a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
And so it is March, the month named after the Roman god of war.
There was no rain this afternoon, and a high of 56 °F (13 °C).
I walked down to the Melrose Avenue overlook (over Interstate 5), and back to Capitol Hill’s top along Denny Way.
I turned around every now and then, to look at the beautiful hues of color in the western sky.
About half a million refugees have fled Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began last week, according to the United Nations refugee agency. About half of them crossed Ukraine’s western border to Poland. Others have gone to Hungary, Moldova, Romania and Slovakia. Ukraine enacted martial law at the beginning of the conflict that requires men ages 18 to 60 to remain in the country.
-Reported by the New York Times
The airspace of the European Union’s entire 27-nation bloc will now be closed to Russian-owned, -registered or -controlled aircraft, “including the private jets of oligarchs”, said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyden on Sunday.
Countermeasures imposed by Russia will make it more difficult for European carriers to fly east, notably to Asia.
-Reported by Annabelle Timsit and Paulina Firozi in The Washington Post.
The Secretary of State of the United States of America hereby requests all whom it may concern to permit the citizen/ national of the United States named herein to pass without delay or hindrance and in case of need to give all lawful aid and protection.
– Inscription on page 2 of the US passport, below a depiction of The Great Seal of the United States (the bald eagle that clutches the Olive branch and the arrows that denote the power of peace & war which is exclusively vested in Congress).
My new passport arrived today.
The entire picture page is a sturdy plastic (polycarbonate), like a thin credit card (shown below).
There is an embedded data chip on the information page.
The alphanumeric passport number is laser cut as perforated holes, that get smaller all through the 26 pages of the passport book.
Other security features include a watermark, ‘tactile features’ and ‘optically variable’ inks.
I got my final cast today.
It allows my thumb to move a little more, and actually touch my index finger.
I also have exercise instructions for my digits— a set of ten that I do four times a day (hold fingers straight, make a hook, make a fist, and so on).
Columnist David Ignatius writes in the Washington Post, in an opinion piece called ‘Putin’s assault on Ukraine will shape a new world order’:
Now that Russian troops have surged into Ukraine, how does Putin plan to extricate himself? It’s likely that he hopes to keep Russian ground troops out of Kyiv and other big cities, instead using Spetsnaz special forces and FSB operatives to neutralize these targets. He will probably seek to install a puppet government. But here’s where U.S. officials believe Putin’s planning breaks down.
What Putin doesn’t appear to realize, with his vision of Russian-Ukrainian oneness, is that his bullying has deeply alienated Ukrainians. I saw that anti-Putin sentiment when I visited Kyiv in late January, and it’s undoubtedly even stronger now that Russian tanks are on the streets and jets are in the sky. Putin obviously believed his own rhetoric that Ukraine wasn’t a real country. That level of self-absorption so often leads to mistakes.
With his unprovoked invasion, Putin has shattered the international legal rules established after World War II, along with the European order that followed the Cold War. That old architecture was getting shaky, and it was destined to be replaced eventually.
The Ukraine assault, pitting a messianic Russian autocrat against the wishes of every other major nation, perhaps including China, will determine the shape of the new order to come. If Putin loses his battle to subjugate Ukraine, the new order will have a solid and promising foundation. If Putin wins, the new era will be very dangerous indeed.
Putin’s war on Ukraine has started.
Where will it end?
Today is two-twenty-two-twenty-twenty-two. 🤗
There was a frosting of snow on the ground here in the city this morning.
Temperatures will dip down to twenty-two °F (-6 °C) overnight.
Presidents’ Day, officially Washington’s Birthday, is a holiday in the United States, celebrated on the third Monday of February. Its intent is to honor all persons who served in the office of president of the United States. (Tomorrow the 22nd, is Washington’s actual birthday*).
I would exclude some presidents—especially one recent one— from this honor.
Then again, Washington himself was a slave owner, and mistreated them.
‘Too illiterate, unlearned, unread for his station and reputation’ said fellow Founding Father John Adams, of George Washington’s eight years as the nation’s first commander-in-chief.
That sounds awfully familiar.
*It’s actually vastly more complicated than just saying it’s the 22nd.
England was still using the Julian calendar in 1731 when Washington was born.
Then, when England (and its colonies) switched to the Gregorian calendar in Sept. 1752, the date Sep 2, 1752 (Julian) was followed by Sept 14, 1752 (Gregorian). There were 11 ‘lost days’.
Another thing: when England and its colonies switched, they also moved New Year’s Day from late March to Jan. 1 (except for Scotland, which was already using Jan. 1 for the new year).
So the calendar year 1751 (with Julian dates) was only about nine months long, going from March 25 to Dec. 31. This meant that anyone born between Jan. 1 and March 25 (Julian) had to start using a different birthday (Gregorian) and a different birth year (Gregorian), or continue using an ‘inaccurate’ birthday and birth year — even though the number of days they had spent on planet Earth was unchanged.
So depending on which calendar you are using for Washington’s birthday, he was born on both Feb. 11, 1731 (Julian) and on Feb 22, 1732 (Gregorian). They are the exact same day.
Here’s the view of Interstate 5 and the city skyline from Melrose Ave and Thomas St tonight.
I solved today’s Wordle on the very last of the six tries I had.
I would have had it in three tries if I were luckier with my guesses .. or four, or five.
There will be rain tomorrow, snow in the mountains, and freezing temperatures next week.
“Open sesame!” (French: “Sésame, ouvre-toi”)
– a magical phrase in the story of “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” in Antoine Galland’s version of One Thousand and One Nights.
It opens the mouth of a cave in which forty thieves have hidden a treasure.
My fancy new garage door & opener arrived today, brought by the technician that did the installation. It took five months after I had placed the order, but that’s OK.
I can do an ‘Open Sesame!’ in four different ways.
1. Press the button on the garage door opener (the one with a clip that I can put in my car);
2. Use the key pad on the outside (enter a PIN code);
3. Use my smartphone app to open it from anywhere (through my home’s wifi network);
4. If all else fails, use the emergency release handle on the door opener inside.
Officials announced today that restaurants, bars, theaters and gyms here in the city of Seattle and surrounding King County will no longer be required to check the vaccination status of their patrons beginning March 1.
Even though I watch almost no cable news programs anymore, it feels as if the news is the same for many weeks at a time.
Are the Olympic Games done? No.
(So the Russian skater blames her grandpa’s meds for her failed drug test. Hard to believe. Shout-out to the IOC for their on-going mismanagement of Russia’s 2014 state-sponsored doping scandal. The Russians should have been banned for oh, 10 years).
Have the truckers in Ottawa gone home? No. Arrest them. Law and order, right, conservatives?
Is Russia going to invade Ukraine? We still don’t know .. but tomorrow is a new day, and time will tell.
It’s been a ‘dry’ February so far, here in the city.
Only ¼ in. has been recorded, and February gets almost 4 on average.
There was a little rain today— of the kind that does not make the ground wet under the big trees.
Tonight’s sunset was spectacular.
Here is a young Marlon Brando (31) with his cat, from a write-up in Look magazine from May 17, 1955.
‘I live in my cat’s house’, said Brando at the time.
Another software update for my car came through tonight.
I can drive my car, but just around the neighborhood.
No freeway driving or long distances until my arm & wrist is out of the cast.
I found a puzzle (wonder what had happened), and R2-D2 depicted on a card, on my walk today.
I was too far from my house to pick either up/ clean it up*, and besides that: I only have one hand. 🙂
*If it’s on my block, especially on the sidewalk or street at the front of the house, it doesn’t matter what it is; I feel compelled to clean it up. Broken beer bottle, dead crow, dog poop, empty cannabis packets.
