History – Brock at Cliff Cottage

2026-03-282026-04-06

100 Years of History in 100 Films

Japanese playground equipment, photographed by Kito Fujio. Found by reading Kottke.com.

The title of this weblog post was correct, when I started writing it. It contained about 100 years of films from 1925 to 2025. In its final form it starts at 1900 and ends at 2029.

Yes, I am a creature of habit, even in terms of using the Internet. I obtain general/ political news from several sources: https://www.inderoyningen.no/ for local news from Inderøy. https://www.nrk.no for other Norwegian news; https://theguardian.com/europe for European and world news; and, https://www.news.google.com for world news with an American perspective. Yes, sometimes I also seek out Canadian news and perspectives from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada . For technology related articles, I habitually use /. = https://slashdot.org/ , I will also mention, yet again, that my favourite social media site was ello.co, until it disappeared in 2023. Wikipedia has an article about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ello_(social_network) .

Then there is kottke.org, founded in 1998, one of the oldest blogs on the web. It is written and produced by Jason Kottke (1973 – ) and covers the essential people, inventions, performances, and ideas that increase the collective adjacent possible of humanity. I begin reading its content, sometimes daily for up to several months. Then one day I forget, and it quickly disappears from view. At some point, I realize that I have not read it for some time, and I search for it again. I have an aversion of remembering its name, but know that it begins with a K.

Much of this post is based on content found at kottke.org when I began re-reading its posts again, on 2025-07-16. No, I cannot remember when I stopped reading it last, but my Firefox browser found it immediately after I typed in k.

One of its posts from 2025-07-08 names the films set during a century from 1925 to 2025, found in a youtube video. I have by no means watched all of these. Because I have an obsession with dates, here they are organized by decade. I have added additional films from 1900 to 1924 and from 2026 to 2029, that are not in the video. Sometimes a film’s setting in terms of time spans several years.

1900 – Call of the Wild (1935); 1901 – The Riddle of the Sands (1979); 1902 – 西洋鏡 = Shadow Magic (2000); 1903 – The Time Machine (2002); 1904 – Our Town (1940); 1905 – Броненосец «Потёмкин» = Battleship Potemkin (1925); 1906 – When the Earth Trembled (1913); 1906 – Madame Butterfly (1995); 1907 – A Room with a View (2007); 1908 – McCabe and Mrs Miller (1971); 1909 – Lady and the Tramp (1955).

1910 – Fanny and Alexander (1982); 1911 – Morte a Venezia = Death in Venice (1971); 1912 – Polyanna (1960); 1913 – The Wild Bunch (1969); 1914 – The 39 Steps (2008); 1915 – Nickelodeon (1976); 1916 – The Color Purple (1985); 1917 – The Time Machine (1960); 1918 – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008); 1919 – It’s a Wonderful Life (1946).

1920 – C’era una volta in America = Once Upon a Time in America (1984); 1921 – Legends of the Fall (1994); 1922 – The Great Gatsby (2013); 1923 – The Natural (1984); 1924 – Chicago (2002); 1925 – Ordet (1955); 1926 – Anastasia (1997); 1927 – Babylon (2022) & The Jazz Singer (1927); 1928 – Walt Before Mickey (2015); 1929 – Porco Rosso (1992).

1930 – Lucky Lady (1975); 1931 – Road to Perdition (2002); 1932 – The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014); 1933 – Mr. Jones (2019); 1934 – L’ultimo imperatore = The Last Emperor (1987); 1935 – The Aviator (2004); 1936 – Race (2016); 1937 – The Hindenburg (1975); 1938 – The Sound of Music (1965); 1939 – The Pianist (2002).

1940 – The Darkest Hour (2017); 1941 – Casablanca (1942); 1942 – The Thin Red Line (1998); 1943 – Come and See (1985); 1944 – Son of Saul (2015); 1945 – Oppenheimer (2023); 1946 – Godzilla Minus One (2023); 1947 – The Brutalist (2024); 1948 – Exodus (1960); 1949 – Trumbo (2015).

1950 – The Master (2012); 1951 – Brooklyn (2015); 1952 – Malcom X (1992); 1953 – The Death of Stalin (2017); 1954 – Blonde (2022); 1955 – The Notorious Bettie Page (2005); 1956 – Ed Wood (1994); 1957 – The Iron Giant (1999); 1958 – The Godfather Part II (1974); 1959 – In Cold Blood (1967).

1960 – Bridge of Spies (2015); 1961 – Hidden Figures (2016); 1962 – X-Men First Class (2011); 1963 – Jackie (2016); 1964 – One Night in Miami (2020); 1965 – Good Morning Vietnam (1987); 1966 – Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan (2019); 1967 – Platoon (1986); 1968 – Judas and the Black Messiah (2021); 1969 – First Man (2018).

1970 – Apollo 13 (1995); 1971 – Zodiac (2007); 1972 – Dog Day Afternoon (1975); 1973 – Elvis (2022); 1974 – Velvet Goldmine (1998); 1975 – Saturday Night (2024); 1976 – Dazed and Confused (1993); 1977 – Summer of Sam (1999); 1978 – Milk (2008); 1979 – Argo (2012).

1980 – American Made (2017); 1981 – Hunger (2008); 1982 – Waltz With Bashir (2008); 1983 – Heartbreak Ridge (1986); 1984 – 1984 (1984); 1985 – Bohemian Rhapsody (2018); 1986 – Straight Outta Compton (2015); 1987 – 1987: When the Day Comes (2017); 1988 – No (2012); 1989 – Good Bye Lenin! (2003).

1990 – Jarhead (2005) 1991 – Three Kings (1999) 1992 – 1992 (2022) 1993 – The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) 1994 – Hotel Rwanda (2004) 1995 – Invictus (2009) [World Cup] 1996 – Everest (2015) 1997 – Diana (2013) 1998 – Steve Jobs (2015) [Reveal of the iMac] 1999 – The Matrix (1999)

2000 – Strange Days (1995); 2001 – 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); 2002 – Patlabor 2 (1993); 2003 – The Social Network (2010); 2004 – The Hurt Locker (2008); 2005 – Transformers The Movie (1986); 2006 – The Outpost (2019); 2007 – The Big Short (2015); 2008 – Killing Them Softly (2012); 2009 – Sully (2016).

2010 – Absolon (2003); 2011 – The Last Chase (1981); 2012 – I Am Legend (2007); 2013 – The Postman (1997); 2014 – Moon Child (2003); 2015 – End of Evangelion (1997); 2016 – Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011); 2017 – The Running Man (1987); 2018 – Rollerball (1975); 2019 – Blade Runner (1982).

2020 – Reign of Fire (2002); 2021 – Johnny Mnemonic (1995); 2022 – Soylent Green (1973); 2023 – X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014); 2024 – A Boy and His Dog (1975); 2025 – Pacific Rim (2013), 2026 – Metropolis (1927), 2027 – Robotech (1986), 2028 – Robocop (2014), 2029 – Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991).

Memories:

I was born on 1948-10-31. My memories start sometime around 1953 – 1955. In fact, I don’t even know if they are real or fake memories. Some time in that period I attended a kindergarten at First Baptist Church on 7th Avenue in New Westminster. I think I have a false memory of wearing a Cowichan sweater there. These sweaters are traditionally knitted by Coast Salish women on Vancouver Island, Canada. They are known for their thick, warm wool, distinctive patterns, and durability. I think this memory comes from seeing a photograph of myself in this sweater.

I attended the original John Robson School, on Queen’s Avenue, almost across the street from the kindergarten, and across the street from where my mother-in-law Margaret Joyce Commins, née Heaps, once lived, starting when she was 6 years old in 1913. I think I have real memories from attending school, but they are often mixed with false memories, such as those involving my short career as a fashion model that happened about that time. My most questionable memory has to do with the construction of Woodward’s store in Uptown, New Westminster, if only because I managed to get paint on my clothes from the fencing. It opened 1954-03-11. Was it a real or a false memory?

2026-02-142026-04-11

Ruskin vs Morris

It has gone 150 years since John Ruskin (1819 – 1900) and William Morris (1834 – 1896), the two most influential figures of the Arts and Crafts Movement, clashed. To understand these two people, it is useful to look at their predecessor, Thomas Carlyle (1795 – 1881), who – unfortunately – distorted Ruskin’s radical political approach to something more authoritarian. Morris was more critical of Carlyle, which allows him to appear more modern than Ruskin.

Both Ruskin and Morris shared a belief in the superiority of medieval crafts. This has implications for everyone living in a digital age, where a retreat to medievalism is an impossible task. We are dependent on using our laptops and hand-held devices to look up medieval topics on Wikipedia. It is difficult for us to see ourselves as immoral when every nation’s political structure is dominated by lying, grabbing politicians. It is difficult to create any form of art, without using artificial intelligence as an intermediary. Indeed, in the twenty-first century, it is difficult to find anyone capable of creating great art. People content themselves with the temporal, the mechanical, the pretty, all far removed from genuine beauty.

In The Nature of Gothic, the second chapter in the second volume of Ruskin’s three volume, The Stones of Venice (1851), a work described by Morris as ‘one of the very few necessary and inevitable utterances of the century’, sought not merely to inspire beautiful buildings, paintings, and crafts, but to transform what Ruskin saw as the inhuman conditions of labour endured by Victorian workers.

Morris produced an 1892 reprint of The Nature of Gothic at his Kelmscott Press. The challenge with the Kelmscott Press, and other similar companies, was that they could only produce works for the affluent minority. They used excessive quantities of hand labour, that were beyond the reach of members of the working class. Thus, the works of the Arts and Crafts movement in terms of wallpapers, textiles, ceramics, furniture, metalwork and glass, were far beyond the reach of the poor. The poor needed the industrial revolution, with mass production and designers eager to produce quality objects for everyone.

Neither Ruskin nor Morris were interested in industrialism. In reflecting on them, I doubt that they were capable of understanding the limitations of craftspersonship, as a challenge to modern industrial practices. Their elitism ensured that handmade products were so expensive that they could never reach the mainstream market.

This limitation was even more evident in of one of the craft experiments with which Ruskin was associated. The Langdale Linen Industry, a revival of Lake District spinning and weaving led by Ruskin devotees, Marian Twelves (ca. 1843 – 1929) and Albert Fleming (? – ?), only ever found a market amongst wealthier buyers. The Linen Industry was loosely connected to Ruskin’s major utopian venture, the Guild of St George, begun in 1871 and conceived as a means to fundamentally challenge the steam-powered dragons of Victorian modernity.

Ruskin hoped that the Guild would attract many adherents or ‘Companions’ and create a series of agricultural and artisanal communities devoted to hand labour, fine products, and the socially transformative effects of non-mechanised land work. Despite Ruskin believing that this work would encourage environmentally sustainable practices, this was not the result. Young idealist agricultural companions found that their efforts were a nightmare of drudgery and neglect. Reasons put forward for these failures include Ruskin’s failing mental health, his inability to organize practical work. Sometimes his failed relationship with Rose La Touche (1848 – 1875) are used to explain it. In the 20th and 21st centuries, emphasis has shifted to Ruskin’s authoritarianism, which compelled practitioners to obey unscrupulous and unsympathetic local agents.

Morris described a fictional utopia in News From Nowhere (serialized 1890, reprinted as a Kelmscott book in 1892). Yes, the book is a contradiction because nowhere is it explained how an authoritarian society can transform itself into a egalitarian society with contented citizens living in harmony in beautiful landscapes, producing beautiful goods and an abundance of necessities. Of course Morris believes this is possible because of his commitment to socialism. Yet, as a writer of fiction, the setting is entirely fictional. He offers no mechanism delineating how a society can transform itself.

If the early twenty-first century offers any guidance, it is that the billionaires, and their multi-millionaire followers, will attempt to extract more from society that it is capable of providing. Today, they pay almost no tax, loan their excessive wealth to governments who cannot function without tax incomes, and receive interest payments for their efforts. The working poor, continue to have a marginal existence, with excessive workloads, paying next to nothing. So, more than one hundred and thirty years after the publication of News from Nowhere, there is no magic formula unlocking a transformational secret.

Except, there are two authors who do offer a vision of the future worth examining. The initial diagram, above, was developed by economist Kate Raworth (1970 – ) in her 2012 Oxfam paper A Safe and Just Space for Humanity. It was further elaborated upon in her 2017 book Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist. Raworth wants the foundations of economic science, and in particular its emphasis on unfettered growth, to be reconsidered, so that planetary resources can perpetually serve human needs, including quality of life. Instead of economic growth, economics has a duty to ensured that everyone on earth has access to their basic needs, such as adequate food and education. There is also a need to protect future generations by protecting the ecosystem.

As an augment to Raworth’s position, Ingrid Robeyns’ (1972 – ) Limitarianism: The case against extreme wealth (2024), argues that extreme wealth undermines democracy, is incompatible with the earth’s ecological predicament, is almost always undeserved, and harms the interests of everyone including the super-rich. Robeyns proposes that wealth should be capped. While the exact limit is open to discussion, she has proposed €10 M, yet has suggested that €1 or €2 M is probably a more appropriate level. This comes in addition to a poverty threshold.

I can hear the complaints now. How is Christian von Koenigsegg (1972 – ) going to survive if Koenigsegg Automotive AB can’t sell world-class sports cars to the super-wealthy? Perhaps he will have to take a new direction. After all, Koenigsegg got the idea to build his own car after watching the Norwegian stop-motion animated movie The Pinchcliffe Grand Prix in his youth. In Norwegian Flåklypa replaces Pinchcliffe. At 22 years old, Koenigsegg gathered SEK 60M from investors and founded Koenigsegg Automotive in 1994. He could learn to become an animator.

A partial explanation for my interest in Ruskin has to do with Ruskin, British Columbia.

Several places are named after William Morris, including the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow, London, and the Morris Room at the Oxford Union. Additionally, the William Morris Society, has its office and museum located at Kelmscott House, Hammersmith, where Morris lived from 1879 until his death.

Several places are also named after John Ruskin, including: Ruskin, Florida; Ruskin, Georgia; Ruskin, Minnesota; Ruskin, Nebraska; and, Ruskin, British Columbia. Additionally, there are educational institutions like Ruskin College in Oxford and Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, as well as landmarks such as the Ruskin Museum in Coniston, England.

In British Columbia, Ruskin is a rural community, in Maple Ridge municipality, about 55 km east of Vancouver on the north shore of the Fraser River, adjacent to the Stave River. It was named around 1900 after John Ruskin. Fifty-four members of the Canadian Co-operative Society, formed a sawmill there in 1895 and named it Ruskin Mills. They set up a school, general store, a black smith’s shop, a shoemaker’s shop, a dairy and a vegetable farm.

To operate the sawmill, logs had to be pulled by horses or oxen to Stave River and then floated down to the mill. That was, until 1898, when, due to a rainless summer, the Stave River dried up and logs could not be moved to the mill. Lacking money and facing potential bankruptcy the Society surrendered its assets to E.H. Heaps & Co. who had supplied the machinery for the mill on credit.

I mention this because Trish, my wife, is a great grand daughter of E.H. Heaps (1851 – 1931). Heaps turned the small Ruskin mill into a more modern operation. They started expanding and upgrading the mill. Horse or oxen logging was replaced with steam and railway logging. Heaps built a logging rail line that grew northwest until it reached Dewdney Trunk Road and down a short distance along the east side of Kanaka Creek. This was not the only railway owned by the Heaps family. They also owned one on Narrows Inlet, formerly Narrows Arm, a fjord branching east from Sechelt Inlet.

Across the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) rail track, on the shore of the Fraser River, was Heaps office building that also accommodated a general store and post office as well living quarters for senior staff (read: Heaps family members).

The Heaps mill at Ruskin burned down in the winter of 1904/1905 and was rebuilt, only to burn down again in 1910. Plans to rebuild the mill failed when no money could be raised by the company. There were plans and promises for a new and even larger mill but Heaps’s Ruskin logging and lumber operations went in receivership after the building boom in Vancouver crashed in 1913.

The E.H. Heaps and Co Store and Hotel in Ruskin was built in 1902 that also contained mill offices and a restaurant. It was destroyed by fire in the late 1920s.

Heap’s mill complex in 1912 from the west showing lumber piles and railway access. In the foreground, a roundhouse/ turntable is under construction.

2025-10-182025-11-23

Postgate

This is a commentary about five generations of the Postgate family: P#1 = John Postgate (1820-1881); P#2 = John Percival Postgate (1853 – 1926); P#3A = Margaret Cole nee Postgate (1893 – 1980); P#3B = Raymond Postgate (1896 – 1971); P#4A = John Postgate (1922–2014); P#4B = Oliver Postgate (1925 – 2008); P#5A Daniel Postgate (1964-2025). Each of them can be regarded as a public figure. Of interest is how one generation manifests itself in subsequent generations. This is far from a biography, for it only looks at some social aspects of their lives.

P#1 was from Scarborough. His working life began as a grocer’s boy at age eleven. He discovered common deceptions in the trade, including the adding of sand to sugar, and plaster of Paris to flour. He subsequently apprenticed himself to two Scarborough doctors. He had taught himself chemistry and botany and went on to become a licensed apothecary in London where he discovered that drugs could often be dangerously impure. He attended lectures at the Leeds school of medicine.

After studying medicine in London, he set up a practice in Driffield, Yorkshire, then Birmingham. He became a fellow of the College of Surgeons in 1854. In Birmingham Postgate was concerned about pollution: 176 industrial chimneys spewed smoke, many streets were open sewers. He published his first reformist pamphlet and called for municipal action, on Birmingham’s sanatary aspects. He also addressed his major preoccupation of his life, food and drug adulteration, proposing a system of public analysts to monitor samples of food and drugs, with magistrates able to levy fines on fraudsters.

A Select Committee of Inquiry in the House of Commons was established, issuing a final report that mimmiced P#1’s proposal. Attempts to enact suitable legislation were postponed, because of opposition from retailers, until the Sale of Food and Drugs Act 1875 was passed.

P#2

P#2 was a very different person, in part because of an austere upbringing. Travel, pamphlets, postage and other expenses absorbed almost all of P#1’s income. His mother, born Mary Horwood (1819–1889), was an educated woman, who was perpetually short of money to feed, clothe and bring up a large family. Thus, there were tensions between the children and their parsimonious = stingy and (apparently) uncaring father. P#2 became a classical (Latin) scholar.

P#3

John Percival Postgate’s daughter Margaret Cole (1893–1980) is P#3A.

In order to understand Margaret, one should also look at her husband, the socialist economist and writer George Douglas Howard Cole (1889 – 1959). G. D. H. believed in common ownership of the means of production, and theorized about guild socialism = production organized through worker guilds. He belonged to the Fabian Society and was an advocate for the co-operative movement.

As a pacifist, Cole took a pragmatic approach to the 1914-18 war. In 1915, he became an unpaid research officer at the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, where he advised the union on how to respond to wartime legislation including the Munitions of War Act of 1915. This role enabled him to escape conscription on the grounds that he was conducting work of national importance.

Cole’s involvement in the campaign against conscription introduced him to a co-worker, Margaret Cole. They were married in 1918.

Together, G. D. H. and Margaret wrote over 30 detective novels between 1925 and 1948. She went into London politics and received a DBE.

P#3B was Margaret’s brother Raymond Postgate (1896 –1971) who was notable as a socialist, journalist and editor, social historian, mystery novelist and gourmet. He founded The Good Food Guide in 1951, which was ahead of its time in being largely based on volunteer reports on restaurants. He married Daisy Lansbury (1892–1971), daughter of, and secretary to, the politician George Lansbury (1859–1940) who led the Labour Party from 1932 to 1935, and whose biography was among Raymond’s books.

P#3C was another son of John Percival Postgate, Ormond Oliver Postgate (1905–1989), a teacher of Latin and history at Peter Symonds School in Winchester, who retired in 1970.

P#4

In the next generation, Raymond’s children include: P#4A, the microbiologist John Postgate FRS (1922–2014), Professor of Microbiology at the University of Sussex, who was also a writer on, and sometime performer of, jazz. His brother, P#4B, Richard Oliver Postgate (1925–2008), was an animator, puppeteer and writer, who created television series including Noggin the Nog, Ivor the Engine, and Clangers from the 1950s to the 1980s. P#4C Nicholas Postgate, (1945 – ) is a British academic and Assyriologist. He is Professor of Assyriology at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

P#5

Oliver Postgate had three sons: Stephen, Simon and P#5A Daniel Postgate (1964-2025). Daniel, his youngest son, was a children’s book writer and illustrator; he inherited Oliver’s company Smallfilms and created a new series of Clangers on CBeebies.

F#1

Peter Arthur Firmin (1928 – 2018) was an English artist and puppet maker. He founded Smallfilms, with Oliver Postgate. The production company was active from 1958 to the late 1980s. Most of Smallfilms’ animation work was produced in a barn on Firmin’s land in Blean near Canterbury in Kent. Firmin made the sets, puppets and backdrops for the programmes, often also contributing sound and visual effects during filming. Between them they created a number of popular children’s TV programmes: The Saga of Noggin the Nog, Ivor the Engine, Clangers, Bagpuss and Pogles’ Wood.

In addition to his work with Oliver Postgate, Firmin made other puppets and children’s programmes. In 1959, with his wife Joan, he devised a programme of nursery rhymes for Associated-Rediffusion, called The Musical Box, which used live cardboard animation and puppets. After retiring from TV production, Firmin produced engravings and linocuts.

Literary connections

John Postgate = P#4B (2001) Lethal Lozenges and Tainted Tea: A Biography of John Postgate (1820–1881); (2013), Microbes, Music and Me. John & Mary Postgate, (1994) A Stomach For Dissent: The Life Of Raymond Postgate,
Margaret Cole (1949) Growing up into Revolution; (1971) The Life of G. D. H. Cole.
Naomi Mitchison (1982) Margaret Cole, 1893–1980. Note: Naomi Mary Margaret Mitchison, (née Haldane; 1897 – 1999) Scottish novelist and poet. She wrote more than 90 books of historical and science fiction, travel writing and autobiography.
B. D. Vernon (1986) Margaret Cole, 1893–1980: A Political Biography.
Oliver Postgate (2000) Seeing Things: An Autobiography, illustrated by Peter Firmin.

Note: P#5A was the starting point of this weblog post. Then I discovered that he had an interesting ancestry. The post has had a long development time, more than four years. It was originally worked on: 2021-06-05, being saved at 10:20. It was subsequently worked on 2024-05-05, saved at 08:00. Work again resumed on 2025-10-07 at 11:00, knowing that publication was less than two weeks away.

2025-05-312025-06-03

Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania

As this weblog post is being published, my son, Alasdair, and I are in Estonia, visiting Tallinn, as well as the islands of Hiiumaa and Saaremaa. We have plans to visit Latvia and Lithuania, possibly in 2026. This weblog post is to provide context to the political situation these countries face.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are small Baltic states with an area of 45 335, 64 589 and 65 300 km² and populations of 1 331 824 (2021 census), 1 842 226 (2022 census) and 2 897 430 (2025 estimate) people, respectively. They been inhabited since at least 9 000 BC, 3 000 BC and 8 000 BC, respectively. These countries became part of the Soviet Union in 1944, but regained their independence 1991-08-20, 1991-08-21 and 1990-03-11, respectively. They do not want to be affiliated politically with Russia again.

The three countries have armed themselves and became members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on the same day, 2004-03-29, along with Bulgaria, Slovakia and Slovenia. Currently, continued participation or the dependability of USA in the alliance has been questioned. NATO has changed since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Finland and Sweden have joined, and Poland has increased its influence. Russian President Vladimir Putin (1952 – ) is unhappy with the participation of the Baltic states in NATO, referring to it as a serious provocation for Russia. His feelings for these three countries are similar to those he has for other former Soviet states such as Georgia and Ukraine. They should submit to the will of Russia.

Because of Donald Trump’s vacillations about NATO, Europeans are starting to understand that nobody outside of Europe is prepared to resolve Europe’s challenges with Russia. The Baltic States, in particular, have to defend themselves, being adjacent to Russia and/ or Belarus.

Between 2001-09-12 and 2001-10-02 in response to 9/11 attacks in the United States, NATO’s collective self-defense provisions were undertaken at NATO’s own initiative, without a request by the United States, and occurred despite the hesitation of Germany, Belgium, Norway and the Netherlands. The United States accepted contributions on a bilateral, non-NATO basis from 14 of NATO’s then 19 member states as well as non-NATO members Russia, Latvia, Estonia and Slovakia. These ranged in size from Estonia’s contribution of a five-man explosives detection team, to the UK’s commitment of an infantry brigade and naval task force. It is the only time in NATO’s history its collective defense provisions have been invoked.

The Baltic States have legitimate concerns, particularly about the state-directed destruction of other places, supervised by Joseph Stalin in the 1930s. Historian Robert Conquest (1917 – 2015) wrote an account of this in The Great Terror: Stalin’s Purges of the 1930s (1968). It was revised as The Great Terror: A Reassessment (1990) and The Great Terror: 40th Anniversary Edition (2008). A more appropriate book for people living in the 21st century, written with Jon Manchip White (1924 – 2013), is the fictional book What to Do When the Russians Come: a Survivor’s Guide (1984) which was intended to be a real survival manual in case of Soviet invasion.

These Baltic republics have supported Ukraine vigorously since the 2022 Russian invasion, they have supported citizen preparedness, encouraging citizens to stock enough food in their home to weather an emergency, and to have plans for family rendezvous outside the capitals. There is also a need for a mental preparation for a Russian invasion.

Many military analysts have assured European nations that the era of war in Europe had passed, and that their concerns no longer applied. Thus many Europeans assumed that a full-scale brutal war, like what occurred during the Second World War, was not possible. With the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, followed by the invasion and annexing of Crimea in 2014, and then other parts of Ukraine in 2022, Europeans are slowly realizing their error. This has resulted in increased military spending, and in the stationing of NATO forces in other Baltic countries.

Europeans seem to be understanding the Russian threat, almost as fast as the American administration is repeating Kremlin propaganda. Because of the current American attitudes, NATO may devolve into a European defense alliance. There may be a need for something larger, a democratic alliance with other members such as: Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and Taiwan. It should be noted that American troops have been in all three Baltic countries since the annexation of Crimea. There used to be about 120 000 Russian troops along the Estonian-Russian border. These are not there now, possibly because they were sent to Ukraine. On the other hand Putin declared that Narva, Estonia’s third-largest city, is historically part of Russia. It is closer to St. Petersburg than to Tallinn. Of its roughly 56 000 inhabitants, 96 percent speak Russian and a third hold a Russian passports. Indeed, about a quarter of Estonia’s population is ethnic Russian.

While the Russian military was able to seize territory in Georgia and Crimea, it has not had much success in this second invasion of Ukraine. One person suggested that Russia has gone from being the second-strongest army in the world, to being the second strongest in Ukraine. In the Baltic states, there have always been nebulous plans to mobilize their populations. These were never activated until the second Russian invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine was supposed to accept defeat in a couple of days/ weeks/ possibly months. However, the Ukrainian people rose up. This influenced Baltic strategy. Every adult citizen knows what to do in time of war. Often they bring their civilian capabilities for a potential war effort.

Here is a list of countries bordering Russia, from longest to shortest, with their border length in km: Kazakhstan = 7 512.8; China = 4 209.3; Mongolia = 3 485; Ukraine = 1 925.8; Finland = 1 272.8; Belarus = 1 239; Georgia = 875.5; Azerbaijan = 372.6; Estonia = 294; Latvia = 270.5; Lithuania = 266; Abkhazia = 255.4; Poland = 204.1; Norway = 195.7.

Today, troops and personnel from NATO Allies serve, train and exercise together in the east of the Alliance, representing a strong expression of unity and solidarity. Forces from contributing nations rotate in and out of the battle groups; at any given time, they may be deployed to the battle groups or stationed in their home countries with the ability to deploy rapidly, if needed.NATO is also integrating Finland and Sweden, in part by developing a presence in Finland, which has the longest border with Russia.

The Russian/ Belarus border with Europe is with NATO members, from north to south: Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. This means that Russian plans to reincorporate the Baltic states into Russia has become increasingly complicated. An attack on any of these Baltic states, will be met with a response from Poland, Finland and others.

At the 2016 NATO Summit in Warsaw, there was agreement to establish eight Forward Land Forces (FLF) multinational battle groups, provided by framework nations and other contributing Allies on a voluntary, fully sustainable and rotational basis. The battle groups operate in concert with national home defense forces and are present at all times in the host countries. All eight battle groups are fully combat-capable formations. While NATO forward presence in both the northeast and southeast of the Alliance, the emphasis here is on the northeast.

This forward presence was first deployed in 2017, with the creation of four multinational battalion-size battle groups in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, led by the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and the United States, respectively. In the southeast, there was increased NATO activity. However, it was only after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022-02, that NATA reinforced its existing battle groups and established four more in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. At the 2022 Madrid Summit, NATO agreed to scale up beyond the battalion-size multinational battle groups to brigade-size units, if needed. In 2024-07, Latvia scaled up to forming NATO Multinational Brigade Latvia. In 2024-10, the existing multinational battle group was transferred to this brigade. The battle groups are not identical; their sizes and compositions are tailored to specific geographic factors and threats. Overall, military requirements guide each battle group’s composition.

As of February 2025, there were eight battle groups on the eastern front. Those in the three Baltic states had the following participants: Host nation: Estonia; Framework nation: United Kingdom; Contributing nation: France. Host nation: Latvia; Framework nation: Canada; Contributing nations: Albania, Czechia, Iceland, Italy, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden. Host nation: Lithuania; Framework nation: Germany; Contributing nations: Belgium, Czechia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Norway.

Donald Trump (1946 – ) seems to focus on making America great again, or at least reconstructing America so that it looks as if it had not left the 1950s, possibly due to his age. I keep wondering when GM will resurrect 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Aires? The building of alliances is the antithesis of Trumpism, so the world is isolating USA. Russia may have had large-scale plans for the future of the world after subduing Ukraine, but its military campaign has proved so underwhelming, that it is resorting to hybrid warfare, including: sabotage, espionage and information operations. People have to be prepared for this.

To end on a more positive note. I am an eager reader of the annual Happiness reports. Lithuania ranked highest for people under the age of 30 in 2024. Latvia and Estonia are ranked 31st and 44th for their under-30 populations. More generally, Lithuania was ranked 19 for all age groups, ahead of Estonia in 34th place and Latvia in 46th. Unlike its neighbours, Lithuania has been steadily climbing up the happiness rankings since 2017, when it placed 52nd.

2025-05-222025-05-15

World Goth Day #17

For decades, there have been two unsinkable aircraft carriers in the Baltic. Kaliningrad has served Russia, while Gotland served Sweden. That changed on 2024-03-07, when Sweden officially joined NATO = North Atlantic Treaty Organization = Organisation du traité de l’Atlantique nord = OTAN. Strategically, Gotland is one of the most important military locations in the world. This island is the alleged original location of the Goths. This post is probably less about the history of the Goths, and more about how Fårö became a film mecca for about forty years!

Jordanes was a 6th-century Eastern Roman bureaucrat, widely believed to be of Gothic descent, who became a historian later in life. He wrote two works, Romana (551 or 552) about Roman history and Getica (551) about the Goths. The only other contemporary work about the Goths was written by Isidore of Seville’s (c. 560 – 636), Historia de regibus Gothorum, Vandalorum et Suevorum (624) = History of the Kings of the Goths, Vandals and Suevi. These are three distinct works, with only the first one about the Goths.

The accuracy of Jordanes account is disputed, but he states that the Goths originated in southern Scandinavia, on the island of Gotland. In the 1st century, the Gutones – possibly early Goths, with their Wielbark culture – live near the lower Vistula River in current Poland. From the 2nd century, this culture expands southwards towards the Black Sea. By the late 3rd century it morphs into the Chernyakhov culture. By the 4th century, there are several distinct Gothic groups including: Thervingi, Greuthungi and Wulfila. were the most powerful. During this time, Wulfila began the conversion of Goths to Christianity.

In the late 4th century, the lands of the Goths were invaded from the east by the Huns. In the aftermath of this event, several groups of Goths came under Hunnic domination, while others migrated further west or sought refuge inside the Roman Empire. Goths who entered the Empire by crossing the Danube inflicted a devastating defeat upon the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. These Goths would form the Visigoths, and under their king Alaric I, they began a long migration, eventually establishing a Visigothic Kingdom in Spain at Toledo.[3] Meanwhile, Goths under Hunnic rule gained their independence in the 5th century, most importantly the Ostrogoths. Under their king Theodoric the Great, these Goths established an Ostrogothic Kingdom in Italy at Ravenna.

When my children were younger, I took them both on a trip to Gotland, taking the ferry from and to Oskarshamn. For me, one of the highlights of the trip was to take another ferry to the Fårö Island. Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (1918 – 2007) lived (from about 1960) and died on Fårö. Several of his films were made there: Through a Glass Darkly (1961) = Såsom i en spegel = As in a Mirror (literal translation), Persona (1966), Hour of the Wolf (1968) = Vargtimmen , Shame (1968) = Skammen, The Passion of Anna (1969) = En passion = A passion (literal translation), and Scenes from a Marriage (1973) = Scener ur ett äktenskap, a television miniseries in 6 episodes. Liv Ullmann’s Faithless (2000) = Trolösa, based on a Bergman screenplay, was also filmed there. Fårö is the subject of Bergman’s documentary films Fårö Document (1970) and Fårö Document 1979.

The first Bergman film I experienced was The Virgin Spring = Jungfrukällan (1960, Swedish) set in medieval Sweden, filmed at Styggforsen = Ugly Falls (literal translation), Dalarna, a county on mainland Sweden bordering Norway, south of Trøndelag. It is close to the Swedish town of Mora, which is about 500 – 560 km south east of Cliff Cottage, depending on the route taken. The story was adapted by historical novelist/ screenwriter Ulla Isaksson (1916 – 2000), yes, a woman, from a 13th-century Swedish ballad. For me, this fact remained in the foreground when I viewed the film. Isaksson was interested in the conflict between paganism and Christianity. This conflict is ongoing, but reduced as more of the Scandinavian population becomes atheistic, or at least agnostic.

The film’s violence is unpleasant to watch, yet the father’s merciless response to the rape and murder of his young daughter, is understandable. The film has left a lasting impression. Yet, the reason for Bergman selecting Isaksson as the screenwriter, probably has to do with the criticism of a his previous film, the Seventh Seal = Det sjunde inseglet (1957). It was called metaphorical and allegorical, but historically inaccurate.

The second Bergman film I saw was The Magic Flute = Trollflöjten (1975) a film version of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s (1756 – 1791) opera Die Zauberflöte. The work is widely viewed as one of the most successful films of an opera ever made, and once again left a lasting impression on me. Again, this work was not made on Gotland, Originally, Bergman had wanted to film the production at Drottningholm Palace Theatre, but because of concerns about its fragility, the stage, including wings, curtains, and wind machines, was copied and erected in the studios of the Swedish Film Institute, in Stockholm.

Of the Bergman films made on Fårö, Persona has left the most lasting impression. It has been called many things including: controversial and experimental. It is a reflection of Carl Jung’s (1875 – 1961) theory of persona, including references to abortion, filmmaking, homosexuality, motherhood, vampirism and other subjects. The plot involves a young nurse named Alma = Bibi Andersson (1935 – 2019) and her patient, well-known stage actress Elisabet Vogler = Liv Ullmann (1938 -), who has suddenly stopped speaking. They move to a cottage, where Alma cares for Elisabet. The film then examines the situation where the care giver has difficulty distinguishing herself from her patient.

World Goth Day #18 will look at Gothic writing and fonts. It will be published on Thursday, 2026-05-22.

2023-10-212023-10-26

War in Film

Poster for the American version of *Le Roi de cœur* (1966).

On 2014-02-20, Russia invaded Ukraine, and conducted a war that lasted until 2014-03-26. By 2014-03-16, Russia had succeeded in its stated aim, to annex the Crimean peninsula. Eight years later, almost to the day, on 2022-02-21 Russia officially recognized the two self-proclaimed separatist states in the Donbas, and openly sent troops into these territories. On 2022-02-24, Russia invaded Ukraine, the start of Putin’s war, or the second Russian invasion of the Ukraine this millennium.

Previously, I have written two post about this topic: In 2022 in a post titled Ukraine and in 2023, in a post about a democracy tax. This is a third weblog post that mentions Ukraine. I tried to use something resembling logic. This has proved illusive, and beyond my capabilities. My conclusion is that there can be no logical starting point, because war (and every other form of violence) is not a logical/ rational action. It cannot be understood logically.

Should I have to select one film that explains the current situation in Ukraine, I would choose Maidan (2014). It was directed by Sergei Loznitsa (1964 – ). I find Loznitsa an interesting director because of his background. He graduated from Kyiv Polytechnic Institute as a mathematician in 1987. Then he worked at the Institute of Cybernetics on expert systems. He also worked as a Japanese translator. Then he studied cinematography.

In the early 1960s, there were ample opportunities to reflect on violence. In October of 1962, there was the Cuban missile crisis. I lived about 165 km/ 103 miles from the American nuclear submarine base at Bangor, near Bremerton, in Washington State. If at the time I had known how close we lived to it, I probably would have been more worried. As it was, numerous people built bomb shelters adjacent to their houses, in New Westminster.

Perhaps I would have been more afraid if I had devoured On the Beach, either in the form of the novel (1957), written by Nevil Shute (1899 – 1960), or the film (1959), directed by Stanley Kramer (1913 – 2001). Both show the horror of nuclear war.

Discounting television comedies such as The Phil Silver’s Show aka (Sargeant) Bilko (1955 – 1959), McHale’s Navy (1962 – 1966) and Hogan’s Heroes (1965–1971), there have been few serious war series in the 1960s and 1970s. An exception was the The Gray Ghost (1957 – 1958), that portrayed the American Civil War from a Confederate perspective.

My first cinematic exposure to the violence of war, that had an impact on me, was probably Lawrence of Arabia (1962). I found it a disturbing film, not just because of the military actions it portrayed. It was morally vague, and depicted a person with psychic challenges, he is incapable of overcoming. I reflected on it, but not too much to keep my sanity. It was directed by David Lean (1908-1991), who had previously directed The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), although I only watched that film considerably later.

Deeper reflections on violence began 58 years, 3 months, 3 days = 3 040 weeks = 21 280 days > 500 000 hours > 30 million minutes > 1.8 billion seconds earlier than the start of this second invasion of Ukraine. On 1963-11-22, the day John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917 – 1963), the American president, was assassinated. The date is etched permanently into my brain, and marks an event that started my radicalization. Less than a month before, I had celebrated my 15th birthday, I was in grade ten, the youngest person in my class, having been born on the cut-off date that allowed me to start school in 1954.

Prior to Kennedy’s assassination, I was conventional. For example, I would fire five rounds of 0.22 caliber bullets, at the rifle range in the basement of Vincent Massey junior secondary school, after finishing band practice. Since then, I have not fired a weapon.

At the time of that assassination, people just a few years younger may not have been aware of the significance of it. People, just a few years older, may have already made a commitment to a particular world view. For me, it called into question the use of violence to resolve disputes. Gradually, I began to question the Vietnam war, war more generally, then other forms of violence. In part, it comes from examining the brutality of many other wars, notably the American Civil War, the Crimean War, the Boar War, the First World War. In part, this was aided by a fellow student, Steve Scheving, who kept meticulous statistics about casualties in the battles of the American Civil War.

Of the American Civil War films, one of the most respected is Shenandoah (1965), directed by Andrew V. McLaglen (1920 – 2014). Admittedly, it is sentimental, but it does raise a number of humanitarian themes. Some regard it as an anti-war film, which made it appealing to many draft-dodgers and others, facing the Vietnam war.

Then there are novel/film combinations that offer a means of understanding war. An understanding of the first world war can come from Im Westen nichts Neues = Nothing New in the West (literal) = All Quiet on the Western Front, English translation title (1929) more a psychological study looking at physical and mental trauma, as well as social detachment. It was written by Erich Paul (later his middle name was replaced by Maria) Remarque (1898 – 1970). Several film versions have been made, including the first one released in 1930, directed by Lewis Milestone, born in Moldova as Leib Milstein = Лейб Мильштейн in its original Russian (1895 – 1980).

The anti-war novel and film, set in the first world war, that I cannot recommend to anyone because of the horrors it contains, is Johnny Got His Gun. Blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (1905 – 1976) wrote the novel in 1938, and directed the film version in 1971.

My timeline proceeds more cautiously through the Second World War because both of my parents served in the Royal Canadian Air Force, at that time. I find it impossible to condemn anyone fighting in a war defined by my parents as justified and necessary. I am too damaged to objectively reflect on this war, and find myself quoting, yet again, from The Go-Between (1953) by L. P. Hartley, (1895 – 1972): “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

I learned that romance and comedy could be used to hide the horrors of war. For example: James Michener (1907 – 1997) wrote a collection of short stories, Tales of the South Pacific (1947), from which the musical South Pacific (1949) theatrical production emerged, as well as the film version (1958), directed by Joshua Logan (1908 – 1988). Both of these featured music by composer Richard Rodgers (1902 – 1979) and lyricist-dramatist Oscar Hammerstein II (1895 – 1960).

I have a greater appreciation of Catch-22 (1961), the satirical novel by Joseph Heller (1923 – 1999), and the black comedy film from 1970, directed by Mikhail Igor Peschkowsky, better known as Mike Nichols (1931 – 2014).

I have allowed myself to see Schindler’s List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998), both directed by Steven Spielberg (1946 – ).

Comedy also dominated the Korean war. The best example is M*A*S*H, subtitled, A novel about three army doctors (1968) by Robert Hooker, the pseudonym of Hiester Richard Hornberger Jr. (1924 – 1997), and the film (1970) directed by Robert Altman (1925 – 2006).

It is also easier to find fault with events in more distant places. It took me much longer to confront my own racism and other prejudices, and the genocide that took place in British Columbia. As an immigrant, it is easier for me to see contradictions in Norwegian society that Norwegians can’t admit to. Much of this has to do with religion. From my perspective, Norway only reluctantly allows freedom of religion, and has not fully recognized the violence sanctioned by its own state designated religion, particularly against the Sami people, but also others who did not think conventionally.

It was easier to condemn events in Algeria, Czechoslovakia, Chile and Korea, to name four countries on four continents, that people might suspect were randomly selected. They weren’t, for films have had a significant impact on my perception of the world, and of war. In these cases, respectively: The Battle of Algiers = La battaglia di Algeri, (1966) directed by Gillo Pontecorvo (1919 – 2006) ; Closely Watched Trains = Ostře sledované vlaky (1966) directed by Jiří Menzel (1938 – 2020); missing [sic](1982) directed by Costa-Gavras (1933 – ) although I am much more appreciative of Z (1969), which is about the assassination of democratic Greek politician Grigoris Lambrakis (1912 – 1963); The Manchurian Candidate (1962) described as a neo-noir psychological political thriller film, directed by John Frankenheimer (1930 – 2002).

There have been numerous films made about the Vietnam war, including: 1) Apocalypse Now (1979), directed by Francis Ford Coppola (1939 – ), loosely based on the novella Heart of Darkness (1899) by Joseph Conrad, born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski (1857 – 1924). Here, war is explored as an exercise in futility and as a catalyst for a descent into madness; 2) The Deer Hunter (1978), directed by Michael Cimino (1939 – 2016), focused on realism and the psychological destruction of individual participants. Many of these films are difficult to watch. This applies to most war films made after 1970. 3) First Blood (1982) was directed by Bulgarian-Canadian Ted Kotcheff (1932 -) and was filmed in and around Hope, British Columbia. Damaged Vietnam veteran John Rambo searches for an old friend in a small town but is harassed by the sheriff until he reaches his breaking point. Rambo reverts to his military mindset. 4) Kotcheff explored the Vietnam war very differently in Uncommon Valor (1983), with a focus on prisoners of war (POW), and people missing in action (MIA).

A Baha’i perspective on war.

A documentary about World War One, The Man Who Shot the Great War (2014), has had the greatest spiritual impact on me. I often reflect on the souls of men who have been conscripted, and ordered to kill other men. This war killed 37 million soldiers. George Hackney (? – 1977) was a Belfast sniper, and photographer. While unofficial photographs were illegal, his were allowed. George was also a Baha’i.

The Baha’i perspective is that no person is condemned to an eternity in hell or in heaven. Instead people continue their spiritual journey they began in their earthly life involving a greater spiritual understanding. I expect George found solace in this message.

In October, Baha’is celebrate the births of its twin profits, Bab (1819 – 1850) and Baha’u’llah (1817 – 1892). While its prophets may have their origins in Iran, Baha’u’llah was ultimately exiled to Akko/ Acre, in today’s Israel. This exile is why the Faith’s headquarters are located in nearby Haifa. I have been on pilgrimage to Haifa three times, but feel no need to visit a fourth time.

This month, the world has witnessed atrocities in Israel as well as the Gaza strip. Baha’u’llah has written on war, and come with recommendations for achieving world peace, in two documents, that are often quoted.

“Be united, O concourse of the sovereigns of the world, for thereby will the tempest of discord be stilled amongst you, and your peoples find rest. Should any one among you take up arms against another, rise ye all against him, for this is naught but manifest justice.” Gleanings, p. 254.

“The time must come when the imperative necessity for the holding of a vast, an all-embracing assemblage of men will be universally realized. The rulers and kings of the earth must needs attend it, and, participating in its deliberations, must consider such ways and means as will lay the foundations of the world’s Great Peace amongst men. Such a peace demandeth that the Great Powers should resolve, for the sake of the tranquillity of the peoples of the earth, to be fully reconciled among themselves. Should any king take up arms against another, all should unitedly arise and prevent him.” Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, pp. 30-1.

Needless to say, I am not impressed with the various rulers of the world uniting to further peace. As I approach 75 years of living on this planet, I reflect once again, much as I did in the late 1960s, on how countries are willing to sacrifice their most important resource, young people, in needless wars.

I further reflect on how countries, especially the United States through the Marshall Plan, were willing to invest in the reconstruction of Europe, which provided the basis for Germany, and many other countries, to prosper. The US, Israel and the many oil-rich Middle Eastern countries have been unwilling to invest in the West Bank or the Gaza strip, to ensure its Palestinian residents could prosper.

Al-Nakba (1996) is a documentary film by Benny Brunner (1954 – ) and Alexandra Jansse (1956 – ). It presents insights into past events in Palestine/ Israel that continue to shape current events. It is based on the book, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947–1949 by Benny Morris (1948 – ), an Israeli historian. The film title refers to catastrophic events in 1948 forcing, an estimated seven hundred thousand Palestinians into exile and poverty, while Israelis, could create and prosper their own state.

This Israeli perspective is portrayed in the Leon Uris (1924 – 2003) novel, Exodus (1958), which was made into a film directed by Otto Preminger (1905 – 1986) in 1960.

Perhaps the most inspiring war film remains Philippe de Broca’s (1933 – 2004) King of Hearts = Le Roi de cœur (1966). The film is set in a set in a small French town towards the end of World War I. Retreating Germans have placed a bomb in the town square, and it is up to signaller/ pigeon keeper Charles Plumpkit to defuse the bomb. While normal residents flee, inmates from an asylum take over the town, and challenge conventional values. The film also questions the very notion of sanity.

A confession: I have never served in any military, and describe myself as a pacifist. In my youth, I have known people who have served in the sea cadets, based at the New Westminster Armory. Many of them were musicians. In Norway, I have worked with teachers who choose to leave the school system temporarily, to work as soldiers in peace-keeping missions, most often in the Middle East. I have never understood the appeal of being in the military.

Note: the next weblog post is scheduled for Tuesday, 2023-10-31.

2023-06-172023-06-19

Surfing Day

On 2022-02-11 = 11 February 2022, Maya Reis Gabeira broke her own record for riding the largest wave surfed – unlimited (female). The wave had a confirmed height of 22.4 m = 73.5 feet at the Nazare Tow Surfing Challenge event in Praia do Norte, Portugal. Photo: Guniness World Records.

Today, 2023-06-17 = 17 June 2023, is the 30th anniversary of the International Surfing Day. It is held annually on the third Saturday of June. It is yet another unofficial holiday, that some environmentally conscious^, sports-centered fanatics find worthy of celebrating because of an interest in surfing as a sport, as a lifestyle, as a musical genre, or simply as a manifestation of the sustainability of ocean resources. The day is the spiritual successor of World Surf Day, started by the Usenet newsgroup alt.surfing in 1993.

I attempted to read a short, online history of surfing. It was problematic. Apparently, somewhere in Polynesia there is a cave where, in the 12th century, someone painted a person on a surfboard. The location was not specified. It could be anywhere, but I suspect it exists only in the imagination of the writer. By the year given, the Polynesians had colonized Hawaii (AD 900), Rapa Nui = Easter Island (AD 900) as well as Aotearoa = New Zealand (AD 1200), if one is not too concerned about the difference between 12th century and AD 1200. Polynesia consists of about 300 – 310 000 square kilometers of land, of which New Zealand contributes 270 000 square kilometers. It is surrounded by vast quantities of ocean. How much? I have not been able to determine that metric.

If one traces the linguistic origins of Polynesia far enough back in time, one ends up in Taiwan.

An orthographic projection of Polynesia, surfing’s traditional place of origin. Source: David Eccles, 2008.

Despite various forms of evidence (linguistic, historic as well as genetic), some pseudo-scientists want to invent their own histories. Such is the case with Thor Heyerdahl (1914 – 2002). He proposed, in the mid-20th century, that the Polynesians had migrated in two waves: one by Native Americans from the northwest coast of Canada by large whale-hunting dugouts; and the other from South America on balsa-log rafts. The Kon-Tiki expedition set out to prove the possibility.

The history of Polynesia is not the same as the history of surfing. Today is not Polynesia day, but surfing day. The list below contains some names of individuals associated with surfing culture in its various forms.

Duke Paoa Kahinu Mokoe Hulikohola Kahanamoku (1890 – 1968): enthusiastic surfer, who also founded the multiracial Hui Nalu Club (Club of Waves) at Waikīkī Beach.

Hugh Bradner (1915 – 2008): inventor of the neoprene wetsuit, which revolutionized surfing (and scuba diving).

William Asher (1921 – 2012): director of Beach Party (1963), a film that shows antropologist Robert Orville Sutwell (Bob Cummings, 1910 – 1990) secretly studying the wild mating habits of Southern California teenagers who hang out at the beach and speak in strange surfing-jargon.

Dick Dale (born, Richard Anthony Monsour; 1937 – 2019): guitarist, who composed the ultimate surf song, Misirlou (1962).

Bruce Brown ( 1937 – 2017): American documentary film director, known as an early pioneer of the surf film, who made The Endless Summer (1964).

Rennie Ellis (1940 – 2003): Australian surf photographer, photo agency and gallery owner and publisher of 17 photography books.

Annette Funicello (1942 – 2013): actress, mouseketeer, particularly appreciated for her role as Dee Dee in How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965).

William Finnegan (1952 – ): author of Barbarian Days: A Surfing LIfe (2015), often described as a memoir of an obsession.

Joni Sternbach (1953 – ): large-format camera photographer using early photographic processes, including tintype and collodion. She takes an ethnographic approach to produce in situ portraits of women surfers and surf culture. Many of these were published in Surfland (2009).

Selema Masekela (1971 – ): enthusiastic promoter of AfroSurf (2021) a book with 200 photos, 50 essays, surfer profiles, thought pieces, poems, playlists, illustrations, ephemera, recipes, and a mini comic, intended to capture the diversity and character of the African surf. The book’s author is stated as Mami Wata, which could refer to 1) a central African water spirit; 2) a 2023 film by C. J. Fiery Obasi, about that water spirit; 3) a South African surf supply company.

Maya Reis Gabeira (1987 – ): Brazilian big wave surfer, with a world record for having surfed a 22.4 m (73 ft) high wave in Nazaré, Portugal on 2022-02-11 = 11 February 2022, the biggest wave ever surfed by a woman.

Carissa Moore (1992 – ): Hawaiian American Olympian, world champion surfer and activist.

My own interest in surfing relates to surf photography and surf culture.

2023-01-222023-01-22

Historians of British Columbia

Don Wong provided me with a photo of his grandfather’s $500 Head Tax certificate, that allowed him to become a resident of Canada, in 1912.

Hostile attitudes towards Asians in British Columbia, particularly those with Chinese origins, should vex everyone. A frequent excuse for discrimination throughout the 20th and mid to late 19th centuries, was that Chinese workers had the power to reduce wages being paid to others (read: people of European ancestry). When the Canadian Pacific Railway, along with other transcontinental railways (British)/ railroads (US), was constructed, the Chinese received minimal wages, but were assigned the most dangerous tasks. It was as if their lives were of no consequence. When the rail lines were finally completed, European immigrants expected the Chinese workers to return to China, while they themselves remained in North America.

More recently, some people have laid blame for the Covid-19 pandemic on people of Chinese origins, attacking anyone (everyone?) with a Chinese appearance – mostly verbally but aggressively – in public venues such as shopping centres. This is totally unacceptable.

Much of the current Asian hostility expresses Europhile exceptionalism, that has replaced an earlier Anglophile exceptionalism, that became codified into the history of the province as an anti-Asian consensus.

Confronting this Sinophobia is of personal importance to me. Should I ever become a grandfather, it is most likely, genetically, that my grandchildren will be 50% Chinese, and almost equally likely that they will be living somewhere in Greater Vancouver. Patricia and I will likely share these grandchildren with Louise Yeoh and Don Wong. Don Wong provided a photo of his grandfather’s $500 Head Tax certificate, that allowed him to become a resident of Canada, in 1912. Thank you, Don. Our families have roots going back more than a century to Kerrisdale, Marpole (Eburne), Steveston, Burnaby and New Westminster. Most of these communities are along Sto:lo, the Fraser River.

Much of the early history of British Columbia was researched, written and published by Hubert Howe Bancroft (1832 – 1918), born in Granville, Ohio, but who moved to San Francisco in 1852 where he started the largest bookseller, stationer and publishing house west of Chicago. His research into British Columbia’s history began on a trip to Victoria in 1878. He published a definitive history of the province in 1887, written by himself, William Nemos (Swedish), Alfred Bates (English) and Amos Bowman (1839 – 1894), from Blair, Ontario. The major challenge with this work is its emphasis on pioneer history, where settlers of European origin set the premises for the work. It is the migrants to the area that are intent on determining its history. Despite the First Nations populations far outnumbering these settlers, they were largely ignored, as were people of Asian origin. Despite this shortcoming, Bancroft did, however, manage to strike a balance between British and American perspectives on the province.

The next significant historian was Frederic Howay (1867 – 1943) born in London, Ontario, but who moved first to the Cariboo goldfields as a young child in 1871, and then to New Westminster in 1874. He studied law at Dalhousie University, graduating in 1890. He was appointed a judge in 1907, retiring in 1937. He used as much of his working day as possible writing history. Like his political opponent Richard McBride, Howay was opposed to Asian immigrants.

Walter Sage (1888 – 1963) was born in London, Ontario. He was educated at Oxford University and the University of Toronto. In 1918, he started teaching history at the University of British Columbia (UBC), from 1933 to 1953 as department head. Sage regarded himself as a teacher rather than a researcher. He specialized in the history of British Columbia, especially the personalities that had shaped the province, starting with a 1921 article on The Gold Colony of British Columbia. He was also appreciated for his sense of justice.

Henry Forbes Angus, (1891 – 1991), was born in Victoria, British Columbia. Rather than focusing on his education at McGill University in Montreal, or his prestigious law scholarship that allowed him to study law at Oxford, I will simply state that in 1919, he became an assistant professor of economics at UBC , subsequently becoming professor, department head, and dean of graduate studies.

In 1942 Walter Sage and Henry Angus, protested against the mistreatment and internment of Japanese Canadians. Geographer Kay Anderson (1958 – ) regarded Angus’ opposition as an important breakthrough in the dismantling of the anti-Asian consensus, in the province. Angus regarded Asian-Canadians as part of the “us” (Canadian citizens who regarded British Columbia as their home), and not a “them” (alien outsiders).

Margaret Ormsby (1909 – 1996) was born in Quesnel, raised in the Okanagan, educated in Vancouver and Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. She became a professor of history at UBC history in 1955, and department head in 1965. The first book I read written by her on the history of British Columbia was British Columbia: A History (1958). In Chapter 12, “The People’s Dick”, she writes: “The outbreak of the South African War in 1899 found British Columbia standing loyally at the side of the Mother Country: in no other section of Canada was there greater martial ardour or more enthusiastic endorsation of the British Cause.” (p. 327). I have often wondered how much the word British in the province’s name has had a (negative) behavioural influence on its citizens.

Despite the increased professionalism in history, the Canadian public often chooses to read the works of populists, such as Pierre Burton (1920 – 2004), who became editor of the Vancouver Sun, at the age of 21. To his credit, he also opposed the internment of Japanese Canadians.

Another annoying aspect of British exceptionalism, is the monarchy. Monarchies are opaque institutions. In the United Kingdom, over 1 000 laws have been vetted using a secretive procedure – The Queen’s/ now King’s Consent – where government ministers privately notify the Queen/ King of clauses in draft parliamentary bills and ask for her/ his consent to debate them. In essence, this asks her/ his permission to include clauses in legislation. This allows her/ him to change proposed bills before they are presented to elected members of parliament. According to the Guardian, the procedure has been used to conceal her/ his private wealth from the public, and to exclude her/ his estates, and those of her/ his heirs, from proposed laws relating to road safety, land and historic site policy. I do not know how much this has been done in Canada.

My political beliefs have not changed significantly in more than fifty years. At that time, there seemed to be more political understanding, if not consensus, between the left and the right. Now? Not so much. A three minute video by Robert Reich explains it. Because of the deterioration of this understanding, along with increased racism in some segments of the population, it is important to come to grips with anti-Asian sentiments.

Note 1. An inspired source for this weblog post was Chad Reimer (1963 – ), Writing British Columbia History 1784-1958 (2009).

Note 2. This is the first of three parts about British Columbia and Asian Canadians. The second part will examine the situation for Chinese immigrants to Canadians, from Chinese sources. The third part will look at the Komagata Maru.

Note 3. This is being published on the Lunar New Year, the Year of the Water Rabbit, that starts on Sunday, 2023-01-21.

2022-10-152022-10-15

Cockades & Roundels

The National Cockade of India = The National Cockade of Ireland. They are identical! Sharing a national cockade is a common occurrence. Source: Tibetan Pop Rocks, Wikimedia.

A cockade is a knot of ribbons, or other circular, sometimes oval, symbol of distinctive colours which is usually worn on a hat, cap or lapel. In addition, women traditionally had the option of wearing one in their hair. The noun, cockade, dates from 1650 – 60; It comes from French cocarde = a knot of ribbons, (from its resemblance to a cock’s crest), from Middle French cocquard = boastful, silly, cocky = the boastful behavior of a rooster, from coq = a rooster, and especially to the bird’s crête (Fr.) = comb (Eng.) = fleshy growth/ crest on the top of its head. In modern français québécois, the term cocarde is an identification badge.

Starting in the 15th century, these were originally derived from identity ribbons used by medieval knights. By the 18th and 19th centuries, these became common, and showed: the allegiance of their wearers to a political faction, their social status or rank or (by wearing colours of a particular livery) their subordinate status. Because of the confusing multiplicity of military uniforms, cockades became a de facto and cheap mechanism to show a person’s (national) identity. Colours are listed from the centre to the outside ring.

Colours

In pre-revolutionary France, the Bourbons used white cockades. Their Jabobite supporters in Scotland, also used white. Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, the Hanoverians had taken over the monarchy, starting with George I, in 1714. They used black cockades. Periodically, after the French revolution, and since 1830, French cockades have been blue – white – red. The Hanoverian dynasty ended in the UK at the death of Victoria in 1901. Her eldest son Edward VII, was a member of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, which later changed its name to Windsor. At some time after the adoption of the Union Jack/ Union Flag in 1801, British cockades became red – white – blue, the opposite of the French. Since its independence in 1922, Ireland has used cockades of green – white – orange. India has used the same colours, in the same order, although India refers to its green as India green and its orange as saffron.

Until the Russian revolution in 1917, Russia has used cockades of black – orange – black – orange – white, featured in the Order of Saint George, originally from 1769, but with the Russian Federation revival dating from 2000. Modern Russian cockade colours are black – orange – black – orange. Ukraine uses light blue – yellow.

American Cockades

During the American revolutionary war (1775 – 1783), the Continental Army was the army of the thirteen American colonies. They had no uniforms. George Washington (1732 – 1799) attempted to use cockades to differentiate ranks: red/ pink = field officer; yellow/ buff = captain; green = subaltern. Several sources note that there was a substantial use of black cockades, identical to those used by the British. When France allied itself with the Americans, the Bourbon white cockades were added to create a black and white cockade. The French reciprocated, adding black cockades. This is generally referred to as the union cockade.

Yet, the term union can be confusing in an American context. During the American civil war (1861 – 1865) there were both confederate and union cockades. There was no single standardized design. Confederate/ southern versions tended to be one color (often red or blue). Union/ northern cockades often incorporated red, white and blue. Some designs were embellished with buttons depicting palmettos = fan-leaved palm trees, eagles, Union president Abraham Lincoln (1809 – 1865), Confederacy president Jefferson Davis (1808 – 1889). In Texas, they often incorporated a metal star.

Nordic Cockades

In Sweden, the military used yellow cockades, while civilians used blue and yellow. This contrasts with Denmark, that used red – white – red. Norway used red – white – blue – white; Iceland: blue – white – red – white – blue; Finland: white – blue – white.

Roundels

France began the first Aéronautique Militaire = Air Force, in 1909. Roundels were mandated on military planes, starting in 1912. They were based on the blue – white – red of the French national cockade. In addition, aircraft rudders were painted the same colours in vertical stripes, with the blue forwardmost. During World War I, other countries adopted national cockades and used these as roundels on their military aircraft.

Some of the more interesting roundels include Australia, Canada and New Zealand, with the centre red of the Royal Air Force replaced with a kangaroo (Family Macropodidae), sugar maple leaf (Acer saccharum) and kiwi (Apteryx sp.), respectively. In the Nordic countries, Sweden has three yellow crowns displayed on light blue background, with an outer ring of yellow.

Corporate Roundels

Corporations/ organizations that have made use of roundels in their branding, include: Transport for London, and the London Underground specifically. It was trademarked for the London General Omnibus Company, in 1905, but was first used on the Underground in 1908.

Use of the BMW roundel required both the circumvention of laws, as well as the creation of myths, to become successful. The Wikipedia article section on BMW’s logo and its slogan – The Ultimate Driving Machine – tells the story.

The Tide trademark is an orange and yellow roundel, sometimes referred to as a bull’s eye. It was designed by architect and industrial designer Donald Deskey (1894 – 1989).

The Tide Roundel, dating from 1946.

The London rock band, The Who, formed in 1964, used Royal Air Force (RAF) roundels on stage. Later, this roundel symbolized British Mod culture, with its emphasis on fashion and Italian scooters.

Sabaton

This weblog post was inspired by the Sabaton music video, The Uprising, about the Warsaw Uprising = powstanie warszawskie (Polish) in the summer of 1944. It was the single largest military effort undertaken by any European resistance movement during World War II. It unsuccessfully attempted to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It involved 63 days of fighting in the summer of 1944, and it was led by the Polish resistance Home Army = Armia Krajowa (Polish). This operation extracted a massive human cost. It is estimated that about 16 000 members of the Polish resistance were killed and about 6 000 badly wounded. In addition, between 150 000 and 200 000 Polish civilians died, mostly from mass executions. This is mentioned in part because the Allies refused to offer military assistance to Poland at this decisive moment in history. In contrast, Poland is offering massive support to Ukraine in the current war, and illegal occupation of Ukraine territory by Russia.

In the Sabaton video there are glimpses of the Polish two-finger salute, as well as of improvised red and white replacement of the cockade, shown on Polish helmets and other military headgear. These are similar to the blue and/ or yellow marking used on Ukrainian military headgear in 2022.

The rogatywka, sometimes translated as peaked cap, is an asymmetrical, peaked, four-pointed cap used by various Polish military formations. Some people see it as forming the basis for the Polish roundel, which is anything but round. Warszawo Walcz = Warsaw fight!

Notes:

Sabaton = part of a knight’s body armor that covers the foot. The Swedish power metal band Sabaton is noted for their albums about wars and battles. It originated in 1999 in Falun, about 600 km, and 8 hours driving from Cliff Cottage (depending on the specific route). It involves an eastward journey on the E14, across the Norwegian – Swedish border, and then onwards, almost to Östersund, followed by a southern leg on highway 45 to Falun. Falun’s Great Copper Mountain area has been designated a World Heritage Site since 2002.

If anyone should wonder why I take an interest in Warsaw, and Poland more generally, it is because it keeps asserting itself into my life. Historically there is: Nicolaus Copernicus (1473 – 1543), Frédéric Chopin (1810 – 1849), Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski (1857 – 1924), Marie Salomea Skłodowska–Curie (1867 – 1934), Grażyna Bacewicz (1909 – 1969), Henryk Górecki (1933 – 2010), Wayne Gretski (1961 – ), Olga Tokarczuk (1962 – ), Kinga Baranowska (1975 – ) and Agata Zubel (1978 – ). Alasdair spent six months living in Warsaw. One of our closest neighbours is from Poland. One of our friends specializes in relationships with Polish women. My only sister-in-law has Polish origins.

I have previously written about redneck(erchiefs), that have a similar function to cockades.

2022-06-252022-06-25

Ukraine

Short version: In 1994, Ukraine agreed to remove/ destroy nuclear weapons from/ in its territory, and to join the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. In return, Russia, Britain and USA agreed to provide Ukraine with security assurances. All parties agreed to respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine. France and China also provided Ukraine with similar, but lesser, assurances. Despite this Russia was able to re-annex Crimea in 2014, without anything more than a murmur of discontent, and attempted to annex the entire Ukraine in 2022, which has met a more violent and, from a Russian perspective, unexpected opposition.

Long version: On 1994-12-05, four parties signed what is known as the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, containing a preamble and six paragraphs. It reads as follows:

The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,

Welcoming the accession of Ukraine to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons as non-nuclear-weapon State,

Taking into account the commitment of Ukraine to eliminate all nuclear weapons from its territory within a specified period of time,

Noting the changes in the world-wide security situation, including the end of the Cold War, which have brought about conditions for deep reductions in nuclear forces.

Confirm the following:

1. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.

2. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, and that none of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.

3. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, to refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind.

4. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine, as a non-nuclear-weapon State party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used.

5. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm, in the case of Ukraine, their commitment not to use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear-weapon State party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, except in the case of an attack on themselves, their territories or dependent territories, their armed forces, or their allies, by such a State in association or alliance with a nuclear-weapon State.

6. Ukraine, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America will consult in the event a situation arises that raises a question concerning these commitments. — Memorandum on Security Assurances in Connection with Ukraine’s Accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.France and China’s commitments

[End of memorandum]

France gave Ukraine assurances similar to the Budapest Memorandum, but without the provisions found in paragraphs 4 and 6.

China’s pledge is dated 1994-12-04 and reads:

The Chinese Government welcomes the decision of Ukraine to destroy all nuclear weapons on its territory, and commends the approval by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on November 16 of Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons as a non-nuclear-weapon State. China fully understands the desire of Ukraine for security assurance. The Chinese Government has always maintained that under no circumstances will China use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon States or nuclear-weapon-free zones. This principled position also applies to Ukraine. The Chinese Government urges all other nuclear-weapon States to undertake the same commitment, so as to enhance the security of all non-nuclear-weapon States, including Ukraine.

The Chinese Government has constantly opposed the practice of exerting political, economic or other pressure in international relations. It maintains that disputes and differences should be settled peacefully through consultations on an equal footing. Abiding by the spirit of the Sino-Ukrainian joint communiqué of January 4, 1992 on the establishment of diplomatic relations, the Sino-Ukrainian joint communiqué of October 31, 1992 and the Sino-Ukrainian joint statement of September 6, 1994, China recognizes and respects the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, and stands ready to further develop friendly and cooperative Sino-Ukraine relations on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence.

[End of pledge]

The above documents were brought to my attention by Alasdair McLellan. It is clear from them that Russia, UK, USA, France and China have all agreed to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. Russian propaganda claims that the country it agreed to respect is not the same as today’s nazified (their term) Ukraine, invalidating the memorandum.

Crimea has a complex history. Simplified, it was Greek from 5th century BC to 47 BC; culturally Greek, politically Roman from 47 BC to 330 AD; Byzantine from 330 AD to 1204 AD; part of the Empire of Trebizond from 1204 AD to 1461 AD; part of the independent Principality of Theodoro from 1461 AD to 1475 AD. After that there was a great deal of turmoil with various groups asserting control over parts of the region, but with the Ottoman empire generally winning out until 1774, when the Ottoman Empire was defeated by Russia’s Catherine the Great (1729 – 1796). Crimea was annexed by Russia in 1783.

On 1954-02-19, the Crimean region was transferred to the Ukrainian SSR. Sixty years later, and following the Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity = Революція гідності, (Revoliutsiia hidnosti) = Maidan Revolution, Russia re-annexed Crimea on 2014-02-21. On 2014-03-24, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper at a G7 Nuclear Security Summit, at The Hague, requested a partial suspension of Russian membership from the G8 due to Russia’s breach of the Budapest Memorandum, stating that Ukraine had given up its nuclear weapons “on the basis of an explicit Russian assurance of its territorial integrity.” At that time, nothing much more happened in terms of opposition to Russia’s actions.

Eight years later on 2022-02-21 Russia officially recognised the two self-proclaimed separatist states in the Donbas, and openly sent troops into these territories. On 2022-02-24, Russia invaded Ukraine.

Consequences

At the moment the world is having to contend with a war, potentially with a duration lasting years, rather than months. There is also a threat of nuclear war, although it is difficult to know how real this threat is. It is also difficult to find out what is happening in this war due to disinformation. I find that the most valuable insights come from YouTube vlogger and Australian: Perun.

Young and not so young people are dying and being maimed on the battlefield, in relatively large numbers on both sides. War crimes are being committed. Ukrainian civilians are being killed, raped, intimidated, threatened. In addition to physical injuries there is also the trauma. People are having their possessions stolen, their homes, cultural heritage, public and commercial buildings destroyed, along with Ukraine’s infrastructure. Undoubtedly, the grain-producing fields are being poisoned with toxic chemicals from armaments. Millions of refugees are fleeing. Far too many lives are being destroyed.

In Russia, sanctions are having their effects. Basic foodstuffs are becoming increasingly difficult to find. An increasing shortage of parts are making white goods, aircraft and vehicles inoperable. There are inexplicable explosions in refineries, and other chemical plants.

Mined Black Sea ports, and a Russian imposed blockade on grain shipments, are leaving the poor of the world threatened with hunger. There are numerous sanctions being placed on Russia, by the European Union (EU), other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and others. Lithuania is now blocking goods subject to EU sanctions from using the Suwalki corridor, to Kaliningrad.

Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine have applied for membership in the EU, and the European Council has given candidate status to Moldova and Ukraine on 2022-06-23. Finland and Sweden have applied to join NATO. Both Georgia and Ukraine would like to join. The Moldova constitution states that Moldova is a neutral country, and thus it has not applied nor is eligible to apply for NATO membership.

Russia has become an unreliable provider of hydrocarbons to western countries. Fuel prices are rising. This means that other sources will have to be used. There is increased use of nuclear energy, as well as increased use of coal, especially in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. German industrialists are worried that industry production will fall, as the country may choose to heat houses, rather than provide electrical power to factories.

Currently, there is considerable talk about inflation. In the past has been caused by increased demand. The traditional cure, increased interest rates, encourages borrowers to reduce spending, in order to pay interest on their loans. This reduces demand. Now, however, inflation is not being caused by demand side challenges, but by problems with supply. After two years of Covid, and months of war, manufacturers are not able to provide the goods and services consumers want. By increasing interest rates, governments are using the wrong medicine, unfortunately. Increased interest rates will not solve the current problem with inflation.

North American and European governments have believed that globalization, and an increase in the world’s standard of living, would result in a democratization of the world. This has not happened. Instead, North American and European countries must undertake investments in their own regions, so that they are not subject to being exploited by other regions of the world. Judicious investments in production could solve many of the inflationary problems being experienced.

On a personal level

I have now vetoed the purchase of all new Russian made products. This is expressed in this way, so that we keep the 7 x 50 binoculars, that we have owned for more than forty years.

Before this latest war, Alasdair and I had considered buying a Discovery TX-500 amateur radio covering 160 to 6 meter bands, QRP = low power (10 W). At the time, it was priced at about NOK 10 000 at its Swedish distributor. It does not appear to be available, as this post is written. It is made by the Russian company, Lab 599. Instead, I bought a Red Pitaya from Alasdair, made in Slovania, for NOK 8 000. It is a simpler and less robust radio, but offers many other features for use as an electronic instrument. This sale has allowed Alasdair to buy an Elecraft KX3 radio, made in Watsonville, California, costing in excess of NOK 20 000. While the TX-500 is a good radio, it is inferior to a KX3.

On 2020-08-20, I wrote about the Zetta CM-1 EV, and even sent an email to the Russian manufacturer about obtaining such a vehicle. No reply was received. Rest assured, there will be no Russian or even Chinese EVs purchased for this household. Any future EV will be made in Europe. In fact, it has already been ordered, but details will not be released until it arrives!

There are almost 1.4 million Canadians of Ukrainian ancestry in Canada, of which 230 000 live in British Columbia. Vancouver and Odessa have been sister cities since 1944. In addition to current Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chrystia Freeland (1968 – ), other notable Canadians of Ukrainian ancestry include: musician Randy Bachman (1943 – ); austronaut/ neurologist Robert Bondar (1945 – ); painter/ writer William Kurelek (1927 – 1977); actor Seth Rogen (1982 – ); actor William Shatner (1931 – ); superman creator Joe Shuster (1914 – 1992); model Daria Werbowy (1983 – ) and an uncountable numbers of ice hockey players, including Wayne Gretzky (1961 – ).

Holy Eucharist Cathedral, Ukrainian Catholic church located at 501 – Fourth Avenue, New Westminster. Canada. Canada. There are almost 1.4 million Canadians of Ukrainian ancestry in Canada, of which 230 000 live in British Columbia.

Holy Eucharist Cathedral, owned by the Ukrainian Catholic church is located at 501 – Fourth Avenue, New Westminster. Canada. This is a six minute/ 500 meter walk away from my childhood home, on Ash Street, although the cathedral did not exist there at that time.