report from ccc

 So Chien-Chi wrote the following for a Taiwanese publication. Accompanying photos, of course.

Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, getting from Vienna to Kyiv took a little less than two hours in the air. But now the journey takes about two days, using all forms of transportation—train, car, bus, taxi—plus hours of waiting at borders and numerous checkpoints.

 

Still, I am finally home again from war-torn Ukraine. I dropped my helmet and body armor on the floor and tossed the clothes I have been wearing for almost a month into the washing machine. Besides the swooshing and the occasional thump from the machine, it’s eerily quiet, as always, at home, with the snowcapped Alps on the distant horizon. I watered my cacti, left a voice mail for my kids, and opened a bottle of red wine. I wanted to decompress and thought I could use a bit of intoxication. I fell asleep with my head on the kitchen table. But then the spinning of the washing machine became the air alarm siren in Ukraine, and I startled awake.

 

In the past thirty years, I have photographed conflicts in different parts of the world, but I am not a war photographer per se. Still, I have determined to document Russia’s evil invasion, for I fear Taiwan could be the next country to be attacked by a large and powerful neighbor. I want to share my observations and documentary coverage, particularly with the younger generation in Taiwan.

 

In early March, several days after entering Ukraine, I decided to be honest with my kids and let them know that I was in Ukraine, not Poland as I had told them before I left. But I promised them that I would be extra careful and that we would video-chat every night and I kept my promise during seven weeks and two trips to Ukraine. My children have kept my sanity intact, but every time I tried to move closer to the front line in the Donetsk region or the far south of Zaporizhzhia, where Russian soldiers are on the other side of the river, I hesitated, as I could hear the distant incoming and outgoing artillery from all directions.

 

Never pee in the woods, I was told, because I might step on a landmine or hit a booby trap. I was also reminded that a tampon could not stop catastrophic bleeding. As many times as I practiced the use of a tourniquet kit, I doubt I could use it in time if I were in shock. And shouldn’t I carry four tourniquet kits? After all, I have four limbs.

 

In the late afternoon of March 26, 2022 in Lviv, two Russian cruise missiles flew over my head and struck the oil depot ten kilometers away from the city center. After several loud, shattering and pounding explosions, thick black smoke billowed out of the depot throughout the night. The city was in an extremely tense mode with police and fire engine sirens screaming by from all directions.

 

Lviv, some 70 kilometers from the Polish border, had been considered safe. It was where most of the foreign diplomats had relocated from Kyiv weeks before the war. But clearly no place is absolutely safe or secure. There are about ten thousand calls a day about suspicious activities. The hunt for Russian saboteurs has always been clandestine and on high alert.

 

Perhaps it is the absurdity of my profession that I tend to run towards the places people are running away from. Yet I have never seen a nation that is so emotionally and strategically united, on every level of society, to fight the aggressor. The unjust war has also united Europe and the majority of the world’s democratic nations. Ukraine has earned and deserves this support and respect. There has been an outpouring of international donations, but just as important are all of the Ukrainians helping their own people since the invasion began.

 

As far as I am concerned, the war in Ukraine started in 2014 with Russian separatist militia in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine and the Russian illegal annexation of Crimea. Thus the Ukrainian military has been fighting for eight years and has received military training from Western nations for those eight years!

 

Now, the international community is uneasily monitoring China’s support of its northern neighbor. Since both leaders in this strategic partnership are now without term limits, many see the European conflict as a mock-run for an invasion in Taiwan. Isn’t it a warning for everyone who lives next door to a puissant nation with a taste for empire? If Taiwan is under attack, will we have the will and courage to unite and fight at any cost? Will I hang up my camera and pick up a rifle?

 

Will the international communities come to help? Will foreign fighters join us to fight the aggressor? Two members of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense in Donetsk said to me that Ukrainians are aware that Taiwan could be attacked by China! If that happens, they said, we will come to defend Taiwan. I hugged them and raised my hand with my fist clenched. “I stand with Ukraine!”

 

 

 

stormy weather

The last boat ran Friday morning. And it looks like no boats tomorrow either. That's a long nor'easter! The rain stopped, and the sun came out, but the ocean is still rough and it's still blowing like 25 mph with bed-shaking gusts. Hard to sleep with the chimney rattling and the house quaking.

Certain people will make fun of me for all these through-the-window shots. But hey, who wants to go out? Except to the dump, of course.

I did entertain many friends and family members. Well, I didn't entertain them, but they came over. I was not best pleased that Alan wrote on one of my good rocks with permanent marker, leaving aside the question of whether or not his assertion is correct.

on the ground in ukraine

 

We are all thinking about Ukraine, especially now as May 9, known as Victory Day in Russia, looms. Putin has made V-E Day, the end of WWII in 1945, into an annual show of military muscle in Red Square. And people fear some extreme show of force to mark the day. I  can't stop looking at Kate Knapp's painting of sunflowers.

   Ed Barnes, an old war horse who has spent considerable time in wars in the area (think Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Ukraine, etc.), in particular is worried. He hears the clarion call and wishes he were there. And he particularly is worried about our friend Chien-Chi Chang, who is there. The other night, Chien-Chi heard missiles strike a railroad not far away from the place he is staying. (You can see his photographs on Insta on the Magnum Photo feed.) Ed would like him to get out. Now. He smells danger.

   But journalists do what they do, and they can't do it remotely. And so, Chien-Chi stays. Having grown up in Taiwan, he can viscerally relate to the menace of a powerful neighboring country. And he stands with Ukraine.

 

  

t'ville's skyscraper

 

 

 

Bill Stone had a vision. Bill Dugan sold him a cheap piece of land next to his cabin on the river in Thomasville, and Bill Stone put in giant cement pilings. And reinforced the riverbank with cages full of rocks. He remembers the flood. Then he bought a bowling alley floor. And then he started building up.

   But he likes to cook, particularly crawdads and seafood, so first he built an outdoor kitchen on a deck overlooking the river. (That is not his outdoor kitchen above—that is the "indoor" kitchen, though the glass garage door and window over the sink roll up to another deck over the river that make it almost outdoors.) To the outdoor kitchen, he added a smoker, and a large screen TV to watch football games. I asked, aren't you afraid the rain is going to wreck it? He said, "Nah."

That's Dugan's house on the left, more typical of T'ville than Stone's extravaganza. The two Bills disagree on about everything politically, but they get along fine as (very close) neighbors. 

    All of these decks overhang the river. 

 

Much of the wood came from local lumberyards (except the bowling alley floor), and Stone clearly loves wood. He is building what he calls his meditation wall.

 And he lovingly pointed out the alien and the doggy in the grain on his bowling alley floor.

He is particularly proud of the lavish stove in his indoor-outdoor kitchen.

In the upstairs there is only one bedroom and a bathroom. The bath has no mirror, but rather a window to the river. "I don't need to look at myself," he says. Stone and his wife live in town about a half an hour away, but he and his crew work in T'ville. 

  "Does your wife come out much?" I asked.

  "Nah. She don't like it here." 

  "So this is your bachelor pad?"

  "More like the doghouse."

The downstairs bathroom features the below.

 The place is obviously a work in progress. Such furnishings as there are seem surprisingly mimsy for such an industrial design. But Stone is clearly having a wonderful time creating this artwork in his off hours. I will try to take a picture of the front of the house next time I am there. I meant to post this up long ago, but pictures are so slow to upload here in BI that it took me a while.

 

 

dove news

 

When I last saw the pair of mourning doves in my window in NY, they were switching off nesting duties. However, this pic from Toby's friend shows that the hatch as occurred. Now the parents are switching off feeding duties. And, as you can see from the pooping, the two chicks are being well fed. Just a few days later Debby took pictures (below) that showed how much the chicks had grown. Oddly, Hannah discovered a pair of mourning doves nesting in my porch in Block Island as well. (I can't get a good picture of the nest because it's too dark under the eaves.) So if I turn up a pair in Missouri, it's be a grand slam. Deep mourning.