Red Dawn Redux: A Shaky Parable For Our Times

The Guardian has taken a first look at the trailer for the remake of the 1980's-vintage action flick Red Dawn, and it raises a few questions much deeper than you'd expect from a movie this vapid.

Just in case you're not up on your late Cold War cinema, the original Red Dawn was the story of a bunch of high school pals in rural Colorado turned guerrilla fighters after the Soviet Union, with an assist from Cuba, decided for some reason to invade the United States in 1985.  The 2012 remake pretty much sticks to the original script, swapping rural Washington state for Colorado and China for the now-defunct Soviet Union in the role of the antagonist.

Or maybe it is North Korea? As I wrote when the Red Dawn remake first went into production, the film's creative team pulled back from the logical substitution of China for the Soviet Union – possibly fearing a political backlash, a loss of Chinese distribution rights, or both – and instead substituted North Korea as the resident bad guys. Though the producers seem to have later decided that the idea North Korea, a nation of 25 million that struggles just to feed its own citizens, could stage a large-scale invasion of the United States stretches credibility too far even for a Hollywood action film (though Hollywood also recently decided that a movie version of Manimal is somehow credible), so now, according to The Guardian, the antagonists are from a “unidentified Asian” country.

Near the end of The Guardian's demolishing of the Red Dawn trailer, writer Stuart Heritage raises a good point: the original Red Dawn was released in the mid-1980s, at a time when the United States was offering moral and material support to the mujahadeen of Afghanistan as they tried to repel the mighty Red Army of the Soviet Union.  The original Red Dawn offered up a kinship to be drawn then between our plucky band of Colorado high schoolers and the scruffy Afghanis, who each took to the hills to fight the foreigners who invaded their lands.

Fast forward 27 years though and America's perception of Afghan insurgents has morphed from the heroic mujahadeen into the dastardly Taliban jihadi; the foreigners they fight are no longer the evil Soviets, but rather good red-blooded American boys and girls in uniform.  So while the new Red Dawn is still making the same visceral appeal to the audience to identify with the tragically over-matched band of fighters who want only to free their homeland from an invading foreign military force, the underlying role of the United States in the world has flipped – rather than supporting the insurgents on the sly as we did in the 1980s, we have become the invading heavies in both Iraq and Afghanistan.  In reality, Red Dawn is now asking us to emotionally identify with the very people fighting against American troops today. (If the producers of Red Dawn wanted to keep the emotional and subtextual consistency of the original, then instead of fighting, the high school kids in RD:Redux would join a local reconstruction team headed up by a government official from the unnamed Asian nation that might be North Korea).

It does beg the question of what exactly the producers of the Red Dawn remake were thinking in dredging up this largely forgotten bit of 80s pop culture? Why ask an American audience to identify with a band of local insurgents fighting against a vastly superior military power, when at that very same moment American troops are being attacked a half a world away by bands of local insurgents fighting against a vastly superior military power, which, in this case, just happens to be the United States.

Or maybe I am giving the Red Dawn producers too much credit for being able to make these intellectual connections in the first place. After all, their choice to play the All-American lead in this film was Chris Hemsworth, a British actor best known for playing a Norse god. 

CNN Charged With Censorship Over Mid-East Documentary

Last week media critic Glenn Greenwald of the UK's Guardian newspaper/website published a pair of hard-hitting articles aimed directly at CNN that received surprisingly little coverage in the United States given the severity of their charges, namely that CNN is engaging in acts of censorship to protect the patronage paid to them by foreign governments.

Greenwald's charges center around a documentary made last year about the democratic uprisings in the Persian Gulf state of Bahrain called “iRevolution: Online Warriors of the Arab Spring”.  The documentary, which Greenwald describes as “unflinching”, centered on pro-democracy activists in the tiny kingdom and was highly critical of the heavy-handed government response, which ultimately put down the democratic uprising.  The Bahraini regime was criticized internationally for their methods, which included the mass arrests of protesters (including doctors who were attempting to help injured demonstrators) and the use of deadly force against unarmed and peaceful protesters.  The CNN documentary crew themselves were even detained at gunpoint by pro-regime forces intent on disrupting their attempts at telling the story of the pro-democracy activists.

“iRevolution: Online Warriors of the Arab Spring” would go on to garner critical praise along with a number of journalism awards. Yet despite this praise, CNN's domestic network would air the documentary only once, while CNN's international broadcasting arm, CNNi, the outlet for which “iRevolution: Online Warriors of the Arab Spring” was originally produced, would not air the documentary at all.  The lead journalist on “iRevolution”, Amber Lyon, complained to CNN's upper management about the network's refusal to air the documentary.  Despite being groomed by CNN to become one of their star on-air personalities, Lyon was laid off by CNN earlier this spring after her complaints about CNN's internal censorship became public.

CNN, of course, has denied any attempt at censorship, noting that they have aired many stories about the uprising in Bahrain (just not “iRevolution” apparently).  But it is here, and in a companion piece, that Greenwald lays out his most serious charge against CNN – that CNN has entered into a number of paid partnerships with governments around the world and that CNN is allowing these partnerships to color their reporting from and about these countries.

The CNN “partnerships” with the governments of countries like Kazakhstan, Georgia and Bahrain has led to the production of a series of quasi-journalistic fluff pieces: reports that are meant to look like genuine CNN reporting – using CNN journalists/personalities - but that in reality are public relations spots that allow the “partner” countries to put their best foot forward, with no contrasting viewpoints offered by CNN's stable of journalists. For example, a series of paid reports aired under the “Eye on Lebanon” banner were touted by Lebanon's Tourism Minister not for their journalistic merit, but rather as a way “to market Lebanon as a tourism destination.”   

It's not surprising then to note that CNN has a long-standing partnership arrangement with Bahrain though the Bahrain Economic Development Board, the governmental agency responsible for promoting Bahrain to the world. CNN has included Bahrain in their “Eye on...” country series, among other paid-for network programming. It is not surprising then that CNN has been reluctant to air a documentary that is so critical of the Bahrani royal family.

There is an inherent tension between advertising and journalism, with the open question always being if the news organization will shy away from coverage that could reflect negatively on their sponsors.  But what Greenwald describes at CNN is something different, the countries in question aren't merely buying commercial spots on CNN, they are, in effect, directly paying for positive coverage of their countries. Worse still, the shelving of “iRevolution” and the subsequent dismissal of Amber Lyon is troubling evidence that CNN is willing to let these sponsorships affect their journalistic judgment beyond the paid-for beauty spots.  It is a troubling accusation to make against what has long been one of the most-trusted names in modern journalism, and is a sign of how far CNN has fallen from their own glory days.

Possible Appeal In The Pussy Riot Verdict?

A quick follow up on three women who are likely the world's most famous political prisoners: Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich; members of the Russian punk collective Pussy Riot, who were recently sentenced to two years in prison for their “punk prayer” performance in Moscow's Christ the Savior cathedral last February.

Or maybe not. Russia's Human Rights Ombudsman, Vladimir Lukin, said he is ready to appeal the two year sentence unless it is commuted by higher authorities (i.e. President Vladimir Putin). “If the sentence stays as is, the ombudsman has a right to appeal it at higher levels, which I will consider,” Lukin said in an interview with RIA Novosti, adding that he considered the group's cathedral performance “not as a crime but an administrative misdemeanor.”

It is hard to tell what affect, if any, the Ombudsman's comments will have on the sentence handed down against the three women, who have already served six months in jail awaiting their trial earlier this month.  Commuting their sentences though could give Putin, who before the trial said that the judge should not act “too harshly” towards the women, a chance to appear as a benevolent ruler while also negating a verdict that has led to harsh criticism of Russia from the international community.

Of course, another comment made by Lukin is an indication of why Pussy Riot is unlikely to serve as a rallying point for Russia's political opposition; Lukin called the cathedral performance “I consider it tactless and silly.”  Public opinion polls have shown that a majority of Russians hold similar views of the Pussy Riot protest.

Meanwhile, over at The Mantle this week, I talk about why the Pussy Riot trial isn't the most important political prosecution in Russia today.

London Closing: British Music, A Missing Queen and, Sadly, Ryan Seacrest

The London Olympics wrapped up last night in much the same way as they began, with a quirky, sometimes cheeky salute to all things British, particularly British music.

The London organizers largely dispensed with the interpretive pieces that typically mark these Olympic events. An opening number themed around London traffic largely served to introduce the eight-ramped stage in the shape of the Union Jack that dominated what, less than 24 hours before, had been the track and field area on the floor of the stadium. From then, the night quickly segued into an hour and a half long salute to England's contributions to modern pop music.

 The show got off to a rolling start, literally, when the iconic 80's ska group Madness performed their signature hit “Our House” from the back of a tractor trailer that circled the stadium floor. They were followed by another iconic 80's Brit pop act, The Pet Shop Boys, who performed “West End Girls” an apropo choice given the song's references to the East End, the site of the Olympic stadium, from the back of bicycle rickshaws. Contemporary acts also played a large role in the show; the Kasier Chiefs covered The Who's “Tommy”, while singer Jesse J also performed both as a solo act and with the surviving members of Queen on “We Will Rock You”, since what sporting event is complete without this song?

The Beatles didn't appear in person, though a rendition of John Lennon's “Imagine” was likely the emotional highlight of the night, and Russell Brand's rendition of “I Am The Walrus” might have been the quirkiest, had it not been for Monty Python's Eric Idle performing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”; complete with Victoria's Secret-style angels and a Bollywood dance troupe.  The highlight of the show though was likely the long-rumored reunion of the Spice Girls who took to the top of Austin Minis for their performance – Spice Girls standing on Minis, how more British can you get?

The Spice Girls after the show (London Telegraph pic).

Of course, the closing ceremonies provided one last opportunity for NBC to screw up the coverage. After promising a performance by The Who all evening, in the prime-time show's closing moments, viewers were told that The Who would actually be featured in their late-night coverage, which started at 12:30 EDT. This delay seemed mostly so that NBC could provide a preview of one of their craptacular fall “comedies”. Great move guys.  And coverage of the musical portion of the evening was turned over to Ryan Seacrest, likely due to NBC's baffling continued belief that Seacrest actually knows something about entertainment and is entertaining himself. Seacrest's few vacant contributions though could have easily been read by the real hosts, Al Michaels and Bob Costas, off of a TelePrompTer.  The only imprint Seacrest left on the coverage was to unwantedly speak over the performances on several occasions. My suggestion to NBC: leave Seacrest out of the coverage of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, or better yet, drop him in the ocean while en route to Sochi.

One final question from the Closing Ceremonies though is where were the Royals? Queen Elizabeth II was expected to be on hand to close the Games, yet the Queen was nowhere to be found; she did not even appear in video form (as did former Queen frontman, Freddie Mercury).  The whole Royal family attended the opening ceremonies, yet at the close they were represented only by Prince Harry, introduced formally as Prince Henry of Wales. He was accompanied by Duchess Catherine of Cambridge, better known as Kate, wife of Prince William.  The lack of Royal attendance seemed to be unexpected since several of the speakers, including outgoing IOC head Jacques Rogge, addressed their comments to the “Royals”, plural, making you think that they expected a larger attendance on the part of the Royal family.

Along with why NBC continues to employ Ryan Seacrest, the Royal presence is a lingering question from last night's otherwise brilliant Closing Ceremony.  

Putin Goes Soft On Pussy Riot

In a surprising turn, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a signal Thursday in London that could lead to leniency for the feminist punk protest outfit known as Pussy Riot.

If you haven't been following the Pussy Riot story, you can get caught up with this post I wrote this week for PolicyMic.  In short, the group bills themselves as a feminist punk collective; they gained national stature in Russia during the past year thanks to their rapid fire public performances of songs ripping into the Putin regime, which were then widely viewed on YouTube and other social media sites.  In February, Pussy Riot stormed into Moscow's Christ the Savior cathedral to perform a “punk prayer” where they implored the Virgin Mary to “drive Putin out!”  Two weeks later, three of Pussy Riot's members: Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Yekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alyokhina, were arrested and charged with what amounts to a religious hate crime that could land them seven years in prison.

It has been widely believed that the harsh legal charges were directed from the very top, Putin himself, who took the performance, which also attacked the close links between the Putin government and Russian Orthodox Church, as a personal insult and that the prosecution of Pussy Riot has taken on the dimensions of a personal vendetta.  But Putin's comments Thursday, as reported by Reuters, could be a sign that he is softening his stance.

Saying that there was “nothing good” about the performance, Putin added: "Nonetheless, I don't think that they should be judged so harshly for this … I hope the court will come out with the right decision, a well-founded one.” In Putinland, that would seem to be a none-to-subtle signal to the courts not to impose the maximum seven year sentence on the three women.  That is the way that Pussy Riot defense attorney Nikolai Polozov is interpreting the comments. “Given the significance of such signals, we can expect some softening of the prosecution's position,” he said.

Putin's position could be the result of growing international pressure over the prosecution of Pussy Riot, which is seen as being largely political.  Their cause has been taken up by groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, which declared  Tolokonnikova, Samutsevich and Alyokhina “prisoners of conscience”, to artists like Sting and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, to protesters from St. Petersburg to Washington DC, where several dozen DC area “punks” gathered outside the Russian embassy this week.  Lawyer Polozov speculated that the signal from Putin might be to calm foreign investors in Russia over fears of politically-motivated prosecutions.

But Polozov is also sanguine about his clients' prospects, saying on Twitter: “to tell the truth, I don't believe Putin. If the signal gets through and the court reacts, OK, but if not we will fight on.”

The Kremlin's If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em Social Media Strategy

Russia recently surpassed Germany as the European country with the most internet users.  While this could be taken as a positive sign of Russia's modernity and development from the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, it's doubtful that the folks in the Kremlin are viewing it that way.

Part of the reason for the growth of internet users in Russia is that the internet is the one form of mass media not under tight de facto control by the state.  That's also the reason why the internet has played a large role in organizing the political opposition to Vladimir Putin during the past year; Alexei Navalny  for one has risen to national stature based on his blog, which freely criticizes the Putin administration.

Seeing that they missed the boat on setting up a web-filtering system like China's Great Firewall, the Kremlin is taking a new tack: they'll try to beat the opposition at their own social media game.  Last week, Kremlin officials announced that they would be launching their own, as yet unnamed, government-run social networking site for Russia, set up along the lines of Facebook. Officials have high hopes for the new networking site and say that private capital will be used to develop the web project.

But Russia already has its own privately-run Facebook clones: Vkontakte (“In Contact”) and Odnoklassniki (“Our Class”), the former of which bears an amazing resemblance to Facebook.  Since these social networks already exist, along with an official Russian-language option for Facebook as well, critics wonder why anyone would join a government-run social networking site, especially since it is reasonable to assume that the government would be monitoring content on the site and would likely take a dim view of any critique of the government.

“If the government creates some form of social network, then people will not join it,” said Andrei Soldatov, an expert on Russia's security services and the internet in an article in The Guardian. “It is not realistic.”

Spies On The Catwalk

I normally steer clear of NBC's Today show, I just find their patented mix of inane chatter and pop culture nonsense really annoying first thing in the morning, but a tip of the hat to Today for posting this story about everyone's favorite “secret” agent, Anna Chapman.

After a period of being out of the public spotlight, Ms. Chapman turned up modeling a gown at a fashion show in Antalya, Turkey.  According to the AP Chapman was “clad in a stunning red-and-black print gown at the Dosso Dossi show,” but why take the AP's word for it?

Chapman continued to turn her supposed failed career as a spy to her advantage, walking down the runway with two men dressed like secret agents, or at least as secret agents would dress in a work by Ian Fleming.  According to the show's organizers, Chapman's appearance fee was donated to the charitable foundation she has established, which works with children with poor eyesight.   

A Biocoal Steamer And The Problems Of Green Hype

This odd little story caught my eye: apparently a team from the University of Minnesota, along with a group called Sustainable Rail International (under the banner “the Coalition for Sustainable Rail”) are planning to rehabilitate a 1930's-vintage steam railroad locomotive as a showcase for biocoal technologies.

In case you've never heard of it, biocoal is a supposedly “green” and sustainable fuel source made from cellular plant that has been processed and compressed into a stable, solid fuel – hence the name “biocoal”, since the resulting fuel looks and acts like your traditional mined carbon coal.  Advocates claim that biocoal is green since the carbon it contains was fixed from the atmosphere when the source plants were growing and that it does not contain the heavy metals, like mercury, found in traditional coal.  Getting more biocoal simply involves harvesting more plants.

So far, so good with the story.  The choice of a test-bed – a 1930's vintage 4-6-4 “Hudson”-type locomotive, which has spent the past few years languishing at a museum in Topeka, Kansas is an interesting one, and a choice sure to net the Coalition for Sustainable Rail some added publicity if/when the project ever does hit the rails.  But it is at this point that the claims being made by the project's backers start to get a little ridiculous.

Engine 3463 during its working days.

The steam engine project is being called Project 130 by the Coalition for Sustainable Rail, since they plan for the resurrected Hudson to race down the rails at 130 mph.  This idea is utterly ridiculous.  The recognized speed world record for a steam locomotive is 126 mph, and that was set by a highly-streamlined loco, not the boxy Hudson selected for the project.  The Coalition for Sustainable Rail also claims that the steamer will cost less to fuel and maintain than a modern diesel freight engine; this claim is also dubious.  It is impossible right now to compare the economics of diesel fuel to biocoal, since the latter is not being produced in anywhere near the levels of diesel; but higher maintenance costs were one of the key factors that doomed steam engines, they are simply more labor-intensive than diesel engines.

And that gets to the “green hype” issue.  The Coalition for Sustainable Rail couldn't leave well enough alone by merely making the already impressive claim that the steam engine test would show biocoal's viability as a sustainable, less-environmentally impacting fuel, but one that could be substituted for traditional coal without modification to existing equipment; instead they have to dress their claim up will all sorts of impossible-to-execute frills, like claiming this museum refugee will fly down the rails like a formula-1 race car.  This is a trap that green advocates seem to fall into all too often – it is not enough to offer a substitute to existing energy technologies, they have to insist their new green tech will be better, not just incrementally better, but revolutionary better, and in the process they make promises they can't keep, which ultimately makes even successful demonstrations of their technology look like failures.

How The US Media Gets It Wrong On Africa

Foreign Policy has a great piece of journalism critique currently up on its website that's well worth your time to read.  In it, author Laura Seay discusses the generally lousy state of reportage coming out of Africa, though her critique can be extended to the entire way that the profession is currently practiced in America.

Part of her critique is quite familiar: that the US media only turns to Africa during times of outright disaster/war or when there is an “American” angle to a story: the viral media sensation of the KONY2012 campaign being an example of the latter.  And African reporting tends to quickly fallback on to outright ethnic stereotypes – comparing events in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Joseph Conrad's book Heart of Darkness, for example.

But the why of this situation is where the story really starts to get interesting.  Seay lays the blame on American press outlets trying to do African reportage on the cheap and accuses American journalists of frankly being rather lazy in their duties.  Most major US media outlets rely on only two or three correspondents to cover the entire vast African continent.  Based in some of Africa's most metropolitan cities – Nairobi, Johannesburg – they are expected to parachute (figuratively, not literally) into hotspots as the need arises, even if that hotspot is on the other side of the continent.  Imagine if a foreign news outlet expected their New York City-based reporter to run out to Iowa to cover a sudden blight of the corn crop, a topic well outside their expertise, and you get an idea of the point Seay is trying to make.

Meanwhile, those journalists who do find themselves in Africa, tend to be rather lazy.  Seay gives the example of reporters headed to the war-torn borderlands between Sudan and South Sudan.  With no knowledge of the local situation or language, reporters tend to rely on locally-based “fixers”.  In South Sudan, one prominent fixer is an American expat named Ryan Boyette, who was the subject of several human interest profiles by outlets like NBC and the New York Times in the span of just a few weeks.

It wasn't always this way, once outlets like NBC or the Times maintained extensive networks of locally-based foreign correspondents.  But these positions have been a victim of cost-cutting measures.  The result has been a noticeable decline in both the quality and quantity of foreign affairs reporting by US media outlets.  All of which reminds me of a recent discussion I had with a friend whom I hadn't seen in a long time.  We talked about the world, and the media coverage of it.  For world news, it turns out we both relied primarily on a selection of foreign sources: the BBC, al-Jazeera English, even the occasional program on Russia Today; given Seay's critique, perhaps that's no surprise.

Pussy Riot, Still Behind Bars

Two months after their arrest, three members of the all-female Russian punk collective that calls itself Pussy Riot remain in jail, with their future very much in doubt.  The band shot to attention late last year, thanks to YouTube videos of public performances of their songs, which typically feature lyrics protesting about the current political situation in Russia.  Their arrests stem from an impromptu performance at Moscow's Christ the Savior cathedral on February 24, when members of the band performed a song called “Holy Shit” that included the lines: “Holy Mother, Blessed Virgin, chase Putin out!”  Three members of the band were arrested two weeks later, on the eve of Russia's presidential election.

They are facing serious criminal charges that include hooliganism and attempting to incite religious hatred, which could get them a sentence of seven years in prison.  The weight of the charges, combined with the timing of their arrests and the nature of the performance at the cathedral, has led Amnesty International to declare the women “prisoners of conscience” and call for their release. Russia's Human Rights Ombudsman Vladimir Lukin is also saying that the women should be released since their alleged crimes do not match up with the serious prison sentences they are facing.  “Why are they in custody? Did they try to blow up the cathedral?” Lukin asked at a press briefing in Tomsk, Russia.

But the Moscow Times is reporting this morning that the women will remain in jail for the near future.  A Moscow judge ruled in favor of extending their initial period of detention beyond the original term that would expire on April 24, to give prosecutors more time to build their case.  A recent public opinion poll suggests that this decision is in line with the majority of Russians' attitude towards the case.  The poll conducted by the Russian firm VTsIOM (the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center) showed that 46% of Russians considered Pussy Riot's “punk prayer” an act of hooliganism, with another 21% going further to call the performance sacrilege; only 13% called it legitimate protest, just slightly more than the number who thought Pussy Riot was simply staging a PR stunt (10%).  Ultimately though, only 10% of those surveyed thought that the act should land the Pussy Riot members in jail, mostly these were people who also thought that the punk prayer was an act of sacrilege.

Somalia: When Good Stories Go Bad

There's an interesting piece in Foreign Policy that illustrates the dangers of trying to get out in front of a story from a turbulent region in this era of instant information.

In case you didn't hear, overnight Wednesday a suicide bomber struck at a performance at the National Theater in Mogadishu, Somalia, killing as many as 7 people, including the head of Somalia's Olympic committee and chair of their national football (soccer) program.  The militant group al-Shabaab, which has recently suffered from a string of defeats at the hands of Kenyan, Ethiopian and African Union troops, quickly claimed responsibility and identified the bomber as a 16-year old girl.

The reopening of the National Theater for the first time in 21 years was being widely cited as a sign that a sense of normalcy was finally returning to the capital of what is arguably the world's most war-torn state (I even referenced it in this post).  The theater was the centerpiece of a story by the New York Times Jeffrey Gettleman, who has done some incredible reporting from the region, entitled “A Taste of Hope in Somalia's Battered Capital.”  Gettleman even tweeted up his story with the line: “Who says it's just bad news coming out of Somalia?”

The New York Times webpage with Somali story

Of course as Gettleman was hitting the Twitterverse a teenage girl was blowing herself up in front of a collection of Somali dignataries.  This isn't to criticize Gettleman, who, as I mentioned above, is one of the few Westerners doing solid reporting from this region; rather it is a story that illustrates just how fast information moves today, and how quickly a story can change.

Pussy Riot Arrests

Last month we brought you the story of Pussy Riot – the feminist punk rock band who have been causing a stir in their native Russia over the past few months with their politically-charged lyrics and public protest performances – unfortunately, the band seems to have finally pushed officials a little too far.  The Guardian is reporting that six members of the band were arrested last Saturday, with two members remaining in custody.

The arrests are blatantly political in nature, and stem from a performance given a few weeks earlier; that the arrests happened the day before Vladimir Putin reclaimed the presidency of Russia is not mere coincidence, the two members still in custody, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhin, reportedly were told that the case against them came “from the highest levels.”  The charges faced by Pussy Riot are quite serious, unlike the 15-day detentions often passed out to troublesome critics of the Kremlin.

The charges stem from an impromptu performance in February at Moscow's iconic Christ the Savior cathedral, where members of Pussy Riot rushed to the altar and performed what they call a “punk prayer” imploring the Virgin Mary to free Russia from Vladimir Putin. Russian officials were not amused, and are leveling serious charges at Pussy Riot's members saying in an official statement that they are investigating the case as a crime “involving a gross violation of public order, including inciting religious hatred as part of a planned conspiracy,” punishable by up to seven years in prison.

Interestingly, in the comments section of The Guardian piece there was a note about an article in Russia's Novaya Gazeta written by an Orthodox priest who compared the Pussy Riot performance to the acts of an iurodiviy, or a kind of “holy fool” noted in Russian history who says outrageous things as a way of speaking truth to power. In their official statement about the arrests, Pussy Riot notes that: “our patriarch [head of the Russian Orthodox church] is not ashamed of wearing watches worth $40,000, which is intolerable when so many families in Russia are on the edge of poverty.” 

The arrests of Pussy Riot, along with dozens of other arrests at the small protests that sprang up in Moscow as the results of last Sunday's election were announced, send a signal that the new Putin administration is growing tired of the public protests and is looking to clamp down on displays of opposition to his rule.  We'll keep following the developments here.    

What About CNN's Role John?

There was an odd moment at Wednesday's Republican Presidential Debate (number 386 in the series, I think), moderator John King of CNN posed a question by beginning with the statement: “The American people don't often pay attention to what's going on in the world until they have to…”  Politico picked up on the comment and wrote this brief piece that included this photo illustration of the covers of different regional editions of Time magazine from two different weeks:

Time Covers USA vs. The World

The US version is clearly out-of-sync with the rest of the world, and focuses on “fluff” pieces while the global editions feature hard-news stories.  While it would seem to bolster John King's point, there is a certain chicken-and-egg quality to this story: does the US media tend to shy away from coverage of international affairs because Americans don't care that much about them, or do Americans not closely follow international affairs because the US media gives them so little coverage?

It wasn't always this way, historically, and especially in the post-World War II era, major media outlets would maintain bureaus in major cities around the globe with full-time staff dedicated to providing coverage of their particular region.  CNN, the world's first cable news network (hence the name “CNN”) made its mark by providing in-depth, intensive coverage of global events.  But times have changed, budget-cutting has meant that outlets like the Associated Press, New York Times and even CNN have drastically cut back on the number of foreign bureaus they operate.  The result has been a corresponding drop in the amount and quality of international affairs reporting in the American media.  We can infer that this has also led to Americans being less informed about the world outside their borders.

And this brings us back to John King.  He's likely right about Americans lacking knowledge about international affairs, but what about his own role in the affair?  King is one of CNN's featured personalities.  This is the same CNN that spent a solid week of doing almost wall-to-wall coverage on the death of Whitney Houston, a pop singer whose career, for all intents and purposes, ended over a decade ago.  Perhaps Mr. King, Americans wouldn't be so poorly informed if CNN had actually dedicated some of the time and coverage wasted on Houston to actual global events that matter: unrest in Syria, possible conflict with Iran, elections in Russia, take your pick, there's not a lack of stories out there, that is if you're willing to look for them. 

Paris vs. Putin

Are wealthy urban elites the latest group to turn against Russia's Vladimir Putin?  That’s the takeaway from a few articles recently discussing an unusual new phenomenon ahead of Russia's March 4 presidential elections.  It seems that well-heeled socialites are among the groups turning out in street protests against the Era of Putin in Moscow and St. Petersburg.  According to this report from Reuters, white ribbons – the symbol of the protest movement – are the hot new fashion accessory, and, in the  right social circles, there is a need to explain why your absence from the most recent public protest.  Among Russia's nouveau riche, there is perhaps no bigger socialite than Ksenia Sobchak – a model, media personality, host of the reality TV show Dom-2 (Russia's answer to Big Brother), now an unlikely addition to the anti-Putin brigade.

Sobchak's appearance at an anti-Putin rally would be like Paris Hilton pitching a tent at an Occupy Wall Street encampment, a point The Guardian hammers home in their lengthy piece on Russia's radical socialite.  But there is an important subtext to Sobchak's new-found political activism: Sobchak's father Anatoly was the mayor of St. Petersburg during the 1990s and started the political career of a young former intelligence officer named Vladimir Putin; Putin and the Sobchaks became and remain close personal friends, making Ksenia’s defection a quasi-family affair.  For her part, Ksenia Sobchak says that Putin is, at heart, a good person.  But like many other Russians, Ksenia seems to have been angered by Putin's decision to run for a third term as president after failing to deliver on promises of reform and to fight Russia's culture of corruption for the past 12 years.

Ksenia Sobchak's career as Russia's most-unlikely political radical began with a televised debate with one of the founders of the rabidly pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi (Russian for “Ours”).  Ksenia then traded in her hostessing gig on Dom-2 to become the moderator on a youth-oriented current affairs program on Russia's MTV channel called Gosdep (a Russian abbreviation for “Department of State”).  The first episode, entitled Where is Putin Taking Us? set the tone for the series by featuring a panel of figures from the political opposition typically barred from Russia's Kremlin-friendly television landscape.  That first episode proved to be Gosdep's last, despite good ratings.  Ksenia's decision to feature anti-Putin blogger and one of the de facto leaders of the opposition movement, Alexei Navalny, seems to have also been a factor in the show's cancellation.  Ahead of the March 4 election, the Kremlin is widely being blamed for a shake-up of management at Ekho Moscow the radio station which has been one of the few independent outlets on broadcast TV or radio.

Ksenia Sobchak may have lost her current affairs TV program, but she hasn't lost her fame and public persona, two factors that should make her difficult for the Kremlin to marginalize, while her desire to speak out against the failures of the Putin regime are a sign of just how deeply the anti-Putin sentiment is running in Russia today.

Putin and the Riot Grrrls

One thing is for sure, the developing protest movement in Russia is taking some interesting turns, case in point the all-female punk outfit called Pussy Riot, who have gained a fair bit of notoriety in recent months thanks to a series of impromptu performances and biting lyrics aimed squarely at Vladimir Putin.

The Guardian published this fairly in-depth piece about Pussy Riot, which acts more like a collective rather than a band, and whose members strive for total anonymity – wearing brightly colored balaclavas during performances and interviews to hide their faces.  Their most recent, and boldest, show was two weeks ago on a platform in front of the iconic St. Basil's Cathedral across from the Kremlin where they sang: “revolt in Russia – the charisma of protest / revolt in Russia, Putin's got scared!” – quite a change from just a few years ago when a Russian girl pop band sand about how they wanted “a man like Putin!”  Pussy Riot also sang atop the jail holding blogger and one of the de facto heads of the Russian protest movement, Alexey Navalny, after his arrest during the massive street protests on December 4; their lyrics that night included the lines: “death to prison / freedom to protest!”   

According to The Guardian, the average age of the members of Pussy Riot is 25, they describe themselves as feminists and say that most studied the humanities in college.  What I found really interesting though – beyond the mere idea of a feminist punk protest collective in Russia – is that they seem fairly savvy about the American punk/alternative scene from the 1990s.  Pussy Riot cited the iconic alternative act Sonic Youth as one of their references, along with Bikini Kill, a 90's-era, all-female punk outfit based out of Olympia, Washington who were one of the driving forces of the “riot grrrl” movement.  The lyrics in riot grrrl typically have a feminist bent, while the bands take on an in-your-face attitude.  It seems a good match for Pussy Riot's approach, it’s just surprising when you consider that the main influence on most contemporary female Russian bands are saccharine Europop outfits and that when riot grrrl was having its heyday, Pussy Riot's members were about eight years old and living on the other side of the globe. 

Pussy Riot say they plan to continue protesting, noting the historic role that women have played in Russia's many political upheavals. “There's a deep tradition in Russia of gender and revolution – we've had amazing women revolutionaries,” said a member of Pussy Riot, who in the spirit of anonymity went only by the name of Garazhda. 

Trouble In Somaliland

Somaliland, the independent, though internationally-unrecognized, nation that broke away from Somalia in the early 1990s, has long tried to draw a distinction between itself and its much better-known neighbor to the south.  While Somalia seems to be in a perpetual state of conflict and anarchy, Somaliland has remained relatively quiet and prosperous since breaking away from Somalia, Somaliland even completed a rarity for Africa – a relatively peaceful transition of power between rival political groups at the ballot box.

But government actions last week threaten to undermine this carefully crafted image that Somaliland is trying to present to the world.  On Sunday, the government of Somaliland announced that they were shutting down the television network Horn Cable TV for allegedly airing “anti-government propaganda”.  To make matters worse, the government then arrested 13 journalists who were part of a protest in Hargeisa (Somaliland's capital) against the closure of Horn Cable TV, according to the National Union of Somali Journalists, in what they called “a blatant misuse of powers”.  The National Union of Somali Journalists contends that Horn Cable TV was shut down for reporting on a meeting by tribal elders who were pushing for increased autonomy from the Somaliland government.  For their part, the Somaliland government says that the journalists' protest was illegal and that one of the journalists struck a student with the butt of a handgun he was carrying, which prompted his arrest.

Though still internationally considered part of Somalia, several neighboring African nations, like Ethiopia, maintain quasi-official diplomatic relations with the Somaliland government.  Somaliland also issues its own currency and is trying to grow its tourism sector to boost the local economy.

Youssou Throws His Hat Into The Ring

Famed Senegalese musician Youssou N'Dour made good on a promise that we reported on two months ago to become more involved in politics in his homeland by announcing that he would run for president of Senegal in elections scheduled for next month.  In November, N'Dour promised to end all “artistic commitments” after January 2 and “enter the political arena”, though the comment made it unclear what N'Dour would actually do in politics.

Now we know that he means to square off against Senegal's sitting president Abdoulaye Wade, who is seeking a third term in office.  The match-up is particularly interesting since Wade and N'Dour were once quite close, but fell out after Pres. Wade tried to pressure N'Dour to order a newspaper he owned to not run an embarrassing story about Wade's son.  N'Dour refused.  Anger in Senegal has been building against Wade for some time now, both over his attempt to change the laws to allow himself a third term in office and because of Senegal's ongoing economic stagnation and chronic shortages of electricity.  Power outages of a day or longer are common in the capital, Dakar; blackouts are so frequent that the national power company, Senelec, has earned the nickname “Darkness, Inc.”

But observers aren't sure that N'Dour's personal popularity will translate to a winning margin over Wade.  Despite a large pool of ill will towards Pres. Wade, he will face over a dozen challengers in February's vote.  It is unclear yet whether the opposition to Wade will coalesce around N'Dour, or whether it will remain fragmented allowing Wade to slip back in for a third term as president.

The Grinch Who Stole The UN

I heard about this story while out with some friends last Friday.  It is nice to think of the United Nations as a serious place where diplomats and experts sincerely try to come up with mature solutions to the world's most dire problems.

And then there's Mark Kornblau, the spokesman for the United States' Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice.  In response to an ongoing feud between his boss and Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, Kornblau tweeted this picture of Churkin photoshopped into an image of the Grinch Who Stole Christmas.  Glad to see that the US is sending mature boys and girls to represent our interests at the United Nations...

Rice and Churkin have recently had an increasingly testy round of exchanges over Syria and Libya.  Basically, the United States is angry with Russia over that country's opposition to increased pressure on the Assad regime in Syria over their brutal crackdown of pro-democracy demonstrators.  Russia, which has long-standing political and economic ties to Syria, is reluctant to punish the country any further. But Churkin has framed Russia's position as one of opposition to another US-led attempt at regime change in the Middle East/North Africa region, citing the NATO-led, US-backed campaign that led to the ouster of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya.  Rice responded to Churkin's latest position statement against further sanctions in Syria by saying of the Russian position “it is duplicitous, it's redundant, it's superfluous and it's a stunt.”  Churkin took a dig at Rice by saying those were the kind of big words one learns at Stanford, Rice's alma mater.

Of course a better tack for Churkin would have been to bring up Bahrain.  While Rice is making an impassioned case for intervention (politically at least) in Syria by stating: “Welcome to December. Is everybody sufficiently distracted from Syria now and the killing that is happening before our very eyes?,” just as the United States had made a similar case for action in Libya once that regime started killing its own citizens, the US position towards Bahrain was quite different.  When the small Persian Gulf state launched its own brutal crackdown against its own pro-democracy movement, which included the shooting of unarmed protesters and the arrest of doctors who tried to treat the wounded, the US was silent beyond a few bland calls for “restraint”.  The difference is that Bahrain is the home to the United States Navy's Fifth Fleet, the Bahrani royal family is closely allied with the Saudis and that the protesters were largely Shiite Muslims (like their large neighbor to the east, Iran).  Of course, if the United States is going to be the passionate supporter of human rights around the globe, then we should also call out our allies for their transgressions – a good point for Churkin to make.

Getting back to the Grinch thing.  Not only was it stupid, it was childish.  Given the beating the United States' image took at the UN during the term of Dubya Bush-era Ambassador John Bolton, who had all of the grace and diplomacy of a pit bull, there is a real need for the representatives of the United States now to appear mature and professional, Mark Kornblau has shown he is neither of these things.  Firing Kornblau would be a good step in the process of rebuilding the United States' stature as a glopbal leader at the UN.   

More TIME Person Of The Year Lameness

So Time Magazine is out today with their annual Person of the Year award, and once again Time has missed the mark.  While not as ridiculously bad as their 2006 selection of “You”, the computer user, this one is fairly bad in its own right.

Time has selected “The Protester” as the Person of the Year. Not a specific protester, or even a group like Occupy Wall Street, just protesters in general, so if you've formally bitched about anything this past year, congratulations, you are Time's Person of the Year.  But beyond the generic banality of giving the award to a vague group of people defined by partaking in a poorly-defined action, Time makes their selection seem even more ridiculous with their press release about the POTY award.

 “A year after a Tunisian fruit vendor set himself ablaze, dissent has spread across the Middle East, to Europe and the U.S., reshaping global politics and redefining people power,” the magazine explains.  The problem is that Tunisian fruit vendor had a name: Mohamed Bouazizi.  He passed away in early January after setting himself on fire after Tunisian authorities trashed his meager fruit stand because he couldn't afford a vendor's license.  Before setting himself alight, Bouazizi complained that even after getting a college education, there were no jobs for young men like himself in Tunisia, and now the government wouldn't even let him sell fruit at the local bazaar.  Bouazizi's act sparked protests that would eventually topple the government of Tunisia, an act that would go on to inspire Egyptians, Libyans, Yemenis, Syrians and others to rise up against their oppressive governments.  If anyone met the criteria of being the individual who “most influenced the culture and the news during the past year, for good or for ill,” it was Bouazizi.

Yet somehow it wasn't enough for Time magazine to honor him as the POTY.  Perhaps Time feared that giving the award to a man little-known to the American population, but with a Muslim-sounding name would spark a possible boycott from a group of ignorant yahoos in Florida, or perhaps no one at the great journalistic institution of Time Magazine bothered to learn the name of the “Tunisian fruit vendor”.  Whatever the reason, by passing up honoring Mohamed Bouazizi in favor of the generic “Protester”, Time once again showed the irrelevance of the Person of the Year award, and of their magazine itself.

Youssou N'Dour's New Gig: Politics

Youssou N'Dour, the singer who is renowned in world music circles and beloved in his native Senegal announced over the weekend that he was tossing his hat into the political ring.  “I will free myself of all artistic commitments from 2 January next year to enter the political arena,” N'Dour told a cheering crowd, according to The Guardian, adding in language similar to former US presidential candidate John Edwards in 2004 that there were now “two Senegals”, one for the haves and one for the have-nots.  “My concern is the Senegal of the have-nots,” N'Dour said in a message broadcast on a Senegalese television station he owns.  What wasn't clear from his announcement was whether N'Dour planned to lend his voice and image to a populist political movement, or if he planned to directly challenge sitting President Abdoulaye Wade's attempt to win a third term in office.

As we discussed here last year, this isn't the first time that N'Dour has flirted with politics.  N'Dour lent his support to a political platform pushing for reform in Senegal last year.  Ironically, N'Dour and Wade were once quite close, but things changed in 2006 when Wade pushed N'Dour to prevent a newspaper he owned from printing negative stories about the president's son.  N'Dour replied that he believed in journalistic freedom and that newspapers should be free to print stories without government interference.  The relationship between the two men quickly deteriorated.

The Guardian notes that unlike many of their West African neighbors, Senegal has a history of stable governments and democratic elections, though Wade is accused of undermining that trend in recent years by claiming a constitutional amendment barring the president from serving more than two terms in office didn't apply to him because it was introduced during his second term.  Other Senegalese are unhappy at the state of the country's economy and that President Wade has spent tend of millions of dollars on projects like “African Renaissance”, a massive statue on a hillside above the capital, Dakar, designed and built, strangely enough, by the North Koreans.  Wade also ordered a rural electrification program that was intended to boost the national economy, but the state electric monopoly, Senelec, has been unable to meet the demand; blackouts have become so common in Senegal that Senelec has acquired the unfortunate nickname of “Darkness, Inc.”