Only tangentially related, but: I’m a school bus driver and a very popular name for kids these days is “Rhys”. I really enjoy asking them why they’re named after chocolate-covered peanut butter as it drives them crazy.
I just gave it a listen today on my bike ride. It’s pretty good - not what I expected but not surprising, either. I’d characterize it as Kate Bush meets Dead Can Dance meets early ‘70s King Crimson, and since I like all three of those acts I like Gibbons’ album as well. I was surprised to see that it’s her first solo album.
Take WWII for instance, being neutral kind of says yeah we are cool with both sides.
Being literally surrounded by the Third Reich meant their choices were neutrality or actually joining up with Hitler, so they really can’t be criticized for choosing neutrality. They can be criticized for their actions during and after the war in helping the Nazi leaders squirrel away the wealth they stole from the Jews, something that was not necessary for a neutral nation to do.
I’d rather rip on Sweden which at least had some possibility of joining the Allies but instead supplied Germany with the high-quality iron ore they absolutely needed to keep their war machine running - the exact same thing they did in WWI. They also supplied Germany with much-needed ball bearings, but at least they sold them to the Allies as well.
In the US at least, the vast majority of people live paycheck-to-paycheck, so as long as wages rise with prices inflation doesn’t affect most people. Wages rise with prices, right? Right?