Congressman Steve Cohen with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week (Photo: Courtesy Steve Cohen)
We hear a lot these days about “bullet trains,” which whisk commuters from place to place with incredible speed. The train which took Memphis Congressman Steve Cohen last week from U.S. ally Poland into Kyiv, the capital of wartime Ukraine, took all of 10 hours. But the ride was surely worth it.
It was Cohen’s privilege, as ranking member of the congressional Helsinki Commission, to ride that slow train (hampered by security precautions) into harm’s way so as to present the gallant Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with the formal support of the commission for himself and his beleaguered nation.
The Helsinki Commission is an official government body created in 1975 to support compliance with that year’s Helsinki Accords, a nonbinding agreement pledging the nations of Europe and the Americas to the pursuit of peace and detente.
Accompanied by fellow House members Joe Wilson of South Carolina and Victoria Spartz of Indiana, Cohen was ushered into the president’s office as an air raid siren blared, reminding the visitors of the potential dangers involved.
The American delegation spent an hour with Zelenskyy, who, says Cohen, was the affable and resolute figure the world has grown familiar with during Ukraine’s courageous stand against the nonstop attacks of the Russian invader.
According to Cohen, Kyiv itself, relatively unscarred, remains determined to persevere and comports itself like any other busy metropolis. He described seeing workers rebuilding a bridge that was demolished during the war’s early phase to prevent Russian access into the city.
The American group also visited suburban areas — notably Bucha, the site of widespread massacres and other atrocities by occupying Russian troops, who were later forced to withdraw. Aside from that, says Cohen, “Bucha is actually an upscale sort of place, kind of like Germantown,” but one marked by numerous mass graves.
How would the congressman rank his Ukrainian experience? “Inspiring, and right up there with anything I’ve ever done.”
• However the tangled matter of mayoral residency requirements gets resolved, and it likely will get sorted out on a May 18th hearing in the courtroom of Chancellor JoeDae Jenkins, former Mayor Willie Herenton remains unworried, insisting that, as a new online broadside of his puts it, “My residence has never changed.”
He cites an official definition by Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett of a residence as a “place where the person’s habitation is fixed and is where, during periods of absence, the person definitely intends to return.”
In Herenton’s case, that means a house on Barton Street, near LeMoyne-Owen College, an ancestral place of sorts where Herenton’s mother lived, as did the former mayor, despite his subsequent acquisition of other dwellings, including one in Collierville which he later sold.
Herenton contends that would distinguish him from two other mayoral candidates, Sheriff Floyd Bonner and NAACP president Van Turner, both of whom lived just outside Memphis before acquiring dwelling places in the city during the past year.
The issue to be determined by Jenkins is whether, as a vintage city charter maintained, a five-year prior residency is mandated for mayoral candidates or was made moot by a 1996 referendum of Memphis voters that imposed no such pre-election requirement.
World War III beckons. (Photo: Doberman84 | Dreamstime.com)
Mihail Kogălniceanu, Romania — “The U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division has been deployed to Europe for the first time in almost 80 years amid soaring tension between Russia and the American-led NATO military alliance. The light infantry unit, nicknamed the “Screaming Eagles,” is trained to deploy on any battlefield in the world within hours, ready to fight.” — CBS News, October 21, 2022
Anyone can see it coming, right there on mainstream news. Writers don’t need to warn of the worst because the worst is already unfolding in front of us all.
The U.S. “Screaming Eagles” have been deployed three miles from Ukraine and are ready to fight the Russians. World War III beckons. God help us.
It all could have been different.
When the Soviet Union fell on December 25, 1991, and the Cold War ended, NATO could have disbanded, and a new security arrangement that included Russia could have been created. But like the Leviathan it is, NATO went in search of a new mission. It grew, excluding Russia and adding Czechia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Lithuania, Estonia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Latvia, Poland, and Slovakia. All without an enemy. It found small enemies in Serbia and Afghanistan, but NATO needed a real enemy. And eventually it found/created one: Russia.
It is evident now that the Eastern European countries who sought NATO membership would have been better protected under a security arrangement with Russia as a member. But that would leave the war industry without an enemy and, accordingly, without profits. If military contractors don’t generate enough war profiteering, they send in their lobbyists by the hundreds to pressure our elected representatives toward hot conflict. And so, for the sake of profit, the “Screaming Eagles” have landed, hovering three miles from the Ukraine border, waiting for the order to go in. And we, the people, the human beings spanning this planet, wait to learn if we will live or die in a game of brinkmanship.
We should have a say in this matter, this business of the fate of our world. It’s obvious we can’t leave it up to our “leaders.” Look where they’ve led us: Another land war in Europe. Haven’t they taken us here twice before? This is strike three for them, and quite possibly for us.
If we all live through this proxy war the U.S. is fighting with Russia, we must fully realize our power as members of the masses and be relentless in pursuit of global systemic change.
In the U.S., the Authorization for Use of Military Force passed in 2001 (AUMF) must be repealed, the powers of war must return to a Congress answerable to the people and not weapons manufacturers, NATO must be disbanded, and a new global security system must be created which dismantles armaments as it increases peace and security through education, nonviolent resistance, and unarmed civilian protection. As for weapons manufacturers, those Masters of War, those Merchants of Death, they must return their gluttonous profits and pay for the carnage they wreaked. Profit must be taken out of war once and for all. Let them “sacrifice” for their country; let them give instead of take. And let them never again be placed in positions of such influence.
Do the planet’s eight billion inhabitants have more power than a handful of corporations and the politicians in their pockets to accomplish all this? We do. We just need to stop leaving it on the table for the greedy ones to snatch.
If more incentive is needed, here’s another line from the same CBS story cited above:
“The ‘Screaming Eagles’ commanders told CBS News repeatedly that they are always ‘ready to fight tonight,’ and while they’re there to defend NATO territory, if the fighting escalates or there’s any attack on NATO, they’re fully prepared to cross the border into Ukraine.”
I didn’t agree to this, none of it, and I’m guessing neither did you.
If it’s war with Russia and nuclear weapons are used, we all will perish. If Russia is somehow “defeated” or turned away from Ukraine, the war profiteers have us in an even tighter vise.
We have seen nonviolent movements succeed when people unite. We know how they are organized and deployed. We too can be “ready to fight tonight” in our nonviolent way, resisting all authority dragging us into war and repression. It is truly in our hands.
We have the power to make peace. But will we? The War Industry is betting we won’t. Let’s “cross the border” and prove them wrong.
Brad Wolf, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a former community college dean and executive director/co-founder of Peace Action Network of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
He was, after all, in a war zone in Ukraine. The Memphian had gone there this spring to be a combat medic with the idea of saving fighters who were casualties in battles against the invading Russians. But his reckoning with his own mortality was not from incoming artillery or hostile gunfire. “It was an allergic reaction to something combined with a bacterial infection,” he said. “It was just a mess. I couldn’t open my eyes to see. I was breathing fire. Everything was pain.”
I did a Memphis Flyer cover story on Scalita in May, about a month after he’d arrived. He’d joined a multi-national medical evacuation outfit and was kept busy training Ukrainian soldiers on combat life-saving techniques and battlefield tactics. He was still angling to get into the field, but bureaucracy was holding things up.
In the months since, Scalita has had to change the groups he’s been with for various reasons. For a while, he was with Dnipro-1, an equivalent to the national guard. “But they got hit. They had a spy in their midst, and it ended up that we lost about 15 guys, and another 40-something wounded. I have no idea which of those guys passed away or were wounded. There were people on the front page of the Memphis Flyer who are no longer with us, but I couldn’t tell you who that is.”
Scalita, a filmmaker and writer who was a corpsman in the U.S. Navy, continues to look for ways to get meaningfully involved. There was a time he and several other Westerners were ready to donate blood, but the offer was foiled by bureaucracy.
He continued giving training to the Ukrainians. “It’s fine, you know, good to train everybody,” he said. “But as time went on, there was just more and more of nothing happening. A whole lot of standby.”
A Ukrainian officer told Scalita that there wasn’t much prospect of getting around the bureaucracy. Unless he joined Dnipro-1. “I couldn’t do that. I’m not joining the Ukrainian military. I’m not swearing allegiance to another country. And as a veteran, I lose all of my benefits if I take active-duty orders from another country.”
There has been another problem that he hadn’t imagined until he saw it when he got there: Americans. “It’s totally understandable,” he said. “Some of us are good. Some of us came as professionals with great intentions in our hearts and we’ve come to help and we’ve been very good. Then there are those other Americans, not as many as you think, but they’re loud and they’re rude and they stand out. I was in Lviv because of volunteer opportunities and a lot of people to talk to, but Lviv was also where everyone comes into. There were a lot of loud, problematic Americans. And I’m like, yeah, I’m gonna go ahead and leave. I’m gonna go to Kyiv.”
He was able to do some teaching, but that wasn’t entirely useful. “In a classroom setting, it’s absolutely calm,” he said. “But in the field, we teach how to set up tourniquets. I’d tell them to thread it and put it on that person. I got a loaded rifle and when they’d go to thread it, I start popping on the ground. And they can’t do it.”
He spent some time in Kyiv and some time closer to the action. He was with a group working out of a hospital in Dnipro when he got sick. But the presence of his outfit was proving to be a danger to the staff and patients at the hospital, so they decided to relocate to a safe area. “They all moved out and forgot about me,” Scalita said. “For 24 hours, I can’t see, and no one speaks English. I was absolutely alone, no food, no water. I’d given myself over to the void because I had an insanely high fever. The next morning one of the guys wakes me up and he goes, ‘Hey, we’re gonna take care of you, buddy. It’s gonna be okay.’ I look at him and I say, ‘I’m pretty sure I died, man.’”
In his time over there, he’s made and lost friends, gained an appreciation of the Ukrainians, got a splendid tattoo for his birthday, lost at least four phones, and refined his ability to read the people in a bar. He’s had good times and hardship.
Scalita hopes to be back home around Christmas. “Do not forget there is a great war happening. Do not forget that we are doing our best to keep it here. The Ukrainians are a wonderful people and worth fighting for. Never stop supporting them regardless of popular politics. The future is here.”
Last month, he wrote: “The Russian propaganda machine has me as a Ukrainian Nazi. I’m not sure if I should be offended by the accusation or proud that I am on their radar. Not a Nazi. Hate fascism. Love democracy and equal rights for all. Also, fuck you Russia for the attempt.”
Last weekend he wrote: “I was in the attack this morning. First time I’ve ever run for my life. They killed civilians. A married couple expecting. It’s 10:41 p.m. and they’re coming at us again. Ukraine is wonderful. Their people sweet.”
Ukrainian squad trained by Tim Scalita on combat life-saving techniques and battlefield tactics.
Scalita is wearing sunglasses next to the soldier sitting on the vehicle. (Photo: Courtesy Tim Scalita)
Two weeks ago in Lviv, Ukraine, Tim Scalita stepped out of his hotel, propped up his phone for a FaceTime call, and fired up a cigarette.
“It’s a nice town,” he says. “The Russians have been blowing it up a little bit the past couple of days, but nothing too terrible, mainly just aiming for power stations.”
He’d been in Ukraine for just under two weeks, ready to pitch in as a combat medic. Scalita has the experience. He did it in the U.S. Navy, including working with the Marines in Afghanistan a few years ago.
He’s a Memphian who is a writer and indie filmmaker. Now he’s been in Ukraine about a month and is near the town of Dnipro with a mostly Canadian tactical medical evacuation team. “We have trained two Battalions on combat life-saving techniques as well as battlefield tactics,” he said early this week. “We are basically training the front to fight and care for the injured soldiers until we can arrive and extract the wounded and transport them to the hospital.”
In the four weeks he’s been in Ukraine, there have been some false starts, a few surprises, and plenty of rigorous training. He’s gotten to know his team and he’s observed a country that sometimes seems perfectly normal until the air-raid sirens split the air. He’s been ready to get at it, although the worn-out (but accurate) phrase “hurry up and wait” has been fully realized. Until he finally got to Dnipro with his team, it was all about the logistics, sometimes hit or miss. Early in March, he posted his intentions.
Tim Scalita (Photo: Samuel Sutherland)
The Journey March 9th Facebook entry: My military friends. How do I get to the Ukraine?
It was on that date that a Russian air strike hit a maternity hospital in the port city of Mariupol. “Children are under the wreckage,” raged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “This is an atrocity!” Scalita also felt the rage then, as well as days later when Russian forces bombed a theater/shelter in the same city, killing about 300 people. News reports say the Russians are making at least two attacks a day on the country’s healthcare infrastructure.
“The moment they started blowing up civilian targets,” he says, “I was like, you know what? I have skills. I was a corpsman with the Marines in Afghanistan and I was very good at my job. And I don’t have a family. There’s no reason I shouldn’t be doing this.”
He didn’t dawdle.
March 20th Facebook entry: I’m making it official. As soon as my passport comes in (which will be a few weeks) I’m leaving for the Ukraine. They are in desperate need of experienced field medics and I refuse to do nothing while the innocent are being slaughtered.
Scalita didn’t want to wait around for the passport to come through, so he contacted U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Memphis) to see if the process could be expedited.
March 30th Facebook entry: Passport came in. Thank you Congressman Cohen for pushing it through.
But there was still more to be done, not the least of which was acquiring funding to deal with travel and equipment. And he is planning for an indeterminate stay in hostile territory.
April 3rd Facebook entry: Central BBQ is buying my plane ticket to Poland!
Scalita has been working at the catering kitchen at Central BBQ. The restaurant’s Elizabeth and Craig Blondis stepped up to effectively be his sponsor, providing the ticket and some money for gear — medical supplies, flak jacket, helmet, safety equipment — and other expenses.
It was coming together.
April 15th Facebook entry: Alright guys. Hard going away party at Hi Tone lower bar starting 8ish. Honestly last chance for most of you to see me before I’m off to save the world.
April 21st Facebook entry: And I’m off! See you when I see you.
Now, in the first week of May, Scalita says, “I’m feeling pretty good. My goal was to get here, join the Legion and be a combat medic.”
The International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine was founded on February 27th, three days after the Russian invasion. News reports say that up to 20,000 volunteers from around the world have signed up.
Scalita followed the instructions on the organization’s website but it didn’t take long to encounter bumps in the road. The first one was immediately after he landed in Poland where he was to be met by Legion representatives.
April 22nd Facebook entry: Hitch hiking into Ukraine like a boss. The Legion apparently no longer picks up in Poland. I have to enter the country on my own. They need to update the website.
From there, things didn’t improve much.
April 25th Facebook entry: Not going to lie. Conditions in the Legion camps are pretty terrible. Apparently the one I’m in is the Hilton compared to the others and it should be criminal. Things like drinking water we have to buy ourselves.
From left: Speedy (French Canadian), Harry Bennett (U.S.), Zach England (Canadian), Samuel Sutherland (Canadian), Chase Webb, Sean Malone (U.S.), Tim Scalita (U.S.) (Photo: Samuel Sutherland)
Plan B Scalita finally got to meet with Legion officials and told them he was there to work as a medic.
“They said, ‘Ah, a combat medic — that’s great. So, you want to join a special ops team and go behind enemy lines and kill Russians in their sleep?’ And I’m like, no — gotta save lives when stuff’s blowing up. That’s my thing. And they’re like, ‘Cool, cool, cool. So you want to go behind enemy lines and kill Russians in their sleep?’”
Scalita assured them that he was not interested in commando infiltrations. He’d already trained with them doing interminable fire team drills in the swamps, but he could see they didn’t put a priority on what he was offering. “I’m sure once I’m on the front line, I may not have a choice in certain situations, where I have to pull a trigger on somebody. But I didn’t come to fight another man’s war. I came to make sure everyone gets home okay.”
Disappointed, he ditched the Legion, gathered up his gear, and went looking for a Plan B.
On a FaceTime call two weeks ago, he said, “At the moment, I’m waiting. Tomorrow there’s a paramedic team coming in from Canada that I’m going to join. We’ll be taking casualties from the front line and then rushing them to aid stations and hospitals.”
Scalita is hoping the arrangement will work out, but everything is fluid. “There’s a lot of uncertainty, especially with a lot of these paramedic groups,” he says. “They come in and they’re like, oh, we’re only here for a month. And I’m like, I plan on staying here at least till Christmas. I want to go to London for Christmas and then go home.”
Tim Scalita filming one of his video projects in 2021 (Photo: Courtesy Tim Scalita)
On the Ground Meanwhile, he’s been gathering impressions and memories as he hurries up and waits for his opportunity to get into the field. Over the last several days, Scalita has been sending his impressions and observations.
For one thing, the language barrier, he says, has been intimidating. “People do speak a decent amount of English here, so I’m not completely lost, but it’s still just strange. It’s like I’d rather take on a legion of Russian soldiers than go to the grocery store, because all I can do is point and hand cash.”
And yet Scalita was surprised at how un-foreign things often seem. “It looks like everywhere,” he said. “I was expecting to land in Poland and it just be like this alien landscape. But it all looks like Pennsylvania. Driving through Poland and coming into Ukraine and it looks exactly like everywhere I’ve ever been.”
When Scalita’s team finally came to Lviv, it looked like his Plan B was going to happen. “We met up at the Dream Hostel in Lviv,” he said. “Let me tell you, it was nice to have some guys to hang out with. I met with the whole team at an outdoor cellphone kiosk a block or so from the hostel. The streets were teeming with, honestly, the most beautiful people I’d ever seen. I don’t think myself a super attractive person, but I never felt more butt-ugly.”
The team leader is a Canadian named Zach England. “He was happy to have a corpsman on his team and I was glad to have the gig,” Scalita said. “The gig: hard/high-risk extraction of casualties from active engagements on the front. I will be one of two medics to receive the casualties. We will have a driver and two to four shooters depending on the vehicle. We race in, receive, and run like hell to the nearest field hospital.”
Soon, the team would be on a train to Dnipro. “The bonding was good and honestly important, because a situation arose that needed to be addressed, and this next part is important,” Scalita said. “Especially for people who are thinking of coming over here.”
One of the team members was Farva, a nickname in reference to the movie Super Troopers. “He was showing disturbing signs of not having the mental stability needed for the task ahead,” Scalita said. “This began to be recognized by others days before it became very obvious the more he drank. It came to a decision that he would be reassigned when we arrived to Dnipro. He was obviously upset, so as a stranger to the situation and as a ‘doc,’ I sat him down one-on-one and explained that a team must feel safe with their teammates and trust that their teammates are there for the team. Our concern is that he was looking for a blaze of glory in which to leave this world. We refuse to facilitate that. To be successful, we must be professional. Being he was a former Marine, he trusted me enough to listen and understood. He is now with a humanitarian aid group, and I hope he finds peace in it.
“I only go into great detail on that story because I’ve read accounts, and since I’ve been in Ukraine I’ve encountered twice now, those who come here with ill intentions. They either want to just kill people out of blood thirst or see it as a good opportunity to take their own life and be remembered a hero and not the person they see themselves as.”
“My Heart Goes Out for the Lost” Meanwhile at the train station, Scalita noted that there are many tents and services for refugees coming from the east. “And a lot of volunteers which we were thankful for. A couple of good people brought us up to the military lounge where we were well fed and allowed to store our gear while we waited for the train. They also helped with our tickets. They fed us a feast of spaghetti with meatballs and pickled radishes. The mixture didn’t work. It was interesting. They also brought fresh bread, apples, potatoes, and individually wrapped sandwiches to take with us on the train. We were all very thankful.”
As they were waiting, Scalita got his first call for “doc.” “At first I thought I was being summoned to come out for a smoke and chat, but once I was outside I saw that on the platform two tracks over was a man holding another man having a seizure. We rushed across the tracks. The convulsions had stopped by the time I got to him. The man holding him, I would come to learn, was his brother who was trying to protect his head, which is really all you can do at that point. I checked his vitals and then asked about the medics. It was obvious from his disheveled state that the man didn’t have any meds with him. They took me to the doctor who was at the aid station where I learned the man had been there for days and had had many seizures but refused treatment, and that pretty much tied my hands as well. I left my guys with him in case they needed an extra hand with him. He was coming around and after a few minutes was able to continue on his own. We then just returned to the lounge.”
The team finally boarded the train and headed out. “It was nice,” Scalita said. “It was my first time on a cross-country train ride. We were able to secure spaces together on the sleeping car. But when it came time to sleep, I remembered why I love living alone. People snore, and did they. The volume was unrealistic and I seemed to be the only one who couldn’t sleep through it. Utterly maddening. I got a couple hours after everyone started to wake up, but it wasn’t long before we arrived in Dnipro. Once off the train, we set up in the parking lot and waited for our ride. There was a similar relief setup at the train station, but we found ourselves being approached by people that aggressively pleaded for money. We tried our best to lead them to the tents but they weren’t interested. That’s when we noticed people giving these poor people food and supplies and they would hide what they received and just continue to beg for money. I thought back to the man at the train station. Then I thought back to the homeless in Memphis and realized that you can’t help everyone no matter how much you wish you could. I was reminded that it’s a hard world even without this terrible war. My heart goes out for the lost.”
In Dnipro Finally, the team got transport to a hospital and Scalita noticed the differences between Lviv, an old and beautiful city, and Dnipro. “It has a nice downtown but is a poorer area. The people are just as nice and were very welcoming to us as volunteers coming to help against Russian aggression. They tell of the horrors committed to them and their loved ones by the Russian soldiers. The stories of the rape of women and children are true and terrible. The stories of murdering civilians are true. It’s in their eyes.”
Such a situation is also a call for introspection.
“I read that there are a lot of American vets over here because we all feel like we need a little redemption from Iraq and Afghanistan,” Scalita said. “I mean Iraq, which is now widely accepted was a horrible and illegal war, was basically what Russia is doing to Ukraine. We did to Iraq, and the irony is not lost on anybody here. And the way that Afghanistan ended, which was the only way it was going to end. When I was there in 2012, they were just like, oh, what’s gonna happen when America leaves? And we’re like, ‘You’re toast. They’re waiting in Northern Pakistan.’ It was inevitable. A lot of us are looking for a little bit of redemption. We don’t exactly feel like the good guys, so we would very much like to be the good guys now, you know?”
And that has become just another part of Scalita’s motivation. “Our spirits are good although we are tired. We are a good group and have more that will be joining our team as the conflict continues. Let’s hope it ends soon. Glory to Ukraine and to its heroes.”
Editor’s Note: We will follow Tim Scalita throughout his tour in Ukraine.
Conductor Robert Moody with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra (Photo courtesy MSO).
Sunday’s performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D minor, op. 125, the “Ode to Joy,” by the Memphis Symphony Orchestra (MSO), the Memphis Symphony Chorus, and the University of Mississippi Concert Singers, was a deeply emotional experience, in part because it held a mirror up to this moment in history.
For many, it began on the heels of “The Star Spangled Banner,” when the orchestra and chorus launched into another national anthem, “Державний Гімн України,” aka “The Glory and Freedom of Ukraine Has Not Yet Perished,” echoing orchestras and performers around the world who have done the same in recent weeks. The translated lyrics, projected on a screen above the players, gave a clue as to why the fledgling democracy has been giving the Russian Army a run for its money:
Still upon us, young brethren, Fate shall smile! Our enemies shall vanish Like dew in the sun.
But the feelings evoked in the audience were clearly those of sympathy and solidarity more than the ire of the warrior. Breaking the spell somewhat, the orchestra then presented a short bon-bon of a piece, Michael Markowski’s Joyride, full of whimsical quotations of the Beethoven masterpiece that was to follow. To these ears, hearing a somewhat coy preview of some of the grandest motifs in the Western classical canon was a distraction, but perhaps for musicians who have played Beethoven’s Ninth all their lives, it was a welcome palate cleanser.
And then, speaking for a moment, conductor Robert Moody brought our thoughts back to the philosophical, reflective, and historical dimensions, especially when he noted that MSO member Andre Dyachenko was born in Ukraine. (The principal clarinetist simply held his instrument aloft in a nod to the acknowledgement).
Andre Dyachenko, principal clarinetist for the MSO (Photo courtesy MSO)
And then Moody leaned into this historical moment. “Of course, music cannot stop a tank,” he said, “any more than it can stop a virus.” But, noting that Beethoven began composing his Ninth Symphony in 1822, Moody said that such music persists by appealing to the better side of humanity — a force to be reckoned with. The piece has been performed for 200 years, and will be performed for another 200, he said, precisely because it brings out our best.
With that, the game was afoot, as the MSO collectively braced themselves and leapt into the percussive themes of the first movement under Moody’s emphatic gestures. And the performance that followed was supremely sensitive to the work’s dynamics, from the timpani’s bombast to every sudden shift to waves of flowing strings. The blending of the tones of the horns, strings and woodwinds was especially adept.
All of it served to remind us of the world class institution Memphis has on its doorstep. And that was amplified further when the vocal soloists, Laquita Mitchell (soprano), Taylor Raven (alto), Limmie Pulliam (tenor), and Joshua Conyers (baritone) came to the front and galvanized the house with the flowing German poetry of lyrics based on Friedrich Schiller‘s writings.
The epiphany of Beethoven’s pioneering work was felt anew, as if the Memphis audience was witnessing its premiere, especially when the combined power of two choral groups stood to deliver their passages with overwhelming passion and precision. The message of hope and transcendence embodied by “Ode to Joy” was made all the more powerful by the translations that appeared once again on the screen.
Joy, bright spark of divinity, Daughter of Elysium, Fire-inspired we tread Within thy sanctuary. Thy magic power re-unites All that modernity has ruptured, All men become brothers, Under the sway of thy gentle wings.
The somewhat unconventional translation (i.e., replacing the usual “custom” with the term “modernity”) served as an invitation to take the words to heart in these terror-filled times. The fact that “Ode to Joy” has been adopted as the European Union’s anthem linked it with the contrasting lyrics and gravitas of Ukraine’s national anthem, and brought home the current era’s struggles, which hold all who oppose authoritarianism and terrorism captivated. Somehow, as Dr. Donald Trott and Dr. Elizabeth Hearn (directors of the University of Mississippi Concert Singers) and Dr. Lawrence Edwards (director of the Memphis Symphony Chorus) joined Moody and the MSO players in a bow, all of that historical passion was expressed in the long, well-deserved standing ovation.
Sure, your grandparents loved you, but did they love you enough to put a picture of you and your siblings on the bottom of an ashtray? I think not. Check, and mate, my friend.
If you look at the photo accompanying this column, you’ll see me (middle) and my brothers mugging for the camera in clothes made by my stepmom. It was taken in the 1960s, probably for Easter, and was on the wall in my parents’ house for a long while. I’m guessing they must have given a copy to my paternal grandparents, at least one of whom thought, “Hey, I’ll put this in the bottom of an ashtray so I’ll think of the boys whenever I crush out a Camel.”
My sister found the ashtray in a long-unopened box last week and sent me a picture of it. It was truly a “WTF?” moment, and we had a good laugh over the phone. But that’s because we were looking at it through the social mores of 2022 rather than those of 60 years ago, when smoking was acceptable and decorative ashtrays of one sort or another were displayed in most people’s houses. My grandfather was a physician and smoked like a wet campfire all his life. Having an ashtray with a photo of his grandkids was probably normal back then. I assume. I hope.
I shared the photo with my brothers and the rest of my family via social media and we had a good laugh — or at least some good emojis and text exchanges. These kinds of familial artifacts are like archeological finds, evoking memories long buried. We shouldn’t take them for granted.
I wonder, for example, how much family memorabilia was destroyed in Luhansk, Ukraine, last week, when a Russian tank pulled up in front of a home for the aged and opened fire, killing 56 elderly people. “They just adjusted the tank, put it in front of the house, and started firing,” an official told The New York Times. Lives and memories lost forever in the rubble.
These stories keep emerging. It’s like an enormous, crushing boulder, seemingly unstoppable. Each day brings new tales of horror, of bombed schools, of proud, once-vibrant cities being blasted apart block by block, of Ukrainian civilians being put in trucks and shuttled back to camps in Russia.
Almost as horrifying are the Americans who support this evil or who look for rationalizations or suggest providing an “off-ramp” for Putin. This would include the Republican senators who were fine with former President Trump withholding arms and supplies from Ukraine for political purposes, and who are now hypocritically raging that President Biden isn’t sending enough. Marsha Blackburn, I’m looking at you.
We’re way past the time to let domestic politics have any part in this struggle. This is a pivotal moment in world history. Are we big enough as a country to rise to the occasion? Or do we waste our energy hating the president of Mar-a-Lago or shouting, “Let’s Go, Brandon”?
Maybe, instead, we should be thinking about how many families have been destroyed by Vladimir Putin’s forces in attacks on more than 50 hospitals. Hospitals! And about how many lives and families have been ended or ruined because of cruel attacks on apartment buildings, schools, grocery stores, and homes? If it helps humanize the situation, maybe think about how much family memorabilia has been left behind by the 10 million Ukrainians displaced from their homes by this merciless, unprovoked assault on their country.
A crucible is coming. We can’t keep appeasing a murderous sociopath with the lives of innocents, hoping he will stop if we keep enough Big Macs and credit cards from his people. How many more civilians have to die before we realize the Russian leader just doesn’t care? What is the level of evil we will tolerate before we call his bluff, before we finally put Vladimir Putin’s picture in the ashtray of history?
Tennessee’s State Treasurer and Joe’s Wines and Liquors clarified where they stand on Ukraine this week.
Tennessee has “no direct investment exposure to countries such as China and Russia,” Tennessee Treasurer David Lillard said in a letter issued this week. Lillard said he was responding to news articles about other state pension plans working to review their investments in Russia. However, Lillard said, “I want to reassure you that this is not a concern for Tennessee.”
“I want to reassure you that this is not a concern for Tennessee.”
Tennessee Treasurer David Lillard
Credit: state of Tennessee/Treasurer David Lillard
Lillard said his office uses two indexes to screen nations for investments by the state: the Global Democracy Index, developed by The Economist magazine, and the Corruption Perceptions Index, created by Transparency International.
“Countries that score badly on the combination of corruption and democracy are eliminated as possible investment options,” Lillard said. “For more than a decade, the screening has protected [Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System — TCRS] from making direct investments in countries such as China and Russia.”
Joe’s Wines and Liquors sent an email to its customers this week in response to numerous questions about Russian and Ukraine products. The note explains what products the store carries and what it does not.
Credit: Joe’s Wine and Liquor from Facebook
We do not have any on the shelf right now, and things will stay that way.
Joe’s Wine and Liquor via email
For instance, Smirnoff and Stoli, maybe the two most recognizable vodka brands, were Russian products but have not been Russian-owned nor Russian-made “for decades now,” Joe’s said.
“We sell Khor Vodka, which is made in the Ukraine, and is a top-three vodka worldwide in terms of sales,” Joe’s said in the email. “We will have it stacked up in the store [Tuesday, February 28th] morning if you’d like to try it out and show your support.
“Russian Standard is our only truly Russian Vodka, and it is owned by a Russian oligarch. We do not have any on the shelf right now, and things will stay that way.”
“Don’t forget about us,” Jerry Dutkewych, the first director of the U.S. Peace Corps in Ukraine, said to me as I stood up to leave my exit interview in August of 1997. At 23, it was hard to know what role my time in Ukraine would play in my life. I could hardly imagine that almost 25 years later the whole world would be lit up with the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag. Ukraine is showing the world how its years of nation-building and democratization have led to a united and dedicated resistance to autocracy and aggression. In a time when our own democracy has seemed on the brink, Ukraine is reminding us what it means to fight for freedom and justice.
Since 1992, the United States Peace Corps has sent thousands of volunteers to Ukraine, more than most countries in the world. I was in the fifth group and was one of the first Americans that my neighbors, students, and English teacher colleagues had ever met. I taught English in a high school in the southern city of Mykolaiv. I learned both Ukrainian and Russian (Mykolaiv was a predominately Russian-speaking city). It was the first time I had encountered life in a bilingual environment, and that experience ended up shaping my career as a linguist, for which I am very grateful.
As Peace Corps volunteers, we were there for both economic and political reasons. The country was in major transition — poverty and hunger were prevalent in some regions, the elderly were suffering without regular welfare payments, businesses were trying to privatize, teachers were changing the way they taught, organized crime and human trafficking were on the rise, and heroin addiction, AIDS, and suicide were all problems that everyday citizens were dealing with, some for the first time. Some people were nostalgic for the more stable days of the USSR, but they were also hopeful about new contact with the West and the opportunities for new business ties, trade, travel, and education. Ukraine was looking West, and we were there to help in the small ways that we could.
During my two years, I had many conversations with Ukrainians about the changes in their country, comparing what life was like in the U.S. I talked to people about anything they wanted to know — religion, homelessness, or who my favorite author was. I helped my English teacher colleagues write a textbook and my friends, who were musicians, translate their lyrics.
I remember one afternoon in particular when the German language teacher came and sat down in my classroom. “We don’t know how to do democracy,” she said. “We have never had a democracy.” But Ukraine and Ukrainians have proven that they do, in fact, know how to do democracy and do it well. They have protested rigged elections, fought for their rights to trade with the EU, and maintained a free press and free speech despite consistent pressure from the Kremlin. They have cautiously promoted language policies that valorized the Ukrainian language and sought to unify the country while at the same time including rights for Russian speakers.
Ukraine is the borderland of Europe (the word literally means “on the border”). It sits between Russia and all of the democracies that make up the so-called West. The country is a battleground — economically, politically, and socially. Ukrainians have been required to disagree with their own kin to create the country they have become, to fight their own Slavic neighbors for their freedom. And by doing so, they are protecting us all.
In 1994, the United States and Russia signed a treaty with Ukraine that promised Ukraine protection in return for the removal of nuclear missiles back to Russia. That treaty was broken in 2014 when Russia took Crimea, and we did not come to help. That is part of the reason why we are where we are today — on the brink of a larger war, engagement of NATO, the EU, and possibly the U.S. As historian Allan Lichtman has put it, “the West’s failure to defend Ukraine will go down as one of the great mistakes of history.”
We will always remember Ukraine for the bravery and strength they have shown this week. We will remember the heroism of everyday citizens, the defense of Kyiv against all odds, and President Volodymyr Zelensky going into battle with his troops. Ukraine deserves our full support. For me personally, I realize that it was a mistake to not return to that place that provided me a better education than all of my years in college and graduate school. I will be returning to Ukraine to visit my former host sister and students as soon as I can.
Lyn Wright is an associate professor of applied linguistics in the English Department at the University of Memphis. She is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Ukraine) and former Fulbright Fellow (Russia).
Mighty Lights, the ever-changing light show on the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, did what the MEMernet suggested last week. The bridge lights were changed Sunday to yellow and blue, the colors of Ukraine’s flag, to show solidarity with the country now under Russian invasion.
But some said the image of the bridge Mighty Lights shared to Facebook was old, showing a previous light arrangement used for a Grizzlies game.
Never Ending Elvis
Posted to YouTube by Warner Bros. Pictures
In about a week, the trailer for the new Elvis biopic (issued last week) racked up more than 13 million views on YouTube. The movie is due in theaters in June and stars Austin Butler as Elvis and Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker.
Kimball Coyote?
Nextdoor user Jill Anne Dyer Levy said last week she saw what looked like two coyotes near her house in the Kimball neighborhood. Comments on the post remembered the mythical Midtown Coyote, though someone claimed the animal had been shot. Other comments, though, listed other fauna spotted in and around Memphis including bears, beavers, foxes, and even Manny, the wayward manatee in the Mississippi River.
The tanks rolling on Ukraine have arrived at Tennessee gas pumps.
AAA, the auto club and gas price watcher, said average gas prices in Tennessee have jumped 15 cents in the last week. Prices have jumped 35 cents in the last month and 94 cents over the last year.
The latest increase, AAA said, is directly connected to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The move roiled the oil market with crude spiking over $100 per barrel before settling back into the mid-$90 range.
“Russia’s invasion and the responding escalating series of financial sanctions by the U.S. and its allies have given the global oil market the jitters,” said Megan Cooper, AAA spokeswoman. “Like the U.S. stock market, the oil market responds poorly to volatility. This serves as a reminder that events on the far side of the globe can have a ripple effect for American consumers.”
AAA said U.S. gas stocks decreased by 600,000 barrels last week to a total of more than 246 million barrels. Gas demand rose slightly here at the same time. Together, lower supply and higher demand are expected to continue to push gas prices higher.
Tennessee ranks seventh among U.S. states for the largest weekly increase. The highest 10 percent of pump prices across the state are around $3.69 for regular unleaded. The lowest 10 percent are around $3.19, AAA said.
Memphis had some of the least expensive gas prices in the state with an average price of $3.40. Nashville had the highest at around $3.53 per gallon.
Credit: AAA
The lowest gas price in the Memphis area is the Kick Stop in Horn Lake on Goodman Road. A gallon of regular was listed there at $2.89 per gallon, according to the Gas Buddy website. This was followed by the Marion, Arkansas Walmart ($2.95) and the Memphis Exxon on Perkins ($2.95).
To cut your fuel bill, AAA suggests limiting your drive time, removing excess weight in your car, driving conservatively, and consider paying cash as some retailers charge more for customers using cards.
