My reflections

2008-05-23T19:33:00.000-06:00

Я проверил свои знания русского языка и получил пятерку.

Сходи, проверься?

phrase of the day

2007-04-10T18:46:00.000-06:00

When did ignorance become a point of view?

no surprise here

2007-03-16T18:40:00.000-06:00

You scored as Polish.

Polish

88%

Russian

75%

Irish

63%

Danish

50%

Spanish

38%

Dutch

38%

Swiss

38%

Italian

38%

German

38%

French

25%

British

25%

Belgian

25%

Molvanian

13%

Turkish

Which European nationality should you have
created with QuizFarm.com

phrase of the day

2006-10-22T15:05:00.000-06:00

As we begin to uncover the ideological roots of the rubber plant...

Svetlana Boym examining a famous Soviet painting from the Stalin era, "Moving to The New Apartment."
Svetlana Boym, Soviet Everyday Culture: An Oxymoron?

For some reason, I find this phrase absolutely hilarious. To me it's a perfect case of unintentional humour. Yet, it somewhat saddens me too - it's a sad realization that I will never be able to write something like this; even if I wanted to.

Adieu?

2006-09-13T02:05:00.000-06:00

As one can say there has been many updates to this blog for a while. But no, I haven't forgotten that I have a blog. It's just that...[multiplicity of reasons to be inserted here] and yet, there's the main one - this blog was created with the intent to polish my writing skills. However, I am going to be really up to the "other kind of writing" for a while and therefore keeping this blog alive would be an additional burden.
Never say never, and perhaps I will be back after some time but for now it's a goodbye.

My sincerest thanks to those who ever read this blog. I really appreciate it.

Moscow doesn't believe tears: a PC feedback

2006-07-07T15:31:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I watched "Moskva slezam ne verit" for the umpteen time, though it was probably the first time I saw it from the very beginning. Enjoyed it all over again. I usually write about my own impressions here but in case of this movie, after having become well versed in the 'correct party line of the PC code', I had a hunch that not all Westerners would find the story of a successful business woman who is desperate to get married very endearing. Turned out I was right. Here's what one IMDB reviewer wrote:

Being Western, I found myself questioning whether she had truly achieved something. The crown of achievement, we are taught, is independence, equality. Whereas she achieved that in a career and in her lifestyle, in her heart, she yearned for a man, to be the little wife, and to submit herself to a patriarchal marriage. But, in the end, who are we to judge another's happiness?

Isn't it hilarious? Especially the last part which helps to understand that cultural relativism trumps all other considerations. No matter what...

Italy - Germany

2006-07-04T18:57:00.000-06:00

Hands down, the best game of the tournament.

This day in history: the battle of Koeniggraetz (Sadowa)

2006-07-03T01:21:00.000-06:00

On July 3d, 1866 Austrian forces got trounced by their Prussian adversaries. This victory paved the road to German unification according to the 'klein Deutsch' solution (that is without Austria), the tranformation of the Habsburg Empire into the dual state of Austro-Hungary, and the Franko-Prussian war.
In other words, it was one of the decisive moments of modern European history.

Ukraine-Italy: 3-0, some afterthoughts

2006-06-30T18:53:00.000-06:00

Welcome back to the real world of football. In that world, Italy and Ukraine belong to different categories and only a miracle could've averted the predictable outcome. Seemingly the story is the same - 0:4 from Spain don't look that much different than 0:3 from Italy. However, in terms of the quality of Ukraine's play the contrast was stark - Ukraine played better and actually did have first-rate scoring chances. Had Kalinichenko scored on 62th(?) minute to have the game tied 1:1, who knows...
And Shevchenko might as well not to try to save his excellent dribling till the very last minute.
Italy goes on Ukraine goes home with pride...

Thank you lads, for everything!

Cheer for Ukraine!

2006-06-30T12:17:00.000-06:00

"Cars" in Ukrainian

2006-06-29T01:49:00.000-06:00

Cars, a quintessentially American cartoon flick, has brought 1,5 million hryvnia since it opened on June 16 throughout Ukraine. Sounds like small peanuts compared to America’s 11,5 million dollars (the exchange rate is 1:5 in favour of the green so go figure). However there is something truly revolutionary about this, seemingly banal, show biz event. Half of Ukraine’s 70 copies were in Ukrainian and on average, as Kommersant reports, more people watched the movie in Ukrainian than in Russian. Up to this day the movie industry has been the one where the Russian language totally dominated. No matter where you live, in Kharkiv, Odessa, Ivano-Frankivsk, or Lviv – all movies would be dubbed in Russian, leaving Ukrainophones with no choice (subtitles are not very popular in this part of the world). So things are a-changin'...
It’s a very good news – I’m definitely elated.

Ukraine-Switzerland

2006-06-26T19:39:00.000-06:00

BBC reports
Ukraine reached the quarter-finals after beating Switzerland on penalties.
The Swiss missed three spotkicks, but Ukraine's Artem Milevskiy, Serghiy Rebrov and Oleg Gusev made no mistake to seal a 3-0 shoot-out victory.

What can I say? Few people, including all four TSN analysts, believed in Ukraine. Yes, it was not an impressive game - no goals, scarce shots, lack of technical skills . And yet, ultimately all that matters is the final outcome - Ukraine has done it!!!
An interesting (and sympathetic to Ukraine) account of the match can be found here.

Ukraine - Saudi Arabia: a total comeback

2006-06-19T12:57:00.000-06:00

4:0
That's the score of the game in which Ukraine trounced Saudi Arabia thereby redeeming themselves for the identical loss to Spain.
I'm happy as everyone else in Ukraine and the diaspora but the skeptic and cynic in me urges to come down and take it easy.
From what I've seen so far, Saudi Arabia is THE worst team of the tournament. Zero skill, louse defence, impotent offense. How come they mananaged to get a tie against Tunisia? I have no idea.
The game was a slow paced one which differed it markedly for other games. Ukraine scored some nice goals but again there is still much to be desired in terms of qualityn of their play.
I was very happy that Serhiy Rebrov scored a long-shot. After all, my team Ukraine shirt bears his name :-)

Anyways,
Вперед, Україно!

P.S. If you can read Russian here's a funny online commentary from RTR-Sport.

falafel as the weapon of the infidels

2006-06-04T23:06:00.000-06:00

It's that remarkable how a small story can make you ponder deeply about deep socio-cultural trends shaping the modern world:

Aqeel Hussein
Daily Telegraph
441 words
4 June 2006
BAGHDAD - As the purveyors of nothing spicier than the odd dash of hot chilli sauce, Baghdad's falafel vendors had never imagined their snacks might be deemed a threat to public morality.

Now, though, their simple offerings of chickpeas fried in breadcrumbs have gone the same way as alcohol, pop music and foreign films -- labelled theologically impure by the country's growing number of Islamic zealots.

In a bizarre example of Iraq's creeping "Talibanisation," militants visited falafel vendors a fortnight ago, telling them to pack up their stalls by Sunday or be killed.

The ultimatum seemed so bizarre that, at first, most laughed it off -- until two of them were shot dead as they plied their trade.

"They came telling us, 'You have 14 days to end this job' and I asked them what was the problem," said Abu Zeinab, 32, who was packing up his stall for good Saturday in the suburb of al Dora, a hardline Sunni neighbourhood.

"I said I was just feeding the people, but they said there were no falafels in Muhammad the Prophet's time, so we shouldn't have them either.

"I felt like telling them there were no Kalashnikovs in Mohammed's time either, but I wanted to keep my life."

It's of course highly ironic that the imagined return to the sixth century way of life can only be enforced with the help of a twenty century weaponry. So the vendor is right and wish him well and hope he's still alive.
But on the other hand, setting aside the extremity of this particular case, this example may serve as a perfect metaphor that separates the post-modern world of the West with its obsession on keeping up with the current (from fashion to religion) and other parts of our planet where people discuss whether falafels should be banned or not.

News from the Wonderland Russia: the guard is tired...

2006-06-02T13:34:00.000-06:00

The guard is tired said saylor Zhelezniak and that's how the short-lived era of free Russian parliamentarism ended in 1918.
Soviet parliament (the Surpreme Soviet) was a fictitiuous institution stripped of any power of decision-making whatsoever. And so is apparently the Federation Council (Senate) in the new, supposedly free and democratic, Russia.
The latest proof thereof came just today after Putin sent packing his fiercely loyal Prosecutor General, Vladimir Ustinov. As usual, no explanation was given so the media is abuzz over it, speculating about possible reasons for his dismissal.
But senators who according to the law are to dismiss the prosecutor formally, are in a difficult situation, struggling to explain the sacking. Striving to rise to the occasion some of them reached the heights of Kafkaesque absurdity.
Gazeta.ru reports:

Левон Чахмахчян, член Совета федерации от Калмыкии
- Я считаю, что отставка принята, потому что нужно уважать права человека. Он имеет право уйти с должности. То, что никаких вопросов не возникло у членов Совета федерации, это нормально.

Levon Chakhmachchyan, member of the Federation Council from Kalmykia
- I think the resignation was accepted because one should respect human rights. He has the right to resign from his position. That's why no questions were asked and that's normal.

[translation and emphasis mine]

Welcome to Putin's Wonderland indeed!

mass culture: how it works

2006-05-23T04:53:00.000-06:00

Okay, let me start off by saying that I absolutely loved the book - it had me hooked more than Harry Potter....

This one, which is the opening line of an IMDb review of the movie Da Vinci Code, gives away everything you need to know about this socio-cultural phenomenon.

Cultural difference: the flag debate in Russia

2006-05-22T23:06:00.000-06:00

Most Europeans find Americans’ predilection to display the national flag wherever possible quite odd. Unlike the US (or Canada for that matter) in Europe national flags can only be seen on state buildings and during international events, in other words they are for outward consumption, so to speak.
What I’ve heard from Russia recently smacks of another kind of extremes. According to several news reports (examples are here and here). It’s illegal in Russia to have the national tricolor displayed permanently unless it’s a government institution. Apparently, one can do it freely only during national holidays. Or, translated from the bureaucratic lingo, the national flag belongs to the state, period. One can’t find a better metaphor to describe in what direction Russia is headed.

On courage

2006-05-05T19:12:00.000-06:00

If you have been following the news just a little bit, you must be aware of this new variation of the Goliath vs. David story: George Bush getting roasted by Stephen Colbert at the annual White House Correspondents' Association Dinner.
Predictably, people's reaction to this depends greatly on their political persuasion: as Sheldon Alberts wrote in the National Post

While conservatives reacted with can't-take-a-joke outrage, liberal bloggers have spent the week hailing Mr. Colbert as the second coming of Mark Twain. In their eyes, he proved his mettle as a fearless truth teller who refused to tone down his act to please Mr. Bush or the media lapdogs who hired him for the gig.

Furthermore, the latter hailed Colbert as a national hero, for his great feat of valour:

"How refreshing to hear the truth and hear it straight. Colbert deserves a medal for distinguished service and bravery in the face of the 'enemy,' "Carolyn Jacobson wrote in a letter to the online edition of Editor & Publisher.

I don't want to get into an argument whether Colbert did break the rules or whether his act was funny - rules are meant to be skirted and everyone's entitled to his/her tastes. What caught my attention and sparked a protracted thread at the Bloviator was
the idea that what Colbert did was somehow 'brave' and 'corageous'.
No one would deny that it requires a certain type of personality, more outspoken I'd say, and yes, some guts to do what Cobert did. But to me, in order to call one corageous the bar is set much higher than that. Yes, Colbert might've been heckled by some Republicans in the audience but really what else was at stake? He knew perfectly well that nothing would happen to him and to his family. He wouldn't languish in jail or get executed and if anything his speech has only made him more famous and therefore solidified his position in the show-biz.
I, on the other hand, am familiar with examples when people paid dearly for speaking out. In 1968, a handful of young people staged a protest on the Red Square against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. One of them, Larissa Bogoraz "was arrested, tried and sentenced to four years of exile in Siberia, which she spent in a woodworking plant." - that's what I call COURAGE.
The Soviet Union is gone but there are still parts of the world where 'speaking out' can result in similar consequences. Liberals are all committed internationalists but their thinking is often ethnocentric, which is highly ironic, I think.

Russian language: pun trifles

2006-05-04T14:20:00.000-06:00

Just coz it's funny:
"Хомячок поначалу очень боялся пылесоса. Но потом постепенно ВТЯНУЛСЯ".

В этом есть что-то отталкивающее, как сказал окунь, подпрыгивая на сковородке.

Chernobyl: 20 years on

2006-05-01T14:58:00.001-06:00

This article in the Guardian is excellent.

on peer pressure

2006-05-01T12:52:00.000-06:00

This would be hilarious if it weren't so sad:

MEDICINE HAT/630 CHED - The mother of a 23-year-old man accused of killing his 12-year-old girlfriend's parents and brother has spoken out.

Forty-three-year-old Jacqueline May says her son, Jeremy Allan Steinke, is a kind, loving person but says he is prone to peer pressure.[emphasis added]

Steinke and the girl, who cannot be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, are charged with three counts of first-degree murder.

They are accused of killing a 42-year-old man, his 48-year-old wife and their eight-year-old son in the family's Medicine Hat home.

I understand though why she is saying this. What I don't understand is why the media feel obligated to report such nonsense. Isn't that patently obvious that a relative, especially the mother, would rarely say anything bad about the accused, regardless of the gravity of the crime.

Movie review: the Crash

2006-05-01T01:45:00.000-06:00

Surpisingly, I don't have much to say about this one. The movie consisted of a bunch of amusing and sometimes 'touchy' stories and not much else. Although those stories were good and didn't form a single narrative and seemed only loosely related to each other. Nor did I find that much of 'complexity'; the Crash wasn't terribly profound, whatever the slavish media might tell you to the contrary. But again, I found it 'amusing' and therefore not that bad.
Score: 3/5

If commies came to power in Sahara...

2006-04-28T11:42:00.000-06:00

There is an old Soviet joke:
What would happen if communists came to power in Sahara?
Answer: There will be shortages of sand.

Meanwhile, the following news arrives from the socialist paradise of Hugo Czavez:

Venezuela buys Russian oil to avoid defaults
Financial Times
Updated: 12:41 p.m. ET April 28, 2006

Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, has struck a $2bn deal to buy about 100,000 barrels a day of crude oil from Russia until the end of the year.
Venezuela has been forced to turn to an outside source to avoid defaulting on contracts with "clients" and "third parties" as it faces a shortfall in production, according to a person familiar with the deal. Venezuela could incur penalties if it fails to meet its supply contracts.

(via sdanilov)

As they would say in Russian - жизнь обгоняет мечту (life beats the dream).

Chernobyl: (1986-2006)

2006-04-25T16:58:00.000-06:00

It just happened that in the course of the last two years, I've learnt much more about Chernobyl than I had learnt in the previous 18 years.
I first learnt about the tradegy like everyone else - from the TV watching the gloomy footage of the fourth reactor. I don't have any relatives directly affected by the disaster although my uncle-in-law (can I say that?) went there to partake in the clean-up operation. Unlike many others, he did it on its own accord, to make a quick buck/ruble and I have no idea whether he's had to pay big time for his avarice...

As I said I've learnt a lot about the catastrophe and I think now I understand better why it happened. Setting aside all the complicated technical details it is pretty clear to me, that Chernobyl was not a sign of Soviet technological inferiority, quite to the contrary, but at least partially resulted from a special kind of mentality, shared by those who worked there - To Soviet engineers who worked there the reactor was a big and exciting toy with which to play for the sake of money, glory, scientfic exploration, you name it.
I am not a big fan of North American culture of perpetual litigation but in this case, thinking about consequences, not just in abstract terms, but in very real, legal ones might've saved it.
If not in money or property many of the workers had to pay the price in the most precious commodity - their lives. The very first victim, operator Valeriy Khodymchuk is buried right inside the fourth reactor as his body was never found. However, it is the plight of the 14 firefighters that made the greatest impression on me. They arrived on the station mere minutes after the blast and had to extinguish fire with their bare hands, almost literally, throwing the radioctive graphite off the roof back to the reactor. It was a truly suicidal mission and they all died two weeks later at a hospital in Moscow. The wife of one of them, Ignatenko, wrote a truly moving account of his last days (you can read it here in Russian).

Vichnaya Pamyat' to all those who perished!

P.S. The current controversy around Chernobyl is mainly about the number of victims and here you can read an insightful summary of the issue.

Migrants' stories: Russian as a foreign language

2006-04-22T21:11:00.000-06:00

A considerable influx of immigrants from the Caucausus, whose Russian is far from perfect, can sometimes create a situation such as this. If you can read Russian, it'll make your day, I promise.

lost in translation: ethnocentrism in Russian studies

2006-04-18T03:02:00.000-06:00

At times, his historical rants read like a freshman Russian studies major who wrote a paper about how Stalin would never have gotten reelect-ed for a third term if Khrushchev made his speech earlier.

This is certain Anna Arutunyan reviewing a couple of books for the Exile. With this sentence she gave me a good chuckle. It's been a while since I first encountered this particular folly; when a Westener tries to explain Soviet political realities based on his/her domestic experience.
Incidentally, Horowitz's list of most dangerous professors features one admirer of Stalin (I'm too lazy to dig up for his name at the moment). I actually read some of his writings and was stunned to discover that his main research technique seemed to be a mere literal reading of Soviet documents.

Russian Godfathers: Billionaire on Trial

2006-04-04T20:53:00.000-06:00

Just watched this documentary on CBC's Passionate Eye and got sorely disappointed.
I'm not a fan of Mr. Putin, far from it, but even I was stunned as how blatantly pro-Khodorkovsky the movie was. This documentary was the definition of 'one-sided - the oter side's opinions were absent whatsoever but there were Khodorkovsky's advocates such Canada's own David Amsterdam and Leonid Nevzlin who were given ample air time. And so were Khodorkovsky's parents which I find so reprehensible.
What would you expect them to say? that their son is guilty as charged? There's a reasonm why one has the right not to testify his/her own relatives and the same goes the other way. They would probably defend him even if he was accused of killing twenty people himself.

Canada's self-esteem has reached a new low

2006-04-04T20:08:00.000-06:00

In case you haven't heard about it yet: this year's Junos (Canada's national music-awards show) was hosted by no other than Pamela Anderson.
I repeat: Pamela frigging Anderson!!!!

"The host for the 2006 Juno Awards was DISGUSTING, I'm sure you could have chosen someone who has more class."

(taken from here)

Do I have to say more? Can I?

From today's news: soccer, prositution, Sweden

2006-04-04T20:03:00.000-06:00

From a Deutsche Welle report:

Swedish Call to Boycott World Cup Over Forced Prostitution

Sweden's soccer team should boycott the 2006 World Cup in Germany to protest against a feared rise in forced prostitution, the Swedish ombudsman for gender equality said Monday.
"We should distance ourselves and say that we will not accept such a situation and for that reason we do not want to participate," the ombudsman, Claes Borgstr?m, told Swedish Radio. "It's a good opportunity to do something effective ... targeting modern-day slavery."

Liberal party leadership race: it can't get any better than this

2006-03-29T13:18:00.000-07:00

CTV reports:

David Orchard mulls run at Liberal leadership

Updated Mon. Mar. 27 2006 11:33 PM ET

Canadian Press

OTTAWA — Saskatchewan farmer and two-time Tory leadership hopeful David Orchard is thinking about leaping into the Liberal race.

"What I'm really doing right now is taking calls. I certainly had not been considering it, but calls kept coming so I kept answering them and listening to what people have to say,'' Orchard said in an interview.

"I'm not ruling anything in or anything out.''

In my table of ranks, this guy would be just a notch behind Belinda Stronach. In fact, I'm not even sure about that.
I guess that's what happens to the Natural Governing Party once it's put out of the business of governing.
On a more serious note, it's sad really - that the Liberals now have to deal with this guy. But it's not just about them - the very fact that Mr. Orchard can 'mull' his chances reveals one of the most glaring and disturbing deficiencies of the Westminister system - namely that established political parties are potentically vulnerable to hijacking by an outsider with a small, but dedicated, group of followers.

Elections results in Belarus: a poster

2006-03-28T02:45:00.000-07:00

Double standard: Guantanamo vs. Darfur coverage in the Western media

2006-03-22T22:49:00.000-07:00

via Daimnation
An excellent post from Atlantic Review that raises very good questions. Cartoons? Look at the Spiegel covers. "Stark" indeed.

Popular German magazines such as Der Spiegel frequently put US critical pictures on their cover. Critical reporting about the world's sole superpower is necessary, but statements like "Torture in the Name of Freedom" (as seen on a recent Spiegel cover) appear to be malicious distortions to sell more copies rather than critical, ethical journalism...

Although Darfur is much closer to Europe than the US, the mass murder, expulsions and rapes in Darfur (some call it "genocide") seem to be covered more extensively in the US than in the German media. American NGOs devoted to Darfur are more vocal than German NGOs. Do Germans care more about alleged torture, abuse, human rights violation and inhumane living conditions in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib than about much worse conditions in Darfur and many other war zones?..

Darfur is more outrageous in both magnitude and intensity than Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, but the US scandals are more in the news because the media is more interested in the perpetrators than in the victims. US perpetrators are more sexy than Sudanese perpetrators, it seems...

It would be easy, and yet true, to bemoan Europe's reflexive anti-Americanism yet another time but it's just one piece of the puzzle.
The bias of such reporting practices results from implicitly 'racist' attitudes which lead to the perpetuation of a double standard in media coverage of international news. (full disclosure - I hate this particular usage of the word, ‘civilizational condescension’ would be a much more appropriate term but I’d have to explain it first so I’ve got to settle for the former). It is an unspoken, patronizing assumption on the part of the media that ‘those savages’ cannot be held to the same standard as ‘civilized people’. 100,000 people ‘over there’ have been made to starve, thousands have been tortured and died - such reports could only produce a collective yawn. It’s the same story all over again. On the other hand, ‘US perpetrators’ of real or imagined digressions are not just ‘sexy’ – they are ‘just like us’ and thus their failings can be instantly translated into a feeling of our own moral superiority, which in turn make Germans/Canadians/French/NDP members etc. feel so good about themselves.

elections in Belarus

2006-03-21T02:58:00.000-07:00

Having just watched a Russian TV report:
Lukashenko (answering the question 'for how long does he plan to stay in power):
As long as the people keep letting me to

I think it's applicable to any dictatorship - only through struggle one can win freedom.

Milosevic's death and the future of the ICTY

2006-03-21T02:39:00.000-07:00

Today I attended a discussion on Milosevic. Nothing what I heard there was new although I did find out that Voislav Sesel Vojislav ?e?elj is being tried not primarely for his activities as a paramilitary commander rather than a radical Serbian politician.
Whatever can be said about Milosevic, one things seems to be clear in the short-term perspective. His death is a devastating blow to the credibility of the Hague Tribunal as it underscores its procedurial impotence (Milosevic had been in custody for four years and there was no end in sight when he died) and dubious legal standings.
I'm not a lawyer, so perhaps my analysis is rather naive but from what I have understood about his case it rested on the notion of 'command responsibility' which itself is based on 'customary international law' (read more about it here).

To me the whole notion of 'customary' law is itself dubious but even in the text it is stated that

By 1977 the doctrine of command responsibility was accepted as customary international law and was codified in the Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, relating to the International Armed Conflicts [emphasis added].

So it seems that the concept would not be applicable to the civil war in former Yugoslavia. However below it states that

It should be noted that international law recognizes the principle of command responsibility both in international and in internal armed conflict.

So when did it happen exactly?

2006-03-07T21:16:00.000-07:00

Pictures from Iran

2006-03-07T19:57:00.000-07:00

Russan LJ user drugoi posts some pictures from Iran. Check them out - they're really interesting and seem to confirm my long-held suspicion that regime and its people are often not on the same page. While Iran is theocracy run by scary mullas, its people are much more Westernized and much less religious than one might think.

Camille Paglia on Summers

2006-03-06T20:13:00.000-07:00

I have already written on the issue of Summers' resignation from Harvard presidency.
Today I came across a very interesting article by Camille Paglia in NYT. She acknowledes that it was the forces of 'professoriat' that brought him down in the first place. But as she points out a lot of Summers' troubles were of his own making due to his abrasive style of communication. But also there was a perception of a disturbing trend, the encroachment upon academic freedom by University administrators.
As Paglia puts it:

Over the past 40 years, there has been a radical expansion of administrative bureaucracies on American college campuses that has distorted the budget and turned education toward consumerism, a checkbook alliance with parents who are being bled dry by grotesquely exorbitant tuitions.

I don't dispute her assessment. It's pretty evident that the forces that brought Summers down were not monolithic and many people found themselves in a firm opposition to him due to a variety of reasons. But still, it doesn't dispell the gloom that comes from the realization that if even such a powerful man as Larry Summers had to crowl acquiescently, rather than stood by his remarks, and was still brought down, the persepctives of simple mortals are that bleak.
And finally my favorite part of the article:

While many issues are rumored to have played a role in Mr. Summers's resignation (including charges of favoritism in a messy legal case involving foreign investments), the controversy that will inevitably symbolize his presidency was the manufactured outcry early last year over his glancing reference at a conference to possible innate differences between the sexes in aptitude for science and math. The feminist pressure groups rose en masse from their lavishly feathered nests and set up a furious cackle that led to a 218-to-185 vote of no confidence by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences last March.

Instead of welcoming this golden opportunity to introduce the forbidden subject of biology to academic gender studies (where a rigid dogma of social constructionism reigns), Mr. Summers collapsed like a rag doll. A few months later, after issuing one abject apology after another, he threw $50 million at a jerrybuilt program to expand the comfort zone of female scientists and others on campus. That one desperate act of profligate appeasement tells volumes about the climate of persecution and extortion around gender issues at too many American universities.

CBC hires Heather Mallick: do I need to say more?

2006-02-24T18:57:00.000-07:00

CBC.ca welcomes columnist Heather Mallick who joins the ranks of Canada’s finest journalists with the introduction of her column, Stand on Guard. Heather’s column launches today on CBC.ca, and will run every second week thereafter at www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint.

(via Antonia Zerbisias)

My beef against Ms. Mallick is not that she's a left-wing journalist. There's plenty of her ilk out there. It's not even the fact that she's the living embodiment of the most disgusting, hypocritical left-wing type - a chardonnay socialist who prefers to slam economic inequalities and rampant poverty from the comfort of her upper middle class mansion in suburban Toronto (an instant disclaimer: I made up the last one - I have no idea how much Mallick's house is worth or where she actually lives but I dare you to prove me wrong - I don't think you will be successful).
My main objection is that Mallick is breathtakingly, unequivocally stupid. That's it, folks. She is an idiot - plain and simple. If you don't believe me - search through "Let it Bleed" archives to find Bob Tarantino slamming her columns on regular basis.
At the same time, I am not a bit surprised that CBC has hired her - that's what being Canada's subsidized public broadcaster is all about: a safe haven for all kinds of rabid, crazy lefties. The only good thing is that no one actually pays attention to what comes out of CBC, save for Hockey Night in Canada and perhaps the National so Ms. Mallick should be get accustomed that she'd have to toil in obscurity, which I don't think this drama queen is really prepared for.

squeezed out: Summers falls

2006-02-23T03:58:00.000-07:00

For those who understand:
this story

Harvard University's embattled president, Lawrence H. Summers, resigned this afternoon and will be replaced, on an interim basis, by Derek C. Bok, who was president of Harvard from 1971 to 1991. Mr. Bok was chosen to "clean up the mess and make conditions right for the next president," said a senior professor with knowledge of the tumultuous events of today in Cambridge, Mass.

Mr. Summers, who had been buffeted by controversy for more than a year, was expected to resign on Monday, the professor said, and this morning's Wall Street Journal said his resignation was imminent.

Google news is a good source but one can get lost easily in the midst of news items. However, I've managed to find an interesting piece on Summers, written by a PolSci prof, who is trying to refute the claim that Summers has fallen victim to the left-wing professoriat:

Economics and business at Harvard flourished under this former Treasury Secretary and World Bank vice president. One conscientious Harvard economist, Richard Parker, couldn’t get the administration to remove the name of former Sotheby’s auction emporium chief Alfred Taubman from Taubman Hall after his federal conviction, imprisonment and cynical self-celebration in Christopher Mason’s The Art of the Steal. Even more galling was Summers’s support of economist Andrei Schleifer after his conviction in the Russian bond mess. And there was his somewhat more amusing indifference to the 2005 arrest of economics professor Martin Weitzman, caught neglecting the standard market practice of paying for goods by swiping the latest of several truckloads of horse manure from a neighboring farm.

Meanwhile, a 20 year veteran Harvard maintenance man was demoted and had his pay cut by a third for shouting at a supervisor. And student protestors had had to occupy University Hall for weeks (shortly before Summers became president) to win a minimum $10 wage for tearfully grateful Harvard employees.

It was priorities like that, not the petulance of the politically correct, that turned even faculty moderates against Summers. His interim replacement, former president Derek Bok, is everything a defender of liberal education should be, but Summers’s departure doesn’t answer these big questions:

Will American universities keep governing themselves as communities of scholars, independent of political and market riptides, or will professors be employees in a cockpit of global-capitalist management? And will great undergraduate colleges keep nourishing American civic-republican leaders virtuous enough to save capitalism from itself, as they’ve sometimes had to do? Or will colleges be morphed into crucibles of a global ruling class accountable to no polity or moral code?

I just love the first selection - Jim Sleeper's idea of compassion is pretty pathetic actually.
In regard to the second: oh, please, give me a break. Just like in that invaluable Soviet joke, I have already quoted on another occasion - anyone can go the Red Square and shout 'down with Nixon'. It's easy to keep screaming 'down with Bush' while you at academia but try to shout 'down with Chomsky/Faucault/Derrida' see what happens to you.

Canada-Russia: two zip.

2006-02-22T23:10:00.000-07:00

Canadian Mens' hockey team has lost to Russia in a quarter final game at the Turino Winter Games. I watched the game and the Russians weren't that good, actually. It was rather the Canadian squad that looked wretched and unispired. It was their game to lose and pack home early - ain't no medals for you, Canucks, sorrrrrrrrrry!!!
Meanwhile Ovechkin, Malkin and Co. rock!

Canada's social engineering: just another example

2006-02-17T18:01:00.000-07:00

From today's Globe:

Overbilled phone users won't be repaid a penny

SIMON TUCK

With a report from Catherine McLean in Toronto

GATINEAU, QUE -- The CRTC said yesterday that Canadian telephone customers have been overbilled to the tune of $652.7-million over the past few years, but the money will not be going back to them.

The federal regulator ruled instead that telecommunications companies such as Bell Canada and Telus Corp. should use most of the money -- equivalent to about $50 a customer -- to expand offerings in underserved markets, primarily rural and remote communities.

So phone companies have racked a large amount of dough by overcharging their customers but according to Canadian government officials, "once taken, forever gone". Returning the monies to customers would be so 'un-Canadian', as they can be put towards a higher purpose:

CRTC chair Charles Dalfen told reporters yesterday that expanding broadband services, also known as high-speed Internet, is an important social and economic goal.

One can weigh in on the merits of providing subsidized internet access to remote and rural communities but it's beyond the point. It's up to the people and their representiaves to decide whether money should be spent on this or not. The failure to do only reveals the contempt those unelected bonzas of CRTC have for regular folks who wouldn't be able to appreciate the merits of their enlightened agenda.

History notes: elegant prose

2006-02-11T05:03:00.000-07:00

On General MacArthur(reading history books):

He was not susceptible to hints or indeed to outright orders of which he disapproved...

Leaders of the past were vile, sly, cunning, treacherous, arrogant, cynical, immoral and in many ways thouroghly despicable men. But they look like giants compared to today's intellectual midgets - modern politicians. How sad...

dated Soviet political humour

2006-02-09T02:23:00.000-07:00

There are three kinds of unnatural love:
that between a man and a man,
between a woman and a woman,
and between one socialist country and another socialist country.

on the cartoon kerfuffle: at last

2006-02-09T01:23:00.000-07:00

Much has been said, written, uttered, and spit out in regard to the decision of an otherwise obscure, global-wise, Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, to publish 12 drawings pertaining to Islam, including the most notorious one (allegedly) depicting the Prophet.
I just wanna add my two cents by focusing on a small party of this story. While the cartoons have been reprinted by various European media, in North America no major newspaper has done so. This fact was noticed that the explanation was that it somehow another evidence of Europe's deep xenophobia and intolerance.
But I think the difference here is that in Europe 'militant secularism' is much more pervasive and powerful whereas in the USA, and by extention in Canada, religion has always been in much higher regard. Protestant Europe rejected religion long time ago, long before the current tide of post-modern secularism based on the fanatical hostility to the two thousand year tradition of European cultural Christian heritage, which has firmly put Europe on the road to oblivion, began to hold its sway. Religion was traded away for the first time, for nationalism in XVII-XIX centuries. Then came communism and nazism and by the time the current holders of the discourse arrived there had been not much left to salvage.

Despite Muslims' continous claims that they took offence at the cartoons due to their religious beliefs it is quite evident to me that deep down they are offended as people. On the other hand, European (overwhelmingly post-modern and hence 'liberal' in the American sense of this word) intellectuals are offended that Muslims do not want to see how they had always defended and excused them as people.
For European intellectuals it has been always customary to distinguish between ethnicity/race and religion. That's why up to this point it was quite easy for Euro-politicians to condemn Israel and suppor the Palestinian cause, as they thought of the Palestinians as just another victim of Western imperialism and in this context their particular religious beliefs were of little importance. When they mock and denigraded GOD that was always presumed that it was the Christian God simply because other Gods didn't matter and mocking and denigrading Judaism became off-limits after the Holocaust. But it would be only a matter of time before the hostile attitude towards RELIGION in general will be tested against Islam and so the time has come.

However in the long run this dispute will be resolved in a realm far the intellectual and cultural battlefield of today. It will be demography that determine the future. Post-modern(Protestant) Europe is dead and will only become deadder by simply dying out in a generation or so. I'm not so sure it will be Muslims who replace the Danish, Norway, Swedish, German and so 'folk' but I know it is going to happen.

P.S. On a second thought I should probably replace Protestant with post-Protestant - American evangelical movement is alive and well.

Your political leanings: test (in Russian)

2006-02-06T17:29:00.000-07:00

Поздравляем!!! Вы - либеральный демократ

Вы либеральный демократ. Ваш пра-прадед был способен запросто снести любую коронованную голову, но с тех пор много изменилось. Эра революций кончилась. Теперь каждый гражданин имеет избрать в парламент своего депутата и влиять на принятие законов. Все в государстве идет по закону и по порядку. Каждый может купить, продать и обменять все что хочет и заработать себе на жизнь, если не нарушает законов и не навязывает силой своего мнения. Если при этом одни живут лучше, другие хуже, одним все удается, а другие в нищете, то это результат их собственного выбора. Для нас главное, чтобы все было законно и без насилия.

Пройти тест

Liberals' leadership race: it's a give-away game!

2006-02-01T15:31:00.000-07:00

CTV reports:

Tobin won't be running for Liberal leadership

Updated Wed. Feb. 1 2006 6:31 AM ET

CTV.ca News

Another Liberal leadership prospect has dropped out of the early race to replace Paul Martin, with Brian Tobin announcing he will not be putting his name forward.

Just reminded me that nobody was rushing in to replace Gorbachev after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Similarly, when Canada's government party is out of business of governing, suprise, suprise, political heavyweights are reluctant to step in.
I heard Tie Domy campainged for Belinda Stronach this time. Since fighting seems to be on decline in the new NHL he might be up for a new career move.

Truth vs. fiction (more on Frey's book and beyond)

2006-01-26T21:24:00.000-07:00

As noted in my previous post, it is all so ironic that John Dolan, probably a handful of other equally astute critics, trashed the book long before its fabricated nature was revealed. One can conclude that its bad poor literary quality stems from its lack of authenticity.
I think the picture is more complex. I think we, in our intense longing for authenticity, have forgotten how it all started – as a matter of fact, those who lived through ‘extreme events’, be it a war, a genocide, or even a junkie’s life can rarely tell their stories well. And it’s not because they are necessarily devoid of talent to do so. It is rather the fact that they got mired in the events and unable to look at themselves from a distance. That’s why soldiers’ memoirs are often full of very mundane stories while the big picture is often told in a very stereotypical, clich?d manner. In short, ‘if you want to know about water, don’t ask the fish’ or something like that. Best war movies are made by those who never experienced it first-hand, and I presume good junkie’s stories will be written by those who were never junkies themselves.

truth vs. fiction: the concoted 'true criminal" story of Frey's book

2006-01-26T13:52:00.000-07:00

This is the latest news
Oprah Winfrey Says Frey `Betrayed' Readers of His Best-Seller

Jan. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Talk-show host Oprah Winfrey told author James Frey today that he ``betrayed millions of readers'' by embellishing parts of his best-selling memoir ``A Million Little Pieces.''

``It is difficult for me to talk to you because I really feel duped,'' Winfrey said during Frey's appearance on ``The Oprah Winfrey Show.''

The controversy started when the Web site http://www.thesmokinggun.com reported that the author exaggerated his run-ins with police and the time he spent in jail. Frey has acknowledged that he embellished incidents, but has defended the overall accuracy of his memoir.

The article can be read in full here
it's a story, perhaps also slightly contrived, how a attempt to verify a small part of Frey's book turned into a full-scale investigation that has revealed the true extent of his lies and distortions.

We had simply planned to track down one of his many mug shots and add it to our site's large collection.
I say "contrived" coz it sounds cliche too - I don't believe that they began their investigation with no intention to tarnish his book - and the proof lies in the fact that even more Frey's facts came under the cloud of suspicion, others had pointed out how badly the book was written.
The John Dolan, toiling in obscurity at the Moscow's only alternative English-language newspaper the Exile wrote
This is the worst thing I've ever read.

A Million Little Pieces is the dregs of a degraded genre, the rehab memoir. Rehab stories provide a way for pampered trust-fund brats like Frey to claim victim status.

He proceeds to not all the drenched cliches and implausible stories the book is so full of and finally he asks rhetorically:

And this self-aggrandizing, simple-minded, poorly observed, repetitious, maudlin drivel passes for avant-garde literature in America?

Now we know the answer - it was all made up and that's why it sounds so cliched.

on genocide denial/assertion

2006-01-26T12:41:00.000-07:00

Hugh Eakin writes in Slate

There is surely some irony in that fact that you can now be prosecuted in Europe for denying a genocide and prosecuted in Turkey for asserting that a genocide took place.

(via Taylor Cohen)

Belarus/Babruisk pictures

2006-01-26T12:31:00.000-07:00

The text is in Russian but the pics are quite nice

post-elections reflections: NDP in Alberta

2006-01-24T23:44:00.000-07:00

From a left-wing discussion board:

- The NDP ran an impressive 2nd in Nova Scotia, BC, Saskatchewan, The North, and almost Manitoba and Alberta.
- The NDP rose the most in Alberta and Quebec.
- The NDP almost unseated Peter McKay and an Alberta Conservative MP.

I guess we're fortunate that guys on the left can be so delusional. Yes, statistically many NDP candidates did indeed come in second in Alberta. But the incumbent Tories won those ridings by 20 to 30 thousand margins!!! So it didn't really matter whether NDP was second or third or fourth. May be it can provide party activists with some solace that they managed to beat Marxist-Leninists very soundly, but it'd get them any more MPs.
And regarding "almost unseatting an Alberta Conservative MP", that was Rahim Jaffer of course. As I wrote below he won by approximately the same margin as in 2004. So it
was really a decided contest from the start.

Russia wants to buy up Armenia's pipeline: a feedback

2006-01-24T22:53:00.000-07:00

Elections Canada 2006: results

2006-01-24T00:14:00.000-07:00

Here are some of my observations on the outcome in some particular ridings:
Alberta's sweep
Edmonton-Strathcona
As I predicted Rahim Jaffer has won again: this time his margin was 4,814 which is a slight downturn compared to his 2004 of 5032. In practice, it means that he simply harvested his vote again. On the wake of the election day, I heard a few NDP hotheads predicting their victory in Strathcona for Linda Duncan. Ain't gonna happen, folks! Like ever... I can readily concede she might as well be an eminently more qualified than the hapless Jaffer but socialists will never get elected in Alberta, even in the University riding.
B.t.w. it was a good litmus test to tell misguided NDPs from outright delusional ones - the latter predicted taking some Northern Alberta ridings (I don't remember which one).

Edmonton Centre and Edmonton - Mill Woods - Beaumont
Annie the Landslide McLellan is finally sent packing. She was one of the most dangerous Liberals, a coveted feminist who didn't waste time burning bras or on some other nonsense and was behind the curtailing of fathers' rights in custody battles.
It was funny that Mark Steyn turned out to be not up to date on the Mill Woods riding- Mr. Kilgour didn't lose, as he claimed, but simply didn't run again and the riding was easily captured by the CPC.

New Market-Aurora
I used to say that I want Belinda to lose. But I've changed my mind on that - poor Belinda, she finally reaped the bitter fruits of her betrayal and is gonna have to get used to being a backbencher. I'm not sure she's ready for this.

Vancouver Centre
The Liar beat the Thief. It was funny to hear on TV some pundit musing how the Libs have increased their presence, by one seat though. I can't help but wonder: what if the NDP had nominated someone else but the disgraced Robinson, they might've captured the riding, wouldn't they? But I'm relieved Svend is gone - his decision to run again after what he had done was a sham and a slap in the face of the electorate. And he got tossed.

Michael Ignatieff, Canada's only philosopher-count*, won handidly. It will be interesting to see what he's up to.

*An allusion to his Russian ancestry as his father was the count Ignatieff, a minister in the tsarist government.

P.S. Rona Ambrose is HOT!!! I hope that she, being a re-elected Conservative MP, would this comment as a compliment.

Harper is the next Prime Minister of Canada

2006-01-24T00:10:00.000-07:00

Nakonets-to(rus)/Finally(eng)/Vreshti-Resht(ukr)

Elections Canada 2006: my expectations

2006-01-17T23:38:00.000-07:00

If you, by a chance, happen not have followed what's going on in Trudeaupia it seems that Stephen Harper, leader of the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) is poised to win the upcoming, January 23, parliamentry elections.

It's most likely that there'll be a Conservative minority government as a result. However, I hope for a majority one. I heard Harper warning today that even in the case of such unlikely event his powers won't be absolute as there will be enough checks and balances on him inherited from the previous Liberal era. I don't know what to make of it:
was he trying to play down fears regarding the 'horrors' of a conservative majority?
Or the message was directed at those conservative forces who expect too much and are bracing for a sweet revenge?

Vancouver-Centre
There Liberal Hedy Fry is battling the thieving Svend Robinson. I wrote about it when the campaign started and called it a battle of "alien vs. predator".
Since Liberals are losing anyway now I can be more decisive - I'd exteremely happy to see Robinson lose. In fact, I'd be very upset if he wins.

Edmonton-Centre
Ann the Landslide McLellan. I want her to lose and not just because she's a Liberal.
to me she embodies the most dangerous type of a Liberal: smart and powerful she's the woman of action rather than words but her beliefs are frigthening - she's done more harm to fathers' rights than any bra-burning femi-nazi ever could.

CfP: cross-disciplinary conferences

2006-01-14T14:32:00.000-07:00

Urban, Rural and Extraterrestial

Place and Space

Boundaries and Borders

Left and Right (I'm not sure what it means but heck... who the fuck cares)

Right, Wrong, and Irrelevant

And finally here's the universal formula:

X: Sex, Race, and Gender

(Substitute X with whatever you want - from Bingo Hall to Wal-Mart, from small towns in Alberta to a medieval castle. Race may be substituted with 'ethnicity' if you talk about Eastern Europe).

You call it 'Global warming'? - I'm not making it up

2006-01-13T17:05:00.000-07:00

While Edmonton is enjoying one of the warmest winters in a long time, certainly the warmest since I came here, the Russian city of Surgut has been hit by a harsh, freezing to death, cold snap. The link is in Russian but here's what caught my attention:
On January 12, 2006 11 a.m. the temperature was -51.1.

It's been cold all over Siberia, which it should be, but I chose Surgut coz I've been there and now what's like - a truly frightening city when it comes to weather.
Yet, Edmonton ain't the Bahamas either, at least until recently and having been enjoying this warm weather I can't help but recall a Russian proverb which can be roughly translated as follows:
if it's empty over here, it must be full over there....

Deja Vu or I've heard that before...

2006-01-10T22:51:00.000-07:00

Doubts about gas deal quickly flare
Reuters

THURSDAY, JANUARY 5, 2006

The accord uses RosUkrEnergo as middleman. It is a little-known Swiss-based joint venture owned half by Russia's gas monopoly Gazprom and half by Austria's Raiffeisen Zentralbank.

Sources familiar with the five-year gas deal say Raiffeisen is representing a group of mainly Ukrainian investors, but their identity is shrouded in secrecy."We represent a group of international investors knowledgeable in the gas business who don't want to reveal their identity,"

Wolfgang Putschek, of the Austrian bank's investment arm, told Reuters by telephone from Vienna.

DECEMBER 21, 2004 -- MOSCOW -- Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that the auction of Yukos's main operating unit was conducted in accordance with Russian law and that the Chinese state oil company might be involved in the future operations of the unit, reported the Associated Press.

Putin also said that the company representatives who had won the auction were private individuals who had worked many years in the energy sphere, the Interfax news agency reported. His comments at a news conference in Germany came two days after Yukos's core Yuganskneftegaz unit was sold at auction to a mystery bidder for $9.3 billion.

on Russian-Ukrainian gas dispute: some little rhyme

2006-01-06T03:04:00.000-07:00

А у нас в квартире газ. А у вас?
А у нас трубопровод. Вот!
(source here)

Ukraine-Russia gas row resolved.

2006-01-04T20:50:00.000-07:00

As you may already know, the dramatic stand-off between Russia and Ukraine has ended rather abruptly,
As BBC reports

Gazprom will sell Russian gas to Rosukrenergo for $230 for 1,000 cubic metres from 1 January, but the company will also supply Ukraine with much cheaper gas from Turkmenistan.

The overall price Ukraine will pay will be $95 per 1,000 cubic metres. It will also get paid 47% more for transporting Russian gas to Europe.

Sounds complicated? Well, one Russian LJ user has come up with a way to explain it in layman terms
here (translated from Russian):

So far it looks like this: Gazprom will be selling gas to itself at the $230 price and to Ukraine for $95.

Meanwhile, Europe is weighing in on possible repsonses to the lessons it's learned during the crisis

Geographical determinism - Mexico

2006-01-04T17:35:00.000-07:00

I have just come back from Mexico. It was my first trip there I could have been blogging daily from there, sharing every miniscule detail and observations regarding Mexico, its land and inhabitans. However, I didn't do it, chiefly because I have grown to be quite afraid of sliding into mawkish extolment.
And yet, this post is on the most banal thing of all - the Mexican climate. We used to sneer at the late 19th century environmental determinists for their 'naive' attemtps to explain 'culture' through geography. Growing up in frosty Russia, I was also quite aversed to the idea that the climate determines human behavior - the most striking example to refute such a claim would be to compare Canada and Russia.
However, in Mexico I realized that it might not be entirely false - when it's +25 all year round and the ground never freezes it doesn't necessarily perpetuate laziness, as many Anglo-Saxon authors have been fond of pointing out, but makes one's soul more gentle.
The northern summer can be quite rewarding but you are so acutely aware that it will pass. On the other hand, it is a deeply profound feeling to enjoy the dusk sun (between 4 and 6) in December knowing that it's not going anywhere and the cold times will never come.

Sweden's comedown: some statistics

2005-12-14T00:16:00.000-07:00

Johnny Munkhammar of Timbro, the free market think-tank of Swedish Enterprise, explains:

Sweden had the second highest growth rate in the world from 1890 to 1950, but since the tax rate rose from 20 % in 1950 to 50 % in 1980 we have fallen behind. For example, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Sweden was the fourth richest country per capita in the world in 1970 whereas now it is down to number 14.

Read the whole thing

situational humour

2005-12-07T16:56:00.000-07:00

Mark Steyn points out rather obvious:

As to what planet Mr Bush is on, he's not on Pluto but on planet Goofy, a strange lost world where it's perfectly normal for apparently sane people to walk around protesting about global warming in sub-zero temperatures. Or, as the Canadian Press reported: "Montreal - tens of thousands of people ignored frigid temperatures Saturday to lead a worldwide day of protest against global warming."" [emphasis mine]

I know, I know and can hear those voices accusing me and that rabid fanatical neo-con guru of mine :-) of being simplistic and not understanding that global warming is all about long term trends rather than momentary occurrances. Therefore it's perfectly sane and sensible to protest it while "battling frigid temperatures". Yet, I do think the irony is still potent here - after all, didn't you notice how the news on GW gain prominence at times when weather is warmer than usual. I got exactly that impression two years ago when Edmonton had no snow in December up until Christmas. There was a lot, and I mean - a lot, of talk on global warming. Which seemed to have disappeared instantly once, after New Year as I recall, the temperature hit -30 all of a sudden.

French hockey; on Duceppe's remark

2005-12-03T12:52:00.000-07:00

This story was bound to make lots of headlines in Canada:

Gilles Duceppe's Bloc Qu?b?cois called for the partitioning of Canada's national hockey team while unveiling the party's campaign platform Wednesday.
Duceppe suggested the creation of an all-Qu?b?cois hockey and soccer teams to complete in international tournaments, comparing the idea to the fact that in the United Kingdom, Scotland and Wales have their own seperate football (soccer) clubs, separate from the English team.

What has followed is a predictable of mixture of (self)-rigtheous indignation, hand wringing and separatism cursing, which incidentally makes little or no sense.

It's one thing to hear it from a sport writer, such as David Barnes, who in his column on the subject managed to offer just two, not particularly impressive, arguments against the idea while the rest of his column was filled with exasperation and insults (at one point he called him an "imbecile").

Although the Toronto Star refrained from slurs in its editorial the argument it put forward was equally flawed:

If Quebec were to have its own team, why shouldn't there also be Team North Ontario and Team South Ontario? Or Team Toronto?

Well, that's precisely the point you don't get, folks. Duceppe and his supporters, which seem to constitute a majority of Quebec's population as of now, believe that Quebec is a 'distinct society'. One may of course call it a balooney but it does make sense, from the standpoint of someone who believes in it, to argue that having a separate Quebec hockey team is legit unlike a Southern Ontario team.

Having said that I'm at a risk of being cast a separatist sympathizer. Well, I'm not and it's beyound the point here - I just like coherent arguments and do not tolerate non-sequitars regardless of the side they come from.

Ilya's maxim

2005-11-29T18:39:00.000-07:00

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)

2005-11-21T18:21:00.000-07:00

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

2005-11-18T13:46:00.000-07:00

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

2005-11-18T13:27:00.000-07:00

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

2005-11-17T17:32:00.000-07:00

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...

2005-11-14T02:00:00.000-07:00

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)

2005-11-11T18:40:00.000-07:00

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

2005-11-03T16:11:00.000-07:00

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

2005-11-02T20:13:00.000-07:00

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

2005-11-02T14:51:00.000-07:00

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.

Post-Colonialism and Ukrainian History

2005-10-25T19:49:00.000-06:00

This is the title of an article by Stephen Velychenko published by the excellent Russian scholarly journal Ab Imperio.
"Postcolonialism and Ukrainian History," Ab Imperio, no. 1 (2004), pp. 391-404.

On the phenomenon in general:

"They [postcolonialist scholars] seem to think that bad, white European males with their technology and logic did worse things to good, non-white non-Europeans than they did to each other or that non-Europeans did to themselves."

And then one does have to have a keen eye for subtle irony to enjoy the way he nails its newly-converted Ukrainian followers:

By describing Ukrainian-Russian relations in post-colonialist terms these individuals make Ukrainian points of view and grievances acceptable to some who otherwise might have ignored them.

Grin thoughtfully.

Alien vs. Predator in the land of Canadian politics

2005-10-25T18:52:00.000-06:00

David Warren practices his acerbic wit:

Item, Svend Robinson to run again for Parliament, this time in Vancouver Centre against Hedy Fry. This, the year after being caught stealing an extremely pricey wedding ring, as a present to his boyfriend. And for which he is not currently serving time. Mr. Robinson being the M.P. whose successful private members’ bill criminalized opposition to homosexuality, under the same section of the Criminal Code that punishes “genocide”, setting the stage for the legislation of “same-sex marriage”.

Ms Fry is the memorable alleger of Ku Klux Klan events that didn’t happen.

So that will be the main event in the next election. Several elimination side-card events were proposed by an Internet wag. “Terror Cell Member v. Paedophile! Man-Hating Feminist v. Drug Dealer! Corrupt Lobbyist v. Pornographer! Bogus Refugee v. Gay Activist! Euthanasiast v. Incest Promoter!”

This pretty much sums up my feelings about the issue. It's only that Mr. Warren said it much more eloquently than I would ever be able to do.

Russia's European choice

2005-10-24T20:41:00.000-06:00

Among tons of utter crap that passes for analysis in the world of today's Russian journalism there's one thoughtful article on Russia's Ukraine problem (written by a Ukrainian of course)
Dmitrii Kirichenko's European Choice (in Russian unfortunately)
The author mounts an angry, yet well-deserved, offense at present day Slavianophiles and urges Russian Westerners to shed their prejudicies regarding the Ukrainian language. So it's a worthy read but there's one line that made me chuckle nerviously:
Even most hardcore nationalists [in Ukraine] admit openly that Ukrainian, like other similar local languages (Swedish, Czech, modern Greek) are not sufficient on the communicative level.

The rather vague "sufficient on the communicative level" is of course nothing else but the claim that Ukrainian can only exist alongside some other language, which would supplement it "on the communicative level". In the case of the Swedish language it is presumably English. But I seriously doubt that Swedes or Czechs think of their languages as "communicatively insufficient".

new NHL season: some reflections

2005-10-23T15:42:00.000-06:00

It's been a few weeks since the start of a new, post-lockout, hockey season and it's time to make some very premature conclusions (in no particular order):
First of all, fans are mostly back, even in the southern American markets. I always thought the worries were a bit exaggerated.
- new schedule sacks. I know that division rivalries are supposed to attract more attentnion but hey, isn't that what makes a birthday cake so delicious that you eat once a year? Enthusiasm is bound to wear off after the third battle of Alberta in a row, won't it?
- Actually, there's a selfish reason behind my protestations. To my dismay, I found out that there would be no game played against Washington Capitals during the regular season (and odds of them making to the Stanley Cup final are...well, not very good).
I just wanted to see Oleksandr Ovechkin.

- Money can't buy happiness, right? Well, as it's turned out taking money away from your competitors can't buy happiness either. Despite the acquisitions of Chris Pronger and Mike Peca the Oilers are down 6 in a row, including a couple of games in which they got absolutely smashed.

- NY Rangers. They had a good start but still losing games and yet, it doesn't matter in a way. N68, Jaromir Jagr is back, full force. What's that team is all about epitomized their last game against NY Islanders. They lost 5-4 but Jarg scored a hat trick and I'm sure those ~~fat bastards~~ New Yorkers were quite happy.

sociology 101

2005-10-22T21:06:00.000-06:00

Rebels with an educational cause: City students test the power of society's unwritten rules -- by breaking them
Jodie Sinnema The Edmonton Journal
20 October 2005

All are students from King's University College who have taken David Long's first-year sociology class, where one assignment is to break a social norm to learn how powerful the unwritten rules are in guiding behaviour.

But the assignment isn't meant to simply amuse, or to embarrass or humiliate. Students can't do anything criminal, cause offence or hurt anyone.

They have to think critically about how and why social norms are formed and take note of how people react to their stunts.

Oh, I see. Let's teach those Marcians first-year students that walking down the street naked might get you an occasional odd stare or two. How educational!

Breaking a norm can help people see from a different perspective, Long said.

Long said, "It's a liberating assignment. Breaking a norm shows us how we are pressured to conform."

Of course, the students tried to do their best:

Another female student showed up at her family's formal Sunday dinner without shoes. A few minutes into the din-din, she pushed back her chair, put her feet on the table, and proceeded to cut her toenails.
"It was Armageddon," Long said. "Her dad just went ballistic. 'What are you doing? The youth of today, no respect.' "

How liberating! Perhaps, she should've tried to "lay the brick" (Ali G©) in the dining room to free herself of all those stifling conventionalities. But it wouldn't have boded well with her retrograde father who might have paid for her tution. Nice to know where your money goes.

Sarcasm aside, this is sad really. That's what passes for higher learning these days - jackass tricks aimed to shock and revolt. It may 'liberate' students from the norms of modern day society but I doubt it's gonna liberate their minds as well, which is to me the main purpose of University education.
And yeah, this just confirms my long-held suspicion that out of all humanities Sociology department is the most f..uped place on campus.

the cost of CBC

2005-10-20T19:04:00.000-06:00

From today's Globe:

The BBC lays down a signal in one time zone in a country smaller than Alberta. The technical infrastructure costs of the CBC are immense, and unknown in Britain. It costs money to broadcast every CBC network program five times in five time zones.

And then there's the Arctic. It cost as much to lay down a satellite signal for 2 or 3 per cent of the population in the Canadian North as it did to bring satellite service to all the rest of Canada.

As a die-hard libertarian, I am prompted to sneer that it’s unconscionable to ask taxpayers to subsidize those living the North – if it’s not economically viable then too bad – no TV. And if they can’t live without TV – well, people from the North are more than welcome to move south into our aging cities. However we all understand of course that it’s not just ‘people’ there but aboriginals and a politician cuts the cable, the next day the Red Star and the Globe will accuse him of racism. So it would be a politically suicidal move.
On the other hand, perhaps it’s not so bad to subsidize TV broadcasting to those areas. After all, those people live in Canada and it’d be only fair if the public broadcaster served them too on the same level as the rest of the country. So I might curb my social Darwinist instincts :-) for a moment and endorse the idea.

But what made me smile ironically during the lockout was the duplicity with which CBC proponents put forward the argument regarding CBC’s special mission in relation to those remote communities in order to justify its overall existence and continuous funding. Hardly anyone would oppose to that. But once you cast your vote in support of remote communities and their access to CBC what you’ll invariably get alongside is the Passionate Eye, the Current and a myriad of other CBC shows with a heavy left-wing slant to them. Go figure!

Reality vs. fiction (adminstration of justice)

2005-10-19T13:14:00.000-06:00

Any avid Law&Order fan can site off the top of his/her head

"Bail hearing:
charges - murder in the second degree... people request bail to be set at 300,000 dollars... my client has no financial means... it's a murder charge, counsillor.. bail is set at $100,000. Bang"

or something like that,
But this is a TV show. Meanwhile in real life
Michael White, an Edmontonian accused of killing his pregnant wife Liana, has been realised on bail, set at the whopping sum of... try to guess...
10,000 CAD.

Again, my intent is not to cast a judgement and say the bail amount is set ridicously low. At the same time, it seems pretty obvious to me that due to the high publicity surrounding this case, Mr. White is unlikely to try to flee. I also doubt that he could be a danger to anyone else. Plus, there's such thing as presumption of innocence. But I just wonder whether this is a normal practice and then it's the Law&Order script writers who exaggerate the amount of bail normally asked in murder cases.

Українська поезія/Ukrainian poetry

2005-10-14T20:19:00.000-06:00

Pavlo Hlazovy:
Голова сільради Сидір Півторакожуха
Якось, випивши, Секлеті відкусив піввуха.
Це обурило до того й потрясло Секлету,
Що вона послала скаргу в обласну газету.

(via Маnque_Mankey)

Immigration to Canada: some damning facts

2005-10-12T21:31:00.000-06:00

This is unf...ngbelievable:

Therefore, simple measures aimed at ensuring language proficiency, and a more rigid adherence to the government’s existing point system for admitting immigrants (currently, only 23% are subject to these criteria), would go a long way toward ending the decline in immigrants’ economic fortunes.

(National Post. An immigrant’s lot: Editorial. A14 Tuesday, October 11, 2005).
The full report (PDF file) is here
23%. And I thought they were not rigorous enough in applying the points criteria (I personally know of one guy who managed to immigrate to Canada as a ‘skilled worker’ (as far as I’m concerned he’s indeed qualified) but whose English is atrocious. But to know that only one fifth are actually subjected to the process is staggering. My question is how the hell can it be: From what I know one can only sponsor his children/wife/parents and it’s still hard to do. I just don’t see how under the circumstances the ratio can get so uneven.

Read it before Hollywood does

2005-10-11T21:00:00.000-06:00

This one and more can be found here

On G-G and media frenzy

2005-10-07T15:42:00.000-06:00

Tony Keller writes in today's Post:

In the flagship line from her speech, Ms. Jean said words that we English-Canadians have long dreamed of hearing: "The time of the two solitudes that for too long described the character of this country is past."
...
It is telling of this deep English Canadian desire that we all went nuts over one phrase -- and it is telling of our long-standing predicament that this phrase was delivered not by a politician from Quebec, not by someone who had won over Quebec voters, but by an appointee who has never run for office, and who was under pressure to say something to defuse the firestorm outside Quebec, caused by the perception that she had separatist leanings. To compensate, she threw us one sentence from our revealed fantasies, and we all fell over with joy.

(National Post, October 7 2005)
You cannot help but grin sarcastically, recalling Andrew Coyne's syropy column.

Canada's chattering classes outdid themselves or 'brave sanity'

2005-10-07T12:36:00.000-06:00

One can never underestimate the audacity of Canada's chattering classes. The country's leadinig newspaper hits a new low, publishing a vicious non-sensical, conspirozoid anti-American rant. An outrage from many corners follows and here we go:

Toronto, October 5, 2005 - Journalist, author and academic Paul William Roberts is the winner of a new award honouring courage in journalism.

The PEN Canada/Paul Kidd Courage Award is named after the late Canadian journalist, who was one of Canada's first globe-trotting foreign correspondents. Kidd filed reports from more than 70 countries, braving street violence, gunfire, terrorism and arrest from political regimes infuriated by his insistence on getting and reporting the truth. Kidd died in 2002.

"We think that the awarding of the prize to Paul William Roberts is an excellent and appropriate choice," said writer Judy Creighton, the widow of Paul Kidd. "Roberts's writings accurately reflect his bravery in getting the word out."

A critique of his "absolutely lunatic essay" can be found here, and here

Today's Globe has a few letter on the subject and even one of his supporters admits that

"his position that Washington may have created the terrorist threat to "have a national demon to replace the defeated Soviet Red Peril" is over the top".

However, there's a letter from Constance Rooke, PEN Canada's president herself. It's funny and outrageous. It's funny coz I always marvel how the modern loonie left are seriously convinced that the best way to answer charges by uttering some no-factual, non-sensical emotion-laden drivel.
As it turns out that Mr. Roberts is

"an intrepid journalist who demonstrated courage of many kinds in the course of his career."

I wonder what exactly is the courage of many kinds? Isn't that courage is courage?

However, judging by the Wikipedia article on him, full of slavish praise, his ‘courage’ presumably included “standing by helplessly as his old friend tries to save his family from the rubble of their bombed-out house,” sleeping “in Saddam’s bed in one of his opulent palaces" and, perhaps the most daring act of all, "being interrogated by U.S. intelligence.” – that must’ve been tough, eh? Those illiterate brutes must’ve never heard of his ‘courageous’ books. Otherwise they would’ve surely thrown him in Guantanamo and subjected to torture by making him listen to Christina Aguilera instead of the Current.
However, this is just funny and to some extent predictable. What makes me mad though is another thing:

“It is not “only in Canada” that the decisions of juries are not universally applauded. More important, it is not “sadly”, the case that a writer doesn’t have to be brave to mount strong criticisms within, whether of the U.S. or anything else. This is called free speech, the practice of which is not always easy.”

I’m the biggest proponent of free speech you get. And I don’t hesitate to go “against the grain” and express opinions many would disagree with. But it is the travesty of these two pivotal virtues that makes me seethe with disdain. Yeah, being virulently anti-American in Canada is so freaking ‘uneasy’! And if you happen to express doubts that there’s something inherently brave about getting your kooky rant published in the main national newspaper, we will look down at ya, and tell you to fuck off for our decisions may not be “universally applauded.”
I remember an old Soviet joke about a conversation between Brezhnev and Nixon which goes like this:
Nixon: Mr. Brezhnev, there’s a freedom of speech in the US. Anyone can come to the White House and say “Down with Nixon” and nothing will happen to this man.
Brezhnev: Well, there’s the same freedom in the USSR. Anyone can come to the Red Square and say “Down with Nixon” and nothing will happen to that man either…

Movie review: de la Calle a.k.a. the Streeters.

2005-10-06T14:46:00.000-06:00

What they say:

Authentic and committed, moving and stormy drama of street kids from Mexico City. Wonderful adaptation of successful play about street kids who have more trouble with corrupt cops, than with dirty and heavy work.

What I say:
a daring guest at any North American film festival for its supposedly 'authentic' portrayal of the destitute this movie reminded of an old Soviet cinematographic phenomenon - chernukha. This was a short-lived genre that came to define late Soviet early Russian cinema.
One American movie critic defined it as

"a display of visceral excess that emphasizes with graphic naturalism and hermetic pessimism Russia's social ills and historical abscesses."

I tend to agree but would like to make one important qualification. The squalor it portrayed became the end rather a means of artistic expression. Much in the same vein, the Jerry Springer Show exploits real lives' stories to provide bizzare, perverse entertainment.
So the flick was an example of Mexican 'chernukha' - holes rigged plot, somewhat undeveloped characters and the intentionally gloom, to the point of getting revolting portrayal of the life of Mexico's underworld.
Final verdict: not too bad, but could be much better.

an Old Leftie visits Moscow

2005-10-06T13:21:00.000-06:00

Daniel Cohn-Bendit, an MP at the Europarliament, and the former leader of 1968 in Paris, visited Moscow to deliver a public lecture.
If you read Russian there is one article and an informal account of the meeting. The latter one is espcially hilarious as it depicts how the unfortunate leftie came under attack of the 'young wolves', Moscow Trotskytes, anarchists and so on, "a young fellow in an old rusty leather jacket", or "a girl with an expensive cellphone who kept scoffing at the speaker every time he uttered the word democracy..."
Chadaev's article got a lot of things horribly wrong. His prediliction to see the non-existent connection between the Orange revolution in Ukraine and the events in Paris made his analysis highly prejudicial. However, as a Russian, who displays a remarakable ability to add a healthy dose of cynicism, which helps him to see what often gets conveniently overlooked in the West.

Daniel Cohn-Bendit obviously has a speech prepared for any occasion, especially on his "month of triumph", the Red May which he has been collecting the rent for throughout the last 38 years.

the tale of two nations

2005-10-03T20:40:00.000-06:00

LYSIANE GAGNON criticizes 'the end of two solitudes' drivel Michaelle Jean offered during her inauguration ceremony:

In her speech, she implied that the existence of “two solitudes” was due to nothing more than a string of outdated and narrow grievances, erasing 450 years of history and 40 years of constitutional debates. Moreover, it was a denial of the fundamental duality of Canada, a country that is based on the union of the two founding peoples (the aboriginals were not part of the various arrangements and compromises that built modern Canada).
Listening to the Governor-General, a new immigrant would have wondered why French is an official language in Canada — and he would have had the impression that Canada has been a British possession for 400 years.
…
Prime Minister Paul Martin wasn't more explicit. His own account of the country's history was contained in a single sentence, in which an unspecified group of “pioneers” were sandwiched between “the aboriginals” and “the immigrants,” as if the contributions of the French and British settlers and their descendants had been minimal. It's one thing to recognize the role of our large, diversified immigrant population in redefining Canada in the 20th and 21st centuries, but it's another thing to minimize the role of those who spent 400 years building the foundations of the country.

I don’t know about the French part; it’s my understanding that Anglo liberals are quite content to recognize “French as an official language in Canada” and waste taxpayers’ money promoting it where it historically never existed because of the special role of French-Quebecois culture in Canadiana.
However, the real reason why the tale of two founding nations gets sometimes sandwiched between aboriginals and immigrants is because of its British component. For the proponents of Trudeaupia it’s an uncomfortable thing of the past that should be dealt away with and never looked back at. For to recognize the contribution of British settlers and their culture would be to admit that there was never a void which multiculturalism was supposed to fill but a vibrant, potent culture that has succeeded everywhere it went. But this would be such an un-PC thought and dangerous knowledge. And we ought to remember that 'Ignorance is Strength.'

Canada's social strata. Part III

2005-10-03T00:26:00.000-06:00

Small 'L' Liberals
(Click the thumbnail to view larger image and read caption)
And again, the picture is more telling and less confusing than the text. Small ‘l’ liberals consist of ‘soccer moms’ demographic and all those people who pay no attention to politics. They indeed have a lot in common with their cousins to the left, but unlike the first group they’re no revolutionaries so political actions of any kind are not their cup of tea. However, deeply embedded leftist dogma in combination with general political ignorance makes them highly susceptible to the big “L” propaganda regarding the Conservatives’ alleged ‘hidden agenda’. The Liberals and their friendly media have played this card over and over again, last elections being a good example when Conservatives were portrayed to be against ‘women’s rights’ on a baseless charge of trying to outlaw abortions.
And oh yeah, a lot of them happen to live in Ontario, and particularly in that ‘centre of the universe’ a.k.a. Toronto.
Yet, there’s nothing here to suggest that they can’t be won over. It’s been pointed out many times that in order to fight the hidden agenda charge is to have an agenda, to articulate policies in simple, clear language that would leave no room for ambiguities. And running a risk of being accused of sexism :-), ‘soccer moms’ are ‘charm prone’, i.e. a charismatic, good-looking guy would boost his party ratings a lot.

Canada's social strata. Part II.

2005-10-02T19:49:00.000-06:00

Social Democrats
(Click the thumbnail to view larger image and read caption)
Although the caption does not say it the picture features a working class guy and I think the depiction is correct. This group is made up of mostly workers, especially those who work at big plants, such as Ford’s in Ontario and lumber enterprises in BC and are traditionally heavily unionized. NDP used to represent them until the party leadership got hijacked by campus revolutionaries. ‘Social democrats’ mostly rely on their instincts and old prejudices: as a lot of them were Irish in the past they would be deeply suspicious of the Tories, the party of protestant Anglo establishment.
They keep voting NDP and Liberals even though it’s a well hidden secret that on some key issues such as crime, immigration, their views are much more to the right of even the modern day Canadian conservatives. In the U.S. these people used to be rock solid Democrats until the Reagan revolution and the similar process of 'academization' of the Democratic Party have made their electoral preferences much more violatile . An interesting example of this confusion between the old and new left is the public persona of Michael Moore. He pretends to be a 'social democrat' while in reality he belongs to the upper West side Manhattan

Canada's social strata. Part I.

2005-10-02T16:48:00.000-06:00

On Friday, National Post ran a piece entitled "Canada's Tribes"

The Canadian Values Study, a joint project of the National Post, the Dominion Institute and Innovative Research Group, wraps up its analysis with a look at how Canadians can be categorized into five groups.

Having read their characterizations I found them somewhat misleading and unsatisfactory. This post and four others will feature my reflections on the subject.
The Show me Left
(Click the thumbnail to view larger image and read caption)
The show me left are most ubiquitous on Canada's academic campuses although they can be found elsewhere but especially among the staff of various ‘community organizations’ which in Canada thrive on government subsidies.
This broad category includes a great variety of people: borderline insane Stalinist fanatics (yes, there are such people in Canada), femi and eco-nazis. However, the main bulk of this group is composed of members of so called 'chattering classes' who, while not necessarily political, blindly subscribe to any left-wing dogma that is popular in the moment. The ‘blame-America-for-everything-crowd’ is chiefly composed of these people.
Religious, but socially liberal.
Their religiosity is of a special kind. Unlike their predecessors, the American of European left of the last century, they are seldom convinced atheists. Instead, they believe in 'spirituality', a necessarily obtuse concept that may mean anything: from mostly made up aboriginal rituals to Wicca and other old and new superstitions.

surprise, surprise...

2005-09-28T12:21:00.000-06:00

from this article in the Guardian:

Germany's new Left party, which could play a crucial role in deciding the next chancellor, faced acute embarrassment yesterday amid claims that at least seven of its MPs had collaborated with the Stasi, the East German secret police.

The head of Germany's state-held Stasi archive, Marianne Birthler, said she had documents to prove the MPs had worked as "inoffizielle mitarbeiter" (unofficial collaborators).

...

The revelation came as the Left party held its first meeting as a parliamentary group after Sunday's inconclusive general election. It is made up of members from the Party of Democratic Socialism, the successor to East Germany's Communist party, and a new west German leftwing alliance, the Workers and Social Justice party. It won 8.7% of the vote, coming second in eastern Germany.

Who woulda thought?! I wonder to see how the public reacts to it. Hopefully, Germany, even former East Germnany, is no Russia where her president once boasted with pride that "there could no 'former' chekists".

via Daimnation

Michaelle Jean says au revoir to her French passport

2005-09-26T02:33:00.000-06:00

Michaelle Jean to give up French citizenship

CTV.ca News Staff

Governor General-designate Michaelle Jean is to renounce her dual citizenship as she prepares to take up the vice-regal post.

In a brief written statement issued on Sunday, Jean said she was giving up the French citizenship she acquired when she married Jean-Pierre-Lafond, who was born in France.

The Haitian-born Jean said it would have felt "kind of strange" to remain a French national, given the duties she will be assuming, including the title of commander-in-chief of the Canadian Forces.

"In light of the responsibilities related to the function of the Governor General of Canada and commander-in-chief of the Canadian Forces, I have decided to renounce the French citizenship that I acquired for family reasons in 2004," Jean wrote in her statement.

She said that French authorities have accepted her request to give up her citizenship in that country.

Jean's decision came despite earlier assurances from a French embassy spokesperson that she wouldn't have to give up her dual citizenship to assume the post.

What's the big deal, guys, I don't get. But okay, if you insist (see picture) I'll play along to soothe your barbaric insticts...

good old days...

2005-09-26T01:36:00.000-06:00

David Warren comments on the latest realise of some FBI secret files:

Yes, those were the good old days, when the FBI (and, our RCMP) investigated people just for being Commies. Or alternatively, to establish that they were not. From this distance in time, it seems all so risible.

Well, For the Left McCarthyism has become a synonim of the new Dark Ages
witch-hunt and anticommunist hysteria.
Indeed, it is now widely acceptable as unconscionable to 'investigate' someone, let alone 'prosecute' for holding certain political beliefs unless of course... well, try to substitute the word 'commie' for 'nazi' it would become much more plausible to justify this type of prosecution and 'witch-hunt'.
Unfortunately, the modern PC dogma regarding communism is to say that 'the idea itself was good, even noble, but it were the people who tried to carry it out who has given communism a bad name'.

P.S.From the same colum:

We learned, to our amazement and titillation, that U.S. federal agents dismissed John Lennon as a revolutionary threat, on the grounds he was always stoned.

:-). Those FBI folks knew their stuff...

crying wolf makes a mendacious call

2005-09-22T17:19:00.000-06:00

Liberal groupie and unreformed Cretienite Lawrence Martin laments the dumbing down of mass culture in today's Globe.
Unlike his usual non-sensical leftist drivel, I tend to share some of his disgust at the continuing devolution of men into simpletons.

It used to be that people got on airplanes and went to sporting events in jackets and ties. Nowadays, it's sweatshirts and other bowling-alley gear. Cargo pants and tattoos spread over half an acre can get you into most restaurants, as will T-shirts saying “You know where you can stuff it, beanhead.”

Too bad he didn't mention the ubiquitous presense of flip flops and sweat pants on campus.

But then he predicably slides down to offer the reader a half-backed apologia of the CBC:

If the CBC runs stuff that is too highbrow to attract a big audience, it is deemed a failure.

and one paragraph later he takes a cheap shot at Ronald Reagan:

Mass culture's engine is America. Some credit another post-Trudeau guy, Ronald Reagan, with ushering in the dumbing-down era. The Gipper, who owned more horses than books, was initially written off as a classic simpleton who wouldn't be able to cut it in the big leagues because he didn't know enough.

But if, as one congressman said of him, you could walk through his deepest thoughts without getting your feet wet, it didn't hurt. He was the great Republican success story. Now all presidents want to be as uninformed as he was.

Earth to Martin! Don't you remember that it was your guy, Jean Cretien, who liked to pose as 'da liddle guy' from Quebec and whose inability to make a coherent sentence in one of the country's official languages was more manifest than mine :-)(and reportedly his French was bad too).
As to the underappreciated sophistication of the CBC, I can only offer a sardonic grin. One of the worst intellectual crimes the Left has committed is the appropriation of such terms as 'critical thinking'. Spouting left-wing dogma and anti-Americanism doesn't pass as 'high-brow stuff'. You're still entitled to hold those views, Mr. Martin, but mind you - please don't try to pretend to be more sophisticated just because of that.

Update: Bob Tarantino has also commented on Martin's column.

The cardinal flaw of social democracy

2005-09-21T15:07:00.000-06:00

Mark Steyn makes a broader sweep while commenting on the results of the last German elections:

Guardian and Independent types have had great sport with America over the last couple of weeks, gleefully citing the wreckage of New Orleans as a savage indictment of the "selfishness" of capitalism.

The argument they make is usually a moral one - that there's something better and more compassionate about us all sharing the burden as a community. But the election results in Germany and elsewhere suggest that, in fact, nothing makes a citizen more selfish than lavish welfare and that once he's enjoying the fruits thereof he couldn't give a hoot about the broader societal interest. "Social democracy" turns out to be explicitly anti-social.

As they say on the Russian side of the blogosphere, PPKS or in English - I subscribe to this point of view completely.

roots of anti-Americanism

2005-09-14T17:22:00.000-06:00

Masha Gessen writes for the NY Times Magazine:

One reason people do not like Americans is that they wear their seatbelts. One European guide to understanding the American psyche claims they think that “death is optional.” A lot of people abroad are aware of this American quality because it is what so often makes wealthy, well-intentioned and well-educated Americans staggeringly ineffectual humanitarian workers. They simply cannot understand how it can be that all Serbs smoke and that no Russians ever wear seatbelts. Americans may not really think that death is optional, but they do believe that it is just: it comes first for those who smoke, drive drunk or fail to use condoms.

Canadians, even those who think of themselves of being so different from their American cousins, think essentially the same way.

movie review: in good company

2005-09-13T18:40:00.000-06:00

Well, it's probably be the worst movie I've seen this year. Or it may be not too bad:
depends on whether it depicts correctly its main setting: corporate office culture.
The plot's main twist: a fifty-something guy is demoted to give way to a twenty-six old hot-shot who ends up dating his daughter only to wind up being dumped and fired from the job, is simple enough.
But amidst firings and hirings, just one thought came to mind:
corporate office slaves could be so easily replacable for one reason only: what they do is marketing and selling BS and anyone can do it. Just for the perspective's sake: if you need a good carpenter or any other specialist. How easy would be for your to find another person to replace that person even if you don't get along...
But I digress:
The movie was mediocre to worse all most in any aspect, save for moderately adequate Dennis Quad's performance.
The lazy and unimaginative script, cheesy background music, slow pace, poor acting.

In general, my verdict is:
BORING!!! (3/10)

P.S. apparently lots of people at IMBD have came up a great deal of praise for the movie. Some even thought it was profound (just can't believe it). Go, check out yourself...

qwerty type of rambling

2005-09-12T18:50:00.000-06:00

"litigious ramifications of a HaraKiri"
pondering about some peculiar features of the University's policy in hiring foreign sessionals.