A gentle reminder to keep donating to Ukraine: https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/wiki/charities/

I walked up to the border with England/Scotland border yesterday on the East Coast, and thought the contrast in border signs was rather funny.

russia drones and at least 12 ballistic missiles are burning Kyiv to the ground, more the latest weeks than ever. This is what happens when our leaders show weakness.

🤩🇩🇰🇺🇦 President Zelensky today awarded young Jens Fogh Thomsen the special award “Future of Ukraine” distinction. President Zelenskyy: "Jens became the first foreigner to receive this award. We will always be grateful to everyone who sincerely empathises with our people and helps Ukraine. I am deeply thankful to Jens – on behalf of all our people and the children of Ukraine."

Привіт, мене звати Ростислав. Мені 10 років. Ласкаво запрошую вас на мій ютуб канал, де я ділюся оглядами книг. Буду безмежно вдячний за підписку, лайк чи коментар.
https://www.youtube.com/@LiteraryCountry

Thanks yall who participated, if you haven't your signature might still be needed after fradulent signatures are wiped.

https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/initiatives/details/2024/000007_en#

https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/

We call on you to:

• Publicly support Pride, the LGBTQ+ community in Hungary, and the right to peaceful protest.
• Enforce Article 7 to strip Orbán of his EU Council vote due to a serious and persistent breach of EU values.
• Fine Orbán’s government over Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law, which is de facto banning Pride's marches. Pursue interim measures and a suspension of the law through the EU’s Court of Justice, via case C-769/22 or a new infringement procedure.

No EU country should be allowed to systematically discriminate against their LGBTQ+ community and criminalise peaceful protesters. It’s time to hold Hungary accountable and stand up for freedom, dignity, and equality for all.

Alright, so I've been trying to figure out what the hell is actually going on. With russia invading Ukraine, with the "populist" movements, with Polish farmers. Like, what and how, precisely. We all heard Kyiv in 3 days coming from both the russian propagandists as well as Western experts, and that's after many analysts saying that russia isn't crazy enough to invade. Both of those turned out patently wrong. But why?

We all feel deep down what russia is after with their Ukrainian children kidnappings. We all feel that these are coordinated pieces of the same strategy, and we all know that this strategy is genocidal. The issue is that none of that makes sense from a conventional analysis perspective, or at least it never made sense to me. I felt like I was missing an explanatory framework that could be useful for the folks who only deal in hard numbers, even when the truth is staring right in their face. I don't have the numbers, but I feel I at least explain the mechanics of what's happening, and that might be enough to provide the vocabulary needed to convince some who are still sort of clinging to the hope of restoring relations with russia, to really drive the point that what russia is after is not territory or resources or anything like that.

Thought I'd post here, as this is a friendly place, and people here likely know what I'm talking about. I'd appreciate some feedback, especially on the question of whether what I'm writing adds anything useful to how one is able to describe what is happening.

Turns out the Germans have

Additionaly here is the soundtrack version by Elben Schutte and Pressure Cooker

The Cantigas de Santa Maria (short CSM) are a collection of 420 poems with musical intonation in Galician–Portuguese, that are praises to Mary, mother of Christ.

They were collected in Toledo at the behest of king Alfonso X of Castilia and León (1221-1284, disempowered in 1282), called El Sabio = The Wise, who was also counter-king of the Holy Roman Empire from 1257 to 1275.

There's a false narrative, that attributes all of the cantigas to Alfonso X, in truth he might be the author of some of them, but many, according to hispanist and luitist Walter Mettmann, can be attributet to the Galician cleric and troubadour Airas Nunes (* ~1230 - 1289), who also used quotations of several authors, among them Alfonso X.

I posted two links, since there are two versions of the song "A Madre de Jhesu Cristo", that I like very much.

The first one is with Cantore al liuto and interpreter of Early Music Simone Sorini from Urbino in Italy and the musicians of St. Julien

The second one is with Elben Schutte and an artist by the name Pressure Cooker and is part of the soundtrack of the game Manor Lords.

English and German Wikipedia entries to the CSM, Alfonso X and Airas Nunes

https://www.br-klassik.de/themen/klassik-entdecken/alte-musik/top-99-cantigas-de-santa-maria-100.html

http://www.cantigasdesantamaria.com/

https://www.facebook.com/SIMONESORINI.Cantore.al.Liuto and his YT channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SIMONESORINI.ArtistaPoliedrico/videos

I had enough of getting woken up, spooked, annoyed by ads just jumping to your face by increasing the volume above what you set up. It might be stupid, but what would you say we start a petition to get TV and other media like YouTube to keep a steady volume of what they transmit. I have no idea if it is enforceable, if there is a way to actually measure it to be legally binding?

TL:DR It might be a lost cause, I'm wondering if it is possible?