A Lesson In Bravery
Remember last week when I said to look for the helpers?
Turns out the people of Ukraine are the helpers.
As we are all aware good old Poutine himself decided that it was time to reannex Ukraine. He looked at President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and thought to himself that there would no way that the voice of the Ukrainian Paddington Bear, who once competed on a dancing reality TV show would be able to lead an effective defense strategy. I really think Putin thought that he would send in troops and the job would be done within a day or two.
Instead, the Ukrainian people and their leader are showing us what bravery really means.
If you're like me you've been watching the battle unfold mostly through social media. Which is a sentence I never thought I would type. Nor one I would have believed until quite recently. Now, as with all things social media, and all things where Russians are involved, everything you see and hear needs to be taken with a grain (or many) of salt.
Instead of talking about the scary stuff that could happen, I would like to mention a few of the heartwarming, courageous, and in some cases funny things that have happened.
- A resident found a mine on the side of the road, picked it up with his bare hands, and walked it to a place where it could do no harm. All while a cigarette dangled from his lips.
- Road signs are being taken down or vandalized with "go home", "eff off", or any other number of wonderful ways to tell the Russians to go away. And since GPS and Google maps have been disabled in Ukraine Russian tanks and the like are winding up running out of fuel or breaking down. In one case a tank was towed away by a tractor after it had broken down.
- Russian soldiers are using a dating app to meet available ladies, Ukrainian soldiers are pretending to be available ladies so they can find the location of the Russian soldiers.
There is really no way to know how this will end. All that is certain is that there will be many more lives lost and the world will be impacted. How much of an impact has yet to be seen. One thing that is for sure is the bravery of the Ukrainian people will live on forever.
One more story for today. This one made me a little weepy when I first saw the video. If you don't have time to watch it here's the short version. An older Ukrainian woman approaches a group of Russian soldiers and tells them to take some of the sunflower seeds she has in her hand. There is some back and forth and she tells them to put them in their pockets so that when they die on Ukrainian soil, the seeds will grow into sunflowers. Which are the national flower of Ukraine.
In the spirit of Ukraine, today's artists competed for Ukraine as a part of the Eurovision contest. Eurovision is a music competition that takes place every year and it becomes an obsession for many. Celine Dion even represented France one year. I don't think she won.
SHUM by Go_A is based on traditional folk music from Northern Ukraine. The band just updated with some electronics and other modern tools. SHUM is the name for the spirit of the forest, and also the name of a game that is traditionally played in the spring that has its roots based on a local ritual. SHUM hit the charts globally and has become one of the most successful Eurovision songs of all time.
Shopping links, I am going to try to keep these Ukrainian.
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