When One Out of Three is Bad
We're into well over a month of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A lot of it hasn't gone the way some people expected - namely that it has gone on this long. The fact that it has gone this long seems to indicate it has not gone as Putin and company had hoped, so in one sense it means Russia has already lost. At any point in time you can analyse that Russia strategically could be winning, be in a stalemate or losing. Of the three, only winning can lead to a political win. Losing is bad, obviously but it is this condition whereby they are in a stalemate which gives the most political view that Russia is losing. So out of the three, 2 out of 3 give rise to bad political outcomes for Russia. Only winning can lead to a better political outcome for the Kremlin. Because we are not there, or there yet, depending on who you ask, we have conclude that Russia is losing the politics as the war is beginning to harden into a stalemate.
The hurdle for winning for Russia is as high as it is for Ukraine. Ukraine has to remove all the invaders to have resounding win - this is a flat out mathematical problem. Russia has to remove the current Ukrainian government, and then install another, and hope like hell the international community accepted the new government in Kyiv. This, looks unlikelier by the day. So a protracted stalemate is in essence the expression of the limits of Russia' power and ability to impose its will on Ukraine and the world.
The question then is just how long is this reality going to take to sink into Vladimir Putin's thick skull?
The problem for the West is that Putin is so set in his views that reality checks are just going to bounce off his pre-formed prejudices and preconceived notions (and I didn't mean that sentence to be so alliterative). The sanctions, as severe as they are alleged to be, may take weeks and months to make an impact on Russian political thought. The war grinds on every day, costing USD 20 billion a day for the Russians. We think something has got to break, but so far Putin has resisted common sense reappraisals of just what his war has wrought, and how badly it is going. For the record, if it were me playing a strategy game on a computer and it was going this badly, I would quit the game, reboot the machine, go back to the last save and not invade. Of course Putin has no such options - he has to live with the consequences of his bad decisions just like everybody else on the planet.
We kind of hope he puts up the white flag soon.
Long Comic Book Movies
The trend for blockbuster movies is more length. I finally got to watch 'Spider-man: No Way Home' and was amazed at the 2 hour 28min opus. It felt quite long. Then I watched Zack Snyder's 'cut' (That cut could be a misnomer) of 'Justice League' and this thing runs for 4hours and change. It is a lo-o-ong motherfucker of a movie. Honestly, that was like 3 90minute movies crammed into one.
It's not necessarily a good trend but you do feel like they delivered quantity if not quality.
I've long complained about this barrage of movies based on comic books. I've also complained ab out the people who complain about movies based on comic books. At this point in history of cinema, it doesn't much matter. The world has changed, the demographics have changed, and there is no sensible discussion about cinema going on anywhere any more. In light of that, I kind of think I'm okay with more Spider-man movies, and less so with Batman. They'll make more of both but I do have the option to put the Batman movies to the back of the viewing queue. At the end of the day, one's own taste is everything in critical analyses.
Slap Seen Around The World
Even if we hate watching the Oscars and don't watch them, we got to see Will Smith slap Chris Rock. Chris Rock's joke did seem a little tasteless - but then Chris Rock is a guy who talks some serious rude language in his own shows so compared to that, it was tame. I don't think it warranted being slapped on stage by Will Smith live to the world. Props to the man he didn't even go to feel his cheek after the slap. He kept his show biz face going and kept it together without major recrimination. I gotta say Will Smith looked worse in that interaction. He might have won the Oscar but he sure lost me with that act.
Question
If Russian soldiers sick of Vladimir Putin have a mutiny, would it be a Putiny?
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