Going along

the flow seems so common among Americans. Foreign policy is like mumbo-jumbo that is so hard to understand for most people.  How can anybody buy this story about Libya - I'm puzzled. Media and politicians are working in unison demonizing Gaddafi. Can anybody think critically and independently? Libya is not perfect but a lot better than most countries. A unique society is being destroyed, all of the achievements will be condemned and vilified.  I see a lot of similarities with the Soviet Union 20 years ago. Soon Libyans will be servants of the west and nostalgically recalling their better life, or at least independent life. They became too lazy and complacent, as a result - soon they won't have their dream lives. Only very few elite will have all and the rest are to have dramatic changes for the worse. Arab spring, my foot.

12th of April

No, it's not what you thought. I'm not talking about the anniversary of the Civil War (however important that was), or antibullying day in school (as I was informed by some kids). Not even Space Shuttle program anniversary. Instead, a  simple commemoration of humans stepping into space by sending Yuri Gagarin in 1961. I was sad last week because it was an important event to me and apperently to nobody else, save my son. I'm changing my desktop pictures from cosmonauts to Victory Day and here's something that will help you remember it:

Pick your battles

When I was little I was very into movies emotionally when watching them. I mean I could not understand why somebody in the movie sometimes would not act just and dignified, righting the wrong and instead letting the bad character get away with things that were not proper. I guess it's called junior maximalism. Now, much older and somewhat more balanced I realize that walking by and missing wrongs is a natural defence: it is emotionally  and physically draining to correct everything. Human nature  provides us with satisfaction even if we get it right just in general and the bad guy is punished in the end. Pick your battles wisely, the ones that are worth the fight.  Keep the big picture in sight. It's gonna be all right.

Soviet Union's role in ending WWII

Good article on http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100815/ap_on_re_us/wwii_forgotten_battle . It is amazing to see it appear in an American newspaper, serving one of the most brainwashed populaces in the world. I must admit, it's true and unbelievably, miraculously printed in my local paper today. Wow! A praise of Soviet Union's Red Army. I'm shocked.
However, the point should have been not as much about fear of the Japanese but of the substance of the soviet contribution to the victory in Asia. I know from some recent memoirs of the soviet soldiers in China that there was strong desire of the Japanese  to surrender to the soviets and therefore avoid the pitchforks of the Chinese peasants. It's a fact: Japanese occupation in China, Korea and elsewhere in the pacific Asia is still a very raw memory.
Soviet Army advanced (in some instances) 2000 km in two weeks through dry desert with no water, climbed steep Hinging Mountains, fought through rice fields, drove through towns and cities and went up the rivers in Manchuria. The largest field army of the Japanese Empire was destroyed, almost a million men and their tanks, artillery, planes.
That advance convinced Japan to surrender. Americans had plans to fight all through 1946. Soviet Union weighed in and the war was over. Atomic bomb had much lesser influence. American tried to bomb Germany and Japan into submission for years and could not do so. Why nuclear attack was to be perceived different by the government of Japan? Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan - they were bombed the hell out but until ground troops rolled in - there was no victory. Soviet Union rolled in its ground forces (fulfilling its ally obligation) - and Japan caved.
 Memory eternal to all whose graves are all over China and Korea. They made it happen.

Russian Garmon' ( button accordeon), simplified cousin of Bayan.

Russian webspace went crazy last week over a 6-month-old YouTube clip with a song that's even older, performed by an actor from Saint Petersbourg Igor Rasteryayev:



Song itself  is great, hence the sudden popularity due to a posting on dirty.ru, but I wanted to say  a few words about the instrument that Igor is using there. Lirycs and melody are subject of much more explanation themselves. Too much.

Here's some Wiki about "garmon (Russian: гармонь) is a kind of Russian button accordion, a free-reed wind instrument. A garmon has two rows of buttons on the right side, which play the notes of a diatonic scale, and at least two rows of buttons on the left side, which play the primary chords in the key of the instrument as well as its relative harmonic minor key. Many instruments have additional right-hand buttons with useful accidental notes, additional left-hand chords for playing in related keys, and a row of free-bass buttons, to facilitate playing of bass melodies.

The garmons can be of two major classes: unisonoric, meaning that each button plays the same note or chord when the bellows is being expanded as it does when compressed, and bisonoric, in which the note depends on the direction of the bellowswork. Examples of unisoniric type are livenka (ливенка, after Livny, Oryol Oblast) and Khromka (Russian: Хромка, for "chromatic"). Bisonoric garmons are, e.g., Tula accordion (Russian: Тульская гармонь, after Tula) and talyanka (тальянка, "Italian")
The garmon is also known by the names garmoshka (Russian: гармошка) and garmonika (Russian: гармоника)".

I like the sound of garmon a lot; in fact, I consider it more of a test on someone's "russiness" (yey, I can make up words just like Sara Palin and Stephen Colbert's writers) than love for vodka or banya.


I'm lazy so here is some more info from Wiki that sound right about another russian instrument:
The bayan (Ukrainian and Russian: баян) is a type of chromatic button accordion developed in Russia in the early 20th century and named after 11th-century bard Boyan. The differences in internal construction give the bayan a different tone color from Western instruments, and the bass has a much fuller sound. Because of their range and purity of tone, bayans are often the instrument of choice for accordion virtuosi who perform classical and contemporary classical music.

Sounds good.
Long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away I played Bayan for five years in school and I still like how it sounds. It's less folk and more classical. An example:



Of course, I wasn't nearly as good ;-) I just wanted to show both instruments.

Well, that's it for today.

Time magazine artticle

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2008890,00.html

What a steaming pile! I don't want to go after each  and every paragraph, but if you really don't like the country you're writing about, next time just write "Russia Sucks" and save everybody time to go through the usual crap. Or even better, look around the world and youmight realize that all the countries around the world act similarly when faced with danger of terrorism. Journalists (and politicians) are incredibly good at picking the facts that  fit in their model of thinking and are very dismissive about every fact that doesn't correspond to it, no matter how abundant it might be. This starts in early school and every year that goes by only confirms their belief that only Western civilisation is always right and the Russians ( Chinese, Arabs, Muslims, Indians - take your pick) are always wrong. I wish it was really that simple.

I guess, I have a rhethoric

question. A few days ago I saw an old white lady getting in her white minivan at a fancy-shmancy Walmart, very affluent neighbourhood. Minivan was covered by patriotic stickers and magnets like "Support our troops", eagles and flags of the US of A. As she drove off, in her back window I saw a bumper sticker plastered, just  like  this one:

Is there a contradiction here? How is it possible to blend someone's views in such a way?