"Participant Andreas Pelowski from Germany poses during the European Beard Championship in Leogang, Austria, on September 20, 2025" Credit Johann Groder / APA / EXPA / AFP / Getty.
Jonathan Haslam, a historian of Soviet foreign policy and the author of the new book Hubris: The American Origins of Russia’s War Against Ukraine, has a rather different analysis. He starts his story a quarter century earlier, in 1989—two years before Ukraine achieved independence. As for who started it: as the title of the book suggests, Ukraine has less of a role to play in his account than the United States does.Some tens of thousands of Ukrainians have perished over the past three years, including more than ten thousand civilians; their country lies in ruins. At least one hundred thousand Russian soldiers have died, too. Yet an honest reckoning with the root causes of this death and destruction has largely eluded political leaders, who have instead been guided by demands for moral clarity—the expectation that they oppose the illegal act of invading another country without either U.N. authority or any credible argument for self-defense. In this sense, Putin’s invasion has been treated in much the way many liberals have treated Trump’s rise—as an unprovoked aberration, an alien force from nowhere.A lone gunman theory has its comforts: if Putin is just an evil man, nothing needs to change except opposing his crimes and follies. If the truth is even a little more complex, however—and Hubris proves that it is complex indeed—focusing blame on Putin alone launders the complicity of a far wider range of participants, and of the long-term policy they helped make. At stake is not only the path to peace in Eastern Europe but the future and purpose of American power in the world...Like his fellow realist John Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, Haslam identifies NATO’s expansion eastward as a wound to Russia’s pride. This isn’t to say that he accepts Russia’s nonsensical rationale for the invasion as “self-defense.” But, as he argues, Russia’s leaders and population had been humiliated, and the country found itself increasingly isolated—things American politicians did nothing to counteract and occasionally celebrated. This didn’t guarantee, let alone justify, a war. But it did set up the conditions for one...Bush continued NATO’s expansion, pushing the alliance into seven new nations, including the Baltic countries sharing a border with Russia, thus raising Russian hackles further. After all, the arrival of NATO in places that had been part of the Soviet Union itself was far less a response to Russian military threats than it was a ratification and recognition of the West’s superior economic and political power. But America’s support for the “color revolutions” in Georgia in 2003–04 as well as Ukraine in 2004–05—coinciding with Bush’s Iraq War—pushed things too far. “The United States,” Haslam explains, “had become accustomed to looking down on Russia as a defeated power of little or no account,” asserting the power to occupy other countries while highlighting the diminution of Russian power. The double standard was glaring, even as the consequence of the Bush years was to normalize illegal invasions—and to destabilize the Middle East, awakening Putin’s interest in the great game of European imperial designs there.
It's certainly a representation of a skull. For what purpose? A functional item, or an objet d'art? If it's art, of what era/style? Jewelry - from when? Toy/game - which one? European, American, Asian, Incan? Your grade will be based 1/3 on era (century), 1/3 on geography (continent) and 1/3 on use/purpose.But it turned out to be too easy. Ponder the photo for a moment to see what you would have guessed, then look beneath the fold for the answer...
Answer tomorrow, with source credits.
"This is the best book I've read this year [2010].
Most reviews describe An Instance of the Fingerpost as a "historical mystery," but the mystery component is in my view a minor part of the book. Granted, the plot does revolve around the question of who put poison in the wine bottle, but as a whodunit it would pale next to the works of classic mystery writers. The value for me was to step right into the 17th century and get a sense of people's lives and attitudes and beliefs.
The story is told by four narrators (which, as my wife reminded me, is basically the format for Rashomon), and, as in that movie, the narrations differ on key points. By the time I was on the third narrative, I started going back to read the first one again to compare salient points. Doing so was not onerous, because Pears writes in a style that's very easy to read, and despite writing about the 17th century he seems to avoid the temptation to litter the text with archaic words.
The most difficult aspect (for me, perhaps not for you) was that much of the action and motivation of the characters center on the Restoration of the English monarch in the 1660s, which I have never much understood, or frankly cared about. But I did learn a lot about ordinary people's lives and the role of women and the birth pangs of medical science and the conflicts of religious dogma and the ethics of the time.
This is not a quick read; you're looking at some 600+ pages even if you don't flip back and forth to compare stories. But it won't take long to figure out if you like it or not; I should think in an hour's time, after reading a chapter or two, you'll know whether or not you're going to enjoy it.
After finishing this book, I checked out another novel by this author (The Dream of Scipio), but found that one too cumbersome to follow as it shuttled between three people in different centuries; Pears is an art historian by profession and has written some mysteries about that field of study, so perhaps I should try one of those.
Those who have read the book, please feel free to chime in with your own thoughts."
Several references to the "elaboratory" of scientist Robert Boyle. The word is now obsolete, but hints at the relation of "laboratory" and "elaborate."A comment re a planned public dissection of a human cadaver elicits the comment that "All that will happen is that you will furnish a rarity show for any spoitty undergraduate who cares to come along and watch." Perhaps related to the modern term "raree show" as cheap entertainment.One character has an inflamed eye which he has been treating with ingredients he prepared himself... "What ingredients were they?" "Dried dog excrement," he said. "What?" "I had it from my doctor... the king's physician... and a man of good family. It is an infallible cure, tested through the ages. A pedigree dog, as well. It belongs to the warden." (p. 97) The status of medical diagnosis and care of this period are recurrently cringeworthy.After three characters eat at a tavern, they call for the shared pipe: "... Wood took a sip of his drink, and called over to the serving hatch for a pipe to be brought. Lower added his call for one as well, but I declined. Not that I object to a little tobacco in the evening, especially when my bowels are tight, but sometimes pipes which have been overused by the general clientele of taverns do have a taste of sour spittle..." (p. 196)"It had been a complicated case and the town was by no means convinced of her guilt. She had killed a man whom she said had raped her, but the jury judged this a lie because she had fallen pregnant, which cannot occur without the woman taking pleasure in the act. Normally her condition would have spared her the gallows, but she had lost the child and also any defense against the hangman. An unfortunate outcome, which those who believed in her guilt considered divine providence." (204)"The old couple in charge of the house had promised us a hot bath when we introduced ourselves at midday and I was eager to take up the offer: I had not immersed since the previous autumn and felt that not only could my constitution stand it, my morale would be immeasurably lifted..." (207)"... he knew nothing of the law and believed it to have something to do with justice. As I had once done myself, until I studied it..." (293)"To gain a post worth £50 a year, a friend of mine had to lay out near £750 in bribes, all borrowed at interest, and consequently must defraud the government of more than £200 per year to live decently and pay his debts..." (318)When asked why marriage does not appeal to her, a woman replies "To hand over my hard-earned fortune to my husband? Be unable to do anything without his permission? Risk being disinherited of my own money when he dies? Oh, yes. A wonderful dream..." (430)"Euripides talks of Tithonus, whom Eos loved so well she begged Zeus to give him eternal life. But mistakenly she asked not for youth as well and he suffered an eternity of decrepitude until even the cruel gods took pity on him." The legend goes on to say that Tithonus was transformed into a cicada."In each generation the Messiah would be reborn, would be betrayed, would die, and be resurrected, until mankind turns away from evil, and sins no more." (845) This is an ancient belief that is carried on in part in modern Hasidic traditions.Here is the Wikipedia page describing and illustrating fingerposts. The reference in the book title is to an aphorism from Francis Bacon: "When in a Search of any Nature the Understanding stands suspended, then Instances of the Fingerpost shew the true and inviolable Way in which the Question is to be decided. These Instances afford great Light, so that the Course of the Investigation will sometimes be terminated by them. Sometimes, indeed these Instances are found amongst that Evidence already set down."
Coyote tooth dentures on display at Eastern California Museum. These human dentures were made by melting celluloid toothbrush handles. In the early 1900′s a man who lost his teeth shaped melted toothbrushes to his gums, and then pressed the teeth of dead coyote into them."
Reposted from 2016 while I visit the dentist today. The photo and text are from a Tumblr site that has undergone linkrot, but I found the same information reposted at The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things.
"Two amphipods from the Cyproideidae family, each only measuring around 3 millimeters in body length, rest on a coral. Commonly called “ladybugs of the sea,” these tiny creatures display striking coloration and symmetry." Credit © Yury Ivanov / Ocean Photographer of the Year, via The Atlantic.
"In that time, our small, independent crew of authors, editors, illustrators, and podcasters at Damn Interesting published 797,626 words (798,231 if you count this post), released 410 podcast episodes, curated over 45,000 interesting links, made a few games, won a few awards, published one paper book, served up zero ads, and gained twenty years of, let’s say, experience."
Choose all images with blueberry muffins:
Hey, I'll leave you a message again this year! Do you know what the key difference between the previous year's balance sheet and last year's balance sheet at the Wikimedia Foundation was?Now I'm a thrifty person in a thrifty family. We drive two cars that are combined 25 years old with a quarter million miles on them. We don't like to throw money around. But we generously tip servers in restaurants and donate to selected charities and otherwise disperse our money appropriately in response to received value. I made what I consider to be a rather modest contribution to Wikipedia/Wikimedia as a token of thanks for saving me hundreds of hours of searching the net for information.
Previous year's cash overage that was stuffed into the bank: $3 million.
Last year's cash overage that was stuffed into the bank: $6 million.
Thanks to donors like you with no more independent thought than a sheep within a flock, you just helped the Wikimedia Foundation stuff even more money into the bank, and NOT spend it on the program services that you "thought" it would be spent on.
I can't help it if you're stupid.
