Presidents Clinton🇺🇸, Yeltsin🇷🇺 and Kuchma🇺🇦 signing a memorandum, guaranteeing the territorial integrity of #Ukraine in return for its transfer of nuclear weapons to Russia. Budapest, 1994.
In Swedish cafés, pancakes are always listed on the Children’s menu, not the main one. Are there any other countries where it is considered childish to like pancakes?
There was a time when you could ridicule a government for their poor choice of partners by saying “So whom are you partnering with next? #NorthKorea?”
With #Putin’s Russia, I honestly can’t think of a scarecrow anymore that’s too absurd to be an option. Can you?
Yesterday I accidentally overheard one of the best stories since #TheAristocrats, told by a Latvian woman on the train talking Russian on the phone, assuming nobody would understand:
This summer we were visiting a friend in Belarus. So there we are waiting waiting for him outside of his office, and this unfamiliar and terribly smelling gentleman approaches us, asking where we are from.
"Latvia", I say.
"Latvians, eh?" he frowned. "A bunch of worthless pricks you are - all of you."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Worthless stupid scum, the whole lot of you."
Stunned by the uncalled-for bluntness of the insult, I tried to compose myself and countered cautiously, "Have you really met many enough Latvians to be able to make such a sweeping judgement?"
"Lived in Latvia for ten years, so yeah, I've seen enough of you pricks. And Russians too. A pack of turds the whole bunch of them. Hate the freakin' Russian scum."
Before I could find anything sensible to say, he went on.
"Belarusians are crap too. Worthless junk of a people, these Belarusians."
Here I felt compelled to ask, "And where exactly are you from?"
"From here. From this crappy shitehole," he said and walked away.
Then our Belarusian friend finally arrived. I pointed at the man we had just spoken to and asked. "Do you know who that guy is?"
"Oh yes," my friend replied. "That's my driver, the patriot."
Things I can watch forever:
1. A fireplace in a mountain cabin.
2. My puppy sleeping on my lap.
3. Ukrainian missiles hitting the Russian Black Sea Fleet headquarters in #Sevastopol
So if you are a neo-nazi president cancelling everything Russian, but you happen to be a Russian-speaking Jew, does that mean you have to cancel yourself? Asking for a friend.
Azerbaijan's bold attack on #NagornoKarabakh proves one thing: #Russia is now completely impotent as a regional power. Its peacekeeping force in #Armenia is a joke. It is unable and unwilling to protect its few remaining allies. It's a gas pump with nukes - no more.
I have learned 760 German words and thought that should at least get me through a dinner out, but every waiter in #Düsseldorf immediately switches to English as soon as I open my mouth. 😖🇩🇪
The Belarusian president #Lukashenko has been out of public sight since May 9 when he reportedly got so ill he couldn't stay for dinner with Putin. Here's me on Sweden's TV4 speculating on speculations.
https://t.co/jURpNV9L7Z
Alright - it's been a long time coming, but here it is: the book script is ready! 🥳
Kind of.
I currently have 30 wonderful pioneer readers test-reading it and giving feedback. (So far, overwhelmingly positive - for which I am immense grateful.) So I'll be adjusting some things in the Beta version before it goes to the editor.
AND...
I think I could use some more feedback, so there's room for some more Beta readers.
Care to be one?
The beta reading window closes on May 1, so if you can make it through the 199 page script by then and complete the feedback survey, I will personally send you a free copy of the final edition of the book (once it is published), signed by me and with your name in a "Special thanks to my beta readers" section.
Does it sound like your kind of challenge? If so - just go here https://t.co/fRUGsCdYO0, sign up on BetaReader, click "I want to read this" and provide a small motivation for how you aren't a stalking psycho. The rest is easy ;)
Having an inner conflict with this toggle when submitting the Aliens About Humans manuscript for review, knowing it’s completely unfit for family audiences - and full of extremely immature jokes 😬