I particularly loved the judicial ruling: "Danger invites rescue." That was so long ago, we tend to forget that America Jurisprudence once upon a time actually had more than mere legalism! It also had actual prudence! We had a version of "What can be misunderstood will be misunderstood" in Vietnam, barely a thin generation after WW II: "What can go wrong will go wrong." Indeed, we even discovered that almost everything went wrong in the war, except for the Five O'clock Follies. They always went right, regardless of what actually happened on the ground in the war. That was when the brass was b-s-ing the reporters who were too timid to actually go out into the combat areas and observe for themselves what was happening. Of course, the reporters no longer have to do that; they get the follies faxed or emailed to them from the top of the brass piles. Just consider all the poobah today about Ukraine. It it's on corporate media, it is almost purely manufactured for the audience.
Look, you stupid, ignorant fool, the guy who writes this is right in the fucking center of Ky'iv, close enough to Bucha to hear the fucking gunfire, he's lived there for 17 years. Corporate media are stuck firmly in hotels, the fact that this guy agrees with whatever they are saying is irrelevant - and I don't listen to corporate media. For that matter, there's a group of anarchists in Kharkiv who say the same things. You've been entirely suckered by Russian disinformation like so many on the "left" and "right" - or you're a fucking troll.
And yeah, I know you came from the former communist Romania - I read your Substack. So how could you possibly wish that kind of brutal domination on another country? Because that's precisely what Putin has in mind for the country - his mentor, Aleksandr Dugin, has laid it out here: https://streamfortyseven.substack.com/p/the-greater-eurasian-plan-for-the - and Putin is following it. And if you should take the time to read the rest of Dugin's book mentioned therein, you'll find that Romania is on the list of countries to be subjugated by "Greater Eurasia"...
Let me put it this way: if a bully punches a thief to his near death, it doesn't mean that the bully is right, but neither that the thief suddenly becomes virtous, given that he's now a victim in his turn. I know very well the history on this side of the world, way better than someone who lived in Kiev (that's the real name of the city) for the last 17 years. The truth is that the Russians are distroying a country that they have falsely created in order to justify the forced inclusion of other populations (polish, romanians, hungarians). Russians rulers are murderers, and Ukrainians rulers are corrupted liars. But you can continue to read whatever you want.
The Russians did not "create" Ukraine. Ukrainian is a separate language from Russian, with a separate alphabet - and a separate culture - and it's been like that for hundreds of years, perhaps a thousand years. There was a significant population of Greeks in Ukraine, lessened over the years (partially by Stalin who deported many of them to gulags), although there are significant populations of them in certain places - Mariupol, for one - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariupol_Greek. Cyrillic is quite obviously based on Greek orthography. And if you know anything about the history of Ukraine, it's obvious that the Ukrainians created the Russians, and not the other way around. Ukraine had a vital civilization when Moscow was a collection of mud huts and crude forts.
As for Ukraine being ruled by a grossly corrupt government, I'm well aware of that - see https://streamfortyseven.substack.com/p/its-complicated-zelenskyy-turns-out Putin's government is closer to an Al Capone-style mafia, with its set of corrupt oligarchs. Zelenskyy doesn't own Ukrainian oligarchs like Putin owns Russian oligarchs. The trouble with both countries is that they didn't get rid of the crooked nomenklatura following the fall of the Soviet Union, and the people became inured to Soviet-style corruption, with nomenklatura being turned into oligarchs. Perhaps the arming of the people of Ukraine, followed by their experience in military actions with Territorial Defense units - which are very close to what was intended by the founders of the US to be a "well regulated militia" will restrain the corruption in that country - "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed" - and the Ukrainian people are being taught an object lesson in that right now. And Zelenskyy isn't like the oligarchs in his country, all of whom seem to have taken to their heels and run away. Zelenskyy's courageous stand marks him out as a historical figure of the stature of Winston Churchill, he stands head and shoulders above nearly every leader I can think of in the last 50 years or so.
As for your first analogy, what exactly has Ukraine stolen from Russia, except perhaps its independence? Are the people there like the escaped slaves of the 1860s, referred to by Union troops as "contrabands" - property that has stolen itself? It seems to me that Russia has been doing the lions share of the thievery - compounded by its latest genocidal campaign against the Ukrainian people to steal their natural gas and coal - abundant in Eastern Ukraine, and the offshore oil south of Crimea and in the Sea of Azov.
As for "Kiev", that's the Russian transliteration - but the place isn't in Russia, it's in Ukraine, and the proper transliteration is Ky'ïv. Sort of like Chornobaïvka* vs Chernobaevka, Igor vs Ihor, Lugansk vs Luhansk, Belgorod vs Belhorod, and so forth.
So what's the deal? Father and daughter--both exceptionally lucid writers with the storytelling gift--BOTH being out of print? Pardon the passive voice, but this must be remedied!
This did make me laugh hahaha!! What a sense of humor :)... Now, this just gave me the definition for what I estimate beeing at the most .1% of good doctors, good psychologists, good researchers, good journalists and good lawyers : they get things right. The other 99.9% don't and as a result they mislead, confuse and multiply suffering and death. I've often wondered what force is behind both "being/becoming" or "finding" someone who gets things right at the right moment...
A wonderful story from a delightful book. Thank you for sharing it. You are fortunate to have those stories to remember your father by. Perhaps even more so because they can also be shared with everyone.
Lovely. Poetic non-fiction with love from NYC. Love it. The timing is uncanny, given the current level of MASSIVE misunderstanding I'm currently uncovering and fathoming with my Pops. A short. A skit. Something. Yes, ripe for comedy as long as I remember stories like this. Thanks, Celia! RIP Barry Farber. Ya done good. Mighty good.
This made me laugh out loud. People are unbelievable. I loved the story about the color of water also. Your dad sounds like a remarkable person. You must miss him terribly. Then again, his spirit is still with you.
I am so happy to hear this! I'm becoming obsessed with whether we can still laugh and I also laughed out loud when I read it. Especially the shriek to uncle Jerry. I can hear it. I may need to get Jerry's side of the story.
People love to insert their personal bullshit into every story, instead of asking honest questions.
It's almost like they prefer the fantasy world.
Your pops was a great interviewer. Saw his thing with Mitch Hedberg.
Thanks for mentioning Hedberg...just found a series of clips on YouTube w/ Mr. Farber.
Celia, I had no idea Barry Farber was your father! I loved listening to him, and I enjoyed reading his book.
When interviewing authors your father distinguished himself among his contemporaries by actually reading the books they wrote. Who does that?
I particularly loved the judicial ruling: "Danger invites rescue." That was so long ago, we tend to forget that America Jurisprudence once upon a time actually had more than mere legalism! It also had actual prudence! We had a version of "What can be misunderstood will be misunderstood" in Vietnam, barely a thin generation after WW II: "What can go wrong will go wrong." Indeed, we even discovered that almost everything went wrong in the war, except for the Five O'clock Follies. They always went right, regardless of what actually happened on the ground in the war. That was when the brass was b-s-ing the reporters who were too timid to actually go out into the combat areas and observe for themselves what was happening. Of course, the reporters no longer have to do that; they get the follies faxed or emailed to them from the top of the brass piles. Just consider all the poobah today about Ukraine. It it's on corporate media, it is almost purely manufactured for the audience.
Here, read this Substack, it's not corporate media - https://grahamseibert.substack.com/
It doesn't matter that it's not corporate media, since it plays the same songs.
Look, you stupid, ignorant fool, the guy who writes this is right in the fucking center of Ky'iv, close enough to Bucha to hear the fucking gunfire, he's lived there for 17 years. Corporate media are stuck firmly in hotels, the fact that this guy agrees with whatever they are saying is irrelevant - and I don't listen to corporate media. For that matter, there's a group of anarchists in Kharkiv who say the same things. You've been entirely suckered by Russian disinformation like so many on the "left" and "right" - or you're a fucking troll.
And yeah, I know you came from the former communist Romania - I read your Substack. So how could you possibly wish that kind of brutal domination on another country? Because that's precisely what Putin has in mind for the country - his mentor, Aleksandr Dugin, has laid it out here: https://streamfortyseven.substack.com/p/the-greater-eurasian-plan-for-the - and Putin is following it. And if you should take the time to read the rest of Dugin's book mentioned therein, you'll find that Romania is on the list of countries to be subjugated by "Greater Eurasia"...
Let me put it this way: if a bully punches a thief to his near death, it doesn't mean that the bully is right, but neither that the thief suddenly becomes virtous, given that he's now a victim in his turn. I know very well the history on this side of the world, way better than someone who lived in Kiev (that's the real name of the city) for the last 17 years. The truth is that the Russians are distroying a country that they have falsely created in order to justify the forced inclusion of other populations (polish, romanians, hungarians). Russians rulers are murderers, and Ukrainians rulers are corrupted liars. But you can continue to read whatever you want.
The Russians did not "create" Ukraine. Ukrainian is a separate language from Russian, with a separate alphabet - and a separate culture - and it's been like that for hundreds of years, perhaps a thousand years. There was a significant population of Greeks in Ukraine, lessened over the years (partially by Stalin who deported many of them to gulags), although there are significant populations of them in certain places - Mariupol, for one - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariupol_Greek. Cyrillic is quite obviously based on Greek orthography. And if you know anything about the history of Ukraine, it's obvious that the Ukrainians created the Russians, and not the other way around. Ukraine had a vital civilization when Moscow was a collection of mud huts and crude forts.
As for Ukraine being ruled by a grossly corrupt government, I'm well aware of that - see https://streamfortyseven.substack.com/p/its-complicated-zelenskyy-turns-out Putin's government is closer to an Al Capone-style mafia, with its set of corrupt oligarchs. Zelenskyy doesn't own Ukrainian oligarchs like Putin owns Russian oligarchs. The trouble with both countries is that they didn't get rid of the crooked nomenklatura following the fall of the Soviet Union, and the people became inured to Soviet-style corruption, with nomenklatura being turned into oligarchs. Perhaps the arming of the people of Ukraine, followed by their experience in military actions with Territorial Defense units - which are very close to what was intended by the founders of the US to be a "well regulated militia" will restrain the corruption in that country - "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed" - and the Ukrainian people are being taught an object lesson in that right now. And Zelenskyy isn't like the oligarchs in his country, all of whom seem to have taken to their heels and run away. Zelenskyy's courageous stand marks him out as a historical figure of the stature of Winston Churchill, he stands head and shoulders above nearly every leader I can think of in the last 50 years or so.
As for your first analogy, what exactly has Ukraine stolen from Russia, except perhaps its independence? Are the people there like the escaped slaves of the 1860s, referred to by Union troops as "contrabands" - property that has stolen itself? It seems to me that Russia has been doing the lions share of the thievery - compounded by its latest genocidal campaign against the Ukrainian people to steal their natural gas and coal - abundant in Eastern Ukraine, and the offshore oil south of Crimea and in the Sea of Azov.
As for "Kiev", that's the Russian transliteration - but the place isn't in Russia, it's in Ukraine, and the proper transliteration is Ky'ïv. Sort of like Chornobaïvka* vs Chernobaevka, Igor vs Ihor, Lugansk vs Luhansk, Belgorod vs Belhorod, and so forth.
*See https://streamfortyseven.substack.com/p/the-classical-legend-of-chornobaevka except it's now 18 times in a row, instead of 9...
Love. What a great guy to have known, talk about to be your dad.. would love to buy the book. Do you know where it’s available?
Thanks for sharing. Would have loved to have met your dad. This story makes me think of that childhood game 'telephone'. The message always changes.
Thanks for sharing. Love the book title. And we are supposed to be civilized? Apparently we have only gotten worse w age.
I think that the real problem is not being able to correct our mistakes (personally and collectively).
I had no idea your father was notorious for beating up rabbis on the sabbath! ;)
IT HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO CELIA’S ATTENTION THAT THE FIRST PAGE OF BARRY’S STORY WAS ACCIDENTALLY OMITTED, AND WILL BE FIXED SHORTLY! 🙂
Perception is everything!
The problem with asking questions is that you never get the answer you want. That's why tyrants mandate without asking.
So what's the deal? Father and daughter--both exceptionally lucid writers with the storytelling gift--BOTH being out of print? Pardon the passive voice, but this must be remedied!
This did make me laugh hahaha!! What a sense of humor :)... Now, this just gave me the definition for what I estimate beeing at the most .1% of good doctors, good psychologists, good researchers, good journalists and good lawyers : they get things right. The other 99.9% don't and as a result they mislead, confuse and multiply suffering and death. I've often wondered what force is behind both "being/becoming" or "finding" someone who gets things right at the right moment...
A wonderful story from a delightful book. Thank you for sharing it. You are fortunate to have those stories to remember your father by. Perhaps even more so because they can also be shared with everyone.
Lovely. Poetic non-fiction with love from NYC. Love it. The timing is uncanny, given the current level of MASSIVE misunderstanding I'm currently uncovering and fathoming with my Pops. A short. A skit. Something. Yes, ripe for comedy as long as I remember stories like this. Thanks, Celia! RIP Barry Farber. Ya done good. Mighty good.
This made me laugh out loud. People are unbelievable. I loved the story about the color of water also. Your dad sounds like a remarkable person. You must miss him terribly. Then again, his spirit is still with you.
I am so happy to hear this! I'm becoming obsessed with whether we can still laugh and I also laughed out loud when I read it. Especially the shriek to uncle Jerry. I can hear it. I may need to get Jerry's side of the story.