August 9, 2026

Sunday. Left at 10:10. Blacksmith. Warm, sunny, with some thin, stretched-out white clouds to the south. Very little wind. City very quiet, and so were Groenekan--by way of Hooge Kampse Plas--and Maartensdijk. Cyclists in Lage Vuursche, still not fully open. The air was dusty on the roadway due to the gravel riders alongside it. Soestdijk and the Eng. Some corn looking well, another patch where it seemed stunted. To Soester Hoogt, where near the top the turn has been adjusted, probably to slow down descenders from the other side before they reach the roadway. Around Soesterberg to Schaerweijde; around Zeist toward De Bilt and Møs. Yesterday's paper reporting additional information on Ukraine's strikes on Russia's Wildberries warehouses: not only does the on-line retailer have a separate section with military hardware in support of the war, they also owe a lot of money to a big Russian bank that itself is in trouble. If Wildberries can't meet its financial obligations, that bank may get into trouble, causing a wider financial crisis which for its part would make it harder for the Kremlin to finance its war. What we have (had) now is what you could call "total war": strategies going well beyond the military battlefield and targeting the opposing society's ability to sustain the war effort. Russia has attacked Ukraine's civilian infrastructure since it failed to accomplish a quick break-through in 2023, but Ukraine in the past year or two increasingly has taken the war to Russian society too. Also, where the Kremlin has tried to shield ordinary Russians from a full mobilization, so Ukraine's Western friends have mostly tried to tell themselves that they're not really in this war, in spite of many pledges, and evidence, of support. The Russian president may soon have to face the music at home for pretending there isn't a war going on, but Western governments should already feel very uneasy about the slow pace with which they have tried to increase their production of missiles, anti-ballistic missile systems, and other military hardware. Western leaders are already in trouble for the way they have pretended to their constituents that Ukraine's war in the end isn't really ours, because it is. The unease could soon turn into regret, even shame, and it would all be earned. On the shady side at Møs, a person found it necessary to conduct an on-screen, speaker-phone conversation for fifteen or so minutes. Why not, since we were the only two people there? As that very important conversation continued, the last bit of the paper, AD, on the sunny side of the building (four cars ignoring the do-not-enter sign in fifteen minutes). Letters to the editor on the special subject of the heat this year. It may not have been a representative sample, but maybe it was: what's the problem with nice, warm weather? So much better than rain and gray skies. In a month or so, we'll be back enduring those conditions. There's climate change and such, but I'll be gone by the time that becomes a real problem. And so on. Presumably, these letter writers occasionally look at their paper and what it reports on some of the other effects of all this pleasant weather. But maybe not. It's much easier to ignore news you can't use--until that news stops ignoring you.