"We choose love!"

One enduring feature of Russian public life is the effort to address complicated social problems with awkward agit-prop. In the face of Russia's perilous demographic crisis, 2008 has been declared "The Year of the Family." It will be celebrated by increased payments for giving birth, and apparently every Muscovite born this year will get a special medal. It also includes a major ad campaign, including this giant billboard on Zubovsky Bulvar:



This poster is on my way to work, and the more I think about it the more I am amazed at its silliness. Consider the centerpiece, a cute little girl, appropriately decked out in Russian winter fashion, i.e., excessively. She's holding her hands up dutifully in keeping with the logo of the "Year," and flashing her best goofy kid smile. But then look at the parents...

Let's start with mom. It is a fact well known that nothing inspires as much concentration and soulfulness in the heart of a Russian woman as having her picture taken. Every Russian worth her salt practices her look in front of the mirror when she is alone. Our mother in this photo is trying to say: "No, parenthood is not easy. It is struggle. Only another mother can possibly understand. We do it because we must." (cynical westerners may raise some additional questions, but such an analytical approach to the "Russian soul" is off limits here. "Russia cannot be understood with the mind..." blah blah blah). The father is simpler: "Why did I let my feeble-minded wife talk me into this? I have many more important things to do. In fact, I am leaving at once!..."

My question here is why this photo was chosen for this particular gigantic poster. It is the same reason why I wonder how come character actors with grimey, dark yellow, crooked, nasty teeth are deployed to try to sell me toothpaste.

The "have more kids, comrade" theme has been around for awhile. But at least in Soviet times you had much better message discipline. From 1968 ("One kid is okay, two is better") ...

In the footsteps of Grantland Rice...

With the new year comes a new gig: I've been talked into writing a sports column for The Moscow News.

Professional notes

A few stray odds and ends about journalism that have come across my view lately…

In an interview with the Sacramento Bee, the most senior working reporter in America, 91-year old Daniel Schorr, seems to suggest he’s glad he isn’t making a career today. “Of course, the changes are partly technological,” he says. “You no longer have to rely on a great newspaper like the Sacramento Bee or on a television network to get the news. You can go on the web and get anything you need.” He adds: “I’m glad I’m not 20 years younger, because I’d be very discouraged.” I’m only 32, but I’m pretty discouraged, but it isn’t because people have more options for getting their news.

And it brings me to another point: I stumbled upon the obit for Walter Bowart, the founding publisher of 60s alternative newspaper the East Village Other, who died last week at 68. In addition to admiring his unusual career (in the 80s he edited Palm Springs Life magazine, which wrote about celebrities and golf etc), I admire the dedication and brass behind the alternative press of the 60s, even if most of the writing was wretched and the reporting was shoddy in the extreme. But I’ve been curious about why this kind of spirit hasn’t adapted itself well to the new Web frontier, where sure, many individuals run off on their own, but their seem too few good collective efforts to move journalism forward. It feels as if to do something, anything, these days with a goal other than making tons of money is deeply and unacceptably radical. This is why I am keeping one eye on Politico.com, founded by journalists, and wish it succeeds.

Of course, morale all over is terrible. A recent study by a professor at Ball State University found what every working journalist already knows. Deadline driven work, low pay, long hours, demanding bosses, technological uncertainty… all these make working journalists an impressively miserable lot. How long can this go on? Forever, I say. One by one, individuals who’ve gotten themselves into journalism make up their minds to get themselves out of it. J-schools churn out an abundance of replacements to come along. You can exploit youthful idealism, enthusiasm, and naivete ad infinitum.

Finally, you can always say that things are worse in Russia. The other day there was an interview in Novye Izvestia with Mariana Maximovskaya, a television presenter for REN-TV who is probably the only figure on Russian television today who I recognize as a television journalist. Her very presence testifies to the misery of the state of television news here: it is amazing that the most respected t.v. reporter left working in this vast land, the only one you could say carries any sort of professional integrity and personal gravitas, is only 37 years old.

Maximovskaya talks about how exciting it was when she got started in the 1990s, and how the job has changed. She describes how today, the final year students she teaches at Moscow State University are already lined up with jobs, and ethics are hardly the first thing on their mind. “These young people understand that they are coming to an existing structure, and have to make some compromises," she says. "Including, perhaps, to compromise their conscience.” UPDATE (Jan. 25): Simon Owens has a good overview and much more about the Ball State study here.

Very superstitious...

My latest "Letter from Moscow" in The Berkshire Eagle tackles Russia's remarkable web of superstitions. Among the ones unmentioned: if you step on someone's shoe, they get to step on yours as payback to avoid future trouble; don't give knives as gifts; cut your hair and nails during a full moon; it is good luck if your child pees on you.... etc etc etc

Is it just me?

There is a scene at the end of Zoolander when the evil designer Mugatu, played by Will Ferrell, rants in astonishment that none of the assembled fashion luminaries seem able to tell that there is no difference between Ben Stiller’s “Blue Steel” look and his “Le Tigre” look. “Doesn’t anybody notice this?” he shrieks. “I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!”

Hillary Clinton a surprise win in New Hampshire on Tuesday, despite countless polls that had her pretty far behind. It was a very modest win – by only about 8,000 votes – but due to the foolish front-loading of the primary schedule, it feels depressingly huge. And amazingly, many pundits have linked her comeback to her supposed “human” moment on the campaign trail on Monday, in which she responded to a softball question about the rigors of the campaign with “watery eyes,” bogus claptrap about America, and her usual tired pitch about her “experience.”

I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. This performance is so contrived, cynical, and cheesy that it makes my skin crawl. “I just don’t want to see us fall backwards,” she simpers. Not to get all Fox News, but come on!

And even if it was a “moment of unvarnished emotion” (as Josh Marshall, who should know better, called it Tuesday), it doesn’t change anything. She remains a spiteful, poll-driven machine with a vast sense of mysterious entitlement because her husband nearly screwed the party into the ground.

This is not the first time, and it certainly won’t be the last time, I’ve had that ‘crazy pills’ feeling watching big-time politics and the media and peanut galleries that follow it. I pray most American voters are smarter than this, but with such a ridiculous primary schedule, every dumb little nothing takes on all the wrong proportions.

Winter Vacation

A very quiet week in the capital because of the holidays. I didn’t realize it, but after the New Year everyone clears out of town until Orthodox Christmas on Monday. This means that unexpected things are closed for the week, and the brand-new high-rise condo projects around the city are dark as all their residents are off skiing in the Alps.

On Thursday, we went into the center of town to visit the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, and it was like a different, calmer city. We had a dinner at the “Yapona Mama” on Tsvetnoy Bulvar, a popular chain of sushi joints that was eerily and blissfully quiet. The sushi, by the way, was not great, but since I haven’t had it in about a full year so it was fantastic to me.

On Friday, we decided to spend the day at the Auchan gypermarket, which is just across the MKAD near us. Brother-in-law Pavel drove us over, and we spent hours in the temple of modern middle class consumption in Moscow. It is sort of like a Costcoes back home, but even more overwhelming. The prices were not fantastic, but the variety was great. I can confirm that it appears to be the only place in Russia to find reasonable quality wines at reasonable prices. Other things are the same: like any Russian grocery store, the highest turnover was in the cultured milk products aisle – the kefir, smetana, tvorog and all that. We’d gone there back in 2005 to stock up before our wedding celebration here, and it seemed the place had changed. Specifically, it was much more crowded. Can’t tell if the BMW and Lexus driving middle class is really growing after all, or if people were just desperate for some entertainment over the long vacation. Interestingly, it was just as full of people pushing and shoving and crowding like an old-fashioned outdoor market full of traders.

Through it all, it has been incredibly cold. It has hovered around 15 degrees Celsius even during the day (that about 5 degrees Fahrenheit). That’s cold enough that we haven’t been able to take Mila out for her walks, which is a shame because that is the best way to get her to sleep. We spend our days in the house, avoiding going out, enjoying Moscow’s magnificent combined-cycle heating system.

But it has been beautiful out. November and December were always overcast and dreary. Now the sun has come out – it’s only up for a few hours but that’s fine, the days are getting longer after all – and the sky is bright blue. It is amazing how low the sun stays above the horizon, even in the middle of the day, and the sunsets are quite nice to enjoy from the comfort of your window.

As the voting starts...

So the primary season is ready to roll, and before I weigh in I have to admit now, after years of doubt and concern, I am officially of the opinion that the nomination process for the most important elected office in the world is indefensible. The other week I was at a party and tried to explain to some Russians and Brits just how this process worked, and it was impossible to justify how a handful of voters in Iowa and New Hampshire determine the course of events.

Anyway, I’ve been following things closely from here. After spending so much time trying to guess the contours of the political landscape here in Russia, it is a relief to think about home. Even though American politics is corrupt with money, frequently devoid of substance, and often just a sorry spectacle of product-placement, it remains true that votes count, no one knows the outcome of elections, and while it has been a horrible couple of years, good and great things do occasionally happen.

I don’t want this to turn into yet another American political blog – there is plenty enough chatter about all that on the interwebs as it is – but I’m hoping that my fellow Democrats will find a away to see past Hillary Clinton’s machine and “roll the dice,” as one prominent member of the party put it a few weeks ago. I’m supporting Obama, for reasons that have as much to do with him as with the idea of what the Clintons represent and the misdirections the party has pursued under their leadership. In 2008 we have a clear opportunity to get on a new and better track, a once in a generation opportunity, and I’d hate it if we wasted it on Hillary.

First, we need to go back and look at some hard truths about the Clinton years. Through the lens of the Bush administration, it is impossible not to see it in a hazy and optimistic glow, but if we’re honest, we’ll note the rise of several worrying trends. Foremost are the politics of empty “centrism” and “triangulation,” and the impotent and failed rear-guard action against the resurgent Republican party. What the “New Democrats” stand for, what the Democratic Leadership Conference advocates, is nothing more than this: take your entire left-wing for granted (because who else are they going to vote for? Republicans?), and go ahead and say anything at all to get that squishy, undecided middle to vote for you.

Aside from the dishonestly and cynicism of this approach, it is hard to pull off unless you have a once-in-a-generation political showman to pull it off. In 1992, it was Bill Clinton, a natural if there ever was one. He had the additional benefit of being in the White House in peaceful times, when the economy was booming. And how did we spend the political opportunities of the 1990s? instead of shoring up and confirming the best elements that Democrats have stood for for generations dating back to the New Deal, we started giving them away. Some examples are famous, like welfare reform, or the failure to secure health care for all (which was just a gigantic failure for Hillary, and not some important learning experience as she tries to convince us today). But there are other, overlooked examples too. In an amazingly well-reported and well-written feature for Rolling Stone about the “War on Drugs” late last year, Ben Wallace-Wells notes Clinton had the opportunity to reform our epically stupid drug policy, which he promptly ditched out of fear of appearing “soft on crime.”

Clinton, we must admit, refused to actually fight for anything except his own ass. And so did the rest of the party. This cult of personality American-style forced us to spend fully half of Clinton’s time in office defending his job from vicious attacks thanks to his incredible personal shortcomings. And through it all, we suffered the two most devastating elections in party history in 1994 and 2000.

This is not a record to be proud of. Hillary carries the Clinton torch with none of the charisma, none of the optimism, and none of the hope. A vote for Clinton is made out of fear, which as I’ve said before, this is no way for Americans to disrespect the political heritage we have inherited. Her term in office will be brief, divisive, and a Pyrrhic victory of epic proportions. The ghastly horror of the Bush administration gives us a real opportunity to accomplish something, and we would be fools to avoid it.

We could do so with Barack Obama. Much has been made of his inexperience, but his opponents haven’t even bothered to explain what all their experience could offer us. The Boston Globe, in its endorsement of Obama, noted this. “It is true that other Democratic contenders have more conventional resumes and have spent more time in Washington. But that exposure has tended to give them a sense of government’s restraints. Obama is more animated by its possibilities.”

And what possibilities they are… not only America’s first African-American president, but only its second who is not a white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant (the other, of course, being JFK). A man who has actually lived in other countries, who understands personally and deeply the cultural divides and landscape of the United States. And someone who is not strictly a baby-boomer – a solipsistic generational lump that we are best to drive over as quickly as possible, in my opinion (but that’s another post).

And in the interest of fairness… on the Republicans, the field is so ridiculous that it can’t be taken seriously. Where to begin… I lived in Giuliani’s New York, when it was set well on its way to becoming little more than the theme park for the rich it is now. I lived in Romney’s Massachusetts, where the only people that hate him more than the state’s Democrats are the state’s Republicans. He’s a liar and a fraud and a hair-do, and that’s being generous. Huckabee seems genuine, but he’s genuinely a moron. Fred Thompson… is he even running still? I forget. John McCain squandered any goodwill he may have earned in 2000 by his bizarre loyalty to Bush’s goons for eight years. Would a real “maverick” sponsor an anti-torture bill that allows torture?

The GOP race is an effort to answer several pressing questions. Who hates immigrants and homosexuals more? Who can give bigger tax breaks for millionaires? Who can continue America’s aggressive and ignorant foreign policy with the most disregard for the nation’s safety and reputation? Who can best pander to evangelical Christians and gun-nuts? It is rare that a party that has dug the country into such an impossible mess would choose collectively to jump off a cliff by trying to turbocharge the bullshit that got us in the mess in the first place.

This autumn is a rare opportunity to discredit an entire ideology of hate, greed, and ignorance in one swoop, and I hope the nation seizes it. I’m tired of being embarrassed about being American.

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2008, everyone! New Year's is a major holiday here, thanks to the Soviet experience when all the midwinter festivities were moved onto December 31. It is sort of like a secular family Christmas mashed up with western-style revelry.

The family gathered at about 10 p.m. to exchange gifts beside the tree, making sure to wear something new. Mila wore a her dress from China that our friend Natasha gave her after a business trip there. Then we sat down to a big table of salads and cold cuts and popped open a bottle of Sovietskoye Champagne.

Then we waited for the President's speech just before midnight, and then watched as Spassky Tower counted in the first hour of the new year. It was a strange thing to see: I'd always imagined the telecast would be sort of like the broadcasts from Times Square that I'm used to, with lots of revelers and noise and mayhem. But on Russian t.v., it was all incredibly subdued. After the clock chimed, they showed stock footage of the Kremlin and St. Basil's in the dead of night while the National Anthem played. And that was that.

All night though, the air was filled with the sounds of fireworks, to the extent that it sounded like a war zone and we were convinced Mila would wake up every few minutes. She was tired enough though that she made it through. We went out for a walk New Year's Day (the sun came out again for awhile!) and found the park full of the detritus of a noisy celebration, including a dumpster full of spent fireworks. But mostly we just spent the day in, ate leftovers, and for a little while watched Alla Pugacheva's "Song of the Year" of Rossiya Channel, a recap of all the "hits" of 2007 in all their lip-synched splendor.