[tw2113]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

goddammit, i laughed at this so hard last night and was gonna let you know, but now i can't

No worries, I stole it from twitter anyway. I can't take credit for originality.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by tw2113

No worries, I stole it from twitter anyway. I can't take credit for originality.

it was a very melbrooksian turn of phrase lol. i mean the goofy type of joke that is not so much funny in itself but funny because it is made, if that makes sense.

--

anyway came here to post this:

https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...putin-1319166/

by a russian journalist turned ukranian freedom fighter. yup.

[Antagon]

Is it too late for Pootey Poot to respond to David Lynch's nomination in 2014?

I think he's in dire need of a good bucket of ice water getting dumped into his face. Or two. Or three.

[_tunic_]

I just read an interesting article about life in Russia at the moment, from the eyes of Derk Sauer, who has been running several media businesses like newspapers and magazines in Moscow over the last 30 or so years. Here's the Google translation:


==============



Derk Sauer was forced to leave Moscow: 'Will we ever see our house again?'

Publisher and journalist Derk Sauer has lived in Moscow since 1989. Because of the war he is forced to leave. A personal account of a painful farewell.
Derk Sauer < 12-03-22, 15:00 Last update: 07:16

This was it. I embrace Oleg – our mainstay in Moscow who will look after our house, pack my suitcase, take one last look at the turret on the roof of our house and get into the car on this beautiful, clear winter's day on the way to the Sheremetyevo airport.

I take with me: the drawing of the dacha the boys made for our 12.5-year marriage, my wife Ellen's three favorite porcelain figurines, some family jewellery, the children's milk teeth and our marriage certificate.

Behind remains a house full of stuff we collected over the past 32 years; our diaries, photo albums, library full of books about Russia, the goldfish, the soccer trophies our children won and our social realist art that we collected over the years.

Will we see them again? And if so, when. Months, years? We can't do anything with our house anyway. The Russian government has banned all transactions by foreigners.

Today was Maslenitsa, the festival of spring. That's why I pay a visit to the dacha at Lena's to eat the traditional pancakes with caviar and sour cream. Lena lives in a dacha village just outside Moscow. I navigate my car through narrow streets between huge snow banks and stop in front of her picturesque wooden house. I will definitely miss those Russian winters. Cross-country skiing on the Moscow River, the buzz of the city muffled by crunching snow.

Lena was our interpreter when we arrived in Moscow in 1989. She spoke Dutch fluently, graduated on the theme 'the reciprocal verb in the Leuven Bible', but had never visited the Netherlands. She looked at us shyly with her big Soviet glasses.

She helped set up Independent Media, our publishing house that quickly grew into a major media company. Together with Ellen, she became editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan and influenced a generation of Russian women. She made it to CEO of our company with 1,300 employees and more than forty titles.

I no longer dare to write on Facebook against the war, because imagine if I am arrested. Then my son has no one
Lena

Now Lena is nervous. Her son is severely autistic and dependent on western medicines. Ellen is a godmother and has been taking Anton out to dinner every two weeks for years. Always to the same restaurant, where he always orders the same menu. We have agreed that if something happens to Lena, we will take care of Anton. She has no further family in Russia. How should that be done?

,,I still have ampoules for a month,' says Lena about the medication that Anton absolutely needs, ,,I went to all pharmacies in recent days, but the medicines are already gone. How on earth is that supposed to go on?” "We will send them from the Netherlands", I say, but I immediately realize that all courier services have stopped.

"I don't dare to write against the war on Facebook anymore, because imagine if I was arrested. Then Anton has no one left,” says Lena. Not much is left of the successful businesswoman. Her husband Nicolai died four years ago of a heart attack. And to make matters worse, she lost most of her savings to a shady Russian wealth manager.


Dollars in cookie jar

Lena withdrew her remaining money from the bank just in time. in dollars. She shows a cookie jar under the counter full of plastic-wrapped stacks. “I have to deal with this. I can't leave and soon I'll be hungry. The stores are already empty.” She does not dare to talk more than superficially with the neighbours. “They believe in Putin's fairy tale. It hurts my ears. I am so ashamed of my country.”

Julia stops by at home to say hello. I got to know Julia at RBK, for which I worked as CEO from 2015. RBK was a large independent Russian media company, with its own TV channel, daily newspaper and Russia's largest news site. Julia, a petite woman with a big smile, was the Human Resources Director. And above all a good person.

With a young journalistic team, we dusted off the old RBK and turned it into a modern media company. Our investigative reports on corruption caused a furore. After an article about the billion-dollar property of Putin's eldest daughter, the bomb exploded. The FSB raided, the owner was forced to give the company away to a pro-Kremlin oligarch, and the editors were fired. RBK, like so many media companies, came under the direct control of the Kremlin.

Most managers stayed put; the salaries were too high, the cars too fat, but Julia got out. “Principles are more important than money!” Said but more Russians that.


Passport Russian, Birth Certificate Ukrainian

A month ago she exchanged her flat for a house with a garden in a fenced park just outside Moscow. She bought the house by accident from my Dutch friend Jan-Willem, who, like us, spent years in Moscow and had just decided to return to the Netherlands.

“I am perfectly happy here with my husband, our twins and my parents. Life smiles at us," Julia wrote a few weeks ago. Now she sits at our kitchen table with trembling hands. I bought pastries but she doesn't touch it. "I haven't been able to eat for days." Julia grew up in Ukraine. Her niece is in a cellar in Kharkov with children. Now and then she has telephone contact, charging the mobile is almost impossible.

Like Julia, there are millions of Russians. Her passport is Russian, her birth certificate Ukrainian. She never had to think about that before. It is something like the Netherlands and Flanders: the same language, the same traditions, the same culture. Julia thought it impossible that Russia would ever go to war against her own family.

I am distraught and furious. I would have loved to go straight to Ukraine to help there, but how do you get there from Moscow?
Julia

She bursts into tears. Putin destroyed our lives in a week. I am distraught and furious. I would have loved to go straight to Ukraine to help there, but how do you get there from Moscow?” Julia, like many middle-class Russians, is also immediately in financial worries. She has taken out a hefty mortgage to pay for her dream home. Her husband is a construction project manager. A good job – were it not for the fact that after a week of sanctions the work comes to a standstill. “There is cement and wood, but technical stuff such as lifts and air conditioners no longer come in. The whole construction in Russia is coming to a standstill. And without work, no salary.”

Julia has just started a startup to advise companies on their so-called ESG strategy: how to operate sustainably and responsibly as a company. A new but important theme for Russia. Russia, and especially Siberia, is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world. More and more companies are realizing that action must be taken before it is too late.

“Now that the Russian economy is collapsing before our eyes, they have something else on their mind than ESG strategy,” Julia realizes. The stock market has been closed for a week. Russian stocks are worth nothing anymore.

We don't get bombs on our heads. We are perpetrators and victims at the same time. Putin destroyed two countries in one week
Julia

She wants to go to Georgia with the whole family. Russians can go there without a visa. She is certainly not the only one. More than 30,000 Russians have already preceded her last week. “Even though I have to wash dishes. Anything better than staying in this sick country.” The only problem is that her elderly parents are refusing to leave.

She sighs. “I don't know anymore. You know what it is: of course our suffering pales in comparison to that of the Ukrainians. We don't get bombs on our heads. We are perpetrators and victims at the same time. Putin has destroyed two countries in a week.”

[_tunic_]

second part:




stress

Son Tom on the line. Under the stress as well. Tom (33) is married to Olga (33). They have an adorable two-year-old daughter, our grandchild Charlotte. Life smiled at them too. Born in Vladivostok, Olga is a doctor at the university hospital. Tom has set up a company that builds and operates sports fields. And a football academy. With eighteen football and ice hockey stadiums, he is the biggest player in Moscow. I am proud of how he managed to do that in eight years, with four hundred staff now.

When I say they succumbed to the propaganda, they answer that I was brainwashed by America
Tom, Son of Derk Sauer

But Tom wants to leave. Now. "What's happening here really disgusts me," he says, "I don't want our daughter growing up in a country full of lies." His management is strongly against the war, but there are several people in his staff for it. “However I argue, they remain behind Putin. And they simply deny that Russia is bombing cities in Ukraine. When I say they have succumbed to the propaganda, they answer that I was brainwashed by America. It's maddening.”

That is why Tom has also stopped as captain of his football team. There were also two Putin boys among them. ,,We couldn't have fun anymore, we danced around the hot mess. The whole society is falling apart.”

Olga has studied hard for years and just completed her training as an endocrinologist. Her work is a five-minute walk from their spacious flat in one of Moscow's finest neighborhoods, close to the Moscow River and Gorky Park. Charlotte goes to the nursery, where she loves it.

Leaving all that behind – her friends, her career (the Russian diplomas are of no use to her in the Netherlands), her mother. It's a hard laugh and I admire Olga that she goes without protest.

As the hours tick by, I zoom with Dima, the editor-in-chief of our Russian service. We also published VTimes – a Russian platform that was declared a “foreign agent” last May and had to close. At the end of 2021, we therefore launched a Russian version of our English-language publication Moscow Times. On Friday night I decided to black out that site. Then Putin signed a law rushed through the Duma at lightning speed.

Officially we could not use the words 'war' and 'invasion' and we were only allowed to post official messages from the defense ministry about the 'special military operation' as the war is euphemistically called in Russia. We did not follow these rules. Our journalists broke the law. As of last week, you could face up to 15 years in prison for spreading what the authorities call fake news – but which in reality is giving facts. I did not think it justified to expose my Russian journalists to that risk.


Lights off

The past few years have been very difficult for Russian journalists, but in the past week the lights literally went out. The internet TV station Dozhd (also known as TV Rain) was taken off the air, the famous radio station Ekho Moskvy as well, local media in the Russian regions threw in the towel and Novaya Gazeta - the newspaper of Gorbachev co-founded Nobel Peace Prize winner Dimitri Muratov - decided to cease all coverage of the war.

Facebook and YouTube, where citizens and bloggers could express their displeasure, have been shut down and the BBC has been thrown off cable. What remains is a 24/7 mess of propaganda and disinformation.

Only Telegram still works and editor-in-chief Dima cheerfully reports that we are now on the air via Telegram. In the images taken by our reporters on the ground, I see that thousands of Russians across Russia have heeded the call of the imprisoned opposition leader Navalni to demonstrate against the war. The number of arrests already stands at five thousand today. What courage.

This is about the future of our children
Dima, Editor-in-Chief The Moscow Times

I also read that more than 150 journalists have left Russia since the outbreak of the war. I am now one of them. Aeroflot's last flight to Istanbul – the aircraft are no longer allowed to fly internationally for fear of being detained abroad – is packed. Not the usual holidaymakers, but families with a lot of suitcases who are looking elsewhere for the time being.

My timeline is full of offers to help set up an emergency editorial office for The Moscow Times in the Netherlands. Heart warming. Our journalists want to continue. Right now. They are willing to leave home, family and children behind. Editor-in-chief Dima – herself born in Ukraine and raised in Russia – says: “This is about the future of our children.”



============================================

Short biography. Check his wiki page for a bit more, the Dutch is a bit more detailed than the English


Derk Sauer (69) is married to Ellen Verbeek, editor-in-chief of the Russian Cosmopolitan and Yoga Journal in Moscow. Son Tom is a successful entrepreneur in Moscow, Pjotr ​​is a journalist at The Guardian, Berend works at a green investment fund. Except for Pjotr, the family has been in the Netherlands since this week.

Sauer started out as a journalist for several magazines. He became editor-in-chief of Nieuwe Revu in 1982. Sauer left for Russia in 1989, where he became one of the founders of Independent Media, publisher of The Moscow Times and numerous Russian-language magazines. He sold that company to Sanoma in 2005.

In 2012, Sauer became a director at the Russian online media company RBK. He came under fire there in 2015 after reporting about Putin's wealth. He bought back The Moscow Times in 2017 and added a Russian-language version to it.

This month he temporarily took the site off the air after the introduction of a new media law. Sauer is trying to move the editors to the Netherlands and is temporarily housed at DPG Media, publisher of this newspaper.


Note:
The English version of the Moscow Times is still alive: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/

[The Soup Nazi]

OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT IS SORRY TO TELL
OF AN UNEASY TIME THAT ALL IS NOT WELL

ON THE BORDERS THERE'S MOVEMENT
IN THE HILLS THERE IS TROUBLE
FOOD IS SHORT, CRIME IS DOUBLE

PRICES HAVE RISEN SINCE THE GOVERNMENT FELL
CASUALTIES INCREASE AS THE ENEMY SHELL
THE CLIMATE'S UNHEALTHY, FLIES AND RATS THRIVE
AND SOONER OR LATER THE END WILL ARRIVE

THIS IS YOUR CORRESPONDENT, RUNNING OUT OF TAPE
GUNFIRE'S INCREASING, LOOTING, BURNING, RAPE
RAPE
RAPE
RAPE


Great song. But it's horrible that it's so relevant over 44 years after it came out.

Fuck you, motherfucking Russian pieces of shit.

[The Soup Nazi]

 

New release from Sonic Youth:

Live In Kyiv, Ukraine 1989

Sonic Youth release live recording from Kyiv, Ukraine April 14, 1989 to benefit World Central Kitchen and relief to Ukraine.

Riding on the wave of the critical success of Daydream Nation, Sonic Youth's first foray into the former USSR came in April of 1989 with shows in Vilnius, Leningrad, Moscow and Kyiv, the first opportunity for Lithuanians, Russians, and Ukrainians respectively to get a realtime gander at the fabled NYC underground in the flesh (with Bon Jovi lagging four months behind to rep NJ for the hordes). Anarchic, locked, and loaded with fresh jams from Daydream and vintage chestnut "Brother James", SY blister here into a rabid pack of ready-for-action Ukrainians only blessed previously with the likes of Nick Cave and Neubauten drifting into their territory. Though the post-Iron Curtain sojourn was cut short prematurely (like this recording!) after this gig, the Sonics left an indelible impression of the true sounds of freedom with attendees that included Gogol Bordello's Eugene Hutz who was forever changed in its wake. This revisiting of the April 14 set honors that nation's spirit and proceeds will benefit World Central Kitchen wck.org, and timestamps a moment where new ears got transported for a first time.

"That SY Kyiv show was life changing for all musicians that were there... we were already attuned to Nick Cave, Einsturzende Neubauten, S Pistols and Discharge but these were the new vitamins we needed. I made a decision to experience NY right there. Plus my friends VV were opening so i got in free 🤟🏼. The fact that it wasn't shut down half way through like all other punk gigs was the doing of a Ukrainian man named Mikhailo Gorbachev, who set up the atmosphere of political “springtime” and a promise of change.” - Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello

"In general, few people said how much the Sonics, with their arrival, promoted the entire soviets, and not just Kyiv. After all, in fact, perhaps, with that tour they hammered the final nail in the coffin of the soviets, and it was as if they let us in Kyiv breathe a mixture that was finally suitable for life." - Sergey Popovich (Siggy Pop)

Founded in 2010 by Chef José Andrés, World Central Kitchen (WCK) is first to the frontlines, providing meals in response to humanitarian, climate, and community crises while working to build resilient food systems with locally led solutions. WCK has served more than 70 million fresh meals to people impacted by natural disasters and other crises around the world. WCK’s Resilience Programs strengthen food and nutrition security by training chefs and school cooks; advancing clean cooking practices; and awarding grants to farms, fisheries, and small food businesses while also providing educational and networking opportunities. Learn more at wck.org.

released April 14, 2022

EQ/Mastering - Aaron Mullan
original FOH sound - Terry Pearson
cover photos - Alexej Zaika