A daily miasma of frivolity by two wanna-be cultural critics. Or: just, like, some good links, dude.

Tag Archives: Vladimir Putin

Nov 17 2011
Mark Twain, probably

A Chinese Peace Prize Names This Year’s Winner. Ummm, Vladimir Putin?

A Chinese Peace Prize Names This Year’s Winner. Ummm, Vladimir Putin?

Hanna Beech for Time’s Global Spin blog:

In September, an obscure Chinese cultural organization revealed the finalists for the second annual Confucius Peace Prize, an award that suddenly popped out of nowhere last year after imprisoned Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. The first Confucius Peace Prize, which was ridiculed as a clumsy attempt to divert attention from the fact that the world’s most famous peace prize had just gone to a jailed Chinese dissident, went to Lien Chan, a veteran Taiwan politician. Taiwan’s former Vice President didn’t even know he had won, and in a very curious ceremony a couple days later, a confused-looking little girl picked up the award in his stead.

And the story gets even more bizarre from that point.

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Oct 07 2011
Mark Twain, probably

A Changed Russia Arches an Eyebrow at Putin’s Staged Antics

A Changed Russia Arches an Eyebrow at Putin’s Staged Antics

Ellen Barry, The New York Times:

It was just a typical summer outing for Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin: Clad in a wet suit and fitted with an oxygen tank, he dived to the bottom of a bay and retrieved two ceramic jugs that dated to the sixth century A.D.

The scene, captured by a camera crew and broadcast on the nightly news, cast Mr. Putin as a broad-chested Renaissance man, just the thing for his listless approval ratings. Scenes of Mr. Putin braving the elements — tranquilizing a tigress, tenderly feeding sugar to his horse or shooting a dart at a whale from a rubber dinghy — are a staple of political life in Russia.

There have long been suspicions that his exploits were not spontaneous. Still, it was remarkable to see Mr. Putin’s press secretary, Dmitri S. Peskov, surrounded by a panel of exceedingly skeptical journalists, trying to explain as delicately as possible that Mr. Putin’s much-hyped dive in August had been staged.

“Look,” Mr. Peskov said good-naturedly in the broadcast, which was released late Tuesday. “Putin did not find an amphora that had been lying on the bottom for many thousands of years. That is obvious.”

I mean, on the one hand, no shit. Did anyone really believe that?

But it is weird that someone on his press team is actually coming out with this.

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