Textbook Intimidation

I'm posting this, gentle reader, because I've seen nothing more bizarre in my lifetime.

The first few minutes of the video show Zelensky reminding Trump and Vance of the history. They didn't want to hear the facts of history.

They were more interested in grandstanding for the domestic hard liners.

It's a shameful piece of television, and doesn't bode well for international peace. For some reason, Trump is in thrall to Putin, and doesn't seem to have the vaguest respect for Ukraine and its people.

He is obviously quite prepared to appease the Russian Federation simply to get even on his domestic political opponents. That is the only history Trump is interested in. 

Here is a man who will put his own vindictive retribution before the freedom and survival of a country of thirty seven million.

As we say in Australia, he's "getting square".

It doesn't bode well for our relationship with the US, and our billion dollar AUKUS deal.  How can you trust an administration with a leader concerned only with narcissistic revenge?

Here's the transcript. The first few minutes of the grab cover Zelensky's attempt to unwrap the history, but the transcription doesn't include that -

Zelenskyy: What kind of diplomacy, JD, are you are asking about? What do you mean?

Vance: I’m talking about the kind of diplomacy that’s going to end the destruction of your country.

Zelenskyy: Yes, but if you …

Vance: Mr President, with respect, I think it’s disrespectful for you to come to the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media. Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the frontlines because you have manpower problems. You should be thanking the president.

Zelenskyy: Have you ever been to Ukraine to see the problems we have?

Vance: I’ve actually watched and seen the stories, and I know what happens is you bring people on a propaganda tour, Mr President.

Do you disagree that you’ve had problems with bringing people in your military, and do you think that it’s respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?

Zelenskyy: First of all, during the war, everybody has problems, even you. You have nice solutions and don’t feel [it] now, but you will feel it in the future.

Trump: You don’t know that. Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel. We’re trying to solve a problem. Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel.

Zelenskyy: I am not telling you, I am answering …

Vance: That’s exactly what you’re doing …

Trump, raising his voice: You’re in no position to dictate what we’re going to feel. We’re going to feel very good and very strong.

Zelenskyy tries to speak.

Trump: You right now are not in a very good position. You’ve allowed yourself to be in a very bad position. You don’t have the cards right now. With us, you start having the cards.

You’re gambling with lives of millions of people, you’re gambling with world war three and what you’re doing is very disrespectful to this country.

Vance: Have you said thank you once?

Zelenskyy: A lot of times.

Vance: No, in this meeting, this entire meeting? Offer some words of appreciation for the United States of America and the president who’s trying to save your country.

Zelenskyy: Yes, you think that if you will speak very loudly about the war …

Trump: He’s not speaking loud. Your country is in big trouble. No, no, you’ve done a lot of talking. Your country is in big trouble.

Zelenskyy: I know, I know.

Trump: You’re not winning this. You have a damn good chance of coming out OK, because of us.

Zelenskyy: We are staying strong from the very beginning of the war, we have been alone, and we are saying, I said, thanks.

Trump, speaking over Zelenskyy: You haven’t been alone … We gave you military equipment. Your men are brave, but they had our military. If you didn’t have our military equipment, this war would have been over in two weeks.

Zelenskyy: I heard it from Putin in three days.

Trump: It’s going to be a very hard thing to do business like this.

Vance: Just say thank you.

Zelenskyy: I said it a lot of times.

Vance: Accept that there are disagreements and let’s go litigate those disagreements rather than trying to fight it in the American media, when you’re wrong. We know that you’re wrong.

Trump: You’re buried there. Your people are dying. You’re running low on soldiers. No, listen … And then you tell us, ‘I don’t want a ceasefire. I don’t want a ceasefire. I want to go and I want this.’

Trump: You’re not acting at all thankful. And that’s not a nice thing. I’ll be honest, that’s not a nice thing.

All right, I think we’ve seen enough. What do you think? Great television. I will say that.

End...

So sad. So bizarre.

Australian Coffee Culture

 

Coffee & Chicory (Pic courtesy museums Victoria)

I’ve been around long enough, gentle reader, to have lived through some remarkable changes in the way we drink coffee in Australia.

As far as I can remember when I was growing up, my parents never drank coffee. They were both tea drinkers. The coffee that was around at that time was execrable, which may have had something to do with it. 

I do remember my mother always having a Coffee substitute in her pantry. To this day I'm not sure what it was used for. Perhaps it was part of a cake recipe. It was never used to make coffee.

When I was old enough to leave home, I started drinking instant coffee occasionally. Working as a young teacher in the bush meant that I was exposed to staff room milk. If you're not familiar with staff room milk, suffice to say that it was frequently off on Mondays, after sitting in the staffroom across the weekend. This forced me to drink black tea, a habit I've maintained. I could never stomach black coffee.

Then I was called up conscripted, the tea and coffee often came in ration packs. At this time I reverted to coffee, perhaps because it was a mild stimulant. Mostly in the army I was bored stiff, and the caffeine provided a little bit of excitement.

This continued once in Vietnam, although occasionally there was some excitement. Drinking coffee had by this time become a habit.  

Back in civvy street I remained addicted to coffee and cigarettes, but gave up the latter cold turkey by refusing to buy smokes. The social pressure (smokers retreating when they saw me approaching to bum a durry) did the trick.

A few years back into teaching I had an itinerant job supporting kids with disabilities in bush schools, and saw the inside of plenty of roadhouses. They almost always had a boiling urn and enormous tins of instant (usually Bushells) coffee in the corner.

I returned to this work post retirement (which I failed first time round), but by then (2010) proper barista coffee was becoming available in these same roadhouses. It was usually served by backpackers with interesting accents.

The contrast between what was available in the seventies in the bush, and what is sold now is stark.

Trips to Vietnam post retirement introduced me to Vietnamese coffee (very strong and smooth and served with condensed milk) and a sojourn in the USA and Cuba in 2018 revealed that American coffee is not a patch on ours. I found the Vietnamese brew slightly more robust than what I encountered in Cuba. Both were better on the street than in the USA, but not of the quality that you can find locally.

Whilst I probably haven't travelled enough to make any reasonable comparisons, I reckon that Australian coffee is amongst the best in the world. Italian immigration post world war two probably has much to do with this. An Italian coffee culture developed first in Melbourne and has spread. Having said that, when I was in Italy in the eighties, I don't remember being impressed by their coffee.

Australian coffee culture has been exported to the USA and chains have developed. 

Australians are great innovators, they import excellent beans, and their baristas are the best. The machines used are invariably good quality and this helps. We're now growing coffee on the Atherton Tableland, so the coffee scene can only improve.

Only the best of everything originates in that part of the world, including my bride...