By Slava Tsukerman There are two very different official Russian explanations of the purpose of the Russian war against Ukraine. The first explanation, still general Russia explanation insists that Russians want only to “free” Ukrainians from the “Nazi” government, but have no plans to occupy Ukraine or any other country. The second explanation is very […]
Category: Featured
Russian Invasion of Ukraine
By Slava Tsukerman Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has begun. The world press is full of publications about it. Here are some quotes from New York Times: “President Vladimir Putin called on Ukrainian soldiers to put down their arms. He said that those who try to interfere with Russia’s actions ‘must know that Russia’s answer will […]
Is Russian Attitude To Possibility Of War With Ukraine Changing?
By Slava Tsukerman There is a new trend in Russia: the known hawkish hard-line official personalities are unexpectedly openly turning against Putin’s politics. A recent sensation was on February 6: there was an open letter to President Vladimir Putin from Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov, which went viral. Ivashov is one of the most hardline politically active […]
Learning from just waiting
by Robert Field Perhaps the most important business lesson of my life came when I was thirteen years old. During the summer, my father assigned me to work at his satellite furniture store on Kensington Avenue in Philadelphia, which was about thirty feet horizontally and fifty feet vertically from the Frankfort Elevator, at that location […]
Militaristic Mood in Russia
by Slava Tsukerman Lately, Russian state propaganda seems to actively heat up the militaristic frame of mind in Russian population. On December 21, New York Times published an article “How the Kremlin Is Militarizing Russia”. Since then the militaristic mood of the Russian media has grown. On December 21, the blogger Igor Yakovenko summarized the […]
REF: Is Scott Martin a gutless candidate for governor?
by Robert E. Field LNP, Dec. 11, 2021: “State Sen. Scott Martin is officially entering Pennsylvania’s 2022 race for governor Saturday, launching a campaign he hopes will rise above a crowded and well-funded Republican field by leaning on his relatability as a parent and small business owner and on his solid conservative legislative record… “Another […]
Drug treatment specialist reports on unsupervised drug treatment during COVID outbreak
by Andrew Byrne, MD of suburban Sydney, Australia 1. Changes to opiate treatment programs during Covid – benefits for some, harms for others. 2. Buprenorphine alone or with naloxone: Which is safer? (Kelty et al.) 3. Harm reduction and diazepam prescribing in opiate programs. 4. Microdose transfers from methadone to buprenorphine – the ‘Bernese’ method […]
Oregon Drug Decrim is Slashing Drug Arrests, Massively Funding Services
by Phil Smith, Drug War Chronicle In a groundbreaking move a year ago now, Oregon voters approved decriminalization for personal use amounts of all illicit drugs, with Measure 110 passing with a healthy 59 percent of the vote. That made the state the first in the US to make this dramatic break with decades of […]
Is Belarus Going To Join Russia?
By Slava Tsukerman On November 4, 2021, an event took place, which was almost unnoticed by the world press, but presented by the Russian official press as big news. It was a meeting of the Supreme State Council of the Union State of Belarus and Russia (an organization created long ago, but having almost no […]
Can we learn from Rome’s experience?
EDITOR: The January 6th insurrection and other recent events makes this editorial from November 24, 2010 even more pertinent today. History students can sense “déjà vu all over again”, in the words of the great Yankee catcher and manager, Yogi Berra. The Watchdog senses that the USA started to decline around 1992 with the election […]
REF: A very apt title to a work of music
At times I envision composers getting together over drinks and laughing over the preposterous titles they give their works, as though the titles in any way have influenced the creations. But an outstanding exception to a linkage of music to events is Richard Strauss’s “Ein Heldenleben,” which translates as “A Hero’s Life” and refers to […]
Boston Found a Scapegoat After 9/11
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/12/us/virginia-buckingham-boston-911.html by Robert Field I underestimated and questioned the hysteria following 9/11 and made the expensive mistake of so underestimating its effect that I blew $50,000 in launching the hitherto successful “Diamond Men” movie in over twenty theaters in the NYC region a few weeks later. When I sought to promote the movie by handing […]
Forgetting Putin’s Kiss
By Slava Tsukerman In order to understand what is happening today in Russia it is very interesting to observe what happened with the three vigorous former leaders of the most active pro–Putin movement of the beginning of this century. “Nashi” (Ours) was a political youth movement in Russia, created in 2006, which declared to be a democratic, anti-fascist, anti-“oligarchic-capitalist” […]
Russians Comment on Biden-Putin Summit
By Slava Tsukerman Official governmental Russian media and most oppositional media present the Biden-Putin summit in Geneva as the obvious Putin’s victory. “The United States agreed to a dialogue with Russia in Geneva due to concerns about a potential nuclear threat,” said Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the Federation Council commission on information policy and […]