motivated, and the Ukrainians have higher morale. Russia is stuck in the past, refighting WWII and Ukraine is the future. Slava Ukraini!

A faith is not acquired by reasoning. One does not fall in love with a woman, or enter the womb of a church, as a result of logical persuasion. Reason may defend an act of faith-but only after the act has been committed, and the man committed to the act. Persuasion may playa part in a man’s conversion; but only the part of bringing to its full and conscious climax a process which has been maturing in regions where no persuasion can penetrate. A faith is not acquired; it grows like a tree. Its crown points to the sky; its roots grow downward into the past and are nourished by the dark sap of the ancestral humus. One of my favorite paragraphs is this one by Arthur Koestler in Darkness at Noon

By the time the Superbowl LVII – 57 in real numbers – started, I was pretty much convinced Philadelphia would win. That’s what most of the experts were saying, anyway, and the only games I saw this year were several playoff games, so I didn’t have much to go on. The Eagles looked terrific against the New York Football Giants – as Howard Cosell used to call them – and against the quarterback-less Niners, but because they did lose to the Cowboys in December, I thought it was possible the Chiefs could beat them. I really had no basis on which to make a prediction, so thought is probably the wrong word; hoped is perhaps more accurate.

I wasn’t always this apathetic about football; I used to follow it religiously. That was back before the AFL/NFL merger. In 1966, I moved to Oakland, where I fell in love with the Raiders and then the American Professional Football League. From its founding in 1959 to the merger in 1970, the American League were the scrappy underdogs, the revolutionaries, the change-bringers, going up against the established and staid National Football Empire. I even had season tickets, although my passion was not enough to paint my house silver, like a neighbor’s.

Although I never considered him a father figure, my stepfather, Sherry, and I bonded over football. Sherry was a nice guy, in a formal, courtly, way, who married my mother while I was stationed in Korea. He got me my first indoor job, but we never knew each other very well until our football bonding. Sherry also had season tickets, in his case, for the 49ers, the Establishment. This was back when the Niners were playing at Kezar Stadium. We each took the other to a game at the rival’s home stadium several times a year. It wasn’t really an equal trade, however, my stepfather’s tickets were fifteen rows up on the forty-five-yard line in the intimate Kezar, and mine were on the twenty-yard line all the way up, towards the back of the third deck in the much bigger Oakland Colosseum. From Sherry’s seats, we could hear Johnny Unitas calling the signals; from my seats, it was a little like watching the game on TV but with more collective emotion.

Each of us thought our team was better or, at least, more fun to watch. I didn’t see the first AFL-NFL World Championship, as it was then called, when the Green Bay Packers stuffed Kansas City by 25 points. My excuse was that the Raiders were out of the championship, and it was ski season. To Sherry, who did see the game, it proved the Established National League was better than the upstart American League. Even though I hadn’t seen the game, I still had an opinion, and to me, all the game proved was that Green Bay was the best team in football. That one game did not prove that the entire NFL was better. Even when, a year later, in a game, I did see Green Bay maul another AFL team, this time, the Oakland Raiders, I still held that position. I guess I still do.

Even after the end of the third Championship game, The New York Jets Soundly Beating the Mighty Baltimore Colts Game, both Sherry and I remained locked into our belief that our league was better. Although we were both surprised that the Jets had won, it was for different reasons. At best, I thought the Jets were the third-best team in the AFL, and Sherry, who believed the AFL was inferior, thought the Jets winning was just a fluke (although he said it much more diplomatically).

During the third Championship game, Sherry called me when the Jets scored first – I think he was in shock – and we decided, then and there, to get together for the next Championship game, which was to be the last before the merger in which the American Football League would disappear into the NFL. From today’s perspective, it seems strange that Sherry and I had never watched a game on TV together, but it was a different time. Going to a football game together was an upscale social activity; we wore ties, of course, but rather than a suit, we wore sports jackets – do people even use that term anymore? it’s just like a suit, but the jacket and pants don’t match – and Sherry brought a leather case with a bottle of wine and four glasses (and, I think, sandwiches). But my mother didn’t like football, and if Sherry watched a game on TV, it was alone, down in the basement, which, theoretically, was his den.

As an aside, the Kansas City Chiefs were representing the soon to be gone AFL and their coach was Hank Stram, a short 5’7″, round guy who was funny in a cute sort of way and was the most successful coach in the AFL. In an experiment, NFL Films wired Stram during the game to be used in the highlight films (which I watched several times, probably more than is healthy, actually). My favorite Stram quote from the highlight film is : “C’mon Lenny! Pump it in there, baby! Just keep matriculating the ball down the field, boys!” Stram used the term Super for things he liked all the time, much like I use great, I guess. Anyway, while answering some question about how good the game would be, if it were going to be as good as the Orange Bowl or Rose Bowl? He answered along the lines of “It’ll be better than the Orange Bowl or Rose Bowl, it will be a “Super Bowl”. The uptight NFL didn’t like that name, they preferred World Championship Game but Super Bowl stuck. End aside.

As planned a year earlier, we went to my mother and Sherry’s house for the fourth game. The get together was another coat and tie affair, just like a real game, except in their very formal living room. We sat on French provincial chairs around, probably, a 21″ TV built in to a cabinet with a record player, and quietly rooted our team on. To honor the occasion, my mother had gone down to Fisherman’s Wharf to buy fresh crab and we had a lovely crab salad with white wine, in the dining room during the halftime break. It was my first Super Bowl Party and I still think crab is the perfect thing to serve on Super Bowl Sunday.

As an American Football League fan, the game was almost perfect. The Vikings took the opening kickoff, ran a couple of sets of plays, and punted. The Chiefs took the ball downfield for 42 yards in eight plays, and the Chiefs’ placekicker, Jan Stenerud, kicked a record 48-yard field goal from about the same place the Vikings had punted (Stenerud kicked soccer style, which the NFL had never seen before). As expected, it was a defensive game with one side being clearly superior, except that the vaulted Minnesota defensive, with the The Purple People Eaters front line, wasn’t that side. The Chiefs’ defense dominated by forcing three interceptions, recovering two fumbles, and by limiting the Minnesota offense to only 67 rushing yards.

The Washington Post said, in its coverage of the game, In 1969, football fans waited expectantly, if vainly, for the Baltimore Colts to overtake the New York Jets. Today the 80,997 witnesses in Tulane Stadium awaited only the final gun, so total was the Chiefs’ domination. and that statement was super accurate for Sherry. I had great fun Watching Kansas City dominate Minnesota; Sherry did not. To me, it proved the new guys on the block were better, and their new way of playing was better; to Sherry, it was an anomaly. Deep down in his bones, he knew the old NFL was the better League. And so did the old NFL team owners and coaches. The old AFL/new AFC won all but four of the first fifteen Super Bowls; Green Bay won the first two, and Dallas won two more spread out over the next thirteen years. The old owners couldn’t adjust. They couldn’t change because, at their core, they thought – more than thought, they knew –that they were playing football the best way; all they had to do was do it better.

I have not posted anything in way too many days. A couple of days ago, I was given a short questionnaire for the California Advance Health Care Act in Pulmonary Rehab, and it made me proud to be a Californian. It is simple and straightforward and I wanted to write about it, and how different California is from the red states, but I was tongue-tied.

I collected a couple of Tweets from California’s Governor Gavin Newsom, Governor Ron DeSantis, and Governor Greg Abbott to show the difference, and all they did was make me sad before they scared me, that is.

Ilhan Omar got kicked off of the House Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday. It was still a shock even though everybody knew it was coming. And it is also a shame Ilhan is an excellent organizer, legislator, and one of the few people, if not the only person, in Congress that has any idea of what our foreign policy looks like from the other side. She was kicked off because, according to Speaker McCarthy, she is an antisemite, which would be laughable – she is backed by every progressive Jewish organization I know – if it weren’t so serious.

Don’t take my word for it, in an editorial in The New York Times, entitled When Ilhan Omar Asks Questions, Her Colleagues Should Listen by Peter Beinart. Beinart says:

Across the world, many people encounter American foreign policy when they see a drone flying overhead, a hospital that U.S. sanctions have deprived of medicine or a dictator’s troops carrying American-made guns. Ms. Omar asks the kinds of questions that these non-Americans — whether they reside in Pakistan, Cuba or Cameroon — might ask were they seated across from the officials who direct America’s awesome power. She translates between Washington and the outside world. More often than not, she does so alone.

I’m going to finish and get this posted before another day goes by with a Tweet Thread that moved me. It is by Maria Drutska, whom I’ve been following on Twitter, among several others, to get a hint of what it must feel like to be in Ukraine. Drutska identifies herself as working in Ukraine’s defense sector.

You know, I was thinking about the beginning of war, and the invasion of Kyiv, & I thought about how much went right for us that Ukraine is standing today and fighting. Remember, Ukraine was supposed to have fallen in one week, two at the maximum. Most of the population didn’t believe russia would try to take Kyiv. But, try they did. I remember clearly on Feb 23rd, knowing that something would happen, but confident that there was no way they would come for my Kyiv – I mean, how could they? It’s Kyiv for fucks sake!

On Feb 24th, we woke up to the sound of russian bombs & disinformation Their media told us that they had disabled the Ukrainian airforce within a couple of hours, that were marching forward as a well oiled machine, that our soldiers refused to fight, that our government fled. That first day, we were so close to panic. We didn’t know what was going on there. There were lines of cars miles long trying to leave Kyiv. Then, we heard (again from russian propaganda) that they had already taken Hostomel, and they were coming for Kyiv. They told us no one would help us, and they were coming to liberate us. They told us they wanted to protect us from the nazis, and only they could save us. They even started spreading lies that they had already takenChernihiv, Sumy, & others in the East & the South.

Moreover, our pleas for weapons to defend ourselves mostly fell on deaf ears. There was talk about a Ukrainian insurgency in the future, as if Ukraine had already fallen; some gave us Javelins, NLAWs and a few other basic things, but, Ukraine was seemingly alone & unarmed. The world spoke about a Ukrainian government in exile; that our victory was impossible. Then we heard & saw the Wagner / Kadyrovite death squads were already in Kyiv, hunting down government officials, and anyone who would resist. And we heard about their kill lists.

I will not lie! The 24th was a dark, dark, dark day! There were so many collaborators – from military & intelligence leaders, to ordinary people! Those bastard traitors! They would signal where the russian bombs would fall! May Hell be the best place they ever see!

Lies, all lies! Our leaders, despite what we may might have thought of them, had not abandoned us. They were with us! Our soldiers did not lay down their arms! Despite the overwhelming superiority the russians had in weapons, soldiers, equipment, our warriors FOUGHT! Hostomel oh Hostomel! We learned that it had not fallen! Our superhuman soldiers gave everything to stop the russian VDV and spetznats – that they were destroying them! Eternal glory to our warriors! Everything in the world is not enough to thank them for what they did!

Report after report came that first day that russia had not met any of their aims – they had been slowed down, and though the enemy was huge, Ukraine was putting up a fight. The images. I think it was on the first day, or maybe the second, but we heard the recording of our warriors on Snake Island, in the face of imminent death shouting the immortal “russian warship, Go FUCK YOURSELF” (fortunately those soldiers are alive, though we feared the worst) of destroyed russian tanks flooded Telegram – we knew then that we would not make it easy.

Zelensky’s battle cry “I need ammo, not a ride” was heard by every Ukrainian. Ukraine had finally arrived. The heart of a lion, the strength of an ox, and the ferociousness of a pack of hungry wolves. Ukrainians, whether in Kherson, or in Kharkiv, or in Kyiv, lined up in their tens of thousands to sign up to defend Ukraine from the russian terrorists. So many signed up, that Ukraine didn’t actually have the guns to give them! Videos of this were everywhere!

Meanwhile, total curfew was setup in Kyiv. Systematically, the saboteurs & collaborators were destroyed, or captured. To be perfectly honest, it’s a good thing so many Kyivians left during the first 2 or 3 days of war. Kyiv is a peacetime city of 3 million, but it was down to 1 million very quickly after the start of the war. Though our economy was hit, it meant fewer civilians to feed, house, and protect. And fewer places for collaborators and saboteurs to hide. We stocked up on food, and water, not knowing what would happen. Honestly, if we’d known then what russians would do to civilians in Irpin, Bucha, Mariupol, Iziyum, and so many other places, perhaps we really would have panicked. But, we didn’t know, & we didn’t panic. Every Ukrainian played a role.

Blood for our soldiers was donated, civilians prepared Molotov Cocktails to fight off russian tanks(!) children raised money for soldiers, the city was covered in hedgehogs, bridges were destroyed to stop a potential russian attack. Kyiv was mostly cleared of the saboteurs, but there was a huge military column, with some reports saying it was 60KM long with thousands of tanks and soldiers, coming for Kyiv. We could hear the gunfire in the streets, and went to sleep to the sound of bombs at night.

Kyiv was ready for a seige, expecting russian tanks from every direction. But tried as they could, our soldiers held them back at Hostomel, denying russia the base it needed! Slava Ukraini! The column of russians had stalled – armed with Javelins, NLAWs and Snipers, small teams of our elite soldiers were picking them off one by one. The attacks from Sumy (by civilians!) and Chernihiv were not moving, and russians dug trenches in radioactive soil in Chernobyl. I’ll never forget that video of the woman giving russian soldiers sunflower seeds, telling them to put them in their pockets so that sunflowers would grow after their deaths. Others showed unarmed civilians stopping russian tanks Heroyam Slava!

The Ukrainian air force was not only not destroyed, but led by the Ghost of Kyiv, was defending our skies, and protecting us each day and night. Those days, I remember the sound of gunfire all day, & fell asleep to the sound of russian artillery and bombs Slava Natsie!

After the shock of the first day, it became clear really quickly that Ukraine would not only fight, but Ukraine would do everything to win, because we understood very clearly that if we lost, we would not just lose a war, we’d lose Ukraine Smert Voroham! Those first few days are a complete blur for me, everything happened so fast. But I do think about how much went right for us – leadership, military, people, unity, russian incompetence… Doesn’t matter. What matters is that everything will be Ukraine.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a radical dreamer with a bold vision for revolutionary change. But he was a man before he became a martyr. A beloved father, husband, and son. As we reflect on his life and legacy, let’s not forget his humanity. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley@RepPressley Proudly serving the Massachusetts 7th.

Dr. King spoke of “the fierce urgency of now,” noting that we cannot wait for change. It’s this urgency we all should move with to ensure justice and equity for all. Today, may we remember Dr. King’s fight for justice rooted in love and liberation. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib@RepRashida Unapologetic Congresswoman fighting for justice for all. Proudly representing Michigan’s 12th District in the People’s House.

Today, we honor the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by continuing his unfinished work to redeem the soul of America. President Biden@POTUS·United States government official .

A year ago I wrote: Dr. Martin Luther King was not treated very well by us White people while he was alive. As Representative Ayanna Pressley said: “Dr. King wasn’t murdered because he was a preacher, pacifist with a dream, that is revisionist history. He was murdered because he was a radical disruptor of the status quo, considered by the FBI & white America to be a threat to our country. The FBI even tried to blackmail him, suggesting that he kill himself. He didn’t become an American hero until after he was dead and no longer a threat to White supremacy.” Today is a good day to remember that.

Today is still a good day to remember that.