So you’ll be covering Human Interest stories, Celebrity Gossip stories, Cat Fight stories … but what about the stuff we’re really keen on, like Alexei Navalny on trial for embezzlement or (one day, hopefully) Mikheil Saakashvili in the dock charged with the murder of his former prime minister Zurab Zhvania when he was Gruziyan President?
Take it easy … running a blog can be very time-consuming esp when it comes to moderating people’s comments … come visit the Kremlin Stooge when you can!
Oh, this old thing…. but thanks for your kind words!
Sorry your comment sat in “moderation pending” all day, I am still trying to figure out how this blogatory thing works. Also, I was away at work all day, and then had my dancing class afterwards. So I just saw it. At least it didn’t go into the spam filter!
Anyhow, don’t worry your pretty little head, there will be TONS of Navalniana on my blog. Look for something as early as tomorrow, there is more on that cute story about Navalny meeting with the U.S. Consul to get his marching orders, they were all, like, “cloak and dagger” and “Surely no one will notice us meeting discretely in this cafe…” I expected Harry Lime to stroll in at any moment.
P.S. I think I want to take the “Likes” off these comments, if I could figure out how to do that.
I think “likes” are silly and lead to cliquism and abuse. What do you think?
Thanks, Jen. Okay, I’ll keep the “Likes” for now.
Actually, it was through a “Like” (of one of my comments on OffGuardian) that I encountered this person and her blog (=Vaska).
I like her approach to politics, she comes from a Humanities background. I think she has a Russian background too, but not sure about that. If so, then she is a refreshing change to the usual HBD crowd you find nowadays among the younger emigre set.
Speaking of which, re K.S., I DO miss my fellow stooges, and I AM planning to go back at some point, assuming I am still welcome there, I never barge in to somebody else’s house where I am not wanted.
However, I needed some space to crawl into my cave and concentrate on my own super-power, which is not polemics but rather my ability to translate from Russian into halfway decent English. Those of us who can do that – well, it is our duty to share our gift.
Anyhow. I got the distinct impression that (talking in code here), M was upset with me, due to the Great Hatriotic War of Attrition (GHWA); I personally am capable of fighting on forever to my last molecule, I AM ethnic Russian after all, however it seemed to me like M just wanted You-Know-Who to be able to spew his b.s. freely and nobody reply to him – was that your impression too? which is obviously impossible, haters NEED to be replied to, very firmly. Replied to? Heck, haters need to be tossed into scorpions pits, IMHO. But M’s blog, M’s rules, whatevever.
If and when I do go back, then I could just (with M’s permission, obviously) post links to MY content, thus concentrating on my strengths rather than my weaknesses. It’s the same kind of content that I was posting on his blog anyhow, just packaged a little differently, and more often than not, drowned out by the polemics.
Does this sound confused? Good! Because it is. Life can be very confusing….
P.S. – I will probably delete this comment after you read it. I have probably said too much already. [cue sinister music, as the shadowy figure of Orson Welles approaches from the inky recesses of the room….]
Hi, Yalensis. The blog looks great, and you have done well to amass so much content in such a short time. I think the overall appearance would be improved with a background; that just drops a colour border around it. You can find that in your WordPress Admin page, selecting “Appearance” (the paintbrush) from the taskbar on the left. Then, you could use some widgets. You can find them in the same menu, under Appearance. On the left side are available widgets; on the right is displayed the area where you want them to appear. You could build yourself a blogroll, for example, and you could use a “recent comments” widget, maybe a hit counter. I trust your aesthetics not to clutter it up too much so that it detracts from its readability. But just mess around with it; you can open the blog in two tabs, and every time you make a change in the working copy, just go to the other tab and refresh the page to see how it looks. Anything you don’t like, just change it back.
You’re always welcome at the Kremlin Stooge, and I never meant to chase you away; as I explained several times, my complaint is that the subject was being continuously wrenched back onto race relations, and it was annoying that people kept dabbling in it, which only encouraged the one most interested in it to continue. The blog did, in fact, receive a referral from Stormfront. I did not follow the link back to see what the context was – you will find referrers on your Stats page, on the left right under your daily/weekly/monthly hit counter. Obviously, I do not want to gain a reputation as the operator of a race relations blog and attract the sort of crowd that is interested in the subject. As I also mentioned, it is most convenient for me to read comments on the “Comments” page, but they appear in the order they arrive. If I see a race-relations comments I don’t like and delete it, replies are not deleted and then I have to go through and find all of them, which is a pain. You’ll see.
I didn’t ban ThatJ or anyone else, except Mike Averko, and that wouldn’t have happened, either, except that he kept reposting his stuff as fast as I deleted it. ThatJ sometimes has interesting and useful content, and I let that remain while I delete the racist stuff – unless somebody replies to it, indicating they are interested in debating it – and ignore the Trump stumping, which mostly does not interest me. ThatJ has not been seen for a few days, but I doubt he’s gone anywhere.
I will drop in a link to your blog right away. Always delighted to have your input, and I miss your sense of humor, but you will find if you keep this up that running a blog is more work than you thought. So far, as I said earlier, you are off to a great start; your articles are punchy and interesting and the photos add interest – you’re a natural. Work it until you get comfortable, and then if you get something before you see it anywhere else, you should link it to Russia Insider. They’re always looking for new writers, and I think you would prove very popular.
Hi, Mark,
Thanks for the suggestions, I am still tinkering with the appearance, I’ll try your suggestions. I am not the artistic type, very weird, because there are a lot of true artists in my family, but I don’t have that eye myself. (Goes to show that DNA is not all it’s cracked up to be – ha ha!)
Anyhow, I never felt like you chased me away from the Stooge, I sort of went away in self-exile, to brood in my tent, like Achilles, try to figure out what to do. Actually, I had been thinking for a long time that I would start my own blog, to do just this. (Translations and short pieces.) Then if I commented on your, or other, blog, I could just link back to this, if the discussion touched some content I had already been working on. That was actually my plan for some time, I was just too lazy to do it, until now.
And then the time seemed right, because given the circumstances, taking a break from the Stooge seemed like the only logical solution to the problem that had developed, given that the even MORE logical solution did not seem to be on the table, if you get my drift (hint hint).
I know you don’t ban people. I respect that you allow free speech, the same way I respect the ACLU for defending people who are loathesome creeps; however, there are a lot of issues about that, and a lot of other points of view. I personally don’t believe that racial hate speech should be tolerated in ANY society, and it is not tolerated in Russia (except on social media); on the other hand, I never called for banning or even censoring You-Know-Who. Or even deleting his comments. Although if you DID decide to delete a comment, I think you are making too much of a big deal that orphaned replies would be left out there; I don’t think that is such a big deal, and the other commenters are mature enough to deduce why some orphaned reply is sitting out there on the forum without a context to hang to. You could also leave a little note saying, e.g., “Comment deleted because it violates community standards”. Which is highly appropriate when, for example, he is comparing certain types of human beings to chimpanzees, and not in a humorous kind of way.
And I also think your mistake was to try to slice that baby sideways, by leaving his “benign” content and deleting his “bad” content, with him it’s all or nothing, because he just uses the “benign” content as shiny packaging and lure for his true payload, which exactly that “Stormfront” sort of content, but wrapped in a pseudo-Russophile lure. But that’s what these people do. These eugenists. They are nothing if not sneaky.
But enough about all that bad stuff. “Tomorrow is another day,” as Scarlett O’Hara used to say. Actually, today is another day too.
Already, just after a couple of days of being up with my new blog, I see that you are right about how hard it is, and how much time it takes, to run a blog.
Thanks again for suggestions.. Now I better toodle-along. That new Navalny story is not going to write itself!
@ Yalensis: When you go to Dashboard on your blog, there should be Themes as an option on the left-hand side; you can click on that and you should be taken to the Themes page where you have a choice of various Themes created by various people that can improve the appearance of the blog. Some Themes allow you to customise the appearance of your blog with a choice of background colours (of the sort Mark is referring to) to border the blog and adding columns to the right and / or left-hand side of the blog so you can include a blog-roll, the most recent comments, a calendar and a set of keywords.
The TwentyTen theme is straightforward (it’s what Kremlin Stooge uses) and TwentyFifteen is not too bad either.
It was my impression that M didn’t really know what to do with the fellow and was probably hoping that he would just get tired of being ignored and toddle off the way Curt Doolittle, AJ and Peter did.
I am pretty sure that U-Know-Who is being moderated because we have been talking briefly about the sudden release of those thousands of Syrian refugees into Europe from Turkey and speculating as to why they were let through and what Germany and Turkey’s intentions behind their release might be. U-Know-Who would have tried to run away with this issue and turned it into yet another rant about Muslims and Arabs flooding Europe. But I haven’t seen his comments for a fortnight now and that particular discussion remains untainted.
I am sure he was deliberately trolling as usually white supremacists (from what I have seen on the Internet) prefer to talk among themselves on their own websites and blogs and don’t go to the lengths he did to flood M’s blog and force any discussion down a cul de sac. He didn’t have the capacity to carry a conversation to much depth but simply repeated himself and to me that’s one mark of a troll.
Dear Jen:
You are probably right that U-Know-Who was just another one of the tiresome trolls, like Eliza’s father and Mr. Know-It-All (“Idiot!”).
However, I wasn’t sure, and I started to get the distinct impression that U-Know-Who was really settling in for the long haul.
He seemed like a character from a Chekhov play. In particular, Lopakhin, from “The Cherry Orchard”. Lopakhin shows up for dinner one day, as a guest, and next thing you know he is crowing: “The Orchard is mine now! It belongs to me! Hahahahahah!”
That moment was, and a certain gear in my head went “thunk” on that day when, in reply to my criticism about his content and packaging, U-Know-Who wrote something like (I don’t have the comment in front of me, I am paraphrasing): “I like the way I package my content, this is sort of like my own brand now.”
First I laughed.
Then I cried.
Then I projectile vomited.
Hi Yalensis, so glad that you have been found as your humanity and erudition, not to mention energy, make you unique. You won all the arguments and I. for one, was always barracking for you. I have an old mate who used to say that “it’s like swimming through custard- you cannot do it for long.” You did it for a bloody long time.
Best, and for this new enterprise.
Hello yalensis, I was sorry to see you gone from your usual “virtual hang-out place”. Luckily, after a quick google search using the words “yalensis comment”, this blog popped out. Bookmarked! Looking forward to reading your posts. Hope you don’t mind if I drop by once in a while…
PS: oddly enogh, You-Know-Who hasn’t made an appearance in days… Maybe M banned him, after all…
Hey, Spart, so glad to see you again! I missed you, with all your manly gladiator charm – tee hee!
And yes, of course I would LOVE it if you drop by. Often!
Seriously, yeah, I decided to set up my own blog, and spent most of this past weekend building it and tweaking it, etc.
(Suggestions for improvement are very welcome!)
I wanted to be able to post more translations and the type of content that interests me – there is so much frickin material out there!
I was hoping against hope my old friends would find me on the Intertubes, Jen found me too, it’s actually a small world out there.
If they couldn’t find me, I was going to try to figure out a way to let them know I have a blog now.
I wasn’t actually banished, and didn’t actually banish myself from our old hang-out, I was just trying not to be a rude guest, as our host seemed genuinely upset by all the shenanigans. Given all the conditions and the parameters that existed, my bowing out seemed like the only logical solution to the problem.
Hoo boy, that is interesting tidbit, though, that You-Know-Who is quiet now. I don’t trust him though, I’m sure he’ll be back, he has been known to drop out of sight for a couple of weeks, and then return, more fired up than ever. Frankly, I doubt if M banned him, or if he did it would have to have been a double-secret probation type of thing, like in Animal House.
Hi yalensis – I’ve one of the many who’ve been missing you over at KS so I was delighted when Jen posted a link to this site. What you’re trying to do sounds very interesting and I’m looking forward to reading more of your always fascinating material. Good luck with the blog.
Thanks, Fern! I miss you a lot too, you are one of the “voices of reason” in this world! More than once you have guided us onto the right path.
I hope you will find some of my pieces that interest you, and of course suggestions are always welcome!
Hello yalensis, you irrepressible bugger! I’m glad that you are striking out onwards and upwards. I’m on the same page as you vis u-know who. My patience has been very sorely tested too.
Best of luck to this new project and I’ll try to modify my habits to drop by regularly. After all, something has to mark me out as separate from my g/f’s 19 year old blind cat. Miaaow!
Hey Al, great to “see” you again!
We annoying buggers have to stick together.
Yes, I hope you drop by often, and your girlfriend’s cat might also be interested in perusing the section I call “Cat Fighting”..
i could blather on about ‘stuff’ but don’t want to waste your time (yet!). do push that ethnicity thing. deracinated amurricans need all the help they can get to re-discover importance of roots, since everything comes from something and nothing comes from nothing and nothing is the us youth identity. which is why i believe tattoos have become so popular this millennium. also, don’t forget to give us opera! (not certain of effective dose)
Hey, bolasete, old buddy!
Yeah, I like your idea of doing some opera too.
We opera buffs have to stick together.
As a matter of fact, I just saw last night (on DVD) a very good production of “Boris Godunov”.
Of course, I kept yelling at the screen, saying, “That isn’t historically accurate!”, and “Boris didn’t actually kill the Tsarevich, you know!”
(It was all, like a slander.)
Nonetheless, good production. And the scene of the people meeting to greet The Pretender (who was a Polish puppet) reminded me eerily of Maidan – and yet this production was from 1987! Just goes to show, nothing in Russian history ever changes, really, does it?
My belief is that tattoos represent the logical outcome of people being told repeatedly that really everyone is “special “, so some dullards, recognising themselves internally for what they truly are, decide to make themselves look “unique ” hahaha.
Yep!
And then they come to find that everybody in their crowd has tats.
So they have to take it one step further – piercings.
And before you know it, everybody is looking like this guy:
A few years ago the newspapers in Scotland featured a Brazilian woman called Elaine Davidson which produced mirth in my wife’s house since the most pierced woman in the UK shares a name with Mrs C’s best chum. The poor person should see a psychiatrist.
Thanks, Cortes! Do not worry, my fine friend, we shall get this all sorted out in the end.
KING LEAR
(…)
Now, our joy,
Although the last, not least; to whose young love
The vines of France and milk of Burgundy
Strive to be interess’d; what can you say to draw
A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.
CORDELIA
Nothing, my lord.
KING LEAR
Nothing!
CORDELIA
Nothing.
KING LEAR
Nothing will come of nothing: speak again.
CORDELIA:
Hmmmm…. I suppose I could start a blog!
I’ll call it “Me and my dear foolish old Papa, and the wine-tasters of Burgundy….”
“Sire, the people are revolting!”
“You can say that again, they stink on ice.”
“Sire, seriously, if only we had lived our lives, not according to the Big Lie — Жить не по лжи.”
“It’s too late to think about that now. The Sixth Fleet is approaching… ahhhhhhhrrgggg!”
Hi Yalensis. I have thought for some time that you might consider hosting “discussion groups” on substantial articles written by serious people on Russia. As an example, I always read what Sergey Karaganov writes- here is his latest effort. http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/pubcol/The-world-is-in-pre-war-state-18010
I am no economist but Karaganov continually comes back to the theme that it is imperative that Russia lifts its economic performance. I am certainly in the camp that believes that it is critical for Russia’s well being that its economy is first rate, and, given its enemies, that its future is dire otherwise.
Dear David:
Thanks for posting the Karaganov article, it is very interesting.
I am no economist either, but my gut tells me that he is right, and it is very interesting the way he phrases it, assessing the last 2 years as “as a series of brilliant foreign policy victories and splendid economic failures”.
As for economic reforms and improving the Russian economy, I don’t have any real ideas myself.
Other than returning to socialism (?)
There is a new article by Thierry Meyssan in Voltairenet that is “must read”. http://www.voltairenet.org/article190506.html
(Feel free to remove this comment as it really doesn’t “fit” here)
PS Love to know what you understand by “socialism”.
Sorry i disapeard for a while. for some reason i lost access to the email address is was using, whereby it asked me to enter my phone number in order to recover it, which i didn’t think was a very good idea. Anyway due to the situation over here i think it’s better for me to abstain from any political discussions for the time being. Sounds a bit trippy, i know, but it’s a typical by product of living in the ME. Anyway i will get in touch with you so we can continue the discussion when the situation changes.
Hello, Guy,
Welcome back! Since you had a new email address, WordPress threw you in the “awaiting moderation” bucket, but I saw your comment right away, since I just happened to be on, publishing my new post this morning.
Try to stay safe, wherever you are….
By the way, while experimenting in attempt to make it easier to find that post back (instead of scrolling back one post at a time), I discovered a very useful WordPress feature:
“You ONLY fixed the first occurrence “ (blasted autocorrect, blasted WordPress making it impossible to proofread). And deleting the “page/9” from the url gets you to a page listing everything from 2022, change the year in the url to get other years. If this feature is documented somewhere, or easier to find/use, I don’t see it.
Isn’t there also a key-word search feature? I usually provide each post with one or more categories and “tags”, and I think you can search by that as well.
Admittedly, I have a different interface, being the blog-admin, so I am not 100% sure which features are available to the reader.
Hi Valensis ! Thank You for your intelligemt and informative Blog ! Your carefull restrained observations are a valuable addititon to all the other Blogs and Websites i follow on the topic…For me as a Dane .. and a life long staunch “anticommie ” it…. is sad to see the BRAINWASHED RUSSOPHOBIC reaction in Denmark and Europe … I apollogize on their behalf with the paraphrase : ” Forgive them …as they dont know what they do ! ” ….
The Russian Response to the Explosion on the Kerch Bridge must be SEVERE and SWIFT,, for example BOMBING the KIEV REGIME PARLAMENT … PLUS the ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE of KIEV …. this is the ONLY language ZELENSKY and NATO understands
In Your Post : IN A STATE OF DEPRESSION Valery Valeryevich Fedorov states :
Fedorov: We live in a completely different era, than the one in which the word “propaganda” was invented. Today we live in an era of information overload, there is a gigantic number of channels and websites. How could there even be such a thing as propaganda any more?
Well … I am 77 year old Dane with extensive international experience ..and I am quite well informed as judged by myself . I have in all my life .. may be except on the issue of WW2 , HOLOCAUST and JEWS never seen anything similar to the current Propaganda about Ukraine and against Russia by the Western Powers who are.. I am Dane . it is almost impossible to present a positive view of Russia or an objective view of what has been going on in Ukraine in Denmark ( which i have followed meticuously since 2014 ) .. Most Danes do not know anything regarding what has led up to the current situation .. and many times it appears they do not want to know …so i can say with confidence : the majority of people in Denmark are totally BRAINWASHED ..in spite of the correct observation of the existence of a Major INFORMATION OVERFLOW . In Denmark the Press is completely in the hands of Government and “ Deep State “. in my personal Guess one of the leading persons behind this PROPAGANDA WAR is the previous danish Prime Minister and General Secretary of NATO : ANDERS FOGH RASMUSSEN who is CASHING IN big time on his actions …The Propaganda is on WW 2 Level .. in fact even more intense..on all levels ..and goes on 24 / 7 ….
Thank you for your excellent comment, Olavleiva! I apologize that it spent several hours in the spam filter before I saw it and fished it out. I have no idea why wordpress does that sometimes.
Anyhow, I agree with you, and it very sad how brainwashed are the masses today. The level of propaganda in American MSM is just as massive and just as toxic, as what you describe in Danish media.
You should be using Substack. Free as well, plus you can easily make optional pay plans for folks who would actually like to support you.
WordPress.com is quite old and clunky. One really annoying thing about WordPress is that they use the same Sent From email address for ALL WordPress users. This makes it impossible for one to add a profile photo to one’s Contact record in one’s address book. Additionally, it also makes it MUCH more difficult to sort incoming email newsletters from WordPress into folders.
There was a time when WordPress.com was almost the only game in town (other than Blogger) but today, any newsletter writer worth his/her salt should be using either Substack (free) or Ghost (premium with total autonomy).
Yes, and today, Aug 24/23, the comments section in the regular blog went haywire.
Normal up to now was three boxes below a post when one hit reply: comment, email address,and stage name. Now, all of a sudden, WordPress wants me to log in. I see there’s an email option that I’ll try for this, so yalensis can see and hopefully correct the comments back to the old way.
Hi, Beluga,
I did notice a change today myself. When “even I” reply to a comment, I have 3 new boxes, but it doesn’t ask me for an email, probably because I am the admin.
I don’t think I can put things back to the old way, because wordpress just keeps upgrading from version to version, without my permission. But I’ll take a look…
I just checked my admin settings, the radio button “Users must be registered and logged in to comment” is still set to OFF.
Therefore, it should not be asking you to log in.
It should only be asking you for a nik and an email.
Is anybody else having these problems? S Brennan mentioned a problem as well, I think, but I wasn’t sure what he meant.
Yalensis,
Just a quick note to say thanks for your many interesting and entertaining posts. I should also add very instructive, particularly about language and culture.
Best regards
Apart from classical painting, my all time favourite is Soviet Realist Art. It’s certainly an eccentric fringe interest, but since I’m a lifelong socialist, and now a Russophile as well, I’ve had to get used to being something of an outcast and a rebel (and in respect of socialism a rather frustrated one). Thank you again for this wonderful blog. In Solidarity, H. 🙂
Thanks, Highlander! I also love both classical painting and Socialist Realist paintings. In American art there are a lot of good ones as well, but one of my my favorites is Norman Rockwell, because he also paints in the realist style.
Hi Yalenis
Since you are rehashing Old Testament genocide today here is a snippet from Jesus . ( Who incedently may have been illerate as he never bothered to write down his own thoughts . ) It goes something like this . The meak shall inherit the earth .
The meak or maybe he meant weak minded or just those uniformed souls who have no knowledge or experience of riding the Holy Spirit to other places of existence .
. No spiritual adventures for you just endless rebirth and struggle on this sad old planet – fightening for bread and water like a pack of hungry wolves on the outskirts of Paris.
Awful Avalanche 
Hi Yalensis!
Nice blog you have here!
So you’ll be covering Human Interest stories, Celebrity Gossip stories, Cat Fight stories … but what about the stuff we’re really keen on, like Alexei Navalny on trial for embezzlement or (one day, hopefully) Mikheil Saakashvili in the dock charged with the murder of his former prime minister Zurab Zhvania when he was Gruziyan President?
Take it easy … running a blog can be very time-consuming esp when it comes to moderating people’s comments … come visit the Kremlin Stooge when you can!
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Hi, Jen!
Oh, this old thing…. but thanks for your kind words!
Sorry your comment sat in “moderation pending” all day, I am still trying to figure out how this blogatory thing works. Also, I was away at work all day, and then had my dancing class afterwards. So I just saw it. At least it didn’t go into the spam filter!
Anyhow, don’t worry your pretty little head, there will be TONS of Navalniana on my blog. Look for something as early as tomorrow, there is more on that cute story about Navalny meeting with the U.S. Consul to get his marching orders, they were all, like, “cloak and dagger” and “Surely no one will notice us meeting discretely in this cafe…” I expected Harry Lime to stroll in at any moment.
[“Third Man” allusion, obviously]
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P.S. I think I want to take the “Likes” off these comments, if I could figure out how to do that.
I think “likes” are silly and lead to cliquism and abuse. What do you think?
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Ha ha! Did everyone see what Terje did here? He “liked” my comment.
Very clever, Terje!
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I don’t mind the “Likes” actually but if you want to take them off, you should be able to get help from WordPress.
https://en.support.wordpress.com/likes/
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Thanks, Jen. Okay, I’ll keep the “Likes” for now.
Actually, it was through a “Like” (of one of my comments on OffGuardian) that I encountered this person and her blog (=Vaska).
https://vaskaxtumir.wordpress.com/
I like her approach to politics, she comes from a Humanities background. I think she has a Russian background too, but not sure about that. If so, then she is a refreshing change to the usual HBD crowd you find nowadays among the younger emigre set.
Speaking of which, re K.S., I DO miss my fellow stooges, and I AM planning to go back at some point, assuming I am still welcome there, I never barge in to somebody else’s house where I am not wanted.
However, I needed some space to crawl into my cave and concentrate on my own super-power, which is not polemics but rather my ability to translate from Russian into halfway decent English. Those of us who can do that – well, it is our duty to share our gift.
Anyhow. I got the distinct impression that (talking in code here), M was upset with me, due to the Great Hatriotic War of Attrition (GHWA); I personally am capable of fighting on forever to my last molecule, I AM ethnic Russian after all, however it seemed to me like M just wanted You-Know-Who to be able to spew his b.s. freely and nobody reply to him – was that your impression too? which is obviously impossible, haters NEED to be replied to, very firmly. Replied to? Heck, haters need to be tossed into scorpions pits, IMHO. But M’s blog, M’s rules, whatevever.
If and when I do go back, then I could just (with M’s permission, obviously) post links to MY content, thus concentrating on my strengths rather than my weaknesses. It’s the same kind of content that I was posting on his blog anyhow, just packaged a little differently, and more often than not, drowned out by the polemics.
Does this sound confused? Good! Because it is. Life can be very confusing….
P.S. – I will probably delete this comment after you read it. I have probably said too much already. [cue sinister music, as the shadowy figure of Orson Welles approaches from the inky recesses of the room….]
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Hi, Yalensis. The blog looks great, and you have done well to amass so much content in such a short time. I think the overall appearance would be improved with a background; that just drops a colour border around it. You can find that in your WordPress Admin page, selecting “Appearance” (the paintbrush) from the taskbar on the left. Then, you could use some widgets. You can find them in the same menu, under Appearance. On the left side are available widgets; on the right is displayed the area where you want them to appear. You could build yourself a blogroll, for example, and you could use a “recent comments” widget, maybe a hit counter. I trust your aesthetics not to clutter it up too much so that it detracts from its readability. But just mess around with it; you can open the blog in two tabs, and every time you make a change in the working copy, just go to the other tab and refresh the page to see how it looks. Anything you don’t like, just change it back.
You’re always welcome at the Kremlin Stooge, and I never meant to chase you away; as I explained several times, my complaint is that the subject was being continuously wrenched back onto race relations, and it was annoying that people kept dabbling in it, which only encouraged the one most interested in it to continue. The blog did, in fact, receive a referral from Stormfront. I did not follow the link back to see what the context was – you will find referrers on your Stats page, on the left right under your daily/weekly/monthly hit counter. Obviously, I do not want to gain a reputation as the operator of a race relations blog and attract the sort of crowd that is interested in the subject. As I also mentioned, it is most convenient for me to read comments on the “Comments” page, but they appear in the order they arrive. If I see a race-relations comments I don’t like and delete it, replies are not deleted and then I have to go through and find all of them, which is a pain. You’ll see.
I didn’t ban ThatJ or anyone else, except Mike Averko, and that wouldn’t have happened, either, except that he kept reposting his stuff as fast as I deleted it. ThatJ sometimes has interesting and useful content, and I let that remain while I delete the racist stuff – unless somebody replies to it, indicating they are interested in debating it – and ignore the Trump stumping, which mostly does not interest me. ThatJ has not been seen for a few days, but I doubt he’s gone anywhere.
I will drop in a link to your blog right away. Always delighted to have your input, and I miss your sense of humor, but you will find if you keep this up that running a blog is more work than you thought. So far, as I said earlier, you are off to a great start; your articles are punchy and interesting and the photos add interest – you’re a natural. Work it until you get comfortable, and then if you get something before you see it anywhere else, you should link it to Russia Insider. They’re always looking for new writers, and I think you would prove very popular.
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Hi, Mark,
Thanks for the suggestions, I am still tinkering with the appearance, I’ll try your suggestions. I am not the artistic type, very weird, because there are a lot of true artists in my family, but I don’t have that eye myself. (Goes to show that DNA is not all it’s cracked up to be – ha ha!)
Anyhow, I never felt like you chased me away from the Stooge, I sort of went away in self-exile, to brood in my tent, like Achilles, try to figure out what to do. Actually, I had been thinking for a long time that I would start my own blog, to do just this. (Translations and short pieces.) Then if I commented on your, or other, blog, I could just link back to this, if the discussion touched some content I had already been working on. That was actually my plan for some time, I was just too lazy to do it, until now.
And then the time seemed right, because given the circumstances, taking a break from the Stooge seemed like the only logical solution to the problem that had developed, given that the even MORE logical solution did not seem to be on the table, if you get my drift (hint hint).
I know you don’t ban people. I respect that you allow free speech, the same way I respect the ACLU for defending people who are loathesome creeps; however, there are a lot of issues about that, and a lot of other points of view. I personally don’t believe that racial hate speech should be tolerated in ANY society, and it is not tolerated in Russia (except on social media); on the other hand, I never called for banning or even censoring You-Know-Who. Or even deleting his comments. Although if you DID decide to delete a comment, I think you are making too much of a big deal that orphaned replies would be left out there; I don’t think that is such a big deal, and the other commenters are mature enough to deduce why some orphaned reply is sitting out there on the forum without a context to hang to. You could also leave a little note saying, e.g., “Comment deleted because it violates community standards”. Which is highly appropriate when, for example, he is comparing certain types of human beings to chimpanzees, and not in a humorous kind of way.
And I also think your mistake was to try to slice that baby sideways, by leaving his “benign” content and deleting his “bad” content, with him it’s all or nothing, because he just uses the “benign” content as shiny packaging and lure for his true payload, which exactly that “Stormfront” sort of content, but wrapped in a pseudo-Russophile lure. But that’s what these people do. These eugenists. They are nothing if not sneaky.
But enough about all that bad stuff. “Tomorrow is another day,” as Scarlett O’Hara used to say. Actually, today is another day too.
Already, just after a couple of days of being up with my new blog, I see that you are right about how hard it is, and how much time it takes, to run a blog.
Thanks again for suggestions.. Now I better toodle-along. That new Navalny story is not going to write itself!
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@ Yalensis: When you go to Dashboard on your blog, there should be Themes as an option on the left-hand side; you can click on that and you should be taken to the Themes page where you have a choice of various Themes created by various people that can improve the appearance of the blog. Some Themes allow you to customise the appearance of your blog with a choice of background colours (of the sort Mark is referring to) to border the blog and adding columns to the right and / or left-hand side of the blog so you can include a blog-roll, the most recent comments, a calendar and a set of keywords.
The TwentyTen theme is straightforward (it’s what Kremlin Stooge uses) and TwentyFifteen is not too bad either.
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It was my impression that M didn’t really know what to do with the fellow and was probably hoping that he would just get tired of being ignored and toddle off the way Curt Doolittle, AJ and Peter did.
I am pretty sure that U-Know-Who is being moderated because we have been talking briefly about the sudden release of those thousands of Syrian refugees into Europe from Turkey and speculating as to why they were let through and what Germany and Turkey’s intentions behind their release might be. U-Know-Who would have tried to run away with this issue and turned it into yet another rant about Muslims and Arabs flooding Europe. But I haven’t seen his comments for a fortnight now and that particular discussion remains untainted.
I am sure he was deliberately trolling as usually white supremacists (from what I have seen on the Internet) prefer to talk among themselves on their own websites and blogs and don’t go to the lengths he did to flood M’s blog and force any discussion down a cul de sac. He didn’t have the capacity to carry a conversation to much depth but simply repeated himself and to me that’s one mark of a troll.
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Dear Jen:
You are probably right that U-Know-Who was just another one of the tiresome trolls, like Eliza’s father and Mr. Know-It-All (“Idiot!”).
However, I wasn’t sure, and I started to get the distinct impression that U-Know-Who was really settling in for the long haul.
He seemed like a character from a Chekhov play. In particular, Lopakhin, from “The Cherry Orchard”. Lopakhin shows up for dinner one day, as a guest, and next thing you know he is crowing: “The Orchard is mine now! It belongs to me! Hahahahahah!”
That moment was, and a certain gear in my head went “thunk” on that day when, in reply to my criticism about his content and packaging, U-Know-Who wrote something like (I don’t have the comment in front of me, I am paraphrasing): “I like the way I package my content, this is sort of like my own brand now.”
First I laughed.
Then I cried.
Then I projectile vomited.
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Hi Yalensis, so glad that you have been found as your humanity and erudition, not to mention energy, make you unique. You won all the arguments and I. for one, was always barracking for you. I have an old mate who used to say that “it’s like swimming through custard- you cannot do it for long.” You did it for a bloody long time.
Best, and for this new enterprise.
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Thanks, David!
I hope you visit me early and often, your erudition (I like that word!) is highly welcome!
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Hello yalensis, I was sorry to see you gone from your usual “virtual hang-out place”. Luckily, after a quick google search using the words “yalensis comment”, this blog popped out. Bookmarked! Looking forward to reading your posts. Hope you don’t mind if I drop by once in a while…
PS: oddly enogh, You-Know-Who hasn’t made an appearance in days… Maybe M banned him, after all…
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Hey, Spart, so glad to see you again! I missed you, with all your manly gladiator charm – tee hee!
And yes, of course I would LOVE it if you drop by. Often!
Seriously, yeah, I decided to set up my own blog, and spent most of this past weekend building it and tweaking it, etc.
(Suggestions for improvement are very welcome!)
I wanted to be able to post more translations and the type of content that interests me – there is so much frickin material out there!
I was hoping against hope my old friends would find me on the Intertubes, Jen found me too, it’s actually a small world out there.
If they couldn’t find me, I was going to try to figure out a way to let them know I have a blog now.
I wasn’t actually banished, and didn’t actually banish myself from our old hang-out, I was just trying not to be a rude guest, as our host seemed genuinely upset by all the shenanigans. Given all the conditions and the parameters that existed, my bowing out seemed like the only logical solution to the problem.
Hoo boy, that is interesting tidbit, though, that You-Know-Who is quiet now. I don’t trust him though, I’m sure he’ll be back, he has been known to drop out of sight for a couple of weeks, and then return, more fired up than ever. Frankly, I doubt if M banned him, or if he did it would have to have been a double-secret probation type of thing, like in Animal House.
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Best of luck with the new blog.
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Thanks, Paul! I appreciate that.
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Hi yalensis – I’ve one of the many who’ve been missing you over at KS so I was delighted when Jen posted a link to this site. What you’re trying to do sounds very interesting and I’m looking forward to reading more of your always fascinating material. Good luck with the blog.
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Thanks, Fern! I miss you a lot too, you are one of the “voices of reason” in this world! More than once you have guided us onto the right path.
I hope you will find some of my pieces that interest you, and of course suggestions are always welcome!
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Hello yalensis, you irrepressible bugger! I’m glad that you are striking out onwards and upwards. I’m on the same page as you vis u-know who. My patience has been very sorely tested too.
Best of luck to this new project and I’ll try to modify my habits to drop by regularly. After all, something has to mark me out as separate from my g/f’s 19 year old blind cat. Miaaow!
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Hey Al, great to “see” you again!
We annoying buggers have to stick together.
Yes, I hope you drop by often, and your girlfriend’s cat might also be interested in perusing the section I call “Cat Fighting”..
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i could blather on about ‘stuff’ but don’t want to waste your time (yet!). do push that ethnicity thing. deracinated amurricans need all the help they can get to re-discover importance of roots, since everything comes from something and nothing comes from nothing and nothing is the us youth identity. which is why i believe tattoos have become so popular this millennium. also, don’t forget to give us opera! (not certain of effective dose)
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Hey, bolasete, old buddy!
Yeah, I like your idea of doing some opera too.
We opera buffs have to stick together.
As a matter of fact, I just saw last night (on DVD) a very good production of “Boris Godunov”.
Of course, I kept yelling at the screen, saying, “That isn’t historically accurate!”, and “Boris didn’t actually kill the Tsarevich, you know!”
(It was all, like a slander.)
Nonetheless, good production. And the scene of the people meeting to greet The Pretender (who was a Polish puppet) reminded me eerily of Maidan – and yet this production was from 1987! Just goes to show, nothing in Russian history ever changes, really, does it?
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My belief is that tattoos represent the logical outcome of people being told repeatedly that really everyone is “special “, so some dullards, recognising themselves internally for what they truly are, decide to make themselves look “unique ” hahaha.
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Yep!
And then they come to find that everybody in their crowd has tats.
So they have to take it one step further – piercings.
And before you know it, everybody is looking like this guy:
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A few years ago the newspapers in Scotland featured a Brazilian woman called Elaine Davidson which produced mirth in my wife’s house since the most pierced woman in the UK shares a name with Mrs C’s best chum. The poor person should see a psychiatrist.
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Good luck with the new enterprise. Badly missed elsewhere, but I suppose dealing with that creep took a toll.
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Thanks, Cortes! Do not worry, my fine friend, we shall get this all sorted out in the end.
KING LEAR
(…)
Now, our joy,
Although the last, not least; to whose young love
The vines of France and milk of Burgundy
Strive to be interess’d; what can you say to draw
A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.
CORDELIA
Nothing, my lord.
KING LEAR
Nothing!
CORDELIA
Nothing.
KING LEAR
Nothing will come of nothing: speak again.
CORDELIA:
Hmmmm…. I suppose I could start a blog!
I’ll call it “Me and my dear foolish old Papa, and the wine-tasters of Burgundy….”
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Hi yalensis..
Charming to see that you are still “The Good Person”!!!!!!…..Well more or less :O)
Look forward to some pithy comments ad replies……
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Hey, Northern Star – great to see you!
Well, you know, In a World Where Evil Reigns, we “pious good people” have to stick together for warmth and comfort..
Of course, unlike you, I do have my evil side, but it only comes out in the dark of night when nobody is watching – heh heh!
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Dear yalensis!
Категорически рукопожимаю!
Best luck! ТакЪ победимЪ!
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“Sire, the people are revolting!”
“You can say that again, they stink on ice.”
“Sire, seriously, if only we had lived our lives, not according to the Big Lie — Жить не по лжи.”
“It’s too late to think about that now. The Sixth Fleet is approaching… ahhhhhhhrrgggg!”
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Hi Yalensis. I have thought for some time that you might consider hosting “discussion groups” on substantial articles written by serious people on Russia. As an example, I always read what Sergey Karaganov writes- here is his latest effort.
http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/pubcol/The-world-is-in-pre-war-state-18010
I am no economist but Karaganov continually comes back to the theme that it is imperative that Russia lifts its economic performance. I am certainly in the camp that believes that it is critical for Russia’s well being that its economy is first rate, and, given its enemies, that its future is dire otherwise.
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Dear David:
Thanks for posting the Karaganov article, it is very interesting.
I am no economist either, but my gut tells me that he is right, and it is very interesting the way he phrases it, assessing the last 2 years as “as a series of brilliant foreign policy victories and splendid economic failures”.
As for economic reforms and improving the Russian economy, I don’t have any real ideas myself.
Other than returning to socialism (?)
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There is a new article by Thierry Meyssan in Voltairenet that is “must read”.
http://www.voltairenet.org/article190506.html
(Feel free to remove this comment as it really doesn’t “fit” here)
PS Love to know what you understand by “socialism”.
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Dear David:
Thanks for the Meyssan piece, it is an interesting read.
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Dear Yalensis
Sorry i disapeard for a while. for some reason i lost access to the email address is was using, whereby it asked me to enter my phone number in order to recover it, which i didn’t think was a very good idea. Anyway due to the situation over here i think it’s better for me to abstain from any political discussions for the time being. Sounds a bit trippy, i know, but it’s a typical by product of living in the ME. Anyway i will get in touch with you so we can continue the discussion when the situation changes.
Peace!
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Hello, Guy,
Welcome back! Since you had a new email address, WordPress threw you in the “awaiting moderation” bucket, but I saw your comment right away, since I just happened to be on, publishing my new post this morning.
Try to stay safe, wherever you are….
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Good blog. Check allusion vs illusion on day #156.
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Thanks, Jan! You’re the second person to correct me on that spelling/homonym error. I just went in and fixed it – yay.
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You not fixed the first occurrence.
By the way, while experimenting in attempt to make it easier to find that post back (instead of scrolling back one post at a time), I discovered a very useful WordPress feature:
https://awfulavalanche.wordpress.com/2022/page/9/
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“You ONLY fixed the first occurrence “ (blasted autocorrect, blasted WordPress making it impossible to proofread). And deleting the “page/9” from the url gets you to a page listing everything from 2022, change the year in the url to get other years. If this feature is documented somewhere, or easier to find/use, I don’t see it.
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Yes, there is an “archive” feature.
Isn’t there also a key-word search feature? I usually provide each post with one or more categories and “tags”, and I think you can search by that as well.
Admittedly, I have a different interface, being the blog-admin, so I am not 100% sure which features are available to the reader.
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Hi Valensis ! Thank You for your intelligemt and informative Blog ! Your carefull restrained observations are a valuable addititon to all the other Blogs and Websites i follow on the topic…For me as a Dane .. and a life long staunch “anticommie ” it…. is sad to see the BRAINWASHED RUSSOPHOBIC reaction in Denmark and Europe … I apollogize on their behalf with the paraphrase : ” Forgive them …as they dont know what they do ! ” ….
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The Russian Response to the Explosion on the Kerch Bridge must be SEVERE and SWIFT,, for example BOMBING the KIEV REGIME PARLAMENT … PLUS the ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE of KIEV …. this is the ONLY language ZELENSKY and NATO understands
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In Your Post : IN A STATE OF DEPRESSION Valery Valeryevich Fedorov states :
Fedorov: We live in a completely different era, than the one in which the word “propaganda” was invented. Today we live in an era of information overload, there is a gigantic number of channels and websites. How could there even be such a thing as propaganda any more?
Well … I am 77 year old Dane with extensive international experience ..and I am quite well informed as judged by myself . I have in all my life .. may be except on the issue of WW2 , HOLOCAUST and JEWS never seen anything similar to the current Propaganda about Ukraine and against Russia by the Western Powers who are.. I am Dane . it is almost impossible to present a positive view of Russia or an objective view of what has been going on in Ukraine in Denmark ( which i have followed meticuously since 2014 ) .. Most Danes do not know anything regarding what has led up to the current situation .. and many times it appears they do not want to know …so i can say with confidence : the majority of people in Denmark are totally BRAINWASHED ..in spite of the correct observation of the existence of a Major INFORMATION OVERFLOW . In Denmark the Press is completely in the hands of Government and “ Deep State “. in my personal Guess one of the leading persons behind this PROPAGANDA WAR is the previous danish Prime Minister and General Secretary of NATO : ANDERS FOGH RASMUSSEN who is CASHING IN big time on his actions …The Propaganda is on WW 2 Level .. in fact even more intense..on all levels ..and goes on 24 / 7 ….
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Thank you for your excellent comment, Olavleiva! I apologize that it spent several hours in the spam filter before I saw it and fished it out. I have no idea why wordpress does that sometimes.
Anyhow, I agree with you, and it very sad how brainwashed are the masses today. The level of propaganda in American MSM is just as massive and just as toxic, as what you describe in Danish media.
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Total Victory to Darling Mother Russia!
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You should be using Substack. Free as well, plus you can easily make optional pay plans for folks who would actually like to support you.
WordPress.com is quite old and clunky. One really annoying thing about WordPress is that they use the same Sent From email address for ALL WordPress users. This makes it impossible for one to add a profile photo to one’s Contact record in one’s address book. Additionally, it also makes it MUCH more difficult to sort incoming email newsletters from WordPress into folders.
There was a time when WordPress.com was almost the only game in town (other than Blogger) but today, any newsletter writer worth his/her salt should be using either Substack (free) or Ghost (premium with total autonomy).
#justsaying : )
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Yes, and today, Aug 24/23, the comments section in the regular blog went haywire.
Normal up to now was three boxes below a post when one hit reply: comment, email address,and stage name. Now, all of a sudden, WordPress wants me to log in. I see there’s an email option that I’ll try for this, so yalensis can see and hopefully correct the comments back to the old way.
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Hi, Beluga,
I did notice a change today myself. When “even I” reply to a comment, I have 3 new boxes, but it doesn’t ask me for an email, probably because I am the admin.
I don’t think I can put things back to the old way, because wordpress just keeps upgrading from version to version, without my permission. But I’ll take a look…
Sorry for the inconvenience!
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I just checked my admin settings, the radio button “Users must be registered and logged in to comment” is still set to OFF.
Therefore, it should not be asking you to log in.
It should only be asking you for a nik and an email.
Is anybody else having these problems? S Brennan mentioned a problem as well, I think, but I wasn’t sure what he meant.
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Yalensis,
Just a quick note to say thanks for your many interesting and entertaining posts. I should also add very instructive, particularly about language and culture.
Best regards
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Thanks, Steve!
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Apart from classical painting, my all time favourite is Soviet Realist Art. It’s certainly an eccentric fringe interest, but since I’m a lifelong socialist, and now a Russophile as well, I’ve had to get used to being something of an outcast and a rebel (and in respect of socialism a rather frustrated one). Thank you again for this wonderful blog. In Solidarity, H. 🙂
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Thanks, Highlander! I also love both classical painting and Socialist Realist paintings. In American art there are a lot of good ones as well, but one of my my favorites is Norman Rockwell, because he also paints in the realist style.
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Hi Yalenis
Since you are rehashing Old Testament genocide today here is a snippet from Jesus . ( Who incedently may have been illerate as he never bothered to write down his own thoughts . ) It goes something like this . The meak shall inherit the earth .
The meak or maybe he meant weak minded or just those uniformed souls who have no knowledge or experience of riding the Holy Spirit to other places of existence .
. No spiritual adventures for you just endless rebirth and struggle on this sad old planet – fightening for bread and water like a pack of hungry wolves on the outskirts of Paris.
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