Better than fiction

[sabotabby]

This story, about a dissident former KGB agent who was poisoned with a radioactive substance and, on his deathbed, fingered Putin for killing him because of his attempts to uncover the truth about the murder of a crusading journalist, is basically the best news story since the one about the exploding whale.

Discuss.

---

For your weekend reading:

• Thanks for nothin. Twisty's American Thanksgiving rant—not quite Burroughs, but awesome nevertheless.

• Teaching schoolkids the real meaning of Thanksgiving:

LONG BEACH, Calif. -- Teacher Bill Morgan walks into his third-grade class wearing a black Pilgrim hat made of construction paper and begins snatching up pencils, backpacks and glue sticks from his pupils. He tells them the items now belong to him because he "discovered" them.

The reaction is exactly what Morgan expects: The kids get angry and want their things back.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_ex_cowboy/]

do you mean the incident of trying to remove the beached whale on the coast here with explosives that covered anyone within a wide radius in whale bits, smashed a car, and inspired one of slayer's biggest hits, "raining blood"?

http://www.theexplodingwhale.com/

[http://users.livejournal.com/_ex_cowboy/]

whoops, meant to post this:

http://home.comcast.net/~sthacks/new_whale/media/whale-hi.mov.

[sabotabby]

There was one in Taiwan, too, a few years ago. It wouldn't have been quite as hilarious as the 1970 incident, were it not for the widely circulated photograph of an unfortunate individual whose scooter was splattered with whale bits. Poor guy.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_ex_cowboy/]

okay, surprisingly i hadn't even heard of the incident in taiwan and it looks like that was completely on accident which makes it probably even more funny. can you imagine the truck driver?

"uh, hey boss, i might be a little late the whale just exploded and covered the shopping district in whale blood and entrails..."

my favorite part of the oregon one was the person with the explosives saying "the only problem is that we aren't sure how much explosives to use..." not to mention the reporter's initial excitement in his voice right at the explosion and then the fear after seeing large chunks of whale flying at him.



can you imagine coming out of a shop to find your scooter engulfed in entrails and blood? but hey, at least they didn't get the roof of their car caved in.

more whale splosion pics

[http://users.livejournal.com/_ex_cowboy/]

what the hell was he inspecting? he probably hacked it off when no one was looking and sold it on the black market.

Re: more whale splosion pics

[sabotabby]

That's a penis? It looks like a pipe or something. I think we should send it to the fundies as proof that Intelligent Design is bollocks.

[herkyjerkydance.livejournal.com]

Please tell me it actually did inspire "Raining Blood". I will be so thrilled.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_ex_cowboy/]

sadly, i was being facetious and i think the lyrics are "raining blood from a torn sky" not "raining blood from an exploding whale" but i would be as thrilled as you if it were true. plus, seriously, what better event to write a metal song about eh? perhaps they could refer to the beached whale as the dark lord or better yet leviathan but it might work!

[herkyjerkydance.livejournal.com]

Well, Tori Amos has said that when she read the lyrics to "Raining Blood" she pictured a giant menstruating vagina up in the sky, so an exploding whale is not the wackiest song origin theory I've heard.

I don't know if Slayer would write a song about it but Mastodon sure would. They have an entire album based on Moby Dick, fer fuck's sake.

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

Absolutely!

I've seen a number of articles suggesting that the Kremlin didn't really have anything much to gain by doing him in, and that actually he was a pretty dubious character and not some heroic crusading investigator... but stil... well of course Putin did it. It's dramatically necessary, especially for the picture of Putin as a really hard and evil bastard who somehow manages to be way cooler than Bush in the process.

Politkovskaya's death though is a real scandal - sounds like she was one of the few decent journalists left in Russia. And that one has a distinctly Kremliny whiff to it.

[sabotabby]

I like it better if he's a dubious character. Politkovskaya has to be the morally upright crusader, but it actually improves the narrative if Litvinenko was working for less altruistic ends.

(Obligatory disclaimer that this is quite serious and tragic, and that both of these deaths are a loss for Russia from what I can tell.)

[zemleroi.livejournal.com]

Oh god, you really think that Politkovskaia was killed by Putin? I would much rather believe that Gemayel was killed by the Mossad.
The last decent journalist left in Russia? Where was she when the government privatized surface water (effective coming January)? And what have the Western media told you about this? The real tragedy in Russia is this dismantlement of every aspect of the socialist system, and there is no-one in the progressive circles who would stand up against it. Closing of the Ministry for Nature Protection, the new Forest code, Water code, abolition of environmental assessment have all been tacitly approved by the world and the pro-Western journalists.
Media in the West manage against all odds to villify Russia without criticising its neo-liberal policies. The sight of the whole population here in Canada and in the US accepting this is quite disheartening.

[sabotabby]

I'm going to plead ignorance of the Russian language here, since I can only find English-language sources on this. But they describe her as being critical of Putin, especially when it came to Chechnya. Since the war on Chechnya is generally approved of by the West, I didn't get the impression that she was a pro-Western journalist. If I'm wrong, though, enlighten me.

[zemleroi.livejournal.com]

Well, she was an American citizen. But that isn't the reason I (and most people in Moscow) don't think she was killed by Putin. She was a journalist at a newspaper with a tiny distribution (although it is a good newspaper, and one that almost all of my friends in Moscow read) - fifteen thousand, I think. Her assassination is not going to profit Putin (who knew about her before her assassination?), but all the people who want to portray Russia as a totalitarian country. This is why I mentioned Gemayel. Of course, it can be something other than a provocation. She certainly did have enemies in the Chechen local government.
For newspapers in the West their is already no doubt that Putin killed Politkovskaya. "The Times" writes things like: Putin has to actively prove that he is not involved in the murder of Politkovskaia. It is instructive that the staff of Novaya Gazeta (where Politkovskaia worked) does not accuse Putin. Instead, they think that the perpetrator is either the Chechen (pro-Kremlin) government, or the opposition. The newspaper is currently conducting its own investigation.
As for the case of Litvinenko, it seems so perfectly orchestrated for Putin's visit to Europe, so ideally suited for a $3-spy novel that to consider it the work of KGB requires... let's say, a lot of predisposition. Do you really think that there are no ways of getting rid of a person than poisoning him in a crowded restaurant?
Of course the West does not "approve of" the war in Chechnya. You probably meant that most countries tolerate it (don't boycott Russia). One can hardly see a common interest between the USA and Russia in Chechnya, if that's what you mean.
Also, check this article in The Nation (http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20060717&s=cohen_charlierose_video).

[sabotabby]

That's really interesting; thanks. (Admittedly, I like the $3-spy novel aspect of the story.)

While we're on the subject, though: When I was in Russia, I read an article in the Moscow Times (don't laugh; it was the only English-language newspaper I could find) where Putin was talking about a "social conservatism" platform. It was described as attempting to increase Russia's power on the world stage while catering to Western economic policies, and alluded a great deal to imperial Russia. The only people who seemed to have a huge problem with it were the Communists. Is this actually happening?

[nom-de-grr.livejournal.com]

Tell me Putin doesn't look like an older Daniel Craig:

[sabotabby]

An older and less attractive Daniel Craig. But I think we've found who will play Putin in the movie.

[realcdaae.livejournal.com]

Don't you be dissing on my Daniel Craig like that!

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

With their shirts off, I'm guessing not. Which is too bad for Putin. And Mrs. Putin.

[pretzelsalt.livejournal.com]

Ooooh - I forgot about "blame the patriarchy" - thanks for the link!

What you don't know is that Litvinenko exploded shortly after his death - and that he was born with a blow hole.

[sabotabby]

That's taking it into Bulgakov territory.

[pretzelsalt.livejournal.com]

HEY!

You reminded me! I have not read any of his stuff but picked up a collection a few years ago that has been sitting on the shelf somewhere uncracked since.

I was just looking for something to read too....

I hope there are blowholes.

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

The Brits are just to cover up the fact that Captain Ahab was the real assasssin.

[realcdaae.livejournal.com]

Having seen way too much about this on the news in the past few days, that made me LOL IRL, for a good few minutes.

[andreazenith.livejournal.com]

Wow- didn't know that teachers were finally starting to give a damn about historical accuracy. (Or rather, that they weren't fired for actually teaching accurately, lol).

Interesting.

The bloody whale pictures are making my tummy turn. They blew up a whale?! That's news to me. =O.o*= *twitches*

~Andrea

[sabotabby]

Hey, I had some teachers into historical accuracy, and they mostly got away with it.

There was one whale intentionally blown up in 1970 and one that blew itself up in 2004. Both had beached themselves first.

Eww.

[andreazenith.livejournal.com]

It was a running joke at my HS about the inaccuracies in the text books. I think some of the teachers started that, but I can't remember for sure anymore. *wry grins*

Poor whales! They are *not* supposed to do that! =O.o*=

[uberbitsch.livejournal.com]

A mate of mine in the office ate at the Itsu restaurant around November 1st. And they're decontaminating the place. Plus there's been emergency meetings and very icily polite demands from the Russian embassy in London as to HOW Polonium 210 got into Britain.

[sabotabby]

Oh, and I just heard that they're testing other people for radiation.

Drama!

[lopukhov.livejournal.com]

My favourite quotation from the Bill Morgan article:
"I think that is very sad," said Janice Shaw Crouse, a former college dean and public high school teacher and now a spokeswoman for Concerned Women for America, a conservative organization. "He is teaching his students to hate their country. That is a very distorted view of history, a distorted view of Thanksgiving."

OMGUHATERZ.

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

Seriously, what is this guy? An Islamofacist?!?!?!

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

"The reaction is exactly what Morgan expects: The kids get angry and want their things back."

>>>>>>> And who says the American school system is worthless? Well, it pretty much is with the exception of teachers who actually give a shit like the one in this story.

[sabotabby]

He sounds like an awesome teacher—reminds me of a few that I had.