Category Archives: Blogging

I’ve been doing a bit of soul searching in the last few weeks about this blog, its purpose, and, more importantly, my relationship to it.  Nothing too deep, and perhaps “soul searching” isn’t the right word.  Let’s say I’ve been doing a bit of reflecting.

This reflecting was also coupled by the fact that I’ve haven’t had the energy/time/inspiration to write.  The main reason for this is that I’ve been tending to other things–applying for jobs, starting research on a new project on race in Russia in the 19th and 20th centuries, writing an article on war trauma, and gathering materials for a few side projects on war invalids, prostheses, plastic surgery, and deformity (Oh, and of course it is NBA Playoff time, and that takes priority over just about everything).  The latter topics have inevitably brought me to ..read more

Several days ago someone or something hacked SRB, delivering a nice Christmas present of badware.  I guess this was ol’St. Nick’s way of telling me I’ve been more naughty than nice over the last year.

To my surprise/horror/confusion, this site was flagged by Google as “reported attack site.”  I, of course, didn’t discover the flag.  Andy Young of Siberian Light did, and my thanks goes out to him for alerting me.

You probably already know this if you’ve visited this site over the last several days using Chrome or Firefox.  The big red warning screen telling you to head for the virtual hills is kinda hard to ignore.

Like any paranoid Russia-watching hack, I blame Putin or at least his army of misfits, Nashi.  Clearly I’m THAT important to attract the vozhd‘s ire! [Insert Russia blogger's idiotic self-aggrandizement.] I’m just glad Putin didn’t steal my wallet.

I’m happy to announce that after much fretting, ..read more

It has been a long haul and I’m slowly crawling out of my hole.

For those who don’t already know, I filed my dissertation, We Shall Refashion Life on Earth! The Political Culture of the Communist Youth League, 1918-1928, on Monday.  The process of filing was a bureaucratic nightmare in and of itself.  Back and forth between UCLA’s Murphy Hall because my middle name, “Christopher” (which I never use, but I somehow put down when I registered at UCLA), was not on the the dissertation. Then two trips to the library to get it checked over by the dissertation lady.  What a thankless job that must be!  A quite unpleasant, though somewhat charming, woman sits in a small office surrounded by dissertations, goes through each and every page to make sure the margins and typeface are correct.  I was told she busts out a ruler but this must be an urban ..read more

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

The past five days have been an utter nightmare.  On Thanksgiving morning I got an email from my hosting company, BlueHost, saying that they unceremoniously pulled the plug on my account.  There was no warning.  No clear explanation.  The email they sent said, “It has come to our attention that your site is using an extreme amount of resources on our servers and network.”  I had no idea what this meant and calls to their technicians offered no explanation. I was constantly referred to their terms of service agreement, which like most legal documents is littered with vague and roundabout ways of saying that they can do what they want, when they want. One tech even told me that my account was “deactivated” by order of the president of the company.  I didn’t believe him since each of the five techs I talked to gave me a different answer. Apparently ..read more

My participation in the Paul Klebnikov Fund’s event “What is Russia Thinking? The Word from the Last of the Independent Media” was a great honor. Paul’s widow Musa Klebnikov and his brothers Peter and Michael were amazingly gracious and thankful for my participation. The pleasure however was truly all mine.  They’ve built a vary warm, lively, sophisticated and touching community around Paul’s memory. Being a part of it was certainly an emotional and intellectual experience. For those who’ve never read Paul Klebnikov’s work, I highly recommend it.

What of the event itself?  I would say that well over 100 people were in attendance.  Being in a crowd of such politically well connected people was intimidating at first.  I still consider myself a lowly graduate student who lacks the proper credentials to mix with such a crowd.  But thankfully people were incredibly nice and any nervousness I had wasn’t anything that a ..read more