…I'd rather
compose
romances for you -
more profit in it
and more charm.

                                                        –V.V Mayakovsky

I am sick of this whole Georgia thing.

I’ve had enough of politics, international relations, diplomatic intrigue!

I hate how news has to be about events.

Who cares about events?

When was the last time an event even happened to you or anyone you know?

I don't know about you, but nothing ever happens to me. Does that make me a dull boy?  I mean, aren't all events, with a capital E, imaginary, anyway?

So from now on, I’m just going to put up links to interesting events stories and and as long a description/summation as I can stomach before vomiting over the keyboard.

For example:

1. Starting this week, The Economist is debating the West's response to renewed Russian assertiveness for two-weeks as part of an ongoing, Oxford-style Online Debate Series. The proposition is, "This house believes the West must be bolder in its response to a newly assertive Russia."

It involves Dmitry Trenin and Marshall Goldman, a professor I greatly respect for his honest and indignant account of privatisation in his book The Piratisation of Russia. The debate promises to be lively and intriguing!

As of now, 53% to 47% disagree that the west should be bolder! Go fellow travellers!!

2. In today's Moscow Times, Harvard's Joseph Nye pens a clear-headed analysis contrasting Chinese soft power during the Olympics with Russia's hard power in Georgia.

Without jumping to conclusions or offering reflexive condemnation of Russia's fisticuffs, Nye observes that the most effective foreign policy strategy artfully weaves soft and hard power.

3. A lot has been written about Russia's stock market plunge. Especially flimsy, not to mention disingenuous, were the shyster-economist Anders Aslund's attempts to link the recent economic troubles to the war in Georgia.

There are myriad reasons not to respect Aslund; this article adds yet another drop to his overflowing chalice of intellectual dishonesty and increasing irrelevance.

Here is the sensational way his article begins:

Aug. 8 stands out as a fateful day for Russia. It marks Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's greatest strategic blunder. In one blow, he wiped out half a trillion dollars of stock market value, stalled all domestic reforms and isolated Russia from the outside world.

Anders is himself clearly aware of the improbability that a Russian person could ever accomplish that much in a single day before succombing to drink, fatigue or the oppresive weight of the human predicament, because he never re-visits this bizarre claim.

When he finally gets down to a bullet point list of reasons for Russia's economic ills, the Georgia war doesn't get a single mention; its inclusion in the lead paragraph was purely for cheap titillation.

Incidentally, the points themselves were mostly sensible and apolitical, and reveal a half-decent, if supply-side, economist groaning from underneath all that reactionary, Russophobic trash-talk.

In a measured and grown up article about the credit crisis, the FT's Charles Clover and Catherine Belton note Medvedev's unprecedented injection of $10 bn into the banking system:

“The market hasn't reacted to Medvedev's comments. However, [it] should,” said Roland Nash, head of research at Renaissance Capital, the investment bank.

He said the president's comments may signal fresh investor-friendly policies, but were chiefly a “charm offensive”. He added: “This is the first time in history that the Kremlin has reached out to the investor community. It is fairly unprecedented.”

4.  Some have been making hysterical noises about Russia's military exercises with Venezuela. Instead, might I suggest listening to the Pentagon itself:

“We exercise all around the globe and have joint exercises with countries all over the world. So do many other nations,” said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman.

STOP!!! I CAN't HOLD IT ANYMORE… BAAAAARF!

I’ll leave you with a nice short story:

An Encounter

by Daniil Kharms

—