I bought this domain name on 7 April 2000, so in few days it’s been nineteen years since I first began to publish myself online. Much has change during these years, both to me and the Internet. When I undertook blogging, people were talking about the blogosphere as this new, radical thing that would rock the balance of power and enable just about anyone to become a citizen journalist. That’s a great thought, but we have since learned that it also meant mass-production of fake news by hostile regimes.

Russia has been particularly successful at fake news, and has managed to undermine a united Europe by unleashing its army of paid trolls in order to help the Kremlin-friendly and EU-bashing populists on the far right. So, now we have Brexit and Russian agencies actively backing Trump, Assange, Le Pen, Orbán, Salvini, Wilders, Farage, et cetera.

Recent studies show that people express great difficulties at distinguishing fake news and propaganda from genuine criticism of the political elite and mainstream media. None of this is getting better by the lack of funding for journalism and the paywalls newspaper set up in a desperate attempt to keep the few subscribers they have left.

The past nineteen years has also changed me. When I browse through my archive, I can see how I was an angry activist, sometimes fuelled by a childish assumption that political opponents had evil intent. I suppose everyone goes through stages in their life they later feel embarrassed about. There are quite a few diary entries I now wish I hadn’t written, but I made a decision many years ago not to delete anything unless it was required by law.

This relates back to the first issue. Fake news thrive on lack of criticism of one’s sources. Blogs like this one is an example of the importance of that. What you read on blogs is mostly subjective opinions and amateur analyses. Furthermore, the timestamp gives an indication of when this opinion was held and under what circumstances it was written. The Internet has a very short use-by date—on some social media it’s a matter of minutes.

No one talks about the blogosphere any more. Most of the professional blogs from a decade ago are now either retired or mainstream newspapers in their own right—even the crazy zealots have news agencies.

As this website enters its twentieth year, I’m thinking about what to do next. I’m not bothered with the fashionable, so I’ll continue to post entries in my diary. But as regular readers might have noticed, I’m not as productive as I used to be. That’s on purpose. I’m too old to be driven by emotional outbursts, and I no longer delude myself into thinking that blogging changes anything. I’ll continue, but only because it soothes me to record my thoughts on current affairs, daily life, and fine arts. Entries will be fewer and at slow pace, but hopefully they will be of noteworthy quality.

Patrick Kingsley of the New York Times has written an article on the new wave of ancient hostilities towards Jews.

Lucy McKeon’s article on Rastafarianism in the New York Review of Books is not new, but it’s a fascinating read nonetheless.

Theresa May asks for Brexit to be delayed until 30 June while she tries to win cross-party agreement, the Guardian reports.

This drama is an embossment to the British.

The liberal-conservative Moderate Party today announced that is has ditched the prefix nya (meaning new) in its name and logo. I’m no expert, but I think the new logo seen above has to be a nightmare for those suffering from colour blindness.

Jacob Rees-Mogg on Twitter:

If a long extension leaves us stuck in the EU we should be as difficult as possible. We could veto any increase in the budget, obstruct the putative EU army and block Mr Macron’s integrationist schemes.

A Europhobic toff is now tweeting threats against Europe. It’s difficult to understand why some Tories hate us so much.

What are to me those honours or renown
 Past or to come, a new born people’s cry?
Albeit for such I could despise a crown
 Of aught save laurel, or for such could die.
I am a fool of passion, and a frown
 Of thine to me is an adder’s eye
To the poor bird whose pinion fluttering down
 Wafts unto death the breast it bore so high;
Such is this maddening fascination grown,

 So strong thy magic or so weak am I.

“The first scientific study of cannabis resin sold on the streets of Madrid reveals that the vast majority contains traces of bacteria from human faeces,” The Local reports.

I guess some coprophilia helps when doing drugs.

I like the initiative. It’s a good thing to talk to these Muslim protesters. Watch Jones’s video at YouTube.

I love #DisabledPeopleAreHot 👍

It was easier to travel by train from Stockholm to Hamburg 30 years ago than it is today, Peter Wolodarski of Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter writes in a leading article. So much for going green.

The Swedish government could do more, of course, but that would require it to overcome its fear of helping Copenhagen becoming the hub of Scandinavia and take an active interest in southern Sweden. My guess is that all the talk of combating climate change will give way for plans to promote Stockholm. Sweden is one of the world’s most centralised unitary state. We’re in dire need of some federalism.

Brexit has given the Irish capital 92 British companies and 2,000 new jobs, the Belfast Telegraph reports.

The European parliamentary elections in May could result in a new political group. However, these parties have little in common apart from a contempt for Europe. I can’t but stop thinking that Europe’s populist movement is an expression of self-hatred—they miss the good old days when our continent was weak and little more than a playground for foreign superpowers.

First image of a black hole by the Event Horizon Telescope. The object M87* is located at the heart of distant galaxy Messier 87.

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The Wikileaks founder was dragged out of Ecuadorian Embassy in handcuffs by a large group of police officers today, the Daily Mail reports. This comes as Ecuador withdrew his political asylum after seven years after he was given refuge by the country in 2012. Ecuador’s decision came after “repeated violations to international conventions and daily-life protocols”.

In my opinion, Assange is a pathetic man who refuses to acknowledge any responsibility for his own actions. Instead of meeting prosecutors to explain his side of the alleged rape in Sweden, he went into hiding and came up with bizarre fantasies about Sweden wanting him sent to America. It’s astonishing that the embassy has put up with him for seven years.

So why did Ecuador throw Assange out of its London embassy after seven years?

Dan Collyns reports for the Guardian:

[Ecuador’s foreign minister] said Assange “permanently accused [embassy] staff of spying on and filming him” on behalf of the United States and instead of thanking Ecuador for nearly seven years of asylum he and his entourage launched “an avalanche of criticisms” against the Quito government. He referred also to the guest’s “hygienic” problems including one that was “very unpleasant” and “attributed to a digestive problem”.

I guess this is diplomatic language for obnoxious idiot who poop his underpants.

“Dumping unredacted information is the act of a useful idiot, not a journalist,” The Economist writes.

The WikiLeaks drama is a sad spectacle—from an organisation doing some useful journalism it turned into Putin’s lapdog.

Benedict, the pope emeritus, blames the Catholic Church’s systematic rape of children on the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Exactly how this explains the numerous stories of paedophilia among clergymen before 1960 is an enigma. If nothing else, Benedict could blame it on gay people—or Jews. One thing we know for sure is that he’ll never admit the church has any responsibility for its own actions. It’s always someone else’s fault.

Very saddening news from Paris.

The spire has fallen into the church itself and according to people working at the cathedral, all wooden artefacts are lost to the fire.

Notre-Dame was built between 1160 and 1260, with the cornerstone laid in the presence of Pope Alexander III.

“Firefighters risked their lives to stop the raging fire spreading to the two belfry towers,” Kim Willsher of the Guardian writes.

The disaster could have been so much worse.

I like the fact that the French allow some modern features. Restoring old buildings will never bring back the original, so why not make something new in tune with what’s left.

Former minister Margaret Beckett says Farage’s new Brexit party will win the EU elections unless Labour can portray itself as the natural home for remain voters. Yes, she’s right. It’s about time sensible British politicians stood up for Europe and stopped the extremists from setting the agenda.

William Barr, American’s attorney general, emphasises that the so-called Mueller investigation haven’t found any link between the Trump campaign and Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 election, but he suggests the report pinpoints “ten episodes” in which Donald Trump engaged in potential obstruction of justice.

One thing I love about Europe is its language diversity. The table below is based on data of spoken languages in the European Union. The list has no ranking, but English is the most useful language in the EU with its 51 per cent.

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Languages by speakers as percentage of EU population

Language	Native	Additional	Total
English	13%	38%	51%
Russian	1%	5%	6%
German	18%	14%	32%
Catalan	1%	1%	2%
French	12%	14%	26%
Arabic	1%	1%	2%
Italian	13%	3%	16%
Tamil	1%	0%	1%
Spanish	8%	7%	15%
Turkish	1%	0%	1%
Polish	8%	1%	9%
Galician	<1%	0%	<1%
Romanian	5%	0%	5%
Basque	<1%	0%	<1%
Dutch	4%	1%	5%
Scottish Gaelic	<1%	0%	<1%
Hungarian	3%	0%	3%
Luxembourgish	<1%	0%	<1%
Portuguese	2%	1%	3%
Welsh	<1%	0%	<1%
Greek	2%	1%	3%
Chinese	<1%	0%	<1%
Swedish	2%	1%	3%
Hindi	<1%	0%	<1%
Czech	2%	1%	3%
Urdu	<1%	0%	<1%
Bulgarian	2%	0%	2%
Slovak	1%	1%	2%
Danish	1%	0%	1%
Finnish	1%	0%	1%
Croatian	1%	0%	1%
Lithuanian	1%	0%	1%
Slovene	<1%	0%	<1%
Estonian	<1%	0%	<1%
Irish	<1%	0%	<1%
Latvian	<1%	0%	<1%
Maltese	<1%	0%	<1%

Shaun Walker of the Guardian writes:

Latest polling in Ukraine suggests that the actor and comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who has eschewed traditional political campaigning and given little insight into his policy positions, is set to win a crushing victory in Sunday’s presidential election.

Maybe all-show-no-politics politicians is a thing for the future.

The rate of people filing for divorce within two weeks of the Passover holiday is high.

Brunei’s EU embassy notes that the country’s sharia law was meant to prevent homosexuality from taking place instead of punishing people after the fact, Nikolaj Nielsen of the EU Observer reports. Furthermore, it says that people who commit less severe “crimes” are to be whipped with moderate force not to result in the laceration of the skin or broken bones.

Read the sultanate’s horrifying letter in full here.

“Police have confirmed that a 29-year-old woman has been shot dead following a night of disorder in Londonderry on Thursday,” the Belfast Telegraph reports.

This painting from early 1650s shows the brutality of stoning. This is the torturous punishment Brunei now defends in its letter to the EU.

Now that Netanyahu is expected to set up the most radical right-wing government in Israel’s history, there is a clear and present danger that the alliance with the liberal Jewish diaspora will crash and burn, Chemi Shalev of Haaretz thinks.

Unfortunately, I think he’s right.

“The White House that emerges from more than 400 pages of Mr. Mueller’s report is a hotbed of conflict infused by a culture of dishonesty—defined by a president who lies to the public and his own staff, then tries to get his aides to lie for him,” Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman of the New York Times write.

It’s so sad to see what is happening to our world in this era of self-important populists.

The European Parliament passed a resolution yesterday condemning the new Brunei penal code, which introduces the death penalty for homosexuality. Good!

I think this painting from 1868 is perhaps the best artwork Sweden has to show from that time.

David and Louise Turpin—who tortured, abused, starved, and imprisoned their thirteen children—were today sentenced to twenty-five years to life in prison, Paloma Esquivel of the Los Angeles Times reports. Unbelievable!

I have thought about doing one for years, but now I finally got around to do it. This page will operate just as my Twitter page has done for a long time, with entries posted in this diary simultaneously posted in these social media. Visit the new page at: facebook.com/ChristopherAqurette

“The photos have been chosen from more than 2,000 entries in various categories,” BBC writes. The Guardian also publishes a gallery. Some a quite stunning.

Esther Felden of Deutsche Welle writes about Dinslaken, a small town that became known as a Salafist hotbed in 2013 when local youths left for Syria.

It’s Deutsche Welle that quotes the outgoing president of the European Commission. I’m just thinking: “Get a room!”

“The most popular proposal for recreational cannabis is taxing and regulating the drug like alcohol, allowing adults to use and possess it—with 60% of Americans expressing support and just 20% opposing it,” Dominic Holden of BuzzFeed reports.

Kurdish authorities in Iraq announced on yesterday that the children of Sweden’s notorious Islamic State terrorist Michael Skråmo can be taken to Swedish consulate in Iraq, The Local reports. I hope these children will do well despite having had such a despicable madman for a father.

Years after everyone else, I’m watching Nick Antosca’s Channel Zero. Love it, and its tagline: “Adulthood is just a mask, a sophisticated mask.”

Twenty-three counties participated in NATO’s ‘Locked Shields 2019’, which is the world’s largest international live-fire cyber defence exercise. France won and Sweden came third.

According to a new public opinion poll, the number of Americans who approve of Donald Trump has dropped to the lowest level of the year, Reuters reports.

She has released a first single from her forthcoming album, Madame X. The song is called “Medellín” and I think it’s quite good, but that’s mostly due to Colombian singer Maluma.

NPR reports a horrific story of judicial abuse.

It’s interesting that both Britain and Spain are unitary states despite having regions with greater autonomy than many regions within federations.

“There’s a 90% chance he’ll be a disaster, but I’m going to vote for him anyway,” a voter tells the Guardian’s Shaun Walker. What could possibly go wrong?

“Eight blasts were reported, including at three churches in Negombo, Batticaloa and Colombo’s Kochchikade district during Easter services,” BBC reports. “Sri Lanka’s defence minister has said the attacks were probably carried out by one group.”

“Mr Zelensky’s entire election campaign has been based on being different and defying convention,” BBC writes. “He has shunned official rallies or political speeches, but put out lots of cheerful videos on social media.”

Jarosław Kaczyński, Poland’s infamous nut-in-chief, says the country shouldn’t join the euro until economic levels are equal to those of Germany. Maybe he should worry more about his government’s violations on judicial independence, which is fundamental to a functioning economy without corruption.

“The number of Swedish citizenship applications from British citizens has soared recently,” The Local reports. “During the first four months of 2019, 1,563 cases were submitted to Sweden’s Migration Board, almost as many as received throughout 2016 and a noticeable increase from 2018.”

“That margin of victory—48 percent—will be the largest in the history of Ukrainian presidential elections,” Olga Rudenko of the Kyiv Post writes.

“I believe the current HKD-to-USD peg will end as the HKMA [Hong Kong Monetary Authority] adopts an independent monetary policy,” Adem Tumerkan of Speculators Anonymous writes. “And after—we could see a 25–40% drop in the HKD as the HKMA cuts rates to stimulate the slowing economy.”

Leonardo’s myriad talents were underpinned by a his drawing. “Leonardo was not the only one to draw machines and to do scientific drawings, many other engineers did that, and very often the object of the representation is the same, but what Leonardo did better than others is to make a revolution of the technical drawing,” Claudio Giorgione, curator at the Leonardo da Vinci National Science and Technology Museum in Milan, says.

Some time ago, I read parts of a Robert Wright’s book, One Nation Under Debt: Hamilton, Jefferson, and the History of What We Owe (2008). Based on personal experiences, my federalist take on the future of the EU, and what I have learned from this book, I wrote a reply in a Facebook discussion on whether or not the Eurozone is an optimum currency area (OCA). I post it here, too.

The fluctuation in currency value in the Öresund region, where I live, is not optimal for growth. People and businesses can’t invest on the other side of this small channel of water because of unruly currency fluctuation. For people living in Denmark and working in Sweden, the value of their work alters so much and so often that long-term plans are impossible. Swedish companies that can’t afford to pay wages in the Danish krona or otherwise compensate for the uncertainty lose their most qualified staff. So I don’t see how Sweden is a better OCA for us than the EU.

We have been told so many times that he euro is a failure, but yet it does better than the Swedish krona. National currencies are great for smoothing over problems caused by national governments. People can have the value of their property and purchasing power taken away without protest, and there’s inducement to buy less from abroad. So, instead of people competing with wages and know-how on a free labour market, individuals are forced into collective competition. My salary is not based on my performance but on the performance by my government.

There is a historic parallel to the debate Europe that offers a drastic solution. When the United States had just become independent from Britain its member states suffered from heavy debt. People predicted it would threatened to destroy the union. As in the EU today, there was a sharp division between those who said that the individual states should be sovereign and those who favoured federalism. Thomas Jefferson came to represent the former, as he considered himself foremost a Virginian national. Alexander Hamilton represented the latter, as he considered himself an American and wanted a federation stretching the whole continent. Hamilton won the debate and the states’ debt was taken over by a federal authority.

The Eurozone is far from perfect, but the main obstacle to success is the burden of nationalism and the idea that we Europeans are forever held back by our national identities. The US managed to change 50-plus currencies into the dollar and created joint government bonds. In my opinion, Europe ought to do a similar journey.

Inside me there’s an abstract expressionist trying to get out.

"If governments make claims about the EU or the commission, which do not correspond to the truth, then we will respond," Juncker says, according to The Local.

Sadly, I think they will fail. Few organisations are surrounded by so many lies and so much dishonesty as the EU. Problem is that these lies often serves national leaders when they blame the EU for doing stupid things they themselves have decided the EU should do.

The Islamic State claims responsibility the Easter Sunday bombings at churches and hotels in Sri Lanka, the New York Times reports. The death toll has now risen to 321.

Only a few decades ago, unmarried women who became pregnant were condemned by church and society. They had to find help at special homes. Deirdre Finnerty of the BBC has written the horrific story of one such place.

At midnight, a bomb exploded about two kilometres from where I live in Malmö. It’s happened so often that no one cares, not even the neighbours interviewed by Sydsvenskan’s reporter. And that’s what scares me the most. How did this become the new normal?

Ruwan Wijewardene says that one of the terrorists studied in Britain and Australia before carrying out the bombings, which may have been funded by the Islamic State, Kate Lyons and Michael Safi of the Guardian report.

So, the American president had a meeting in the White House with Twitter to discuss his declining numbers of followers! It could have been a joke by the Daily Show, but no, the source is Reuters. Jeebus!

Quote: “The best way to boost our global relevance is to do exactly what we are doing: deepening both the banking and the capital markets unions, and building an euro area budget.”

A new poll among registered voters in America has found Biden leading over Trump by 8 percentage points, Eli Yokley of the Morning Consult reports. Good! But it’s sad that yet another election is fought by old men alone.

…but why not play the song for Maluma?

Data from 25 May 2014 to 10 April 2019. Source: Emanuel Karlsten.

Anna Maria Corazza Bildt (M)	123
Christofer Fjellner (M)	109
Lars Adaktusson (KD)	47
Olle Ludvigsson (S)	71
Gunnar Hökmark (M)	62
Marita Ulvskog (S)	59
Anna Hedh (S)	37
Aleksander Gabelic (S)	13
Malin Björk (V)	40
Jens Nilsson (S)	25
Jytte Guteland (S)	32
Jakop Dalunde (MP)	23
Jasenko Selimovic (L)	27
Soraya Post (FI)	16
Kristina Winberg (SD)	27
Max Andersson (MP)	27
Fredrick Federley (C)	23
Peter Lundgren (SD)	19
Bodil Valero (MP)	24
Anders Sellström (KD)	5
Linnéa Engström (MP)	16
Peter Eriksson (MP)	6
Cecilia Wikström (L)	3

On 26 April, the Commonwealth will celebrate its 70th birthday as a modern club of equals, five days after the Queen’s 93rd. Who cares about this club of former colonies? If The Economist is right, all but a tiny few reckons it pretty pointless.

The album has been remastered for its 35th anniversary and I can’t stop listening to this:

It’s so hard to get old without a cause
I don’t want to perish like a fading horse
Youth’s like diamonds in the sun,
And diamonds are forever

I predict a party implosion caused by too much stupidity in a ballot list not long enough.

Speaking at a lecture this week, the chairman of Poland’s ruling party called gay rights an attack on Polish values and conflated it with paedophilia, Reiss Smith of Pink News reports.

Homophobes really need new arguments.

Yesterday, Denmark’s national theatre published its 2019/2020 repertoire. I’ve been a season-ticket holder for years, but I’m not sure I like the idea of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde in concert.

Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister, is having one of his rants on Twitter, complaining about people calling him fascist. But that’s like saying Earth is round. It’s a fact. Why not embrace it?

I feared that my trip to Vilnius next week would be cancelled, but it’s not affected. It’s operated by one of SAS’s partners. Now I know, thanks to The Local. But I’m heading to Spain a week later—maybe.

The Swedish Academy has elected Mats Malm, a literary historian, as its new head.

The past years have been difficult for the academy, but it’s badly needed, so I hope this will be a good choice.

ANSA reports that neo-fascists have destroyed a memorial in central Bologna, made to commemorate partisans who died fighting for the city in the 1940s. The Local reports of many similar attacks.

The statement is reported by Gay Times. But it comes as no surprise. During the election campaign, Jair Bolsonaro said that he would rather have a dead son than a gay one.

Some argue that not only are Jews forbidden to eat chametz (leaven) on Passover, but they also cannot derive any benefit from it, which means that they cannot feed it to their pets, Jerusalem Post reports.

Two days after the last one, yet another bomb went off only three blocks from my home in Malmö. It happened a few minutes past midnight at Drottninggatan, a busy street in the city centre, Sydsvenskan reports.

James Driscoll writes in the Washington Blade. Quote:

Vice President Mike Pence and Second Lady Karen Pence are expected to set a standard for America. Recently, Karen Pence resumed her employment in a school whose official policies systematically discriminate against LGBT Americans. Mike and Karen Pence excused this by claiming that condemnation of homosexuality is part of the Christian religion. Actually, it’s a social bias in violation of the religion’s ethical core, the Golden Rule. Cutting the Pences slack here sets a precedent that may be used to sanction more dangerous forms of anti-LGBT discrimination in the name of religion.

Addressing the National Rifle Association (NRA) in Indianapolis, the US president said he would revoke America’s status as a signatory of the treaty, David Smith of the Guardian reports.

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Quote:

The US signed the treaty in 2013 but never ratified it. The NRA has long claimed the treaty poses a threat to the second amendment. On Friday its members stood, applauded and chanted “USA! USA!” as Trump signed a letter to Congress halting the ratification process, then tossed his pen into the crowd.

* One seat less if Brexit doesn’t happen. Source: Europaportalen

Party	Seats
	April 2019 poll	2014 election
Moderate Party	4	3
Centre Party	1	1
Liberal Party	0	2
Christian Democrats	2	1
Social Democrats	5	5
Left Party	2	1
Green Party	2	4
Sweden Democrats	5*	2
Feminist Party	0	1
Total	21*	20

“Nearly 97,000 people donated in first 24 hours, campaign says following Thursday launch,” Adam Gabbatt of the Guardian reports.

Impressive.

The New York Times reports the story.

It would be more surprising is Russia didn’t try to destabilise American democracy once more. That’s their thing now.

Bought a new app for my iPhone. Didn’t work. Hate when that happens. Believe there’s a special place in hell for bad app developers.

Yesterday, Swedish media reported that the Left Party has an election poster with a man carrying a T-shirt from the militant group AFA, responsible for numerous attacks on elected officials and therefore considered a threat to democracy by the Swedish Security Service.

Today, the party’s Alingsås branch retorts by bashing centre-right support for Israel.

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In my translation, the tweet reads:

We understand that the Right is raging over the T-shirt on our poster.

What we don’t understand is their support for an extremely violent organisation that oppresses an entire people, kills their children, and takes their land.

And no, they don’t refer to the daily bombardment of Israel from Gaza.

I’m watching Umbre, a Romanian series on HBO. Highly recommend.

A gunman opened fire in a synagogue in Southern California on yesterday, the New York Times reports. One person was killed and three others were injured during a religious service on the last day of Passover.

“Unlike the EU, China seems willing to pay any price to punish Donald Trump’s voters,” The Economist writes.

The most significant new development of these elections is the emergence of far-right party Vox. Spain hasn’t had a large far-right party since the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.

Source: El País

The New Spanish Congress
Party	Seats	Percentage
Social Democracas	123	28.68%
People’s Party	66	16.7%
Citizens	57	15.86%
Podemos	42	14.31%
VOX	24	10.26%
Catalonian Left	15	3.89%
Together for Catalonia	7	1.91%
Basque Nationalist Party	6	1.51%
Basque Country Unite	4	0.99%
Canarian Coalition	2	0.53%
Navarra Suma	2	0.41%
Commitment 2019	1	0.66%
Cantabrian Regionalists	1	0.2%

According to Tyler Durden of the somewhat dodgy Zero Hedge, 21-year-old Abdulkareem al-Hawaj was executed in Saudia Arabia a few days ago for an anti-government message he sent when he was 16 years old.

Tales Soares died after becoming sick and falling on the catwalk at São Paulo fashion week in Brazil, the Guardian reports.

The heroic 51-year-old army veteran chased the shooter into the car park, Laura Newberry of the Los Angeles Times reports.

One person was killed by the gunman before he fled.

“The Liberal Party wants Sweden to join the EU for real, we should be part of the EU’s internal core with a future goal of membership in the eurozone,” Jan Björklund and Karin Karlsbro write in Dagens Industri.

I second that.

“Estonian ministers of Finance and Internal Affairs, giving the white power sign at their swearing-in ceremony before Parliament today,” Toomas Hendrik Ilves tweets.

I’m travelling to Vilnius tomorrow, so I took a quick look at the latest news from Lithuania and discovered that they are about to have referendums on dual citizenship and on cutting the number of seats in parliament.

“With Emperor Akihito abdicating the Chrysanthemum Throne on Tuesday, three decades of Heisei—an era named in the hopes of ‘achieving peace’—will come to a close,” Sakura Murakami of the Japan Times writes.

I’m travelling to Vilnius today. It’s my first ever visit to Lithuania. It’ll be a short 24-hour trip. A meeting and ballet at the National Theatre.

In many European countries, foreign films and TV shows are dubbed into the local language. Here in Lithuania, they run both soundtracks simultaneously. It’s fascinating in its absurdity.

I’ve been to the opera house in Vilnius tonight. I saw a triptych of one-act ballets. The two first were good, but the third—“Days, Minutes” by choreographer Martynas Rimeikis—was truly superb.

People clash with regime-loyal police in the streets of Caracas. When will humankind learn that neither nationalism nor socialism work? The combination of the two even less so.