Starry Aspirant

When the town was closed for winter I’d wear my winter overcoat and sit on beaches throwing stones to see which ones would float. All afternoon, as I sat in the beach what I was trying to be was out of reach. And in the days that followed I’d walk the shoreline of the sea and shudder in premonition of my death but did not let it bother me. That world is gone. It’s fallen through. It’s time is over. When can we start anew? For a while when you’re young, wo oh, you can take it in your stride or on the chin and you greet all of your woes, wo oh, with mock tears and a tiny violin. Yes, that’s all gone, and soon I will be too but before I’m over, I’d like to start anew. If I could roll again across the stones onto a beach as the day comes to a close and badly dance about a bonfire flames and feel the sand beneath my toes! But all the while I was thinking of the beach what I was trying to be was out of reach. So, even when we lived like dogs it felt like we were free running from pillow to l...

The routine can make you tetchy in this little ship of ours, cooped up in here for two months now with the destination Mars. And even if we survive, you still think were gonna make it out alive? Easy days are hard to take. In space, no one can hear you bark. The birdsongs play in the hydroponics bay, but isn't it just whistling in the dark? And even if we survive, you still think were gonna make it out alive? What is it that we lost? What have we undone? All we were looking for was another sun. Where are we headed now? It's into the unknown, but it doesn't look like we'll be going home. So the nebulae are blooming around the heart of a neutron star. Am I awake or am I dreaming? Maybe we have come too far, and even if we abide will we ever dare to take a step outside? Last week, it was a belt of asteroids that was keeping us on our toes. Some days it's hard to know what this is for. Maybe just see where this wormhole goes. But even if we survive, I wonder if we'r...

“Almost 70 deputies work for Kolomoisky, and another 100 for Akhmetov” reads a recent headline in Ukrayinska Pravda . The article then catalogues some of the actions in the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian legislature, that these parliamentarians are said to conduct on their patrons’ behalf. But Ihor Kolomoisky and Rinat Akhmetov are only the most high-profile of the handful of leading oligarchs who have dominated Ukraine’s political and economic life for more than two decades, usually to its detriment. Two sides of the same coin A striking feature modern Ukraine is not just the ongoing influence in public life of such figures, but also the resilience of the oligarchy as an institution across episodes of serious political disjuncture, including the Maidan revolt of 2013/14, which seemed for a short time to threaten its survival. An oligarchy is a political system dominated by a social minority of wealth holders. If wealth is the characteristic source of oligarchs’ social power, it is b...