The Americans: Run Away! Run Away!

This could apply to Pastor Tim, who gives this episode its name, who is now in Elizabeth's crosshairs; or to Phillip and Elizabeth themselves, because of the knowledge Tim now has about them and its threat to their cover.

Russian Nightmare

Russia is a country where tragedy and angst are guests that never leave.

That is not to say that Russia or Russians hold no amount of humor and light, I'm sure.  I've never been there, but I collect Soviet "anecdotii" (jokes), wickedly sarcastic and funny views of the burdens Russians and others endured throughout that era.

Now, it is not a Communist economy the people have to fear, but

another Russian tragedy, and it is the direct result of State[i] intervention....albeit intervention that is no doubt backed by a sincere wish to "help people."

A designer drug called "Krokodil", a sort of home-made desomorphine  is making the rounds in the slums of Siberia and Ukraine.  As far as I can see, "Krokodil" is suicide in a syringe.  It is made from codeine--available over the counter in Russia--iodine; and something called red phosphorous, right in the user(s)' home in a pot on the stove.  The high from  Krokodil lasts about an hour and a half, and supposedly painful withdrawal symptoms set in right away so the ability to avoid injecting more is probably nil.

Saving You From Gender Confusion Anxiety in Cuber

Cuban health care is sooo good.....they don't want to hand it out to just anyone!

(and for heaven's sake, they don't want your boyfriend to have to embarrass himself at the bodega by having to pick up your unmentionables.)

18.1.2007 21:09 MSK
Cuban Women Cannot Buy Hygienic Pads without ID


CUBA, Havana. (CubaNet). Barbara Lorenzo de Armas was told at the pharmacy she could not buy hygienic pads without producing her identity card, which was seized by the State Security in 2001 for political reasons.

Lorenzo de Armaz said she went to the local pharmacy in the Managua district, but the manager refused to sell citing a nationwide government instruction that requires an identity card to buy any goods. Without writing down all particulars of your ID, I cannot sell, he explained.

Hygienic pads are available in Cuba at the pharmacies. They sell them to women aged from 12 to 55, one pack of 10 pieces per person per month. One can easily get this article of feminine hygiene on the black market where it costs 10 pesos per pack, or on the dollar market where the price is even higher.

----PRIMA–News Agency http://www.prima-news.ru/eng/

(Prima is a newsletter about human rights that comes to my e-mail box from Russia. Given that they argued leniency for those found responsible for killing 300--mostly children--in an Ossetian gradeschool in 2004, they are hardly a right-wing organization. But they are not fond of Castro.)

From Russia with Love?

In my Ode to Conductor Valery Gergiev blog, Electric Conduction, I have managed to (thankfully) attract some who know more Russian than I, more about the world's greater conductor than I, and those who know more about Russian culture than I. Indubitably, however, ideas/feelings/political notions are going to clash as baby boom Ameericans and post-Stalin Russians start to compare notes, even about their favorite music.

Since my music blog, which I prefer to remain politic free, was beginning to descend into a second Cold War, I thought I would invite any and all parties who wanted to discuss issues regarding Putin, Rice, Brzezinski, Iraq, Iran, whether one nation has the right to "tell" another nation "what to do", free speech and Karl Marx, free speech and Groucho Marx, Bill Clinton, George W., Thomas Jefferson, Ivan the Terrible, Abu Ghraib the deaths of journalists under Putin's regime, the Chechnyan conflict, or even why Brown University keeps Sergei Khruschev on their history faculty when all he publishes is stuff about his dad. Один, два, три, идут!