What He Said: Fill the silence with your music

Folks,

This is what a live hero looks like. This is what an honorable man looks like. This is what a person who is fighting for an entire nation looks like. 

President Volodymyr Zelensky remote addressed the Grammy audience

He delivers his speech in English. Listen to what President Volodymyr  Zelensky says. 

Now, read it just so you can really grok the words:

“The war. What’s more opposite to music? The silence of ruined cities and killed people. Our children draw swooping rockets, not shooting stars. Over 400 children have been injured and 153 children died, and we will never see them drawing.

“Our parents are happy to wake up in the morning — in bomb shelters, but alive. Our loved ones don’t know if we will be together again. The war doesn’t let us choose who survives and who stays in eternal silence.

“Our musicians wear body armor instead of tuxedos. They sing to the wounded in hospitals — even to those who can’t hear them. But the music will break through anyway. We defend our freedom to live, to love, to sound.

“On our land, we are fighting Russia, which brings horrible silence with its bombs — the dead silence. Fill the silence with your music. Fill it today to tell our story. Tell the truth about this war on your social networks, on TV.

“Support us in any way you can. Any — but not silence. And then peace will come to all our cities the war is destroying — Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Volnovakha, Mariupol and others. They are legends already, but I have a dream of them living — and free, like you on the Grammy stage.” 

When We, the People, talk about honor, we don't talk about Donald Trump or Bill Clinton. We talk about dead guys like George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln. We are looking for those who walked the walk, talked the talk, and stood tall against so many odds.  

Volodymyr Zelensky used to be a comic actor. Hell, he even played a reluctant, bicycle-riding president of Ukraine on The Servant Of The People. Maybe that was on-the-job training. But whatever he did in his past, it has provided him with a steel spine. And brass whatevers. He's not joking now. His nation has more than dented the Russian Army. 

Vadim Ghirda / AP

The Russians are bombing hospitals and civilian shelters, one of the original war crimes  addressed in the Fourth Geneva Convention. There are rules, even in war, and the Geneva Conventions are very specific about what is and is not permitted. Whose orders are Russian soldiers following when they kill civilians, hands tied behind their backs, execution-style?   If these are Putin's orders as relayed thought his officers, they are all war criminals just as the Nazis were. Those who executed civilians are as culpable as Nazi camp guards. 

From the Washington Post:

Bucha’s mayor, Anatoly Fedoruk, told The Washington Post that roughly 270 local residents had been found buried in two mass graves. Roughly three dozen were found dead in the streets, including some who had been bound and executed, Fedoruk told The Post. Bodies of at least 20 men in civilian clothes were found lying on a single street, according to Agence France-Presse journalists. 

And then there are the very young soldiers driving tanks and taking orders because they were told they would be greeted as hero liberators. What do the Ukrainians do with those rather confused soldiers?  This photo, from THE TIMES of London, shows just that: a Russian soldier speaking to his mother in a video call on his captor’s phone. Over and over, Ukrainian officials are hearing from Russian soldiers that they were told they would be liberating Ukraine from Nazis. And not unlike the boy soldiers the Nazis deployed in the field or the Russians deployed during World War I as well as their own 1918 Revolution. These kids seem to be unaware and confused about the mission on which they were sent. That alone is a crime against their own humanity.

Meanwhile, Russian mothers have been offered safe escorts at the Ukraine-Poland border from where they will be taken to Kyiv to pick up their sons, then returned to the border. That made so much sense to me. I hope some Moms take them up on it. I would go. Whether or not they would be safe upon returning home, of course, is a separate question.

Ukraine continues to beg for assistance from the West. The really incredible part? While they're doing just that, they are beating back the Russian Army. 

Glory to Ukraine. 

Coming out of this Jewish mouth, that's really saying something. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Your store is out or hasn't gotten your favorite Pesadik treat?

The supply chain isn't working?

You're not gonna die from a lack of kosher marshmallows. 

Want a serious tip?

Take a moment to check your perspective.