Category Archives: US Politics

Hypochondriacs beware!  Swine flu has officially landed in Moscow. According to Novyi region, two women have been hospitalized in the capital. “Both women are citizens of Russia.  One of them arrived in Russia from New York yesterday, the second today.  They had fevers and were admitted to the hospital by our insistence,” Gennadii Onishchenko told Interfax. Interestingly, in Russia doctors call the virus, which has damned the good name of the pig the world over, “California 0409.”  That should make pigs feel better, but what of the sensitivities of us Californians?

Swine flu’s arrival makes Russia the fifteenth country to be infected.  The global hysteria sparked by the pandemic has led to altering flights, calls for a mass slaughter of pigs,  the quarantining of hotels at the first site of a Mexican tourist, and a whole host of other theories.  In Israel, the deputy health minister Rabbi Yakov Litzman won’t even ..read more

Are these ads racist?  Some think so.  The use of Barack Obama visage has become a marketing hit in Russia, generating cries of racism.  The charges relate to three ads featuring Obama. The Times of India reports:

Obama ice cream, anyone? Chocolate-vanilla ice cream is one of several Russian products being marketed using America’s first black president, even as critics call the ads racist.

Other ads featuring US President Barack Obama have promoted tanning salons and tooth-whitening services.

But the creator of one Obama-themed ad — for ice cream bars which have a chocolate-flavoured centre embedded in a layer of vanilla — insisted Friday that it was not racist and should be seen as a joke.

The ad for Duet ice cream bars features a smiling, cartoonish black man flashing a V-for-Victory sign in front of the white edifice of Washington’s Capitol building, along with the Russian slogan: “Everyone’s talking about it: dark ..read more

Yeah, yeah, I haven’t been blogging of late, but I hope to return at full throttle soon.  In the meantime I couldn’t resist mentioning a story in the NY Times about the US-Russia relations “reset button.”  We all now know that the Obama Administration is making some effort to repair relations with Russia.  The first sign came with Joe Biden’s “press the reset button” statement in February. Then earlier this week we learned that Obama sent a “secret letter” to Medvedev hoping to enlist Russia in dealing with Iran in exchange for scrapping the missile defense system in Eastern Europe.  The Russians received the letter coldly, and you can’t blame them.

Well the Reset Button Doctrine appears to be going ahead though the first problem doesn’t appear to be resetting relations as it is finding the correct Russia word for “reset”.  Secretary of State Clinton was in Russia yesterday to meet ..read more

Russia was a topic at the second Presidential debate after an absence at last week’s Veep debate. Both candidates pretty much repeated what they said two weeks ago with little variation.  McCain repeated is famous quip, ” I said I looked into [Putin] eyes and saw three letters, a K, a G and a B.” Both wagged their finger at Russia’s bad, aggressive behavior. Both pledged moral support for Ukraine, Georgia, Poland, Latvia, and Estonia.  Both denied a new Cold War was in the making at the same time both agreed that Russia was a challenge for the next US President.  Obama even dared to say that holding Russia back was about “keeping all of [us] safe.”

Then Tom Brokaw threw this one out: “This requires only a yes or a no. Ronald Reagan famously said that the Soviet Union was the evil empire. Do you think ..read more

Please see the update to this post.

I found a rather strange article on Eurasianet.org on how the US House and Senate passed the HR: 6911, the Stability and Democracy for Georgia Act of 2008, or STAND for Georgia, as it is also called. (Get it? STA for “stability,” N for “and,” and D for “democracy”. Rep. Howard Berman [D-CA] is so clever!) The bill which, according to section 6 of the bill will allocate $1 billion to Georgia for “urgent humanitarian needs,” “reconstruction,” “economic development,” and “governance.”  The bill authorizes $470 million for the 2008 fiscal year alone.

One would think that Congress doling out $1 billion to Georgia at the same time its desperately trying to plug the capitalist bleed with $700 billion tourniquet is a bit perverse.  Especially since if today’s markets are any indication, the US government’s upward redistribution of wealth doesn’t seem to be working.  Perhaps the ..read more

Last night’s Obama-McCain Presidential debate was devoid of surprises.  Even Russia had a place.  Given “Russia’s resurgence” as they like to say in the news, it becoming a brief focus of the debate isn’t even novel.  Before getting to that here of some of my general impressions about last night’s performance.

I’ve struggled to come up with one word to describe this performance and the only one I could come up with was: Boring.  I watched the CNN telecast, and the network must have known that boredom would be a factor.  They tried to spice things up by plopping on screen their analysts scorecards and a meter at the bottom to register Democrat, Republican, and Independent “real-time” reactions (I’m struck how Independent has attained a discursive function similar the Soviet class category “Прочий” or “Other”).

In fact, it seems that “real time” was marketing tactic since the CNN pregame repeatedly reminded viewers ..read more