[jacket3ree]

I'm glad this thread is alive.  This is geo-political rather than political and feels, sadly, existential.

For those of us who grew up in the '60s with duck 'n cover and known routes to fallout shelters, it is surreal to watch this threat back in the age of Tik Tok. As a kid I was afraid of two things: rattlesnakes and nuclear holocaust.  Three things: rattlesnakes, nuclear holocaust, and fire drills.  Four things: rattlesnakes, nuclear holocaust, fire drills, and snow tires.  I've experienced three of the four and have no desire to complete the cycle.

My fear of nuclear holocaust was abated by my mother, a Kubrick fan.  Before videos were a thing, she found a midnight showing once and took me.  Wow, this is MAD (and Miss Scott ain't bad). I get it. It'll never happen.  (Read Schlosser's  Command and Control if you want real nuke anxiety.)

Now here we are. It's 1939 Poland with the threat of weapons Hitler was trying to get, but didn't have yet. 

I don't pretend to know what to do other than there is a bright line at NATO borders and if he steps across one of them, the world as we know it is over. Either there is a free pass for anyone to restore historical empires using force, or it will all escalate quickly and we are living on an uninhabitable ball of rock. Is China the key to this?  Global thermonuclear war is bad for business. Can they take him to the side and tell him his backside is officially exposed? Stand down or we'll take care of you?  Maybe a dmz of Russian speaking Donbas and Luhansk (People's Republics of Save the World) for a buffer, now GTFO of Ukraine and stay out.

Political boundaries have certainly shifted over time, but I thought we were done with all that. Dammit.

For now, treat Russia like a pariah state.  Today I paid $6.20 for a gallon.  (Right, Big Oil, your supply changed overnight? Jackals.) I think I saw somewhere that Russia has the economy of Texas.  Who needs them?  (No offense Texas and you have oil too, right?)  Just a giant resource rich version of PRNK. How's that been working out for them? Check out the night view from space between North and South Korea.  My son has been to their dmz on a deployment and went into that border hut. He said the difference is s.t.a.r.k.

I like the stories in this thread of how people have reached out personally rather through general aid organizations, although the latter is noble too. I had one connection with Ukraine. Over the shelter-in-place period, I rebuilt my home-built entertainment center by ridding it of the old plasma TV and going in on new tube amplification, hand-built in Wisconsin by an ex-Marine. Old Soviet military tubes are prized for their reliability. I had a pair driving the speakers. Last Christmas they were replaced with the iconic Western Electric tubes now built in Georgia, just outside Chattanooga.  When I rebuilt the center to accommodate the new amp (that is mahogany!), I went retro-industrial and found a cool nixie tube clock online that I mounted in a piece of padauk I had out in the garage, using aluminum offsets with LED back lighting. Some old barn wood and T6061 aluminum completed the amp alcove.  Need something on the barn wood. Tube clock!

Turns out the nixie tubes came from Ukraine with a receipt in Cyrillic and an English "Thank you!" and smiley face.  The instructions are Cyrillic too, so I think I set the time and date right once, but the joke when someone looked and said "what time is that supposed to be," was always "Ukrainian Tube Time!"  But the numbers are a glowing yellow-orange, look cool, and occasionally do that flippy rollover off-gassing thing so as not to burn out prematurely.

When Russia was massed on the border last month and we all knew what was about to happen, I found the receipt (kept because I've never had a Cyrillic receipt before) and certainly understand "@" in any language, so I sent off a quick note in English and Google Ukrainian saying how much I loved the tube set and I want to send a dozen friends the same thing, so here's my card number to buy those, but you know on second thought, this is looking scary and I hope you'll be OK, so don't worry about the tubes so much and use this in case. Honestly I have stupid friends who don't appreciate the glory of cathode tubes so it would be lost on them and I'm rooting for you guys.

Their response?  A little Ukrainian flag showed up on my doorstep with another tube set, another Cyrillic receipt with a smiley face, but this time also a heart.  Before thinking 'how the heck did this get here so fast with all that happening, because now they are under siege,' I sent he/she/them another note of thanks and please, please, I hope you are safe. No word since. I'll admit that I've cried a little. I don't even know their name(s).

[jacket3ree]

I'm glad this thread is alive.  This is geo-political rather than political and feels, sadly, existential.

For those of us who grew up in the '60s with duck 'n cover and known routes to fallout shelters, it is surreal to watch this threat back in the age of Tik Tok. As a kid I was afraid of two things: rattlesnakes and nuclear holocaust.  Three things: rattlesnakes, nuclear holocaust, and fire drills.  Four things: rattlesnakes, nuclear holocaust, fire drills, and snow tires.  I've experienced three of the four and have no desire to complete the cycle.

My fear of nuclear holocaust was abated by my mother, a Kubrick fan.  Before videos were a thing, she found a midnight showing once and took me.  Wow, this is MAD (and Miss Scott ain't bad). I get it. It'll never happen.  (Read Schlosser's  Command and Control if you want real nuke anxiety.)

Now here we are. It's 1939 Poland with the threat of weapons Hitler was trying to get, but didn't have yet. 

I don't pretend to know what to do other than there is a bright line at NATO borders and if he steps across one of them, the world as we know it is over. Either there is a free pass for anyone to restore historical empires using force, or it will all escalate quickly and we are living on an uninhabitable ball of rock. Is China the key to this?  Global thermonuclear war is bad for business. Can they take him to the side and tell him his backside is officially exposed? Stand down or we'll take care of you?  Maybe a dmz of Russian speaking Donbas and Luhansk (People's Republics of Save the World) for a buffer, now GTFO of Ukraine and stay out.

Political boundaries have certainly shifted over time, but I thought we were done with all that. Dammit.

For now, treat Russia like a pariah state.  Today I paid $6.20 for a gallon.  (Right, Big Oil, your supply changed overnight? Jackals.) I think I saw somewhere that Russia has the economy of Texas.  Who needs them?  (No offense Texas and you have oil too, right?)  Just a giant resource rich version of PRNK. How's that been working out for them? Check out the night view from space between North and South Korea.  My son has been to their dmz on a deployment and went into that border hut. He said the difference is s.t.a.r.k.

I like the stories in this thread of how people have reached out personally rather through general aid organizations, although the latter is noble too. I had one connection with Ukraine. Over the shelter-in-place period, I rebuilt my home-built entertainment center by ridding it of the old plasma TV and going in on new tube amplification, hand-built in Wisconsin by an ex-Marine. Old Soviet military tubes are prized for their reliability. I had a pair driving the speakers. Last Christmas they were replaced with the iconic Western Electric tubes now built in Georgia, just outside Chattanooga.  When I rebuilt the center to accommodate the new amp (that is mahogany!), I went retro-industrial and found a cool nixie tube clock online that I mounted in a piece of padauk I had out in the garage, using aluminum offsets with LED back lighting. Some old barn wood and T6061 aluminum completed the amp alcove.  Need something on the barn wood. Tube clock!

Turns out the nixie tubes came from Ukraine with a receipt in Cyrillic and an English "Thank you!" and smiley face.  The instructions are Cyrillic too, so I think I set the time and date right once, but the joke when someone looked and said "what time is that supposed to be," was always "Ukrainian Tube Time!"  But the numbers are a glowing yellow-orange, look cool, and occasionally do that flippy rollover off-gassing thing so as not to burn out prematurely.

When Russia was massed on the border last month and we all knew what was about to happen, I found the receipt (kept because I've never had a Cyrillic receipt before) and certainly understand "@" in any language, so I sent off a quick note in English and Google Ukrainian saying how much I loved the tube set and I want to send a dozen friends the same thing, so here's my card number to buy those, but you know on second thought, this is looking scary and I hope you'll be OK, so don't worry about the tubes so much and use this in case. Honestly I have stupid friends who don't appreciate the glory of cathode tubes so it would be lost on them and I'm rooting for you guys.

Their response?  A little Ukrainian flag showed up on my doorstep with another tube set, another Cyrillic receipt with a smiley face, but this time also a heart.  Before thinking 'how the heck did this get here so fast with all that happening, because now they are under siege,' I sent he/she/them another note of thanks and please, please, I hope you are safe. No word since. I'll admit that I've cried a little. I don't even know their name(s).