Amen, brother.
What is interesting about the TikTok War going on is that it’s pretty one-sided, or at least it appears that way. You’d think the Russians would be flooding social media with their own vids of blown up Ukrainian vehicles and shot down planes, etc. But, are there any such videos? In any numbers? Makes you wonder.
Thank you. And next time someone posts a link like that without disclosing what they’re posting, I’m closing the account. You don’t just throw up a link to pictures of dead children with some coy little comment about “hey, don’t click this link” and no further context.
-Tom
To be fair you don’t see the child. At least, that is what I recall and I don’t want to go back to clarify.
These kinds of photos only need to be shown to Putin apologists or those that are indifferent/flippant to war.
How odd that the Shell station by me was the only one which spiked their price to $5.10/gallon today, completely blowing away the prices of every other gas station I saw in Seattle.
I mean you see the top of the head and the child wrapped in blankets.
And given I have a 3 year old whose birthday we just celebrated today that was just the worst thing in the world to see.
2 months ago my 3 year old got covid which gave him croup bad enough that I nearly took him to the hospital at 2 am (my daughter I had taken to the hospital due to croup related breathing, nearly not breathing, issues in December. Its brutal). So when I see parents in distress over there child that is a visceral very personal thing that is a recent raw nerve. And that was only something ‘mild’ that required a dose of steroids and on our way. And I was still a fucking wreck just trying to get my son through the night so I could get him medication. Not a parent raising children in a war zone whose kid got injured due to the fucking monster Putin invading.
So that picture just guts me. It makes me want to do extremely unprintable things to the person responsible for that. Just… fuck.
I’ve been seeing this sort of thing on Reddit recently, where there’s a really heart breaking photo one click off the front page with no description and very little warning and then in the comments there’s an explanation like “you shouldn’t hide from these sorts of images because the Ukrainians can’t hide from it either” or something.
And I’m just like fuuuuuuucccck you, internet person.
Update on the situation in the crucial southern theater:
Sorry to hear that. My daughter used to get croup really bad when she was a toddler. Had a couple overnight stays in the hospital.
It was mentioned in one of the links posted in the last 2 hours, that Russian soldiers that headed into Ukraine were told to hand over their phones.
Pretty sure one of the news stories today was they were cutting off TikTok usage in Russia.
I understand, the photo should have had more of an explanation/warning of the contents (just a reminder that I didn’t post it). Sorry to hear your son got covid and croup. Glad he presumably got better.
Can’t imagine what it must be like for parents of young kids in a warzone.
While in general this sounds reasonable, it may well have proved serendipitous too!
Well, social media wars are only good if you are winning, eh?
The question here, is how far does this go and what is the endpoint:
Now I am all for helping Ukraine but sometimes I wonder if all that the West is doing is just more than a little ad hoc, and I wonder if there is a real plan behind it all. Have we really thought through all the implications?
A further follow up to what I posted above:
“. . . the [carcass of the Russian economy] will serve as a visible consequence of Mr. Putin’s actions and a warning for other aggressors.”
It’s news that the sanctions were intended to be punishing and that the nature of the punishment was to be economic? And that the purpose of that punishment was deterrence?
I don’t have a NYT subscription (to the shock and amazement of the community, I’m sure!) so I didn’t read the article, but my reaction to their tweet was… duh?
Maybe sanctions are sometimes more targeted at individuals? Seems like the sea change is the West’s desire to bring the whole Russian economy down.
One part of note to prior Jets to Ukraine discussion in that article linked:
New update on war situation - little change but Russians continue to mass forces near Kyiv and Kharkiv:
Well, I can report that my Johnson is still blocking the road to Kyiv, but I can also report that it is motherfucking cold up there. Send Sterno!