It’s a bit late this month – been a crazy few weeks. Just back from Hungary – and constant contact with precious Ukrainian friends trying to flee or keep safe. Hence the first item…
🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦 Ukraine Traumas and Treasures 🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦
At a distance we feel so helpless… BUT
- A bunch of ways to channel support:
- How should we pray? I got this from a friend who is a Ukrainian civil servant (right)
- Glimmers of light and humour even here:
Some background to begin to get heads round this. There’s SO much but here are a few to start with.
- A close Ukrainian friend sent me this paper several weeks ago from RUSI – there are other papers and articles worth reading there.
- Keep an eye on this UnHerd link – new articles going up all the time
- It is not a little disturbing to find Orthodox priests blessing weapons of war like this, but it’s been happening in Russia.
- From Today’s Times: Ben Macintyre on the war of History vs Propaganda lies and ANWilson on Reading Tolstoy (£)
- And in case you were unaware, here are a load of places that show how stunningly beautiful Ukraine is
Here are a bunch of books I’ve found helpful to get a sense of it all (2 history, 1 satirical fiction, one contemporary journalism/memoir)
Sacred Treasure
- Unexpected in the FT but from Enuma Okora The Importance of Lament via U2’s haunting 40
- Urgent and important – a plea to stop the Evo twitter wars and tribalism. YES
- Marcus Walker good on How to disagree well
- Several prominent figures received letters from a journalist’s 6-year-old daughter asking how they think God might reply to the question ‘how did you get invented’. Rowan Williams does a grand job.
Topical Treasure
- Art in a time of war: the story of Picasso’s Guernica
- A note of caution if you use one of those handy gizmo tracking devices… (from John Naughton)
- Peter Hitchens rather good on Proust, Instant Coffee and Lashkar Gah. Although I am struggling with some of his recent stuff on the Ukraine situ, but that’s another story.
Quirky Treasure
- 20 map to change perceptions
- This woman has class: taking dead selfies in famous places
