You’re welcome!

Hemingway was the first lit writer I fell for and in my twenties I fell hard. More than any other writer Hemingway could convey direct experience, where the words dropped away and I was in the picture he was painting.

It’s a shame he’s fallen into disrepute as a dead white male and macho man to boot.

Turns out he was sexually more complicated than most people know. He had a fetish for women with short hair. They “crop” up in his writing and in his life.

His novel, “The Garden of Eden,” was published after his death and portrayed a couple who switch sex roles. In his last wife’s journal he added a curious paragaph:
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She has always wanted to be a boy and thinks as a boy without losing any of her femininity. If you should become confused on this, you should retire. She loves me to be her girls, which I love to be, not being absolutely stupid… In return she makes me awards, and at night we do every sort of thing which pleases her and which pleases me. […] I loved feeling the embrace of Mary, which came to me as something quite new and outside all tribal law.

https://www.esquire.com/uk/culture/books/a36004141/ernest-hemingway-pbs-documentary-sexuality-ken-burns/

Thanks for the information on the inspiration for Brett. I didn’t know that.

I saw the news that Russia had started withdrawing their troops after their exercise, but not that it was an annual event.
However, John Hinderaker’s speculation about the saber-rattling appears to explain why the press got so excited: first you tell everyone that a war is at our very doorsteps, then you praise the magnificent statesmen who headed it off.
So long as you never tell the rubes that there was never any war coming at all.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/02/whos-wagging-whose-dog.php

What follows is pure speculation, but I have had a sneaking suspicion for a while that the Ukraine crisis is ready-made for an international “solution” that benefits a number of leaders politically while avoiding any serious down-side. Like a war, for example.

That suspicion is strengthened by the positive turn that reporting on Ukraine has suddenly taken. Thus, the London Times headlines: “Diplomacy with Russia can still save Ukraine, insists Johnson.” Subhead: “Britain and US talk of ‘crucial window’ as Moscow hints at peaceful solution.”

You can see it coming:

Boris Johnson and President Biden have said that there remains a “crucial window” to avoid a Russian invasion of Ukraine as Moscow hints that it is still open to a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

In a marked change of tone the two western leaders agreed there was an opportunity to avert conflict as international efforts to ease tensions increased. The Russian foreign minister used a televised meeting with President Putin to hold the door open to peace.

“It seems to me that our possibilities [of diplomacy] are far from being exhausted,” Sergey Lavrov said. “[Talks] certainly should not continue indefinitely, but at this stage I would suggest that they continue and be intensified.”

Separately the Russian defence minister said that some military drills, which have fanned fears of invasion, had ended or were coming to a close.

So why might war fever suddenly be subsiding? U.S. officials warned that Russia planned an invasion for Wednesday, preceded by a “false flag” operation to serve as a pretext. Then Joe Biden had a long phone conversation with Vladimir Putin in which Biden supposedly conveyed stern warnings. If war is now called off, who benefits? Joe Biden.

The U.K. jumped into the fray on Ukraine’s side, asserting British standing in world affairs and coming to Ukraine’s defense, including, I believe sending some troops to the area. So if the Russian invasion is called off, who benefits? Someone who needs a boost almost as badly as Joe Biden: Boris Johnson.

Emmanuel Macron, following in the footsteps of Charles DeGaulle, charted his own course independent of NATO and tried to be a broker via independent conversations with the Russians. He is engaged in a tough re-election race; if the Ukraine crisis dissipates, he will take credit for it.

And Vladimir Putin, by far the most secure of these four leaders, will benefit as long as Russia gets something out of its mobilization of troops at the Ukraine border. Putin is popular because he is seen as a strong leader, but no leader’s popularity is enhanced by soldiers being killed. So Putin gets the best of both worlds if he takes an aggressive position, mobilizes troops and threatens war, but then achieves Russia’s ends by peaceful means. And, of course, he avoids sanctions that could threaten Russia’s creaky economy.

That last paragraph, and the rest of the post, actually make the assumption that Putin was really putting troops out seriously, not just running an annual exercise.
I don’t know which is true, but either one works out for the people taking credit where, in fact, no credit is due.

P.J. O’Rourke is dead.

One could do worse than wander among his quotes and raise a glass:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=pj+o%27rourke+quotes&t=opera&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images

For Congress, this disaster was an example of what could happen when technology developed faster than regulation. The emergency signal broadcast by wireless operators on board the ship [Titanic] was received by a Marconi telegraph station in Newfoundland, but, as the news broke, amateur radio operators up and down the U.S. East Coast filled the airwaves with radio noise that prevented the distress signal from being relayed promptly.

The 1906 International Radiotelegraph Convention, held in Berlin, called for countries to license their stations, and although United States representatives had signed this agreement, initially the U.S. Senate did not ratify the treaty. However, the U.S. was told it would not be invited to the next International Radiotelegraph Convention scheduled to be held in London in June 1912 unless it completed ratification, so on April 3, 1912, the U.S. Senate formally accepted the 1906 Convention, and began work on legislation to implement its provisions. The issue gained importance twelve days later due to the sinking of the Titanic,[2] and the new law would also incorporate provisions of the London Convention signed on July 5, 1912, although the United States had not yet ratified the new treaty. The resulting Radio Act of 1912 was signed by President Taft on August 13, 1912, and went into effect December 13, 1912.
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2. “House Strengthens New Wireless Law”. The New York Times. June 4, 1912. The Alexander substitute for the Hitchcock bill, which recently passed the Senate, amending the Wireless act of 1910 so as to take advantage of some of the lessons of the Titanic disaster, easily passed the House to-day without amendment.”

Wikipedia #2:

RMS Carpathia took three days to reach New York after leaving the scene of the disaster. Her journey was slowed by pack ice, fog, thunderstorms and rough seas. She was, however, able to pass news to the outside world by wireless about what had happened. The initial reports were confusing, leading the American press to report erroneously on 15 April that Titanic was being towed to port by the SS Virginian.

Later that day, confirmation came through that Titanic had been lost and that most of her passengers and crew had died.
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Carpathia docked at 9:30 pm on 18 April at New York’s Pier 54 and was greeted by some 40,000 people waiting at the quayside in heavy rain.

Brett was damned good-looking. She wore a slipover jersey sweater and a tweed skirt, and her hair was brushed back like a boy’s. She started all that. She was built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht, and you missed none of it with that wool jersey.

https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/hemingwaye-sunalsorises/hemingwaye-sunalsorises-00-h.html
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Brett sure sounded hot to me. She was based on Duff Twsden. You can see a group photo including Hemingway and Twysden in a Pamplona cafe on the wiki page:
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Mary Duff Stirling Smurthwaite, Lady Twysden was a British socialite best known for being the model for Brett Ashley in Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duff_Twysden

That’s awful! A true tragedy. I am sorry.