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By Svyatoslav Khomenko, Kyiv. Those who know Oleksandr Syrskyi say that any talk of the war ending without Ukraine's victory gets nipped in the bud. "He looks at the war mathematically. For him, it's just a problem that needs to be solved. And he sets his mind to do it,” says Hanna Malyar, former deputy minister of defence, who worked closely with Syrskyi. “The nature of the problem is that there is an enemy, and the enemy must be destroyed.

Hey all, Jason here. It brings me no joy to write this emergency update today, but, I figured it was worth providing some brief additional details in advance of this morning’s court hearing in Synapse’s ongoing bankruptcy case. If you enjoy reading this newsletter each Sunday and find value in it, please consider supporting me (and finhealth non-profits!) by signing up for a paid subscription. It wouldn’t be possible to do what I do without the support of readers like you!

Note to readers: Last week I introduced this semi-weekly feature with some ear worm science (I think I like “earworm” spelled as two words instead of one from now on.) This week begins the first in the series of what these musings are really supposed to be about: What ear worms mean to me, and to others. Get 60 day free trial The video clip above is from Wes Anderson’s “The Royal Tanenbaums,” which somehow I had missed seeing over the past 20 years that it has steadily grown into classic and cult status.

Presumably, we wouldn’t have had over three decades of The Simpsons without Matt Groening’s fractured family appearing regularly on the Fox network (US) from April 1987 through May 1990. The jaundice-hued clan (Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa et al) began their hilarious and sometimes controversial life as a series of animated shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show before landing their own half-hour sitcom a week before Christmas in 1989. For them, and creator Groening, the rest is history (and a rather gaudy amount of math)!

This guy found a story of my past where I was bad at McDonald’s, out of a million anecdotes about my life I’ve shared, and decided that was the key to understanding all of my political and social views. The idea that I was “traumatized” by the experience was a joke. Good example of conformation bias at work. ncG1vNJzZmirpZfAta3CpGWcp51kjbO1wqGYq5yYlruiusiaZqenpJp8pHmRa2dpb2VrgQ%3D%3D

This past weekend, New York City lost a pretty special musicker. I did not know Funmi Ononaiye well, but over the past 25 years, I’ve shared an enormous amount of musical experiences with him, especially dance-floors and jazz clubs. He was a polymath, often present in front of the stage, but at times on it, or in the booth. When after years of knowing nods we finally conversed—at Schomburg on a men’s bathroom line before hearing Abdullah Ibrahim play—I found out he also produced records.

Sometimes a Song waits “in the wings” here at Word & Song for a long time for just the right moment to put in its appearance. “To Dream the Impossible Dream” is such a song. Most folks reading this post will already know this song as the musical highlight of the Broadway play, Man of La Mancha, first produced in 1965. If you haven’t seen the play or… ncG1vNJzZmiZnqm1sLrYnqqopJWje7TBwayrmpubY7CwuY6pZq2nXZm%2Fpq3MZquhnV2eurG70qygm6SVYrGzscCm

Today, published my long piece on why we get young players regularly, often spectacularly, wrong. Dove into some famous cases, tales from top scouts, and academic research — all with the goal of making slightly better evaluations in the future. Enjoy. ncG1vNJzZmirpZfAta3CpGWcp51kjaO1y6WwnJmipbKvwMSrZqenpJp8pHmTa2lpaGNlhg%3D%3D

In Episode 5, Season 2 of “Tokyo Vice”, the fearsome, awesomely tattooed gangster Tozawa (Ayumi Tanida) reappears after a six-month absence. Since no one inside or outside the yakuza seems to know where Tozawa went after collapsing at a fancy dinner, most assumed t… ncG1vNJzZmign6WyorrDnqmsp55jwLau0q2YnKNemLyue89oq6ijqaR6t7XCnmSappRiwamxjLKYpK2qlnqurcuam7I%3D