February 2017

It’s tough to be apolitical.  Sometimes you just can’t.  There’s an old saying in aerodynamics.  If it looks right it’ll fly right.  And that’s not happening here.

Something doesn’t look quite right here.  The aerodynamics are off.

Mattel, makers of the talking Kellyanne Conway doll, announce a life-size version.

There was a time when this reporter said, and he always said this, whether he was just trying to be funny or who knows what, “It’s probably the greatest name that was ever invented.  I never met a “Steve” I didn’t like.”

It sounds stupid but those days are gone.  It didn’t start with this guy exactly.  But the expression itself had its origin in something a guy named Will Rogers once said.  “I never met a man I  didn’t like.”  However improbable or implausible a concept, Will did apparently say that.

The Globe&Mail published a piece on the weekend by Robert Everett-Green about Masha Alyokhina.  in 2012 Masha Alyokhina was tried and jailed with two other members of “Pussy Riot” after a performance at a Moscow cathedral.

Masha, 28, has some interesting things to say.  “The modern history of Russia is written in the courtroom.  There are really  no opposition politicians who don’t have criminal cases against them.”

Masha co-founded “Mediazona” in 2014. Mediazona “Mediazona covers all topics connected with freedom in Russia, police violence, political violence and political courts,” says Masha.

“In two years we have changed the media discourse.  Before us, nobody covered political courts, prisons and police violence.  Now, because we are quite big (in terms of readership), others have to cover it too, even state media.  They do it in the old way, like propaganda, but they have to cover it, to be in opposition to us.”

Masha rejects comparisons of Donald Trump with Vladimir Putin.  “The difference between Trump and Putin is really big.  Putin is a product of the Russian state-security service, which has a long history of repression, almost a century.  Trump is just an asshole.”

This is a general, all ages site that doesn’t go in for a lot of swearing and cursing.  We save that for the TV.  But I thought that if the Globe can publish that word I can do it here once.

Back to “Honey Badger” Steve-o Bannon.  You may have read that the honey badger is his favourite animal and an animal he compares himself to.  Yes, he wasn’t joking.  Something to do with the badger’s thick skin and how Bannon, like the badger, can make it through the most violent personal attack.  He is unperturbed.  You can tell that by the simpering expression usually adorning his face.

Bannon’s due for a spanking and it’s only a matter of time.  Maybe it’ll be Kellyanne Conway, maybe it won’t, but one of these days somebody’s going to pull down his pants and tan his hide.

Here’s a link to the Globe&Mail story if you’re interested in reading the whole thing.

Dissident Russian artists try to break through ‘the zone of message control’

Have a great evening…

Author: Steven Brown

Creative View all posts by Steven Brown