Another Reason To Like Wolfowitz

The controversial Jewish neo-conservative is reportedly romantically involved with an Arab intellectual. He apparently puts his money where his mouth is, when it comes to inter-ethnic relations. If true, Maazel Tov! Such a romance would be in keeping with Voltaire's idea of tolerance and reason. It would demonstrate the real possibility of Arab-Jewish understanding--and more--once religious extremism is rejected by all sides. That any critics would try to use it against him, shows a lack of thoughtfulness...

Here's the money quote from a link on Roger L. Simon's blog:

Adding fuel to the controversy is concern within the bank staff over Wolfowitz's reported romantic relationship with Shaha Riza, an Arab feminist who works as a communications adviser in the bank's Middle East and North Africa department.

Both divorced, Wolfowitz and Riza have steadfastly declined to talk publicly about their relationship, but they have been regularly spotted at private functions and one source said the two have been dating for about two years. Riza, an Oxford-educated British citizen who was born in Tunisia and grew up in Saudi Arabia, shares Wolfowitz's passion for democratizing the Middle East, according to people who know her.

Putin Lobbys for 2012 Moscow Olympics

This from The Moscow Times:

President Vladimir Putin threw his weight behind Moscow's underdog bid for the 2012 Olympics on Wednesday, saying Russia is a global sports power that deserves to host the games.

"I'm sure you will agree with me that our country is one of the greatest athletic powers in the world," Putin told the IOC evaluation panel in the ornate Catherine Hall at the Kremlin. "A constellation of athletic talent lives in Moscow."

Putin said Russia remembers the political and international situation in 1980, when Moscow hosted Summer Games boycotted by the United States after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.

"Thank God that time has passed," Putin said. "The world has changed. Russia itself has changed, but one thing has not changed, and that is the interest of the Russian people and their love of sports."

Personally, I think the Olympics would be good for Moscow and encourage further moderation by the government. The Russians would also improve Moscow, with a "river of sport," water taxis, new hotels, and so forth. The plans bandied about while we were living in Russia look good, and let's face it, Paris has plenty of tourist traps already, while Moscow needs some help to get up to world standards. The Olympics would make a nice present to the Russians--if Putin releases Khodorkovsky, for example.

The Russian government cares about its international image, and having thousands of foreign visitors will no doubt encourage Putin to be on his best behavior. Also, it would be a good way to ease Putin out of power into another high profile job--he might be able to become head of Russia's Olympics Committee (he's a judo champion, don't forget), travelling the world to improve Russia's image in preparation for 2012, instead of "president for life"...

More on David D'arcy v NPR and MoMA (...and Hitler, indirectly)

From Roger L Simon's link to Mickey Kaus and Kaus's link to attorney Randol Schoenberg's letter in support of D'Arcy's position.

BTW, I still hope D'Arcy sues, I'd like to cover the trial and learn just how NPR makes its "journalistic" decisions.

Liberal Idealist to Head World Bank

More good news from the Bush administration. Sending Paul Wolfowitz to the World Bank puts the liberal idealist -- yes, he really is a liberal, according to sources who know him personally -- in a place where he can spend some serious money to support democracy.

The task is daunting, the World Bank is full of problems, the staff there is unsympathetic, and Wolfowitz is a good choice to send a signal that Bush won't be intimidated by anti-globalist, anti-American, anti-semitic ravings about "neo-cons."

Wet and Cold Southern California

For those who thought Los Angeles is hot and sunny, think again. There have been record rains, and it is cold out here. Landing at LAX, I looked out the airplane window to see water in the Los Angeles River, ponds everywhere, drainage canals that looked like mountain streams, and green hills. Unusual. And apparently there has been a drought in Seattle, which used to be wet.

Pandemic Spreads in Canada

Visiting my folks in California, just saw a paperback copy of my cousin Daniel Kalla's thriller--Pandemic, about biological terrorism. Looks good. Some 200,000 copies are in print, and the book is number 2 on Canadian best-seller lists, between Dan Brown and John Grisham novels. It's gotten good reviews in the Canadian press, here's one from Mclean's, and my cousin got a glowing profile in the Toronto Globe and Mail (unfortunately in the paid archive only). My mother is very proud.

The Other Side of MGM v. Grokster

Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation was in the audience at the Heritage Foundation. I found a number of items by him, making the case for Grokster against MGM at EFF: MGM v. Grokster. Interesting to read both sides and ask, is compromise possible in this case?

And here's the acutal Grokster site, so you can see what the fuss is about...

Harvard Faculty Condemns Summers

Reading the story in the The Harvard Crimson Online, I was struck by Summer's shock at the vote against him:

Debate on the vote of lack of confidence--and a short-lived motion to table Matory's motion altogether--consumed the first hour of the meeting before Matory's motion was put to vote shortly after 5 p.m.
Summers was stoic while the FAS docket committee announced that the lack of confidence motion had passed the Faculty, but once the announcement was finished, he covered his mouth with his hand, and his expression soon changed to one of surprise and deep disappointment.
This meeting, the third devoted exclusively to the Summers crisis, drew a packed crowd to the Loeb auditorium, where some professors sat in aisles or stood against the wall once all 556 seats were taken.
The entrance line spilled out onto Brattle Street, mixing with the press and curious onlookers forced to stay outside the much-anticipated meeting.
The Loeb was chosen for its size--the venues of the two previous meetings, the Faculty Room and Lowell Lecture Hall were too small to accommodate the large number of faculty in attendance--but the auditorium lent the meeting a theatrical air.

Clearly, Summers still had no idea how profound the rule of unreason is in American universities today. As a liberal democrat, from the Clinton administration, he probably was not aware that would not protect him. Probably other factors are at work as well as political correctness, including anti-Semitism, and objections to non-Marxist economics. But the deed is done. Summers was censured for expression of opinion, something that is supposed to be a bedrock of academic freedom.

Although I'm sure he will look for a Clintonian "third way," any objective analysis of his situation would tell Summers that he has only two plausible alternatives: resign, or fight. To fight would mean to purge the Harvard faculty of those who do not uphold Harvard's own commitment to "Veritas." It would be ugly and difficult, but if Summers succeeded, it would be a very good thing for the world of ideas. It is better that such a purge come from within Harvard, than from the outside--for example, by Congress reprogramming federal research dollars now going to Harvard to other universities, or the Bush administration cancelling federal contracts with Harvard, and so forth.

Could Summers successfully transform Harvard? It would be hard, but I think so. As an economist, he knows the power of the law of supply and demand. There is an ample supply of underemployed academics of very high quality, opposed to political correctness, who would be happy to teach at Harvard (including a few bloggers)...

Our Victory Day by Day

Countdown to V-E Day with Our Victory Day by Day, an RIA Novosti project that retells the dramatic conclusion to World War II, in a runup to Victory Day celebrations in Moscow...

QUESTION: Why isn't something like this going on in the USA?

MGM v. Grokster Comes to Washington

Politics makes strange bedfellows, as today's Heritage Foundation panel on MGM v. Grokster again illustrated.

Collected in one room were conservative heavyweights like columnist Jim Pinkerton, former Solicitor General Ted Olson and former Attorney General Ed Meese, alongside Hollywood representatives David Green of the Motion Picture Association of America, Paul Skrabut of ASCAP, Rick Carnes of the Songwriters Guild, and Jim Ramo of MovieLink (a licensed alternative to Grokster), brought together in a coalition to defend intellectual property rights as well as real property rights. They even had RNC chief Ken Mehlman at the lunch, presenting an award to Congressman Lamar Smith. So Hollywood and the Right appear to be on the same side for a change.

On the other side, actually sitting in the audience, were representatives of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, some big high-tech players, and their lawyers. Apparently there is big money from telephone companies, cable companies, and ISPs who don't want to be held liable for illegal uses of their services.

And in the middle? Well, a very intelligent-sounding lobbyist from Microsoft sat a couple of seats from me in the audience, he was noncommittal when I asked him what side the giant was taking...

In any case, it looks like March 29th will be a big day at the Supreme Court--peer-to-peer downloading of music and movies is going on trial (the Napster case ended before it reached the Supreme Court). Question at issue: Will the US government ban a technology that is used to commit theft of intellectual property, or not?

As a blogger and non-participant in this case, a believer in copyright as well as fair use, my guess is the answer lies somewhere between the positions of the two parties . Surely, there must be a way to make peer-to-peer distribution pay in such a way that royalties can be collected for the creators, while permitting new technologies to be developed and used. Will the Supreme Court come up with such a solution?

The best presentation was by songwriter Rick Carnes, (I asked him for a copy to post on this blog). He pointed out that the notion of "intellectual property" is unpopular in law schools these days, Duke just got a $2 million dollar grant to fight against it, and some 400 Yale students rallied in opposition. They see it as a plot by big corporations... Carnes suggested that one problem might be that the word "intellectual" is off-putting.

My suggestion, how about calling it "Creative Property?"

And for all those "Creative Commons" people out there: other than pasture for sheep and some vegetable gardens, which great inventions or works of art, exactly, came out of the commons, prior to their enclosure?

Think carefully...

Karen Hughes' New Job

The appointment of Karen Hughes to head the State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs sends an important signal: President Bush cares about what the State Department is doing. Secretary of State Rice made all the right noises about the importance of public diplomacy. But will she follow up the words with action?

Obviously, Hughes, a former TV reporter and PR advisor to the President, is a top-drawer choice. But her high profile cuts both ways. Two previous appointees have failed in the job: ad agency executive Charlotte Beers and Jim Baker favorite Margaret Tutweiler. Hughes is taking along Dina Habib Powell, who worked in the White House Personnel office, staffing the Bush administration. She's an Egyptian-American from Texas who worked at one time for Dick Armey, so another highly-connected appointment. The clan system seems to be working full-speed, with personal, political and regional loyalties covered (Hughes is basically from Texas, although she lived in Panama, Canada and France).

While Hughes was certainly effective in the White House, and got George W. Bush re-elected (with a little help from hapless John F. Kerry and Bob Shrum) there is still an open question as to whether she will be able to function as effectively at Foggy Bottom, famous as a "fudge factory".

I'll feel a little better if Hughes finds The Diplomad and puts his blog back online asap -- officially, at http://www.state.gov...

Is Bush Losing the Global War on Terror?

That's the question at the center of Dale C. Eikmeier's article in Middle East Quarterly :

If the U.S. government is to develop successful counterinsurgency strategies, its policymakers and military strategists must understand the Islamist insurgency's mixture of subversion, propaganda, and military pressure. U.S. counterinsurgency strategy should be comprehensive. Any effort that lacks an ideological component will fall short. Militant Islam is competing for the minds of the Muslim masses; Washington must, too. While Western media focuses upon the latest acts of Islamist terror or questions over the human costs of military actions, Islamists recognize that the side that best promotes its ideas will be the victor. The ideological component in the strategy to defeat will be key to Western democracies' success.

Unfortunately, the U.S. government continues to fumble its public diplomacy. When State Department and Central Intelligence Agency policies fail to match and even contradict White House rhetoric, the effectiveness of U.S. efforts in the Middle East suffers. The U.S. government is also hampered in its battle to win the ideological struggle when it is unable to make its voice heard. In Iraq, the U.S. government simply ceded the airwaves to its opponents. Before the first bombs fell on Baghdad, the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite channel was set to operate throughout Iraq, with correspondents and equipment spread throughout the country. Al-Manar, the satellite channel of Lebanese Hezbollah, also operated freely throughout Iraq. The Iranian government inaugurated Al-'Alam, an Arabic language television station for Iraq, months before coalition forces launched their own television station.[8] As a result, both Sunni Islamists and Iranian proxies had a virtual free hand to shape the news for the Iraqi audience.

Saudi officials, the primary financial backers of militant Islam, have long understood the need to fight and win the battle for ideas. They sponsor the World Assembly of Muslim Youth and the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) not only in Iraq and the Middle East, but also in Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia.[9] In the mountains of northern Iraq, IIRO mosques have sprouted up in small towns and villages where not a single dollar of American aid money had been spent more than a year after the fall of Baghdad. Given the organization, dedication, energy, and financial strength of opponents to the community of secular, liberal, and democratic states, U.S. strategy will fail if it focuses only upon capturing and killing insurgents but ignores the battle of ideas.

Victor Davis Hanson on American Audacity

From VDH's Private Papers:

A Look Back
Turning point since September 11
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
I know that things are going pretty well in America's efforts in the Middle East when Fareed Zakaria, who was a sharp critic over the last two years, now assures us that events are working out in Iraq � just about, he tells us, like he saw all along. Joseph Nye intones that at last Bush came around to his very own idea of 'soft power,' while Jackson Diehl gushes that Bush was sort of right all along � to nods of approval even from Daniel Schorr.
Even former Clinton National Security Council member Nancy Soderberg recently lamented to Jon Stewart, 'It's scary for Democrats, I have to say.' And then she added, 'Well, there's still Iran and North Korea, don't forget. There's still hope for the rest of us....There's always hope that this might not work.'
This newfound turnabout follows the successful election and its aftershocks in the region. Before then, it had become a sort of D.C.-insider parlor game to look back at the conflict in the aftermath of September 11 and catalogue our mistakes.
Without much appreciation that error is the stuff of war, that by any historical benchmark the removal of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein was nothing short of miraculous, that our ongoing assessments of success and failure changed hourly within the fluid 24-hour newscycle, or that acrimonious hindsight was often used to save face about earlier wrongheaded pronouncements, we continued to tally up the 'I told you so's.'

Jamey Turner Plays the Glass Harp

Last Friday, we attended an unusual concert at Washington, DC's Arts Club: Jamey Turner on the Glass Harp.

Turner is a somewhat eccentric Montanan, who grew up in a musical family, trained as a clairinetist, and took up the glass harp as a result of a youthful vision. He's been on the Tonight show as well as played with symphony orchestras. His concert reminded me of variety acts on the Ed Sullivan show, the type of innocent musical entertainment we don't see much of anymore. His concert was more of a lecture demonstration--it might have been even better if it had been a pure recital. (Turner is so enthusiastic about his instrument, he spent half the performance explaining how it worked and answering questions.)

The glass harp, made up of water-filled crystal goblets, was a favorite of the 18th-Century. It is an amazing instrument to see and hear, sort of magical, and yet scientific at the same time. Amazing that the music comes from drinking glasses. Benjamin Franklin invented a mechanical version, and Thomas Jefferson enjoyed its sound. Mozart composed numbers especially for the Theramin-like sound. A bit gimmicky, a bit of a novelty act--yet one that is hundreds of years old, and part of classical music history.

You can listen to Jamey Turner's concerts at the Kennedy Center on this website.

Is 60 Minutes Doing Something Right?

Roger L. Simon thinks so. He's plugging a segment hosted by Morley Safer tonight, about murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh:

Hollywood remains shamefully silent or ignorant or both (I'm betting on both!) on the death of fellow filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, who directed the short film 'Submission' and had his throat cut for his work by an Islamist psychokiller in Amsterdam. No mention of this event at the Academy Awards.

But now, according to a press release, at least '60 Minutes' is going to report on the case this Sunday and show part of the film, which harshly criticizes some Islamic attitudes towards women.

Funny how Safer is looking better and better . . .

A Kasparov v. Putin Match

Now this is interesting news from Russia, from a headline in the Telegraph: Kasparov quits chess to challenge Putin. And here's the lead: "Garry Kasparov, the world's leading chess player, is to give up competitive chess and devote his time to Russian politics in an attempt to bring down the increasingly despotic regime of President Vladimir Putin."

Remember this: chess is the national game of the former Soviet Union (the current world champion is a native of Uzbekistan). When I taught in Moscow and Tashkent, I learned that Russians treat chess the way Americans view poker. (One might see the end of the Soviet Union as checkmate by the USA). There is a wonderful silent Soviet film, by Vsevolod Pudovkin, called Chess Fever, that gives a sense of the grip of this game on the Russian public--then and now (chess matches are still televised as sport).

How a Kasparov-Putin match will play out, we can't predict, but it is indeed interesting news, and a fair match (Putin is no dummy).

More on MoMA's Nazi Loot

Just got this email from Alice Marquis, commenting on the David D'Arcy controversy:

I went to that site & found that the issue in question was about a work by Egon Schiele. This is not what I referred to in my book (Alfred H. Barr, Jr: Missionary for the modern). I dealt with paintings stolen from museums by the Nazis and auctioned in Switzerland in, I think, 1940. American art dealers were boycotting the auction, but Alfred Barr [in the only underhanded act I ever found] got a NY dealer to go there and got Abbie Rockefeller to give him money to buy four paintings. Which he did, and the museum still owns them. Barr later was quite open about his regrets for having done that.... I also had a letter published by the NY Times about those stolen paintings. I also tried to follow up with the European museums from which the Nazis had stolen those paintings. Art News was interested in an article about it. However, a Berlin Museum which had lost one or two paintings was no longer in existence. I then saw the curator of the Essen Folkwang Museum and asked him about those pictures. And he said: "Well, we have a nice relationship with the MoMA and I'd hate to spoil it with a complaint about stolen pictures." So that was that.
I'd certainly be interested in contacting D'Arcy. As for Morley Safer, he once called me to get a detail on something to do with art, I forget what, and I helped him out. But when I sent him a copy of "The Art Biz," nothing happened, not even a Thank You. The arrogance of old men!

More on NPR Terminating David D'Arcy

From Jan Herman's blog on ArtsJournal:

Tyler Green mentioned it this morning in a brief post in his ArtsJournal blog, which is how I learned of the news. Coincidentally, I've just received a message (pointing out the story) from a very unhappy West Coast radio producer who is outraged by NPR's action and is seeking support for D'Arcy: "Jan, This is an awful story about one cultural institution exerting its prestigious might and another, a respected journalistic entity, rolling over and playing dead. It's been roiling for about a month but efforts to resolve the case have not moved NPR to listen to reason."

Another interesting angle is that when I met D'Arcy over 20 years ago, he was freelancing for NPR. I was under the impression that if he did a good job, they would hire him in a permanent position. Yet over two decades later, I read he was "terminated" from a freelance position. So where's the career path for art critics at NPR? And they call it cultural and educational broadcasting?

NPR Terminates Critical Art Critic...

Artnet.com reports: "In a letter to the NPR board, Morley Safer suggests that the broadcaster 'has caved in to intimidation by a large, wealthy and powerful cultural institution.'" New York's MoMA reportedly was unhappy with a story David D'Arcy did about Nazi loot displayed in the museum, and let NPR know about it (D'arcy's charge is nothing new, in her biography of the museum's founder, Alice Goldfarb Marquis documents Alfred Barr's purchases of stolen Jewish works at Swiss auctions).

NPR, where D'Arcy has been a freelance contributor for 20 years, gave D'Arcy a two-paragraph "termination" memo accusing him of overlooking "basic standards of journalism" in the report. D'Arcy says adamantly that "MoMA was not able to find any inaccuracies in the report, and the correction aired and posted by NPR does not address any inaccuracies.

I met D'Arcy many years ago in New York. And Morley Safer gave me an interview for my PBS book. So it will be interesting to see how this story plays out. I'd love to cover the trial, if D'Arcy sues NPR...

Virginia, not Vienna, Doctors Cured Yuschenko

That's one revelation from this fascinating story about Yuschenko's medical treatment in today's Washington Post. Poison experts from the University of Virginia diagnosed and treated Dioxin poisoning in the Ukrainian leader. The story reads like something out of a James Bond movie. It was interesting to learn of the role in the drama played by the American Ambassador to the Ukraine, John Herbst, who had been in Uzbekistan when we lived there. Maybe this will become a movie-of-the-week?

Samuelson on Social Security Reform

This oped in today's Washington Post, by Robert Samuelson, does a good job of explaining why some people are worried that President Bush's Social Security proposals might have adverse unintended consequences. Samuelson's article has a good title Welfare vs. Wall Street The bottom line:

What looms is a massive expansion of government power over Wall Street. To be sure, it would occur gradually, over decades, and its outlines are murky. The irony is that it comes from "conservatives."

More on Giuliana Sgrena

This interesting tidbit by Dutch reporter Harald Doornbos comes via Little Green Footballs:

'You don't understand the situation. We are anti-imperialists, anti-capitalists, communists,' they said. The Iraqis only kidnap American sympathizers, the enemies of the Americans have nothing to fear.'

(Doornbos tells them they're out of their mind.)

But they knew better. When we arrived at Baghdad Airport, I was waiting for a jeep from the American army to come pick me up. I saw one of the Italian women walking around crying. An Iraqi had stolen her computer and television equipment. They were standing outside shivering, waiting for a cab to take them to Baghdad.

With her bias Sgrena did not only jeopardize herself, but due to her behavior a security officer is now dead, and the Italian government (prime minister Berlusconi included) has had to spend millions of euros to save her life. It is to be hoped that Sgrena will decide to have a career change. Propagandist or MP perhaps. But she should give up journalism immediately.

RGGU Russo-American Center

Here's the website for the place I taught American Culture in Moscow, theRussian State Humanitarian University Russo-American Center for Academic American Studies.

This Time, The New York Times Gets It Right...

I had to chuckle at this letter to the editor in today's New York Times, Commercial-Free PBS:

To the Editor:
A Feb. 21 editorial about PBS and its stations said 'the need for money to pay for expensive shows' has driven PBS 'to sell commercial time.' In fact, PBS and its stations are prohibited from selling commercial time by the terms of their broadcast licenses.
Many public television programs are supported by corporate underwriting. But all underwriting credits must be in keeping with the noncommercial nature of public television, which means that our credits must be free of such promotional conventions as calls to action, superlative description or qualitative claims, price information and endorsements, among others.
We are proud to note that our programs remain uninterrupted and are surrounded by a minimum of clutter. In one hour, PBS viewers see an average of 5 1/2 minutes of underwriting and program promotion messages. That stands in contrast to other broadcasters and cable networks, which are averaging nearly 20 minutes of nonprogramming time per hour.
Earlier this month, a national Roper survey showed that the American public trusts PBS more than any other national institution and believes that our programming is the most important on television. We are grateful for the country's belief in us and in our public service mission.
Lea Sloan
Vice President, Media Relations
Public Broadcasting Service
Alexandria, Va., Feb. 25, 2005

Maybe PBS could use this letter in their commercials. The new corporate slogan might go something like this:

"PBS: If the New York Times won't believe us, who will?"

Anne Applebaum on John Bolton

From today's Washington Post:

The trouble with many U.N. defenders is that they refuse to see this fundamental problem, and demand a constantly expanding role for the United Nations without explaining how its lack of democratic accountability is to be addressed. The trouble with many U.N. detractors, in Congress and elsewhere, is that they see the corruption and nothing else. But there is a role for U.N. institutions -- in Afghanistan, or in international health -- as long as that role is limited in time and cost. And there is a desperate need for U.N. reform. In defense of John Bolton: He may, if he can get confirmed, be one of the few U.N. ambassadors who has thought a good deal about how to set such limits and make such reforms. And if he isn't invited to a few cocktail parties along the way, at least he won't mind.

A Glimpse of a Glittering Inheritance

By Charlie Clark

Twenty-three years after my father died, his old tuxedo still hung in the storage room of my mother’s Northwest Washington apartment building. While preparing for her move recently, I decided on whim to take the perennially fashionable garment to be resuscitated at the dry cleaners.

It came out spiffy as new, well-textured and manly with its shiny black piping and wainscoted white shirt. It was, however, clearly too small for my expanded adult body. So I determined that with great fanfare at the next family gathering, I would present it to my older, and skinnier, brother.

We both would be aware of the penguin suit’s symbolism. He and my father were for many years estranged—removed from each other’s company (though not the other’s influence) by a complex stew of the political and the personal. One of the many concrete results was that my brother went through adulthood lacking the slightest desire to dress like a bourgeois man about town.

But in that puzzlingly indirect way so favored by fate, my brother, as he entered his 50s, decided to take up the hobby of swing dancing. Suddenly, a crisp black tux seemed just the thing.

So it was on a Sunday afternoon in the living room of my Arlington home, with various relatives looking on, I unveiled the freshened garment. My brother repaired to try it on. When he reappeared, he was glowing with the rest of us as he marched and modeled the perfect fit. A minute later, he had folded the tux back on its hanger and hung it lovingly in the backseat of his car.

An hour later, a caravan of us had parked our cars downtown in Adams Morgan, warmed by a feeling of family solidarity, to attend an aunt’s art gallery opening.

Emerging two hours later, we walked back down Columbia Road to find my brother’s car with its side window shattered. The tuxedo was gone, along with an expensive leather coat, some shoes, and a cell phone.

In this city so conversant with murders and assaults, I couldn’t react as if this were the crime of the century. I remembered that over the years I’ve personally been fortunate to have suffered very few crime victim experiences. When we were newlyweds, my wife once had her purse lifted out of our foyer—presumably by somebody who knocked on the door while we were out of earshot—and it was later found, sans cash, in a U.S. mailbox. More recently, the car my daughter drives had its taillights smashed and its tires sliced while parked overnight in our driveway, the result of some high school drama we never quite got to the bottom of.

Yet what our family on that recent Sunday did have in common with victims of more serious crimes is that we had to swallow the bitter potion of adjusting to the unpleasantness. We went through the same stages of denial, anger, resignation and acceptance caused by every random dose of unfairness or unforeseen detour that inflicts that lingering feeling of having been violated.

After a fruitless search through Adams Morgan back-ally dumpsters, my brother bucked himself up to file a claim with his insurance company.

The rest of us were left with no choice but to savor that earlier spectacle of my brother welcoming into his life a very special inheritance from our father. That brief, shining moment, still counts.

Be Careful What You Wish For...

You may get it, says Daniel Pipes.

In the Middle East, Pipes warns, a rush to "democracy," in societies unprepared for it through education and experience, may result in Islamic extremists seizing power as they did in Iran after the fall of the Shah in 1979.

Something to think about...

No Deals for Maskhadov...

SiberianLight: Chechen leader Maskhadov dead: "Chechen leader Maskhadov dead
News is just breaking that Chechen rebel President Asland Maskhadov is dead. Colonel Ilya Shabalkin told the press that he was killed as a result of an operation by Russian special forces. Thanks to Pete Leonard for the heads-up. "

John Bolton for UN Ambassador

I don't ordinarily endorse Presidential appointments, but the news that John Bolton has been tapped for UN Ambassador is wonderful.

While we were living in Tashkent, during the early days of the Iraq war, we watched Bolton field some really insulting and stupid questions on BBC World Service Television (it may have been on Tim Sebastian's "Hard Talk," not sure, but Bolton's interviewer certainly was a bully and a dope). Bolton did a great job, answering each attack, rationally, calmly and firmly. His tormentor didn't score a single point. So I think Bolton could hold his own in the UN.

Those worried about Bolton's chances for confirmation should note that Bolton has already been confirmed a number of times for government jobs. To get through the Senate before, and not now, would be very rare. So I think his chances are better than predicted.

Also, Bolton was my editor at Common Sense, a now-defunct Repubican "journal of ideas." Bolton was a good editor, and his managing editor, Claudia Weill, was terrific. At the time some people told me: "One day he'll be Secretary of State." Well, I don't know of a UN Ambassador who has become Secretary of State, but if one could, it might be Bolton. The whole thing was shut down as collateral damage from some typically stupid Republican fund-raising scandal involving Haley Barbour. Which is a shame, because now there is no Republican journal of ideas, and Republicans don't seem too interested in ideas. After that, Bolton went on to become vice-president at AEI (full disclosure, I asked him for a job, had an interview -- and nothing happened).

Here's a quote from Bolton's official State Department biography: "He graduated with a B.A., summa cum laude, from Yale University and received his J.D. from Yale Law School. "

Of course Bolton's qualified--and that he's an outspoken UN critic means more than he's the right man for the job, it means watching Bolton at work on TV might be fun...

Happy International Women's Day

My students in Tashkent were surprised to hear that America didn't celebrate International Women's day on March 8th, a holiday established by Vladimir Lenin.

To celebrate, you might find Raymond Lloyd's websiteShequality | Political Parity among Women and Men worth a look. It's 25 years old this year. Among Lloyd's postings are:

*2500 major anniversaries of the democracies to 2016
*1000 anniversaries of women's empowerment to 2010
*5500 centenaries of distinguished women of history to 2055
*2500 birthdays of distinguished living women from 130 countries
*1300 current heads of state and other women leaders in 220 countries
*600 past heads of state and other women leaders
*5000 able women proposed as heads of international bodies
*500 flowers and wines named after distinguished women 
*500 coins and banknotes portraying women, and
*1400 press questions on democracy and women's advancement

S'prasnikom!

Camille Paglia's new book.

Camille Paglia Reads Forty-three of the World's Best Poems

This book looks interesting
Break, Blow, Burn: Camille Paglia Reads Forty-three of the World's Best Poems.

My Russian students were disappointed that Americans didn't seem to read more poetry. I told them we used to, in the past, and we read Emily Dickinson and Edgar Allen Poe in class.

Perhaps Paglia can help rescue American poetry...

The Strange Case of Giuliana Sgrena

Not surprisingly, Michelelle Malkin isn't too sympathetic to Communist reporter Giuliana Sgrena.

But the friendly fire tragedy presents a real problem for the US. First, because millions around the world will believe Sgrena's conspiracy theory. Second, because what looks like a military cover-up--to shield incompetence--plays into the hands of the terrorists. The defense department should come clean--fast--and make all the facts public as soon as possible. Italians still remember a similar incident, when US pilots killed innocent people on ski lifts at an Italian resort while they were "hot-dogging." That scandal dragged on for a while, damaging US-Italian relations.

And that US intelligence couldn't guarantee safe passage for Italian allies reveals America as weak and out of touch, unaware of what is going on in Iraq. Even the most charitable interpretation of what happened to Sgrena--Situation Normal, All Fouled Up--is a net minus for the US.

Until order is restored in Iraq, such tragedies are bound to recur.

Is a Cinema Studies Degree the New M.B.A.?

This is the question the The New York Times's Elizabeth Van Ness asks in today's paper.

Not surprisingly, the New York Times gets it wrong.

Just compare average salaries of Cinema Studies graduates to MBAs from the same school.

The correct answer is: "No."

Could Bush Trade Maskhadov for Khodorkovsky?

This interview with Aslan Maskhadov from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is evidence that the Americans know the whereabouts of the fugitive Chechen warlord wanted by Russia as a terrorist mastermind.

Forget the chilling implication that RFE/RL may be openly acting as a p.r. bureau for a terrorist leader. A thought occurs: Could this be a message to Putin, that the US could deliver Maskhadov for the "meeting" in exchange for the release of Khodorkovsky?

After all, if Putin can keep the Yukos billionaire in jail indefinitely, it is unlikely that Maskhadov could walk away from a half-hour of face-time with Putin.

Such a deal would be good for business with Russia, might help to end the messy Chechen crisis, and send a clear signal to terrorists that the US will no longer support Islamic extremism, even in the former Soviet Union.

More on Moscow's Radio Kultura

Found this November 2004 story on Internews about my favorite Moscow channel Radio Kultura:

Are you a person who reads the arts sections of newspapers and magazines, wants to know where to go and what music to listen to, and isn't a loser? If so, then you fit the profile of Radio Kultura's ideal listener, according to the editor of the station, which launched in Moscow last Monday.

The 24-hour station is an offshoot of the state-owned Kultura television channel, a commercial-free haven for old, classic films and intellectual discussions about literature and music, where even the weather forecast rolls across a backdrop of famous paintings. Employing some of the same presenters, the radio version concentrates on talk shows and drama, and is the only station to give significant airtime to classical music on the FM band.

The station aims for a 5 percent share of Moscow's FM listeners, said editor Anatoly Golubovsky in an interview at his office on Pyatnitskaya Ulitsa last Tuesday. And he has high expectations of those who tune in. 'If you're talking about ideal listeners, we think these must be people who are active consumers of culture ... people who don't need a radio station to tell them to go to theaters, cinemas, museums, galleries.

Their website is at http://www.cultradio.ru.

The Case For Putin (cont'd.)

Writing in Foreign Affairs, Nikolas K. Gvosdev argues that Putin knows what he is doing:

Putin and his advisers do not intend to recreate the old Soviet enterprises, top-heavy with management and burdened by inefficient central planning. Instead, they seem to want profitable companies that can generate a revenue stream for their shareholders-including the Russian state. What is emerging is state-directed capitalism, in which private owners play a role and have the opportunity to bank profits.

We are seeing in today's Russia the consolidation of a system of managed pluralism-in which the Kremlin sets the overall agenda, but with some room for political and economic competition and choice. Whether this is a disappointing direction depends on with whom you speak. Most Russians support Putin's vision of 'orderly' state-directed reform, looking to the center to reel in the power of the oligarchs and local bosses.

There is indeed a pronounced authoritarian streak in today's Russia. But there are also optimistic signs-the seeds of a middle class beginning to take root, the steady rise in the number of home-grown charities and other civil-society organizations-that point to a more democratic Russia emerging in the future.

Gvosdev points to the influence of a Russian academic, Vladimir Litvinenko, rector of the State Mining Institute in St. Petersburg, who has a theory of national control of natural resources which he says explains Putin's actions in the energy sector. Litvinenko is an advisor to Putin from his St. Petersburg days.

Persuasive, but still, I'd feel better if Putin let Khodorkovsky go.

What V-E Day Means to the Russians

From a letter to the editor at SiberianLight:

"People like McDuff misunderstand the nature of WWII as perceived by most Russians, and by doing so and indulging in diatribes in defense of various small nations that were not exactly anti-Nazi during the war, he is playing right into the hands of Russian imperialists. (Note that I am an anti-imperial nationalist as it were.) The war of German Aggression was a war of survival for Russia (and Belarus, and large parts of Ukraine). We paid a huge price in blood (partly, but not entirely because of Stalin's and his generals' massive errors) but we survived as a people and, moreover, destroyed the enemy. May 9 is the day of remembrance of this epic struggle, and of commemoration of the fallen. The memory of the war is one of the very few bonds that still hold together what remains of the nation. Seen in this light, McDuff's enclosing 'celebrations' in quotation marks is so offensive to the common Russian that it automatically disqualifies the author from any meaningful discussion of WWII. It may be 'celebrations' for the Latvian and the Finn but it's Celebrations for the Russian." (Posted by Alexei, March 5, 2008)

To the extent America understands this sentiment, a strong Russian-American relationship can be rebuilt, which IMHO is needed to balance a resurgent and not always pro-American Europe...
NOTE: I see that Alexei runs The Russian Dilettante blog.

The American Society of Newspaper Censors?

Colbert I. King's column in today's Washington Post about a dispute between Post writer Marc Fisher and the American Society of Newspaper Editors, titled An Affront to the First Amendment, is well worth reading.

If anything illustrates a moral failure with major media in America today, it is a letter from ASNE lawyer Kevin Goldberg, attacking Fisher for commenting on a court battle between the Baltimore Sun and Maryland Governor Robert Erhlich:

Goldberg wrote last Saturday that Fisher had "done a disservice to his reporting brethren" by "publicly" stating his views. Acknowledging Fisher's right to state his beliefs, Goldberg declared, incredibly, that "the responsibility that accompanies that right mitigates against stating them in this situation." This from the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Now who's trying to stifle the free flow of information to the public?

That a professional organization of newspaper editors would be calling for censorship in order to further their own cause fits a pattern that can be seen in the Dan Rather case, Eason Jordan's comments, and so forth. This is troubling for the United States at a time when freedom and democracy are embattled around the world.

As Instapundit might say, the ASNE letter is evidence that they "are on the other side."

Power Line on Dan Rather's Letterman appearance

Putin mentioned the Dan Rather scandal at his summit with President Bush. And when I was in Moscow at a Moscow State University conference on American Studies, they were talking about Dan Rather in the same way--a victim of the White House. Turned out the sources for Russian analysts were the outlets like the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Columbia Journalism Review, and so on. One might write a dissertation on the national security fallout of the Dan Rather story, and how the Thornburgh report is making things worse. The logic goes like this: If there were no political agenda and no fraud at CBS, why did Rather have to resign? White House pressure!

I know when I was teaching in Moscow, my students believed that the American president controlled network news...(Americans know that he doesn't).

So it is nice to see that PowerLine is still on the Rather casewith this account of his appearence on David Letterman's show. "My translation of Rather's take on the report is: "People have got to know whether or not their [anchor] is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook."

The Return of Kremlinology

According to this article in London's Financial Times, Kremlinology is all the rage again, as outsiders struggle to figure out who's really in charge in Moscow:

In the days of the Soviet Union, Kremlinologists assessed who was going up and down within the country's political elite by scrutinising the order in which members of the Communist party politburo climbed on to Lenin's mausoleum to watch parades on Red Square. Today there is no Soviet Union and no parading, but Kremlinology is back. Political analysts these days, however, are more likely to pore over the increasingly Soviet-style television news to see who is hovering at President Vladimir Putin's shoulder during nightly footage of his meetings with ministers.

The FT names a handful of insiders, but who knows if they are the real insiders or a Potemkin inner-circle, designed to throw Kremlin-watchers off-track?

Scraps of Moscow

Thanks to Lyndon Allin's link to my blog, I found his interesting website about Russia today Scraps of Moscow. It has good photos as well as text.

Hooray for George F. Will!

He's back in the saddle again, with a good essay about why the federal government should stop paying for PBS, titled Cut Buster Loose:

Money quote:"Public television is akin to the body politic's appendix: It is vestigial, purposeless and occasionally troublesome. Of the two arguments for it, one is impervious to refutation and the other refutes itself. "

The Case for Putin

Here's an interesting pro-Putin article The west gets Putin wrong that is worth thinking about. Mary Dejevsky makes some good points, namely that Putin is weaker than he looks, and far from being a dictator, is casting about trying to stay in power by playing factions off against each other. Still, the argument that things could be worse, and that there is no constituency for more reforms--while true--doesn't justify the kind of self-defeating overkill that Putin has engaged in with the Yukos affair, for example.

Who would want to go into business in Russia, if the government can just decide one day to put you out of business, on a whim? Especially since Yukos was by all accounts the best-run company in Russia. That is the chilling effect to outside investors that Putin needs to resolve as quickly as possible, by letting Khodorkovsky go. Until he does, Russia's international image will continue to suffer.

One thought would be for Putin to release Khodorkovsky before V-E Day celebrations, as a gift to Bush for attending.

Uzbekistan: A modernizing society

When it rains, it pours. Orbis has just published my scholarly article, "Uzbekistan: A modernizing society". Here's the money quote:

Underestimating Uzbekistan's legacy of modernist secularism, Americans often stereotype the nation as one of the poor and backward '-stans.' Many Central Asia analysts accept at face value nationalist, pan-Turkic, or Islamist versions of the region's past, dismissing as inauthentic anything that is modern, Western, or familiar. Focusing on the exotic or (in the case of the Fergana Valley) dangerous, they foster misperceptions about the character of Uzbekistan that result in flawed policies.

Click on Registan.net to read the whole thing.

Tashkent - New York: America - Uzbekistan

Time Out Tashkent has published my article about the Uzbek capital: "Tashkent-New York: America-Uzbekistan." Here's the money quote:

Anyone who has lived in New York City should be able to adapt to life in Uzbekistan's capital, especially West Siders (East Siders tend to have high-paying jobs). New Yorkers live in blocks of flats, take the subway and buses, and eat from street vendors, so do residents of Tashkent. New Yorkers feel they are more sophisticated than anyone else in the country, so do Tashkent's inhabitants. New York is the center of intellectual life for the USA, Tashkent plays the same role in Uzbekistan. New York has Lincoln Center, Tashkent the Navoi Opera House; New York has the Astoria Film Studios, Tashkent, UzbekFilm; New York has its Broadway, Tashkent has its own Broadway. To better understand Uzbekistan, just think about its similarities to America.

Alice Goldfarb Marquis on "Old Europe"

We heard from Alice, last seen in Moscow, in regard to the depressinq quality of Vienna:

Yes, all of Central Europe is depressing most of the time. Hence Kafka. Hence Gustav Mahler. Hence Karl Krauss, publisher of a journal describing the end of the world. Hence Freud, who saw humans trapped inside the warring id & ego. And I could go on, perhaps showing that Hitler himself was depressed. And no wonder.

Ann Coulter Defends Bloggers

In her latest column, Ann Coulter defends bloggers against the media attacks on James Guckert, who apparently made big news when he received a White House press pass while I was out of town in Moscow. (When do I get a pass?)

In response to the public disgrace and ruin of New York Times editor Howell Raines, CBS anchor Dan Rather and CNN news director Eason Jordan, liberals are directing their fury at the blogs. Once derided as people sitting around their living rooms in pajamas, now obscure writers for unknown Web sites are coming under more intensive background checks than CIA agents.

To continue today's shameless name-dropping festival, I knew Ann Coulter, too, a few years ago. She was one of the nicest people in Washington, she even tried to get me hired when she a commentator on MSNBC. She sent her parents to see me talk at the Women's National Republican Club in New York City. They were nice, too. So, I really don't understand why some people hate her so much. In addition to being beautiful, she's intelligent, thin, rich, a best-selling author--and extremely tall...Could it be that someone's jealous?

Some Email from Paris, about Khodorkovsky

Marie-Noelle Pane just sent us an email about Mikhail Khodorkovsky, after seeing an item in this blog. She asked for a link to her organization. So here it is:



Pane heads a group working for Khodorkovsy's relase, and sounds sincere when she says they don't get any money from him (though I wouldn't blame them if they did). Here's how she describes her Paris-based organization:

In a few words (excuse me, my English is very bad) - we are just a group of citizens, we found one another on several discussion forums on the web, and then we decided to get together and meet in "real" life to try to do something. At least to express our protest.
No one pay for our operations. From the beginning, we absolutely rejected the idea of any financial help. We want to show that people can do something by themselves. And it would be no moral help for Khodorkovsky if people were defending him... on his own money ;-). So - no, thanks. As we are all not very well-off, our operations are not expensive - web site cost about 20$/year, I pay for him myself, there are telephone fees, paper, ink...that kind of things. Everyone gives what he can gives. We all are volonterees, working according to the "samizdat" principle. We try to do original things to drive the attention of media, and sometimes collaborate with Human Right Defence Organisations. We also collaborate with Khodorkovsky's press center, in that way that they (sometimes) publish account of our actions, and sometimes give us posters of Khodorkovsky. And that's all.
If you are interested and you are in Moscow, you can assist to our demonstrations in front of the Meschanskyj Court (about once a week). You can also have a look of what's happening inside the Court, it is... how to say... interesting. :-(

You can read our position :
http://www.sovest.org/orgsovest/position_en.htm

Another old school tie

My non-Oscar winning friend, dissident Cuban-American filmmaker Agustin Blazquez, who made "Covering Cuba 3: Elian" (has it even played in Los Angeles?) emailed to say that UCLA film school colleague Alexander Payne won an Oscar for "Sideways." I was in Vienna, at the Opera, watching Aida, I think--or asleep--during the broadcast from Hollywood. So I missed the big moment. (Oscar show producer Bill Cates used to be chairman of the film/tv production department at UCLA, btw).

In any case, Agustin's letter reminded me that Payne named an off-screen character with my very own moniker in his "Citizen Ruth." You can hear it on the tape deck in the car that the protagonist listens to, some pretty straightforward tips on real estate investing. The film is sort of interesting, and Payne has some talent.

At any rate, it is proof that we were at UCLA film school together. He was perfectly nice to me, though I always had a feeling that he thought I wasn't cool enough. I guess he was right. At the time, Payne had a pretty blonde girlfriend, also a UCLA film student, who I remember for her "witchy" pointed shoes. They were a cool couple, they made a film about a relationship of some peculiar kind. He's still making films about relationships, it seems.

I don't think I'm mentioned in "Sideways," though.

Back in the USA

Just came back to a snowstorm that closed down Washington, DC, "our nation's capital." Just a few inches, it wouldn't have stopped anyone in Moscow...

The whole place looks just beautiful, dusted with sugar, like a small town in New England. It does seem pretty small, after Moscow. Incredible to consider that this tiny town is the "capital of the free world." Very quiet and peaceful, all the world's problems seem far away.

Today's Washington Post has the story about Moscow Mayor Luzhkov threatening to punish weathermen for incorrect forecasts. It was in the Moscow newspapers a week ago, when we left, he was even on TV making his threats.

Although the Post mentions that Luzhkov sometimes directs the weather:

In advance of major holidays, sports events and parades, Luzhkov forks out tens of thousands of dollars for planes to seed clouds with dry ice and liquid nitrogen. That causes them to unleash their loads of moisture before reaching Moscow, often bringing torrential downpours to the hapless suburbs while the city basks in sunshine.

The author, Peter Finn, treat this as a joke. I somehow don't think the Post really understands that while in America everyone talks about the weather, in Russia they do something about it (apologies to M. Twain).

Biggest News from Summit? IMHO It's Bush to Moscow for V-E Day Celebrations

As Andrew Sullivan likes to say, here's the money quote from the transcript of the Bush-Putin summit in Bratislava:

(PUTIN)

In conclusion, I would like to say that I highly appreciate the outcome of this summit. Later this year, we are going to meet a few more times within the framework of various international fora. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the President of the United States who has accepted the invitation to participate in the festivities on the occasion of the anniversary of the great victory on May 9th in Moscow. This is a natural manifestation of respect of historic memory and the memory of the alliance that bonded our two countries in the years of the second world war.

This seems like a fine idea--especially if Putin releases Khodorkovsky beforehand. A good time to renew the US-Russian alliance that beat the Nazis and can beat Islamic extremism in the same way. There's a huge statue of a victorious Soviet soldier looming over Vienna, and for all its awful grandiosity, I kind of liked seeing it.

Of course the plaza was probably the only unswept snow in Vienna, they don't much like the Russians here.

One reason Europeans were nice to America in the past, it seems to me, is that they wanted us to protect Europe from the Russians. Now that they're not so afraid of a weak Russia, Europeans think that they don't need us, and they're not so nice to America.

On the other hand, the Russians really do need us, and I sort of think we need them to beat the new Nazi threat, so this might be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, as Humphrey Bogart said to Claude Rains in Casablanca...

Vienna Diary

Well, the Bush~Putin summit has come and gone, not much news coverage here in Vienna. We are staying at the Hilton, which has a nice American feel to it, even a Coca Cola convention where I got an old Coke in a small glass bottle that needed a bottle opener. Ahh...

Vienna itself is a little of a letdown after Moscow. We saw the graves of the Hapsburgs, crammed with schoolchildren, in the crypt of the Capuchin church. Someone is putting a lot of flowers on the grave of Franz Josef, it was impressive. Freud Museum didn't have too much in it, still it was interesting to see. Also the Lichtenstein Palace which has a terrific art collection and is hosting a Rubens show with some other Vienna museums, including the Kunsthistorisches Museum, where we spent today.

Last nights, sausages for supper. Now off for a schnitzel.

A Shameless Plug for a Relative's Art

My cousin, Louise Link Rath, has just put her paintings online. She's a graduate of the California Institute of the Arts, founded by Walt Disney, lives in bucolic New Hampshire. You can take a look at her artwork at www.louiselinkrath.com.

Let Khodorkovsky Go

Press coverage about the upcoming Bush-Putin summit seems a little vague. From reading the smoke signals, it is not clear at this point, for example, what Bush is asking for. Take this item on Yahoo! News:

"Bush and Putin are due to discuss issues such as combatting terrorism, signing in the Slovakian capital Bratislava an accord imposing controls on 'man-portable' air defenses, and review as well Iraq, North Korea and US support for Russia's membership in the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The two men should also hold 'frank' talks on the Yukos affair and Russian political reforms, sources said.

What's to discuss in the Yukos affair? The whole thing is chilling, many here here say Khodorkovsky will remain in jail as long as Putin is in office--maybe longer, like Dumas' "Man in the Iron Mask." What meaning could any talk of political reforms have in this environment?

Instead of "frank" private talks, Bush might just try something a little more Reaganesque. He might directly and publicly ask Putin to let Mikhail Khodorkovsky out of jail -- in the same way Reagan asked Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. The release of Khodordovsky would immediately improve the climate for American business with Russia, and signal a return to a more democratic path. Better business with Russia would help American-Russian relations, and make it easier for Russia to take other steps of mutual benefit to the two countries.

The Bachelor Stripped Bare

Getting ready to leave on the day after "Defenders of the Fatherland Day," a Soviet-era tribute to soldiers, sailors, and airmen which has become a sort of "Men's Day" in answer to International Women's Day on March 8th. You can buy greeting cards with a tank!

Not too much blogging last week because I was hosting Alice Goldfarb Marquis, author of a recent biography of Marcel Duchamp, The Bachelor Stripped Bare and a forthcoming biography of Clement Greenberg, in town to speak at my university and the American Center Library--and to attend the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, "Dialectics of Hope." She talked about Art and the Cold War, and about the legacy of Marcel Duchamp.

It was really interesting to hear Alice in Moscow, because we had some excellent and very sophisticated discussions about everything from Duchamp's "Large Glass" to Alice knitting mittens and scarves for Soviet troops during World War II.

And, gratifyingly, almost everyone here understands the importance of "ne oficialne" art and real meaning of artistic freedom. And things like the Museum of Modern Art's banning of Alice's biography of Alfred Barr, Jr. from its bookshop-- apparently, you still can't buy it there, but you can buy it here, from Amazon.com.

Alice made an extremely interesting point in a couple of her lectures, namely, that the Soviet Cultural Offensive that lead to American support for the arts in the Cold War actually helped America to develop its own self-conscious art, independent of Europe--viz., Jackson Pollock (discovered by Greenberg) and Duchamp.

The Cold War in art ended up helping America, since, as Alice concluded one talk, "thanks to some anonymous Russian bureaucrats who dreamt up the Soviet Cultural Offensive, I can now see good art and listen to good music in my hometown of La Jolla, California..."

One other interesting item from Alice's talks related to the politics of art, and art criticism. Apparently, the New York Times spiked a scheduled book review of The Bachelor Stripped Bare, after 9/11.

Why?

A Really Bad Idea from PBS

The New York Times has already begun lobbying for a trust fund for PBS in this article. (Thanks to Artsjournal for the tip)

Among the NYT's curious decisions was labelling Norman Ornstein of AEI a "conservative." When I was involved in the issue, a decade ago, Ornstein was considered a liberal democrat and CNN commentator (CNN at that point was called by some the Clinton News Network). But maybe he's changed. In any case, any conservative Republican might realize that Ornstein's catchphrase "socially useful programming" means spending taxpayer money to defeat Republicans...

IMHO, PBS stations should return any proceeds from spectrum sale directly to the US taxpayers -- who subsidized the network in the first place. Then the money can be used for real social needs--preserving social security or paying for homeland security, or to buy bulletproof vests and armor for our soldiers in Iraq.

Luckily for President Bush, PBS has done a good job of self-destruction in the last ten years. Ratings are down nicely. Programming is stupider than ever. And serious viewers who want educational and cultural enrichment have C-SPAN and the History Channel to turn to. Congress should let the process continue to its natural end, and stop PBS stations (many of which already have multi-million dollar endowments!) from stealing valuable spectrum revenue from the American taxpayer.

Ahmad Chalabi: Iraq's 'Comeback Kid'

According to this AP story, Ahmad Chalabi may have been the big winner in the recent Iraqi elections. Although dumped by the US government in favor of CIA-State Department-MI6 favorite Iyad Allawi, then indicted on trumped up charges of money laundering, Chalabi achieved a political comeback when his Shi'ite party, the United Iraqi Alliance, took the majority of votes, with the blessing of Ayatollah al-Sistani (by contrast, interim leader Allawi took 3rd place--bye, bye...). Given Chalabi's insulting treatment by the US, look for a more independent-minded approach to geopolitics from any new Shi'ite government, a balancing act with Iran, and possible recognition of Israel. America's abandonment of Chalabi strengthened his credentials at home with the Shi'ites, with what US politicians call "the base". Result: Chalabi doesn't owe the US for his victory, and can deal with America somewhat independently.

A whle back, I saw Chalabi speak at the American Enterprise Institute (there were tears in Danielle Pletka's eyes as she made the introduction), and Chalabi was open to peace and trade with what Saddam Hussein used to call "the Zionist entity." It would be interesting if the Shi'ites pulled this off, as Baghdad used to have a flourishing Jewish community, and an Israeli-Iraqi alliance might do wonders for Middle East peace and development. So, stay tuned.

Roger L. Simon Released from Hospital

Roger L. Simon: Mystery Novelist and Screenwriter recently had gall bladder surgery, according to his blog, and is recovering at home. We just want to take this opportunity to pass along our sincere wishes for a smooth recovery...

"We're With Putin!"

Yesterday, while trying to cross Tverskaya Street (formerly Gorky Street), to meet our friend Alice--who has braved the Russian winter to visit us from New York, and is now staying in Alla Pugachova's apartment building (Muscovites are like New Yorkers when it comes to having the best address, it seems)--we found the perehod was zakrit. A militiaman pointed out the large demonstration which had closed down Tverskaya. Indeed, there were some 30,000 people with Russian flags, and banners reading "We're with Putin!", "Stability," and the most persuasive, "Putin--Our President!" It was a march organized by the United Russia party, Putin's own answer to America's Republicans, dedicated to the preservtion of the Russian federation from disintegration.

The march took place at the exact same moment that Russian truckers were closing down the ring road with a "go slow" protest about pensions and benefits--especially fuel prices. The evening news covered the pro-Putin march, thus displacing news of protests. Thus marches on the "Babushka Revolution" sparked by benefit cuts to elderly pensioners, and used by the communists as a very effective anti=Putin organizing tool.

Putin's popularity has plunged over 20 points in the last few weeks, and more and more protesters are taking to the streets--not all of them on the Government payroll. As more and more people are less and less afraid to voice their opposition, Putin's carefully crafted siloviki revival stands a chance of stalling. The danger, unfortunately, is that the Communists--old, unreconstructed, and openly anti-semitic as well as anti-America--are the only opposition force well-organized enough to take advantage of the situation.

What Russia needs is a "loyal opposition" like those in Western democracies, as a safety valve, a feedback mechanism, and an alternative to yet another bloody revolt in Russia. Reform, not revolution, will be the key to progress here, and to a peaceful country with a growing economy.

Henry Kissinger and Citibank Chairman Sanford Weill (they have branches here) were photographed meeting with Putin in the papers today. This is all part of the runup to the US-Russian summit in ten days. It is certain that Bush and Putin will have a lot to discuss in Bratislava. If Putin wants to make a better impression on Americans, he might order the release of Khodorkovsky, Yukos's founder, from prison -- as a gesture of progress, prior to the meeting...

WETA Cuts Classical Music

Another nice thing about Moscow, "Radio Kultura" and "TV Kultura" are all highbrow, all the time. Unlike the dastardly public broadcasting lowbrows in Washington, DC, who are dumping classical music, according to this story in the Washington Post:WETA Board Approves Switch To News-Talk Format (washingtonpost.com) (thanks to Artsjournal for the tip).

What can I say? I was active in the movement to bring the Metropolitan Opera to WETA, writing about it in The Idler. We succeeded, and so far, WETA is keeping those broadcasts--but unfortunatley, cutting everything else, in favor of programming for which there is no public need whatsoever, since DC is already overserved with news and talk radio, and has a number of other NPR stations.

My guess is that the reason is political, to put more liberal propaganda on the air to attack the Bush administration from NPR, instead of cultural programming which is an oasis from politics.

The news at least gives me a personal project. When I come back to the USA next month, I hope to start an American version of Russia's TV and Radio Kultura, so that Washington might become competetive with Moscow again in the culture department. A C-span for music and the arts...

The Guardian on Middle East Peace

In a reasonable editorial, The Guardian calls the latest Arab-Israeli summit 'a moment of hope':

"If warm words could solve problems, then it would all be over bar the celebrations. Mr Abbas spoke of the beginning of a 'new era'; Mr Sharon - more remarkably - of his commitment to Palestinian 'dignity and independence'. But his comment about ending 'unrealistic dreams' must apply to both sides if a workable, two-state peace settlement is ever to be agreed. Hard choices lie ahead if a day of hope in the sun is not to end, like too many before it, in bitter tears."

The Diplomad is Shutting Down!

No, it wasn't by Vladimir Putin's iron hand, under Islam Karmov's repressive regime, but America that has shut downThe Diplomad, and he's issued this farewell:

It's been fun; the postings from the readers have been great (except for the idiot trolls -- the same ones who collapsed our hotmail account and made it useless.) But for a variety of personal and professional reasons it's time to stop (we might blog again under a different name; might not.) Lest any of you think so, we have not been threatened or shut down; the State Department goons are not knocking at the door. It's just time to do something else.

The Chief Diplomad urges all of you to read the very well written brother sites at Daily Demarche and New Sisyphus (maybe they'll let us put up an occasional posting.) We've heard that our Republican cousins over at USAID might be starting a blog, too, so keep an out eye for it.

The Diplomad says good bye and thanks.

Translation: The State Department knows who he is, and told the Diplomad to shut up. The thing is, The Diplomad has offered really good stuff--helpful to America's cause. I did always wonder how he got away with it.

I hope Secretary of State Rice finds The Diplomad--and puts him in charge of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, asap. If our official line sounded more like The Diplomad, and less like "The Sound of Silence," America might be doing a lot better in the international arena.

Condoleezza Rice, Doestoevsky Fan

This paragraph jumped out of a very interesting profile by Jay Nordlinger on Condoleezza Rice on National Review Online, first published in 1999, that discussed the new Secretary of State's training as classical pianist--she has performed Brahms with Yo Yo Ma--and Sovietologist:

As to those "roots," what was it, indeed, that drew her to the Soviet Union, to Russia? "I was attracted to the Byzantine nature of Soviet politics," she says, "and by power: how it operates, how it's used." She read everything she could get her hands on about World War II "and about war generally." She particularly remembers John Erickson's "great books" — The Road to Stalingrad, The Road to Berlin. She read Dostoevsky "rather than Tolstoy." And she encountered Solzhenitsyn: "He understood the dark side of Russia better than anyone else. Like most Russian novels, it was tragedy without redemption."

Of course, Tolstoy offers redemption, and he's pretty darn Russian, too. Solzhenitsyn is seen by some as a little extreme. Yet, one doesn't have to completeley concur with Rice's taste to to agree that it will be interesting to see what changes Rice might makes to the style and substance of American diplomacy.

Clearly she takes ideas seriously, takes culture seriously, and takes Russia seriously--all good signs, especially when viewing America from Moscow...Which may mean a change in American policy vis-a-vis Chechnya, if Rice is reading her Russian history as I think she might, perhaps in exchange for the release of Khodorhovsky and better business relations with the US. Let's see what happens at the Bush-Putin summit in Slovakia. (Curiously, Rice's dissertation advisor at the University of Denver, Josef Korbel--Madeleine Albright's father--was a former diplomat from Czechoslovakia).

Russian Romance at the Obraztsov Puppet Theater

Hard not to sound like a a tour guide, as we wind up our stay... We spent Super Bowl Sunday at Moscow's Obraztsov Puppet Theater, watching a puppet version of "Aladdin and his Magic Lamp" with a new friend from New York, and her daughter. Incredibly, they lived in the building next to ours on West 110th Street near Amsterdam Avenue and we only met in Moscow!

In any case, the Obraztsov is better than Disney, for Russian style. In the lobby, in a fountain, is an animated lady with a mask, perhaps the spirit of puppetry. She wears a mask, and beneath her glass skirt swim live fish. Lots of gears whirring around. Perhaps she is a version of Hoffman's Olympia, the "living doll."
There is also an animated clock on the building facade, like the famous one in New York's old Central Park Children's Zoo, or Germany's Bremen Town Square. But we didn't wait for it to ring, so can't say what the animated figures do.

This was just a foretaste of an imaginative and stirring production of Aladdin. This genie wasn't genial--instead scary, huge, red, looking like a devil. The court of the Sultan appreared to come from Uzbekistan,the designer was named Alimov, often an Uzbek name. Voices were by famous Russian actors, named in a real theatre program. The story was full of Russian soul, about brave individuals suffering unjust persecution by powerful state figures. I couldn't stop thinking that Aladdin's fate--thrown in jail, in chains, his lamp taken from him by the government, his property stolen--had echoes of the Khodorkhovsky case, and the shows probably resonated at other time with other events in Russia. Maybe children's theatre, like Soviet "multfilms" (animated cartoons), were safer venues for artists to express themselves, even if in code, than in adult theatre.

The Obraztsov's stage is full-sized, and the theatre, built in the 1960s, is beautiful, modern, wood-paneled. It was packed with giggling, laughing children and their parents. In front of us sat a professor of Russian culture from the University of Pennsylvania, with his daughter. His field of study was Russian romanticism. He confirmed what seemed apparent from living in Moscow, if we didn't already realize it from Russian music and art: Russians are very romantic. Hard to believe as it may seem, apparently they got their romanticism from the Germans. But of course, I wouldn't believe in Romantic Englishmen from our recent trip to London, yet we know at one time such did exist--Keats, Shelly, Byron, et al.

In any case, Romance was everywhere in the Obraztsov's staging of Aladdin. What a spectacle! Elephants, lions, horses, camels! A beautiful princess, an evil Vizier, an aged and foolish Sultan, thieves, an oasis and,of course and the desert. A golden palace, a humble home. A "Babushkha" of course, as Aladdin's mother. In the foyer bar, an aquarium with colorful live fishes, in the halls, artworks by schoolchildren among magnificent theatrical puppets. And downstairs, in the puppet museum, hundreds of puppets--ranging from ancient clay marionettes thousands of years old to a couple of Jim Henson's muppets, which looked sort of like poor relations, rather scruffy and chintzy, compared to the Russian, Polish, German, Hungarian, Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian, and Bengali exhibits--some of them life-sized.

A little learning, a little romance, and a lot of joy for children is to be found at Moscow's Obraztsov's Puppet Theater.

Inside the Vladimir Vysotsky Museum

Some acquaintances took us to see the Vladimir Vysotsky Museum today, near the Taganka theatre. It was just fascinating, everything from Vysotsky's guitar to his childhood letters to his mother and earliest school excercise books, furniture from his dacha, a model of his apartment, postcards from France, America, and other travels, clips of his films, videos of his songs. Imagine Elvis, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Marlon Brando, and Frank Sinatra all rolled up into one, and you'll begin to get someone like Vysotsky. He's in the tradition of the Russian "Bard" and that of Pushkin, as well. He died tragically young, during the 1980 Moscow Olympics. His funeral crowds stretched for blocks. His history is the history of Russian culture, dissidence, poetry, song, theatre, and film. Technology played a role, as samizdat tape recordings spread his fame throughout the former USSR. There were even some photos of Vysotsky on tour in Tashkent, with some comrades from the Taganka theatre, including Vysotsky's director Lubimov, who returned to Russia from exile in Paris during Perestroika, and still is working at the age of 87 (this year is the 40th anniversary of the theatre). We bought tickets to see his rock musical version of Dr. Zhivago next week (we kid you not, as Jack Paar used to say...). Don't miss cases devoted to Vysotsky's Hamlet and his performance in The Cherry Orchard, incredible versatility as an actor and performer--as well as perhaps best representing the sufferings of the Russian soul. Our tour guide explained that Vysotsky's distinctive voice was the sound Gulag prisoners. When half the country returned from imprisonment, and heard Vysotsky, they heard themselves and what they had suffered, she explained. There were crowds in the museum this afternoon, so his popularity is still evident, twenty-five years after his death.

Why is Vysotsky not very well-known in the West, except among students of Russian culture, Russian emigrants, and Russophiles? Perhaps because of years of cultural indifference to those who suffered under Communism. Ironically, the most authentic and most enduring voice of protest from the 1960s may have belonged to a protester against the totalitarian system in the USSR: Vladimir Vysotsky. FIVE STARS *****.

Bernard Weinraub's Hollywood Ending

Reading this story from last Sunday by The New York Times Hollywood correspondent reminded me that Bernie Weinraub covered the Washington, DC premiere of my film "Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die?" At the time, Weinraub was White House correspondent for the Times. It was during the Reagan administration. He didn't know me, and his story was perfectly fair and factual. In fact, we became sort of friendly acquaintances after the screening, and sort of stayed in touch. I found him to be an honest reporter, and a perfectly decent person. He said Reagan was more complicated than people thought, and that the Central American situation was not so simple as administration critics were claiming. I thought Weinraub seemed thoughtful and intelligent, reasonable and sensible.

I never understood the venom directed against him, in print, nor the ridiculous "conflict-of-interest" charges in the press. Anyone who knows Hollywood knows that the only reason to cover it is a "conflict of interest"--to be discovered as a writer, to make some money, to get your dream onscreen. Why else put up with show-biz nonsense, except for fun or profit?

Weinraub covered Vietnam, Central America, the White House and other big stories. I think assignment Hollywood meant a change of pace. Perhaps he went through a mid-life crisis, that led to the move from covering the serious to writing about the ridiculous.

I know he has a serious streak. At one time, Weinraub discussed writing a novel set in the period covered in my film, about Ben Hecht, Peter Bergson, Franklin Roosevelt and the work of the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe during WWII. At the time, I advised him not to publish about the topic, if he wanted to keep his day job. (He had already published a roman a clef about the New York Times, and was not afraid of anything). Discretion won, and Weinraub has had a good run covering Tinsel Town.

Now that Weinraub's quit the Times, I am looking forward to see what he does next. He's a good writer, and I hope one of his projects might be the historical novel we discussed some twenty years ago...

Kvartirniki

On Wednesday evening, I got a peek at my own university's contribution to the Moscow Contemporary Art Biennale:Apartment's Exhibitions
Yesterday and today. 1956-2005. The show featured recreations of Moscow apartments where dissidents held art exhibitions, called "Kvartirniki"-- in opposition to the approved art of cultural officials displayed in museums and galleries.

Сurators Julia Lebedeva and Oksana Sarkisyan have done a good job of recreating not only the hanging of pictures on the walls, but also the spririt of defiance of authority that lay behind the projects. In addition to the show at Russian State Humanitarian University, they have arranged some of the art around town in private apartments, just like the old days. So, if you happen to be in Moscow this month, you can book a private viewing through the exhibition website.

It is nice to see modern art defying cultural officialdom, and a visit to the recreated apartments does give one some inspiration that individuals can eventually prevail over bureaucracy, in keeping with the title of this year's Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, "Dialectics of Hope."

From the catalog description:

Apartment exhibitions ("kvartirniki") emerged in Soviet times as an answer to the necessity of presenting informal art. They embodied hopes of their participants for freedom of creativity and were part of dissident opposition to officiality.

Apartment exhibitions brought together artists who shared the same views. Owners of the «living premises» formed a certain movement. Svjatoslav Rikhter demonstrated the works of Dmitry Krasnopevtsev, «lianozovtsi» gathered in Oscar Rabin's barrack and young conceptualists were shown in the workshop of Mikhail Odnoralov and Leonid Sokov.

As part of private life the non-official art came hand in hand with conversations on art and the artistically active way of living through the Soviet reality. The experience of apartment exhibitions was diverse - from private club personal exhibitions to group actions and total installations. Quite often they turned into performances and visits to such exhibitions merged on a radical demarche.

Today this art has acquired a museum status and is shown in the world famous museums. Russian State University for the Humanities displays one of the best collections of non-conformist art of 1950-1980 (Leonid Talochkin's «Other art» collection).

The purpose of the exhibition is to reveal the dialectics of informal art development by using apartment exhibitions as an example. It presents the museum works in their original authentic environment drawing a parallel with similar phenomena on the contemporary art stage.

Inside the Lenin-Komsomol Theatre

Last night, finally made it inside the LENKOM(Lenin-Komsomol) theatre, to see Eduardo de Filippo's comedy "City of Millionaires" (not the Italian title), which might be called Philomena in the original . The program notes pointed out it was made into a movie twice--one version is well known in America: Marriage, Italian Style. de Filippo is apparently not the only Italian playwright popular in Moscow. Comedies by Carlo Gozzi are performed frequently as well. Gozzi, a contemporary of Goldoni, is not as well-known in the US. Certainly, there aren't any Gozzi shows running on Broadway or in the West End of London right now.

The LENKOM theatre, despite its rather Soviet name, is a lovely middle-class theatre company. The theatre is a converted merchant's club, a pre-revolutionary design from about 1905, that looks a bit like New York City's Grand Central Station. The acting style, as far my pidgin Russian could be relied upon, was naturalistic. Stanislavsky would approve of this production,certainly. The set was a beautiful reconstruction of a Neapolitan apartment, the costumes were lovely, the lighting excellent.

A beautiful show, in a gorgeous theatre. If you do happen to find yourself in Moscow a visit to the LENKOM is highly recommended.

American Escapes Moscow Kidnappers

Stories like this report in yesterday's Moscow Times are a reminder that Russia still isn't exactly like America, and there still is some work to do to make Moscow a real tourist-friendly place:

Yesterday, American John Lazoriny escaped from an apartment where he had been handcuffed to a radiator for five days. He was held for ransom by two men from the North Caucasus, who demanded a large sum for his release. Their American captive managed to escape when his kidnappers were out of the apartment. He somehow slipped out of his handcuffs and jumped out of a third-story window. Lazoriny broke his pelvis in the fall, and was taken to City Hospital Number 7. The hospital informed the police, which is how the story made it to the Moscow Times.

The American victim was held in a southern district of Moscow, and normally lives in a far-away southwestern neighborhood, at the end of one of the metro lines. However, he was kidnapped near the center of town--at a cafe outside the Novoslobodskaya metro station on January 15th. That is the metro station for our university! We go there all the time.

The American victim went with his kidnappers because they invited him to their home after having some drinks together. According to police report in the Moscow Times, "he might have thought it was in line with traditional Russian hospitality."

Police have started an investigation, and the American Embassy is reportedly following the case. So, when a friendly Russian man came up to chat with us last night in English at a local restaurant, we were just a little bit wary...

Andrew Sullivan on the Iraq Election

From www.AndrewSullivan.com - Daily Dish:

TO SUM UP: Two years ago, the West liberated Iraq. But yesterday, the Iraqis liberated themselves.

A HUGE SUCCESS: The latest indicators suggest a turnout of something like 60 percent. We'll have to wait for precise numbers and ethnic/regional breakdowns. But if I stick to my pre-election criteria for success, this election blows it away: '45 percent turnout for Kurds and Shia, 25 percent turnout for the Sunnis, under 200 murdered.' Even my more optimistic predictions of a while back do not look so out of bounds. But the numbers don't account for the psychological impact. There is no disguising that this is a huge victory for the Iraqi people - and, despite everything, for Bush and Blair. Yes, we shouldn't get carried away. We don't know yet who was elected, or what they'll do, or how they'll be more successful at controlling the insurgency. There are many questions ahead. And I don't mean to minimize them. But I'm struck by some of the paradoxes of all this. We're too close to events to see them clearly. But the timing of this strikes me as fortuitous. Why? Because by the time of the elections, the insurgents had been able to show themselves as a real threat to the democratic experiment and to reveal their true colors - enemies of democracy, Jihadist fanatics and Baathist thugs. The election was in part a referendum on these forces. And they lost - big time. Their entire credibility as somehow representing a genuine nationalist resistance has been scotched. If the election had happened earlier - say a year sooner - it might not have registered the same impact, because the insurgency would not have been so strong or so defined...

Novodevichy Cemetery

Yesterday we went to visit the Novodevichy Convent and Cemetery, final resting place of notable Russians from the Soviet era and before.

There's nothing quite like it in the USA, maybe it is comparable to Highgate Cemetery in London. David Oistrakh, Kruschev, Ilyushin, Tupolev, Glazunov, Prokofiev, Gogol, Stanislavsky, and Chekhov like close together in what really is a very small brick yard behind the convent where Peter the Great imprisoned his sister, Regent Sofia, for her entire life.

The cemetery is especially pretty in the snow, the sculptures and busts decorating the tombs like real works of art. My favorite grave was that of Anton Chekhov, small, beautiful, graceful, just like his writing. There are some striking tombstones, such as a Soviet military leader remembered forever with telephone in hand, a composer memorialized by music running around his grave in cast iron, and a young television journalist's memorial. His craggy tomb, made out of angled granite blocks in the constructivist style, featured photos of the deceased reporting from Nicaragua and Afghanistan among other hot spots.

In the convent grounds one can find a hero of Russia's battle war with Napoleon, dramatized in Tolstoy's War and Peace, General Davydov. His likeness stares out from a bust atop the plinth on his grave.

There were a couple of nice exhibits in the museum buildings, one of missionary work by Russian orthodox priests in the Far East, including China and Japan. Even something about the Metropolitan for America, who returned to become a major church figure in Moscow. Until seeing the exhibit, I didn't realize that the Russian Orthodox church had any missionaries...

Roger L. Simon on the Iraq Election

Roger L. Simon: Mystery Novelist and Screenwriter describes American television coverage of the Iraqi election, interesting reading, especially since we see less of this story over here in Russia...

Coppola Gets His Russian Oscar

Last night I saw Francis again. This time I watched from bed as he received his "Golden Eagle," Russia's Academy Award. It was well past midnight, and for some reason, I hadn't been invited to the ceremony held on a converted soundstage at Mosfilm Studios. Since it was minus 12 degrees and snowing heavily, I'm not insulted. Bed was warmer and more convenient.

Like the Oscars, the seemingly endless Golden Eagle show ran way past midnight and had a lot of ads. It wasn't as tacky as Hollywood, and not as exciting--considering the Oscars are boring to begin with.

There were tributes to old troupers, honorary awards, sentimentality, a rapper instead of Robin Williams and a rock band that seemed to be called "Uma Thurman" (is this legal? Uma, call your agent!) playing theme songs of nominated films. The role that used to be played by Jack Valenti was taken by Nikita Mihailov, the famous Russian film director. In addition to heading the Russian Academy, he sort of hosted the show, and appeared with a clipboard at various moments to hurry the presenters along, to sing a song with a Caucasian chorus in tribute to an old actor, and to fuss at Francis when he forgot his stage directions. Mihalov's stage act at the Golden Eagle ceremony sort of reminded me of the fussy bureaucrat's in Eldar Ryazanov's Carnival Night.

For those of our readers who follow Russian cinema news, the winner for best picture was "72 Meters," a dramatization of the Kursk submarine disaster that looked a little like "The Perfect Storm" meets "Titanic." The other big winner, sweeping the other appeared to "Svoi," a WWII melodrama. Best actor prize went to a Russian version of Leonardo de Caprio, named Bezrukov.

Surprisingly, considering Sofia Coppola had worked on the picture, Bill Murray's "Lost in Translation" lost the best foreign film prize to Mel Gibson's "The Passion of Christ." When "The Passion" was announced, they cut to Francis for a reaction shot. He looked a little cross.

As the show dragged on, the cameras cut to Francis for other reaction shots. At one point it looked like he was leaning over talking to someone, looking at his watch, and asking, "How much longer is this going to go on?"

Francis had to wait for Italian composer Ennico Morricone, who won his own a special award--the Italian composer did the score for "72 Meters" and presented a prize for best sound recording. Morricone's speech was tearful, noting that he had been afraid that his plane wouldn't make it to landing because of the blizzard in Moscow, and he was happy to have made it alive to the ceremony. That seemed heartfelt, since the snow is very heavy here right now, it's the third day.

Francis also had to wait for some TV awards, including best TV mini-series, as well as best TV series, two different categories (in the USA, we keep TV and movies separate).

After hours had gone by, Francis at last made his way to the stage to get his own Golden Eagle. Channel One showed a montage of clips from his films, beginning with the Ride of the Valkyries montage from Apocalypse Now. Seeing it on Russian TV, the famous "Kuleshov Effect" kicked in to reveal Francis' message: that Americans are Nazis.

No wonder the Russians liked it!

Then some clips from Rumblefish, incomprehensible, and Godfathers I & II. Those evil Americans again! A country run by the Mafia.

Uh, oh, I'm beginning to see why the transition to capitalism here may have gotten mixed up.

Of course, when Francis was introduced, it was officially all about his artistry. Francis buttoned his jacket, straightened his coat, and proceeded to the stage. He was wearing a bow tie, which was a nice touch. Then he gave a short speech in which he got his good friend Nikita Mihalov's name wrong (the translator fixed it), paid tribute to the Soviet Union as well as Russia, and personally thanked Vladimir Putin (the translator skipped those items, just saying thank you to the Russian Academy).

Indeed, Francis had a personal audience with Putin, who congratulated Francis on winning the Golden Eagle--before Francis had received it. So maybe Francis knew what he was doing.

Francis told Putin he looked younger in person, and congratulated him on his speech at Auschwitz. Putin in turn complimented Francis on his show-biz family (perhaps Putin thinks Coppola heads a Russian-style "clan"?) and basically asked Francis to make movies in Russia.

Very flattering Francis, I'm sure, despite the sting of Mel Gibson beating out your daughter Sofia.

Still, one wonders, would Francis warmly thank President Nixon for his "Godfather" Oscar? After all, Patton, which Francis wrote, was Nixon's favorite movie.

Somehow, Francis, I don't think so...