A Searing Indictment of Russian Culture

How does a culture transform itself, for transformation is sorely needed in Russia today, and yet I despair it will ever happen for the better after reading this book review:

Inside the Stalin Archives: Discovering the New Russia, by Jonathan Brent; Atlas & Co., 304 pages, $26. Gary Saul Morson is Chair of Slavic Languages & Literature at Northwestern University.

This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 27, March 2009, on page 10
Copyright © 2009 The New Criterion www.newcriterion.com

It's lengthy but worth the read.

I found the review at Arts & Letters Daily under the "New Books" column.

Divine Justice?

Just wondering... I find it interesting that Russia has (thus far) had such an anemic showing at the Olympics. As of today’s reporting, the USA has exactly twice as many medals (72) as Russia (36), and yet their population isn’t that much lower than ours. Hmmmm…. Will Miniputin now follow China and pour billions into training athletes from infancy on, to Borg perfection? Is the Great Goddess having a joke at Mother Russia’s lying expense? I find it interesting that while China adamantly refused and continues to refuse to use any of its influence to mediate the Darfur crisis, while China ruthlessly silences all dissent by immediately arresting any Chinese person and immediately deporting any foreign person who dares apply for a license to hold a protest rally in any of the designated "protest parks", and while China uses thug tactics to silence grieving parents of thousands of children killed in shoddily constructed schools during the June earthquake, China’s great track star was unable to race, being sidelined by a lingering injury to his ACHILLES’ HEEL. Now is that poetic justice or what? Are people all around the world now snickering into their hands at these two "super" powers – tee hee hee… Remember that great line uttered by Ann Baxter (as Neferteri) to Yul Brynner (as Pharaoh Rameses) in "The Ten Commandments: Do you hear laughter, Pharaoh?