Росія може напасти на одну з країн Європи, бо це вигідно Китаю
Apr. 21st, 2026 09:16 pmПро це в інтерв'ю NV заявив ексголова військового комітету НАТО Роб Бауер.
"Я вірю в те що Росія може напасти на одну з країн Європи, але це не пов’язано з Україною. Це пов’язано з Китаєм. Отже, сценарій, який дуже турбує НАТО, полягає в тому, що Китай налагоджує зв’язки з Росією, щоб атакувати Тайвань, бо якби Росія напала на одну з країн Європи, якщо це станеться, то США доведеться обирати і воювати на двох фронтах. Один фронт - це Європа, а інший - в Азіатсько-Тихоокеанському регіоні. Ось такий сценарій зараз розглядається і викликає занепокоєння у НАТО. І оскільки Росія дедалі більше стає сателітом Китаю, їй, імовірно, доведеться це зробити. Я думаю, це дуже тривожний сценарій", - заявив Бауер
https://censor.net/ua/n3611532
В Москве задержали 40 граждан Израиля в аэропорту Домодедово
Apr. 21st, 2026 08:58 pmПосле прилета израильтян удерживали в аэропорту около пяти часов.
Российские силовики требовали от пассажиров разблокировать телефоны и показать их содержимое.
По словам источника, людям не давали воду и ограничивали доступ в туалет.
Нескольких граждан Израиля российские правоохранители обвинили в якобы причастности к войне с Ираном, который в РФ называют своим союзником.
После проверок задержанных отпустили только после подписания документов с предупреждениями о "недопустимости нарушения закона".
Израильская сторона подчеркнула, что считает подобное поведение российских служб абсолютно неприемлемым
https://censor.net/ru/n3611570
A Good Grade in Dentistry
Apr. 21st, 2026 12:58 pmSo I go to the local dental school, because that's what my insurance covers, but I also think it's kind of fun and neat to be helping dental students learn. I also take fairly good care of my teeth (thank you, Habitica, for making me a regular flosser!). Apparently, I'm such an easy patient that I qualify for first year dental students to practice on! Which I, at least, think is pretty cool and a neat way to affirm that I keep my teeth in relatively good condition. A fun little (sugar-free 😜) treat for the day!
TV Tuesday: Long Term Preservation
Apr. 21st, 2026 12:41 pm
Do you have a lot of DVDs? How long have you been collecting them? Have you run into problems with them? Is it important for you to preserve particular shows?
Birdfeeding
Apr. 21st, 2026 11:45 amI fed the birds. I've seen a few house finches and a brown-headed cowbird. Several vultures were circling low over the yard, but by the time I grabbed my camera, they were gone.
I put out water for the birds.
.
Slowalk Coffee Roasters in Maina, Guam
Apr. 21st, 2026 12:00 pm
Opened in 1972 as the Bank of Guam's secure vault, the building has since been transformed into a stunning, multi-story, industrial-chic coffee shop.
Boasting three stories plus a rooftop balcony, the vast concrete space sacrifices none of its industrial roots in its transformation to cozy coffee shop.
Brick and concrete walls meld seamlessly with a vast collection of vintage coffee grinders. Exposed pipes hang delicately above plush leather couches. Grand stairwells of art-deco tile lead to quiet reading nooks tucked throughout.
But even the incredible ambiance can't outshine the mouth-watering pastries (esp. the Squid Ink Salted Bread) and top-notch coffee. The Dirty Coffee, in particular, is to die for. Order it to stay, and enjoy it in a round-bottomed glass that rolls gently in a wooden coaster, mixing the blend of hot and cold coffee as you drink.
movie recommendations
Apr. 21st, 2026 11:08 amI will be in the hospital for a week, bored and sleep deprived and deliberately removing all my usual anti-seizure precautions. I expect I'll have plenty of migraines, because so many of my migraine triggers are also seizure triggers. Ick. There is no need to seek out movies with strobe effects. The EEG techs will shine a strobe light in my face every so often just to see what happens. But while I am staying up all night, I will be free to watch movies on my laptop as well as read or crochet.
What should I watch? I have library cards from the Boston Public Library and the Minuteman Library Network which might give me access to movies but I haven't tried to use that feature. Which commercial service should I subscribe to for the next month? I want to only buy one month service, from one dealer, rather than watching 3 movies from Netflix and 4 from Apple and 6 from someplace else. Murderbot and Black Panther are on the maybe list, but I don't want to buy two subscriptions.
My favorite movies are Muppet Christmas Carol and Princess Bride.
I watched Star Wars the week it came out in theaters and hated it.
I quite liked Star Trek:TNG, even though many of the episodes gave me headaches.
I liked the first Superman movie and Galaxy Quest.
I like movies where people talk to each other, and hate that thing where it looks like the cameraman is riding a trotting horse.
Making friends with alpacas
Apr. 21st, 2026 07:27 amTimber Ridge and the various resident led committees are always planning shit. Music programs, group stuff, outings. There's a puzzle group and art group, a million grief groups, low vision, hard of hearing, spousal support groups. My neighbor down the hall is trying to get a singles group going. Not a couples match up but more like people who want to do stuff with other people but don't have people to do it with. A laudable idea if that's what you want.
I almost never sign up for or attend any of it. The first year I was here, I went to a lot because I made friends with Myrna and Myrna's middle name was JOINER! So at least I've tried stuff. She and Martha and a couple of others were the social committee for the 3rd floor. They planned twice yearly get togethers. (All the floors have them.) I've been to every one since I moved here and they are dreadful. The last time, I went and decided it was the last time. Now Myrna's dead and Martha is over the whole planning process so they are looking for a new social committee. No one is volunteering. I suggested that we abandon the floor socials. What???? We can't do that!!! Why don't?? Because! Ok. Fine. Whatever.
BUT this morning I signed up for a thing. A kind of social thing. A social thing outside. Yeah, it's not me except it's a tour of an alpaca farm. May 7. It's about 30 minutes from here. It's advertised as rough ground so no one with walkers or mobility issues is encouraged. So far the list of people who have signed up is an ok list. I can still bail. It's a small group and there will be a long waiting list so we'll see.
Erica sent out an email yesterday saying that the pool will be closed for volleyball and aqua fit this morning but will likely open up some time today. So yeah!
The Mariners continue to lose. No real injuries or obvious issues like other teams. We have good, talented guys who are just playing shit. Oh well. It's not like we don't have 50 years of experience with losing.
I put Biggie's pill issues to Gemini and Gemini suggested a pill pistol. I ordered 2. One came yesterday. Fail. The pill is too big. One is coming today BUT Gemini may have solved the problem. In explaining how to use the pill pistol with a cat, it said to shoot the pill in the side of the mouth instead of straight down. I usually tilt his head back and aim for the middle of the back of the tongue. This morning, I tilted his head back and sent it down the side and got it in one! So... maybe...
Yesterday, somehow, a moth got in here and both cats just went nuts. They had a ball chasing it around for the longest time. I need to find a moth source. It would be a great and cheap cat gift!
I just got an email that someone 'friended' me on Live Journal. Interesting since my last post there was announcing that I'd be leaving and never posting again and that was 4 years ago...

Sleeping in the rain
Apr. 21st, 2026 10:14 am[Yesterday was my GLP1 dose and it slowed down my digestion as it is supposed to do and the ribs are still hanging around twelve hours later. The system works. I'm not hungry.]
Everyone but Dana went to bed around ten and 12 hours later the girls are not up. It has been raining and thunder showering most of the night and all morning so that is clearly contributing to the teen sleep in.
So my plans to do something are changing by the hour. It is already kind of late to go down to Austin today. Not really a problem if the rain lets up. We can just go to Georgetown and walk the square instead, the plan for Wednesday.
I'm happy to do nothing and take a nap but I hate to have them come to Texas and not see anything of Texas.
I'm also not inclined to wake them up on a school vacation day.
Schrödinger’s Companion: Productive Dissonance in Iliad 18
Apr. 21st, 2026 01:50 pmHomer, Iliad 18.2-17
“Swift-footed Antilokhos came as a messenger to Achilles.
He found him in front of the straight-prowed ships,
Considering through his heart what things could have happened.
He was deeply troubled then and spoke to his own great heart:
“Oh, my heart, why are the long-haired Achaeans again
Clustering around the ships, horrified from the plain?
I hope the gods haven’t brought the evil pains to bear on my heart
As my mother once warned me and told me that
The best of the Myrmidons would be torn from the light of the sun
by Trojan hands while I was still alive.
Is it really that the bold son of Menoitios has died,
The fool. I really was telling him just to push the fire
From the ships and come back, and not to battle in force with Hektor.”
While he was going over those things in his thoughts and heart,
Then the son of glorious Nestor was coming near,
Shedding warm tears when he spoke his painful message.”
᾿Αντίλοχος δ’ ᾿Αχιλῆϊ πόδας ταχὺς ἄγγελος ἦλθε.
τὸν δ’ εὗρε προπάροιθε νεῶν ὀρθοκραιράων
τὰ φρονέοντ’ ἀνὰ θυμὸν ἃ δὴ τετελεσμένα ἦεν·
ὀχθήσας δ’ ἄρα εἶπε πρὸς ὃν μεγαλήτορα θυμόν·
ὤ μοι ἐγώ, τί τ’ ἄρ’ αὖτε κάρη κομόωντες ᾿Αχαιοὶ
νηυσὶν ἔπι κλονέονται ἀτυζόμενοι πεδίοιο;
μὴ δή μοι τελέσωσι θεοὶ κακὰ κήδεα θυμῷ,
ὥς ποτέ μοι μήτηρ διεπέφραδε καί μοι ἔειπε
Μυρμιδόνων τὸν ἄριστον ἔτι ζώοντος ἐμεῖο
χερσὶν ὕπο Τρώων λείψειν φάος ἠελίοιο.
ἦ μάλα δὴ τέθνηκε Μενοιτίου ἄλκιμος υἱὸς
σχέτλιος· ἦ τ’ ἐκέλευον ἀπωσάμενον δήϊον πῦρ
ἂψ ἐπὶ νῆας ἴμεν, μηδ’ ῞Εκτορι ἶφι μάχεσθαι.
Εἷος ὃ ταῦθ’ ὥρμαινε κατὰ φρένα καὶ κατὰ θυμόν,
τόφρά οἱ ἐγγύθεν ἦλθεν ἀγαυοῦ Νέστορος υἱὸς
δάκρυα θερμὰ χέων, φάτο δ’ ἀγγελίην ἀλεγεινήν·
This passage is remarkable to me for a few reasons. First, we have the application of Achilles’ epithets (“swift-footed”) to Antilochus, but in such a close proximity that any reasonable listener might feel the tension between Antilochus’ urgent message and Achilles’ lack of motion. This contrast is in part proleptic, since Achilles is about to burst back into action and become the kind of hero of force more appropriate to the conventional epithet. As Elton Barker and I have explored (Homer’s Thebes; See Roger Dunkle’s work as well and Storylife for another take) the depiction of Achilles in the Iliad plays on the tension between his traditional heroic identity, marked by swiftness, and his actions in the Iliad, where he is swift to anger but stalled in action for two-thirds of the epic. His swiftness in the Iliad is related both to the dynamic force of his anger and the swiftness (or brevity) of his life. Achilles, ironically or not, is described as swift-footed right before he permits him to lead out the Myrmidons in his stead (16.48) and he regains the epithet in his grief when he speaks to his mother soon after Antilochus arrival (18.78).
Second, there’s also an interesting angle in thinking about the Iliad and narrative time. One might imagine this scene as representing Achilles’ concern throughout Patroklos’ absence rather than just at the moment of this conflict. The join in the action is this: Hektor and Aeneas have routed the Danaans and they are fleeing across the ditch constructed to defend the ships. The book begins acknowledging, almost generically, “so they were struggling like a burning fire” and then Antilochus arrives. For me, the structure of the line recalls the beginning of the embassy in book 9 when “they find him delighting his thoughts in the clear-voiced lyre” (τὸν δ’ εὗρον φρένα τερπόμενον φόρμιγγι λιγείῃ, 9.186): here, the idea is spread into two lines, first noting where he is (in front of the ships) and what he is doing (i.e., thinking about what has happened). In each case, the action ascribed in a participle (“delighting” “wondering”) to Achilles is likely the interpretation from the internal audience (the embassy, then Antilochus) framed by the narrator.
Yet, there is a potential tension between the ongoing nature of the participle (here, present and probably progressive) and the tense of the speech introduction which tends to imply a one-time action. In fact, the speech introduction and conclusion used for this speech is elsewhere used to show contemplation and deliberation over a course of action before a choice is made.
As I explore elsewhere, this combination is used four times in a row in book 5 of the Odyssey with the expletive ὤ μοι ἐγώ (essentially, FML), to show Odysseus struggling with options and forced to make a choice. Indeed, throughout Homer, this speech introduction seems to mark a deliberation on options or a contemplation of the situation. With Achilles, however, there may be a pattern of reflection rather than choice. In book 20, this marks Achilles reacting to Aeneas escaping him (20.243 ff.) and in book 21, it prefaces his killing of Lykaon (cf. 21.54) but in each of those cases, the first utterance is a kind of expletive about other people’s foolishness or bad luck (ὢ πόποι) rather than his own.
In this scene, Achilles considers two options over which he has no control: whether or not Patroklos has been injured or killed is something of a coin flip, a Schrödinger’s hero kind of situation from one perspective. But the combination of Antilochus’ vision of the hero trying to figure out what happened and a speech and speech introduction sequence that usually signals choice produces what I have been thinking of as “productive dissonance” (a kind of poetic resonance built on contrast instead of echoing). A clear example of “productive dissonance” to my mind is the use of the duals in Iliad 9: a traditional form (the duals of two messengers going to an enemy or outsider) is applied to an unconventional situation (a friend/ally acting like an enemy or outsider) to emphasize its extraordinary nature.
At the beginning of book 18, we have a pattern used to mark one situation applied to something that doesn’t quite fit. What I think this means here is that the juxtaposition of a form typically used for Homeric figures deciding between two possible options (even if one is clearly not realistic) with the audience and Antilochus’ knowledge of what has occurred raises the stakes and further characterizes his denial about what he already suspects. Achilles is ruminating, he is pre-lamenting, and he is in the denial phase of grief as he calls his loved one a “fool”. In a way, this tension between his suspicion and the actual events may reflect, at times, a similar tension between audience desire for the outcomes of the action and the plot as it unfolds.
Confirming much of this is the revelation of another prophecy from Thetis that is nowhere else reported. The productive dissonance combines with the echoes of the embassy and Achilles own claim in book 9 that he has two fates (to live a long, ignoble life, or die with ternal glory, 9.410-416). No audience outside the poem believes that this is actually a choice. The dissonance produced here reflects not just the complexity of Achilles’ anticipatory grief, and the protective human response of denial, but it also may signal in part an understanding of how audiences engage with this story (and others).
The ancient scholarship on this passage speaks to some of these issues. First, one scholiast notes that it is understandable that Achilles would be in denial here.
Schol. A ad Hom. Il. 18.4
“People who are struggling for their loved ones fall into desperation among dangers. Their minds fall into misfortune in advance.”
οἱ περὶ τῶν φίλων ἀγωνιῶντες ἐν τοῖς κινδύνοις δυσέλπιδές εἰσιν. ἔστι δὲ τῶν ἐν ἀτυχίᾳ προληπτικὸς ὁ νοῦς.
There’s also some concern about what it means for Achilles to talk about the future death of the Best of the Myrmidons while Achilles is still alive. Some ancient scholars insisted that Achilles could be correct in being surprised at Patroklos’ death, since Automedon is actually the best of the Myrmidons.
Schol. A ad Hom. Il. 18.10-11a ex
“According to Rhianos [fr. 1M] the issue isn’t that there are two [who are the best of the Myrmidons] but that Patroklos is not one of the Myrmidons, since he is a Lokrian from Opos. So, Aristarchus claims that that one should know from this that he is the best of the Myrmidons after him. According to some of those who follow Homer, Aktôr the father of Menoitios allegedly took Aigina and Menoitios was born from her and lived in Opos. So, Patroklos is a Myrmidon by origin. Patroklos can be said to be a Myrmidon for other reasons as well, thanks to the fact that he leads the Myrmidons after Achilles.
But how is it, some ask, that after Achilles learned this fact from his mother he still sent Patroklos to war? One might ay that it is because she didn’t speak the name or the time clearly, that there was some forgetting of these kinds of things at the right time. But once it happened, they recall it.”
Porph. (?) χερσὶν ὕπο Τρώων <λείψειν φάος ἠελίοιο>: ἐν τῇ ῾Ριανοῦ (fr. 1 M.) οὐκ ἦσαν οἱ δύο, ἴσως ἐπεὶ οὐκ ἦν Μυρμιδὼν ὁ Πάτροκλος· Λοκρὸς γὰρ ἦν ἐξ ᾿Οποῦντος. δεῖν δέ φησιν ὁ ᾿Αρίσταρχος οὕτως αὐτὸ παραδέχεσθαι, τὸν μετ’ αὐτὸν ἄριστον τῶν Μυρμιδόνων. | καὶ κατά τινας δὲ τῶν μεθ’ ῞Ομηρον ῎Ακτωρ ὁ πατὴρ τοῦ Μενοιτίου λέγεται λαβεῖν Αἴγιναν, ἐκ ταύτης δὲ γενέσθαι Μενοίτιον καὶ οἰκῆσαι ἐν ᾿Οποῦντι. οὕτως οὖν γίνεται τὸ ἀνέκαθεν Μυρμιδὼν ὁ Πάτροκλος.
δύναται δὲ καὶ ἑτέρως Μυρμιδὼν ὁ Πάτροκλος λέγεσθαι διὰ τὸ μετὰ τὸν ᾿Αχιλλέα ἡγήσασθαι τῶν Μυρμιδόνων. | πῶς δέ, φασί, τοῦτο πεπυσμένος παρὰ τῆς μητρὸς ἔπεμπε τὸν Πάτροκλον εἰς τὸν πόλεμον; ὅτι, φαίη τις ἄν, οὔτε τοὔνομα σαφῶς εἶπεν οὔτε τὸν χρόνον, παρά τε τὸν καιρὸν λήθη γίνεται τῶν τοιούτων. ὅταν δὲ ἀποβῇ, μιμνῄσκονται.
A short Bibliography
Barker, E.T.E. and Christensen, Joel P. 2019. Homer’s Thebes. Hellenic Studies 84. Washington, DC.
Christensen, Joel P. The many-minded man: the « Odyssey », psychology, and the therapy of epic. Myth and Poetics; 2. Ithaca (N. Y.): Cornell University Pr., 2020.
Davies, Malcolm. 2016. The Aithiopis: Neo-Analysis Reanalyzed. Hellenic Studies 71. Washington, DC.
de Jong, I. J. F. 2001. A Narratological Commentary on the Odyssey. Cambridge.
Dunkle, R. 1997. “Swift-Footed Achilles.” The Classical World 90: 227–234.
Civic Center Murals in Cape Town, South Africa
Apr. 21st, 2026 10:00 am
An otherwise boring government building turned into a one of the largest monuments to the city’s best-known residents.
Installed in the 2010s, the translucent portraits depict Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, rendered not as painted murals but as large-scale graphic window treatments integrated directly into the building’s glazing. From the outside, the images appear as bold, high-contrast faces overlooking the city, while from within they filter daylight into the municipal offices behind them making it more bearable to work in this building.
Unlike traditional murals, the works rely on light and transparency, changing character with the time of day and weather. At certain angles, the faces dissolve almost completely, leaving only abstract patterns across the windows, while at others they reassert themselves with striking clarity.
The murals were installed in 2013 for Mandela and 2017 for Tutu, and were completely remade in 2022. The murals are 32 windows high, and 14 windows wide, covering a total of 448 windows each.
In the new version both men are wearing bright and colorful clothes. For Mandela the patterns represent different aspects of Cape Town, while for Tutu they represent anti-apartheid topics.
anatine
Apr. 21st, 2026 07:26 amIf it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's anatine even if it isn't a duck. Anatine also, in a technical use, can mean pertaining to or belonging to the subfamily Anatinae, the dabbling ducks, or the family Anatidae, which includes Anatinae as well as geese and swans. Taken in the 1830s from Latin anatīnus, of ducks, from anas via its stem form anat-, a duck (which ultimately goes back to PIE root *h₂énh₂ts, a duck, because of course the PIE homeland had ducks, as they're worldwide).
Also, >quack!<
Thanks, WikiMedia!
---L.
Should I have cleaned out my bookmarks before? Yes, but now's not the time!
Apr. 21st, 2026 04:20 pmAnyway, the process of updating my laptop didn't go as planned.
First Tristana threw the external on the floor while it was in the act of copying, thus more-or-less bricking it (a computer repair store MIGHT be able to recover the data). It's possible that there wasn't very much on it that we don't have elsewhere, but I'm not quite sure without taking apart both desktops to access my hds from Wax's to check.
And then signing into Firefox went wrong and it failed to sync my bookmarks, even though they're all there still in the mobile version. The backup of my ff profile that contained the bookmarks was on the external but had not copied before The Incident. So I need to try removing and reinstalling the browser before I have to give up and move them manually, because apparently even though sync refusing to work is a not-uncommon issue, going by the support threads everywhere, they actually removed the "export bookmarks" button! ( Read more... )
Needless to say, I did consider switching browsers, but that feels like too many more steps to tackle at the moment.
Fox!
Apr. 21st, 2026 09:10 pmwww.facebook.com/reel/979482221251693
In case this link doesn't work; what they saw was a vixen coming to check on the place overnight. This feels incredible, in the heart of the city, in an area which is not that large. I don't know the stats on the Swamp area's size, but it only takes me 30-40 minutes to walk around it. To get here, the fox would have had to travel through suburban streets, though there IS a larger bushland only a few kilometres away that she could have travelled from. This is not good news for anything small, furry and prey-classified [bandicoots!] that live here. Probably not for the smaller waterbirds either, though we're past nesting season.
(no subject)
Apr. 21st, 2026 07:59 amI lamented being told that it wasn't that serious, two or three flareups ago when I saw doctors, but unfortunately as I look around the internet for tips, what I'm seeing is that it truly wasn't/isn't that bad, and people deal with much worse for much longer (and still fix themselves with pt exercises and anti-inflammatories)
Anyway, the disc between my vertebrae is out of position and it's aggravating my nerves. This happens for a few weeks once or twice a year because I get hubristic and stop doing my back exercises.
Anyway do these three simple excercises 10 minutes a day, don't turn out like me. https://squatuniversity.com/2018/06/21/the-mcgill-big-3-for-core-stability/
The Queen of Air and Darkness and Other Stories by Poul Anderson
Apr. 21st, 2026 08:07 am
How much of the universe does *science as we know it* open to us?
The Queen of Air and Darkness and Other Stories by Poul Anderson

