Social media is a strange place to be right now (including here, obviously). It's a shared but individual experience with as many and/or as few co-celebrants in the Church of Me, Myself & I (the only Holy Trinity that's worth anything when you get right down to it) as you can imagine or wish for.
Right now as a shared worldwide reference we have the brutality (live, and in color on the platform of your choice) of Putin's Russian Bear trying to devour its Ukraine neighbor and when (NOT IF) that succeeds it will turn its attention to all of its former members of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and we'll be dusting off the maps of Europe in 1938 all over again. Be careful where you step though because the blood of the innocents is already knee-deep in the streets.
And yet a not inconsequential number of posts on a variety of platforms angrily lament the price of gasoline at the pump (here in Connecticut I watched it go to $4.15 a gallon for regular gasoline yesterday with no end in sight I suspect) and my favorite non-comeback has become someone offering as a counterpoint to that anger some variation of words to the effect of 'I don't mind paying extra if it helps Ukraine stop Putin.' How noble of you; if only someone had asked.
To be clear: there is no correlation between the price of gasoline at anyone's local filling station and helping Ukraine slow, much less stop, the barbaric assault that it is undergoing every minute of every day. Yes, I, too, put a Ukraine flag on my Facebook profile picture and posted a picture of the flag of the country along with the hashtag #IStandWithUkraine. Do you have any idea how effective that is against a T-14 Armata tank? Take a guess.
This, right here, as we used to say in the US Air Force is taking a piss in a dark blue suit. It gives you a nice, warm feeling and no one notices. John Stuart Mill never met me, or you for that matter, but he knows us better than we know ourselves and certainly deeply understood the relationship between meaning well and doing well.
Here are some ways to help the people of Ukraine. Pick one, or more and give until it helps.
-bill kenny
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