FailForward @FailForward@qoto.org

I wonder whether, in a game of strong rules, you can come to a situation similar to a child that, being repeatedly harrassed and ignored on the playground, at some point resorts to violence to be heard or claim its rights.

Sure this happens a lot. And it can happen on a personal, as well as a societal level. But it’s no excuse for bad behaviour and aggression. That’s what we teach children on the playground. Also jails are full of people who claimed that “they had no other option”.

like NATO coming to a conclusion of establishing a missile shield in Poland and Czech Republic in like 2008 or so

At least the proclaimed motivation of which was fear of Iran developing a long-range ballistic missile capability + nuclear capability. Here I wrote more inconsequential garbage and then decided to scrape it 🙂 .

Maybe you know, but at least the Czech part of that missile shield finally did not happen.

I don’t know. I just hope it will not end all too bad.

It already did, I am afraid. The fundamental rules were broken. Several times. Strong messages were sent, intentions proclaimed. Actions were taken. Armies were moved, and it well might be over the next couple of days reality will happen again.

Whether I like it or, the gentleman in Kremlin is totally clear: he does not give a sh*t about my way of life, actually he seems to despise it (if I am to believe his former buddy A. Dugin - that was a very interesting and frightening reading couple of years ago). So I take it somewhat personally, you see 😉 .

Something else, tangentially relevant: I grew up in a communist country and remember how things were before and after 1989. And then, many years later, I went on to travel and finally live in various European countries (it’s now almost two decades since I left “my small place”). I lived in Germany too for several years. And I made an observation which at certain point was quite revealing to me: all along the Iron curtain border, the physical border was an interesting thing. Especially in Germany where NATO was directly facing Warsaw Pact armies. On the Eastern-German and Czechoslovakian side of the border was a mine field, buffer of no-man’s land, heavy patrols, people were dying during attempts to flee. The regimes were holding their own citizens from leaving. And I remember the news propaganda back then was that all those blood-thirsty Westerners cannot wait until they come and kill us. Even the bloody Kartoffelkaefer was called “Imperialist bug”. Seriously. And you know what? On the Western-German side, right behind the Iron curtain fence was a small paved road with village people roaming freely and farmers harvesting their potatoes. I found that back then, on their side of the fence, nobody gave a sh*t about our little part of the world. Of course they were worried about nuclear weapons and all that, but in reality they just wanted to forget it and live their life calmly and move on.

Why am I rambling about this? Because I see the same pattern happening the last couple of years. It seems (from what I gather from the echoes of Russian media and politicians speeches) that on the Eastern side of European continent political class and maybe even small people are still obsessed about the alleged Western blood-thirstiness, while in reality, nobody in the EU (and US for that matter too) gives a jack sh*t about Russia, except it constantly keeps getting into our living rooms. Personally, while I somewhat pity the people of that great country for the inability of their governments to provide better conditions for their free life and better development of their society, I accept it’s none of my business, they can change it only from within. If it were not for nuclear arsenal of that vast and interesting country, my only interest in it would be tourism. Maybe somebody should tell all those Russians that it’s not true that the West wants to kill them. Here around, ideally, nobody want to even know what Russia is and maybe that blessed ignorance is a good thing.

Pithivier-style meat pie

My first, somewhat improvised, incursion into the meat pie territory.

Very tasty. I did not have huge expectations for the first attempt, but it worked out surprisingly well. Worth further exploration of this recipe style.

Meat pies to cheer up cold and sleazy winter days!

Inspired by the recipe in The Guardian:

• https://www.theguardian.com/food/2022/feb/16/how-to-make-the-perfect-cheese-and-potato-pithivier-recipe-felicity-cloake
• http://casarosada-algarve.blogspot.com/2022/01/cheese-leek-and-celeriac-pithivier.html

@hob

@hob First attempt at a group post. Let’s see what happens.

@hob /help

3-layered apple pie, edition #2

The first attempt was fine and tasted well, but there were several things which needed improvement. Primarily the size of the recipe.

So I applied some bugfixes and made the edition #2. Half ingredients, better juicier taste, a bit of a sharper touch of lemon, just fine now. I don’t even know what’s to be improved still.

#cakeposting

I dug a hole inside my heart
To put you in your grave.
At this point it was you and me,
And mama didn’t raise no slave.
You took my face in both your hands
And looked me in the eye
And I went down with such a force
That in your grave I lie.

Brandi Carlile: Raise Hell

• in concert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYhXFnRnJfQ
• official audio https://soundcloud.com/brandicarlile/raise-hell?si=e8e90b426f7b4f5a92a4e15e5355602d&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

@piggo

3-layered apple pie

• first attempt
• worked out fine, tastes great, not too sweat with just a bit of cinnamon
• to remember for the next iteration: all the pastry and apple layers should have been a bit thinner - the recipe is obviously for a larger tin, but eyeballing the dough I was a bit afraid it would dry out - unwarranted

#cakeposting

https://soundcloud.com/user-935381613/sofia-portanet-realface?si=e49c2618a2c14693bdd373dd0fd568c6

I tried to hide a million times
Behind shiny things that made me look nice
Big smile and makeup, Gucci, rings, and Prada
When truly, I was dying inside

– Sofia Portanet:Real Face