"Cold War"
RT’s Agitprop
By Sean at 27 January, 2010, 1:06 am
When I first saw the ads Russia Today is using in its American and UK ad campaign, I immediately had the reaction that most Americans and British probably had. Comparing Obama to Ahmadinejad? That’s like comparing Christ with the devil! Is RT crazy or just stupid!? But then I started to think about the ad, realizing my gut reaction is exactly what it was supposed to provoke.
Read More >>Mr. Garcia Goes to Tbilisi
By Sean at 19 October, 2009, 11:12 am
Andy Garcia has been cast to play President Mikheil Saakashvili in the upcoming film Georgia. I just hope that Garcia’s audition required to see how he looked chewing on his tie.
The film, directed by Renny Harlin, will revolve around the last year’s war between the Caucasian nation and Russia. Though war remains extremely politically charged [...]
Not Much to Gawk About
By Sean at 6 September, 2009, 5:11 pm
Scott Anderson’s article “Vladimir Putin’s Dark Rise to Power” is a throwback to the 1990s when ex-KGBmen turned mafioso, private security, or hired hands to execute nefarious plots. It is also a showcase of bygone figures. Once powerful, influential, or at least in the public eye who have since drifted into memory only to be [...]
Read More >>Nikita Khrushchev Doesn’t Go to Disneyland
By Sean at 24 July, 2009, 9:06 am
I highly recommend “Nikita Khrushchev Goes to Hollywood” from the Smithsonian Magazine. Khrushchev, always the showman, charmed, bantered with American capitalists, and even took in the filming of Can-Can during his tour of America in 1959. When the Soviet premier went to Hollywood, hundreds of stars appealed for tickets to attend a luncheon with him. [...]
Read More >>Bifurcated Memory
By Sean at 5 April, 2009, 1:53 pm
Thinking Allowed’s Laurie Taylor has an interesting discussion with Mikhail Ryklin about the historical memory of Stalinism. Ryklin’s most recent work looks at Communist ideology as a “substitute” or “political” religion which “gave millions of people all over the globe an ultimate meaning.” Indeed, Marxism, with its eschatological narrative based on the fall and rise [...]
Read More >>Who’s to Blame for Peregruzka?
By Sean at 10 March, 2009, 8:10 am
The plastic Reset button snafu has perhaps gotten far too much press than it deserves, and admittedly I’ve played my part in promoting the story. If anything Americans can add peregruzka and perezagruzka to their Russian lexicon of tovarishch, borscht, vodka, glasnost, perestroika, da, and nyet. But amid all the cracks at Clinton for the [...]
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