Slovakia defense minister to NYT: Putin ‘equal to Hitler’
… 32,415 arrivals from mainland China landed in Canadian airports over 28 days
Joe Biden has accused the Russian president of ‘trying to wipe out the idea of even being Ukrainian’
Garry Kasparov: Stand With Ukraine in the Fight Against Evil
In an uncompromising TED Talk from a few days ago, Garry Kasparov warns we must confront “true evil” in the world when we see it, in this case Vladimir Putin and his regime.
Actually, my first article of warning was published in “The Wall Street Journal” on January 4, 2001. I saw evil because I heard evil. Putin was telling us what he was. All we had to do was listen. When Putin said that there was no such thing as a former KGB agent, I knew Russia’s fragile democracy was in danger. When Putin said that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century, I knew Russia’s newly independent neighbors were at risk. And when Putin talked at the Munich Security Conference in 2007 about a return to spheres of influence, I knew he was ready to launch his plan. It was the language from the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, 1939. The language Hitler and Stalin used to divide Europe. And a year later, in 2008, Putin invaded the Republic of Georgia. 2014, Ukraine.
It’s a paradox, isn’t it? Dictators lie about everything they have done, but often they tell us exactly what they’re going to do. Just listen. Anyone who is surprised at Putin’s war crimes in Ukraine must not be aware about his long record, beginning with the Second Chechen War in Grozny more than two decades ago. Vladimir Putin has been a war criminal from the start.
When he was talking about the problem with compromising with authoritarians, I was reminded of a phrase I’ve heard in a couple of different contexts recently: meeting a racist halfway on their views is still racism; meeting a fascist halfway on their views is still fascism. As Rebecca Solnit put it in an article about the 2020 election: “Who the hell wants unity with Nazis until and unless they stop being Nazis?” Meeting a brutal authoritarian halfway, Kasparov is arguing, is still tyranny.
FRENCH JOURNALIST DESCRIBES TIME IN UKRAINE Bitchute Journalist says a story is running this week in Le Figaro (not clear if just about this or this account is a tidbit).
US, EU sacrificing Ukraine to ‘weaken Russia’: fmr. NATO adviser Aaron Mate, YouTube. Important. Jacques Baud.
Sitrep Z The Saker. Also important. Latest of his periodic updates. Many developments and rumors, most important being a big uptick in Ukrainian captures/surrenders/deaths in the field. See also the summary towards the end of a West Point presentation on Russian capabilities.
Librarians Can’t Be Neutral in the War on Information
Information Today / Dave Schumaker: “…Specialized librarians are an obvious example of librarians whose success depends on their not being neutral. Legal, medical, corporate, and other specialized librarians perform more in-depth research than librarians in other settings. They fulfill Ranganathan’s fourth law—“Save the time of the reader”—in a very direct way, by selecting, summarizing, and analyzing research results, so their customers don’t have to. They adhere to limits so that they can’t be accused of practicing law, medicine, or other professions, but the scope of their judgment remains considerable. Neutrality would be an abdication of their role. They need to select the best and most relevant, authoritative, and important information and present it in the clearest, most concise way. In some cases, librarians practice as competitive intelligence analysts or market researchers. An emphasis on analysis—on adopting a point of view after evaluating and weighing the evidence—is a key requirement for librarians in these positions. But if specialized librarians are the obvious example, other librarians make plenty of judgments too. In educational settings—whether higher, secondary, or even primary—the teaching role of librarians has assumed greater and greater importance over the past few decades. And what do librarians teach? Information literacy. While there are various definitions of the term, a common component is the ability to evaluate information critically. So, librarians are teaching the evaluation of information. They must address concepts such as misinformation and disinformation and present principles and methods for distinguishing accurate information from error and falsehood. It would be paradoxical—nonsensical, even—to imagine that they could do so while remaining neutral, without making judgments…”
Morrison’s captain’s pick for NSW seat accused Indian PM of causing ‘hatred and fear’
Berkeley Library – ‘Islands of hope’: Ukrainian libraries respond to Russian invasion in surprising and heartbreaking ways — here’s how – “Thousands of miles from UC Berkeley, in libraries across Ukraine, the squeak of shifted chairs has been replaced by the blare of air raid sirens, and the distant rattle of old pipes by the shudder of mortar shells. That distressing reality came into sharper focus yesterday at “Voices from Ukraine,” a UC Berkeley Library event that centered the stories of 11 Ukrainian librarians and their colleagues. The featured speakers, representing a wide swath of the country, gave voice to their personal and professional challenges six weeks into the Russian invasion. The online event drew 300 participants from across the globe.
- “Fahrenheit 451 by (Ray) Bradbury comes to life in Ukraine today,” said Oksana Brui, president of the Ukrainian Library Association, as she described the burning of books in libraries in occupied territories. She also lamented the devastation of valuable cultural sites, including religious and historical buildings, monuments, museums, and libraries.
- The Ukrainian Cultural Foundation, which developed an interactive map to document damage to those sites, had recorded 166 entries as of this publication.
- The Ukrainian Library Association has created a fund to provide financial assistance to Ukrainian librarians who are struggling during the war. The fund has received more than 120 requests for financial support, and provided assistance to 53 librarians. You can learn more about the fund here.”