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Notes -
Two anecdotes about language barriers:
Baseball's Carlos Beltran, the Mets slugger and Astros cheater, complained when he was part of the MLBPA union reps that Japanese players like Ichiro Suzuki got translators paid for by the team, who staid with Ichiro at all times and translated all questions in interviews. This despite the fact that Ichiro, by the end of his career, he spoke decent English, although many players weren't aware of it. Meanwhile Latin players like Beltran, many of whom had educations that effectively ended in the eighth grade when they were signed to a minor league contract, were expected to just learn English, and forced to give interviews in English on the field after games without any help in a language they barely spoke. As a result, Japanese players typically came across sounding the way Ichiro did: "He crafts his public portrayal similar to the image he projects on the field: a technician, a warrior, a Ph.D. in stoicism;" because he was able to carefully consider his answers as they passed through a translator, which were then relayed back to the interviewer in perfect English. While Latin players often came across stupid, dimwitted, smiling and athletic but not particularly bright. Beltran hated that he had all these thoughts about baseball, and couldn't express them to anyone, and when he was a prominent star he pressured the league to start providing Spanish language staff on each team to help Spanish speaking players get more comfortable giving interviews.
When Elie Wiesel's Night came out, it was written in both French and Hebrew. In theory, they're direct translations, made by the author himself. But, the devil, as ever, is in the details. For example, when the camp is liberated, the English (which was translated from the French) contains an incongruous line about the young boys going to the village to "sleep with girls." Meanwhile, in the Hebrew, the boys go to the village to "rape German shiksas." Wiesel preferred one meaning for his Jewish readers, and another for the Gentiles. Who knows which, if either, is the truth, it's hard to picture recently liberated concentration camp victims getting up to much either way. But it sure changed my opinion on Wiesel's veracity.
Either could be the case here. Going through a translator gives Zelensky an extra couple seconds to think, and collect his answer before giving it. It helps him sound the way he wants to sound. Further, if they were using Zelensky's translator, he would use Zelensky's preferred language choices. If they did the interview in Russian, then presumably the English translation would be produced by Friedman himself, who would choose how to present Zelensky's words. Or, it might be that Zelensky prefers to present different information in English than to Russian speaking audiences. Not that it won't be translated into Russian/Ukrainian, but fewer Ukies will consume it, and if they get offended at what he says, it can be put down to translation.
I listened to a good amount of the interview while plowing snow today, before I got too tired of it. I like Lex, but he beclowned himself in this one. If you want to tell the guy he lost the war, fine, but I couldn't stand his stupid "But all I want is PEACE" bit, or his ridiculous "I just have a FEELING that Putin wants to talk." Why do Americans all seem to have this weird thought that they know what Putin wants to do? The translation also seemed terrible, the whole thing was disjointed. Zelensky was...fine I guess? Pretty boring.
I still have yet to have heard a peace plan better than my plan:
RETVRN TO TRADITION: Why NATO should seek to install Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on the throne of Ukraine
The government of Ukraine cannot end the war with Russia in a position where Russia could renew the war in the future. As the permanent neutering of Russia is impossible or inadvisable, most commentators want to provide Ukraine with some kind of security guarantee from the USA/NATO/PRC that will prevent future Russian aggression, but negotiated in some unspecified way that it isn't just adding Ukraine to NATO, which it is basically assumed Russia wouldn't accept unless, as above, Russia was permanently neutered, which, as above, is impossible or inadvisable. Another problem being that Ukraine tried that shit once already, with all nuclear powers guaranteeing the integrity of Ukraine's borders, and we've seen how much that was worth when the bullets started flying. Given that Ukraine had non-alliance security guarantees in 2014 and in 2021, it does not seem like they would successfully repel Russian aggression. So how do we tie Ukraine to the NATO powers in a way that is genuinely credible and will be viewed by Ukrainians as a binding guarantee, but isn't article 5?
Let's look at how the Concert of Europe in the 19th century handled this: Constitutional or absolute monarchy was held to be the best form of government, and when a new country was formed, they would simply install a monarch from another royal family. The monarch's had no necessary special relation to their new domain, the first king of Belgium was originally considered for the job of king of Greece, which went to another German monarch instead. King Charles and his sons are descended from the Greek royal family [through a switch in royal houses en route] on his father's side, so it's family tradition to say: Prince Harry should form a mercenary corps, join the UKR forces and take Crimea, then Harry and Meagan should be installed as Grand Prince and Grand Princess of Kiev while naming Archie as Ilkhan of Crimea and heir while engaging him to the daughter of Ukrainian General or politician.
Harry does have some military experience in combat, and he's still young enough at 38 and popular enough, that he could credibly recruit a military force of thousands of veterans from the USA, UK, Canada, and Australia to join him in this venture. I think there's still enough weird tradition to get guys from the Commonwealth countries to want to ride out with a rogue devil-may-care prince into combat. He could get the money to fund their equipment and training from his friends Oprah and Tyler Perry and by selling the TikTok rights, or the CIA could fund it covertly, whichever, just get all the money for the full shebang of western toys. Take his fully equipped brigade of western veterans, go to Ukraine, and put up a good show. I don't think Harry is actually that bright, but he could find a bored retired general to handle the actual conquering for him.
At the end of the war, like our ancestors before us, the international community gets together to name Harry and Megan Grand Prince and Princess of Kiev. Now if Russia invades again ten years from now, do you really think that the UK is going to sit idly by and watch their King's son, their heir's brother, Diana's son, get thrown out? Maybe the UK public doesn't much like Harry and Meggan, but watching a close relative get deposed is just getting cucked as a kingdom, no way [Keir, or whoever] lets that happen. And is the US public going to let a celebrity BIPoC diverse prince and his valid mentally suffering actress mum get tossed in the tower? No way. We often mock the 19th century Royalists obsession with installing monarchs, but this was the purpose. It tied the new country to the international community by blood. In the same way, by creating a British ginger king and a halfrican American queen, Ukraine can guarantee that the two most important countries in NATO will have their back. And we'll be free of their podcasting project.
You're welcome, Lex. Propose it at the start of your next talk with Zelensky. It'll make for a better episode.
If I had a nickel for every time someone had proposed expanding the British Commonwealth as a way to address a geopolitical question, I'd... have a bit more than two nickels, but it is odd how many there would be in the 21st century alone.
I don't actually know enough about the Commonwealth to know if that's what I'm proposing or not.
But outside trolling, the solution is going to lie in some answer that is greater than Budapest and less than NATO. Where is it? I don't know. But I would have liked to see Lex try and give one, if he's going to bang on about praying for peace. At the least it would have been more interesting.
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Note that Prince Harry is the great-great-great-great-grandson of a Russian Tsar (Nikolai I - Konstantin Nikolayevich - Ol'ga Konstantinovna - Andreas tis Elladas - Philip of Edinburgh - Charles III - Harry of Sussex).
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