At any rate, the paper in question was published in The Lancet, which isn’t exactly the most obscure medical journal.
Logunov, Denis Y., Inna V. Dolzhikova, Olga V. Zubkova, Amir I. Tukhvatullin, Dmitry V. Shcheblyakov, Alina S. Dzharullaeva, Daria M. Grousova, et al. 2020. “Safety and Immunogenicity of an rAd26 and rAd5 Vector-Based Heterologous Prime-Boost COVID-19 Vaccine in Two Formulations: Two Open, Non-Randomised Phase 1/2 Studies from Russia.” The Lancet, September.
Between June 18 and Aug 3, 2020, we enrolled 76 participants to the two studies (38 in each study). In each study, nine volunteers received rAd26-S in phase 1, nine received rAd5-S in phase 1, and 20 received rAd26-S and rAd5-S in phase 2. Both vaccine formulations were safe and well tolerated. The most common adverse events were pain at injection site (44 [58%]), hyperthermia (38 [50%]), headache (32 [42%]), asthenia (21 [28%]), and muscle and joint pain (18 [24%]). Most adverse events were mild and no serious adverse events were detected. All participants produced antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 glycoprotein. At day 42, receptor binding domain-specific IgG titres were 14 703 with the frozen formulation and 11 143 with the lyophilised formulation, and neutralising antibodies were 49·25 with the frozen formulation and 45·95 with the lyophilised formulation, with a seroconversion rate of 100%. Cell-mediated responses were detected in all participants at day 28, with median cell proliferation of 2·5% CD4+ and 1·3% CD8+ with the frozen formulation, and a median cell proliferation of 1·3% CD4+ and 1·1% CD8+ with the lyophilised formulation.
As I said at the start, claiming it as the world’s first novel COVID-19 vaccine was more of a Russian propaganda stunt more than anything else (if one whose effects were blunted by a Western propaganda pushback). The Chinese had rushed out a vaccine for the PLA as early as July, while a few other vaccines that are following the path towards formal international regulatory approval are at similar or slightly more advanced stages of development (e.g. ChAdOx1). Nonetheless, it is amusing to see how they deal with this latest coup. By the looks of it, quietly ignore it for the most part.
Please keep off topic posts to the current Open Thread.
If you are new to my work, start here.
No one serious thought it likely that it wouldn’t work at all. The question is how long does immunity last.
It seems that it takes up to 28 days for immunity to be established in those vaccinated.
It also appears that immunity lasts at least another 2 weeks.
But this is all which is established – a highly likely 2 week immunity.
Furthermore, although there were no serious effects in 72 people, it is also probable that if 72 volunteer-types were infected with Covid-2 that none would die.
Worse, the cell responses don’t actually guarantee immunity, though it is a fair assumption for proceeding with testing.
In all, the vaccine may actually be suitable, but it is a very long way from being proven as suitable.
Perhaps it is good to rush it out and inject everyone, but, given the only moderate severity of the disease, it seems much like a publicity stunt. There’s nothing remarkable about the vaccine’s development at all. Only the political push to rush its rolling out before proof is remarkable.
Having said that, I am glad that some countries are happy to do so. It is at least in the interests of those not in that country…
The more pessimism I hear about anything covid related the more I stop caring.
Can anyone explain this?
If we were not caught in a dysgenic trend, then I would say what will definitely happen in the future is, they will pull the immune cells from people who were recently infected, analyze the DNA from those cells, print the DNA into compatible cells which would be memory cells – each person would have a few in culture – and then inject those cells into the body.
This process with some additions would have very broad applications. It could be used to fight cancer, cure autoimmune diseases, or deliver drugs to targeted cells – thus cutting down on side effects.
I wonder what would happen if you tested vaccines on the people Andy Ngo gets mugshots of.
You forgot to mention how, in March, your rarely-grooming role model, George Church, made a collection among his mentees, and ordered a set of recombinant peptides off the Internet. (This, despite the evidence that dead peptides have reached their limits against coronaviruses decades ago.) The collective members sprayed it in their noses.
Church claimed he took it in his restroom, in order to “obey social distancing rules”. My guess is that only pretended to take it, but discarded it, triggered by that amount of water and shower proximity.
In related news, the Society for Science-based Medicine went bankrupt. Its leaders were instrumental in unmasking clichees like “boosts immunity”, “induces an immune response”, or “shortens the duration of symptoms” for what they are. The idea was that you must show metaanalyses, gains in QALYs, cost reductions, or get lost. “Proliferation of CD4 cells” is good for a preclinical test on rats, but quite pointless for humans, and on a par with surveys on feelings and emotions. But I guess this bankruptcy is what should be expected from these days, when clowns Trump and Faucci debate each other on gibberish issues.
I am not faulting the Russians for reporting the same outcomes that the AstraZeneca team reported, but they are worthy of communication only when you want to pump a share price or an academic career. I expected less adherence to the Western model from a team of Russians.
Everyone should hope it works. Russia’s close relationship with India will surely help as the latter has unparallelled capacity for mass production of vaccines.
Instead of cheering all efforts of solving the crisis, we’re met with bizarre claims that Russia “stole US research“. Equal parts tragic and hilarious.
‘Vaccine nationalism’ is a disgusting mongrel. It needs to be collectively ended.
Yes we produce something like 60% of the world’s vaccines.
However even if it works it needs to work significantly better than the Oxford Vaccine for it to be adopted here.
The oxford vaccine is something most followed and an Indian company has already produced and stockpiled 40 million doses betting that it will work.
Of course if Russia has capacity problems producing 150 million doses of Sputnik V we will be happy to produce and fly it to them as we will likely have plenty of idle vaccine capacity till November where everyone thinks the Oxford vaccine will be proven successful and most of our vaccine production capacity will be redirected towards producing it..
Should have called it “Novichok”!
I’m increasingly leaning toward the whole Navalny poisoning thing being a Russian vaccine discrediting operation (“would you really buy medicine from a known poisoner?”).
For the US pharmaceuticals (and therefore the US government) it does not matter whether Russian vaccine works. They were salivating about the prospect of getting countless billions on the scare they engineered, and those pesky Russians made a vaccine first, jeopardizing their profits. That’s all there is to it.
There is a general problem of vaccines against any coronaviruses: the immune response wanes within months, in contrast to the immunity to other pathogens, which lasts many years. This is the difficulty any vaccine has to overcome to become effective. Russians say that they used adenovirus (well known to cause very strong immune response) and two corona proteins, not one, like they used in the development of the only effective anti-Ebola vaccine. We’ll see.
https://twitter.com/robinhanson/status/1302033666504261637
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/risa.13582?campaign=wolearlyview
Russian joke is a bit different: How can you trust a vaccine from a country that cannot lethally poison lots of dissidents despite multiple tries with presumably battlefield toxin?
IMO, it is how the human mind adapt to the environment. If you see death everywhere, you either get use to it and stop caring or you go crazy and die.
After 6 months of covid related news. Most of US who aren’t 60+ years old has stopped caring. Even if the number of deaths sky rockets.
According to Rossia24 reporting and the SputnikVaccine.com website, the immunity level starts from a high level and deteriorates so slowly that it is expected to last for 2 years. This has obviously not been confirmed by actual tests but earlier vaccines for SaRS Corona virusses from the same Gamaleya adenovirus vaccine platform that were tested a few years ago appear to allow this inference. There are a few more advantageous that arise from this platform-based structure of the vaccine, which, unlike the western media propaganda said, is based on a platform that has already been corroborated by phase 3 tests and in which only a few parameters needed to be adapted to the new virus.
The whole Covid thing is, at best, just a ploy to sell useless vaccines. It’s a market of trillions.
At worst… It is one of the most evil scams in recent history.
In West, you put in vaccine.
In Russia, Putin vaccines you.
Ok, awful joke but I had to do it.
“… ploy to sell useless vaccines…” – Dumbo, dumbo, dumbo.
For all the Western elite hysteria about how successful “Russian propaganda” is, in reality Russia seems pretty horrible about how it manages information as can be seen by both Sputnik V and the Navalny case.
In the case of the vaccine ridiculously called Sputnik V (is the V “vaccine” – which makes sense – or the Roman Numeral 5 – which doesn’t? I’ve heard some news announcers call it the latter), they could have waited until the paper now published in the Lancet was readied and announced that the vaccine was simply going to get an Emergency registration (something not unheard of in in the West on certain potentially life saving drugs as in cancer for which a Phase 3 have yet to be fully completed) so that it could more easily recruit volunteers and be given on demand to a larger set during the Phase 3. In actual fact this is simply what Russia has done behind all the noise.
IMO, a better managed PR operation would have been one where the data could have been published in the Lancet; the Emergency registration announced concurrent with the Phase 3 and some subtle crowing about it (for example Putin congratulating the team rather than they boasting they are the “first” and so on). The entire process by which Russia chose to roll it out set it up for accusations ranging from unscientific to being overly sensationalistic and nationalistic (what with the Sputnik connotations).
The Navalny case is even more bizarre PR. Either
(A) the Kremlin is guilty as charged for reasons that make no sense, but it was stupid enough to (a) not have the plan succeed; and/or (b) not have a ready made explanation/counterpunch to the Germans finding it; or
(B) it is being framed by Western intelligence in which case the Kremlin was stupid enough not to anticipate this and ensure in advance – for example by immediately announcing that a team can test Navalny’s blood samples in its possession to show no prisons – that this could be convincingly put down.
Instead the Kremlin falls back on legalese and “diplomatic conventions” and polite diplomatic talk at a time when the West has long abandoned this by slickly produced media consumable propaganda.
More and more, it seems that the Kremlin is out of touch with how modern messaging and influence operations work. This is an area the West, given its century plus experience with capitalism with fierce competition on which brand of colored sugar water makes you cooler, is way ahead in.
Zhirinovsky endorsed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VqBjvNo70M
If Gamelaya is so confident about Sputnik V, a PR coup would be for Putin to publicly receive the two shots and then walk into a COVID ward sans-mask to commiserate with the patients. Or perhaps Zhironovsky will beat him to the punch…
I don’t see how the vaccine thing could have been handled any better. A low-key, equivocating announcement like you recommend would’ve been simply ignored. A bombastic boast that involved no less than Putin himself has provoked attacks, true. But anything coming from Russia is either ignored or attacked. In this case Western media just couldn’t help themselves, and in doing so they amplified the message far beyond what Russia could’ve reached with her usual tools. Now millions of people know that Russia is capable of developing and manufacturing vaccines.
W
Western messaging superior? How is it then that it is what Western governments and Western media say that people have lost any belief in?
I think you are misrepresenting some things and misinterpreting others.
First, vaccine. Not only potentially life-saving anti-cancer drugs can be used w/o the standard trial cycle. Annual flu vaccines (bringing billions to Big Pharma) never go through the regular three-phase clinical trials, as normal cycle would take more than a year, rendering the vaccine totally useless. So, Russia did what everyone does every year in making a flu vaccine. BTW, flu and common cold viruses belong to the same family – coronaviruses. Calling it “Sputnik” was just trolling. Judging by the impotent rage of Western propaganda and gnashing of teeth of Big Pharma, this cheap trolling worked, maybe even better than expected.
Second, propaganda. In some ways Russia may be perceived as a weaker player in the info-wars. However, its propaganda made huge strides compared to the USSR. Besides, most Western propaganda is based on outrageous lies, “comrade Ogilvy”-style stories. If Russian propaganda stoops to that, it would lose credibility, becoming yet another breed of lugenpresse. You also implicitly assume that Russian propaganda is targeting the West. I have a feeling that it does not target the “golden billion” at all, being designed for the remaining 5/6th of the humanity: Asia, Latin America, and to some extent Africa. One can question the wisdom of that. On the one hand, the imperial patch is pretty influential in the world. On the other hand, most of it (except Japan) is engaged in self-destruction: Europe is ruining itself by the deluge of rapefugees, whereas BLMite riots in the US might turn out to be even more damaging than that. If most major cities become Detroit, the US is kaput. I don’t have reliable sources regarding the opinions in Asia and Africa, but Spanish-language (mostly Latin American) segment of the Internet is chock-full of shocking levels of glee and schadenfreude about the fact that the US mounted the worst response to covid in the world and now, to add insult to injury, has lost the race for the vaccine. About 95% of Latins assume that everything the US and its vassals say are lies and believe Russia and China (in my view, more than they deserve). So, as far as this audience is concerned, Russian propaganda beats Western every day of the week.
Third, Navalny. No sane person would believe that Russian authorities poisoned him: he was too valuable to Putin, as nobody discredited Russian “opposition” more effectively than him. One might suggest that some rogue elements in the security services did it. But Russian security services are organized in the top-down manner very strictly, so its highly unlikely that anyone there would risk Putin’s wrath for the sake of a nonentity like Navalny with the support of ~2%. What’s more, even mildly insane people can see gaping holes in Novichok narrative. Coming up with the same lie again does not speak well of Western intelligence (in both senses of the word).
I’m not talking about an equivocating statement. I’m talking about being true to the science which if you read the Lancet Vs the hype, it was: basically all it claims was Phase 1 (safety) and Phase 2 (effectiveness in producing antibodies) was completed. Phase 3 which is large scale testing including randomized testing is usually when things are shaken out. A few vaccines are already at this stage so Russia is certainly not the first to get to Phase 3.
What Russia decided – which I think is valid – that given (a) the urgency of the situation; (b) the proven vaccine platform, is to grant an temporary Emergency registration which so far has not been done in other vaccines in Phase 3.
By hyping it up before data was published and critiqued – as best scientific practices recommend – and going around saying “we’re the first” and naming it as “Sputnik” (complete with a beeping sound on the website) came across not just crass but put doubt as to whether it was rushed. Indeed Karlin’s title “Sputnik V seems to work” only after the data was published in Lancet shows the skepticism even some Russians – let alone others abroad who already have been fed a steady diet of anti-Russian propaganda – have about whether in the eagerness to be first, Russia was compromising safety and the scientific process.
Frankly if Russia really wanted to create the sane shock as the original Sputnik, then they should have had released a video of Putin (who later would have been revealed to have had two booster shots) march into a COVID-ward maskless to check on the patients.
“a PR coup would be for Putin to publicly receive the two shots” – The case of Dr. Alton Ochsner should be warning against it.
This was Salk vaccine presumably based on dead virus (unlike Koprowski’s and Sabin’s vaccines that were based on live attenuated virus) but Salk vaccine produced by Cutter Laboratories that administers their Salk vaccine to 200,000 subjects that resulted in 40,000 cases of polio must have been contaminated with live unattenuated virus.
But this in was fixed un Salk vaccine turned out to be safer than Koprowski’s and Sabin’s life attenuated virus vaccines which were more effective but more dangerous. The inoculated subjects sometime infected the not inoculated that developed the full blow polio cases as well as some inoculated. I do not know Russia’s statists that usesd Sabin’s vaccine and how many the Sabin vaccine killed people in the USSR but in Poland initially similar Koprowski vaccine in late 1950’s was discontinued and replaced with safer Salk vaccine in early 1960s. But in 1968 it was decided to use Sabin vaccine to inoculate against the virus type 3 as apparently Salk vaccine did not produce enough antibodies for the type 3 virus. That inoculation resulted in 500 case of polio in Polio in 1968.
It is interesting that Koprowski and Sabin became vaccine gurus in the Soviet Block while Salk became an American hero and savior. Both vaccines had their drawbacks and advantages. Koprowski and Sabin vaccines had a potential of transmitting immunity to offspring while Sal vaccine effectiveness was more time limited so it required booster doses (meter for Big Pharma) but it was safer as the initial tragic mishaps with Cutter Laboratories due to poor technology were fixed. However later it was discovered that Salk vaccine was contaminated with simian SV40 virus and it is speculate with some support from associative studies that it could play a role in developement of some cancers in the late stage of life.
So I doubt it would be wise for Putin being the guinea pig. OTO thought perhaps Navalny could have been the first that was administered Sputnik V on order by Putin though perhaps it was contaminated.
BTW, Koprowski, Sabin were all Jewish. The first two were born in Poland. Koprowski was go MD degree in Warsaw. There was a lot of bad blood between Sabin and Salk. Salk seemed to posses more Jewish chutzpah than the other two. This may explain why Koprowski and Sabin tried their luck in the Soviet block
Late in life Koprowski was accused by insinuation and innuendos (Rolling Stone magazine) that his trial of vaccine in Africa in 1950’s contributed to the creation of AIDS epidemic by simian virus from monkey kidneys. IIRC he won the court process against the authors and publishers but the story got traction particularly in black community as another example of bad white men trying to genocide Blacks. Now I am not sure whether the campaign against Koprowski was a apart of Operation INFECTION (see wiki) that KGB quite successfully ran by planting western media with allegation that HIV was American creation. Some Easter German scientists were quite active in that operation. Reading about it is quite instructive how in the pre-internet era fake news were planted and in what order commie friendly different publications were used until reputable MSM in the world piked it up. IIRC Indian pro-soviet outfits was used first to plant the first seeds of the dis-info which is no different for Covid-19 when two Indians were the first to publish a paper that Covid-19 contained HIV sequences in 2020. In the ear of interns the it was picked up within 24 house. It so much easier to be a psy-op officer in FSB than in was for KGB officers in 1980s;
The Vaccine Origin of the 1968 Epidemic of Type 3 Poliomyelitis in Poland (Virology 278, 42–49 (2000))
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0042682200906147
“The epidemic started after small-scale trials with Sabin 3 and USOL-D-bac (USOL) live-attenuated vaccine strains had been completed.”
You are right that flu vaccines which are modified year after year don’t go through the same cycles but everyone recognizes this is different since the platform for flu vaccines don’t change (if they did, there would be a 3-phase cycle) and the expected genetic changes (based on statistical and field research) are minor. (Incidentally the influenza virus is NOT a coronavirus – they don’t even belong in the same phylum (let also class, order and family of viruses). Most common cold viruses are rhino viruses but three of them are indeed coronaviruses.)
I’m not sure of the impact of Russian propaganda vs Western propaganda in Latin America and Africa. I can say this: in many countries in Asia, even those that have a friendly relations with Russia (eg India, Indonesia, Philippines ), I have been shocked as to how many educated (I’m talking PhDs in hard sciences in some cases) have the casual view that Russia is a “communist” country and Putin is appointed by a Politburo. Go to any airport and you see the Economist, Newsweek and other Western propaganda outlets. While in many countries, RT is available in the hotel (as is CGTN), local English channels invariably quote the BBC, CNN etc. Of course elites all over the world usually read Western material – being “knowledgable” is reading the Economist, NYT, WSJ – but the non-elites don’t really follow international news much anyway (like in any country). So I’m unsure as to what international audience Russia is hoping to appeal to with its grand announcements on Sputnik V.
Finally, I agree that it seems bizarre that the Kremlin would want to poison Navalny (that’s why I wrote “makes no sense”) and it is far more plausible that Western intelligence planted the Novichok (certainly they have not only the means but a much stronger motive). But it’s unclear to me what Russia is hoping to achieve with its statements about Germany not following the protocol and so on. Who are they trying to impress? When a bully beats up on you, and you say I’m going to take the high road, it’s only in the movies that it works. In the real world it only encourages the bully to beat you up more.
When Germany announced Novichok and demanded Russia explain itself, Russia should strongly counter with it being Germany to explain how they found Novichok when Navalny was free of that when in Russia. They should demand the OPCW verify its own samples in a neutral lab and then demand chain of custody in Germany. In other words, instead of playing legal games, Russia should shoot back with both barrels. Indeed that’s what an innocent party would do. Ultimately a Russian citizen appears to have been found poisoned with Novichok is a foreign country – instead of being on the defensive, Russia should be the one demanding answers, not requesting paperwork.
Most vaccines will likely work because Covid isn’t a real disease. They will just say that the people are now immune or whatever. As long as everyone gets their vaccine fix every year. And Big Pharma makes Big Bucks.
If you’re too dumb to understand than all this is fake and mostly just for money then I’m sorry for you.
Really, when else there has a pandemic where healthy people without any symptoms had to be quarantined and locked inside? Why is everyone wearing masks that are useless when one’s asymptomatic, or, more exactly, has no disease at all?
Requesting paperwork is the Russian version of “no comment”.
The messaging is effective but comes at the cost of destroying trust in all institutions. There was a reason is was once taboo to run IO against your own populace, it would work, but at great cost.
2 years would be enough to have the vaccine make sense. It would be wonderful news.
Whatever happens, thank god for different countries, sovereignty and genuine diversity in this world.
LOL….It’s like your reading my mind, anticipating my next move, because my next comment was going to be angrily directed against Karlin and mentioning the fact that as a great country ,Russia is further proving itself and successfully developing a vaccine…as nothing countries like Poland are nowhere, a complete irrelevance on issues like this, doing nothing on coronavirus. I was specifically going to mention Poland – permanent parasites and a more than large enough population and culture to justify criticism on why they are non-entities on coronavirus vaccine and everything else .
I am a fan of yours and of Poland, so as a gesture of goodwill I am going to share something I read in western media showing Poland’s incredibly strong soft power skill:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8701177/Lorry-driver-jailed-12-years-police-1-25million-heroin-inside-delivery-CRISPS.html
Enjoy!
Some people are just too dumb to live. Some even believe that BoJo and other “world leaders” (i.e. theatre actors) actually had “Covid” (whatever the heck that really is, besides the presence of some RNA strands proven by a “test”). I ain’t taking no vaccines, Russian, Western or Chinese.
Typical ridiculous, anti-patriotic “thinking” from the world of Karlinistan.
Having hospitals and schools operate as freely and safely as possible is essential for the Russian economy, Russian health and Russian families . 10’s of millions of directly and indirectly connected jobs do not function if kids can’t be at school during the day and the health system collapses. Before mass vaccination starts these two sectors, together with key officials, receiving the registered vaccine are essential – as is not wasting their time too much with the usual demands from phase 3 trial.
Early registration is not “Russian propaganda” but was to allow doctors /medical staff and teachers to be vaccinated voluntarily , receiving a vaccine that is 100% proven safe, but not fully proven as effective against immunisation( though they are confident it will)……so that the first part of the new school year will not be interrupted too much when the anticipated second wave of coronavirus arrives( aligned with the usual flu season) …..and that hospitals will not be shutting down as at least the staff in schools and hospitals should be healthy. This is perfectly logical and common sense move to do as Phase 3 is not completed
Acceleration is because of:
As ( and they said this at the beginning), mass vaccination can’t start until phase 3 is completed at the start of next year – there has been no misdirection by the authorities on the development of the vaccine.
Russia never said it was the first vaccine you dummy…. they said it was first REGISTERED. Sure there was national pride ,but noone was saying other countries were doing nothing – only criticising their administration processes – not their physical development of a vaccine. One of their first statement of Russian authorities when accused of hacking was noting that they had at an early stage signed an agreement with British company/University to produce UK coronavirus vaccine
and LOL…..Kirill Dmitriev must be the last likely candidate for chief architect of any “Russian propaganda effort” . As head of russian Direct Investment Fund he is chief administrator for the development of this vaccine . Look at his record- perhaps the most liberal faction, westernised, probable- favoured type of guy for the west to unite round as candidate to take over the “Russian occupation government” man on the planet you could find. Instead of focusing on fact this guys endorsement is very positive evidence…..you prefer to act like a fool.
I would not be surprised , in line with their schizo, hypocritical pseudo-nation nonsense……if Banderastan start naming statues and buildings after him as they do with Sikorsky LOL.
Look up the aidsorigins.net website for more details on the Oral Polio Vaccine hypothesis for the origin of AIDS. It’s an eye opener. There is a good documentary on the subject accessible via this site.
Its clear that this hypothesis was suppressed by the scientific community in favor of the natural origin of AIDS, in a similar way to the suppression of any non-natural origin theory for Covid-19 today. After all if Big Science has just murdered 30 million people and counting by a medical mistake then it’s a certainty it’s going to be swept under the rug.
You can be certain that if the Russian vaccine works, and the Western vaccine doesn’t, we will be injected with the Western vaccine.
There is a good article on the Nalvany Novichok on the ‘Dances with Bears’ website.
I am not a virologist or epidemiologist, so I don’t know much about anti-viral and other vaccines. As I understood the announcement of Gamaleya institute, for their covid vaccine they used the same platform as for the effective Ebola vaccine before. They used this as an argument why the full trial cycle can be skipped.
As to Navalny, whatever Russia says would be blocked out by the globohomo propaganda machine that dominates Western media, so there was no point in saying it for that audience.
I also often feel that Russian propaganda is not aggressive enough, and the only explanation I can come up with that that they deliberately gave up on the “golden billion” (apparently expecting the Empire and its fiefdoms to implode w/o their help), and target virtually exclusively the 5/6th of the humanity that is not in the imperial patch. I know that a lot of educated people in the third world buy into libtard propaganda, and I think Russian and Chinese authorities wrote them off as a loss and target the rest. I might be wrong, though: I never held any official position in a state apparatus of any country (as a matter of fact, I am proud of it).
I agree. Money talks. In the Empire-dominated West, nothing else does. I always tell students that pharmaceutical and weapons companies are in exactly the same business: making money. Neither care whether you live or die.
Understood. That’s what I’m questioning.
To recap the logical possibilities:
1 Navalny was poisoned by “Novichok” In Russia
A) with direct knowledge/orders of the Kremlin
B) by a rogue group outside of the control/knowledge of the Kremlin;
C) by Western agents infiltrating into Russia (or Russians paid by Western intelligence)
or
A) direct knowledge/orders of Western leaders;
B) rogue/autonomous groups within Western intelligence;
(I’m discounting aliens and other such scenarios)
The Kremlin should by now have a clear idea given they have Navalny’s bloodwork whether or not it shows “Novichok”. In other words whether they did it or not, they for sure know 100% about whether it is 1A or 1B/C or 2.
If it is 2, one would expect they would come out all guns blazing (as indeed the West is). They should be demanding answers from Germany as to how Novichok got introduced in Germany vs a “no comment”. It is unclear to me what they hope to gain with a “no comment” in this scenario since they are being painted as guilty when in fact it is the other party.
This “no comment” implies either 1A or 1B/C both of which reflect badly on the Kremlin. 1A implies that the Kremlin for unfathomable reasons decided to harm Navalny (and if they did they should certainly be held criminally responsible) and then botched it allowing the evidence to be flown out; 1B/C implies a massive failure in Russian intelligence agencies. It also doesn’t explain how docs in Russia allegedly did not find any traces of poison.
Given that the number of people who know 100% what happened to Navalny is a small circle, the rest of us can only surmise the truth by the reactions of all the parties.
And so far the German leadership is reacting exactly like one would expect if it was 1A (or perhaps 2B) and so is the Russian leadership (as I said above even if it was 2B, Russia would be demanding whether there were rogue Western intelligence agencies running around without knowledge of elected officials).
Also damning for the Russian leadership is that they don’t seem to have a proper anticipatory response to either 1A or the high probability of 2. So sheerly from a propaganda/PR point of view, Russia doesn’t seem to have any sense of strategic planning/messaging and have ceded first movers advantage in the information space to the West and now on the defensive.
Great comment but I must disagree with this:
It’s typical russian mentality to view successful Sputnik mission as great symbol of peace and a triumph of general humanity ahead of nationalist aspect. That is why they chose it as name for the vaccine. For western padeophile anti-Russians it may be “provocative”…but anything other than naming it after Kara-Murza of Browder would be “provocative” for these freaks – they are only projecting how they would do it. Of course “Sputnik” indicated national pride, in an entirely normal, non-provocative way only in conjunction with the general humanity aspect.
Anyway, why shouldn’t we be proud of it? – nobody wants an idiotic, hypocritical and laughably schizophrenic situation towards these issues as in Banderastan – which is ironic because I am sure that in the fake world of them developing a vaccine, among the population of Ukraine, Sputnik would probably be the favourite name to give it – for the normal Ukrainians it is a great Russian-world achievement for world civilisation….for the retard Banderite freaks they can try and claim (LOL) that is is “ukrainian” achievement in the way they do for people like Sikorsky…as the “Ukrainian” nationalist heroes story is filled with freaks, failures and nothing positive.
It was much appreciated in Russia that Armstrong chose the words he did – not some usual Yank loudmouth garbage, and Russians overall relate positively and respectfully to American achievements in space.
Our logo for the 2018 FIFA world cup was also an image created referencing Sputnik and our Soviet space achievements – probably for the same reasons I stated above. Was this “trolling”? No sane person thought it then…and nobody should think this now.
Don’t forget that even a vaccine needs advertising and branding to go with it. Sputnik is an iconic, recognisable around the world, aesthetic/elegant image and name . I would agree with Ludwig that the “V” is ugly, but calling it Sputnik is excellent. I also assume it’s a registered trademark name Russian government has ownership over.It’s common sense to choose it. What else could we name it? We have so many famous , renowned people over history that it creates a big argument over who not to name it after….and the image, recognition and name are perfect for promotion.
The vaccine name “sputnik” is trolling mostly because of the way it worked. The name is appropriate, but it was clearly chosen to bait “exceptional” and “indispensable” bullshitters. It certainly did, which shows that it was chosen right.
Bullshitters are clearly furious: not only they mounted the worst in the world response to covid, they also lost the race for the vaccine. Double whammy for the globohomo.
The Western propaganda is full throttle going with the narrative “Navalny was poisoned, so Nord Stream 2 must be halted”. It is clear that this hoax is used as a tool to attack Nord Stream 2. The facts doesn´t matter. The conclusion is that Russia should speed the turn to the East and detach from the West as far as possible.
Russia is doing just that, to be in a position to tell European hypocrites “we don’t have any more natural gas or oil for you”. But that would take 5-10 years, and Putin does not want to depend on China for the investments needed during this period. That’s my personal interpretation of his policy, which may or may not be correct.
Without repeating all the logical possibilities in my previous post, here’s my point quite simply. If it was indeed a hoax (ie scenario 2 above), the Kremlin should be faulted for:
(A) not reacting to it more aggressively because they know they are innocent (they have Navalny’s bloodwork in Russia though again the mystery of what did happen to Navalny – a natural, diabetic shock? – is still unresolved)
(B) not anticipating that this is precisely what would happen once Navalny was in Germany.
Either the Kremlin doesn’t care about European public opinion as being further painted as ruthless murderers, getting sanctioned and its economy getting impacted – which is a mistake – or they do care but helpless to anticipate it out of sheer incompetence in intelligence; prevent it because of the weakness of the Russian state (for example it cannot protect its citizens abroad from being snatched by the US from virtually any location in the world outside a small set of countries); react appropriately to it through sheer incompetence in PR.
Keep in mind what‘s next: the OPCW – which has been corrupted and is essentially now part of NATO – will confirm ”Novichok” and use its powers to blame Russia for use of Chemical Weapons. Things can only get worse for Russia.
Putin seems increasingly helpless to direct events and seems to have resigned himself to reacting (poorly) to whatever is thrown at him. There doesn’t seem to be a strategic foreign policy direction apart from statements about a multi-polar world even as the US is aggressively trying to prevent that from happening.
Moving to further consolidate ties with a China is itself fraught with risks as China has its own long term agenda and its alliance with Russia is one of convenience till it surpasses Russia in development standards and military prowess. Russia is a source of raw materials for China and a market for its consumer technologies. In addition forums like BRICS, SCO, RIC are fairly fragile with India and China – both of whom have good ties with Russia – increasingly at each other’s throats. (If Russia – with its scientific and military power; China with its demographics and increasingly technological prowess and India with a huge potential market and bigger soft power in the West, are firmly allied, they would be a formidable force but unfortunately the tensions between China and India – which as late as Dec 2019 seem to have drawing closer and more aligned – seem to have a reached a point of no return with India attempting to decouple from China).
Russia is aware of this danger and works to eliminate it. Indian and Chinese defense ministers have very recently met in Moscow and their common statement suggests that they resolved their differences and agreed on de-escalation in border conflict. I think that couldn’t have happened w/o strong Russian pressure (hence meeting in Moscow).
I agree about weaker than expected PR response. Putin could and should have been more assertive.
How much does it matter? For every real poisoning/assassination there’s another 10 made up ones. How is the average person supposed to distinguish between real events and fantasy narratives like say Russia massacring all their doctors? Both are told and presented as real and neither is allowed to have anyone doubt it. There are news of supposed Russian assassinations on the Reddit frontpage what, every month? Why would this have any effect on public opinion when these things supposedly already happens all the time anyway?
Russians seem to associate their vaccine with national pride, but if the Oxford vaccine is successful and effective I have no doubt that there will be no British national pride associated with it. It will be solely Oxford’s achievement, not an achievement of the British people generally.
Oxford University is a globalist institution, it’s only British in the sense that it happens to be physically located in a British city. Also, British scientists and academics generally seem to be unpatriotic types, the last people to be jingoistic about their achievements in a nationalist sense.
I wish this country capitalised on the national pride aspect of these achievements more, like Russia does.
Why don’t you? Why did you import backward savages in droves and let them rape hundreds of your teenage girls for many years? Why did you let Indian (in fact, North Indian and Pakistani) cuisine replace the English one? In fact, the most English food I had in the UK was in Edinburgh many years ago, whereas more recent dinner for the invited speakers at the British Pharmacological Society meeting was in Indian restaurant. You guys had a country to be proud of. You had Shakespeare, Dickens, Joyce, and countless other writers and poets. Yet subservience of your elites to the globohomo made the UK formerly great formerly Britain. Shame on you!
Johnson already did that. It didn’t end well.
You can still eat faggots and peas in most cafes in indoor markets. Ham and parsley sauce (with boiled potatoes) too. Roast pork and 3 veg? Mind you, the women who run the cafe in my local market are Thai. Market Cafes are rather working class. The BPS might not favour the ambience.
One problem is that all the above include some element of real meat (or least minced liver from a butcher). A Greggs’ pasty is mostly carbohydrate. Indian and Chinese have a high ration of carbs and veg to any meat content and the meat is cheap. So more traditional (less fattening) food is also a bit more expensive. The modern working class goes to Greggs. Office clerks to Costa Coffee.
I love meat (in a broad sense, including fish and the rest of seafood – any animal flesh). Where can you get kidney pie, or pork pie, or other things you read about in classical English literature?
BTW, living in the US made me appreciate working class, as they tend to be normal, whereas “educated” libtards are crazy freaks. So, I am not a snob.
Oops, should be aidsorigins.com.
Name checks out.
I may be dumb, but I least I never said that corona would “kill millions and wreck the world economy”. Well, I guess he was sort of right about the second part… Only it wasn’t “corona” that did it, but the “fight against corona”.
Seriously, besides what the media says, where is the visual, practical evidence that “masks work”? That the tests are reliable? That there is a real dangerous pandemic going on? I met exactly two people who supposedly tested positive for corona, and had mild symptoms, not too different from a flu. Beyond that, I see zero evidence for the need of locking healthy people at home for months and ruining thousands of businesses. Here’s a victim of “Covid”:
https://www.affaritaliani.it/cronache/firenze-si-uccide-nel-suo-ristorante-aveva-paura-di-un-nuovo-lockdown-690815.html
I don’t know about other countries, but I think that the attitude of most British people is building up to a second wave much worse than the first.
The general consensus here now seems to be that the virus doesn’t exist, or is something very minor. Social distancing has completely vanished, no one wears masks other than where they’re legally forced to, like in shops or on public transport, and even then they immediately remove them when no longer obliged to wear them, and a significant number still don’t wear them at all.
Throughout August the government also had this stupid scheme where they contribute up to £10 of the bill per person in restaurants on certain days of the week, to encourage people to pack into restaurants and potentially spread the virus even more.
In addition to this “bloc parties” and raves have been taking place across the country with such frequency that the police are struggling to do anything about it.
I’d say the general attitude towards coronavirus precautions in this country is bad. If anything there is now significant social pressure not to observe the precautions. The very small minority still observing social distancing, wearing PPE, etc, are seen as fools and regarded with contempt by most in my opinion.
As I see it, if he’s in a coma then his wife has control on wanting to move him to a different hospital or even that of another country, if that other country allows it. I don’t know the rule at all…. but that’s what I’m assuming.
Worst thing would be the freakshow created if Navalny’s team go to court in Russia to demand his release to Germany. It would create this circus for dishonest Western media to try and enbarrass russia.
Let’s not forget that Germany opened their borders not to Russia, but just this Russian since the time of the virus. This is perfect PR for Russian authorities domestically, and hugely self-discrediting for Western institutions from the view of russians – always favoring Soros trash / Chechen terrorists for this type of thing.
As for the hospital in Omsk, these guys have worked hard and very competently to save this POS’s life ( if there was actually anything wrong with him LOL ). Not only could they be annoyed at the false, lunatic, libelous allegations coming from Navalny’s team….. they also want the hospital to function normally which is a problem if Navalny is there….. so they also want to release him.
These factors make it understandable decision to release him to Germany.
Where we have gone wrong in diplomacy is not immediately reminding German swine of the Nazi’s and use it to question their moral right to place any sanctions on Russia, ever. They should make it clear they will impose sanctions if Navalny is used in the Germans favourite national activity- the snuff movie.
From the perspective of Navalny/liberast team it would be a disaster if a Felgengauer situation develops. She is a libtard “journalist” on radio at Ekho who nearly was stabbed to death by an Israeli, schizophrenic nuclear physicist…… but was saved by quickest big city ambulance response team on the planet in Sobyanin’s Moscow, saved by “the regime” doctors using the equipment at “Putin’s hospitals”. Professionally, it would have been better for her career to have got killed or at least paralysed. Making a full recovery from a very serious attack, because of Russian system contradicts alot of her BS and is a huge embarrassment.
There have been several bilateral meetings at the military level with one at the National Security Advisors level between India and China with gradual de-escalation prior to the Moscow SCO meetings where the Indian and Chinese Defense Ministers met on the sidelines. This meeting did not really achieve anything other than both affirmed that diplomacy was key while asserting neither would cede “an inch of their territory”. China continues to blame India 100% for the crisis.
On the ground tensions remain – there was a firing incident just in the past 24 hours and things have again become heated. A Foreign Ministers meeting under the SCO auspices is expected to be more useful.
The situation as it stands now is that neither India or China wants or can afford a serious conflict. India is weaker militarily and economically, but China – under severe pressure from the US – doesn’t want to lose India completely and make it an implacable enemy from the cautiously neutral stance just months ago with China investing in Indian companies and markets. (While India is poorer than China, that fact along with a younger population – median age is around 27 – and a burgeoning middle class of over 600 million people (at least prior to the coronavirus impact) gave China (and the rest of the world) a potentially large runway for expansion over the 2030s including improving India’s poor infrastructure.
But Indian public opinion seems to have changed considerably after the deaths of the 20 soldiers at the border. The Indian Govt unable to react militarily (it would get crushed or at the least lose more than China) has resorted to assymetric measures from the petty (banning apps) to the serious (banning Chinese investments in key sectors like infrastructure and raw material supplies) calculating short-term losses could be made up in the long term, with China protesting loudly that such moves are self-defeating since India would suffer more economically than China.
The core difference seems to be that for India, the less powerful country, peace and return to the status quo of last year at the border is a prerequisite for deeper ties. For China it’s the other way around where border issues can be resolved once India builds deeper ties with China.
Indian analysts surmise that China’s increasing assertiveness at the disputed border building up permanent infrastructure and staging wargames from earlier this year is a response to closer Indian-US defense ties which from India’s point of view is insurance against what it sees China’s surrounding India with strategic bases from Pakistan to Sri Lanka. Chinese analysts meanwhile – who adhere closely to the Chinese Government line while Indian analysts come from across the spectrum – is that India is being sucked into the US war on China which India – which prides itself on non-alignment and an independent foreign policy and for example have resisted US calls to decouple from Russia and indeed doubled down on their ties while also pursuing ties with the West – resent as being too glib and condescending.
My belief is that the Rubicon has been crossed and India and China have few areas of commonality (joint opposition to various US tariffs is one) and have entered their own Cold War separate from the one being waged by the US on China (and Russia).
Russia might assist in preventing things from getting worse, but traditionally Russia is loathe to interfere in China-India disputes and indeed both countries have indicated that they don’t need outside help both loathe to admit any weaknesses in not being able to solve issues on their own. It would be as unwelcome as India offering to mediate between Russia and US/Europe. It’s also not Putin‘s style to push – as discussed he seems to be playing an altogether defensive game waiting for events to unfold before making a counter.
If this was chess, Putin seems more resigned playing black for a draw rather than an aggressive White for a Win in a style more reminiscent of Karpov than Kasparov (for those old enough to remember). And we know how that ended…
When will Karlin admit that his neurotic/weakling personality and low- T led to him hyperventilating over a non-existent virus and shilling for the NWO agenda. Inadvertently, I hope.
AK: Hi Rolo, so sorry Anglin no longer has need of your buttboy services.
For several years after Sputnik, “sputnik” was the generic UK name for what’s now called a “satellite”, used in media as well as in everyday conversation.
Then suddenly the TV and radio started using “satellite”, and the original name slowly disappeared.
I’ve always assumed some kind of government diktat was behind this change.
There’s a couple of key differences in the latest accusation.
The alleged poison used is widely acknowledged as a nerve agent and Chemical Weapon. Forget the logical questions as to how if this poison is so dangerous it (a) doesn’t manage to kill anyone or (b) harm anyone else, the fact is that it’s a CW. And there are international laws prohibiting the use of CW (as opposed to say strychnine).
By making this accusation, Merkel crossed a line where it cannot retreat. It can’t accuse the Russian Govt or using a CW against “the leader of the opposition” and then go back to business as usual. Serious repercussions must inevitably follow.
A huge part of a Foreign Ministry of any country is its outreach and of its ambassadors posted abroad in the host country to painting a favorable picture or at least disseminating the point of view of its government. Failure to have a coherent response is a failure.
I have seen no coherent response from the Russian Government and worse no evidence of a preparation or anticipation of one to a fairly predictable accusation. As I said whether the Kremlin did it or it was framed, there should have been a coherent response planned.
It could be both a combination of sheer incompetence of how modern messaging works and/or an admission of total defeat (as you seem to indicate) in the information space where the Russian Govt has decided it’s in a zugzwang – to use a Chess analogy where any move you make leads to hit losing – and kept a low key response.
Interesting. I did not know that before.
Ironic also, because “satellite state” was the favoured western term for describing Eastern Bloc countries relation to the USSR.
I was watching a local cooking show on the tube a while back and the subject included the various authentic French dishes one could have at an upscale Scottsdale, AZ French restaurant. The owner and head chef and his wife being interviewed were both French. When the interviewer asked the chef what his go to food was, he admitted that he really enjoyed eating American style bar-be-cue ribs, so you see you’re not alone in having these carnivore preferences. 🙂
A good juicy burger certainly hits the spot sometimes, especially if smothered in sauted mushrooms and onions.
The bakers shop Greggs, on most high streets, sells these things but they are bakers so there is a lot of pastry. So do the very few surviving small chains of bakers. Small private butchers often have family recipies that they sell. Butchers, naturally, tend to use more meat. We have two in my town, 40,000 people. Most people buy solid cardboard from the supermarket for convenience.
Gerard, how many sock pockets to you indeed own? Split personality, or what gives? 🙂
Find this thread on Twitter and follow it. It doesn’t use the term Farr Curve but it explains it brilliantly. There is no escape. Managing a route to some level of Herd Immunity is the only option right now.
https://twitter.com/PCOwen_a/status/1302607165702668288?s=20
Cosmanaut to Astronaut too. It was US terminology used to obscure Soviet acheivements. The usual convention is that the first comer gets to name stuff.
Oh. An the collective noun for sheep is a flock not a herd but never mind.
It doesn’t replace all the English cuisine. In Great Britain, “native English cuisine” is fashionable as served in hipster/luxury restaurants and hotels.
For the more expensive ($50 per person) kind of restaurant, then there can be found restaurants with English cuisine, and it can be good.
But in the lower price categories of restaurant, then the Polish, Chinese or Indian restaurant is probably a better choice, and will taste better for your price.
If you are in England, and your budget is $15 per person, then it will be usually a better idea to go to the Indian, Polish and Chinese restaurant. At least you can alcohol.
The bad value for money in UK seems more with Spanish/Italian restaurants.
This kind of hyperbole is related to the English cuisine? Cheap English restaurant probably was saving costs in terms of ingredients, and less spiced food perhaps doesn’t succeed in the budget restaurant market compared to what Indians and Chinese can do with the same ingredients but more spices.
Another problem with the British food, is that if you will order the sandwich in a train station, or cinema, then it will likely be very bad in England. On the other hand, in countries like Spain, Italy and France – even sandwich from train station, might be delicious.
It’s in this kind of ordinary places’ food, where you can notice how Southern Europe has much higher standards. I think even the Indian and Chinese restaurants, are usually better tasting in Southern Europe than in Northern Europe. But I think expensive restaurants can be as good in the Northern lands as the Southern ones.
Don’t you find it suggestive that a collective noun for Christians is also a flock?
Yes, Putin’s announcement of what turned out to be a rushed approval of a vaccine by cutting procedural corners made me wonder how much we can trust the effectiveness of the new Russian superweapons that he also announced bombastically two years ago.
As for the Navalny story, you are sadly spot on. Incompetence, total lack of PR skills (and perhaps also malevolence).
Maybe they are so scared of repeating the Petrov-Borisov clownish disaster that they have opted to revert to their totally ineffectual but well-tested habit of diplomatic platitudes.
With the young hipsters’ restaurants, the traditional English recipes are often seeming to be fashionable and popular, and can be tasty.
For example, this restaurant chain of London has traditional English food on Sundays. If I remember it costs around $30 per person for that meal, before you have ordered any alcohol. British food is often promoted more in the semi-expensive hipsters’ restaurants. (For budget restaurant, I would probably recommend better usually to go to Vietnamese, Chinese, Indian, Polish, restaurants, in the UK).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei6KqXxJBuY
If Brits screwed up only their cuisine, they wouldn’t have problems they have now. They’ve managed to screw up virtually everything in their country. I can name very few things in the UK that are still enjoyable and British. One is countryside: manicured and not infected by their former colonials. The other is drama theaters in London, especially those staging Shakespeare, like the Royal Shakespeare Company. They act so well you even forget that it’s old English, every word seems natural. But as soon as you step out to the street in London, the illusion vanishes. It is only fitting that they have a Paki for mayor.
“In Great Britain, “native English cuisine” is fashionable as served in hipster/luxury restaurants and hotels.” – There is a revival of native cuisine and it can be excellent. But even in lower price restaurants English meat dishes are great. They have excellent hams and beef and their lamb dishes are the best in the world on par with New Zealand. The stereotype of bad English food that every ignoramus likes to repeat comes form the fact that England (and Scandinavian countries) after WWII followed American way of using preprocessed and canned food which supposed to me a sign modernity and progress. For some reasons France, Italy and Spain partly avoided that dead end path.
“On the other hand, in countries like Spain, Italy and France – even sandwich from train station, might be delicious.” – Mostly true but not always.
Crispy fat belly pork
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39-5ck4ZWkM
Meats, bone marrow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KBmx5WeGbI
Where is this? Makes me want to go to England again.
I don’t know, worldwide deaths are at 900k and Corona hardly seems to be totally contained yet, and the economy is reporting double digit gdp losses across the world. Mr. Karlin has never claimed to be prescient in all things, but he at least puts skin in the game by making his predictions public in a way that it can be criticized and I’d still say that he was far more right than wrong(and indeed, probably in a few weeks, he’ll be completely right).
https://twitter.com/AlexZan87/status/1240539885133537280
Or maybe it was this when it happened:
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/0D6E/production/_111383430_deaths_trend_italy_china_21mar-nc.png
Yeah, Karlin has only ever advocated lockdowns and has a total lack of creativity of other methods, which are far less disruptive:
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/lightpill/
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/masks-of-nations/
Indeed, he hasn’t mentioned that very worst thing would be an epidemic yoyo of lockdown/no lockdown/lockdown:
https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/1270042714780962817
You’re free to be dumb on your own, but when you start casting aspersions on others, that’s when your surely inevitable stupidity begins to grind upon me.
If the vaccine is any indication, then the new weapons will work too. 😉
Events indicate that incompetence more is of an issue in PR work than in the development and production of new products.
Sorry, but why the f*ck are you mentioning Polish restaurants in UK in your post so frequently and, even worse, grouping it as :
That’s like grouping in the 1990’s Claudia Schiffer, Valeriya Novodvorskaya and Cindy Crawford – it makes no sense at all.
I’m 100% sure if you asked any british person, then none of them have even heard or seen of a Polish restaurant in their country or heard ANY thing in polish cuisine. That’s is despite 1 million Poles living there!
Indian and Chinese though are clearly the two most popular type of restaurants. It’s a completely illogical thing to do – it would have been much more sensible if you had included Turkish, Italian or something like them which has some type of recognition from british people. As I understand it, Spanish restaurants there are more just small Tapas
For me, it always appeared that British people’s eating habits were the most disgusting of not just any nationality, but any species that I have ever seen. Extremely bad.
You are completely correct about Southern Europe though – going to a restaurant of any size in any small village, city, next to a train station, probably next to a refuse plant…..the food tastes and is served beautifully.
Northern Europeans tend to do a good job on desserts – having places that could almost be described as dessert restaurants ( actually there is probably one name, french in derivation that they use for them, but I can’t remember) – though for main food there, of course south european cuisine is very popular.
Interesting – did not know that. Hindus are mainly vegetarian, Pakistani’s and Bangladeshis who are Muslim , of course eat meat and operate Indian restaurants more than Indians. It could be this fact that influences any difference in Indian food taste in Northern and southern Europe – but you would have to assume that they use less spices for Northern Europe than in Spain,Italy etc which explains any difference in quality.
Wait till you find out what ‘pastor’ means
Are there many Polish restaurants? I recall seeing almost none in London, the only one I can think of off the top of my head is one preceding the current Polish immigration wave.
I agree about Italian restaurants, but I have been to some good cheap Spanish ones.
I guess utu’s video perhaps is this food market in London https://oldspitalfieldsmarket.com/ It’s a hipster market in East London. I have walked by the side when I visited that area of London, but I didn’t shop there.
And these are kind of English baked egg buns in the back – the dough inside has a light airy texture like nonsugared zavarnye bulochki or maybe croissants in terms of the texture inside.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B2Jmzdon5Pd/
I don’t know how frequent it is across different cities of the UK, but I know Polish restaurants, and it’s one of the main ones I visited and would recommend if you or your friends want to a restaurant that has low prices and a nice atmosphere.
Just always avoid Polish disco events.
Prices for ordinary Spanish restaurants of the UK seemed 2-3 times higher than in Spain. It seems more sensible to only go to Spanish restaurants when you are in Spain.
I have never been to India or China, so I can’t compare to how it tastes there. I’m not sure how well I can judge either, as I don’t like spicy food as much.
Just subjectively, the best tasting Indian restaurants I have remembered, were in Spain and Italy.
The best tasting Chinese restaurant I have ever been to, was in America. But the second best Chinese restaurant was also in Spain.
In UK/Ireland – I’ve visited the worst Chinese restaurants (it seems like more variable Chinese standards food than in Russia), and the Indian restaurants of small sample I have visited, seemed less good and more expensive than in Spain/Italy.
Well, I didn’t mean to offend anyone, but I was called “dumb” first. Actually my name is because of the elephant…
But, I’m not a microbiologist, so who knows, maybe you and AK are right.
But, simply from observation (ignoring the media and the social panic), I would say that all this to me seems pretty fake or at least exaggerated.
Best.
Where they dole out cheap homemade potato vodka instead of ecstasy and other designer made drugs? Polka music is great fun, certainly as much fun to dance to as any club or ambient music. 🙂
https://youtu.be/YzCPTsVtmAw
I have no idea if that is true or not to blame it on ‘the American way of using preprocessed and canned food’. Sounds like crap. Plenty of delicious foods can come out of a can or be preprocessed. Canning is a great thing and it’s hardly post-WWII when it is taking a back seat to refrigeration.
I will say though that honestly most of anglo US cuisine outside of hamburgers (which seem popular with everyone) has pretty much the same crappy reputation as English and Scandinavian cuisine.
Traditional Scandinavian cuisine brings to my mind a bunch of rotted fish and far from the bland reputation of England is actually kind of terrifying.
But in the puritan New England tradition especially there has long been a school of American cuisine that actually consciously rejects being flavorful as sinful.
Kellog, the guy who invented the corn flake, actually fell out with his brother over the fact that his brother wanted to make money and decided to put sugar frosting on the flakes. Originally Kellog’s intention with the corn flake and how he advertised it was that it would be a food so bland and mushy it could actually make people impotent, which he thought was a good thing. A roundhead’s idea of a good time was a permanent scowl, flavorless mush food, tea-totaling, impotency, and frequent enemas (no joke).
Generally speaking it is true, if you are in a part of the US that has not had much non-anglo immigration, the food sucks. Very bland overall.
I do like a good roast beef with horseradish though. But horseradish isn’t actually English.
Frankly, I know three good American foods: prime ribs, barbecue, and cheesecake. All three are tasty, and therefore “bad for you”.
Burger is not American-specific, and pretty poor-quality food. Nobody grinds good meat into a burger. As my American grad student rightly said, what’s ground there are “lips and assholes”. It is fairly popular because: 1) it’s cheap (for obvious reasons); 2) it contains two out of three ingredients that nature made us to perceive as “tasty”: fat and salt (the third one is sugar, as in Coke). All three things are highly over-represented in most American foods, especially cheap shit. Hence the “epidemic” of obesity, and consequent widespread diabetes and heart disease. Good for the food industry, good for the extortion racketeers posing as “health care” in the US, bad for the people (but who cares about the people in a “democracy”).
“Don’t you find it suggestive that a collective noun for Christians is also a flock?”
No. Psalm 100 verse 3.
Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOWX2-l788A
That’s exactly what I meant. I don’t know about you, but I refuse to be sheep (sheeple is what globohomo wants us all to become).
“I refuse to be sheep”
Certainly not for globohomo.
But there’s no shame in admitting one’s original sin. I think acknowledging that makes the mind clearer, and less likely to follow the sheep over the cliff face. It’s among the secular that you find those most willing to be led. A vast amount of the idiocy coming from ordinary people is the religious instinct of non-religious people. As G.K. Chesterton put it “When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.”
“Plenty of delicious foods can come out of a can or be preprocessed.” – Are you Samoan?
Preprocessed food was a sign of modernity and it was so promoted. TV dinners were bought by people who still did not have TV sets but they wanted to be seen buying them. Cookbooks were written or rather rewritten to make recipes based on packaged and can food. For some reason this propaganda campaign worked much better in the US and UK than in countries that had traditionally stronger cultural relations with food they ate like France or Italy.
You are wrong on spices. Actually rich successful countries like UK, the US and The Netherlands used a lot of spices as they were more affordable for them. After all the age of discovery was driven by desire for spices. The Dutch used a lot of expensive spices like cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and pepper which were way too expensive for common folks in Central and Eastern Europe. The wealthy countries had access to sugar and spices. At that time they didn’t care for chili peppers or cumin or coriander. Are you some kind globalist who believes that food w/o spices that darker people use does not count?
“Generally speaking it is true, if you are in a part of the US that has not had much non-anglo immigration, the food sucks. Very bland overall.” – Absolutely not true. There are many dishes still made and eaten from the time of colonial America and 19th century that are delicious. As far as being bland it is possible, that you are a victim just like Karlin of eating very hot foods like Mexican or Szechuan or Thai. Saturating your senses narrows the spectrum that you can enjoy. Just like watching too much of pervert pornography my turn you disinterested in having honest-to-God sex more than Kellog’s cornflakes ever would.
If you haven’t already, I think that you’d enjoy reading Gary Nabhan’s book of the history of his clan’s involvement in the spice and incense trade starting in the Mid-East and spreading out around the planet. He makes a compelling case that these ancient activities are the beginning of globalism rooted in humanity’s past. In any case, it’s a very interesting read interlaced with some very enticing recipes that he has collected showcasing the various spices that he writes about: 4/5****
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51rjOYlAJtL._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
Yorkshire puddings.
In the 1970’s a chef called Langam opened Langam’s Brasserie in London. Michael Caine the actor put up the money to start the place. The menu was emphatically traditional British food. It still exists. I don’t know if it still does the menu. I went there in the late 1980’s . It still did then. It is in ridiculously expensive Mayfair but I was on an expnse account.
Yes, of course, it is all lips and anuses and other things. Hot dogs too, and most sausages and all ground up or processed meats. That’s one of the reasons why you don’t want to know how the sausage gets made. They are good though, and it makes those parts edible and good that otherwise you wouldn’t want to eat. Traditionally the dogs and the sausages used intestines as casings too.
It’s also more likely to be contaminated because with a cut of meat, any bacteria will be on the surface only, but grounds meats are capable of being contaminated throughout. Generally better to make sure that stuff is cooked through, unless a fancy restaurant is making tartare from fillet and you trust it, or you have an adventurous gut.
I think dietary ideas people have are one of those things that are unconsciously religious most of the time whether people even realize they are religious or not. It boils down to purity issues. Often the supposed dietary healthfulness is determined by food being prepared a certain way, like kosher slaughter, but also not preprocessed. Or organic or gluten-free or vegetarian. Or never frozen. Or in the case of the puritans, good tasting.
It’s really been a part of American dietary sense ever since and still heavily lingers. If it tastes good, it must be bad for you, and if it tastes bad it must be good for you. That is the puritan legacy in anglo cultures.
Salt has never been shown to bad for anyone who didn’t already have heart disease or were on high blood pressure meds. People just assume it must be bad for you because it tastes good, and that idiot hispanic politician in New York tried to ban it without even knowing it’s necessary for survival. Likewise lard, lard is great and healthy for you so long as you don’t eat too much, perhaps better and certainly not any worse than vegetable shortening or oil they use now instead. A restaurant by me serves trays of lard with nuts and bacon bits in it along with the bread. Most people probably don’t realize it’s not a butter spread, but it’s really good. Same thing anyway. Perhaps better and certainly no worse than margarine.
And then sugar. The only problem with sugar (besides rotting your teeth maybe) is it’s so easy to overdo it since it’s so concentrated and refined. I don’t think it makes you any more likely to get diabetes unless you eat too many calories of it. But it’s easy to eat a lot of calories.
You are absolutely right though and striking at the blandness in American food. It’s not a bad thing per se, but it’s real. American ‘spices’ are mainly sugar, fat and salt. Salt helps accentuate the mild, weak and bland flavors by helping you taste them better. And refined sugar is generic sweetness, with no particularly interesting or unique flavors to it. It is good tasting but it is a bland kind of mass-appealing mild goodness that is typical of US foods.
On spices, to the extant the US anglo is making roast beef today, he is probably using cheese or brown gravy instead of even horseradish, or he cuts the horseradish down with mayonnaise into a sauce.
But if you get a bunch of Italian immigrants you get the greasy version of roast beef, gravy broiled beef-roast with anything like basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme, garlic, sage, coriander and pepper all at the same time. And then topped with giardiniera (pickled carrots, cauliflower and serrano peppers).
I think your history is a bit out of order. Canning was new and modern and trendy like you say when it was new, but it was new over a century before WWII and it began in France and spread to England before the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canning
And before that, there was potting in Europe which was basically the exact same thing but less effective, packing pots with meat and cooking them with a layer of wax on top to seal when it cools.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_preservation
And other methods, including traditional Scandinavian cuisine like lutefisk which is pickled in lye (!!!) and hardly fresh. Canned foods, pickled foods, fermented foods, cured meats, and smoked meats are all preprocessed foods. Those are processes that are done to the food prior to your eating them. That would also include anything that’s milled, like grains, or cultured, like yogurt or cheese. Or anything reduced, like bullion or maple syrup. All preprocessed, with some processes dating back many millennia.
The puritans had preprocessed foods.
https://www.ehow.com/info_8386670_foods-puritan-period.html
The puritans are relevant for 2 reasons, 1 they are English. They come from England and are an English phenomenon. And 2, they made their food bland on purpose.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/32042/corn-flakes-were-invented-part-anti-masturbation-crusade
These are the ancestors of the modern SJW and the progenitors of liberalism. They were always a very strange bunch.
But it’s not a post WWII phenomenon. Maybe the cavaliers or the welsh liked Indian curry but the puritans (and roundheads and levelers and whigs and the genocidal tyrant Cromwell) were always against anything good in life.
There is Italian market in South Philadelphia. At least in the 1990s when I lived in Philly, there were a number of Italian shops selling smoked pork, prosciutto crudo, sausages, and cheeses. The rule was simple: if the guys in the shop speak fluent English, their food is crappy. If they speak Italian between themselves and only broken English with customers, the food is really good. Having visited Italy twice since, I understand why.
We have records of what Puritans ate for Thanksgiving. Common items were pies: pigeon pie(probably chicken pot pie descends from this tradition), pumpkin pie, mincemeat pie, apple pie, goose, turkey, duck etc. They also ate roast beef, peas, and potatoes. Basic English cuisine. You are exaggerating by taking unrepresentative examples and making inaccurate generalizations. The 19th and early 20th century featured all sorts of bogus dietary and medical practices, none of this is unique to the Puritans.
It’s interesting you mention Cromwell because we have records of his favorite dish: eel pie. Look up the recipe yourself. It includes lemon, nutmeg, mace, butter, white wine, eggs, and crushed up anchovies. Flavoring food items with anchovies is very common in traditional English cuisine, though it’s not much favored nowadays(decline in culture). Worcestershire sauce is a modern example that people still use. Maybe those eel pie ingredients sound plain to people who like Indian slop, but sounds to me quite good.
Also any time I hear some libertarian/liberal whining about how terrible society would be without mass immigration, almost always the first thing they mention when you pin them down is how much they like some crappy ethnic food, like Indian or Mexican. It looks to me like the Puritans were more right than wrong on this matter. People who place a high priority on various luxuries are decadent scum.
Southern cuisine in the United States is also mostly based upon typical English food as well. I know because I grew up with it. Roast beef, mashed potatoes, beans and peas are staples. There isn’t that much difference. That’s why people make such a fuss over trivialities like collard greens or different ways of preparing corn bread.
Lye is used in cuisines all around the world. Filipinos make sweets with lye as an ingredient.
You seem hurt.
You accuse me of making false generalities, do you realize generalities are only suppose to be generally true? Do you think the Italians use less spices than the English in general? Or perhaps offended that I would suggest any cuisine is less flavorful than any other because all cuisines are equal and spice is a social construct?
Or are you saying that eating spicy food like lemon nutmeg eel is what caused the Lord Protector to go astray and try to genocide the Irish?
You made claims about Puritans which were exaggerated, I disputed your claims. I never said anything about quantity of spices between cuisines, or whether English food is more or less flavorful than other cuisines.
I would hardly be offended by foreigners not liking English and related cuisines since I generally don’t like foreigners. I am admittedly offended by modern day English people eating curry slop however.
Very weak trolling. You should have left it at “You seem hurt.” If Oliver Cromwell wanted to genocide the Irish he could have easily done so. Ireland was a wet, rural country with weak transport and difficult agriculture. The Irish were few in number and frequently fighting each other. The New Model Army took two cities and the Irish quickly gave up. Cromwell then left.
I am not sure if you are just arguing for the sake or argument or if you are really blinded with your hate of English and Puritans in particular that you end up giving insane rants.
Italian immigrants learned to make roast beef from Americans<–Puritans<–English. In continental Europe prior to the agricultural revolution in England that allowed to raise efficiently cattle for direct consumption people did not eat much beef. The one they have were from old milk cows which stopped giving milk. Their meat was unusable for steaks or roast beaf. In Good Soldier Svejk by Hasek there is a story of a cow like that that was sold by s Jew to Austro-Hungarian army unit and how long it had to be cooked to make it edible
It was the English who taught the world how to eat beef. And when the New World opened with expanse of prairies and pampas the beef became available even to the poor in America including Argentina and Brazil.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5lhjYzbfco
Peasants from Italy and Eastern Europe who came to America were used to diets with very little meat. Mostly poultry and some pork in winter. Most dishes were starchy with some veggies and olive oil in South or lard and butter in North. Most proteins they got were from cheese, whole grains, nuts and legumes. Most fancy looking paninis and crostini you can get in Sicily now you would not be able to find there in 19th century. Italian sandwich loaded with many layers of meats and cheese was a unknown. It came form America. Actually Boston, the Vatican of your Puritans.
That tinned food existed in 19th century it does not mean that it was consumed by the masses. The invention was for military and no self-respecting housewife of some means would use canned meat instead of fresh meat. But wars change customs and bring new habits out of necessity. Brits were conditioned by five years of strict rationing in the UK and then cheap foods were produced for them. England continued some rationing longer than most countries in Europe after WWII. People were sold on new form of foods (Chorleywood bread was invented) with advertisings to get them used to eat cheaper and worse quality than what they used to before the war and the advertising emphasized conveniences, easiness of preparation, time saving and most importantly connecting it to progress and modernity. This is the reason English eating habits were devastated in 1950s and 1960s. Once people became more affluent and began to travel they began to demand better things and the generation of hippies and then yuppies in particular put pressure on change to go back to what is natural not artificial. Already in early 1980s you could see great change in the US: Farmer's bread, good coffee, good chocholate, micro breweries and so on. The same processes happened in other countries like UK, Germany and Scandindatia. The latter are priding itself on eating all natural product of forest while still in 1970s their bread was like cotton. There is the whole amimal eating movement. Nothing is discarded or considered gross. People again find eating cheeks or lips of pig as delicious.
I have this suspicions that you are a young person and you take reality as you know and extrapolate it into the past w/o having awareness of processes that were taking place and which always are taking place for better or worse. But if I am wrong and actually you are an old fart the it means you wasted your life by remaking ignorant. Then keep on proselytizing how awful were the puritans if you can ambush some listeners though most likely they will quickly run away once they find what an awful bore you are.
The guy has some real problems with English and Puritans.
“On spices, to the extant the US anglo is making roast beef today, he is probably using cheese or brown gravy instead of even horseradish, or he cuts the horseradish down with mayonnaise into a sauce.” – When you have a good reast beef you do not need gravy or any condiments like horseradish. Roast beef is best with ‘au juice’ which is not a thickened with starchy gravy. Horseraddish in not that popular in the US and UK but it was used initially mostly by common folks and then it got more sophisticated when used on oysters which at one time were also the poor people food.
” cuts the horseradish down with mayonnaise” – This gives away your predilection and silly pride for eating hot and sharp foods which nowadays is common among young people but in olden time it was common among very poor people who had to cover up the poor quality or even spoiled meats with lots of spices to kill the bad flavor.
Go on few day fast. And then get a thin slice of good bread with sweet fresh butter and put on it few slices of thin kohlrabi or cucumber or leak and salt it. No other spices or condiments. If you are not to far gone in to excessive hot and spicy food eating habit that destroyed your taste buds you may find it being the best canapé you ever head.
I would not pair beefsteak with any horseradish condiment, but somehow with a roast or even traditionally with prime rib, it’s a tasty way to go. Slavs of course like to cut their horseradish with sweet beats for an excellent condiment for a pork sausage like krakowska – yum! But you’re right, a good cut of marbled roast beef needs nothing more than a good au jus sauce made from its own simmering juices. It’s hard to beat a fatty chuck roast simmering in its own juices and some onion soup mix that cooks for up to 6 hours in a crock pot, filled with potatos, carrots and onion halves, as many an American knows on a long and lazy Sunday afternoon.
I think that you’re a little too harsh on the “hot and spicy food eating habits” of so many people today. I suspect that you just never got into the habit of eating such foods. As a person that really enjoys the delicate tastes of mushroom infused cooking, I have to admit that about once a month I really can enjoy some good spicy Thai curry food. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of personal preference and what you’ve been exposed to.
Utu isn’t exactly big on subtlety, to put it lightly, but his point that you can overeat spicy food to the point of dulling your tastebuds is well taken. I liked his example of appreciating the taste of eggs fried in butter, as opposed to dousing them with hot sauce.
What about excess deaths, not “Corona deaths”, whatever that means?
Yeah, I know, “crickets chirping”.
Anyways, I agree with the initial Corona assesment, but persisting today, 6 months on, is either stupidity or deliberate malice.
“Utu isn’t exactly big on subtlety, to put it lightly,” – Right, even when I defend subtlety and moderation like in this case sometimes I may feel like using a fist. This is just impatience and exasperation with people who parrot worn out stereotypes w/o first hadn’t experience.
“…dousing them with hot sauce…” – America is great for barbecue ribs and brisket particuallry in the South and South-West. They have different styles. IMO the best one is when no sauce is used at any stage of barbecue-ing and the meat is basted only with some low viscosity sour juice like apple juice during a very long (6-12h) low temperature process of what is de facto smoking. Then you can really enjoy the meat which is not overwhelmed with sauce. But I would say that most Americans love to put a big dollop of thick sauce on top which might be at the same time hot, sour and sweet and with strong whiff of mesquite flavor when they eat them. In cheap restaurants and diners they just roast the ribs in high temperature quickly and slightly burn them on grill and cover them up with lots of sauce. This is cheating and great disservice to unaware customers.
“I think that you’re a little too harsh on the “hot and spicy food eating habits” of so many people today.” – Perhaps I am too harsh but I am not wrong. The trend towards laud music and laud food may lead to irreversible bad habits of living in a very narrow spectrum of senses. I do appreciate spicy foods now and then but I am irritated when somebody calls food that is not hot spicy bland and boring. I am sometimes bored watching Tom Cruise action movie as I see very early that there is no more room for upping the ante while an understated movie by Bergman could provide every second of excitement and mystery. I have watched Bergman’s “After the Rehearsal” with young Lena Olin server times in my life and still I did not figure out completely what makes this movie work so well, why is it so fascinating even though practically nothing really is happening there.
I do enjoy eating perppers and try to use use them in moderation, just to add a top note in my cooking.
When cooking up a “eggs done boy style” (яйця по-хлопськи) a kind of rudimentary Ukrainian omelet, I’ll often cut up a half of one chile pepper, cleaned of seeds and veins, and include it within the
Denver style melange that I use, for two individuals. Trying to score some points with my Mexican gardener, I told him this, and he told me that he includes two whole chile peppers every morning with his eggs, just to start the day off right! 🙂 I’ve never tried ghost or scorpion peppers, and probably never will. I also enjoy eating and tasting Slavic hot mustards, horseradish, garlic and lots of onions. All of these items and heat to your diet and are quite healthy for you, especially for your heart. Chile perppers have been known to stave off an impending heart attack:
https://www.fooddive.com/news/chili-peppers-can-reduce-risk-of-fatal-heart-attack-study-finds/569287/
I tend to agree with you. As I mentioned previously, the culinary world of mushrooms is bereft of any hot spices, and is wonderful all to itself. I perfectly well understand your preferences for a Bergman movie, perhaps with a lot of dialogue, over some “action” movie starring Tom Cruise. I went to visit a friend the other night, and we watched a James Bond Movie called “Die Another Day” and although it too was jam packed with non-stop action, I couldn’t wait for it to end because the plot was so boring and the special effects so very stupid. 🙁
” the culinary world of mushrooms is bereft of any hot spices” – True. Mycophilic cultures like Eastern Europeans know it very well but the mycophobic cultures like English Isles were introduced to mushroom more recently, particularly with the commercially grown white mushrooms and they consider them neutral and thus have no appreciation for their unique umami flavor and sometimes they mix them with lots of garlic, tomato sauce and spices which defeats the purpose. Basically they are after the texture and visuals not the unique flavor. I met quite a few Americans who hate mushrooms.
Now in the end of summer there is a season for milk caps in Europe and in North America which are one of the best fried on butter mushrooms. Some people sprinkle flour on then or even bread them but that reduces pure mushroom experience. It is time to go to forrest.
Frying up some freshly gathered mushrooms on a skillet drenched in butter, with perhaps a finely chopped onion & potato is all that is necessary for one of the best meals you’ll ever have! A nice earthy beer or a shot of your favorite libation does nothing to ruin the merriment you’ll experience amongst friends too!
https://www.threeblueducks.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Mushrooms_Social.jpeg
Beautiful milky caps (Lactarius deliciosus). They are also good marinated and salted (fermented).
In my neck of the woods (Minnesota) I’ve had the most experience in picking the mighty “honey mushroom”, they look very similar to the “milky caps” in the above photo. They’re called “pidpenky” in Ukrainian, and are also highly prized by Poles and Russians too. The time of year to collect them is right now. I was planning to be there, but have put off my trip due to the complexities of the pandemic. I’ll call my buddy who still lives there and get a report on mushrooms and fishing too. Great memories!
http://rolandanderson.se/graphics/popinki/popinki-Fred_Stevens.jpg
There are lots of edible mushroom species. Each has its unique flavor (you won’t know that if you buy mushrooms in a US supermarket). All are delicious fried in butter on a skillet, many are also great salted. You can buy dried and salted mushrooms imported from Russia in any Russian store in the US, but you need them fresh for frying. Some chopped onions fried with them further improve mushrooms. However, my student days experience says that you can enjoy fried mushrooms even when you have no onions, potatoes, or drinks – wild mushrooms by themselves are delicious, flavorful and very tasty. In sharp contrast to farmed champignons available in every supermarket in the US.
The worst stupidity in the US is over. You can travel wherever you want: all eateries and hotels are open for business. I just drove for a few days to Michigan from TN. You only need a supply of face masks, as many places want you to wear them on entering. This is particularly nonsensical in eateries: you have to take your mask off to eat and drink.
Utu, you are practically enacting my argument in your way of arguing it. You really think that those forms of Protestantism and their views on food could have had no effect on the cuisines of those cultures?
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/historical-journal/article/reforming-food-and-eating-in-protestant-england-c-1560c-1640/D338422A28435A1C2691A5F6970F96F8/core-reader
It is also no coincidence I bet that all the countries you say kept their food traditions even after WWII were the Catholic ones, and all the countries with reputations for bland or plain food are Protestant ones.
https://www.traditioninaction.org/Cultural/C007cp.htm
On the one hand you advocate plain food. Nothing wrong with that. I like plain food sometimes too. But then you are upset people notice plain food is plain and want to blame it on Americans with their newfangled modern ways of food. Newfangled scientific modern ways of food was a very protestant thing. One of the many ways the separated themselves from those superstitious and traditional catholics on the continent was with their spiffy new Victorian quack dietary science. Those Americans came from England, and the reason their American ways were received so readily in northern Protestant countries is because there American ways were from there in the first place and developed from those traditions.
Ah well. When it comes to flavorful cuisine, I will leave you to your beans on toast and continue being more impressed with bruschetta.
I think I have found the only two people in the whole world willing to seriously argue English cuisine holds up overall to Italian.
“pidpenky” – to my knowledge are sometimes brownish and can be slightly dotted. There might be several similar species. They are a bit harder than milky caps but also great.
Armillaria mellea (Honey fungus)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Armillaria_mellea%2C_Honey_Fungus%2C_UK_1.jpg
Armillaria tabescens
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opieńka_bezpierścieniowa#/media/Plik:2008-07-16_Armillaria_tabescens_cropped.jpg
IMO the best most delicate mushroom for being fried (whole caps) are Macrolepiota procera:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Macrolepiota-procera.jpg
When I was younger I used to pick them but at some point I began double guess myself and the fear of mistaking it with Amanita phalloides which is the most deadly mushroom (symptoms appear after 20 h) and only liver transplant may give you a chance of survival made me too cautious to pick them.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Amanita_phalloides_a1_%281%29.JPG
Pidpenky or Honey Caps in Minnesota:
https://foragerchef.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Honey-mushrooms-and-their-stems-small.jpg
https://foragerchef.com/sauteed-honey-mushrooms-and-their-stems/
Don’t forget about frozen mushrooms. In some stores in Europe they may have frozen porcini chanterelles, milky caps, slippery jacks, morels whole year.. They work pretty well in cooking.
“my student days experience says that you can enjoy fried mushrooms even when you have no onions, potatoes, or drinks”. – Actually some mushrooms are best w/o onions, potatoes or eggs. The ones that are delicate like milky caps or Macrolepiota procera taste the best fried by itself. Chanterelles are hard and strong and they go well with sauces, eggs and so on. Porcini are more complicated. And dried mushrooms are altogether something else. They are more like spice though some like porcini caps can be reconstituted and cooked liked fresh.
Every year some people die from poisonous mushrooms in Europe and in the US, where usually the foreigners cocky on their mushroom knowledge from the old country can be fooled with similar American species that are poisonous. I have heard of both Europeans and Asians who died the US.
In Italy people die picking porcini that grow high in mountains as sometimes to get to the one they see they slip and fall down the mountain. The sight of a beautiful porcini can’t be resisted so you take any risk. IMO the best looking porcini are from Italy. They never have any worms. This made me suspicious and I began to wonder whether they use insecticide on the areas known for porcini.
In the Northwest in the US picking mushroom can be dangerous. Professional pickers stake out the field and wait for growth defending it with guns. The most popular are chanterelles there and the most expensive (mostly for Japanese market) matsusake. More expensive than porcini which are more expensive than chanterelles.
Dried porcini emobody the deepest, mushroomiest flavor that I’ve ever enjoyed. Adding them to a cream sauce that includes other fresh mushrooms is a real gourmet treat. When I used to travel to San Diego, I used to buy a large bag of dried porcinis for about $100 in their famous “Little Italy” delis that would last me for a good year. Putting your nose close to the shrooms in the bag and inhaling the pungent aroma was an incredible sensation. I don’t remember if the boletus were from the Pacific Northwest or from Italy itself?
https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/zd7MdPsCMmzEpqBM2L-jqahgNLs=/0x0:5371×3586/920×613/filters:focal(2257×1364:3115×2222):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/66936159/June1320_31.0.jpg
FYI: In the US I have learned to eat puffballs. Few times I found puffballs the size of large cabbage. They were still young so inside they were white with a spongy texture. I cut them into 1″ slices and lightly fried on butter on both sides and then with some salt they have this lightly nutty flavor. Actually you can eat them as a dessert with a little bit of, say, raspberry syrup and you can eat them like a pudding. Unusual culinary experience. Puffball with maple syrup should could be a quintessential American desert. BTW, the puffballs called by American settlers cabbage heads were commonly eaten also by Protestants (Lars Porsena should incorporate this fact into his bizarro universe).
Supposedly puff balls have 7,000,000,000,000 spores. But they are rather rare.
Countries in northern Europe all have a reputation for bland food. No one is going to argue Irish food is known for strong, exotic flavors compared to the rest of the British Isles.
Utu I was pleasantly surprised to see you revealed as kitchen connoisseur and cinephile.
You shouldn’t dislike Russian culture so much, if you are a fan of Bergman films (which can have something similar to Russian soul), and mushrooms are also included even in Russian cuisine.
I’ve been trying to work through watching of a Bergman boxset this summer, although I didn’t reach to this one you discussed yet.
For most 21st century viewers, I am sure Bergman’s films often present multiple problems, which make them dislike or unable to enjoy watching them.
Some have just slow pace (e.g. Seventh Seal, Serpent’s Egg, Fanny and Alexander), while others are also very claustrophobic in terms of their sets, and ambiguous and strange in their meaning (Shame, Passion of Anna, Persona, Hour of Wolf), and some also included cruelty to animals in their filming (Serpent’s Egg, Passion of Anna).
But I would say that Bergman is such an “acquired taste”, that can become enjoyable, and his films can become a relaxing and meditative experience if you are in a receptive mood.
Densensitization to sublety of flavour in food, could be seen as analogy to our loss of attention span for old films such as those of Bergman.
I’m not sure that dislike of Bergman films is fully analogous to peoples’ taste being damaged by spicy food, as Bergman’s films are not just a question of slower pace (requiring longer attention span), but also he includes a lot of ambiguity of meaning in his films. I have less tolerance for their ambiguity of meaning, and preferred Bergman films where there is a clear resolution of film’s meaning by its end like Serpent’s Egg or Seventh Seal.
I dunno? I guess the lowly puffball needs to be taken more seriously. Maybe it’s the organic maple syrup that elicits these gastronomic & epicurean delights, Utu? In the film version, it says that it’s “explicity erotic”??. 🙂
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eS5vgjza5tA/WLDBe_gHyoI/AAAAAAAAG_o/yWcF3sK8_94v0v2ZwHW7cIAsvqjF4Kc8ACLcB/s320/puffball1.jpg
Perhaps a picturesque and carnival like Fellini film is the antidote to Bergman’s monotony and stillness? Sort of like a Thai curie dish compared to a bowl of plain oatmeal*?
https://c8.alamy.com/comp/2AW60A1/1960-italy-the-usa-poster-advertising-for-the-italian-movie-la-dolce-vita-1960-by-federico-fellini-with-marcello-mastroianni-yvonne-furnea-2AW60A1.jpg
*I always dress up my oatmeal with some raisins and nuts, honey or brown sugar.
Yes I have eaten wild puffballs. My grandfather use to pick them in the forest with us and fry them. But only in butter. Just puffball and butter.
If you blow your tastebuds out on maple syrup you probably won’t be able to taste the puffballs anymore and you’ll end up like Jordan Peterson.
Irish food is an outlier. 1 does not prove a rule. You should read the Cambridge article. You think the dietary views of protestant reformers could not possibly have effected the cultural cuisine? They themselves would have disagreed with you.
In my experience, all nuts (except peanuts) improve cereal: walnuts, pine nuts, cashews, almonds, even Brazilian nuts (they are too big, though, need to cut them into pieces). But as far as berries go, raisins are probably the least interesting. Dried cranberries, blueberries, mango, or papaya do the job much better. With these you don’t need honey or sugar.
“You shouldn’t dislike Russian culture so much”. – I like Russian (high) culture very much. Russian culture made more for Russia and Russia’s image than anything else all the other Russians did. I just don’t like when some Russians start talking about their grandiose Panslavic shit. I knew many Russians and some were my friends. All of them were educated but what I sadly discovered was that when I tried to connect with them via Russian literature they were dismissive. They did not seem to appreciate how great works of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Bulgakov or Solzhenitsyn were or at least not as I did. Instead they concentrated on personalities and flaws of authors’ characters while somehow missing the universal and often profound truths that their work contained. It seems as if Russian writers wrote for foreigners not for Russians who are lost in their political squabbles and can transcend them to recognize for instance the greatness of Solzhenitsyn’s novels. Perhaps those great Russian writers were not really Russian. They became human leaving Russian rabble with their squabbles behind.
I have a great debt of gratitude to Tolstoy. Once I was seriously sick at the brink of losing hope and his War and Peace sustained me during that time. It is a book about the goodness of people. There was a time in my life that I liked Tolstoy take on Christianity and I was glad that he had such impact on so many people including Gandhi and Wittgenstein. The latter even used Tolstoy template for a form when writing his Tractatus.
As far as music I am not well equipped to judge but I like Russian classical music less than German, Czech, French or Italian. Russian music too often comes as bombastic, triumphalist and sentimental at the same. It make you feel triumphant and makes you cry out of pity for yourself. A music for cruel sentimental people.
And films, I liked many Russian and Soviet films. WWII Soviet films were to me more palatable than American films. Both were based on lies but Soviet lies sometimes had universal spiritual dimension.
Serpent’s Egg. – IMO the worst Bergman’s film.
To get into the Swedish mood of Bergman I would watch some adaptation of Strindberg’s play “Miss Julie”.
Also I recommend reading Bergman’s “The Magic Lantern”.
His points are about contemporary British and American cuisine and their eating habits – which are of course a disgrace. Your points, though admittedly well informed on cuisine and interesting, are creating a totally different argument based on the post-spice route, mostly victorian-era ingenuity in their cuisine – which has no connection to what Lars was arguing.
This is like an analogy with football. South American, particularly Argentine, football got it’s clever, elegant, ball-on-the-ground style from the inspiration of watching the British footballers who went over there in the 19th century and inspired them to play the game in that style.
British football today is dumb, physical ,aerial, frentic,neanderthal with no thought to it. Actually, all the Anglo teams are like that. It has no connection to the style of football that is part of the identity of much of South American football ( although the South Americans can claim the extreme violence on the field as entirely their own creation)
It makes me very disappointed that a genius and dedicated coach as Valery Lobanovsky does not have multiple European Cup wins – but some dumb, cretin Anglo coach with not even 1% of Lobanovsky’s coaching and tactical talent , has many .
Anyway this analogy with football encapsulates my point.
A person cursed with an idée fixe suffers from a serious epistemological disfunction. He goes through life picking bits and pieces of facts and factoids and collects them in a special bag if they confirm the preconceived bias he holds. This bag becomes a library in his very own university that serves only him as a self made village philosopher or historian or ethnographer or whatnot. He remains trapped in it just because the initial assumption that created his idée fixe was wrong. He does not question whether some other factors could have been more responsible. No, he knows the cause a priori.
In your case you have created this Protestant-Catholic dichotomy and try to fit everything to it with a caveat that if something is bad it must be because of Protestantism. I am not here to defend Protestantism; I am just questioning your biases and faulty methodology that lead you astray and turned you into a fool.
Obviously Protestntism had impact on many aspects of life and culture but the cuisine in Protestant countries owes more to Northern climate and to relative affluence than to ideology. The same goes for Catholic countries which in by 18th century were much poorer and like Italy and Spain had warm climate that allowed to grow vegetables year round. And people were on constant search for substitutes for meat proteins that they did not have. Because of that they were inventive like hunter gatherers of Amazonia. These patterns got established and they remain only because the affluence came there late and relatively recently. If in 19th century Italians had access to meat as Brits had their cuisine would be much less diverse. Why would you eat a piece of flat bread with tomato paste if you could eat a steak?
Meat consumption in Italy by the end of 19th century was very low (about 10g of proteins from meat per day) and 30% of population were undernourished. At the same time in England workers ate on average 70g of meat per day. Italians could supplement their diet with vegetables and particularly green leaf vegetables that were not available in England most of the year. The fact that pine nuts are still popular in Italian cuisine is because of relatively recent poverty. In more affluent countries people abandoned gathering pine nuts and acorns for food which belonged to subsistent cultures like that of American Indians. Still in 19th century in some places in Europe people ate June bugs and grasshoppers but once they became more affluent they stopped. Once they got access to affordable meat the diversity of their diet was reduced.
It was the Brits who made meat and beef in particular affordable because of their modernization of agriculture, i.e., the so called agricultural revolution.
You give an example of John Winthrop and how allegedly poor diet he had. This is not true. Puritans in 17th century ate very well because they were resourceful and became affluent. They brought lots of technological advances from England. They knew how to grow food and breed animals. On the other hand in late 19th century lots of Italians ate horrible diet. Much worse than Puritans in 17ths century. Read this description:
You could have given a much better example that of “Babette’s Feast” where a refugee from revolutionary France ( who was a famous chef in Paris) finds a refuge among strict Protestant sect in Denmark. But keep in mind that this was a fiction with a political motive or a dig as the writer Karen Blixen was just making fun of some segments of Danish society with which she did not identify as she was an aristocrat and cosmopolitan.
“Ah well. When it comes to flavorful cuisine, I will leave you to your beans on toast and continue being more impressed with bruschetta.” – I have not heard of beans on toast but I would think it is a part of Americana folklore just like the deep fried Twinkies or deep fried Snickers at county fairs. Beens were not a big part of America food. They had them in Navy rations in lat 1800s that’s why there are navy bean in America. During WWI American soldiers daily rations were 5000 kcal rich but they did not include beans. In WWII beans were introduced to military rations.
I believe that Italian eat more crostini or bruschetta with fava bean paste or garbanzo bean paste than Americans eat their beans on toast. Italians were eating their beans on bread for over 2,000 years.
“I think I have found the only two people in the whole world willing to seriously argue English cuisine holds up overall to Italian.” – I do not argue which cuisine is better or richer or more diverse. I argue that English cuisine is much better than its rap propagated by ignoramuses like yourself.
Utu, that is irrelevant and ridiculous nonsense.
Nope. Not remotely true. And for the record I am not and have never been Catholic.
A priori? Have you read any of the material I provided? Are you even open to considering the question?
What does this have to do with anything?
OK. Which is not true? John Winthrop eating only bread is not true because other people not John Winthrop didn’t eat only bread?
And who said it was a “poor” diet anyway? What is meant by “poor”?
What is the relevance of this? Like I said you are enacting my argument not debating it.
A “better example” how, better for you to more easily dismiss because it was fiction, unlike the examples I gave which were all real? You succeed in ignoring them anyway.
You think the English historians at Cambridge are all lying? You know Cambridge is in England right? It’s not American.
American? What country are you from anyway? Apparently it is from America (English in America) originally, maybe it’s bigger in New England, but I’ve never seen anyone eat it. I was talking about old England.
Rather than assume things a priori because they contradict your views maybe you should look them up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beans_on_toast
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7954553/britains-most-popular-meals-revealed/
WTF. LOL.
https://beaninstitute.com/beans-in-american-cuisine/
You do know a great many things but you seem to mostly use them to obfuscate and avoid considering anything you disagree with. You’d have an easier time addressing my argument if you actually bothered to understand it.
I am quite curious what country you are actually from though.
LOL. WHAT “grandiose Panslavic shit” you absurd clown? Is this just typical Polish “elite” insecure jealousy because Russia has literally zero interest in Poland, Polish land and Poland’s “success” in joining the EU has “inspired” next to zero Russians wishing to migrate there from 2004-2014, and literally zero wanting to move there now ?( particularly from Kaliningrad who regularly visit). Russia does not want any union with Poland……..we just wish the state would stop containing so many d*ckheads in positions of power
For Belarus, Ukraine, Serbia and Bulgaria there is deep affinity , there is great respect for the other southern slav states and Czechs and Slovaks but I don’t see anything regularly trying to link us into one big panslavicism . It’s a completely different section of thought of those who want some sort of Union with Serbia….to those who want it with Belarus& Ukraine& Northern Kazakhstan….and nothing that could classify as one big panslavicism – and certainly nothing with Poland.
This is certainly a fake story. At least if you are going to lie, then do it on something plausible. We are a society of probably the most great-literature conscious people on the planet you dimwit. Any class of society, any part of the country, any location – even plenty of the most vapid models on Russian Instagram appear to be near disciples of Pushkin, Tolstoy etc. Go on the metro, any public transport, or just talk to anyone and you will realise that “not appreciating them” is the most stupid thing to say. Even the most low quality of Russian pop music will find the musician/singer quoting something or taking something as inspiration in their music from our great writers. Have you actually walked along a Russian street, or building or whatever and noticed the numbers of them named after our great writers? They were the dominant type of people in selecting “Great Russians” for renaming our airports.
What does Poland have?
What you have deceitfully done, is superimposed the massive debate on Solzhenitsyn from those who pro and anti-communist ( exacerbated by his massive promotion in the west making people further think he was a traitor) into an entirely fake one involving him with the undisputed great writers of ours as Tolstoy,Dostaevsky, Bulgakov, Chekhov etc. They are completely separate from the debate on Solzhenitsyn. You are disgustingly pretending you are debating on meritocratic value of the literature while creating a fake scenario…..when it is obvious you would not say the same for the great Soviet writers – you are just trying to insidiously promote anti-USSR BS. The fake panslavists that you mention are probably the least like to not respect Solzhenitsyn ,dimwit.
LOL – by “bombastic” you must be stupidly confusing with ….having a brass section or having an orchestra.
You have literally projected what is the accusations aimed at Poland’s ( well he’s actually french) ONLY success in classical music, Chopin. Most of his pieces are hideously sentimental and are projected by Poles as being nationalistic. There is such a lack of orchestral success there – maybe that is why you have nothing to claim as “bombastic.” German music ( and some of Chopins) are what contains plenty of examples of triumphalist or militaristic music – not Russia.
Can you even name compositions that are “bombastic, triumphalist and sentimental at the same”?
What nonsense. You do also realise that different movements of a same piece normally do have entirely different emotions
My thinking is that your ( excellently written) praise for the culinary skills of the US and UK is only because you are using Anglos as a mask to put on yourself, or all Poles , because there is nothing for you to promote of yourselves, and anglos are a suitable replacement.
BTW- don’t cry to your mother or to Karlin – either agree or debate me like a man you filthy animal
https://youtu.be/4ociPq6B0B0
One of my coronavirus lockdown hobby/projects this year, has been to develop acquaintance with films of the 20th century. So I’m “working through” a Fellini boxset amongst others (like boxsets of Imamura, Bergman, Kurosawa, Tati, Mizoguchi, Chabrol, Bunuel, Hitchcock) this year.
I never watched many films until the lockdown this year, but I find my attention span has increased a lot for watching old films since I started.
From the perspective of attention span, I’ve found Fellini quite easy to watch. Even though his films are usually longer than films in Bergman’s boxset, Essential Fellini boxset seems to pass more quickly.
Camera is always moving, and constant pleasant murmur of Italian voices always in the background. I couldn’t go on vacation anywhere this year because of coronavirus, but Fellini is powerful enough to make you feel you are in Italy a few hours.
I enjoyed his earlier neorealist films, where he focuses on ordinary man and lowlife society, more than those of the 1960s. His 1960s films are the most stylish and surreal, but I feel he is becoming a little hedonistic and self-indulgent, with the theme of husband cheating on wife in every film, and an overdose of glamorous high society.
Solzhenitsyn is wildly popular and promoted in anglosaxon countries. On the other hand, in Russia he is read by only a small proportion of readers (and he carries a “controversial” political reputation to say mildly), so it is unlikely that most Russian people you talk to have read him, or assessed his novels in an unbiased way.
I have never read Solzhenitsyn, so I cannot say if I think he is a good writer or not. However, I assume he is probably talented in literature, considering how popular he is in England, which is a society known for its literary connoisseurship. If you visit any prestigious bookshop in England, then there might often be a whole shelf of Solzhenitsyn’s novels, and even promotion of his books on the tables, with recommendations to read them from staff.
Of late Soviet writers, there is quite an inversion in international popularity with Brodsky. If you look for Brodsky in England, you can find very little of his books even in large bookshops in London, while he is one of the most popular writers with young people in Russia nowadays. Here it could also be the fact that modern verse is more difficultly translated than prose.
Dostoevsky is popular and appreciated in Russia, and at school most of the people enjoyed “Crime and Punishment”.
The stupid thing in Russia, is that choice to read “Crime and Punishment”, at school, instead of “Idiot”, while the latter is the much more perfect one for teenagers.
Personally I loved reading “Idiot” as a teenager. Dostoevsky has a strong narrative pull, or “page turning” – I can remember reading “Idiot” in a couple days in a kind of addicted frenzy.
A great fiction writer should beyond local pecularities and offer something to people who are quite distant to him in time and culture. Homer writes all about Mycenaeans, but he is beloved thousands of years since Mycenaeans have existed. Shakespeare is beloved around the world, to places and centuries already quite distant from his one.
Yeah, in addition to the slow pace of a Bergman film there’s always the monotone voice of Bergman guiding the viewer along the slow, slow path of the film itself, in that droll Swedish accent………….
I was hoping that you could explain more about the “Polish disco” scene that you warn against attending above? Sounds kind of interestingly retro? 🙂
(see my reply #87 above for initial query).
Also, as you profess that you’re really getting into a lot of world cinematography for the first time, I’d be interested in hearing your general opinion about French New Wave films, like those by Chabrol.The ones that I’ve seen all seem to have very distinctive (strange) endings. The endings seem to invariable just end, as if the plot just hits a stone wall, like a fully speeding automobile hitting a wall. I think that these endings are supposedly a marker of modernity, where there isn’t a happy “hollywood ending”, and that things just somehow change or end abruptly. French films can be interesting, but they sometimes leave me wondering? Not always in a good way. “Les Cousins” is one example of this sort of an ending.
Consider adding to your collection Rainer Werner Fassbinder. I have liked several of his movies.
Dungans are an interesting ethnic group. They are highly successful entrepreneurs, generally hard working people. Make me think of the Russian Koreans, similar level of social integration and achievement.
I have read that Dungans have started having problems in Kazakhstan because their Kazakh neighbors resent the Dungans’ success. There have been anti-Dungan riots in Kazakhstan recently.
Did you see the City of Women? It’s his only film I like and it has my favourite character in all of cinema
They’re a healthy and good looking people too. I wonder if they consider themselves related to the Uighurs, another ethnic group within China that are Muslims too? I watched the video clip above about them, where they indicate that their #1 food is langman. I used to order this dish at a local Uzbeki restaurant that was run by Bukharin Jews. It was a very tasty soup dish, that’s primary flavor profile included a nice tomatoe taste, with some interesting spices too. Since they’ve closed, I haven’t found a suitable replacement venue to take care of my langman fix.
Chekhov deserves to be considered a genius on his own merit, but without doubt he was inspired or derivative from Shakespeare based on exactly the thing you mention in your comment.
Wagner appears to have the highest approval from the most elitist classical music fans…but I am guessing his music has not been played regularly or had much popularity in Germany for the last 75 years;
Is any other society as universal thinking as Russian one?….and I think this would be the truth with or without Soviet Union ( though of course they helped in this)
Rousseau, Byron, Moliere, Goethe, Shakespeare, Dickens. I don’t think any society other than Russian could have so many foreign writers immersed into their mass public consciousness, particularly when we have so many of our own genius writers in history.
Sure, the other countries have literature loving people – but the scale of this in Russia is at a different level.
Dickens was probably very well known throughout the world, but outside of the UK I am sure that not many other countries “get” Dickens ( who , don’t forget is still a very eccentric writer) as much as Russian readers do. Partially this is because the social themes in his writings are perfect for what Soviet authorities want to message, and also as a perfect historical story to show as contemporary (then) with negative imagery of the west/capitalism, but as I say, without Soviet Union I still think he would have been very popular in Russia
Now every country probably has plenty of the population who enjoy tv shows of detectives , but we basically made Sherlock Holmes our own with our television adaptations…. and just the general popularity in Russia of the stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. There is something about that character ( Doyle was a very well travelled man) that is more universal for Russians than it is for other non-British ( including Americans, australians etc)
One example does not prove a rule, but it’s sufficient to poke holes in your ideas.
The Cambridge article isn’t even about what you’re talking about. It’s mostly focusing on ideas about food in relation to religion in England. There is almost nothing discussing what people actually ate. There is almost no mention of dietary ingredients or about advocacy of an austere diet(unless austere means only a non-gluttonous diet) besides the John Winthrop quote.
Here is a quote in the concluding section of the Cambridge article: “Food was at once profane and a tool through which to connect to the godly. Upon inspection, then, the discourse on food was more complicated than simply a Calvinist tendency towards physical asceticism.”
Whether dietary views of Protestant reformers could have made a difference to cultural cuisine is irrelevant. The relevant claim is that English/American cuisine is plain because of deliberate efforts from Puritans to make food plain. You have not given much evidence for this claim. What you would need to do is document actual dietary changes during the relevant periods, then give some justification for the claim that Puritanism is the cause. All you have done is cherry picked some quotes.
I think that Dungans are basically Central-Asian Hui (islamized Han). Uighurs are Turkic. The Dungan and the Uighur rebelled against the Manchu dynasty around 1870, the rebellion got suppressed and the rebellious Muslims got nearly exterminated in Xinjiang and ran to the Russian Empire’s territory in Central Asia.
Those among the Dungan who lived in the Russian Empire and USSR might well be quite admixed by now though, just like the Russians who stayed in Communist China after the borders were re-drawn in the Far East in 1949 got strongly sinicized in just a few generations.
https://youtu.be/fbJ7VM46QVs
I agree that from Chabrol films I saw so far (just half of a boxset), he usually has a rush and somewhat incompetent ending to films.
In terms of Chabrol’s films that I liked so far (I’m only halfway through a boxset) – I recommend “Que la bête meure” and “Le Boucher”.
Problem of the endings, is because of the time distribution in his films. A pleasant thing about his films,is the slow and meditative way he develops the story, and strong sense of location (usually a provincial France). But this excellent work to build an atmosphere and sense of location seems to use up all the film’s time, so there is a sudden rush at the end to try to resolve the story.
His “Madame Bovary” is really a useless failure, despite the beauty of Isabelle Huppert in the film. The reason is because the structure of the novel is not suitable for a 2 hour film. It would have been better if he had cut out half of the story.
Novel “Madame Bovary” by Flaubert is a work of genius, but it’s completely unsuitable for film story. Not even a small fraction of value of this genius novel is transmitted in Chabrol’s film.
The second worst Chabrol film (after from “Madame Bovary”), I’ve seen so far is “The Nada Gang”. This film is quite a trash “leftploitation”, with silly and absurd fighting scenes, and without the slow and meditative aspects of his earlier films. However, from a political point of view, it projects quite an accurate message: incompetence and cynicism of the authorities and bourgeois society, opposed by nihilism of leftist terrorists; i.e. that all directions in politics, whether rightwing or leftwing, have only some comedic value.
Not yet. Boxset I got is only containing his 1950s-1960s films. It ended on those decadent ones of 1960s.
https://i.imgur.com/TJM3zKF.jpg
So far, I prefer Fellini’s 1950s films compared to his 1960s ones – I perhaps don’t have enough of Latino/Mediterranean sensibility to appreciate the latter. Although from the point of view of attention span, it is easy, relaxing and pleasant to watch the stylish decadence of his 1960s films – afterwards there was a sense like you had been drinking too much Vermouth or that too sweet Amaretto liqueur.
I like about Chekhov, and Tolstoy and Turgenev – how they try to achieve careful objectivity and balance in their descriptions. This idealization of objective, fair and balanced description, that presents both sides without judgement – is maybe one of the values we are losing most notably in our culture today (including as an ideal in art).
I have to admit I have not read any books by Dickens.
I think the best 19th century novels I’ve ever read are all French ones of the second half of the 19th century. At the same time, of this small amount of French literature I have read and been impressed by, it is mostly absurdly dark and cynical (and not less genius because of).
I can see from your photo, that you own “Juliette of the Spirits”, the first and perhaps most memorable Fellini film that I’ve ever seen. It has a strange cadence to it, and the ever changing direction of the film makes it slightly difficult to follow, not unlike real life when one is having difficulties trying to decipher ones surroundings while being totally intoxicated within a cannabis high. This element of clouded concentration due to rapid changes in conversation is a strange element for me when watching this film. I’ve read somewhere that Fellini had been experimenting with LSD before he made this film. Have you seen it yet?
BTW, I think that this film is considered as a bridge between his earlier films and his later ones, 1950’s – 1960’s and further on.
Your message seems to be that in the final analysis even actual race differences don’t effect the ability of peoples to assimilate into other nationalities, given some time. This is a message that is directly opposite to the beliefs held by many of the alt-right, the type that read this blog. Actually, I’d even include Karlin in this group, as he often has displayed his displeasure in allowing Central Asians and Caucassians easy access to areas of Russia, for fear of diluting if not the Russian DNA structure, than taking advantage of Russia’s cohesion and its social programs. Karlin’s Russian nationalism seems starkly different than your own pronounced Eurasianism, with your endless interest in Asian culture, religion and history. Have I mischaracterized anything here?
Ideas are important.
I am not an Eurasianist, at least not in the sense put into it since AGD hijacked this intellectual brand. I have also no greater interest in Asian cultures than Western European cultures or any other human cultures which all offer something interesting to some extent. Of course the more advanced have evolved more elegantly formulated answers to human existential questions, but the basic human nature is similar in a Bantu, an Inuit, a Western European, a Chinese or a Slav. I would also add that even the brightest minds have their limitations and even dumbest people are right from time to time, so portraying some humans as inherently and absolutely inferior or evil in all aspects is of course unwarranted.
Regarding Russian Nationalism, there are many aspects to this social construct: Karlin and Tesak are quite different people, though they would both say that they are Russian nationalists. One of the things the Russian nationalists should agree about is what exactly is Russian Nation?
To clarify my opinion: Russian Nation has not reached a sufficient level of maturity prior to the 1917 disaster. If it would have, this disaster itself would have been impossible. It was a weakness in the Russian national self-identification that allowed the Bolsheviks to triumph and impose a Soviet (pseudo)identity on the Russian people. After the Perestroika, the Russian nation-building resumed, but unfortunately this process is ongoing currently in a globalized world, where even historically mature nations struggle to maintain their identity.
Moreover, the elites of RosFed are not really interested in nation-building, they are more inclined to attempt to fit in the globalized world and enjoy their Swiss bank accounts and Côte d’Azur villas, while converting Russian natural resources into a life of wealth and privilege. The only reason there is a conflict between the globalized elites and Russian nouveaux riches is because the latter ask for a recognition of a global role and a say in the global affairs, while the former see these former Soviet upstarts as bad company and only would accept them as junior partners.
People should be aware of this sad fact: the elites worldwide care first and foremost about their own personal interests, not some abstract national ones. The current situation in USA and EU is a proof of this: political and business elites of these mature national formations do not really care about the welfare of their fellow Americans or Europeans. All the more the same in some half-baked national construct as modern Russia or Ukraine are.
Does this answer your question?
I suspect it’s a meme. Much like tofu or hoppy bear giving you mantits or making you gay.
“Personally I loved reading “Idiot” as a teenager.” – I did too but to tell you the truth I did not get it at that time.
Well, you did to my second question, but you didn’t touch my first one:
True, or not?
I’ve always felt the same way about Ukraine’s incomplete nation-building process too. With Russia, it’s compounded with Russia’s role as an empire builder, that took root before it had ever, as you point out “not reached a sufficient level of maturity [nation building] prior to the 1917 disaster.”
Mr. Karlin has analyzed the excess deaths on his Twitter.
The Y chromosome seems to influence male pattern baldness so it at least has that function; there’s some evidence that it also it links to schizophrenia.
Your answer looks to be very correct and addresses the important subject of genetics, as it relates to population groups. What is also important is the ability of human beings to absorb sociological characteristcs, including national ones from their environment. Just look at Russia itself, that after so many centuries still has not totally absorbed some 100 different nationalities into one. I have in mind many from the Fino-Ugric groupings of peoples, that somehow were at least linguistically assimilated quite early on into the large Russian world (Karelians, Komi, Udmurts, Mari, Mordi, Moksha etc;), and others too. Many of these people have probably moved to large cities and have intemarried and have been otherwise totally assimilated into the larger Russian whole. I’m thinking that at least early on, these “finnic peoples” had a genetic structure different than their Slav conquerors from the south (Ukrainian part of Rus). Then there are many Ukrainians, that even live in Russia (your grandfather as a sort of an example) who although outwardly appear to be Russian, and even inwardly may share a close genetic structure, but in their own minds feel themselves, for historic and cultural reasons strongly that they’re not Russians, but Ukrainians. It’s very similar to the question of what factors are more important in the IQ component of a human being, “heredity vs environment”, I would say.
In May of this year, representatives of these Finno-Ugric groups met to protest Moscow’s ongoing attempts at Russification, by curtailing the use of the local languages within school educational programs:
http://finugor.ru/sites/finugor.ru/files/images/a6d3605b-1a7b-47a3-a7fe-5683925e6f0a_cx0_cy29_cw0_w1597_n_r1_s.jpg
http://finugor.ru/news/bitva-za-yazyk-kruglyy-stol-ili-ulichnye-protesty
The haplogroups themselves are just patterns of non-coding DNA on the Y chromosome.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Y-chromosome_DNA_haplogroup
It is just a convenient manner of getting Western NGO grants.
Speaking of the Finno-Ugric genetics, among the earliest (proto) Corded Ware genetic samples, one has been found in Karelia. It is an Y haplogroup R1a individual who lived some 8000-10 000 years ago. Y haplogroup R1a is the dominant one in the Balto-Slavic populations, but is also widely represented on the Finno-Ugric populations as well. A notable exception is Finland proper, where the ancestors of modern day Finnish people have probably driven the local Battle Axe culture (a culture descendant from Corded Ware) males into near extinction in the early centuries CE
Why am I mentioning that? Because we tend to make projections about the cultural traits of the ancient cultures and their genetic lineages. For example, if Y haplogroup R1a is the dominant one in the modern day Slavs, we would expect their ancestors to have been speaking an Indo-European language since times immemorial. But we have no idea really what language these people spoke. Perhaps Corded Ware people all spoke some form of (proto) Uralic language. This is a hypothesis defended by Carlos Quiles:
https://indo-european.eu/
But frankly, we don’t know. Same thing is true about the Western Europeans of Y haplogroup R1b ancestry. Perhaps the Bell Beaker folks spoke some form of (proto) Euskera. We don’t know and probably never will.
One thing is sure though: Indo-Iranian Sintashta Arkaim people, whose lineage conquered the whole Central Asia, created Vedic and Avestan cultures, were mainly Y haplogroup R1a. We know this because they have left us descriptions of their culture and religion in their own language and because these cultures offer Y haplogroup R1a paleogenetics samples.
A funny thing though is that the descendants of these purely Aryan populations are today mainly found among the Central Asian Turkish nations. With the notable exception of the Tadjik and Pashtun people, the Central Asian Aryans have completely changed their language and their phenotype through assimilation among their Turkish neighbors. It took millennia to happen. This is how cultures change and genetic lineages adapt to novel cultural patterns and elite clan domination.
This is a very crude and insensitive way to characterize a movement that in fact has roots that transcend any pecuniary interests. I’ve been interested in following the cultural activities of these Finno-Ugric peoples, on and off, from way before 2017, when these new draconian measures directed from no other than Putler himself, have been put into play to curtail the local usage of minority languages. If you read the piece, you’d see that representatives from Turkistan were also present at this meeting. These ethnicities are well represented within the internet and have dozens of interesting and telling websites that document their current culture and plight. I for one feel for these people and support their rights to maintain their native language and cultures. You recently stated that you felt that even within the smallest nation, their could be something valuable to offer all of mankind, yet you seem very callously inclined towards these infractions?
For some kinds of literature, you can be more receptive when you are teenager, than when you are an adult, and I feel like Dostoevsky’s fictional world, is not the furthest distance from teenage fantasies.
Adults who read Dostoevsky’s books at later ages, might be distracted by unrealistic pacing of the stories (for example, characters who apparently sit talking for days – and around first 1/3 of “Idiot” a single night), and these numerous characters which don’t seem to have needs of actually existing humans, and which convert from enemies to friends like they are fragments of the same person.
For appreciating Dostoevsky’s fictional writings, I feel like you need to dim your eyes a little, forget your experience of the real world, and come into his spell like entering into some kind of hypnosis.
I’m no expert, but I read that in the 1960s, Fellini was experimenting a bit with LSD and has also been influenced by being patient of a Jungian psychoanalyst.
However, I guess he also seems victim of a trap of a successful artist – that he was elevated by his career success into a glamorous, aristocratic “high society” of Rome, and this wealthy metropolitanism started to substitute itself as the subject of his films, where previously he had made films about provincial cities, proletariat and lumpenproletariat.
His 1960s films I have seen so far:
“La Dolce Vita”
“8 1/2”
“Giulietta degli spiriti”
All three films focus on the theme of infidelity to his wife, due to the successful male character having too many romantic opportunities.
Also all have a theme of a glamorous, but decadent and vacuous, aristocratic “high life” of the elite people of Rome. And then the latter two also have this Jungian journey into unconscious symbolism (although in Giulietta, it is his bored wife who is heroine of this journey into the unconscious).
So it seems his films became very autobiographical in the 1960s. Those three are brilliant films in terms of aesthetics and being easy to watch. But I had some bitter taste after watching them, like drinking too much sweet Italian liquors.
I preferred his 1950s films. I even felt a lot of understanding and same experiences as the characters in “I Vitelloni”.
I find this surreal and montage aspect of Fellini’s 1960s films, means they are easy to watch from the point of view of attention span – the camera is always moving, as soothing Italian speech plays in the background, and scenes fold into new scenes with no pauses inbetween.
I found the “bridge” is “La Dolce Vita” – this is a film about glamorous “high life” in Rome, and the subsequent 2 films cover the same themes, although using more surreal and “experimental” techniques.
Now that you mention it, I read the Idiot when I was 16 and really enjoyed it. I tried to read it again when I was 25 and could not complete it.
OTOH I read the Brothers Karamazov and The Possessed when I was 25 and found both books very interesting. I could not help myself thinking about Russian revolution and how it might have been possible despite people reading these books by Dostoevsky. Possibly Tolstoy and his spiritual anarchism got in the way of Dostoevsky’s cautionary tales. I mean Tolstoy’s Resurrection was well liked by Russian progressive intelligentsia.
I am probably not a profound enough person because I read Master and Margarita at least eight times and the White Guard at least four. But not Dostoevsky, Tolstoy or Chekhov (I find him boring).
Are you absolutely sure that she wasn’t of Ukrainian ethnic ancestry?
Penza:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penza 🙂
There was no Ukraine at the time Mr Hack. Penza is derived from Moksha Mordvinian, but in this region the Tatars, Rus and Mordva lived side by side for hundreds of years with a fairly low level of conflict overall. And now you have learned to me another page of history of this insignificant and lackluster Muscovite glubinka with the Cherkassy Cossacks being used as military force there. All these Rus, Slovene, Chud’, Tatars, Cheremyssy and Mordvins are mainly descendants of the Corded Ware people. Cultures, religions and languages change, genetic lineages evolve, haplogroups remain as a marker, so we can know who our ancestors and relatives are. And also who our true friends should be. That is if we want to perpetuate our ancestors lineages…
Of course there was a Ukraine at that time, we’ve already been through this before, where clearly by the 17th century Ukraine had already acquired the status of a country that was defined as such on various European maps and within official correspondence too. The autochtonous people who infabited this land at that time referred to themselves as “Ruthenians”, “Cherkassy” or “Zaporozhian Cossacks’ as specified within the quoted article.
The local government was called the Hetmanate, and served as the administrative, judicial and military center of Ukrainian lands. Its unfortunate and untimely demise was orchestrated by its greedy neighbor to the north that had other more nefarious plans for this region, by what I think you are referring to as its “friends”. “Friends” don’t destroy your cultural icons, schools, churches, institutions and denigrate and impede the development of your own local language and literature and then move in and dictate how things are going to be in the future? After all, as the old adage states:With friends like that, who needs enemies??
My ancestors were from Ukraine – I have absolutely no sentimental attachments or feel a kinship for Russia, anymore than I do for Poland. .
If reading novels could stop something as significant as revolutions, then presumably English women would not enter bad marriages, because they read Jane Austen.
In his short stories, always Chekhov describes a complexity of the total situation, so you understand there is no good and bad characters, and that all sides have an equal right.
This is the spiritual greatness of his writing, but it also causes the story to lose its narrative dynamism. One of the main motives for the reader to become addicted in a story, is to see that good defeats evil.
When Chekhov reveals that all sides are good, and all sides are evil – then the reader loses one of the motives to become addicted to the story. Tolstoy has a similar situation with Anna Karenina.
In my own situation, what causes re-reading, is not necessarily the quality of the text, but its ease of accessibility. It’s the “user interface” experience of a text, which determines whether I will be likely to re-read it.
For example, I am constantly re-reading the New Testament. It’s not the highest quality of writing and even its content is of lower quality than in many religious texts, but it has a very easy “user interface” experience, and I can relax while reading it in an airport.
On the other hand, I could never even the first time the Old Testament, while I recognize that it has a writing and metaphorical style that is much more beautiful and complex than the plain New Testament – I find it very difficult to read, and stop after a few pages.
Similarly, I could only read a couple of Shakespeare short works. I recognize that Shakespeare’s writing, is a product of genius. But the accessibility is not high enough for me to relax while reading it.
I read and enjoyed many dialogues of Plato, but the only one I re-read is “Apology” – because it’s the easiest one you can read.
Ideally for re-reading, books should both have easy accessibility and sufficient quality, that they improve in your mind as you re-read.
Plays of Sophocles and Aristophanes are examples of perfect materialy for re-readability in my opinion – texts are accessible short, and also seem to improve when you re-read it, and offer ability to vary between different translations and languages.
Not for Russia, but for Ukraine it was a huge tragedy. For starters, the dismantling of the Hetmanate was the beginning of dark times for Ukraine……
Ситий ніколи не порозуміє голодного!
We may not be lawyers, but we’re both intelligent observers of events that need to be examined and not just swept under a rug somewhere. If it’s a divorce that Russia and Ukraine are going through, I’d say that the “marriage” was doomed right from the very beginning. The absorption of Ukraine into the Russian empire was not the marriage of two equal partners, but more like the result of a shotgun marriage. If you’re able to, I’d suggest that you get your grandfathers copy of “Kobzar” and read about Ukraine’s unhappy marriage where Russia acted as a belligerent and violent bridegroom keeping Ukraine as a subservient maid for many centuries. This, most popular and important work of Shevchenko’s, serves as a very passionate indictment of Czarist Russia. It’s high time for this divorce to reach its needed conclusion and allow both parties a chance to resume civilized relations.