View from the North 40: A snapshot in time

Feb. 14, four days after President Joe Biden warned U.S. citizens in Ukraine to leave because a Russian invasion was imminent, Hudson, Ohio, Mayor Craig Shubert resigned over the kerfuffle he caused by arguing, with straight-faced sincerity, that ice shanties, aka ice houses, should not be allowed on the pond at Hudson Spring Park because they attract prostitutes and combating that issue will burn up too many law enforcement and judicial resources.

Apparently the heckling public sided with the fisher people and the prostitutes, both of whom said, “What?”

Seven days after Biden’s announcement, The Associated Press reported that 832 people in Switzerland had signed up to spend four days in March living in the country’s newest, as yet unoccupied, prison. Without any compensation for their time.

The up-to 241 individuals chosen will live in the Zurich West Prison as if they are prisoners, with two exceptions 1) They will have a safe word that will act as a get out of jail free card for anyone who can no longer cope with the experiment. Stanford University is never going to live down that 1971 prison experiment. And 2) Participants will be able to opt out of the strip search — knowledge that has me worried about one opting in for that.

The day after that, Brendan Kelbie of Australia, 22, using great passion, drive and skill, broke a Guinness world record for building a stack of freestanding M&Ms — six to be exact. He stacked six whole M&Ms like a mini rock sculpture.

Also Feb. 18, the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to pass a resolution to support the Ukraine.

Then Feb. 21, three days before Russian President Vladimir Putin started his invasion of the Ukraine, a large, glowing object was seen by researchers and the common folk out on the streets streaking across the sky from Steamboat Springs, Colorado, into New Mexico. Researchers at the American Meteor Society said it was a bollide, which is a particularly large meteorite known for traveling slowly. It was going about 60,000 kilometers per hour — slow being a relative term when speaking of objects hurling through space in a near miss past your favorite home world.

Feb. 24, Ukrainian people started proving that they are made of some pretty gutsy stuff resisting Russian troops, even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, former actor and comedian, who stayed in the country, joining his troops and his people.

The next day official reports came out of Washington, D.C., saying that a mating pair of bald eagles, which had returned to nest at the Washington National Arboretum, had two eggs in their nest.

Also that day, people in the U.S., countries across Europe and around the world, even in Russia, ramped up support for Ukraine, with demonstrations, added sanctions on Russia and military, financial and supplies aid for Ukraine as well as new policies to accept people fleeing the war. Civilian organizations and individuals started gathering and shipping supplies, and civilians with medical, military and other skills — including Anthony Walker, comedian, hemophiliac, eye-glasses wearer and EMT, from Canada — started traveling to the Ukraine to join their civilian army.

At the same time former Texan, former American soldier and current self-proclaimed communist Russell Bentley, 61, who is living in the Donbas region of Ukraine under a Russian passport, has been posting to social media about his efforts to fight alongside the Russian troops to help “de-Nazify” the Ukraine, which elected Zelensky in an open election in 2019.

That night U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia spoke at a Florida meeting of white nationalists who support Putin.

Monday, Feb. 28, Switzerland, which has remained neutral in war since the Treaty of Paris in 1815, voted to impose financial sanctions against Russia.

Tuesday, March 1, a cow that had been caught up in a river flood along coastal Australia miraculously showed up alive and well on Duranbah Beach, Queensland.

The next day, Whitney Hay of Liberal, Kansas, with a time of 1:07 beat her arch rival, Katie Godof of Olney, England, who was three seconds slower running 1:10 in a traditional U.K. Shrove Tuesday Pancake Day Race. The contestants, racing on their respective continents, had to carry a pancake in a frying pan and flip it at the beginning and the end of the 415-yard course. No mention of when they got to eat pancakes.

But that brings us to Wednesday, March 2, when the U.S. House approved a resolution to “steadfastly, staunchly, proudly and fervently” support Ukraine. Three representatives cast no votes, and none of the three were Marjorie Taylor Greene, proving that people are complex creatures.

Between the start of the invasion Feb. 24 and March 2, as many as 4,000 Ukrainian civilians and armed forced have died in the invasion. But world population statistics say about 1,070 babies are born on average per day in the Ukraine. So if that holds true, about 7,490 babies were born to Ukrainians in the same time period.

The world is harsh and beautiful and frustrating and hopeful at once.

Also on March 2 in Lehigh Acres, Florida, neighbors and law enforcement spent 12 hours helping a guy chase down and catch two of his pigs that had gotten loose from their enclosure. It’s kind of crazy, but they just did it to help out.

There might be hope for humans, yet.

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We are for peace in all corners of the world at http://www.facebook.com/viewfromthenorth40 .