The Nova Kahkovka dam in Ukraine is breached, causing massive flooding and devastation
It’s now Friday June 2nd, 2023. Kia ora!
On Wednesday morning I got up early to go to hymn singing. It was lovely, of course, and afterwards I did some shopping at New World in Khandallah. After that, I was really tired, and JD came to pick me up.
The next day I got up to go to my other singing session at Khandallah, and spent some time with a friend afterwards at the local pub – a great venue. We both had poached eggs, and I had a latté with oat milk (my new favourite from Taiwan). Afterwards I caught a train and bus home.
This morning I had a haircut, and then we went shopping at New World in Thorndon. Sadly, many things were missing: potato-topped pies (there were no pies), I got coffee beans but there were no raspberries; still, it was nice to go there again.
It’s now Monday June 5th, the (now) King’s Birthday public holiday.
On Saturday it was fine and sunny. We had an appointment in Titahi Bay, and had lunch at The Peppermill Café afterwards: scrambled eggs again, for me. I would have liked an oat milk latté, but alas, JD had already ordered a long black for me. I really enjoy the lattés: the oat milk softens the sometimes bitter coffee, in a way that is less dangerous health-wise than putting cream in a long black (which I love to do). Afterwards I returned my two guide books on Taiwan to the library. I had taken one of them to Taiwan; I would have happily bought one if I could have found a copy at any bookshop I looked at.
Yesterday I went to church, but there weren’t many physically there, although there were many on zoom – probably many away for the long weekend, although the minister has just had Covid again, and I think his isolation period finished that day, or the day before. There was a replacement organist, who was very good – the usual organist was away, and I suspect, the usual pianist too. At the beginning she played the beautiful Mendelsohn “O for the wings of a dove” which I recognized. She kept playing it after the entrance! The organist was Judy Dumbleton. It was Trinity Sunday, and the minister had a nice representation of the Trinity to the tamariki there with coffee beans (God the Father), ground coffee beans, representing Jesus, Son of God, who suffered on the Cross, and a cup of coffee with crema, representing the Holy Spirit.
Afterwards I messaged JD to pick me up from the supermarket, but, sadly, they didn’t have any more raspberries; they didn’t have either of our usual soaps, and they didn’t have cheese scones or chocolate snails!
In the evening we visited our other son in Wellington and gave his family their presents, which I think went down rather well, although I wished we’d shopped more. There weren’t many gift shops in the area where we stayed, and I felt that the JD’s rushed me past any other stores where I might have been tempted to look and buy things. Of course, you always think there’ll be plenty of time to go back and buy things, and then, of course, there isn’t. We had bought the children t-shirts and other nick-nacks from a gift shop at the airport. It was lovely to see them, but already pretty cold and wet.
Today is a Public Holiday, and it’s very cold and rather wet, although my phone tells me that it’s 10°C but feels like 6°C. It’s also quite windy. I had plans to go to a movie this afternoon, but JD suggests tomorrow.
I have been documenting each day we spent in Taiwan, using photos and messenger to do so. You think you’ll always remember these times, but of course you don’t, and I think it’s important to document each day as far as I can do so.
I watched an interview with Nicholas Braun, who plays Cousin Greg in the popular television streaming series Succession, and consequently I am getting almost only Succession-related items on my Youtube feed. How annoying is that! I am not obsessed with the show, but much of the media is. It was fun to watch, if one could stomach the swearing; and feel, of course, grateful that one doesn’t face such issues.
I am also reading a New York reporter’s story about the D-Day landings, re-reported in the New Yorker – which the magazine is graciously letting me read.
I also get daily newsletters by email from Benjamin Wittes, who has been banned from Twitter and writes on sub stack, as do many liberal writers. He’s responsible for the Sunflower Ukrainian support initiative (I apologize for not getting the name right), and somehow finds time to write a lot of interesting stuff. Has his wife divorced him, I wonder? I have a lot of time for Ben and agree with him on many things, but it’s rather sad not to hear him talk about his family, as most American podcasters do.
It’s now Tuesday June 6, the Anniversary of the D-Day Landings.
The weekly Covid report is out today, seeing that yesterday was a public holiday. It is as follows: there were 12,028 new cases of Covid-19 reported in Aotearoa in the week to midnight on Sunday, and a further 59 deaths attributed to the virus. The total number of deaths from the disease is now 3001. In addition, there were 278 cases in hospital at midnight on Sunday, with nine in intensive care.
The seven-day rolling average of cases was 1713.
Last week 14,371 new cases were reported and a further 43 deaths were attributed to the virus. So it still goes on, but mask-wearing is very rare: I had to put one on to go into a chemist shop today.
Today it is cold and wet, and very windy. Today we’d planned to go to a movie at 1:15 pm, and have lunch first, but JD was late with getting ready so we decided to just have lunch instead. I wanted to go to Elements in Kilbirnie; we drove there, but it was closed. I encouraged JD to find Spruce Goose, which he duly did: it’s right beside Wellington Airport. It was extremely windy there – I was almost blown over getting inside. The café was quite busy: we were seated on high stools to start with, but soon our waitress arranged for us to sit at a table with a chair on one side and a bench on the other. I had a wonderful view of Lyall Bay, and the strong surf, until waves washed against the window, spoiling the view.
JD had a glass of wine but I stuck with water. We had a really nice lunch: JD had mushrooms on toast, and I had waffles – delicious, I was quite hungry by this time. Afterwards, we discussed what coffee we would have – I wanted a coffee latté made with oat milk, but another waitress, clearing the large table next to us, studiously ignored us. Our waitress was on a break. Eventually we decided to go, although we weren’t in a rush and I would have liked to have coffee.
We thought we were leaving before the 3 pm school closing rush, but the traffic was quite busy. I needed to stop at Khandallah to pick up Te Reo Māori handouts for the meetings I’d missed, since there’s to be a meeting tomorrow morning.
It’s now Wednesday June 7th.
Last night we watched more of the series streaming on Neon, The White House Plumbers. We got to the point where (spoiler alert) Howard Hunt’s wife allis killed in a plane crash. I know the details, of course, but it’s kind of fun to watch it again.
This morning hymn singing was cancelled, since the organist is away at the organists’ annual conference. But there was a Te Reo Māori class at 10 am. The previous day I picked up the handouts I had missed, and the one about the natural world made a lot of sense: whenua, maunga, moana, puke, awa, and so on. Many of Aotearoa’s place names make a lot more sense now. There was a good turnout this morning, and the teacher helpfully went over some of what had been presented last year. I enjoyed the class. I do feel more heartened now- it is getting in, although most of us find it really hard. Afterwards I caught a train and a bus home. It’s still cold today, but at least it’s fine and sunny and not raining.
This afternoon I watch a video presentation with Ben Wittes, Quinta Jurecic, Scott R. Anderson and Roger Parloff. Although I have seen Wittes and Parloff live recently, I haven’t seen the other two, I’ve only listened to them. Suffice to say, they look completely different from how I imagined them! They discuss the Trump Special Counsel investigation. Wittes seems to be sitting in a hammock. Anderson looks older than I expected (and he has a slight lisp); Jurecic looks younger. But I respect all their views, all the same.
It’s now Thursday June 8th.
It’s fine today, but still quite cold; I went to my other singing this morning, and it was lovely, but I had a really croaky voice, making it very hard to sing. I am getting rather worried about my voice: it’s hard to talk, anyway; and further losing my voice seems unusually cruel. It’s totally unpredictable, too. The “frog” in my throat comes and goes, regardless of inhalers and Strepcils.
In Ukraine, the Russians have blown up a large dam in Russian occupied territory near the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, causing massive flooding and devastation; it’s thought the Russians may have panicked ahead of the Ukraine counter-offensive. Whatever the Russians’ reason, this is being viewed as a major war crime. It’s caused a great amount of damage.
In other news, Chris Licht is out as the CEO of CNN; Trump is on the verge of being indicted (still/again/whatever), and Prince Harry is having his day(s) in court as he seeks to sue the Mirror Group of Newspapers. So all of that is mildly interesting, but the main topic of interest is the devastation in Ukraine caused by the attack on the dam.
It’s now Friday June 9th.
Of great interest is the air pollution in the Eastern seaboard of the US, affecting New York city and Washington DC. This is caused by bushfires in Canada, which is severely polluting the air for many. Who knew they had such severe bushfires in Canada? Who still dares to deny the ravages of climate change? Who would have expected flooding in California, after drought and massive bush fires there? People are being advised to “mask up”, again.
But the biggest news today has to be the latest indictment of Donald Trump on seven felony federal charges, relating to the classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago club/retirement home in Florida, brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith. So – at last – he’s been indicted on what are regarded as his most serious legal offences to date. I know exactly where I was when this news broke – I was at the Village Patisserie café in Khandallah, waiting for our Art session to start. I received an alert from the Guardian, saying Donald Trump had been indicted. Initially three charges were reported, one of them being conspiracy, which would involve more than one person. We don’t yet know if he’s being charged under the Espionage Act. Other news outlets followed suit: NBC News, the New York Times and the Washington Post. Accordingly, the Bulwark’s Thursday night livestream, normally for Bulwark Plus (i.e. paid) members only, has been opened up for everyone. As many pods want me to become a paid member, and I’m not prepared to go to those lengths, I welcome this opportunity. I suspect MSNBC will have a special show as well.
As this news has only just “broken”, the hosts are rushing to assemble their reactions. Their words of wisdom are perhaps not as inspiring as sometimes.
I watched Glenn Kirschner’s Justice Matters video where Glenn was positively salivating. Well, it is exciting, too. As Glenn notes, the trial is sometime away. Still and all, it is significant.
The Bulwark podcast focuses mainly on whether some prominent republicans are prepared to come out publicly against Trump: Mike Pence, or Chris Christie, for example. These guys, in my view, are republican at heart, and are just waiting for the republican party to revert to what they call “traditional” conservative values, whatever they are. Good luck with that, then.
The Art Group was lovely, as always, but there were only four of us there. Several are unwell, and are wisely staying away. It was a fine sunny afternoon, but that probably means the temperature will drop severely around 4 pm and it’ll be a cold night. I enjoyed talking to the group’s convenor about our trip to Taiwan, and the wonderful art we saw there – so different from the beautiful art we have here, which tends to focus on Māori themes, or birds, or flowers.
Afterwards JD picked me up but we got caught in after-school traffic so we crawled home.
That’s it for now. I’m sure there’ll be more to say about the indicted former president. Slava Ukraini! Ngā mihi nui.
Classic Barbarian 