#joe sachs

[djkerr]

The fabulous writing staff of The Pitt + more BTS pictures.

📷 🎥 @cynteeeahh IG

[spill-spill-spill]

on the soul

–Joe Sachs introduction to his translation of Aristotle's de Anima.

[anaxerneas]

From Joe Sachs's translation of the Nichomachean Ethics

[bellsandwords]

"How can the tragic figure be both a pitiable victim and the responsible source of his own ruin?"

Joe Sachs, Introduction to Poetics

[sachart]

👊🏽

[blood-mocha-latte]

RARELY SOFT OR CONSOLATORY | 4.7K | RATED T

Merry Christmas (Eve), @sachart! I was your Secret Santa <33. I hope you've had a lovely lovely winter and will continue to have happy happy holidays, and truly hope you enjoy this fic. Your art and kindness is an inspiration, and I truly had the loveliest time creating for you :).

Bill used to think more about his brother. The lack of knowledge about his death and only learning from an accident used to keep him up some nights, mulling over a visage of Henry that never received the letters that he’d still written.

However, now, in the frozen black belly of burnt-down France, he can barely think past Joe Toye’s blue-turning-black toes or George Luz’s red-ringed eyes or a dozen other things that stick out sore along the white backdrop. 

(Bill Guarnere, winter during the war, being out of commission, and winter after it. A reflective.)

READ ON AO3 OR BELOW THE CUT

His stomach hurt. 

A slight exacerbation. 

Everything hurt, but his stomach most of all. Half from being empty, half from being cold, and another half on top of the first two from the goddamn worry. 

Bill was used to worry, too. That was the thing. He was used to worrying about his brothers — for Earnest, at least, and over his Ma for Henry — and used to worrying about the men — he’d thrown up behind a mole hill a few hours after Bull had gone missing. Not his proudest moment, one he kept secret. But one nonetheless. 

He was also used to worrying about pain. About how it felt, and more distinctly, the way that shrapnel had felt, like molten, liquid heat that’s only goal was to burn. 

As it was turning out, the cold burned, too. 

Most notably — or, maybe, most impactfully, at least to Bill — it was burning Joe.

“I’m fine.” Toye, in question, said, face tensely lined with what he wouldn’t voice aloud as he shifted against the frozen dirt of the foxhole, careful to keep his foot stretched out in front of him, leg ramrod straight. Bill just stared at him. 

“Joe, you look like a half-frozen vegetable.” Bill told him. Toye grimaced at him, like the action could somehow be mistranslated as a laugh. “Listen—” He started and winced, having shifted against the wall of the foxhole and alighting the sharp, bitter twang of old wounds all over again. “—there’s extra food with Ramirez, and I think that Skip has—”

“I’m not taking more than my fair share.” Joe told him firmly, not for the first time, uninterested in the rest of Bill’s sentence when he knew it would just be the same thing everyone had been telling him. Bill threw his hands up in the air, and the cold seemed to bite at the tips of his fingers like it was alive. 

“Your fair share ain’t enough, you know that—”

“There’s other guys that need it more—”

“Who? Because you’re the only idiot I see around stupid enough to still be—”

“Thanks, Guarno, but I’m fine.” Joe shut him down, more tense than before, as soon as the words left his lips. Bill shut his mouth with a click, reopened it with something to say on the tip of his tongue, then sighed and closed it again. 

“Fine.” He muttered, pressing his palms to the teeth of the frozen mud in order to pull himself up, shifting his weight gingerly from foot to foot until he feels loose enough to clamber out of the hole. He paused before he did so, however, glancing over his shoulder and watching how Joe watched him, face set in pain. “It’s… I care about ya’, you know.” 

Something in Joe’s eyes loosen, but not in his expression. Still, he says, “yeah, Bill. I know.” With enough gentleness to convince Bill to turn around again, pull himself out of the hole and wince at the sharp complaint of the shrapnel scar at his hip.

He started pushing back through trees and snow without much preamble, not exactly interested in waiting around and watching Toye freeze to death, and found George Luz waiting for him.

Waiting was probably the wrong word, since Bill was certain Luz wasn’t there for him, in specifics, but the other had his arms crossed over his sternum, fingers curled into his own body heat. In the absence and lack of cigarettes Bastogne has provided, he’d taken to running his tongue over his top lip before pulling the bottom one between his teeth.

He tilted his head at Bill when he saw him. A silent question. Bill shook his head, unneeding of preamble, and Luz just closed his eyes, brief, mulling and tired, before opening them again. They were ringed with red, and Bill didn’t have to ask why. Luz had been spending more time with Toye than Bill had, anyways, and even the limited time he had had was enough for his chest to feel tight. 

“Thanks.” He said anyways, voice somewhere between a deadpan that always seemed somewhat light on him and something genuine. Bill just cuffed him carefully on the side of his face before moving down to shake his shoulder. 

“No point in talking to him, I don’t think.” Bill told him. Luz just looked over his shoulder, pulling his bottom lip back in between his teeth. 

“Yeah, well, I think I’ll—” He began. Bill tossed an arm over his shoulders before he could get too far, and George walked with him without much restraint.

“Don’t see how you could get through to him when I couldn’t.” Bill told him, which seemed too harsh to say, but he couldn’t regret voicing when he knew that Luz would just keep trying anyways, with, he was near-convinced, the same results. 

They were both Toye’s friends, and if Joe wouldn’t listen to Bill, he doubted he’d listen to Luz. 

Luz went with him without much fanfare. Ramirez didn’t actually have extra food, not really, but Bill knew that they’d’ve been able to scrape something together between at least a few guys, in case Toye would have actually agreed. 

Luz turned to him as they hit the slight slope where some of the others had dug in, mainly Perconte and Skip. He looked tired, more tired than Bill had ever seen him and more beat down than some of the guys in the regiment. “Thanks for tryin’, Bill.” He said, seeming genuine, and Bill just shrugged.

“Joe’s my friend.” He said, didn’t tack on the so are you, and hoped that it was understood. He still didn’t understand, entirely, why Luz had asked him to check up on Toye, but figured that it had to do with having more guys on board leading to a likelier chance of the goddamn moron accepting more help. 

Roe may have gotten him new shoes, but Bill doubted that frostbite was the sort of thing to be cured with a dead mans worn down leather.

They parted ways, after that. Bill went off to find Babe or Buck. Or maybe Lip.

-----

Bill didn’t write very many letters anymore. Earnest couldn’t read, and Henry was dead, and, as much as he hated to admit it, he had trouble trusting his ma, anymore. 

He didn’t understand, why she wouldn’t tell him that Henry was killed. Why they wrote letters back and forth about nothing for five months and he wrote one sided letters that never reached Henry for five months and nothing ever came of it until he had to learn about Monte Casino from Pat Martin. 

Still, he was trying to be dutiful, and he tapped the blistered, frozen end of his index finger against the letter he’d been trying to write for the better part of a week before lowering it, slight, with a huff. 

It was hard to focus, out here. Not a lot to talk about, anyways. Nothing he wanted his mother to know about, at least. 

It was still early in the day, at least when a watch was counting, but the sky was dark from a combination of an early setting sun and clouds of artillery fire, and Bill carefully folded the already ripped and freezing letter before putting it back into his pocket.

Compton was asleep next to him, barely moving. Bill would even doubt that he was breathing, if not for the white clouds that hung intermittently in the air, neatly suspended.

Careful not to wake him up, Bill pulled himself out of the grave and turned, careful, on a knee. He bent down enough to grab his rifle and pack and, glancing around for half of a second, set off. 

He was looking for Lipton, mainly because Lip probably had something for him to do and, if he didn’t, at least would put up the effort of attempting to find something. 

Navigating through the forest mainly on memory, Bill paused, for half of a second, when Toye’s voice caught on the icy shards of the air for half of a second before dispersing. 

“‘S not going to work.” He said, sounded tired, and there was an exhale of breath that didn’t seem to belong to him, equally tired but maybe more determined.

“It might.” George Luz retorted, voice hoarse. “It might, so I’m not gonna stop—”

“George—”

“Joe.” Luz’s voice again, but firmer, less like himself in how little room he left for any type of humor. “Please.” 

His voice broke on the word. 

Bill hesitated in place, boots shifting against the snow for half of a second, unsure of whether or not to move on. If Luz was still trying to convince Toye to eat, or at least take some semblance of more rations than the other guys, then Bill should be there, he felt. But this felt like something different, more intimate, somehow, and he wasn’t sure about how to intrude. 

It felt like maybe he wouldn’t need to, since the silence from the foxhole stretched on for too long, carried by the stillness of the frozen air, until Toye said, voice lower, rougher, “fine.” 

Luz sighed, a quiet, heavy and relieved sound, and Bill shifted, started walking away. 

He still had to find Lip, anyways.

-----

Two days later, it was December 25th, and there wasn’t much fanfare. 

Earlier in the day, they had talked about it briefly. Malarkey had said, rather glumly, that he didn’t think Christmas could exist, here, and Bill had decided to agree with him and move on. No use dwelling when there were better things to complain about.

However, but and in spite of this, when it was dark enough out again that Bill thought it may be midnight at four in the afternoon, George Luz pressed a cigarette into his palm and said, “Merry Christmas, Ghonorrhea.” 

Bill just blinked down at it. “You’re shitting me.”

Luz, apparently mistaking Bill’s bewilderment at his ability to save a cigarette out here, just shrugged. He turned against the foxhole he’d dropped into to present the gift to Bill, sliding down to sit next to him and pressing their shoulders together for warmth. “Nah.” He said, rather dully. “It’s Christmas.” 

Bill snorted a laugh. It was sort of happy. A bit of an in-between, half-hearted amusement that was only funny because of who told the joke. “You give smokes to everyone?” 

“Everyone I could.” Luz agreed. When Bill looked over at him, his eyes were closed, head dipped back against the frozen wall of the foxhole. The tip of his nose was blue. 

Bill shifted, patting down his pocket with numb fingers until he found his lighter. 

It was almost out, as Bill had taken habit to flicking it on and off for temporary warmth once the nights had stretched darker and smokes had run out, and it took him four tries to correctly spike the wheel and get the cigarette to catch. 

Once it did, he held it out to Luz. George just shook his head, pushing Bill’s hand back towards his own mouth. He didn’t say anything, and Bill just shook his head before taking a drag. 

“Hell, I’d think you’re dying.” He said grimly, perhaps slightly ironic. George huffed, like it was any sort of particularly amusing. “Giving up a smoke and then refusing to share it.” 

The laugh he got for that seemed rather real. Luz shifted enough for them to be further apart but still share warmth, propping an elbow onto his knee as he pressed fingertips to his lips, as if in memory. 

“Nah.” He said around his hand, quiet, but still amused. “It’s… I shared one earlier.”

He looked vaguely embarrassed. Bill watched him, close, for half of a second before shrugging. 

“Alright.” He said, ambivalent. “I’m not gonna complain.” 

The tip of Luz’s nose was still tinged with blue, but his face looked almost red. Bill chalked it up to the cold and left it at that. 

-----

Bill used to think more about Henry. The lack of knowledge about his death and only learning from an accident used to keep him up some nights, mulling over a visage of his brother that never received the letters that he’d still written.

However, now, in the frozen black belly of burnt-down France, he can barely think past Joe Toye’s blue-turning-black toes or George Luz’s red-ringed eyes or a dozen other things that stick out sore along the white backdrop. 

Among those things stand sound. 

When he was younger, his mother had once told him that he could hear a bell ring from five miles off and come running to see the what for. Now, in war, it turned out to be very much the same. 

He’d come to his friends when he’d heard them laughing, he’d come to them when he heard them swearing, and he didn’t have to think about it for very long at all before coming to his friend when he was calling for help. 

That was all that he remembered, for a long while. 

I gotta get up. 

-----

The slow hobble back to America started in France, and the hospital that was just outside of Foy was crowded, smelled putrid, and was still somehow cold. 

In spite of that, Toye was running a fever, and the dots of crystal that ran along his brow made Bill more worried than the fact that he couldn’t feel anything below his belly button. 

“Y’think George is alright?” Joe asked him, his words slurring in strange places and vowels drawing out in others as his voice dragged along the line of incomprehensible. 

Still, Bill could understand him, and just coughed. He was thinking of his friends, too, of Babe and Malarkey and Muck and Penkala and Compton and Lipton and hoping they were alright.

He reached out clumsily, clammy palm knocking against Toye’s too-dry one in a gesture he hoped was comforting. 

“Sure.” He said, patting Toye’s hand again. “He’s on a lucky streak, ain’t he? Never been hit.” 

He couldn’t move his neck at all, some sort of numbing, absent ache that had settled in between his vertebrae on the transport over here. They’d already put him through one surgery, and he hadn’t looked down since. Didn’t know if he could, didn’t want to. 

Joe was worse off, though, was nearing delirious, and he coughed, once, the noise almost as dry as bone, and said, “I miss him.” 

Bill… Bill didn’t know what to say to that. 

He kept his hand on Toye’s and listened to other wounded men cry.

-----

Once, when he’d been a kid — maybe eight or nine years old — he’d walked with Henry down to the local pound. 

It was a miserable place, smelled like vomit and piss and was run by a mean old woman with an even meaner mug, and Henry hadn’t let him get too close to the bars that held the dogs back as she walked them through the halls. 

Looking back on it, Bill didn’t know why she even let them do that. They clearly weren’t gonna get a goddamn dog. Maybe she was bored.

At the end of the hall, where one of the lights had stopped working and it was easy to tell something with the electricity had been fried by the smell in the air, there were two dogs, grown and skinnier than sticks, pressed together with big eyes and bigger teeth.

Pack bonded, the old woman had excused with a wave of her hand, like it was a disease without any cure. Can’t get one out without the other. Giving them another three days before it’s lights out. 

Bill didn’t like to think of the pound. It made something underneath his skin crawl.

Still, the words pack bonded probably had meaning. 

They somehow stayed together from France and into England, beds together and everything. 

The hospital in England was much nicer than the one in France, and although Bill was sure being back in the States would be better, the warmth of the hospital made the subsequent, subsisting ache of his leg and hips and back die out, somewhat. 

Joe’s head was bent over his work, nose almost touching the paper as he traced over the same words he’d already written out twice.

Ages ago, Bill probably would have poked at him for it, but now, that type of entertainment has vanished, as intangible as being sick. 

Since getting out of France, Joe had been writing out a letter every Saturday without fail, and always did so at least three times. 

Would write out the letter clumsily, triple-check the spelling, wait for the ink to dry, and then write the exact same thing out again, and a third time for good measure. 

Bill didn’t necessarily get it. Joe didn’t have the neatest handwriting, but it’s not that bad. Still, he didn’t say anything, and Joe didn’t look up when there’s a clatter on the other end of the hall.

They’re still mostly bound to the bed, January becoming a friendly greeting of wet ground and cold air that makes walking so soon after everything nearly agonizing. Both of them — most of the time, at least — want to get moving, but it could be worse.

Joe sat upright and slouched in his own bed, bad leg stretched out to the side as he wrote on the tray that a nurse had brought around about a week ago that he just kept re-using. The second letter he’d rewritten was by his elbow as he redid the third with ink-stained fingers. 

It was a bit ridiculous, Bill thought, since he always trashed the first two letters. Only ever writes to one person consistently. Still, he didn’t say anything. 

He missed his friends, too (Babe, Malarkey, Compton, Lip. Didn’t want to think about Skip or Penk, anymore), but not with the same devotion that Toye seemed to miss George Luz. 

Bill didn’t say anything about it. He didn’t look to closely at it, either. 

He didn’t want to. 

-----

When they finally get back to the US, it was still cold, but in the same way that everything felt cold, now. Same way that everything ached. 

Still, Toye snorted a short laugh when Bill flipped a handful of sand at him, and then used the wire-and-wicker side of his wheelchair to get a hold of it and dump him into the sand.

Bill swore, startled as his elbow hit the soft, heated surface, and he kicked more sand at Joe with his remaining leg before maneuvering back around, smacking at Joe’s bare shoulder.

Toye was unperturbed. 

He had, frustratingly, infuriatingly, and perhaps traitorously, taken to the wheelchair like a fish out of water. His own chair, a few yards back, had been easily abandoned, and Bill envied him only slightly for the coordination that seemed to come more naturally to him. 

“You’re a bastard.” He said to Joe, who just shrugged. 

He was wearing a white undershirt, but the waist of it had ridden up enough for the thick, rubbery scarring of old shrapnel and flak surgeries to still show. 

Bill was dressed nearly identical, down to the too-warm slacks pinned at the bad leg and bloused at the good one. 

“Any word from the Airborne?” He asked, as had become half-hearted tradition since mail-call had begun with more regularity since winter had begun to wane into a precariously hopeful and no less bloody spring.

Bill just grunted, shifting around in the sand for half of a second in order to tug the thin stack of letters out of the pocket he’d initially shoved them into. 

“One from Malark, one from Liebgott, of all damn people. And…” He trailed off, dropping the last letter onto Joe’s lap without having to address it. 

Technically, there’s two from Luz, although the envelopes have been secured together with a fraying piece of twine. Bill counted it as one, anyways, and went about tearing open the letter from Liebgott. 

Toye opened Luz’s letters in much of the opposite way, carefully working open the edges. It always drove Bill up the wall to watch, so he looked away again. Out at the sparsely occupied beach, the water, back to the handwriting in his lap. 

They were still on hospital grounds, out here, with the only other people around other men with similar problems. Bill doubted that Joe would have come out here at all if that hadn’t been the case.

“Any news?” He asked, something along the dip of his throat itching for a cigarette as he dipped his hand into his pocket to fish out a pack and a lighter. 

Joe just hummed, the sound low, more focused than he usually was. “Nah.” He said, quiet. “No news. Boring.” Contrary to his words, the corner of his mouth was curved up into a smile that Bill hardly ever saw.

Bill just snorted, pushed at his shoulder. “Yeah, yeah.” He said, dry and rapport in an effort to remain guileless. “War’s a real boring affair, y’know. Real boring.” 

“Real boring.” Toye agreed, toneless. 

“Real boring.” 

Bill flipped over Liebgotts letter. Something about swimming trunks. 

There was extra space at the bottom of the page, and, after fishing briefly for a pen, Bill wrote out ASK YOUR DAMN MA in big block letters and made a note to return to sender.

-----

It was cold most nights, and this one was no different. Still, the walls and windows did most of the work to keep the cold out and the rest unphased him, nothing as worse as it had been even a year ago.

Fran laughed as he pretended to dip her, and then nosed at his cheek playfully when she was righted once again. 

Pressing her lips to the spot before pulling back just briefly enough to glance over her shoulder, she says, “I think that the lights on the wall are going out.”

Bill taps lightly at her calf with his left crutch but still looks over at them, squinting against the blinking soft reds and greens of them. “Guess so.” He said, not really being able to tell but trusting her anyways. “Want me to fix ‘em?” 

“Nah, someone else will get them.” She let him turn her around again. When she shook her head, a curl fell into her face and Bill brushed it back with two fingers. She smiled at him, brilliant, and Bill snorted and looked away. 

The Christmas party that they’d pulled together had turned into somewhat of an Easy Co. reunion, with enough guys close enough to Philadelphia being able to drive or take a train down to the tiny conference room they’d rented out with whatever savings they had to go to waste. 

Johnny was dancing with Pat about five feet from them, and Fran pulled his focus back to her by patting him on the side of his face. 

“Joe okay?” She asked, by way of conversation starter, and Bill blinked at her. 

“Joe? Joe’s fine.” He said, turning around to locate Toye and prove his point before pausing, frowning. “Huh.” 

Joe had — grudgingly, if the letter and short phone call had been any tone indicator — come out from Hughestown for the party, and had been sitting in the same place for about an hour. Turning around and finding him absent was new, but Bill just shrugged. 

“Probably moving around.” He dismissed easily. “Y’know, stretching out the muscles, and the like.” 

Fran just hummed, stepped back half of a step in a silent request to be spun again. Bill did so, and, after listening to her laugh, realized that he didn’t know where Luz had went, either. 

For being further away, Luz coming to Philly had been easier to convince and swing than Toye, the man as easygoing as ever and brushing off Bill’s grudging offer to assist in travel with a simple statement of planning on being in the area anyways, and then not elaborating. 

The music switched and a Sinatra song came on. Fran crossed her eyes at him, playful, and Bill did so back before forgetting all about it. 

-----

Bill didn’t even think about it until later.

Franny was talking to Pat about something-or-the-other after announcing she’d gotten tired of dancing, and, with Johnny and Babe wrapped up in some sort of conversation that Bill had decided he wanted no part in, he’d started down the hall in order to find something to fix the lights with. 

Old habits must die hard, however, or something within Bill must, because he heard George Luz’s laughter — quieter than usual, and maybe more breathy — and paused, leaned against the wall. 

“Just come back with me.” 

Toye hummed back, the sound turned up at the edges, and Bill shifted between his crutches and the wall. “I already got the ticket.” He said, like a fine point. “That’s good money to waste.”

“Give it to Johnny. He said that they were lookin’ to see more of Pennsylvania before getting back home.”

When Bill turned around the corner, just enough to see the sight beyond it but not be spotted in return, he blinked. 

Luz’s back was to the bleached brick of the hall, otherwise empty, head tilted back against it. Toye, leaning heavy against one of his crutches while his other arm wrapped around Luz’s waist, had bent his head enough to press his forehead to the others cheek, Luz’s hand carding through his hair, keeping his head in place. 

Bill blinked and stepped back again. 

“That’s not a bad idea.” Toye said, sounded warm and not entirely grudging. 

“‘Course it’s not, it’s mine.” Luz said back, like a joke. “Plus, that gives us — what? An extra day? Half of one?” 

“Could have a whole lot more than that if you moved.” 

“Impatient, impatient. Three more months, right?” 

“Three more months.” Toye said back to him, the last thing uttered before a lull in sound. 

Huh.

Bill beat it.

-----

He couldn’t say that he never really understood Joe’s whole relationship with Luz. 

He felt like it was a friendship, but deeper, somehow, than the others in the Airborne (at least that he knew of) and the scene in the hall — which he now moved briskly away off, keen on not being caught — had lit up some other thought in him about them that he decided to not look at too closely.

And maybe that was the best way to go about the whole thing, in a way. Don’t look at it too closely. 

Toye seemed happy, and so did Luz, and Bill didn’t want to think about what their friendship was, exactly, so the best way to go about it seemed to just not think about it. 

-----

By the time he made it back to the room, Sinatra was still playing, and Fran lit up and waved when she saw him. Bill waved back and made his way over to her, still thinking about the hallway. 

“Find the right stuff for the lights?” She asked him, staying seated but turning at the waist as he leaned against the wall beside her. 

“Nah.” Bill said, then paused. He looked across the floor at the still blinking lights and then shrugged, reached out enough to press his fingertips to her shoulder. “I think it’s probably fine. Just don’t look at it too close, I guess.” 

Fran just leaned into him. “If you say so.” She said easily, but didn’t seem to mind either way. 

-----

(Three months and two weeks later, Fran is sorting through their mail. 

“Huh.” She said absently, flipping a letter over to examine the blank back before turning it back again. “Guess George Luz moved down to Hughestown.” 

Bill was sitting opposite her at the table, painstakingly writing out thank-you letters to Christmas cards received. “It say why?”

“Guess he got a job down there. Good for him, I suppose. If it pays better, and all.” 

Bill realized after half of a second that he was smiling, somewhat. “Yeah.” He said, tapping the side of his nose absentmindedly. “Good for him. Pennsylvania’s better than Rhode Island or Massachusetts, anyways.” )

[xtruss]

“Hegemonic, War Criminal, Conspirator and Genocidal US” Targets One-Third of All Countries on Earth with Some Form of Sanctions

Washington (Sputnik) — The United States is the all-round champion in the number of sanctions imposed on its adversaries and rivals, with one-third of all countries on Earth subject to some sort of restrictions, according to a new analysis by the Washington Post published on Thursday.

Starting in the 1990s, successive US administrations have made economic punitive measures and economic warfare the main instrument of their foreign policy, which all too often are ineffective and backfire, the analysis said.

Decades-long sanctions on North Korea for instance have failed to dissuade Pyongyang from advancing its weapons programs and developing intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities, the analysis said.

Jeffrey Sachs, Professor of Columbia University: US Sanctions Against Russia and China Destined to Fail!

Some Excerpts:

"When it comes to Russia, the idea that this would be some kind of a 'knockout blow' for the conflict in Ukraine was utterly naive and predictably a failure," Renowned Economist and Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs told Sputnik. "But I think the Russian economy also was clearly vastly underestimated. And what the West gets wrong on all aspects of the Ukraine crisis is that the World is not united with the West. The West is just a small part of the world. Most of the World wants to stay clear of this crisis."

"Well, clearly, Russia has a lot of resilience because it has a vast food production base," Sachs said. "It has a vast mineral base, it has a vast industrial base. The assumption in the West was that it did not have a high-tech base. So as was said by the German foreign minister, I believe, Russia would be scrounging washing machines imported from Germany to get the chips for its military capacity. These kinds of absurdities were part of the mythology, and Russia's high-tech capacities were clearly constantly neglected and discounted. Russia obviously has a very sophisticated digital industry, and that's both for civilian and for military purposes."

"All of this is to say that there are two dimensions to this question about whether Western sanctions will destroy Russia's long-term growth. One is that it completely overestimates the US chokehold on cutting-edge technologies and underestimates Russia's indigenous capacities, as well as those of its partners. And second, it completely misjudges the scale of the so-called US-led alliance, which is now smaller than the group that Russia firmly belongs to, BRICS+. And even beyond BRICS+ most of the developing world and emerging market economies just are going to continue to have normal relations with Russia, though they will find the US secondary sanctions and threats and cajoling uncomfortable. But they don't want to succumb to a US determined and dominated order."

"Let me just say, if you've been around long enough as I have, you see this kind of, again, wish fulfillment writing come in waves," Sachs said. "In the 1990s, we had articles, for example, by Paul Krugman on The Myth of the East Asian Miracles, I think was the title, but basically saying, 'Look, there's nothing there to East Asia's rise, there's nothing there to China's rise. China's going to collapse, an authoritarian or totalitarian state can't succeed. It's all a house of cards. It's all going to crumble.' This comes in waves. What's funny for me this time is that last year was 'China's the great threat to the world, taking over the world!' Suddenly the narrative changed. 'China's in collapse!' And as soon as the narrative changed, every columnist, including many I'm sure there who have never been to China, started writing articles about the Chinese collapse and the Chinese failure and the end of the Chinese economy. It's all nonsense, basically. It's just nonsense."

Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Columbia University

"There is an active policy to break China's growth," Sachs said. "The US denies this. The US says, no, no, no, no, no. We just want to prevent a few technologies getting into the hands of the Chinese military. Nonsense. One reads, really, the US's approach and you can find it in many, many places. It is that 'China's a threat and we have to stop China's rise'. We have to find ways to create an international system that is unfavorable to China's continued rise. One part of that is the controls on technology exports to China, which we've discussed. Another part is basically more intensively closing down the US market to China's exports."

"So to sum it all up, the US is aiming to stop China's growth the same way that it aimed to crimp Japan's growth at the end of the 1980s, in the early 1990s, and the same way that it worked overtime to halt any kind of economic progress in the Soviet Union. China, of all of those cases, has both the internal capacities, orientation and the geopolitics to surmount the US challenge," Sachs underscored.

"Well, I think certainly there is a huge boomerang effect of these sanctions. Europe is the biggest loser of the sanctions, this is for sure, because Russia's low-cost production, both of primary energy certainly, but also of fertilizers and many other commodity-based manufactured goods going to Europe are now going to China and going to the rest of Asia. And Europe is in outright recession," said Sachs.

"And as Russia therefore turns to the broader BRICS world and the rest of the world, it's those countries that benefit from these linkages," the professor continued. "And it's Europe that is absolutely left behind. One of those beneficiaries is China. Clearly. Because China is a crowded, densely populated economy with natural resources, but on a per capita basis, relatively low. So it's very complementary with Russia. Add in the common shared high-tech element, and that's an added benefit of this increasingly strong relationship between China and Russia on the economic side, because there is a lot of technology transfer that can go in both directions. Add in the building of infrastructure across Eurasia, connecting Russia and China in a number of ways. That also is of great strength."

The US sanctions on Nicaragua and Cuba have proved completely ineffective in removing the respective administrations of Daniel Ortega and Fidel Castro (now Miguel Diaz-Canel).

While the United States at present imposes three times more sanctions than any other country or international body, the overuse of such restrictive measures is increasingly recognized at the highest levels of the US government, the analysis said.

The Biden administration has never been able to say "no" to the temptation of the power of sanctions and the apparent ease of their application, as Treasury Department staffers have had to shelve their drafts on the restructuring of the sanctions system and give way to new economically suffocating measures.

The thousands of sanctions have made lobbyists and former US officials richer due to the billions of dollars paid by foreign countries and oligarchs to help them safely navigate the changing geopolitical and economic environment, the analysis added.

Between February 2022 and January 2024 alone, the United States imposed sanctions on more than 16,000 individuals, over 9,000 companies, and more than 3,200 institutions from Russia, making the country the most sanctioned one in the World.

Russia Will Recover, ‘Not Disappear’ Due to Sanctions - US Investor Jim Rogers!, June 30, 2024

"Russia is not going to disappear. There have been sanctions against Russia in history, there will be again. There have been sanctions against everybody in history. Russia will recover," Rogers said.

"If any country has a lot of sanctions against it, they would hurt the country for a while. So, Russia is going to have to deal with the fact that there are many sanctions against it," Rogers said.

"Russia is finding a way to get around the sanctions. But this always happens whenever somebody imposes sanctions. Many people try to find a way to get around the sanctions and they do," Rogers said.

"I can remember when Americans wouldn't even talk to Russians. And the Russians wouldn't talk to Americans. That will change again," he said. "Russia is a huge country, America is too. Of course, there will be communication and trade again someday. There always has been and there always will be after the war."

[ultrameganicolaokay]

The Brave and the Bold #29 ‘Challenge of the Weapons Master!’ (1960) by Gardner Fox, Mike Sekowsky, Bernard Sachs and Joe Giella. Edited by Julius Schwartz. Cover by Sekowsky and Murphy Anderson.

Mike Sekowsky, Murphy Anderson, The Brave and the Bold #29, Justice League of America, 1960.

[heckcareoxytwit]

Rest in peace, Peter David....

Peter David had written a lot of comics and books over the years. Since this Tumblr has the limit of having 30 images, I have to include some of the Marvel comics he wrote for this post.

The long list of the comics he wrote are under the cut.

COMICS

Action Comics Weekly #608–620 (Green Lantern serial; #615, 619–620, plot with Richard Howell) (1988)

The Phantom #1–4 (1988)

Justice #15–32 (1988–1989)

Dreadstar #41–64 (1989–1991)

Creepy: The Limited Series #1–4 (1992)

Sachs and Violens #1–4 (1993)

Captain America Drug War (1994)

Dreadstar #0.5, 1–6 (1994)

DC vs. Marvel (#2 and #4 only) (1996)

Heroes Reborn: The Return #1–4 (1997)

Babylon 5: In Valen's Name (with J. Michael Straczynski), DC Comics, 1998. ISBN 185286981X

Powerpuff Girls: Hide and Go Mojo (2002) ISBN 0-439-33249-4

The Haunted #1–4 (2002)

The Haunted: Gray Matters #1 (2002)

Red Sonja vs. Thulsa Doom #1–4 (with Luke Lieberman and Will Conrad), Dynamite Entertainment, 2006. ISBN 1-933305-96-7

Spike: Old Times (with Scott Tipton and Fernando Goni), IDW Publishing, 2006. ISBN 1-60010-030-9

Spike vs. Dracula #1–5 (with Joe Corroney and Mike Ratera), IDW Publishing, 2006. ISBN 1-60010-012-0

Wonder Man: My Fair Super Hero #1–5 (2007)

The Scream #1–4 (2007)

Halo: Helljumper #1–5 (2009)

Deadpool’s Art of War #1–4 (2014)

The Phantom: Danger in the Forbidden City #1–6 (2014)

Marvel Comics #1000 (amongst others) (2019)

Elektra: Black, White & Blood #2 (2022)

Battlestar Galactica vs. Battlestar Galactica #1—6 (Crossover of the 1978 and 2004 series, January – June 2018)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) #1–7 (2003)

Aquaman

The Atlantis Chronicles #1–7 (1990)

Aquaman: Time and Tide #1–4 (with Kirk Jarvinen) (1993)

Aquaman Vol. 5 #0–46, Annual 1–4 (1994–1998)

Avengers

The Last Avengers Story #1–2 (1995)

Avengers: Season One (2012)

Avengers: Back to Basics #1–6 (2018)

Captain Marvel (Marvel Comics)

Captain Marvel Vol. 4 #1–35, 0 (1999–2002)

Captain Marvel Vol. 5 #1–25 (2002–2004)

Genis-Vell: Captain Marvel #1–5 (2022)

Fallen Angel

Fallen Angel #1–20 (DC) (2003–2005)

Fallen Angel #1–33 (IDW) (2005–2008)

Fallen Angel: Reborn #1–4 (2010)

Fallen Angel: Return of the Son #1–4 (2011)

Fantastic Four

Before the Fantastic Four: Reed Richards #1–3 (2000)

Marvel 1602: Fantastick Four #1–5 (2005)

Fantastic Four: The Prodigal Sun #1 (2019)

Silver Surfer: The Prodigal Sun #1 (2019)

Guardians of the Galaxy: The Prodigal Sun #1 (2019)

New Fantastic Four #1–5 (2022)

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Main article: Marvel Cinematic Universe tie-in comics

Iron Man: I Am Iron Man! #1–2 (2010)

Marvel's Captain America: The First Avenger #1–2 (2013)

Marvel's Captain America: The Winter Soldier Infinite Comic (2014)

Marvel's Black Widow Prelude #1–2 (2020)

The Incredible Hulk

Hulk Visionaries: Peter David, Volume 1 (with Todd McFarlane), Marvel Comics, 2005. ISBN 0-7851-1541-2. Collects Incredible Hulk #331–339 (1987–1988).

Hulk Visionaries: Peter David, Volume 2 (with Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen, and Jeff Purves), Marvel Comics, 2005. ISBN 0-7851-1878-0. Collects Incredible Hulk #340–348 (1988).

Hulk Visionaries: Peter David, Volume 3 (with Jeff Purves, Alex Saviuk, and Keith Pollard), Marvel Comics, 2006. ISBN 0-7851-2095-5. Collects Incredible Hulk #349–354 and Web of Spider-Man #44 (1988–1989).

Hulk Visionaries: Peter David, Volume 4 (with Bob Harras, Jeff Purves, and Dan Reed), Marvel Comics, 2007. ISBN 0-7851-2096-3. Collects Incredible Hulk #355–363 and Marvel Comics Presents #26 and #45 (1989–1990).

Hulk Visionaries: Peter David, Volume 5 (with Jeff Purves, Dale Keown, Sam Kieth, and Angel Medina), Marvel Comics, 2008. ISBN 978-0-7851-2757-4. Collects Incredible Hulk #364–372 and Incredible Hulk Annual #16 (1989–1990).

Hulk Visionaries: Peter David, Volume 6 (with Dale Keown,), Marvel Comics, 2009. ISBN 978-0-7851-3762-7. Collects Incredible Hulk #373–382 (1990–1991).

Hulk Visionaries: Peter David, Volume 7 (with Dale Keown,), Marvel Comics, 2010. ISBN 978-0-7851-4457-1. Collects Incredible Hulk #383–389 and Incredible Hulk Annual #17 (1991–1992).

Hulk Visionaries: Peter David, Volume 8 (with Dale Keown), Marvel Comics, 2011. ISBN 978-0-7851-5603-1. Collects Incredible Hulk #390–396, X-Factor #76 and Incredible Hulk Annual #18 (1992).

Epic Collection 19: Ghosts of the Past (with Dale Keown), Marvel Comics, 2015. ISBN 978-0-7851-9299-2. Collects Incredible Hulk #397–406 and Incredible Hulk Annual #18–19 (1992).

Epic Collection 20: Future Imperfect, Marvel Comics, 2017 ISBN 978-1302904708. Collects Incredible Hulk #407–419, Annual #20, Incredible Hulk: Future Imperfect #1–2 and material from Marvel Holiday Special #3

Epic Collection 21: Fall of the Pantheon, Marvel Comics 2018. Collects Tales to Astonish (1994) #1, Incredible Hulk vs. Venom #1, Incredible Hulk #420–435

Epic Collection 22: Ghosts of the Future, Marvel Comics, 2019. Collects Incredible Hulk #436–448, Savage Hulk #1 and more.

Tempest Fugit (with Lee Weeks), Marvel Comics, 2005. Collects Incredible Hulk Vol. 2 #77–82.

House of M: Incredible Hulk, Marvel Comics, 2006 Collects Incredible Hulk Vol. 2 #83–87

Incredible Hulk #328, 331–359, 361–467, -1 (1987–1998)

Incredible Hulk Annual #16–20 (1990–1994)

Incredible Hulk Vol. 2 #33 (reprints Incredible Hulk #335), #77–87 (2005)

Incredible Hulk: Future Imperfect #1–2 (1992)

Incredible Hulk vs. Venom #1 (1994)

Tales to Astonish vol. 3 #1 (1994)

Prime vs. The Incredible Hulk #0 (1995)

Savage Hulk #1 (1996)

Incredible Hulk/Hercules: Unleashed #1 (1996)

Hulk/Pitt #1 (1997)

Hulk: The End #1 (2002)

What If General Ross Had Become the Hulk? #1 (2005)

Hulk: Destruction #1–4 (2005)

Giant-Size Hulk #1 (2006)

World War Hulk Prologue: World Breaker #1 (2007)

Marvel Adventures: Hulk #13-16 (2008)

Hulk vs. Fin Fang Foom #1 (2008)

The Incredible Hulk: The Big Picture #1 (2008)

Hulk: Broken Worlds #1 (2009)

Future Imperfect: Warzones! #1–5 (2015)

Secret Wars: Battleworld #4 (2015)

Incredible Hulk: Last Call #1 (2019)

Maestro #1–5 (2020)

Maestro: War and Pax #1–5 (2021)

Maestro: World War M #1–5 (2022)

Joe Fixit #1–5 (2023)

She-Hulk

The Sensational She-Hulk #12 (1989)

She-Hulk Vol. 2 #22–38 (2007–2009)

She-Hulk: Cosmic Collision #1 (2009)

She-Hulk: Sensational #1 (2010)

Soulsearchers & Company

Soulsearchers & Company: On the Case! #1–82 (1993–2007) (with Richard Howell, Amanda Conner, Jim Mooney)

Spider-Man

The Death of Jean DeWolff (with Rich Buckler), Marvel Comics, 1991.

Amazing Spider-Man #266–267, 278, 289, 525

Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #103, 105–110, 112–113, 115-119, 121–123, 128–129

Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #5–6

The Spectacular Spider-Man #134–136

Web of Spider-Man #7, 12–13. 40–44, 49

Web of Spider-Man Annual #6

Spider-Man Special Edition #1 (1992)

Spider-Man 2099 #1–44 (1993–1996)

Spider-Man 2099 Annual #1

Spider-Man 2099 Meets Spider-Man #1

Spider-Man Gen13 #1 (1996)

Spider-Man Family Featuring Spider-Clan #1 (2005)

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #1, 4–23 (2005–2007)

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Annual #1

Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #19 (2005)

Spider-Man: The Other (with Reginald Hudlin, J. Michael Straczynski, Pat Lee, Mike Wieringo, and Mike Deodato), Marvel Comics, 2006.

Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man #17–19 (2006), 31 (2007)

What If? Spider-Man: The Other (2007)

Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 3 #1 (2014)

Spider-Man 2099 Vol. 2 #1–12 (2014–2015)

Spider-Man 2099 Vol. 3 #1–25 (2015–2017)

Secret Wars 2099 #1–5 (2015)

Ben Reilly: The Scarlet Spider #1–25 (2017–2018)

Sensational Spider-Man: Self-Improvement #1 (2019)

Symbiote Spider-Man #1–5 (2019)

Absolute Carnage: Symbiote Spider-Man #1 (2019)

Symbiote Spider-Man: Alien Reality #1–5 (2019–2020)

Symbiote Spider-Man: King in Black #1–5 (2020–2021)

Symbiote Spider-Man: Crossroads #1–5 (2021)

Symbiote Spider-Man 2099 #1–5 (2024)

Spyboy

Written with Pop Mhan and Norman Lee.

SpyBoy #1–12, 14–17 (1999–2001)

SpyBoy: Motorola Special (2000)

SpyBoy/Young Justice #1–3 (2002)

SpyBoy Special: The Manchurian Candy Date (2002)

SpyBoy: The M.A.N.G.A Affair (also known as SpyBoy #13.1–13.3, compiled The M.A.N.G.A Affair miniseries #1–3) (2003)

SpyBoy: Final Exam #1–4 (2004)

Supergirl

Supergirl Vol. 4 #1–80, Annual #1–2, Supergirl Plus #1, #1000000 (with Gary Frank and Terry Dodson), DC Comics (1996-2003)

Many Happy Returns (written with Ed Benes), DC Comics, 2003.

Wolverine

Wolverine vol. 2 #9, 11–16, 24, 44 (1989, 1990, 1991)

Wolverine: Rahne of Terra (1991)

Wolverine: Global Jeopardy #1 (1993)

Wolverine: Blood Hungry, collecting Marvel Comics Presents #85–92 (Wolverine serial) (1993)

Wolverine: First Class #13–21 (2009)

X-Factor

X-Factor vol. 1 #55, 70–89 (1990–1993)

X-Factor Annual #6–8

MadroX: Multiple Choice (with Pablo Raimondi), Marvel Comics, 2005.

X-Factor Vol. 3 #1–50, #200–262 (2005–2013)

X-Factor: The Quick and the Dead #1

X-Factor: Layla Miller #1

Nation X: X-Factor #1

All-New X-Factor #1–20 (2014–2015)

X-Men Legends vol. 1 #5–6 (2021)

Young Justice

Young Justice #1–7, 9–21, 23–55, #1000000, DC Comics (1998–2003)

Young Justice: Sins of Youth #1–2 (2000)

Young Justice: A League of Their Own (with Todd Nauck), DC Comics

[djkerr]

BTS: Actor/writer/producer Noah Wyle watches as med tech/writer Dr. Joe Sachs demonstrates a procedure on a GSW on The Pitt 01x13. (December 17, 2024)

📷 @warrickpage IG

[v6quewrlds]

It's funny because Joe has a degree in consumer and family financial services

LITERALLY, interned at goldman sachs in college too

[backonmybullsht]

Can someone write an ER RPF whump fic inspired by this quote from Noah please? 🙏🏼

“Love's Labor Lost” just felt incredibly intense. The narrative structure of it and the progressing, harrowing, tragic storyline was singular — we hadn't done one like that up until that point, where we really focused on just one case going south. I had mononucleosis the whole time we shot it. I had 104-degree temperature, and I was passing out. At one point, I turned to our technical adviser, [Dr.] Joe Sachs, and I said, “Joe, you got to give me something. I'm not going to make it.” He said, “There's nothing here.” Then he goes, “Well, I guess I could hook you up to one of these I.V.s.”

So he took one of the prop I.V.s, and he put it in my arm. I put the bag in my lab coat pocket while we were shooting, and then they'd say "cut," and I'd hang it on the hook. I did that all night long one night. But that was the commitment level. That was the buy-in. I never even thought about going home. And nobody ever thought about asking me if I wanted to go home. I got Polaroids of me getting that IV from the medic. There is a scene towards the end [of the episode] where I tell Mark Greene that I think what I saw him do is heroic. And I get sort of misty-eyed. But really, it's just fever. I look at that shot, and I see nothing but 105-degree fever just burning through my eyes.

Source

[glamorizethechaos]

Some thoughts after tonight’s episode of The Pitt

1. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

2. Mel is my fucking CINNAMON APPLE

3. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

4. YOU TOLD HER TO TURN OFF HER PHONE AND TV SHES NOT COMING BACK

5. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

6. BUT I GUESS HE IS

7. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

8. NO WAIT

9. JOE SACHS YOU SON OF A BITCH ?????

[sachart]

Happy Holidays to all who celebrate 🎉

[dertaglichedan]

Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act could end up costing taxpayers nearly $5 trillion, study says

An expensive legacy: Originally estimated to only cost about $370 billion, a new study by the Cato Institute finds that the structure of subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act means taxpayers could be on the hook for trillions of dollars over the next 25 years.

When former President Joe Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed in 2022, it did so along party lines with not a single Republican voting for it. At the time, a Senate one-pager summarized the law as costing taxpayers $369 billion, based on Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates. 

A new study from the Cato Institute finds that the law could cost as much as $4.67 trillion by 2050. That's roughly 12 times the stated cost. The study also concludes that the subsidies are undermining innovation and driving investments toward subsidy farming rather than satisfying consumer demand. 

“The government should not have a hold on the economy in such a way that it can truly distort entire markets, and that's what the Inflation Reduction Act is,” Joshua Loucks, research associate with Cato Institute and co-author of the analysis, said in a video explaining the study. 

The Trump administration has been executing a series of reviews of regulations that federal agencies passed during the Biden years. Repealing some agency decisions may require congressional action. Due to the massive costs and market-impacting effects of the IRA, the study’s authors argue Congress should take a hard look at it. The law, they say, should be fully repealed, or Congress should place limitations on the subsidies, which the IRA mostly lacks. 

Fact-finding endeavor

Loucks and his co-author Travis Fisher, director of energy and environmental policy studies at the Cato Institute, explained that the impetus for doing the study was the wildly varying estimates of the costs of the IRA that came out since its passage. While the CBO pegged the figure at $369 billion, Goldman Sachs estimated in May 2023 that it would be closer to $1.2 trillion. There were other estimates as well, all coming to different conclusions. 

[thelostdreamsthings]

‼️Sevastopol, Crimea, bombed by American missiles (ATACMS) coordinated by American drones, American satellites, and American experts.

Maybe Ukraine provided coffee and cake.

‼️US proxy war against Russia is dangerously escalating every day.

This is Lisa, one of the little girls that Joe Biden killed with US missiles on a beach in Crimea, Russia. American drones and satellites were used to target this sweetheart with cluster ammunitions.

Remember her when you vote in November.

‼️"We are coming closer to the nuclear abyss. It’s time to talk" – US economist and professor Jeffrey Sachs.

The problem is that this trivialization of history and of today’s conflicts is leading us to the brink of nuclear war. And the US has actually become the least diplomatic of all UN member states, comparing the states according to adherence to the UN Charter.

It has been the US and its allies that have broken agreements and refused diplomacy. The US violated its solemn pledges to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and to Russian President Boris Yeltsin that NATO would not move one inch eastward. The US cheated by supporting the violent coup in Kiev that toppled Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych. The US, Germany, France, and the UK, duplicitously refused to back the Minsk II agreement. The US unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 and from the Intermediate Force Agreement in 2019. The US refused to negotiate when Putin proposed a draft Russia-US Treaty on Security Guarantees on December 15, 2021.

There has in fact been no direct diplomacy between Biden and Putin since the beginning of 2022. And when Russia and Ukraine negotiated directly in March 2022, the UK and US stepped in to block an agreement based on Ukrainian neutrality. Putin reiterated Russia’s openness to negotiations in his interview with Tucker Carlson and did so again more recently.

‼️The war rages on, with hundreds of thousands dead and with hundreds of billions of dollars of destruction. We are coming closer to the nuclear abyss. It’s time to talk.

NATO expansion is the greatest risk of causing WW3