Category Global

Neither right nor wrong

Finally, J.P. Zmirak got himself a blog, or, rather, a place to store links to his articles. Right here, on Blogspot. Much as I resent some of his opinions, it is no waste of time to get familiar with all…

Gun control in Iraq

As seen on Russian TV… “Toy Kalashnikovs are not in demand in stores now; but (or for) almost every Baghdadi family has a real one at home.” Fair enough. But what for? To shoot into the air in celebration of…

Illegitimacy

Once again: for a social scientist, marriage is a nexus of commitments, personal, social and legal; marriage vows are only important inasmuch as they contribute to those commitments. Hence one can easily imagine a society where de-facto and de-jure marriages…

The best have no zest

America is not a Propositional Nation, according to Robert Locke. Locke, like Zmirak, is a writer whose opinions I both enjoy and hate, but the very appearance on the virtual scene of serious thinkers who are so profoundly conservative —…

Zhivago mini

Colby Cosh, watching the new Doctor Zhivago mini, admits, “I have zero familiarity with the book or the legendary film”. Well, I have some familiarity with the book, having read it at the age of 15 or 16 and taken…

If love be love

Why do Russian women stick to their destitute, decrepit husbands? Out of — not pity but duty. It may be true that peasant women in old Russia did not know how to say “I love him”; they said “I pity…

What empire?

An amazingly delusional text from the same Innocents: The celestial empire, the humanitarian empire (no less!). Need to dig up Zmirack’s essay on patriotism. It’s a masterpiece of sorts.

More Fisk

No wonder, then, that Hans Blix’s blunt refutation of America’s “intelligence” at the UN yesterday warmed so many hearts. Suddenly, the Hans Blixes of this world could show up the Americans for the untrustworthy “allies” they have become. Honestly, I…

Student essays

Robert Fisk’s comment in The Independent provokes (not deserves) a word-by-word response. In the end, I think we are just tired of being lied to. Tired of being talked down to, of being bombarded with Second World War jingoism and…

Talking price ranges

France’s opposition to war: According to Richard Perle, the price of the question is “€60bn – €75bn”. (I’ve come across $40 — $50 bn in other sources, and even as low as $15 bn in a Russian paper.) No way…

“Supposedly for medical research”

So what if, according to Alan Friedman and TNR, Rumsfeld went to Baghdad in the 1980’s to re-establish diplomatic relations despite evidence of Saddam’s using mustard gas and a nerve gas? It only means Rumsfeld should be nowhere near the…

The rejectionists

It’s awfully difficult for me to write more than three average-sized paragraphs. I’d rather limit myself to the bare gist, which often sounds cocky. I first wanted to call this project “The Opinionated Russian”. One conservative observer has written recently…