Russian News

Here are a couple of the headlines from today's issue of The Moscow Times, the daily paper absolutely everyone who speaks English reads here:

- Medvedev Says Books Turn Minds to Kasha: on the subject of creating one uniformed history textbook for all of Russia. Is Europe being too critical by the recent pronouncement that the Nazis and Soviets were equally responsible for the outbreak of WW2?

- Court says 'South Park' Not Extremist: Moscow City Court ruled that South Park does not promote religious hatred. I get a weird feeling when I know shows like this are being watched outside the US...

- Yelling 'Beat Blacks' Not Ethnic Hatred: a 9th grade Kyrgz boy was attacked by a group of 20-30 boys in St. Pete this year, resulting in his hospitalization. The police ruled that it was not motivated by ethnic hate because linguistic experts concluded phrases that were yelled like "Beat the Blacks" and "Russia for Russians" are not racist. Just sick.

Oh Russia is a tragically fascinating place. I hope to understand it someday, if it doesn't kill me first.