Thank you. And yeah — that’s basically the only place I pin my hope on now too.
Happy writing fun ball. Born and raised on Treaty One territory. Now living in Ukraine.
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Thank you. And yeah — that’s basically the only place I pin my hope on now too.
Melissa is a gifted writer. Such a poignant piece and column to be able to read her firsthand experiences in Ukraine
thank you so much. and same.
Hahahahaaha, the fix that fixes everything 😂
internet culture desks aren't just for cute meme trend stories. ever since gamergate, understanding how and why info moves online is critical to seeing how we got *here*
Thank you 💜
I’m back from 2.5 years in Ukraine. It’s bittersweet, and a little strange. Still not sure whether it’s Winnipeg, or me, that’s more changed. A column in Saturday’s paper, online now. www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews...
I have little info to explain why this is, but like a third of the restaurants in Ukraine have all of that on their menu and advertise it loudly. It’s… quite striking at first
I will be opening a new Ukrainian restaurant in Winnipeg. The menu will be burgers, pizza, sushi and tom yum soup. Those who know will understand, everyone else will be very confused
Honestly it’s still hard but I did need a break from this, so much. I wasn’t doing too well the last few months.
There is a full video where the people near her rush to render aid. This clip cuts off before most people appear aware of what happened.
Of course I understand the gravity, but it is darkly amusing to see the reaction over ~15 drones in Poland when in Kyiv, that’s considered a relief of a quiet night
another of the things I will keep saying is that we have an elite impunity problem and nothing will improve until and unless we change that
Randos who, frankly, share her belief that the woman carrying their children isn’t a fully realized human making a remarkable decision to help them, but an object they’ve purchased and have a right to fully control.
Absolute kicker at the end that she was like “the second surrogacy went perfect!” when the woman nearly died and had to have an emergency hysterectomy. I hate everything about a culture that allows people that repulsive and narcissistic to get so rich.
I just hate that it feels like this is the way the world is going at a pretty rapid pace, and the guardrails against it are falling (the article mentions how fetal personhood laws in the U.S. make surrogates more at risk). I just feel so depressed.
Totally, the entitlement this woman felt the surrogate’s entire life and body, let alone the rage she unleashed after, combined with her shocking ignorance (she thought the baby would be tall because the surrogate was, even though it was not the surrogate’s biological kid) is bonkers
“Pathogen lives in people. If person is vaccinated, pathogen can’t live. If enough people vaccinated, not enough places for pathogen to live to keep spreading.” Herd immunity is the easiest medical concept in the world to grasp, so if you don’t, you’re choosing not to and doing it to gain points.
We used to call this stupidity. There were smart people and stupid people and we let the smart people do the things they were good at and the stupid people were taken care of and didn't need to worry about what the smart people were doing. But now we let the stupid people think they're smart.
I don’t really know how to avoid this. I appreciate the concept of surrogacy, but seems like the amount of regulation and monitoring that needs to exist for it to not become rank exploitation with a dangerous power dynamic is just prohibitive. Especially when folks start going overseas for it
Finally read that Wired surrogate piece. Random thoughts: author did an incredible job. The woman who contracted the surrogate is one of the stupidest, most malicious people ever featured in a story. And I can’t get over the miserable sense that these people are winning. archive.ph/2025.09.03-2...
The Air Force provides the previous day’s numbers on missiles and drones every morning, but they don’t separate out decoys from armed drones. (They do distinguish missile types.)
Tonight: ketchup
All dressed chips do heal the soul
Most certainly (once I’m actually home)
At least one of us did because I’m still pretty sad but the sleep will be nice
I was sorta torn which to get but there is time, I don’t need to do it all at once
Reunited and it feels so good 🇨🇦
ahh I see thank you some of the tweets were quite convincing
Uhhh my flight just landed in Amsterdam, I was not expecting to see these series of posts, what exactly is the… the situation
I do love Poland. Sadly only here for like 10 hours as then flying to Amsterdam and onwards home 😭 won’t even have time for żurek 😔
Still, i definitely need a break. I had a pretty severe reaction during the major attack on Kyiv two nights ago… my nerves need a real rest. I’m ready to come home and see everyone and my city again, maybe with fresh eyes.
Otherwise I’m so sad and feel so heavy. Kyiv is the most remarkable city. Ukraine is the most beautiful place. I’m leaving behind so many people I love — and one person in particular — and don’t know when I get to see again.
Just crossed the border into Poland, the first big step of a long journey home to Winnipeg. People ask me what I’m looking forward to most. The only thing that comes to mind is being able to sleep soundly, without a minimum 10% of my brain being alert to a missile attack the whole night.
Yep, I’ll be back at work the week after next!
One week left in Ukraine and then I head home. I’m so sad I can hardly stand it. Falling in love (with place and people) is such a problem
I continue to think Americans who do not support open fascism are really under reacting to the moment
I've said this many times over the years, but the panic created by the 24-hour news cycle, made worse by the internet, and sent into overdrive by algorithmic social media has done untold damage to society Generations of people living in unprecedented fear of historically safe times
In a targeted strike on a media tent. Oh my God.
There is just no precedent in recent world history of an advanced industrialized country sabotaging its own scientific establishment, and destroying the base of scientific knowledge necessary for basic policymaking. An avowedly, actively anti-knowledge regime.
Yes, for sure. But honestly, I think even people who do are susceptible, because the way it’s messing with people draws on how our brains work. And everyone has periods where they’re a little bit more vulnerable (a lot of these stories seem to be people going through divorces or peaked life stress)
this one is even more bonkers. these things are dangerous, on both the individual and societal level, and nothing will convince me otherwise www.nytimes.com/2025/06/13/t...
the saving grace with that is everyone realizes in the morning how goofy it all was!
ChatGPT sent a guy into a delusional spiral believing he’d invented a new form of math, would make millions, and was possibly being watched by state security. Don’t use these things in any deep way. If you have a human brain, you are not immune. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/08/t...
In Gaza, Palestinians who fear being killed or seriously injured during rushes to obtain aid are being forced to pay exorbitant fees to take out money to buy food. “We’re put through unending torment to get the simplest of things.”
Reportedly another aspect of this proposal is that Russia pledges to pass a law promising not to invade Ukraine again, or the rest of Europe, and it’s just like… lol ok
Fair, it’s speculation yes, but certainly widely seen that way and not an unreasonable read.
This morning I watched my fella sleep gently, while reading about how Donald Trump wants to force Ukraine to just give away his home, where he grew up, where his family live + his ancestors are buried — a place Russian troops have not set foot in. The word “disgust” does not begin to cover it.
He was commander in chief of the Ukrainian military until Zelenskyy booted him last year, partly because he kinda had to make some sort of change, but also in no small part because Zaluzhny’s popularity was becoming a political problem
As a sidenote, one thing MAGAs don’t get is they think Zelenskyy’s unpopularity means Ukrainians want a dove president who will (effectively) surrender. “It’s Zelenskyy’s war,” etc. In polls, the most popular person to replace him by a fair margin is… General Zaluzhny.
In a nutshell, maybe fair to say he was elected in 2019 as the change candidate who’d fix corruption and end the war. Neither got fixed, instead he got into domestic drama + petty power grabs, reverting to Ukrainian politics as usual. Ukrainians are very quick to turf politicians they dislike.
Most people I know here are quite critical of him (and even more of the people around him — Yermak in particular), but are fair in their assessment: generally pleased with his international efforts, mixed on the war, and highly disapproving of his domestic efforts.
…the country largely rallied behind him, his approval shot up and is still pretty good, but that approval is very fragile (see the recent protests that erupted about a move to bring anti-corruption bodies under the presidential office, which forced him to backtrack immediately).
Zelenskyy was VERY unpopular just before the full-scale due to a bunch of factors, largely domestic — people had high hopes for him when he was elected, he didn’t deliver, and there were many problems and power grabs I am roughly familiar with but can’t speak on with authority. Since the full-scale…
The MAGA armchair diplomats frame this as Zelenskyy trying to hang onto power. They never understand that Zelenskyy legally cannot agree to this — and if in some imaginary timeline he agreed to it on a Monday, Ukrainians would run him out of office by the Tuesday morning.
To elaborate a bit on why inviting Putin to Alaska for talks on ending the war without Zelensky (or European allies) represents, among many other things, the death of US diplomacy 🧵1/
Totally. Every time I venture over there the algorithm is like — do you want to see 300 of the most wildly racist, genocidal statements you’ve ever seen? And it’s like, no not really
Absolutely. True home will only ever be Winnipeg for me, honestly
I’m doing alright, just really busy right now prepping to go back home soon.
I’ve been quiet everywhere lately just because I am, but for the record I like Bluesky way more than the old place, am happier to read and have discussions here, and hope we all stay
These VOA newscasters and reporters were given visas because there weren't experienced broadcast journalists in the US with native level skills in such languages as Bambara, Lao or Georgian. But since Kari Lake wiped out nearly all VOA's 48 language services there are indeed no jobs for them now.
Many such cases.
I’m out of Kyiv for a few days now! Will head back on Monday but hope for quiet nights.
the rabid snort-laughter I just laughed
Not for another month
To where?
(In this case yes I’m thinking of the Sydney Sweeney jeans ad, but it goes for lots of things)
95% of cultural controversies are just people digging deep on social media to find one goofy post, then using that to fuel their own rage-bait post, which gets a bigger reaction than the thing the controversy was supposedly about, which is then used to validate claims of “controversy”
For @forward.com, I wrote about how we know that Israel has been withholding food as a military tactic because Israeli officials have said versions of “we are withholding food as a military tactic” for the entirety of the war and pretending otherwise is willful ignorance forward.com/opinion/7586...
It was also used in the Kryvyi Rih playground attack in April.
*raises hands* I uh, I have a contribution to make to the original post
Ohhhhh haha ok well that’s a relief
what the hell what happened? Are you ok?
Grateful to be okay and on my way out of the city. Many of the people who lived in this apartment building are not. The search for victims is ongoing. bsky.app/profile/kyiv...
Intense 11 pm drone swarm over Kyiv. Frogger my way to metro, ducking for cover when Shaheds + shooting overhead. 3:30 a.m., all clear. Go home. Start packing for 6:30 am train. Suddenly: missiles All clear from that. Finish packing. Open door to go to train station. In that exact moment: missile
Ok sweet. Once I get a chance to sit down and look at it I may bug you with questions lol
literally me two nights ago lol bsky.app/profile/doub...
A lot of folks recommended Ghost to me and I found an explainer, though I’m so tech-unsavvy it’s going to take me a minute to sort out how to do it. bsky.app/profile/doub...
Yeah, the one that fell out of common parlance 25+ years ago.
I truly hate that the r-word is now in about every third tweet, and I hate even more that given the state of the world, it feels like too small a thing to complain about
I’m going to need to sit down and figure this out because I’m so wildly tech-unsavvy… let me know if you sort it out first to give me some guidance 😂
Thanks everyone, Ghost it is! For anyone else who wants to move their newsletter, I found this explainer (and also, wow, apparently I was totally out of the loop on the issues with Substack). www.citationneeded.news/substack-to-...
uhhhhh in other news I need to migrate my substack to another service and stop using it entirely, does anyone have recommendations?
Four decades after they were raped, dozens of women, of Guatemala's Achi Mayan population, came together to prosecute their attackers for crimes against humanity. The accused were found guilty, and handed sentences of 40 years in prison. Brave women. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
Monday? Again? In this economy?
I don’t know why I even pay rent here, the metro is the best accommodations going
Not much even hit Kyiv last night, but I slept on the floor of the metro and slept so soundly the metro staff had to wake me up to move out of the way just before trains started again in the morning
Me crying because I don’t want to come home?
Funniest part of 2nd one: when flight attendant came with the welcome wine “Welcome Ms. Martin, have you been a guest in our premium class before?” Me, faking rich person voice: “Yes, I have.” FA: “Wonderful, we’re so glad to have you back Ms. Martin” I felt like such a fraud lol
I’m fascinated by this! I’ve been on WJ’s 1st class twice, once when I missed a connection + it was only seat on next flight, once b/c friend upgraded me. /
Yeah. I did freelance a fair bit for the FP and others, but it’s not anywhere close to regular salary. Stretched it as long as I could, plus I need a mental break anyway. Just difficult as I have someone in my life here for several years, who of course can’t leave the country until war is over.
I’m gonna be back at the free press as normal first week of September. Then we’ll see how things go.
It’s the end for now, to be fair work was pretty gracious with the whole “I’m taking a year sabbatical” that became 2.5 years. We’ll see what the future holds but I’m basically broke and need to be at home for awhile now.
Still got a month to go 😔
Not a huge difference but first class was $35 cheaper than economy on the same route, and I get it for all three flights in the itinerary Anyway I am sick to my stomach about leaving Ukraine but at least now I can cry into my free champagne all the way home
I’m not sure how this happened, but as I was scouring WestJet itineraries for the cheapest way home, I stumbled across a route which was not only the second cheapest total option home from Europe on my dates, but also the first class seats were cheaper than economy for some reason?!
100%. Feels as if something is about to snap but that may be overly optimistic.
There are issues with it, both in terms of effectiveness and safety — when they air dropped aid last year, at least five people were killed. Also, Israel controls the airspace so would have to allow it again. Don’t know if either are what’s stopping it now tho www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/...
Ahhh I missed that one bsky.app/profile/doub...
