The news on Ukraine is filled with portents, but in the U.S., people seem to have a youthful, exuberant faith in the Ukrainians to take care of themselves.  To gauge the current velocity, remember when the academic concept "intersectionality" (now replaced by CRT) had something to do with race, gender, and sexuality. In a three-week span, the new intersectionality is the Venn diagram of international conflict players: Putin, Ukraine, American interests (as opposed to just Americas), the West, Biden, China, etc.  It reminds me of scrawled circles on a whiteboard in a Netflix police procedural drama.  The new intersectionality boasts no academic foundation like race and sex.  It's on a war footing, which is reality, not credentialed intellectual theatrics.

While we are familiar with many of the actors in the Ukrainian/Putin live-action drama, it's like watching an on-the-fly reality show with most people having no frame of reference other than Ukrainians good guys, Putin bad guy.  People here are going on with their lives amiably in spite of really, really high gas prices looming on the horizon.  Even though the stakes are serious, I'm beginning to wonder: is the conflict viewed more as a "legacy spectacle" to be dealt with via the new channels of a social media culture — say, OCCUPY PUTIN?  Mass demonstrations are afoot in Moscow, with 10,000 arrested.  I don't think the Russian demonstrators or Ukrainian people are going to log out of TikTok or Twitter and go home.  They are mad and inspired.

How does one make sense of the increasing velocity of the war's Venn diagrams of potential winners and losers?  One day, John Kerry bemoans to the Brits the potential impact of Putin's aggression on climate change and hopes diplomacy wins.  Forty-eight hours or so later, Russia sets fire to a Ukrainian nuclear power plant.  John Kerry has always confused his deep voice with deep thinking.  This is deep legacy on display.

My son posted this article on Instagram from the U.K. Manchester Evening News revealing the audacious pluck of the average Ukrainian when it comes to confronting the enemy.  An adviser to the Ukrainian government, Liubov Tsybulska, tweeted about the following incident to her 7,600-plus followers.

In Kyiv a woman knocked down a Russian drone from a balcony with a jar of cucumbers. How did they expect to occupy this country?

The NY Post is reporting that former Miss Grand Ukraine, a woman of stunning beauty, now wearing fatigues and carrying a rifle, has joined the fight against the Russian invasion.  Pictures are included.

Whether these stories are apocryphal or not, it speaks to that rough post-millennial patina that engenders acronyms like "WTF?"  War in the post-MTV generations is surprising me. These recent generations may talk the trendy CRT talk, but I'm not sure they are interested in walking someone else's walk, as new social media platforms seem to appear weekly.  Freedom is wanting a comeback, or crypto would not be maturing.  My guess is they'll pay lip service to a cause until their freedom is really threatened, and then they'd rather throw pickle jars at the drones. 

Spruce Fontaine cohosts "Time to Burn," livestreamed every other Thursday @ 9:00 PM on Shing.Tv and replayed on Spreaker.

Image via Pixabay.