Thursday 8 September 2022

Toomas Karmo: En remerciement: Elizabeth II, du Royaume-Uni (1926-)1952-2022

 

Foto tehtud minu töötoas Tõraveres, Tartumaal, BBC reaalaja ülekandest Maailmakella (Temps universel coordoné) järgi 20220908T174112Z. / Photo taken in my workroom in Tõravere, south-central Estonia, from BBC live feed at UTC=20220908T174112Z. 


See sama vikerkaar, mida avalikkus imetles Londonis surmauudise saabumise minutite ajal, on ka äratanud "Postimehe" joonistaja tähelepanu. / The same rainbow at which a surprised London public gazed during the minutes in which the death announcement was made has also aroused the notice of the "Postimehe" sketch-artist. [Note added: "Postimees" is the principal Estonian newspaper, serving since 1857 as our national newspaper-of-record. The 2022-09-09 lead article writer has used the headline "Ajastu lõpp", or "End of an Epoch". The pull-quote "Ajal, mil pärast Bexiti referendumit 2016. aastal on Ühendkuningriigil olnud neli peaministrit, oli kuninganna oma riigi alamatele justkui ankruks, millest kinni hoida. Nüüd on see ankur kadunud" might be translated as follows: "In a period during which, in the wake of the 2016 Brexit referendum, the United Kingdom had four prime ministers, the Queen was for subjects in her country an anchor on which to seize hold. Now that anchor is gone."] 


"Kui saabub rahu, mäletagem, et jääb meile, praeguse päeva lastele, teha homsest maailmast parema ja rõõmsama paiga." / “When peace comes, remember it will be for us, the children of today, to make the world of tomorrow a better and happier place.”  - Elizabeth II 

==POSTITUSE LÕPP / END OF BLOGSPOT POSTING==

Thursday 1 September 2022

Toomas Karmo: souvenir reconnaissant de Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev / Михаил Сергеевич Горбачёв (1931-2022)

 

Brandenburger Tor, Berlin, at site of the wall which until 1989 November 09 separated the Soviet sphere of influence from the West. M.S. Gorbachev's decision not to intervene in the German internal 1989 political process secured a peaceful resolution to a crisis which could have destroyed the member states both of the Warsaw Pact and of NATO.  Photo published at https://www.ranker.com/list/berlin-wall-fall-photos/kellie-kreiss, with attribution "Owen Franken/Corbis via Getty Images". 

"XXI век станет либо веком тотального обострения смертоносного кризиса, либо же веком морального очищения и духовного выздоровления человечества. Его всестороннего возрождения. Убежден, все мы – все разумные политические силы, все духовные и идейные течения, все конфессии – призваны содействовать этому переходу, победе человечности и справедливости. Тому, чтобы XXI век стал веком возрождения, веком Человека." - M.S. Gorbachev, cité à https://www.gorby.ru/.   ["XXI sajand saab olema kas surmava kriisi täieliku laienemise sajand või moraalse puhastuse ning inimkonna vaimuliku toibumise sajand,   tema täieliku taaselustumise sajand. Olen veendunud, et me kõik - kõik mõistlikud poliitilised jõud, kõik vaimulikud ja mõttelised voolud, kõik ülestunnistused - oleme kutsutud kaasa aitame selles üleminekus, inimlikkuse ja õigluse võiduks. Et XXI sajandist saaks uuestisünni sajand, Inimese Sajand."] ["The 21st century is destined to be either the century in which a death-dealing crisis expands to overwhelming proportions or the century of a moral purification and a revival of human spirituality. Of a full return to life. I am convinced that all of us - all rational political forces, all spiritual and philosophical movements, all faith confessions - are called to assist in this transition, for the victory of humanity and justice. So that the 21st century may become a Century of Rebirth, a Century of the Human Person."]

==конец публикации / POSTITUSE LÕPP / END OF POSTING==

Sunday 21 August 2022

Toomas Karmo: K.Cilevitz, although now a convicted criminal, runs again for public office: how to right this wrong?

Quality assessment: 

On the 5-point scale current in Estonia, and surely in nearby nations, and familiar to observers of the academic arrangements of the late, unlamented, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (applying the easy and lax standards Kmo deploys in his grubby imaginary "Aleksandr Stepanovitsh Popovi nimeline sangarliku raadio instituut" (the "Alexandr Stepanovitch Popov Institute of Heroic Radio") and his grubby imaginary "Nikolai Ivanovitsh Lobatshevski nimeline sotsalitsliku matemaatika instituut" (the "Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky Institute of Socialist Mathematics") - where, on the lax and easy grading philosophy of the twin Institutes, 1/5 is "epic fail", 2/5 is "failure not so disastrous as to be epic", 3/5 is "mediocre pass", 4/5 is "good", and 5/5 is "excellent"): 4/5. Justification: I had enough time and background knowledge to treat my subject adequately.

Revision history: 

UTC=20220823T094400Z/version 3.1.0: Kmo did some fine-tuning, and also added some remarks on the advisability of Campaign Cilevitz staffers contacting him (whether to inform, to encourage, or to admonish) by e-mail or telephone. - Kmo reserved the right to continue producing, in a way not documented here, minor tweaks, over the coming 96 hours, as versions 3.1.1, 3.1.2, ... .  

UTC=20220823T085300Z/version 3.0.0: Kmo added several concluding paragraphs, urging Karen's door-to-door canvassers to answer voter questions fully, and to be alert to the possibility of Facebook view-blocking. - Kmo reserved the right to continue producing, in a way not documented here, minor tweaks, over the coming 96 hours, as versions 3.0.1, 3.0.2, ... .  

UTC=20220823T052200Z/version 2.0.0: Taking advice from a member of the Catholic laity, Kmo removed lyrics for his two-stanza comic song ("Underneath the lamplight/ Pretty near the domes", to the tune of "Lily Marlene") which recapitulated first the 2007-through-2018 DDO conservation failure, then Karen's 2020-through-2022 fraud case. Kmo and his advisor reasoned that publication of his song would lead Karen in a pastorally inappropriate direction, contrary to the reflective interiority from which compassion for others, and a concomitant publicly articulated change of heart, will eventually emerge. - Kmo reserved the right to continue producing, in a way not documented here, minor tweaks, over the coming 96 hours, as versions 2.0.1, 2.0.2, ... .  

UTC=20220821T175500Z/version 1.0.0: Kmo uploaded base version. He then planned to continue producing, in a way not documented here, minor tweaks, over the coming 96 hours, as versions 1.0.1, 1.0.2, ... . . 

 

1. Philosophical background: why this casework matters to observers across the spectrum of democratic countries

Upon leaving my native Canada on 2018 October 29 to take up permanent residence in my ancestral Estonia as an Estonian citizen, I thought I had largely finished with Canadian public work. Now, however, that optimistic 2018 assessment looks premature. On 2022 August 19, a troubling matter from my Canadian past arose unexpectedly, in the person of Richmond Hill (Ontario) city councillor - and additionally, since July (as I explain below)  convicted criminal - Karen Cilevitz. Once again I am obliged to discuss Cilevitz casework on this blog, now as a kind of object lesson for students of civics, both overseas in North America and here in the European Union.  

As the ordinary middle class is foundational to any democracy, so also is its ordinary - its normally humdrum - municipal politics.  We cannot have a functioning democracy, whether in Estonia or in Canada or elsewhere, if our municipal life is compromised.  As of 2022 August 19, the municipal life of Richmond Hill, in the Canadian province of Ontario, has come under threat. So bad is the suddenly emerging problem that I am obliged to discuss the Cilevitz file on this blog, as an object lesson for friends of democracy everywhere.  

2. Legal and political background 

2.1 Karen's 2022 July criminal conviction 

Richmond Hill City 2014-through-2022 Councillor Karen Cilevitz, a David Dunlap Observatory (DDO) heritage-conservation activist from 2007 to 2011, but subsequently a proponent of a 14-street, roughly 530-home, subdivision which destroyed 32 hectares of the 76.5-hectare David Dunlap Observatory greenspace, was arrested on 2020 December 15 on a matter unconnected with DDO conservation. Karen was charged with fraud over 5000 CAD and breach of public trust, in casework reported in the local, regional, and metropolitan press, and reported nationally at https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/richmond-hill-councillor-charged-1.5842277The charges stemmed from payments allegedly totalling 21,384.68 CAD, allegedly taken from the 37,000 CAD municipal compensation of her sometime municipal assistant Ms P. Burton-Garcia and conveyed to her present spouse, Mr D. Christie. Karen's court appearances in connection with the arrest were put into the Ontario Court of Justice (Newmarket) docket for 2021 April 01, 2021 August 05, 2021 September 16, 2021 October 07, 2021 November 04, 2021 December 01, 2022 January 20, 2022 March 17, 2022 May 10, and 2022 July 11, as case 4911998210139202. On her 2022 July 11 court day, Karen pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of fraud under 5000 CAD, with the Crown's original charges withdrawn. On or around 2022 July 12, as reported in various media outlets (for instance, at https://www.canadianfraudnews.com/richmond-hill-councillor-karen-cilevitz-guilty-to-fraud-under-5000-and-sentenced-to-house-arrest-and-restitution/) Karen received a conditional three-month sentence, requiring her to stay at home between the hours of 22:00 and 06:00 except in case of emergency.

2.2 Karen's declaration of candidacy in 2022 October municipal elections

I, and I would imagine most other students of Richmond Hill civics, imagined in July that this was the end of the sordid matter. I reasoned that although Karen might or might not finish the remaining five months of her term as a City Councillor, she would in any case not be so impaired in her ethical judgement as to run for office during the upcoming municipal election of 2022 October.

The month immediately following her guilty plea passed placidly enough. I did note, to my surprise, that an anonymous flier was being distributed in Karen's ward, calling for her resignation, and I reacted with private revulsion (as many surely did) to the anonymity of the flier. Further, I did note the publication of a well reasoned letter-to-editor at https://www.yorkregion.com/opinion-story/10687542-we-elect-lawmakers-not-lawbreakers-richmond-hill-reader/, calling for Karen's resignation, as the distasteful flier already had, but published in an ethically correct way with an explicit attribution of authorship.

Over that month, I kept checking the City of Richmond Hill elections Web material, to make sure that Karen was now doing the reasonable thing, by refraining from candidacy. Fortunately, there proved to be by mid-August no shortage of candidates running in Ward Five.

All will imagine, then, my shock, in performing a supposedly routine almost-final check on 2022 August 20, to find that on 2022 August 19 (the last possible date) Karen had declared herself a candidate.

3. Legal admissibility of criminal candidacy upheld: not some "Nanny State", but the local citizens, must act

Some, especially in jurisdictions outside Canada, will now ask: how is such a thing even possible? how can a freshly convicted criminal, still serving her three-month sentence, run for municipal office? Such a thing seems, so far as my hasty and limited researches go, to be not possible in the UK. It is, on the other hand, possible in the USA, and again it is possible in Canada. Indeed I would suggest that on this point the civic philosophies of the USA and Canada are superior to the civic philosophy of the UK.

In the spirit of what Catholic analysts-of-governance call "subsidiarity", we must have all decisions taken at the lowest possible level. In Church terms, if a thing can be settled at the level of the diocese, rather than at the level of the Vatican, then it should be so settled; if it can be settled at the level of a parish, rather than at the level of the diocese, then similarly it is the parish that must decide. Translating this good idea (arguably, not always implemented in Catholic ecclesial governance, but nevertheless widely endorsed in Catholic analysis), we have the following: If a secular civic thing can be settled by individual voters in an individual municipal precinct, then it should be so settled, without "Nanny State" intervention from law-makers at some higher level of government. So yes, by all means: let our central governments impose no bar to the candidacy of recently convicted criminals. Let the question be settled at the grassroots level, in the rough and free court of local public opinion.  Although sometimes things will go wrong, such is the price of our freedom from the potentially dangerous, because potentially enervating, Nanny.  

4. Strategies for healing

4.1 A brusque strategy: defeat Karen electorally, through opposing her on the hustings 

Karen surely consulted privately with others before taking her disastrous decision, so injurious to the provincial, national, and even international reputation of Richmond Hill, and so liable to bolster and reinforce voter cynicism. But something in those private consultations failed. How, now, to work for healing? 

A brusque and savage healing will come if Karen first conducts a 2022 campaign on the hustings as in 2010 (when she lost), in 2014 (when she won), and in 2018 (when she won), and then gets fair-and-square defeated at the 2022 polls.  

If it comes to campaigning on the hustings, then I would urge Karen's opponents to note that Karen is liable, in a repeat of her 2014 and 2018 campaign-literature inaccuracies, to try portraying herself as a DDO conservationist. This is a point on which she must be corrected in the spirit of lawyer-detective Perry Mason, who is remembered for saying in court, "Just the facts, Ma'am, just the facts. "

A legally robust factual record can be had from my pair of sites https://karen-vs-toomas-blog.ca/ and http://www.karen-vs-toomas-legaldocs.ca/. Both are retrievable from Google through the search phrase "karen vs toomas blog".  I produced that pair of Web sites a little before Karen's initial election to Council, in 2014. My 2014 purpose was to warn 2014 voters that here was a political opportunist, more concretely a fake conservationist, who had worked in a duly ethical way in concert with other community groups for conservation of the full 76.5-hectare DDO greenspace up to and a little beyond her unsuccessful 2010 election campaign, but in the difficult emotional wake of her 2010 defeat had begun working for a commercial interest, the "Corsica" directed by members of the DeGasperis and Muzzo property-development families as a subsidiary of what was then known as "Metrus" (and has in more recent years assumed the name "DG Group").  

The physical fruits of this unethical enterprise, for which Karen served as an unpaid political cheerleader, are advertised at https://myobservatoryhill.ca/. Have a look, folks, and marvel (be you in Canada, in Estonia, in Russia, in the USA, in the UK, or wherever): it's the advertising copy that starts with the words "Welcome to Observatory Hill, a luxurious master-planned community in South Richmond Hill's last remaining piece of picturesque land. It's a place that's to be built on the astronomical past of the David Dunlap Observatory /.../" Here, with those McMansions on the new "Night Sky Court" so close to the DDO telescopes (I would presume destined to be a guarded, gated, enclave in the desperate, class-ridden, dog-eat-dog, decaying society of 2090), and with those Lancashire-style rowhouses a little further away (in 2090, I imagine these will look like George Orwell's 1930s "Road to Wigan Pier"), on streets with such offensive names as "Milky Way Drive" (specially offensive because visibility of the Milky Way is an early casualty of light pollution) is the sprawling roughly 530-home DeGasperis-Muzzo creation, approved at the Ontario Municipal Board by Karen's team among others, with the organization under her direction even venturing so far as to argue against conservationists in Board proceedings.

A caveat: when I here write of Karen's anti-DDO "work", I do not mean "work for pay", but "work" in the sense in which an unpaid person can "work for good table manners", or can "work for harmony in the family", or can "work for higher standards in public life".  

And when I here write "legally robust", I mean "presumptively immune from challenge by Karen's lawyer, because accepted by her lawyer and my lawyer in the protracted out-of-court negotiations of 2014 as my best effort at laying out all the facts in our case, to a length of tens of thousands of words, with all the appropriate e-mail quotations, all the appropriate Web screenshots, with all the detail I could muster".  

At a handful of places in this legally robust documentation, Karen's political opponents, whom I am today seeking to help, will find some material typeset not in black but in red.  The occasional red words mark places in which I had to change what I initially published about Karen in 2014, when she put her Web domain karencilevitz.ca up for public auction (she had not troubled to renew her expiring domain), and I bid successfully for it at public auction under Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) rules. In that initial publication, I used my just-acquired domain karencilevitz.ca to document Karen's DDO work, but under the terms of our eventual out-of-court settlement transferring my writing from that domain to https://karen-vs-toomas-blog.ca/. Karen, understandably vexed when in 2011 I told her in a café chat what I had done, over-reacted by threatening legal action both against me and against CIRA. Karen, CIRA, and I settled out of court, in a 2014 negotiating process which saw me changing my text at a handful of places. I elected to mark my changes in red, and I generated a change log (enabling readers to compare my changes with my original wording) at http://www.karen-vs-toomas-legaldocs.ca/GNOA____20140505__settlement_schedule_a.pdf

So, I say to Karen's opponents (my philosophical allies) on the hustings, as they work in the spirit of Perry Mason to uncover the squalid truth about Karen's DDO work: do not be puzzled about the red; just be ready for its occasional appearance, standing poised for an occasional consultation of http://www.karen-vs-toomas-legaldocs.ca/GNOA____20140505__settlement_schedule_a.pdf

Before quite finishing the matter of to https://karen-vs-toomas-blog.ca and http://www.karen-vs-toomas-legaldocs.ca/ , I remark for the benefit of Karen's lawyer that just as I take care not to  communicate any contents of the Minutes of Settlement orally, as at an auditorium or studio microphone (a requirement in our out-of--court settlement, at http://www.karen-vs-toomas-legaldocs.ca/GNNN____20140505__settlement_body.pdf), so also I take care not to comment, whether orally or in writing, on our terms of settlement (again, a requirement in our out-of-court settlement). It will be found on analysis of this present blogspot posting that I make no comment on our terms, confining myself merely to reporting the fact of a settlement and reporting in writing on some of the contents. Whether the terms are fair or unfair, whether I have triumphantly upheld Canadian freedom of expression or cravenly surrendered (or something in between) - on these points, which would indeed constitute a commentary on the terms, I am here mute.  The sole commentary permitted to me is in the document available at http://www.karen-vs-toomas-legaldocs.ca/GNOC____20140505__settlement_schedule_c.pdf. The sole commentary permitted to Karen is in the document available as http://www.karen-vs-toomas-legaldocs.ca/GNOD____20140505__settlement_schedule_d.pdf. I have not commented on the terms, and neither to my knowledge has Karen. In reporting on the fact of a settlement, I am here doing what Karen herself did also, in her online essay of 2014 August 02, as reproduced in an "Appendix" to https://karen-vs-toomas-blog.ca/20141216T162316Z____blogpost/NNNN____20141216T162316Z____blogpost__main.html


4.2 The optimal strategy: give initiative to Karen's campaign team 

The brusque and savage strategy may, in the end, prove the sole viable avenue for Canadian friends of democracy.  

But mindful of  the hope clause in Saint Paul's 1 Cor 13:7 account of ἀγάπη ("It endures everything, believes everything, hopes everything /.../," we must for the time being stay attuned to happier possibilities. So I herewith reiterate all my various appeals to Karen for reconciliation since 2014, including not only the ageing https://karen-vs-toomas-blog.ca/, but also the more up-to-date http://toomaskarmo.blogspot.com/.  Can Karen's lawyer, in particular, now write to my Estonian lawyer, Mr Andrus Lillo of Lillo&Lõhmus, Tartu (http://www.advokaadid.ee/index.php?lang=eng), as andrus@advokaadid.ee, asking for a lifting of the personal-communications ban imposed by our 2014 out-of-court settlement?  

If it is too hard for Karen to direct her lawyer to reach out to Mr Andrus Lillo here in Estonia, then Karen can work for healing by indicating sorrow for her misjudgement in running for 2022 public office, in this action  respectfully asking Ward Five voters to ignore the presence of her name on the ballot paper, and perhaps also indicating which of the other candidates she now endorses. 

If, in turn, this line of community restitution proves too hard for Karen, then she can work for healing in the manner I have urged on some non-heroic Russians in the current Ukraine disaster: do not attempt what is beyond your unaided spiritual and emotional strength; continue doing what your position calls on you to do, but do not do it very well. In Ukraine, that means (to take two hypothetical examples) "accidentally" spilling lots of precious fuel in resupplying one's Red Army tank column, or arriving at 13.58 for the Syrian mercenaries-with-Red Army rendez-vous which was scheduled for 13.21. In Richmond Hill, that simply means not campaigning very hard. Karen has to be home by 22.00 under the terms of her three-month criminal sentence. Very well, then: let her be ever so prudent in this matter, taking care in what the Canadian police are pleased to call "an abundance of caution" to be home from her hustings by 21:00, even by 20:30. 

Parallel points apply to such people as are still willing to serve as assistants in a Cilevitz campaign. If you have the strength, then dissociate yourself from the campaign after your first few days of service,  defecting eloquently and visibly, rather as Geneva diplomat Boris Bondarev did when protesting the 2022 Ukraine operation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Bondarev). If you additionally want to write a visible declaration of principle, you are welcome to do so here at toomaskarmo.blogspot.com, by way of a comment-on-blog-posting, or even by way of a freestanding guest essay (in both cases first e-mailing your material to toomas.karmo@gmail.com, and in both cases following the "Tripartite Identity Requirement" and the "Courtesy Requirement" which I laid out on 2016 April 14 for would-be commentators and would-be essayists at http://toomaskarmo.blogspot.com/search/label/AAAA--blog_intro). 

If, on the other hand, you lack the spiritual and emotional strength for this grueling kind of community service, then simply do your work less with regard to political expediency than with regard to political integrity. You may wish to cut back on the number of hours you donate to door-to-door canvassing, for a candidate in whom you now lack full confidence. Or still better, you may choose to do the very thing which Karen, during my 2010 door-to-door canvassing on her behalf, at that point arguably lacked the strength to do. In 2010, I found that she tried to make the door-to-door encounter brief, a matter of less than sixty seconds, ending once the resident verbally assured her of a supporting vote. In contrast with this, I say: be a strong public-spirited citizen, and likewise encourage Karen to be a strong public-spirited citizen. Anxiety and confusion will run high in Ward Five. Your mission in 2022 is to do what in my experience Karen was not inclined to do when I accompanied her on the hustings in 2010, namely to linger on each doorstep. 

In ensuring that questions get answered in adequate detail, you will want to refer voters to Karen's Facebook pages - both the one which in the second half of August had a little over 1000 followers and the more personal one which around that same time had a little under 100 followers. In your conversation, direct attention to Karen's newspaper-published explanation that she was driven by financial pressure to commit her fraud, and additionally to her Facebook explanation that she spent several hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers as she sought to defend herself. If your interlocutor asks how she can have been in financial desperation when docked for over 300 days' salary as a punishment from the City of Richmond Hill for her pre-fraud actions, and yet also can have had hundreds of thousands of dollars after the fraud was perpetrated, recommend to them that they phone her team on 416-806-7582, making an appointment to chat with her personally. Also, prepare for this robust line of questioning by checking in with Karen yourself, learning from her how she herself resolves the seeming discrepancy, and doing your best to guide her now in the direction of financial transparency. You can point out to Karen that she herself may in due course find the courage and strength to write on Facebook a more careful account of how her lawyers were financed. (For my part, I know nothing, and I am baffled. We know that the authorities pegged the total fraud, in the charges as initially brought, not in the hundreds of thousands, let alone in the millions, but merely at the above-cited figure of 21,384.68 CAD. I do not see any reason for doubting the calculations of the authorities. Was some business entity, unknown to me, willing to make a loan? Or did Karen's own family, whom I do not know beyond a few rather casual encounters ending in 2014, chip in? )

In your perhaps challenging five-minute doorstep chat, you will additionally want to underscore the importance of checking whether Karen is blocking your particular interlocutor from viewing her Facebook materials (as she appears to be blocking me from viewing them: although I managed to get help in circumventing Karen's block, by fully legal means,  in other words in learning what she has been posting, I should not have been driven to this extreme). If your interlocutor finds viewing of Karen's Facebook materials blocked, then point out that while Karen's blocking action is legal, it runs contrary to ordinary Ontario democratic principles. Consider at that point encouraging the lodging of reports with Elections Ontario (1-888-668-8683; info@elections.on.ca), the Richmond Hill Liberal, and the CBC.  

And do of course consider supplying me with campaign updates, encouragement, admonitions - with any kind of feedback at all, as may prove convenient and safe for you - either via Toomas.Karmo@gmail.com or via my shirt-pocket cellular phone here in Estonia. The phone is reached from Canada under the 14-digit number  011-372-5864-6540. Incoming calls may or may not be recorded by me. Note that Richmond Hill summer time lags Estonia summer time by seven hours. If for some reason I in my carelessness fail to pick up a voice call, send an SMS text, asking me to phone you back, and stating your number. (It is important to state your number when transmitting that international SMS. Experience indicates that the Estonian phone system cannot be expected always to log the number of a missed incoming international call. If I merely see on my phone a record of a missed call from an "unknown number", I will not be able to help you.) 

In the long run, when Karen is defeated, she will see that as a properly public-spirited member of her election team, you were trying in your own circumscribed way to serve also her own highest and best interests, as a loyal friend must do.  

  ==END OF CURRENT BLOGSPOT POSTING==

Monday 9 May 2022

Toomas Karmo: Observing the 9th of May, In Terms that Offer Something to Everyone: как культурно, разумно и приятно

Thank you, President Putin, for not doing the thing I feared you might do, namely celebrating today, May 9, with a tactical nuclear detonation at Azovstal. Thanks also to the people who carried out the successful NTV Plus-Rostelecom-Wink hack, causing online viewers in Russia to see a nice, clear "No to war" caption as commentary on coverage of the big parade:

From https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/18504544/putins-victory-day-parade-coverage-hacked-2/

Some will have appreciated the parade today, whether because of the hack or because they like parades. Such viewers might now enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Smz6j9wZdoI (YouTube video entitled "Lambeth Walk: Putin Style (2021)", uploaded seven months ago by YouTube user "Wassermelone"). Others, for instance I here in rural Estonia, will have a more American taste in YouTube clips, and might accordingly now enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmfeNq5x5aQ (YouTube video entitled "God Bless America Sung by Kate Smith - This is the Army 1943 HD", uploaded a year ago by YouTube user "Inter-Pathé"). That's how the Internet works, folks: there is something for everyone. 

====END OF BLOGSPOT POSTING====


Monday 18 April 2022

Toomas Karmo: Open Letter to His Eminence the Titular Metropolitan of Volokolamsk, Regarding Tactical Nuclear Weaponry

Quality assessment: 

On the 5-point scale current in Estonia, and surely in nearby nations, and familiar to observers of the academic arrangements of the late, unlamented, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (applying the easy and lax standards Kmo deploys in his grubby imaginary "Aleksandr Stepanovitsh Popovi nimeline sangarliku raadio instituut" (the "Alexandr Stepanovitch Popov Institute of Heroic Radio") and his grubby imaginary "Nikolai Ivanovitsh Lobatshevski nimeline sotsalitsliku matemaatika instituut" (the "Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky Institute of Socialist Mathematics") - where, on the lax and easy grading philosophy of the twin Institutes, 1/5 is "epic fail", 2/5 is "failure not so disastrous as to be epic", 3/5 is "mediocre pass", 4/5 is "good", and 5/5 is "excellent"): 3/5. Justification: it is arguable that I knew enough to treat my subject adequately within the limited scope I set myself.

Revision history:

UTC=20220427T182100Z/version 1.1.0: Kmo made tiny change needed for accuracy regarding Tõravere cafeteria: queue, not trays. 

UTC=20220418T135800Z/version 1.0.0: Kmo uploaded base version. He then planned to continue producing, in a way not documented here, minor tweaks, over the coming 96 hours, as versions 1.0.1, 1.0.2, ... . . 

Your Eminence: You know as well as I, perhaps better than I (for I write as a layman, without significant links to any national government) that now, on the Monday which is 2022-04-18, one question above all others is taxing the best minds in Foreign Ministries and Ministries of Defence in Europe and North American, in Australia and New Zealand, and now crucially also in China. The question is: How, without precipitating a nuclear tit-for-tat and World War Three, do we respond to the small, and yet no longer negligible, possibility of a Russian tactical nuclear detonation in Ukraine? For China, in particular, with so much to lose from any widened conflict, and with so much commercial leverage over Russia, the question has surely the following accompaniment: What mixture of commercial threats and commercial blandishments can we in Beijing make, in secretly arranged concert with our Western trading partners, to dissuade Russia from detonation?

Although the prospect remains small, it looms somewhat larger from one day to the next as long as Mr V.V. Putin clings to power, evading the religious reclusion which remains his last and best personal hope. Mr Putin may be gone days or hours from now, following what is on at least some assessments the sad recent  fate of Defence Minister Sergei Kuzhugetovich "cardiac patient" Shoigu. But (I repeat) Mr Putin's departure, if possible or probable, is not now a certainty. 

And the prospect of a nuclear detonation might continue looming even after the conceivable departure of Mr Putin. Events have their own terrible inner logic, beyond the control of individuals. 

We can breathe more easily once the anniversary date of 9 May is behind us. Until then, it is as in the Taizé Passiontide hymn (use, for instance, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmAOcHqvS0Q) "Stay here with Me, remain here with Me, watch and pray..." 

You therefore need to see to it that your team, including your Patriarch, prepare a plan, especially as the politically and militarily charged anniversary date of 9 May (central in the contemporary militarized Russian culture) approaches. Perhaps the tactical nuclear strike will never happen. But if it does, say in the period of maximum current peril, around 1 May or 5 May, when the Kremlin is specially anxious to parade some kind of "success" in Ukraine, what will your team do?

You might collectively today, on the Monday which is 2022-04-18, consider that the Kremlin government would be right in using a tactical nuke, as enhancing the nobility and moral worth of that thing-which-looks-like-a-war-but-is-not-even-though-tens-of-thousands-are-already-dead, that "special military operation", that специальная военная операция. In that case, your team at the Patriarchate must  have a reasoned theological case written out, ready for publication at just a few minutes' notice, to reassure a public suddenly in acute need of spiritual guidance. 

You and your Patriarch might, on the other hand, follow me in considering a tactical nuclear detonation to be a criminal atrocity, akin to those clear atrocities which were Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or again akin to those clear atrocities which constituted the Shoah. In that case, once again, your team must have a reasoned theological argument written out, ready for publication at just a few minutes' notice. To undertake less preparation than that - no matter what your particular stance regarding the morality of a nuclear detonation - is in my respectfully submitted assessment to leave your flock inadequately shepherded. 

****

It is helpful in the current situation to reflect on the historical, physical realities of the Passion and Resurrection. I would in this particular Easter season recommend the anatomist Dr Pierre Barbet (1884-1961), as an early worker in a line of investigation which has in more recent decades amassed additional scientific practitioners. You can find Dr Barbet's 1950 book, in a 1953 English translation, in PDF format, by searching on such text strings as 

  barbet doctor at calvary translated by earl of wicklow pdf

I would suggest that despite its great age, this is the work of a correctly disciplined scientific mind, and that subsequent investigations are likely to have altered Dr Barbet's findings in details, not in essence. Self-discipline, such as Dr Barbet musters, fortunately proves possible not only in maths and physics, but also in the fuzzier worlds of history and medicine.

It will to some minds appear unfortunate that Dr Barbet starts with the Shroud of Turin. Some, possibly including you, will join me in finding this a problematic beginning, since the Shroud has been dated by Carbon 14 measurements in our own day as mediaeval, not as a relic of classical antiquity. I for my part do note, however, admittedly without writing from any position of diligent study, that the Carbon 14 dating result has been recently called into question. We must on all accounts  follow physical truth ruthlessly, being prepared to abandon our Faith itself should science give us conclusive reason for doing so, and to endure in that act of abandonment our own little crucifixion at the hands of community authorities. However, it may now be that a careful reexamination of Carbon 14 dating, far from undermining the plausibility of the Shroud, will leave the question of its dating once again open, as it was open for the so-careful Dr Barbet. 

The entire book is a bit long, as I have myself found on being forced to read it in a hurry. But it suffices to read Chapter 12, which recapitulates the essentials of Chapters 1 through 11 while adding fresh insights. In the 1953 publisher's page numbering, this is the chapter that starts on page 158. The start of Chapter 12 corresponds to “page 80” in the numbering imposed by my own Microsoft computer's PDF display software, and very likely imposed by your software also.  

A caveat is necessary. Dr Barbet's key Chapter 12 is marred by a perceptible and hideous, although not quite in-your-face-Nazi, antisemitism. To my own mind, hideous though the author's antisemitism is, it gives his words added force, reminding one of the barbaric era in which he is himself anchored. One literally cries out at the computer screen, noting the author’s own historical limitations as well as the unspeakable details of his ancient-Jerusalem researches. 

You may now reflect, Your Eminence, as a (1995) doctorally qualified theologian from the same leading British school which gave me a 1979 philosophy doctorate: this thing, this Roman execution,  happened, even as the assassination of "Ivlivs Caivs Caesar" happened, and its medical details are likely to correspond, in a reasonable approximation, to Dr Barbet's anatomically informed reconstructions: in the face of this thing, I, Hilarion the Titular Metropolitan of Volokolamsk, have as a shepherd of souls a duty to make up my mind now regarding the morality or immorality of a possible tactical nuclear detonation in Ukraine. 

Here "now" means "now, in the week of 2022-04-18", not next week, and not in procrastination as late as the week of 9 May. You, being as a Western-educated Titular Metropolitan no stranger to the realities of public life, can picture still more clearly than I the eventual national panic under the minute-to-minute pressure of events in the geopolitical crisis which a detonation would precipitate. The detonation, if it comes, will see television programmes not in Russia alone, but in every industrialized nation, interrupted for special bulletin upon special bulletin. The horror, if it comes, may well see parts of the media, including parts accessible to ordinary Russians, indicating to their terrified audiences that Kremlin decision-makers have been spotted exiting Moscow. You cannot wait for images of exit helicopters to fill your personal screen. To do less than prepare now, this week, would be to abdicate your personal pastoral responsibility at the foot of the Cross. 

****

Easter is a time of rebirth. What might rebirth mean in the present circumstances, with a morally resolute Ukraine standing up to a brutalized and depressed Red Army, and with a pampered and decadent West now seeking for itself a moral courage at least dimly mirroring Ukraine's?

I will not examine possibilities for the West here, beyond saying that if some expanding 2022 nuclear war does not destroy us all, then over coming decades Western people can unite in peaceful and legal ways against those twin Western evils which are (a) the supranational corporations (the past beneficiaries, in many instances, of post-1991 Russian commerce)  and (b) the corporate facilitators,  our corrupt (our hired, our purchased) Western parliamentary factions. These are not factions on the "Populist Right" alone, but factions ranging across much of the current Western parliamentary spectrum, in most or all Western democracies, here in Estonia and far afield. 

One such peaceful and legal way will be the rejection of a consumerist lifestyle, and concomitantly with that rejection a return to personal minimalism - through a simple, straightforward, "Refusal to Buy", through a straightforward "Insistence on Simple Living", in any case needed as we Western citizens strive alongside our often-clumsy governments to support Ukraine. 

As  regards Russia, I suggest that scant hope can be now placed in government. How can a government structure be endorsed which recruits even infants to its cult of war, as reflected in those familiar Internet photos? You are unlikely to need such photos yourself. And yet to ensure that my point becomes fully clear I do supply you with two of them. They will serve to remind you and my wider readership of the extent to which public authorities now betray the Gospel, or at any rate connive in its betrayal:

Photo: Moscow Times, 2019-05-10, reporting 9 May festivities in Pyatigorsk.
  
Photo: https://therussianreader.com/2021/12/28/yigal-levin-do-russians-want-war/

Some hope remains, on the other hand, for the efforts of your Russian natural scientists, your Russian historians, and your other Russian intellectuals, as local witnesses to Truth. 

And there is hope, if we care to see it, in your own Russian Orthodox Church. You know better than I the decay which has for centuries beset Russian Orthodoxy. The Vatican has the unfortunate distinction of having in recent years operated (owned? leased?) a helicopter, capable of shuttling at least between Vatican City and the suburban Castel Gandolfo. You, on the other hand, have perhaps yourself boarded, as I have not, the yacht "placed at the disposal of the Patriarch" should his pastoral duties happen to take him to the isolated monastery of Valaam. Pope Francis lives in a kind of hostel-for-prelates, foregoing the private traditional papal apartments, and is said to take his meals in a cafeteria alongside ecclesial colleagues, much as we do at the observatory campus here in Tõravere, with our humble cafeteria queue. In the Patriarchy, simplicity is less prized. 

Further, you have likely set foot, as I have not, in the new Moscow Oblast "Military Cathedral". You, Your Eminence, know this gargantuan celebration of militarism better than I, and my other readers can quickly research it through (for example)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/20/orthodox-cathedral-of-the-armed-force-russian-national-identity-military-disneyland

It remains the case that your Church has the graces to lead a national spiritual revival, in concert with constructive, anti-consumerist, social forces in the West, notably with forces allied to the Holy See. It has the graces to lead that revival in the teeth, if necessary, of whatever enigmatic factions may this year be emerging in some enigmatic post-Putin Kremlin. 

I do not call you to martyrdom in the manner of  Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer or Saint Franz Jägerstätter or Saint Edith Stein. In calling you to articulate your stand in the face of a possible tactical nuclear strike in Ukraine, I call you only to what seems possible from a human standpoint. 

I additionally herewith join, as an obscure Catholic layman, with western ecclesial authorities, including a former Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, in calling for a Ukraine ceasefire to mark the Russian Orthodox Easter, and I join with Pope Francis in the recent prayers consecrating Russia and Ukraine to Our Lady. 

Finally, I herewith enjoin you from the theologically unassailable position of a lay pastoral supplicant, obedient to my Bishop, to my local Nuncio, and to the Vatican - and I do so in the name of Christ, thereby presuming even to bind you - to acknowledge receipt of this present (e-mail, papermail, and blogspot) communication. My previous efforts at obtaining receipts of communication from you have failed,   in large part through my own ineptitude. As time passes, however, I become better in my various methods, and I remain in this Easter season hopeful of success. 


==END OF CURRENT BLOGSPOT POSTING==

 

Saturday 9 April 2022

Toomas Karmo: Nähtavalt Eredaimate Tähtede Astrofüüsiline Ülevaade, 2022 / Astrophysical Overview of the Visually Brightest Stars, 2022


Kuvatõmmis minu Debian GNU/Linuxi arvutilt. Ühes brauseri aknas eredaimate tähetede essee oma 2022.a. versioonis, nagu seda saab lugeda RASC serverist, teises brauseri aknas minu 2019-01-19 blogspot essee varema versiooni teemal, kusjuures ka mõned fotod talvisest Tartu observatooriumi pimedataeva linnakust, mõni sada meetrit minu töötoast. Xterm akendes jooksevad vaated 2022.a. versiooni tugimärkmetesse. Nagu alati blogspotis, saab pilti suurendada klõpsuga esimesele (vasakpoolsele) hiirenupule. - Screenshot from my Debian GNU/Linux computer. In one browser window is my brightest-stars essay in its 2022 version, as avilable from the RASC server, and in the other browser window my 2019-01-19 blogspot essay on the topic of an earlier version.This is accompanied by some photos of the Tartu Obsrvatory dark-sky campus, a few hundred metres from my workroom. In the xterm windows are views into the 2022 version working notes. As always in blogspot, the image can be enlarged by clicking on the first (the leftrmost) mouse button. 



Kvaliteedihinnang: - Quality assessment:


Selle viiepallilise skaala kohaselt, mis kehtib praegu Eestis, ja kindlasti ka naaberriikides, ja on tuttav kadunud, mitte tagantjärele leinatud, NSVL-i akadeemilise elu vaatlejatele (siin rakendades neid kergeid, lõtvu, kriteeriume, mida Kmo rakendab oma nõgises fantaseeritud "Aleksandr Stepanovitsh Popovi nimelises sangarliku raadio instituudis" ja oma nõgises fantaseeritud "Nikolai Ivanovitsh Lobatshevki nimelises sotsialistliku matemaatika instituudis" - kus, fantaasias ette kujutatud kaksikinstituutide lõdva ja vähenõudliku hindamisreeglite kohaselt 1/5 on "eepiline läbikukkukmine", 2/5 "läbikukkumine, mis pole nii katastrofaalne, et eepilusust saavutada", 3/5 on "kehvavõitu läbipääsemine", 4/5 on "hea" ja 5/5 on "eeskujulik": 2/5. Põhjendus: Teema ei võimaldanud sügavat käsitlemist. -  On the 5-point scale current in Estonia, and surely in nearby nations, and familiar to observers of the academic arrangements of the late, unlamented, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (applying the easy and lax standards Kmo deploys in his grubby imaginary "Aleksandr Stepanovitsh Popovi nimeline sangarliku raadio instituut" (the "Alexandr Stepanovitch Popov Institute of Heroic Radio") and his  grubby imaginary "Nikolai Ivanovitsh Lobatshevski nimeline sotsalitsliku matemaatika instituut" (the "Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky Institute of Socialist Mathematics") - where, on the lax and easy grading philosophy of the twin Institutes, 1/5 is "epic fail", 2/5 is "failure not so disastrous as to be epic", 3/5 is "mediocre pass", 4/5 is "good", and 5/5 is "excellent"): 2/5. Justification: The chosen theme did not provide opportunities for depth.  


Variandikroonika: - Revision history:

Kõik kalendrip
äevad-kellaajad variandikroonikas on ära toodud UTC-s. UTC, ehk "Maailmakell", on vana GMT-i, ehk "Greenwich Mean Time"-i, täpsustus. Tarvitusel on ISO ettekirjutatud YYYYMMDDThhmmZ ajastembi formaat (kusjuures YYYY on UTC aasta, MM UTC kuu, DD UTC kuupäev, hh UTC tunniarv, mm UTC minutiarv). UTC praegu jookseb Toronto tsiviilkellast 4 tundi ette, Tallinna tsiviilkellast 3 tundi taga. - All times in these blog "revision histories" are stated in UTC (Universal Coordinated Time/ Temps Universel Coordoné,  a precisification of the old GMT, or "Greenwich Mean Time"), in the ISO-prescribed YYYYMMDDThhmmZ timestamping format. UTC currently leads Toronto civil time by 4 hours and currently lags Tallinn civil time by 3 hours.

  • 20220409T084200Z/versioon 1.0.0 : Kmo koostas algversioonii, jättes endale õiguse teha timmimisi, kui siin mitte dokumenteeritud versioonid 1.0.1,1.0.2, ... , järgmise 96 tunni ookul. - Kmo produced a base version, reserving the right to make small adjustments, as here-undocumented versions 1.0.1, 1.0.2, ... , over the coming 96 hours. 

Uueaasta päeval 2018.a., minu viimase Kanadas elamise aasta alguses, ma postitasin oma peamisele blogiruumile, kui http://toomaskarmo.blogspot.com/2018/01/toomas-karmo-visually-brightest-stars.html, esssee pealkirjaga "The Visually Brightest Stars (Fresh RASC Publishing Initiatives)". Siin "RASC" on Kanada amatööastronoomide selts, ametlikult "Royal Astronomical Society of Canada". Mainitud 2018.a. "Publishing Initiatives", ehk "kirjanduslikud algatused", hõlmasid RASC-i vaatleja käsiraamatu seni laiemat raamatuturule pakkumist, nüüd kahes paralleelses variandis. 2018. aastast saadik oli üks variant suunatud Kanada, teine aga USA lugejaskonnale. Selle juures oli ka minu visuaalselt eredaimate tähtede astrofüüsilise ülevaate esimene koostamine RASC-i serveril, kui PDF-väljaanne kättesaadav ülemaailmsele lugejaskonnale (nii RASC-i liikmetele kui ka laiemale avalikkusele, kasvõi Eestis). Sama teema on käsitletud siin ka kuupäeval 2019-01-19, kui https://toomaskarmo.blogspot.com/2019/01/ - On New Year's Day in 2018, at the start of my final year of residence in Canada, I posted to my principal blogging space, as http://toomaskarmo.blogspot.com/2018/01/toomas-karmo-visually-brightest-stars.html, an essay under the title "The Visually Brightest Stars (Fresh RASC Publishing Initiatives)". Here "RASC" is Canada's association for amateur astronomers, formally the "Royal Astronomical Society of Canada". These 2018 "Publishing Initiatives" included a widened offering of the RASC observer's handbook to the book market, now in two parallel variants. From 2018 onward, one variant was directed to  Canadian, the other to USA readers. Along with this was my own first compilation of a brightest-stars astrophysical overview on the RASC server, as a PDF accessible world-wide (both to RASC members and to the general public, Estonia included). The same theme is discussed here also under the date 2019-01-19, as  https://toomaskarmo.blogspot.com/2019/01/.

****

Praegu juhiksin tähelepanu ülevaate värskeima, ehk 2022.a., versiooni ilmumisele RASC-i serveril, ikka kui PDF kättesaadav igas riigis. Ülevaade on aastast aastasse kasvanud. Praegune, ehk 2022.a., versioon hõlmab 106 lehekülge. Sissejuhatavas essees, 2022.a. umbes 26 lehekülje ulatuses, pannakse erilist rõhku spektraalsele (Morgan-Keenan ehk "MK") klassifitseerimisele, tähtede evolutsioonile MK kontekstis, Be-fenomenile (kus noorevõitu, kuum, kiiresti pöörlev täht heidab välja ekvatoriaalselt ümbritseva, nii fotomeetriliselt kui spektroskoopiliselt tajutava, hiigelketta) ja (esimest korda 2022.a.) binaarsete süsteemide iseärasustele. - I would now direct attention to the publication of the most recent, i.e. the 2022, version on the RASC server, still as a PDF accessible from all countries. The overview has grown from year to year. The current (2022) version comprises 106 pages. In the prefatory essay, in 2022 running to about 26 pages, special emphasis is placed on spectral (Morgan-Keenan, or "MK") classification, on stellar evolution in the MK context, on the Be phenomenon (where a youngish, hot, rapidly spinning star ejects a huge surrounding equatorial disk, observable both in photometry and in spectroscopy) and (for the first time in 2022) the properties of binaries. 

Eesseele juurdekuuluvas tabelis, kus on käsitletud  umbes 320 eri visuaalselt ereda tähe astrofüüsilisi omadusi, ma juhiksin hetkel erilist tähelepanu delta Sco umbes leheküljepikkusele kirjeldusele. Binaarne süsteem delta Sco, viimastel aastakümnetel hakanud ootamatult esitlema Be-fenomeni tunnuseid, läbib oma periastroni 2022.a. maikuus. Sealjuures on spektroskoopia ja fotomeetria soovitavad, ka amatööride tasemel, nii enne kui ka mitu kuud pärast periastroni. - In the table accompanying the essay, which examines the astrophysical propertiesof about 320 visually bright stars, I would at the moment direct particular attention to the discussion (about a page in length) of delta Sco. The binary system delta Sco, which in recent decades has unexpectedly begun to present the Be phenomenology, is passing through periastron in May of 2022. Spectroscopic and photometric observations are desirable, including observations at an amateur standard, both before the periastron and for many months after it. 

****

PDF-i kätteleidmiseks võib (a) külastada koduleht https://www.rasc.ca/, siis (b) "Publications" menüüst valida "Observer's Handbook", siis (c) antud "Publications" lehekülje vasemal asuvast menüüst valida "Supplemenents" ja siis lõpuks (d) antud "Supplements" leheküljelt klõpsutada hüperlingile "Brightest Star supplemental essay as on p. 275 of OH 2022". Ma pakuksin aga siinsamas ka otsese ajutise lingi, mis vist töötab kuni praegusi versiooni väljavahetamiseni, kunagi 2023.a. esimestel kuudel:  https://www.rasc.ca/sites/default/files/Brightest_Stars_OH2022a.pdf . - To access the PDF, one may proceed as follows: (a) visit the homepage https://www.rasc.ca/; then (b) from the "Publications" menu, select "Observer's Handbook"; then (c) from the menu near the left edge of the "Publications" page, select "Supplements"; and finally (d) from the "Supplements" page, click on the hyperlink "Brightest Star supplemental essay as on p. 275 of OH 2022". I would also here offer a direct temporary link, liable to remain live until the updating of the current version, at some point in the first months of 2023: 
https://www.rasc.ca/sites/default/files/Brightest_Stars_OH2022a.pdf .

****
Selgeid taevaid kõigile!  - Clear skies to all! 

==PRAEGUSE BLOGSPOTI POSTITUSE LÕPP / 

END OF CURRENT BLOGSPOT POSTING==

Sunday 3 April 2022

Toomas Karmo: Open Letter to Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, and to His Eminence the Titular Metropolitan of Volokolamsk

Quality assessment: 

On the 5-point scale current in Estonia, and surely in nearby nations, and familiar to observers of the academic arrangements of the late, unlamented, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (applying the easy and lax standards Kmo deploys in his grubby imaginary "Aleksandr Stepanovitsh Popovi nimeline sangarliku raadio instituut" (the "Alexandr Stepanovitch Popov Institute of Heroic Radio") and his grubby imaginary "Nikolai Ivanovitsh Lobatshevski nimeline sotsalitsliku matemaatika instituut" (the "Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky Institute of Socialist Mathematics") - where, on the lax and easy grading philosophy of the twin Institutes, 1/5 is "epic fail", 2/5 is "failure not so disastrous as to be epic", 3/5 is "mediocre pass", 4/5 is "good", and 5/5 is "excellent"): 2/5. Justification: it is arguable that I knew enough to treat my subject adequately within the limited scope I set myself, an d yet the scope was VERY limited. (Sorry, although I did at first try to award myself 3/5, the Institutes insisted on going down to 2/5. Even the grubby hinterland has its standards.) 

Revision history:

UTC=20220403T1645000Z/version 1.0.0: Kmo uploaded base version. He then planned to continue producing, in a way not documented here, minor tweaks, over the coming 96 hours, as versions 1.0.1, 1.0.2, ... . . 

War is liable to bring out the worst in everyone, not only in the people we oppose but within our own ranks. We recall, for instance, the problematic course of the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the 1939-1945 war. Their fight - conducted with an entire nation, arguably much of an entire continent, under existential threat - fell safely with in the scope of Catholic "Justified War" theory. By the time the war was in its later phases, however, the RAF was carpet-bombing German civilians. The RAF became (to take one example from several possible) complicit in the July 1943 Hamburg firestorm. From that firestorm, German civilians in basements sheltered in vain. Winds in the streets attained speeds estimated at around 65 m/s or 70 m/s, in other words approximating the worst of all recorded hurricanes. So intense was the heat that even asphalt burst into flame. In some instances, the number of casualties in basements had to be estimated roughly, from the quantity of human ash. 

I could reinforce this lesson in human wartime depravity by first documenting the high moral tone of the Roosevelt and Truman administrations, then citing those American war crimes, with still more civilian victims than in Hamburg, which were Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

And I recall from my Estonian-exile childhood, in Canada, an album (I saw it in the Reader's Digest Condensed Books version) entitled German Faces. There were photo portraits of brave, civically minded 1945-era Germans. There were photo portraits of opportunistic 1945-era Germans working the black market; of complacent 1945-era Germans (fortunate in never being bombed), cold toward their own internal refugees; of embittered Germans; and of at least one youthful fanatical German, praising the songs he had been accustomed to singing under the now-extinguished Reich.

I was much taken at the time, and I still recall with anguish, the portrait photo of a mother and child, some quite tiny "Gerhard" or "Heinz". The mother explained to the author how things had gone for her with the Red Army. Since I do not have text and photo in front of me here in Estonia, I can now only paraphrase. What I read back then, roughly six decades ago, ran something like this: "So they did it, in the snow. I don't know how I kept track, but I did keep track: twenty-two times. One of them was different from the others, shy. The others said, 'Go on, do it, do it.' He did not want to, but eventually he did it too. I like to think that he is the father of little Heinz, here."

****

Now we have Monsieur le Président Vladimir Vladimirovich inflicting spiritual harm, committing an assault, on Syrian men. Details can be had from various sources, for instance from 

The current Russian President's deal is this: You, a Syrian, can fight in Ukraine; we will pay you many times more than you could hope to earn in Syria; and in the event of your death, your family members back home will receive a monetary death benefit.

I need not dwell on the morality of dangling such an obscene temptation before traumatized men with starving families. You, Your Eminence the Titular Metropolitan of Volokolamsk, will agree with me that your President errs in proffering such a temptation. You will agree with me, as a trained theologian from my own UK university and sharing my own Faith, that the judgement of history may prove heavier on your current President than on those poor Syrians who in their weakness may soon be taking his bait. I beg of you in Christ, as I renew my efforts to get letters to you, that you discuss the theology with him directly, or alternatively with him through your Patriarch, pressing me also into back-channel service in any way you can devise.  

****

War (to reiterate) is liable to bring out the worst in everyone, from the brutalized rank-and-file of the 1940s Red Army right up to the 1940s RAF élite. What, now, would be an appropriate response from Kyiv to the emerging Syria problem? How can the Ukrainian side, at least, avoid sinking into Mr Putin's theological morass?

If Syrian mercenaries should come, Kyiv must avoid the temptation to a reciprocal brutality. "They are combat-hardened soldiers" - it might be pleaded in extenuation - "accustomed to inflicting cruelty, and moreover fighting over here from commercial motives; let our lads give them what they deserve." Very well then: let those Syrians be as hardened as we may choose to imagine; let them share even in the brutality of 1945 Red Army personnel in Berlin: brutality must on no account be reciprocated with brutality. 

Some skilled people within the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine may now be able to reach out in Arabic and English to these incoming wretches, in terms that they will understand, despite their limited access to information, and moreover in terms that do not ask the emotionally impossible of them. Let there be no preaching. Let us reserve our homilies for Monsieur le Président Putin, via (so I hope and pray, admittedly still here groping in darkness) His Eminence my so-far-silent Oxford confrère the Titular Metropolitan of Volokolamsk. For the mercenaries, let Kyiv make merely an offer, of the simplest kind, by way of a counter-offer to the offer that brought them into Ukraine: If in a spirit of adroit cooperation you let yourself be "captured" by "unexpectedly materializing Ukrainian forces", then we for our part will provide you employment in some steady and physically safe capacity in the west of Ukraine, far from the killing fields. In legal documentation, you will be a prisoner of war. In physical reality, on the other hand, you will be a manual worker. Paying due regard to your de facto status of worker, we will pay you ten percent more than  Moscow would have paid you to fight in the far east of Ukraine. Additionally, mindful of your sad reasons for having attempted to fight, we will facilitate the remitting of your pay (should you desire this) to your impoverished family back home in Syria. 

****

Servant of God Екатерина Фёдоровна де Гук-Дохерти, урождённая Колышкина, witness to the spiritual mission of Russia in the family of nations, intercede for us now.  
 

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