Who’s Afraid of Russia Today?

The Southern Poverty Law Center is going after Russia Today for providing a forum for “extremists” and encouraging “the burgeoning Patriot movement.” Over the past five years, RT had become a welcome alternative news source for many. In fact, this anti-RT campaign was launched around the same time as the television channel made it to Youtube’s Top 100, while the ratings of several American news networks had plunged. And the SPLC is not the only one. The Independent described how Even before the recent spy... Read article

In Defense of Soccer

That’s Football to You! They say that love is a disease. If so, then so is sports fandom. The latter is perhaps best expressed through a Russian idiom. When you cheer for a certain team, you say, “ia boleiu za tu komandu” — “I am sick for that team.”  This phrase is exclusive to competitive scenarios rather than fandom per se. It certainly describes the temporary state you enter when witnessing a competition: your abnormal heart rhythm and your hopeful anticipation. I only bother with sports at... Read article

The Coming Collapse of the United States

A new Orthodox-Catholic model of global development will replace the last 600 years of colonial liberalism — in the long-term. In the short-term, the U.S. is still about to collapse. This is not another conspiracy theory from the blogging depths of the internet, but the newest interview with Igor Panarin in a recent issue of Economic Strategies (Ekonomicheskie Strategii 4 (2010)). Igor Nikolaevich is a political scientist, an academician at the Russian Military Academy, and a professor at the Diplomatic Academy... Read article

Oh, Canada

The Death of the West Up North… Maybe I speak as a spoiled European, but the medieval-revival architecture at the University of Toronto is one of the few truly beautiful aspects of this Canadian city. The buildings are especially striking when you pass through Queen’s Park — the provincial parliament on your left and the equestrian statue of King Edward VII on your right — walk underneath a bridge and finally reach the neo-Romanesque University College and the neo-Gothic lancet windows... Read article

Georgia out of His Mind

I knew things were not going well for Georgia long before the conflict with Russia a year and a half ago involving the separatist regions Abkhazia and South Ossetia. When Sandra Roelofs talked to the press in 2004, she mentioned that her husband, Mikheil Saakashvili, aspired to strong Georgian leadership “like Stalin and Beria.” A year prior, Saakashvili held a rally on the footsteps of Iosif Vissarionovich’s statue in Gori prior to heading to the capital, Tbilisi. Why Misha-genatsvale chose Stalin... Read article