However, because of our sham health care system, no one can afford a prescription for Paxil, Vicodin or Valium. Obama is like the human Vicodin. He makes you feel all blissed out even though whatever is causing your pain is still there. Treats the symptoms, not the underlying causes.
So how long till the drug companies band together and go legal on his ass for undermining their profits? Life should consist in at least fifty percent pure waste of time, and the rest doing what you please.
Anyway, I need some paxil or valium or Obama or something at the moment. Seriously depressed. Maybe I'll go see if Nomad wants to have a pity party... Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Anyway, I need some paxil or valium or Obama or something at the moment.
Is the world that bad? Life should consist in at least fifty percent pure waste of time, and the rest doing what you please.
I realize that this perhaps does not serve to easy your plain at this difficult moment. But sometimes it is better not to let go too soon. Stay of the valium and the obama and wallow in your pain! Such sweet sorrow comes but rarely. One must it treasure copiously.
I'm afraid I've created a bit of a monster around here... Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
1 is Yeltsin's "people's deputy into people's president".
Other notable mentions are: # 4 Gorbachev's slogan is "the president we've lost... The only one who did not hold into power for the power itself." This catchy one earned him 0.5% in 1996 elections.
#7 is "ultra-nationalist" Zhirinovsky in Hellraiser T-shirt and "I'm one of you" slogan. T-short says "no brain, no pain".
#9 is General Lebed' with his "give me twenty".
#10 Yavlinksy attempts to scare people with freedom he was going to impose on unsuspecting populace. 7.3% were intimidated into voting for him.
#11 demonstrates that back then negative campaigning was allowed. #12 expands on the theme with anti-Zuganov poster "buy some food one last time".
There are a lot of jokes being made about "Putin's plan", and #14 shows that in 2000 there was a "Putin's formula" - he was promising a dignified life for the people. There are more to quality of life than just money, in particular, reading Russophobes like Lukas can affect it negatively, but looking back seems that "Putin's formula" worked: official average salary in Russia increased from 77$ in 2000 to 598$ in the beginning of 2008.
Speaking of Russophobes, here is a nice blurb from Exile:
I can not find Lukas's predictions for 1999 Russia in English, so let me do a reverse translation of the Russian text:
1999 will be a year of Russia disintegration. It will not be final and dramatic. Everything will be decided outside of Kremlin. Foreign intervention, in the peaceful and humanitarian form - is what Russian regions really want. Foreign companies and governments find it already easier to deal with regional powers and not the central government. Russian disintegration is fueled by the economy, not nationalism. The dead hand of the center will be replaced by the same meddling by the local powers. Competition between regions will be a force for the better management. Small and resourceful bits of the country will be pushed to ten or so reach regions. The next phase of disintegration - the external political guarantees. The foreign governments now are busy in talks with regional leaders like M. Prusak in Novgorod. We can expect new consulates and a number of contacts on a high level after the world starts to look differently on the political map of Russia. Russia's neighbors Japan, USA and Scandinavian countries will be the most involved in trade, investments and democracy development. The middle Russia risks to be forgotten. The infrastructure disputes will emerge ("I have a pipeline, and you have oil").
The next phase of disintegration - the external political guarantees. The foreign governments now are busy in talks with regional leaders like M. Prusak in Novgorod. We can expect new consulates and a number of contacts on a high level after the world starts to look differently on the political map of Russia. Russia's neighbors Japan, USA and Scandinavian countries will be the most involved in trade, investments and democracy development. The middle Russia risks to be forgotten. The infrastructure disputes will emerge ("I have a pipeline, and you have oil").
BTW, Russophobia does seem to run in families. Or think tanks are becominga family business? Lukas's wife once quipped in the article on London RE:
Xenophobia is unacceptable, and inexcusable. But Russophobia? Can you blame us, when all we want is a home of our own? Nyet.
Feeling your pain, Cristina, feeling your pain.
You mention Russian Chalabi, Kasparov, but he was oddly out of the news lately. Man sure needs pick a fight with a few policemen, get arrested, that kind of thing. Not controlling the message and slipping off the new cycles is just bad use of USG money.
Gazprom Reduces Gas Supply to Ukraine Europe draws about a fifth of its gas from Ukrainian pipelines so that any reduction of gas pressure there can deflate the whole, continent-wide natural network. Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine feud often over prices and conditions. It is a weakness for the European Union that critics have compared with the United States' over-reliance on the unstable Persian Gulf for oil. "It's the same old disputes coming up again and again," Jerome Guillet, a French banker and expert on Gazprom, said in a telephone interview from Paris. "The real disputes are about sharing the rents of gas sales to Ukraine through the traders, who control this income."
Europe draws about a fifth of its gas from Ukrainian pipelines so that any reduction of gas pressure there can deflate the whole, continent-wide natural network. Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine feud often over prices and conditions. It is a weakness for the European Union that critics have compared with the United States' over-reliance on the unstable Persian Gulf for oil.
"It's the same old disputes coming up again and again," Jerome Guillet, a French banker and expert on Gazprom, said in a telephone interview from Paris. "The real disputes are about sharing the rents of gas sales to Ukraine through the traders, who control this income."
I've given your phone number to the NYT journalist, too. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
But congrats anyway. :) Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
you are the media you consume.
This is actually one of my favorite songs, ever. Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
I am by no means means a Russian expert, at least anymore. So much has changed. But my bachelors degree from Uni Michigan was in Russian and Eastern European Studies and I spent three semesters at the now-defucnt Moscow Institute of Social and Political Studies in 94-95.
There I had the pleasure of lectures by Yavlinski, Zhirinovsky, Yuganov, Gaidar, and others. I met my ex-wife there, to whom I was married for eight years, and though I divorced her, I regret my mistake as she truly loved me but time goes on.
My ex-mother-in-law was a die-hard Stalinist and loved FDR and Reagan as her favorite US presidents. At that time, the time of the first Chechen War when Russian paratroopers guarded the metros, we were in favor of Putin as a leader. Knowing the particular Russian history and in discussion, not always in agreement with my ex-Mother-in-law, we uneasily agreed on Putin as at that time I tended to agree that perhaps Russia needed a benevolent dictator for a full democratic transition. So many conflicting factors in that opinion, not in the least that they never experienced the Enlightenment.
14 years later, I was wrong, of course. But so much has changed since that time and I have not kept up. Including my language - I scored as just under native speaker on my Navy language proficiency exam, but since I started German, I search for words though I understand what I hear in Russian. That is degrading too, unfortunately.
But I do know the importance of International Woman's Day!
Sorry to hear about your doomed Russian romance. But it makes me feel better about my own. lol.
I bet that Zhirinovsky lecture was a riot...
Are you going to send me some flowers on Saturday? Do you need my address? ;) Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
It was only doomed because I deemed it so, after going through therapy for PTSD, I see the failures that I made.
Yea Zhirinovsky was a riot, all about pepsie and snickers as our downfall. But he was kind enough to autograph a bottle of Zhirinovsky vodka that I bought at a kiosk for me - then declare to his staff that every student should have one.
Funny, his office in the Duma had a Bose speaker system and luxurious leather chairs, exactly the opposite what I saw in Zioganov's office.
And "Укравший Дождь" is playing as I write. Ah, fair queens and white fleets! A wonderful love story!
Oh, man, that seriously takes me back. Brilliant! Are these things available on iTunes or something? Almost everything I have is on -gasp- tape. And copied tapes at that! Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Seriously, given the sheer dorkiness of the guy, how bad could he possibly be?
Oh. We're fucked. "The basis of optimism is sheer terror" - Oscar Wilde
Precisely...
Ei.. you forgot to mention the guardian article..e ven though Dimahhhh was goign to win anyhow.. for some reason Putin and KGB were rigging the election so that the number 65% would be the one in the foreign press....
And teh Russia media... what about the media... it is all in bed... with sexy Putin.. or dima...
A pleasure I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
I'll chalk all this up to your head cold. Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
and all I get is this lousy t-shirt.. ej ejej well not t-shirt.. but I know nothing.. which is probably correct in todays Russia.
And finally about the meida.... there is no meta-media analysis of he russian media... we are very used to them here.. but it is my cold... but your meta analysis of the meta-emdia anlayis in the west should be followed with the meta anlayisi of the meta analyis in the west of the meta analyisis in Russia.
Meta of the meta of the meta is the best... but too mcuh to ask for...
A pelasure I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
But seriously, you seem to suggest that Medvedev might really have independent power. If so, and Putin is really stepping down because of the rules, why in heaven's name is he going to be prime minister?
Noteworthy are the following:
1. Putin could have altered the Constitution to stay on as President, but did not. I think it would have been very detrimental to his credibility if he had done that, but I'm not convinced that's the only or primary reason for his decision to step down at the end of his term. I'm inclined to agree with Vilhelm Konnander's comments:
At the news conference Putin said: "Throughout all these eight years I have toiled like a slave in the galleys, from morning till evening and, have done so with the full devotion of my strength." This is most probably a very sincere statement, and is also in line with what Putin has previously said repeatedly. Also, people working in the Kremlin has let it be no secret that the Russian president has been quite tired and weary of his duties in recent years. So, being a slave to power does not in Putin's case have to be a fixation to power, but an actual slavery of duties. Still, media have failed to see this.
So if he has not stayed on as Prime Minister as a result of some lust for power and megalomaniacal paranoid control-freakism, why has he? Ok, listen, I am not an expert. Obviously. But I do read a lot, and there appears to be a great deal of consensus among those for whom russophobia has not compromised their capacity for critical thought. And that is : he doesn't feel his work is done. Especially on the domestic end of things. He's re-established Russia's place on the international stage, but inflation, corruption, gap between the rich and poor, birthrates, etc. remain problems, and I suppose he imagines he's best suited to address them. We'll see. But what it boils down to is that he knows his legacy -and that's what all of this is about- hinges on the success of the country. Ensuring Russia's success, and that no one comes along and tramples on, reverses, ruins whatever accomplishments or "reforms" he's implemented = ensuring his legacy.
2. Everyone said Putin, when personally chosen by Yeltsin, would be a puppet of Yeltsin's regime/people. He was specifically chosen for his loyalty, after all. Well... we saw how well that worked out, didn't we? :) Fact is, and I re-iterate, there is no sense in trying to predict the future, esp. when it comes to Russia. Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
A careful reading of his more than 2,000 public pronouncements over the past seven years, however, suggests that neither of these descriptions is accurate. His record indicates that Medvedev will indeed pursue a concerted liberalization of Russian politics, not as an alternative to the Putin Plan, but as the next logical stage in its evolution. Rather, it appears that most observers simply underestimated the Russian government's ability to conceive of and carry out its own strategy of democratic modernization, now commonly referred to as the Putin Plan, and also completely missed its purpose, which Medvedev sums up as "an effective civil society ... composed of mature individuals ready for democracy".
Rather, it appears that most observers simply underestimated the Russian government's ability to conceive of and carry out its own strategy of democratic modernization, now commonly referred to as the Putin Plan, and also completely missed its purpose, which Medvedev sums up as "an effective civil society ... composed of mature individuals ready for democracy".
On separation of duties between Prime Minister and the President, there is Presidential Administration which can direct a Cabinet when Prime Minister is not politically strong enough. There were precedents when in weak President - strong PA - strong PM trio PM was running the entire show (Primakov).
Yeltsin/Putin dichotomy is a useful frame to distinguish two epochs, but note how elites remain the same: with few exceptions, oligarchs are allowed to remain at large, people close to Yeltsin family got to keep all the billions, the cabinet (Kasyanov's) for the first Putin term was put together by Yeltsin's people.
For all the rhetoric of the last few years regarding a clean break with Yeltsin's regime, Chubais (universally hated) is still "reforming" the energy grid, Kirienko (fall boy PM in 1998 default) is busy reorganizing nuclear infrastructure and names like Yakunin, Primakov and Voloshin are still showing up on a short list of candidates for either PM or head of PA posts, not to mention regional feudals ramaining mostly the same.
Primakov the Strong PM... Well, he wasn't PM for very long, and when the President is chronically ill (or hungover...) it's hard for anyone not to appear strong in comparison.
It will be interesting to see how long Putin remains PM. No one has talked about that. It's been a job with a high turnover rate. Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Seems to be one of those trademark Putin things when everyone keeps guessing and Putin manages to surprise everyone in the end. President still has a power of a pink slip over the PM and Parliament can nudge a President into using this power.
...and always by doing the most obvious thing.
I bet he wins a lot at poker. Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
I bet he wins a lot at poker.
If he did the western media would be reporting that everyone was scared to beat him. Life should consist in at least fifty percent pure waste of time, and the rest doing what you please.
The Putin circle calls the new Russia a sovereign democracy - a democracy defended against hostile foreign meddling. But the odd - and very Russian - paradox is this: that this retreat from the democratic experiment in the 1990s seems genuinely popular. Russians have voted to endorse it, and so it carries a democratic - or at least a popular - legitimacy of its own. And so the big question "Is Russia a democracy?" remains open. More than half a century ago, America's greatest Soviet analyst, George Kennan, wrote a letter to the US state department from Moscow. In it, he said that ever since the Bolshevik revolution, American diplomats had been trying to answer the question: "How has Bolshevism changed Russia?" It was, he had concluded, the wrong question. It was more important to consider how Russia had changed Bolshevism. Perhaps we should similarly invert today's question and ask not how democracy has changed Russia, but how Russia - eternal, enduring, long-suffering - is changing democracy.
Russians have voted to endorse it, and so it carries a democratic - or at least a popular - legitimacy of its own. And so the big question "Is Russia a democracy?" remains open.
More than half a century ago, America's greatest Soviet analyst, George Kennan, wrote a letter to the US state department from Moscow.
In it, he said that ever since the Bolshevik revolution, American diplomats had been trying to answer the question: "How has Bolshevism changed Russia?"
It was, he had concluded, the wrong question. It was more important to consider how Russia had changed Bolshevism.
Perhaps we should similarly invert today's question and ask not how democracy has changed Russia, but how Russia - eternal, enduring, long-suffering - is changing democracy.
Statements like this one
But Moscow - with its architecture of defensive seclusion from the world, its remoteness from the European mainstream - makes it better suited to today's Russia, too.
makes me wonder, if he is indeed in Moscow, does he even suspect that there is whole another world outside of his alcohol-soaked apartment?
(How do you say first lady in Russian?)
First lady steps out of Medvedev's shadow
First lady steps out of Medvedev's shadow Before he became president this week, Dmitri Medvedev and his wife Svetlana Medvedeva rarely appeared together inpublic. But since Svetlana showed up in her stilettos to vote in Sunday's elections, Russia's glamorous new first lady has been making quite an impression. While Medvedev is known as a shy and uncomfortable bureaucrat, his childhood sweetheart Svetlana is the opposite: a gregarious blonde socialite described in Russia's weekly business magazine Expert as being "strong and imperious". She is frequently spotted at parties, counts pop singer Alla Pugachova and fashion designer Valentin Yudashkin among her friends, and knows how to make sushi, the Moscow elite's food du jour. An economics graduate, she is also a devout Orthodox Christian and heads a special commission set up by Russia's Patriarch Alexi II to promote spiritual values among Russia's youth. Svetlana's exact age is guarded like a state secret but she is thought to have been born in 1965, the same year as her husband. The couple first met at school when both were just seven years old; they were 14-year-olds when their romance blossomed. "Dima [Dmitri] was just one of several suitors," an ex-classmate told Sobesednik magazine. "He was quite shy and there were more aggressive guys chasing after her."
While Medvedev is known as a shy and uncomfortable bureaucrat, his childhood sweetheart Svetlana is the opposite: a gregarious blonde socialite described in Russia's weekly business magazine Expert as being "strong and imperious". She is frequently spotted at parties, counts pop singer Alla Pugachova and fashion designer Valentin Yudashkin among her friends, and knows how to make sushi, the Moscow elite's food du jour. An economics graduate, she is also a devout Orthodox Christian and heads a special commission set up by Russia's Patriarch Alexi II to promote spiritual values among Russia's youth.
Svetlana's exact age is guarded like a state secret but she is thought to have been born in 1965, the same year as her husband. The couple first met at school when both were just seven years old; they were 14-year-olds when their romance blossomed. "Dima [Dmitri] was just one of several suitors," an ex-classmate told Sobesednik magazine. "He was quite shy and there were more aggressive guys chasing after her."
первая леди apparently.
The first word is the Russian word for ... "first", and the second word is the transliteration of the English word "lady". Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
