Ilya's maxim

When open confrontation is discouraged in a human collective, betrayal through backstabbing becomes the only means to settle a score.

only an academic could have written this (канадская гараджа)

yet another article full of lavish praise being showered on Michaelle Jean:

But it will take much more than the transformation of the office of Governor-General into a showpiece of Canada’s national globalism for the successful continuation of high rates of national expansion through accelerated immigration.

I could see more clearly than before how the project of blending our histories to build Canada is widening the setting of our national drama towards the broadest possible vistas of World History. And I could begin to see with some precision how far educators in Canada have still to go in depicting our evolution in ways that truly reflect the global scope of who we have been, who we have become, and what we may yet be if we can seize our collective destiny with courage, imagination, unity, and humility.

As the primary personification of the Canadian Crown, Governor-General Jean has some very explicit duties to safeguard, apply, and enforce the Aboriginal provisions of our country’s constitution. She must try to use the example of her office to help the government fulfill solemn promises made over centuries that the imperial sovereign would protect the rights and titles of the Crown’s Aboriginal allies from invasion, incursion, and violation.

I just love the author's habit of ending the last sentence in a paragraph with a string of similarly sounding nouns that make no sense in the context. And of course,
I'm not enlightened enough to know what the heck is 'national globalism', isn't that some sort of an oximoron?

I would've paid much attention to this pompous rant if not one thing: the author, Anthony Hall is not just in academia - he teaches history at the University of Lethbrigde. I think his students deserve better....


OR
using 'padonki' slang
here's my verdict in Russian:

аффтар, убей себя ап стену!

a language gaffe

From their website:

The 223rd Rifle Regiment Reenactors mission is to portray a unit of soldiers of the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War (World War 2). Our main focus is to participate in reenactments of battles fought by the Red Army. We also participate in Living History events that help to educate the public in the actual lives of Russian Soldier's during World War 2. We chose to reenact an early war unit of Russian Soldiers, based on the fact that the 21st Red Army fought from the beginning to the end of the war. And we think that the early war uniforms look cool.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately for the Russian-speaking corner of the blogosphere) the reenactors didn't bother to learn the Russian language as well, along with the intricacies of Soviet military uniforms.

Click on the thumbnail to see the cyrillic name of the 223 rifle division :-)

Humorous speculations as to the possible meaning of the name (selected pictures) can be found here

en route to GULAG

Translation:

Please spare one or two kopecks on an envelope. Enclose my letter in the envelope and send it to Ms. Kanevska, Nizhinskaya street, the city of Odessa [now Ukraine].
Thank you in advance.
[P.S.] May you never have to ask someone to do the same for yourself.

We may never know the name of the person who wrote this and it is most likely that he/she perished in the GULAG soon afterwards like millions of other victims of communism - the most murderous ideology ever invented.

Rest In Peace.

via object

daily venting: soft lumber and free trade

I find it highly ironic that those who are most ferocious in chastasing the U.S. government for violating the spirit of NAFTA in the dispute over softwood lumber are the ones who have always been against free trade with the US in the first place.

in case you ever said it ain't so...

A television news executive admitted last week to censoring coverage of the riots for fear of encouraging politicians such as Mr Le Pen. Jean-Claude Dassier, the head of the rolling news service LCI, told a conference in Amsterdam: "Politics in France is heading to the Right and I don't want Right-wing politicians back in second or even first place because we showed burning cars."

(Telegraph, Filed: 13/11/2005)

Welfarism should know no bounds (media on Paris riots)

The French turmoil: I've been following closely the Paris events (and then when the mailaise spread to the rest of the country and beyond). But perhaps, for the first time blogosphere was THE source as it beats the conventional, mainstream media in almost all aspects of coverage, save the TV picture.
I've read Russian and English-speaking blogs read comments and even got myself engaged in a small flame over the meaning of the word 'redneck' :-).
Anyways, Canadian media have been conspicuously silent in the beginning of all this and when major publications did pick up the story and the coverage was quite predictable (I guess you know what I mean, right?).
Just by the time the riots subsided somewhat here came the time for analysis.
Yesterday, the Globe ran a piece by certain Tariq Ramadan, a visiting prof. at St. Antony's College, Oxford.
Being a captive to my prejudices, I expected something along "racism made me do it" defense from a Muslim guy. But the article struck as being much nuanced, clever and yet, quite sinister.

First of all, as any true academic, Mr. Ramadan employs the all so familiar “BUT” argument. The BUT part helps one to advance a contrarian view while ostensibly acknowledging the opposite view:
He writes:

There can be no doubt that violence is no solution, that the destruction of public property, buses and cars must stop and wrongdoers be punished. There's no doubt that some young people are indulging in pure vandalism. Restoration of law and order is a priority, especially for residents of the suburbs — the first victims of the violence.
The fact remains, however, that such measures will be ineffective if France fails to grasp the nature of the message sent by this orgy of violence.

and one more:

Clearly, Muslims must remain self-critical about literalist readings that encourage people to withdraw into themselves and move toward radicalization and/or violence. But it is also essential for French society to overcome its own distrust by listening to Muslims, and by ceasing to demand that they keep justifying themselves.

Seemingly there’s nothing wrong to suggest that this, and any, issue, has more than one dimension. Unequivocalness is a rare phenomenon. But the inherent flaw of such arguments is their moral relativism – it’s implied that BOTH sides are on equal footing and therefore are equally guilty.

So, having done assigning the blame Mr. Ramadan proceeds to the solution part:

A new breath of creativity is needed in educational policy, a new focus on teacher training. To truly create equality of opportunity will require a tripling of investment in educationally disadvantaged areas.

So here we go: after serving the reader with a couple of platitudes (“a new breath of creativity” – what the hell is that?) He cuts to the chase – “a tripling of investment” as if the burbs have not been showered with money before. The notion that it’s precisely the culture of entitlement and welfare dependency that brought the havoc completely evades the esteemed professor’s reasoning. More money – the vandals will be happy.
Say, you’ve been robbed by someone on the street. The robber is caught and the question is what to do with him. While contemplating your option, there comes someone, just like prof. Ramadan who tells you that the only way to prevent any future robberies would be to give the perpetrator more money so he’ll be less likely to resort to an illegal act to meet his needs. Would you be up to it?

Українська поезія/Ukrainian poetry part II

Петро Нагірний ака Оверхілл

Кожна порядна самка
Мріє про принца із замку,
З блакитними, чіста, очима,
Шоб був чемоданчик з грошима.
І коник шоб був білосніжний,
Шоб принц до неї був ніжний,
Жиб мав на поясі шпагу.
Прискакав би до неї в общагу,
Вона би наморщила писок,
І сказала: "Я с мущінамі на уліце нє знакомлюсь..."
А принц набухався в сраку,
Пропив всьо бабло і коняку,
Прийшов серед ночі і гордо
Набив би тій мрійниці морду.
Та от незадача: у нас на селі
Принців немає - одні рагулі.

media on Gomery report: roundup

The Globe pundits are defiant.

While Mr.Simpson's point is simple. The whole affair is overblown, less move on:
It obviously injured the Liberals, especially in Quebec — and especially after Paul Martin went over the top in exaggerating the importance of the sponsorship scandal.
By the time we vote, this'll all be dust in the wind.JEFFREY SIMPSON

If you think Simpson is out of his mind and you're digusted with his showy cinicism here's a more nuanced Mr. Ibbitson. While he admits that having another party in power might be the best medicine to prevent such a scandal from happening in the future, in his mind the Conservatives are still not up to the task:

Healthy democracies rotate political parties: to exploit the brief period of probity that accompanies a new party's arrival in power, until the culture of entitlement seeps into their souls as well. But the Conservatives alienate so many Canadians, for so many different reasons, that power continues to elude them, leaving this dysfunctional mess as a status quo with little hope of change.
A never-ending story that just gets sorrier and sorrierJOHN IBBITSON

What exactly is alienatable to so many Canadians remains a bit of a mistery. But don't worry folks, we feel your pain but we just can't let those eeeeevil tories with their scary Harper to take power away from the natural governing party.


Meanwhile in the Post:
Andrew Coyne shatters to pieces all so familiar line of distinction between Martin and Cretien:

Suppose, in the wake of the scandal, the corporation brought in a new CEO -- not just promoted the senior VP, but hired someone wholly unconnected with the firm. The new CEO could protest with absolute justice that he could not personally be held to blame for the misdeeds that had gone on under his predecessor. But would that absolve the corporation as a whole of liability? No it would not.

A Liberal culture of impunity
Andrew Coyne



Colby Cosh digs the roots up - how it all started:

On Feb. 1 and 2 of 1996, the cabinet convened at a retreat to conduct a post-mortem on the referendum campaign and review methods of preventing a recurrence. This is the point at which the Liberals made a collective decision to make aggressive brand-building in Quebec a permanent strategy; everyone at that table, including then-finance minister Martin, would have thought of Chuck Guite's name and accomplishments in this context. In the Attorney-General's submission to the Gomery Commission, that decision was described as a commitment to "increase the visibility of the Government of Canada mainly, but not exclusively, in the province of Quebec." And this is the ground on which the idea of the sponsorship program has always been defended.

But the actual cabinet minutes contain significantly different language. The report of the unity committee headed by Marcel Masse, which was presented at the retreat to the other ministers of the Crown, called for "a substantial strengthening of the Liberal Party of Quebec." It is extraordinary and offensive that such a thing should be uttered at a cabinet meeting of any kind, but we have not heard that Mr. Martin (or anyone else) made any objection.[emphasis mine] Is anyone really surprised that so much money should find its way into the pockets of Liberal cronies after an open call for the partisan "strengthening" of the Liberal party at the public expense?

The Liberals' original sin
Colby Cosh

Japan: RussiansForeigners are not welcomed

I've heard about that before here's visual proof that what would spark moral outrage and (million dollar class action lawsuit) in the West seems to be a normal practice in Japan:



Translation: Gentlemen! Show some respect for our customs. Temporarily, the personall of foreign ships may not enter the premises of our sauna.










Here's another sign:



Translation: Foreign citizens, please do not enter.





This photos and many more can be found here

What can I say? Russian nationalists are fond of bitching how the outside world is inherently hostile to Russia only to conclude that the semi-voluntary surrender of the Soviet Union that ended the Cold War was a stupid mistake bordering on outright treason. Normally, I would just scoff at how wrong they are. But it's hard to argue when there's such a blatant visual manifestation of it.