The Neologism: "Blue Zones" was coined by National Geographic

A child born in the country in 1960 was only likely to live (at the time) to 65, but a child born in Singapore today can expect to live to more than 86 according to estimates. In addition, the number of centenarians in Singapore doubled over the 10-year period from 2010-2020.

This huge leap in longevity has largely been driven by intentional government policy and investment. The distinction even was enough to have the country named the world's sixth "Blue Zone" in August 2023. Though recently questioned for their accuracy by demographers, the Blue Zones were discovered and coined by National Geographic journalist Dan Buettner, who claimed to identify regions where people lived longer, healthier lives, in large part due to a combination of culture, lifestyle, diet and community.

Singapore was the first new region to be added to the Blue Zones in decades (dubbed a "Blue Zone 2.0" by Buettner) and stands apart from the other Blue Zones in part because the longevity of its people comes more from forward-thinking policies than long-established cultural traditions in other Blue Zone communities like Ikaria, Greece or Nicoya, Costa Rica. 

Greene, Robert Lane. Talk on the Wild Side: Why Language Can’t be Tamed. – New York: PublicAffairs, 2018. – 232 p.

“Catalonia and Quebec share an unusual situation: in the region, speakers of French and Catalan feel surrounded and poorly treated by speakers of the bigger national language, English and Spanish. But at the same time, both regions have local minorities who are members of the national majority: speakers of Spanish in Catalonia and of English in Quebec. English speakers in Quebec, and Spanish-speakers in Catalonia, cannot freely educate their children in the family language, and in some cases cannot even get access to public services like health care in their language,” [Greene, 2018: 148-149]

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Early Tuesday morning, the U.S. Senate approved $60 billion in additional aid for Ukraine in a vote of 70-29. All but three of the no votes were from Republicans, including Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who on Wednesday voiced his continued opposition to sending any more aid to Ukraine.

“I was totally against this Ukraine funding that we voted on, we stayed up all night the other night and voted like 5:30 a.m. in the morning,” Tuberville said, speaking at a Montgomery Chamber of Commerce event. 

“Why was I against that? First of all, I’m not voting for a dime to Ukraine, I see what’s happening: it’s like a junior high playing an NFL team in football. They can’t win.”

Pushing NATO into a war with Russia

Ukraine is trying desperately to entangle NATO into a war with Russia. The mentality that stands behind the actions of the provocateur is brilliantly described in Kipliing’s poem “A Pict Song”.

It is an amazing poem in which despair of the oppressed Picts makes them choose a cynical and opportunistic strategy as a last resort to protect themselves from Rome. The Ukrainian government in its war with Russia pursues a strategy similar to that of the Picts in Kipling’s poem. The accuracy and force of the similarity that I found between the Picts of the past and the Ukrainians haunted by the Maidan, reveals itself in a metaphor, which is a powerful mechanism in the description of history.

  In a face-off with a powerful nation a weak country is sometimes ready to sell its most precious commodity – independence. – to those allies which are capable of destroying its enemy.

In Kipling’s poem, the Picts are portrayed as a people who, despite their own weaknesses, are determined to use the strength of others to defeat their Roman oppressors. On the way to this objective the Picts are ready to embrace even slavery, for all the means are good if they see Rome destroyed. The last stanza of the poem is a cynical and shameless consent of the Picts to accept as masters the people capable of defeating Rome:

No indeed! We are not strong,

   But we know Peoples that are.  

Yes, and we’ll guide them along

   To smash and destroy you in War!

We shall be slaves just the same?

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Russian victory over Ukraine is clear to every sober-minded person who is familiar with the conflict. However, the red tape will yet take some time before the stage of resurrection, recovery, rebuilding and revival sets in.  

In full accord with Wilson’s famous “14 points” Putin is sure to conclude a deal in such a way, so that the losing side should be provided with the face-saving trade-off:  The West will not any longer have to strain its conscience and its budget over Ukraine; Ukraine will be allowed to have a state, a democratically elected government, free mass media, the rule of law and an opportunity to work for the benefit of its citizens.

Istanbul agreements, concluded between Russia and Ukraine in March of 2023, must be regarded as a realistic basis for the future peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.

“Istanbul is Ukraine’s commitment to condemn the Maidan and the ideology of the Maidan. Everything else is a lie and a provocation, or an entourage,” as a popular Ukrainian journalist Mikhail Chaplyga said.

I feel strongly about Lincoln’s wise maxim:

“The ballot is stronger than the bullet.” 
I do not like either revolutions or revolutionaries who always come up with fancy names to cover up violence, crime and blood-shedding. The successful operation of German secret services, which catapulted Vladimir Lenin to power by means of a Petrograd coup in 1917, went into a history under the Bolshevik title “The Great October Socialist Revolution”. The American-paid and masterminded coup in Kiev toppled in 2014 the constitutionally elected, though corrupt, President Yanukovycg and showcased itself before the world as “The Revolution of Dignity”. Both revolutions are great historical fakes and manipulations.
Yes, change must come with evolution, not revolution. 
 

Hrytsak, Yaroslav. The Forging of a Nation. – NY: PublicAffairs, 2023. – 438 p.

‘National activists claim that language is the core of national identity, believing that it encrypts the cultural code and historical memory of the nation. Switching to another language is treated as the gravest sin."

[Hrytsak 2024: 387].

However, this "sin" is committed on a regular basis by millions of immigrants who dump their native language in search of better career opportunities. Calls like the above mentioned, are never followed.

The Académie Française called on French scholars to publish their works in French. The witty answer was: "Publish in English, or perish in French> 

Hrytsak, Yaroslav. The Forging of a Nation. – NY: PublicAffairs, 2023. – 438 p.

“A new Ukrainian identity has been forged during the years of Ukraine’s independence, one that is not based on language or ethnicity. It is based on political loyalty to Ukraine as an independent state.” [Hrytsak, 2024, 414]

Naturally, identity is based on language or ethnicity.

The autocratic states disregard “natural identity” in favor of identity based on political loyalty. Some Jews who were financially helping the Nazis were safe under the Nazi regime.

“The new political identities have not replaced old ethnic identities: they coexist However, the political identity has been dominant for some time now. Proof can be seen in the fact that the two Ukrainian presidents, who have been elected during the war in Donbas, Petro Poroshenko in 2014 and Volodymyr Zelensky in 2019, won majoritis across the country and not just in the East or the West.”

[Hrytsak, 2024, 414]

Hrytsak, Yaroslav. The Forging of a Nation. – NY: PublicAffairs, 2023. – 438 p.

Speaking about the heritage of the first President of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk, Yaroslav Trofimov praises Kravchuk’s achievement:

“Kravchuk was a controversial figure, blamed by many for maintaining Ukraine in a post-Soviet limbo and preventing reforms. Yet at a time when Ukraine’s statehood was fragile and perhaps seen as artificial and transitory by many in Russian-speaking cities like Kharkiv and Odesa, he had laid the foundation of the nation’s long-term survival. He ensured that the new multi-ethnic and multi-lingual Ukrainian state would be as inclusive as possible.

At independence in 1991, Ukraine – unlike Estonia or Latvia – granted citizenship to all its residents. It eliminated the Soviet era ethnicity clause from identity documents. Under that Soviet concept of nationality, someone like Zelensky, because of his Jewish origin, was not considered a Ukrainian at all. Neither were the millions of other Ukrainians of Russian, Tatar, Bulgarian, or Hungarian blood.”
[Trofimov, 2024: 220]

Trofimov exaggerates, of course, both Soviet drawbacks and the achievements of the “independent” Ukraine. Indeed, due to the arrogance and inefficiency of Soviet propaganda, the principles of soft power were rarely practiced in a one-party state that got used to ordering people around rather than persuading them.

However, Ukraine, remains s very diligent pupil to the Soviet foolish, heavy-handed and inefficient ways in the sphere of social equality, mass media, education, criminal justice, law-enforcement and self-determination. (though it is showcased by the West as the country of “vibrant democracy” that is fighting tooth and nail against its Soviet past).

To claim that Kravchuk ensured “the nation’s long-term survival” and “that the new multi-ethnic and multi-lingual Ukrainian state would be as inclusive as possible” – amounts to spitting into the wind, because the opposite is true:

1) Kravchuk wa ... Читать дальше »

In Germany, the word "Putinversteher" (female form "Putinversteherin") is a neologism and a political buzzword (Putin + verstehen), which literally translates "Putin understander", i.e., "one who understands Putin". It is a pejorative reference to politicians and pundits who express empathy to Putin and may also be translated as "Putin-empathizer." Putin-Versteher was among frequent suggestions for the Un-word of the year 2014, but the panel of linguists favored the word Lügenpresse ("lying press"). Among the runners-up was a similar term, "Russland-Versteher" (Russia-Understander). Although the word was used in English media as early as 2014, it became an international term in the wake of the 2022 Russian invasion.

The venomous German term is a cover-up for those who denounce everyone who takes pains trying to understand Putin because there is allegedly nothing to understand about him: his guilt must be taken for granted. Whoever refuses to back up this narrative is considered to have committed a crime against humanity, punishable by up to three years in prison.

Western “democratic“ discourse knows how to defend itself  [Baud, 2022: 260]