Windows to RussiaOver 5,000 residents of Russia’s Ryazan region took part in the Plant a Tree campaign.
People of all ages and professions planted some 675,000 pines across the area of over 150 ha.
The trees are to replace those destroyed by forest fires in summer 2010.
Windows to Russia…
First picture is old Volga M21 – still running and still traveling the world. You can tell it leaves the country by the Russ stickers on the back of the car…
Second picture is a home made boat. The fishing lakes make their own boats, not buy any pre-made, but actually builds the boats themselves. This is how it should be…
Third picture is my sweety pie (Sveta) and she is all smiles…
Fourth picture is “The orthodox Holy Water Spring!” This is a blessed source of water… (Gives me heartburn to drink it! :))
Fifth picture is how I do car repair as we travel. This is how you should be able to work on any car, anywhere, anytime and anyplace…
Sixth picture is Boza looking out over the village river! Sveta caught a wonderful picture of him and the river…
I am having a rough day! My heart has been bothering me today and last night! I took nitro and am doing better, so I decided to think of the good things in life today…
What you see is the Russia Sveta and I live in…
Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…
This morning I sipped that cup of wonderful coffee and thought about how many people ridiculed me, called me names and threatened my life, over my support of Gaddafi in Libya…
I did not support Gaddafi, I was against the US support of terrorists in Libya and that made me supportive of Gaddafi, because he was in the correct way of life at that particular moment in history. Gaddafi said that Al Qaeda was behind what was happening in Libya and then America totally supported Al Qaeda in its quest. Even going as far as blowing the $%#@ out of Libya to help Al Qaeda…
So yes, I had to support Gaddafi as he was the only thing keeping Libya from a civil war and total chaos. It was Gaddafi or having the West shove democracy up Libya’s ass…
Now look at Libya and the mess we created. It is totally gone awry in Libya and we are really in a pickle trying to cover it all up. It has become a losing battle to keep it under wraps…
So now we have this from the Western world: US officials have explained the September 11 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi was carried out by Al Qaeda, the same Al Qaeda that Washington supported while NATO toppled the Libyan Strongman Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. They have explained that Abu Sufian Ibrahim Ahmed Hamouda bin Qumu is the main potential figure behind the attack, which killed four Americans in Libya recently…
Hmm! So now we cry crocodile tears over the death of an Ambassador and cronies and also we run around like, “What did we do wrong?” “We saved the country (Libya) from a mad man – and and and and and and…” (Insert any and all lies told about Libya within the and’s…) Then, “OMG – Al Qaeda killed our Ambassador! But but but but but but…” (No! It is BUTT!)
I will sip my coffee and wonder about all the sick and psychotic people that supported our involvement in destroying Libya, for what ever mentally dimwitted reasons they dreamed up in their menial minds and then I am thankful that I do not live in such a country anymore…
Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…
I am from the old days and use terms that are akin to that era. Sveta is a trip to listen to her talk English, as I hear myself in her words. Sveta is sharp as a tack and just calling her an intellect is a disservice to say the least…
One expression that I taught her recently is Cracker Jack’s and Having a Cracker Jack’s License. As per normal, I take her to the internet and we look up what I am talking about. Then she starts using these terms that I teach her in everyday life…
It is strange to hear my words come from her mouth and I smile when I hear my terminology…
This “Cracker Jack’s License” comes up every time I drive Russia and every time I see a map of wrecks at any given time in Moscow! (Well except maybe three am in the morning…)
Look at this map which is 3:40 in the afternoon…
Driving Moscow is interesting to say the least. The red circles with дтп in the middle is an accident of some type. This changes regularly and stays full like this all day during regular driving times. It does clean up during the wee hours of the night though…
Actually traffic would not really be an issue in Moscow except Muscovite’s wreck into something constantly! I mean they drive so bad that they hit everything. In Russia it seems to me that instead of using the brake to avoid something, they press on the gas pedal to try to go around it. Hence I say…
What? Did they get their license from a Cracker Jack Box?
When we go for a ride in Moscow! I can promise you that you will see several wrecks and the places we travel, there are times we see a dozen wrecks a day. Many of them are very serious, because a Russian will, if his car is able to go 250 km per hour, will drive that fast even in a residential area. Much less care if there are cars in front of him. That is what the opposite side of the road is for, or a sidewalk…
We make it unscathed because I drive very defensively and watch every move the other drivers make…
I remind myself that Russians really never drove until 20 years ago and then it was an avalanche of drivers all at once, but still they need to take all license away and start over…
Maybe, this time really getting a “License From A Cracker Jack Box” would be an improvement?
Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…
Chukotka is the farthest northeast region of Russia, situated on the shores of the Bering Sea It has large reserves of oil, natural gas, coal and gold. You will see how to mine for gold and to work under extremes. In winter, miners dig up the sand from 30 meters below in the permanently frozen earth!
Windows to Russia…
Boza and I walk in the forest many times and as you see by the picture that many people walk in this forest. In fact in Moscow there is so many people that you virtually never can find a time or place that someone else is not there also. I do find that 3 am in the morning though comes pretty close to no one around… 🙂
When I come upon this spot in the woods, I allow Boza to pick the way to go. He follows his nose and we wander where his nose leads him. I suspect that he follows a trail of a cat or another dog, or even the trail of a squirrel at times. But what ever it is, he picks a different path almost every time we come here…
I think about this spot and realize that every path has something at the end of it. Every path is a means to get to a different place…
This is our lives and these paths are what we have to make a decision to follow. Sometimes we have the opportunity to make a random decision. Then we sometimes make a detailed decision. Then sometimes we are forced to make that decision and follow a path…
The picture above flows like this:
Path to the right is the hospital…
Path straight ahead is to the movie theater…
Path to the left is to our flat…
Then the path with the woman pushing her kid in a stroller is to a hole in the huge fence that surrounds these woods…
This is life in a nutshell and according to which way that you go and on which path you pick, life can be changed in an instant…
I call a place like this…
Multiple Futures!
Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…
What’s the point in Stars and Stripes flying full staff anymore? What joy or pride is there in looking up at the American Flag when it seems that each week it is lowered for this and that death, current or past? And knowing that over the last three decades or so, most of those deaths and sacrifices would turn out to be at the altar of dismal failure (except for those promoted or who profited in stock and US dollars).
One day the US flag is down by half in remembrance of September 11, 2001, another day it is downed for those murdered in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, and yet another day for an ambassador killed in action in Libya, and yet another day for college students killed on a campus in Virginia. Inevitably it will be lowered for former presidents President George H. W. Bush and Jimmy Carter and who knows who else.
Just as torture has lost meaning in America, so has the American flag (and what it represents) lost its inspiration. Even the Bald Eagle, America’s Number One bird, had to be saved from American hunters, DDT and other pollutants (thanks to the US government).
The US Flag should remain at half-mast every day for all those who have died and or were wounded in the largely senseless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and for all those unknown American soldiers dead/wounded in Foreign Internal Defense or Kill-Capture operations on the African Continent, the Philippines, Mexico and a host of other countries where the US attempts to secure its economic interests.
The American Flag should be packed away for a time because there is no United States of America. There are States in a sort of ad hoc union in these rough and tumble times in which American political, economic, cultural and military leadership ignores critical domestic issues and is quite happy to play abroad in the sandboxes of Africa and the Middle East while the Homeland burns. It is a leadership that watches as domestic unemployment grows, infrastructure collapses and public education is assaulted. Just as the flag is up one day and down the next, America’s leadership is this way on an issue on Tuesday and then that way on Wednesday. Why not lower the American Flag for those who will never find another job to pay the rent, or those 25 million children living in poverty.
American leadership’s excuse at the moment is the US Presidential Election (and what an excuse it always is!). No matter who sits in the Oval Office while getting America’s war on, in this case Barak Obama, American life is sacrificed for the sake of a Donkey–the Democratic Party and its donors. And if Romney were the President, he would sacrifice Americans for an elephant, the Republican Party and its donors. The difference between them is trivial. The choice is a “with us or against” one. Vote Republican or Democrat, the grand brains say. Not voting, they say, means the degradation of American democracy will be the common folks fault.
At this moment, Americans are waiting on an election that they think will magically change the theme from uncertainty and hard times to President Ronald Reagan’s mythical “Morning in America.” Of course even that was all cartoonish. Reagan’s legacy was to teach politicians the world over how to act in front of the camera; stage the airport tarmac; market the message, not the person; and use slick propaganda techniques pushing form, not substance. This is what Reagan left behind for the politicians that followed him. His administration would begin the undercutting the infrastructure of America to include “government” which, to Reagan and followers, was evil (tell the Bald Eagle that).
The interests of America are represented through the narrow prisms of Republican and Democratic interests, not the needs of the United States of America. It is the interests of the Party that matters to Obama and his Democratic cronies. They will sprint whichever way the wind blows to get a second term in office. Romney and his Republican hustlers will do nearly anything (praying too) for a foreign or domestic disaster to bring Obama down.
The system of American government has nothing to do with protecting and defending the American people and their way of life (viewed by America’s leadership as “children” as Richard Nixon once eloquently said). Rather the goal is to protect and defend Party, power, cash and bragging rights. Moreover, it is to preserve the electoral theater that America’s elite so love to create and participate in.
The day will come when Americans are required to vote or face a fine and public censure. The rush to the national security/surveillance society guarantees it. And the day is not far off when Americans have to register to own a computer and “drive” through the Internet to the World Wide Web. Just take the US government’s Cyber Security strategy and tactics to their logical conclusion: Isn’t the Internet/WWW as dangerous as a gun or bomb? Witness the fallout from the Mystery Science Theater candidate “Innocence of Muslims.” Protests at US embassies around the globe continue apace.
American political, economic, cultural and military leadership spend their lives in the midst of sycophants who ache for a position “that matters.” American leadership spends its time living in television studios, briefing rooms, gated communities and secure facilities. Their thoughts are hardly their own. Debates are staged and negotiated.
American leadership is dangerously out of touch with the world as it is down in the dirt and in the unearthly confines of the Internet/World Wide Web. Much of America, and the world, can operate in both worlds. America’s leaders do not have that ability.
Voting or not, Americans should keep the US Flag and Bald Eagle in mind.
John Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in national security matters. Reach
him at cioran123@yahoo.com
The views of the above author are not strictly the views of Windows to Russia. They are an independent view from an outside source and country that brings a better light on the world in general and Windows to Russia is pleased to have John Stanton’s article on its pages today. It is hoped that we will have many more of his writings in the future…
Windows to Russia!
Russia’s Foreign Ministry confirmed on Wednesday the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is ending its activity in Russia.
“The Foreign Ministry confirms the closure of USAID [in Russia]” a ministry source said, adding more information would be released “soon.”
US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland announced the termination of USAID’s activity in Russia on Tuesday.
“The United States recently received the Russian Government’s decision to end USAID activities in the Russian Federation,” Nuland said in a statement. “We are extremely proud of what USAID has accomplished in Russia over the past two decades, and we will work with our partners and staff to responsibly end or transition USAID’s programs.”
USAID’s move comes in response to the Russian government’s decision to halt USAID’s programs in the country, the State Department said.
Nuff said and we all know why USAID has been removed. They are one of the American sponsored groups that got caught, “Handing Out Cookies to the Natives!”
Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…
US State Department as saying that there were a number of reciprocal measures that would demonstrate by example its attitude to such statements as displayed below by Gennady Zyuganov. They said that they were surprised by his statement as he is a very close person to the US Embassy and officials…
Gennady Zyuganov, leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), said in his official Twitter feed that the US ambassador to Libya was: “Shot like a dog!”, and added that the diplomat had “Reaped what he had sown!”
“All this violence and barbarism causes regret. But we must remember that those who sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind. This is the essence of my statement.” said Zyuganov.
He said that no normal person would feel happy over the fact that the violence spreads to civilians and even diplomatic offices, but immediately added that it was the US politics of interference that had turned against the United States itself.
“This same ambassador participated in the actual military campaign against the Libyan leadership, gave instructions and finances and NATO troops bombed them from the air, turning the country into ruins.” Zyuganov said.
He added that the “Shot like a dog!” comment was about Muammar Gaddafi and was made a long time ago, but he had to bring it up again to show how neglecting the Muslim traditions turns against the US embassy and its representatives.
Hmm! Sometimes I really like this guy and I see why he is popular with the older Soviets…
Windows to Russia
Vyacheslav Nikonov, Deputy Head of Foreign Affairs Committee, tells RT that Russia should start looking eastward to fortify its foreign policy aims.
The Duma official said Russia should become a self-sufficient center of international strength.
“Russia cannot become anything else, there is no alternative” Nikonov told RT in a telephone interview. “We cannot be integrated into the European Union or NATO; we are too big and too Russian for that.”
Russia is doomed to be an independent, central power, he added.
Nikonov then provided some historical perspective to Russia’s timely turn to the East.
“In the first years of Perestroika, Russia was definitely Western-oriented; Gorbachev had been speaking about a ‘common European home,’ while Yeltsin actually applied for NATO and EU membership,” he noted.
The only result of these efforts was NATO’s eastward expansion, he added.
Nikonov then provided a solid case for Russia looking to the East for both security and economic advantages.
“Today, there is a move toward East Asia, which is quite logical. More than half of the global economy, and more than half of the global population lives in the Asia Pacific region. So for Russia it is very important to look eastward and to position itself not just as European or Eurasian power, but also as a Europe-Pacific power.”
Russia and China are sealing their relationship not just with words, but with concrete partnerships, including in the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), and in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). In considering where America fits into these regional alliances, it is telling that US President Barack Obama took a pass on this year’s APEC meeting, held in the Russian port city of Vladivostok.
Obama’s excuse for missing the event was the upcoming presidential elections. However, it was not lost on some political analysts that Washington may have been uncomfortable with the idea of being in attendance at a summit where its superpower status would be partially eclipsed by other rising stars.
This underscores the advantages of Russia teaming up with China on the global stage.
Nikonov pointed to the Great Wall of China to support the claim that the Asian country has for millennia been concerned about protecting its northern territory from invasion. Today, that fear is greatly diminished and now China can focus attention on other problem spots.
“Beijing understands that maintaining healthy relations with Russia is very important, and today Russia-China relations are at their best ever,” Nikonov confirmed.
Asked about the future of Russia-US relations in light of the upcoming presidential elections in Washington, he believes “it doesn’t matter which administration is in power.”
“There are different Democrats and there are different Republicans,” he told RT. “Historically, however, it was easier for Russia and the Soviet Union to deal with the Republicans, which represent the more pragmatic party with less interest in a human rights agenda.”
Nikonov blamed the campaign season for the increase in rhetoric aimed against Russia, specifically from the Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, who called Russia America’s “number one geopolitical foe.”
“The Obama administration is protecting his record and the reset in US-Russian relations has been one of his real achievements,” he said. “And of course the Republicans in this tough campaign will attack Obama on every foreign policy issue, including the reset.”
Nikonov then mentioned the Russia-US reset, suggesting that it may be time to reconsider that as well.
“We should probably think more strategically and not just reset the computer, but perhaps consider changing the hard disc,” he quipped.
Relations between Moscow and Washington remain strained over US plans to build a missile defense shield in former Warsaw Pact country – without Russia’s participation.
Despite Moscow’s warning that the system could trigger “another arms race,” US and NATO officials seem unfazed by such a grim prospect.
Nevertheless, Russia should not take America’s tough stance too personally. After all, it may be simply reacting to a challenging domestic situation.
“The domestic situation inside of the US is not really favorable for an improvement of relations with any country since America has become inward looking and very xenophobic,” Nikonov concluded.
Source:
Windows to Russia…