Traffic in the circle

[Charles Packer]

The news yesterday carried presumably independent items about
Russia breathing down the neck of Ukraine and China doing the same
with Taiwan. Are we cycling back to the 1930s?
Or is the international news an AI simulation fed with historical
data, a side order of Oswald Spengler and seasoned with appropriate
SF authors -- Asimov perhaps...other suggestions?

http://cpacker.org

[j.hal...@rogers.com]

Has anything actually changed in the Ukraine or China recently? Or has Covid become boring and they need a war to stir up some interest?

John

[Charles Packer]

On Tue, 13 Apr 2021 08:08:43 -0700, j.hal...@rogers.com wrote:

>
> Has anything actually changed in the Ukraine or China recently? Or has
> Covid become boring and they need a war to stir up some interest?
>
> John

It's what's not changed that matters. Autocratically-led
nations like Russia and China whose leaders have an inferiority
syndrome are a holdover from the 19th century. Plug them into a
21st-century scenario and it looks like they'd retain imperialist
ways.

[Chrysi Cat]

Well, ONE thing that's changed is that the vast majority of the world is
back to calling the place "THE Ukraine".

I'm sure someone's gone over how Ukrainians, at the very least, insist
that "Ukraine" and "the Ukraine" transliterate the word for their
country, plus two different locational modifiers: the one translated
"the" is, in Russian, the modifier for "in a subsection of a state",
while the one with no article substitutes for "in a state that is not
Russia" [and yes, of COURSE people as insular as Russians have a special
locational article or phrase that comes into play depending on if a
place is "part of Russia" or "part of the enemy world"].

When we say "the Ukraine", we are implicitly stating that the Ukraine's
proper relation to Russia is "Oblast". Or possibly some lower division
even than that.

Of course, at *this* point that's probably a true statement unless the
US are a whole lot more willing to get into a war that they probably
will exit as UNDENIABLY at least three and possibly more separate
countries, but that's still a change, as in 1991 everyone with power
agreed that Ukraine was rightfully an independent country, not an
integral part of Russia.

Of course, we SHOULD have seen both Hong Kong and the Ukraine coming;
Russia was never going to accept in the long run that the USSR was
anything other than a renaming of a single Russian nation-state, and
that thus its rogue oblasts had no right to secede in 1991, as soon as
it regained enough military power to "correct" their "errors", and China
regarded the treaty of 1986 as "just another Unequal Treaty" and thus
not something that could legitimately be undertaken. Assuming that the
UK wasn't willing to go to war for the New Territories, it SHOULD have
announced that Hong Kong WAS going to be just another city in Red
China--and probably not even a province by its lonesome--on Handover
Day, but that every last person unwilling to live under CCP rule would
be consdidered a UK national for purposes of resettlement within the
Commonwealth.

There's a good possibility, unfortunately, that racism had much to do
with why that WASN'T the plan; as for the HKers who COULD still get
visas and stayed, they were fools and should have seen that HK would be
"prematurely" fully integrated, 15 years ago.

--
Chrysi Cat
1/2 anthrocat, nearly 1/2 anthrofox, all magical
Transgoddess, quick to anger. [she/her. Misgender and die].
Call me Chrysi or call me Kat, I'll respond to either!

[Scott Dorsey]

Chrysi Cat <chry...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>Well, ONE thing that's changed is that the vast majority of the world is
>back to calling the place "THE Ukraine".

Isn't there a court in the Hague to deal with that sort of thing?
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Paul Dormer]

In article <ydUdI.5751$Ms7....@fx34.iad>, chry...@gmail.com (Chrysi

Cat) wrote:

>
> Well, ONE thing that's changed is that the vast majority of the world
> is back to calling the place "THE Ukraine".

It was just Ukraine in the British paper I was reading just now.

[Scott Dorsey]

If they call it that in the United Kingdom, do they do the same thing
in the Carnatic?

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <s5afqr$488$1...@panix2.panix.com>,

Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote:
>Paul Dormer <p...@pauldormer.cix.co.uk> wrote:
>>In article <ydUdI.5751$Ms7....@fx34.iad>, chry...@gmail.com (Chrysi
>>Cat) wrote:
>>
>>> Well, ONE thing that's changed is that the vast majority of the world
>>> is back to calling the place "THE Ukraine".
>>
>>It was just Ukraine in the British paper I was reading just now.
>
>If they call it that in the United Kingdom, do they do the same thing
>in the Carnatic?

At least, to the best of my knowledge, nobody has reverted to
calling it "Little Russia."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._2_(Tchaikovsky)

Not yet, anyway.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/

[Kevrob]

On Thursday, April 15, 2021 at 8:01:16 PM UTC-4, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <s5afqr$488$1...@panix2.panix.com>,
> Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote:
> >Paul Dormer <p...@pauldormer.cix.co.uk> wrote:
> >>In article <ydUdI.5751$Ms7....@fx34.iad>, chry...@gmail.com (Chrysi
> >>Cat) wrote:
> >>
> >>> Well, ONE thing that's changed is that the vast majority of the world
> >>> is back to calling the place "THE Ukraine".
> >>
> >>It was just Ukraine in the British paper I was reading just now.
> >
> >If they call it that in the United Kingdom, do they do the same thing
> >in the Carnatic?
> At least, to the best of my knowledge, nobody has reverted to
> calling it "Little Russia."
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._2_(Tchaikovsky)
>
> Not yet, anyway.
>

Stalin liked to pretend the constituent "republics" of the USSR were
equivalent to independent states, except when he didn't. He originally
wanted all of them to have seats in the UN General Assembly. He cut
a deal at Yalta Where Ukraine and Belarus got seats, and the home
of the GA and the Security Council would be New York. GA seats
meant next to nothing in terms of political power, compared to a veto
and a permanent seat on the SC.

Having NY as the "world capital" may have been a point of pride to FDR,
but it would have made it easier on the anti-espionage section of our FBI
if it had been sited in some neutral country. That doesn't even take into
account the NYPD's long-time war with diplomatic and consular staff who
were/are parking and traffic scofflaws.

Bloomberg and the State Dept cracked down on this. Pro tip:
don't bother ticketing any vehicles registered to Latveria. It
isn't worth the trouble.

"Where's my money, honey?" - Luke Cage

--
Kevin R

[Tim Merrigan]

On Thu, 15 Apr 2021 19:33:01 -0700 (PDT), Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com>
wrote:

I've heard an anecdote that the U.S. president (Truman(?), Ike(?))
offered to go along, as long as the U.S. got the same deal, that would
give the Soviet Union 15 seats, and the United States 48. After that
Stalin backed down.
--

Qualified immuninity = vertual impunity.

Tim Merrigan

--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
https://www.avg.com

[garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk]

Chrysi Cat <chry...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Well, ONE thing that's changed is that the vast majority of the world is
> back to calling the place "THE Ukraine".

You mean, in the last 70 years or so English became de facto and de iure
THE language of international communication?

> I'm sure someone's gone over how Ukrainians, at the very least, insist
> that "Ukraine" and "the Ukraine" transliterate the word for their

Huh? Transliteration would be "Ukraina" or perhaps "Ukraïna" if you are
really pedantic (plus other niche ways, not really widely used).

> country, plus two different locational modifiers: the one translated
> "the" is, in Russian, the modifier for "in a subsection of a state",
> while the one with no article substitutes for "in a state that is not
> Russia" [and yes, of COURSE people as insular as Russians have a special
> locational article or phrase that comes into play depending on if a
> place is "part of Russia" or "part of the enemy world"].

Eh, there are no articles neither in Russian nor Ukrainian nor
Surzh[iy]k [*].
And would you care giving those two modifiers? I am trying hard to think
about what it could possibly be, but coming out blank...

[*] In the literary language. Since language changes, there are articles
being developed in the colloquial speech - but morphologically, they
are demonstrative pronouns and rather in flux and would not be used in a
proper name at all.

> When we say "the Ukraine", we are implicitly stating that the Ukraine's
> proper relation to Russia is "Oblast". Or possibly some lower division
> even than that.

Like, idunno, the United States or the United Kingdom, or perhaps the
Nederlands, or indeed, the European Union?

--
-----------------------------------------------------------
| Radovan Garabík http://kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk/~garabik/ |
| __..--^^^--..__ garabik @ kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk |
-----------------------------------------------------------
Antivirus alert: file .signature infected by signature virus.
Hi! I'm a signature virus! Copy me into your signature file to help me spread!

[Chrysi Cat]

<snip a mile of dissertation that I interpreted as "well, Ukraine should
never have STOPPED being called The Ukraine in the first place>

Oh, terrific. A pedant and possible Russophile chimes in from Slovakia,
which last I recall is a NATO state.

You ARE aware that when--I highly doubt it's a matter of "if"
anymore--Putin manages to restore Russia's 1914 borders, he's going to
insist on reinstating the Warsaw Pact, right?

Your country will have the choice of actively leaving NATO for the
"loving arms" of Mother Russia, or seeing the war come to it next.

I will never understand Russophiles physically close to Russia unless
they simply despise the sight of rainbow flags.

[Kevrob]

On Friday, April 16, 2021 at 3:20:07 AM UTC-4, Chrysi Cat wrote:
> <snip a mile of dissertation that I interpreted as "well, Ukraine should
> never have STOPPED being called The Ukraine in the first place>
>
> Oh, terrific. A pedant and possible Russophile chimes in from Slovakia,
> which last I recall is a NATO state.
>
> You ARE aware that when--I highly doubt it's a matter of "if"
> anymore--Putin manages to restore Russia's 1914 borders, he's going to
> insist on reinstating the Warsaw Pact, right?
>
> Your country will have the choice of actively leaving NATO for the
> "loving arms" of Mother Russia, or seeing the war come to it next.
>
> I will never understand Russophiles physically close to Russia unless
> they simply despise the sight of rainbow flags.
> --

Ship `em all to "the Argentine..." !!! :)

--
Kevin R

[garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk]

Chrysi Cat <chry...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Oh, terrific. A pedant and possible Russophile chimes in from Slovakia,
> which last I recall is a NATO state.

I hope you are not talking about me, because if anything, I have more
personal links to Ukraine than average in Slovakia, and although I
cannot claim to speak Ukrainian, I understand it quite effortlessly and
I regularly half-communicate in the language (or communicated, pandemic
and all...).

I was genuinely puzzled by your description of "transliteration" which I
did not get, the use of an *English* definitive article in, presumably,
Ukrainian and other languages' names for the country (huh?); and, above
all, your descriptions of locational modifiers hinting being an
Oblast' - I have no idea at all what you were talking about. Could you
please explain?

Do not worry about using proper linguistic terms or quoting Ukrainian
words, in all modesty, I think I *will* be able to follow :-)

> Your country will have the choice of actively leaving NATO for the
> "loving arms" of Mother Russia, or seeing the war come to it next.

I really hope it would not come to that - though I have no love for
warfare games (being pacifist in heart), I acknowledge sometimes you
have to respond firmly to an external threat.

> I will never understand Russophiles physically close to Russia unless
> they simply despise the sight of rainbow flags.

On the contrary - the more distant, the more Russophilia I observe.
Point of reference: current Czech president. Meh.

ObSF: Transhumanist ideas in stories of I[gh]or Rosoxovats[']kij
(using my favourite, scholarly transliteration of Cyrillic)

[Kevrob]

When I took courses on the USSR and Central Europe back in the
1970s, the idea that the foreign countries that bordered the old
Soviet Union and were part of the Socialist Bloc were a different
kind of "abroad" than those of Western Europe and what we would
refer to as the "Free World" was out and about. After The Wall Fell,
the Soviet/CIS/Russian sphere of influence contracted, but many
in the successor state - the Russian Federation - thought of the
ex-Soviet republics the way they used to think of the Warsaw Pact
countries.

Bill Safire wrote a column on "the near abroad" back in 1994.

[quote]

To follow up the history of the phrase in Russian, without citations: "Near abroad
was used extensively by Soviet dissidents in the 1970's and 80's," notes Terry
Thompson of Ellicott City, Md. "Russians under Brezhnev used the expression
in either ironic or wistful tones. The serious connotation of the phrase was that
the Russian people had to sacrifice a higher standard of living to support their
'socialist comrades' everywhere."

William Bodie of Los Angeles first heard the expression in January 1992 from
Paul Goble of the Carnegie Endowment as a term in use throughout political
Moscow referring to the non-Russian republics of the recently defunct U.S.S.R.
He sees the phrase as political rather than geographical or demographic.

"Rightly or wrongly," Mr. Bodie writes, "Russia's political classes have difficulty
viewing the republics on its periphery as fully sovereign entities; use of the term
near abroad, in addition to qualifying their independence, signifies to the 'far
abroad' that Russia claims certain rights in the region that transcend traditional
diplomatic conventions."

[/quote]

https://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/22/magazine/on-language-the-near-abroad.html

--
Kevin R

[Scott Dorsey]

<garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk> wrote:
>Chrysi Cat <chry...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Well, ONE thing that's changed is that the vast majority of the world is
>> back to calling the place "THE Ukraine".
>
>You mean, in the last 70 years or so English became de facto and de iure
>THE language of international communication?

I think that's really happened only in the last 20 years. It's kind of
creepy. I go to conferences and Finns and Swedes are talking to one another
in English privately.

[garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk]

Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote:

> <garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk> wrote:
>>You mean, in the last 70 years or so English became de facto and de iure
>>THE language of international communication?
>
> I think that's really happened only in the last 20 years. It's kind of
> creepy. I go to conferences and Finns and Swedes are talking to one another
> in English privately.

Well, I've met a Finn who admitted that hänen[*] Swedish was extremely
poor and I've heard about other Finns who did not speak Swedish at all.
It is not really surprising (what is surprising that Swedish remained an
active language in Finland for so long).

OTOH, Swedes and Norwegians already often use English when talking to
Danes (but not universally). Blame Danish weird phonetics :-) Though
sometimes even Norwegians and Swedes switch to English. But not Czechs
and Slovaks (yet? What is creepy for my younger-by-30-years self is the
appearance of bilingual Czech and Slovak variants, like webpages,
manuals... and Slovaks actively speaking Czech and the need for
certified translations. Well... let's call it progress).

[*] a nice opportunity to import this gender neutral pronoun into English