9 posts tagged “ussr”

I’m not sure how my friend Pearl came up with the scenario of Agent Smith from The Matrix (shown at left in one of his many guises—I think this was the scene where he battled Neo in a gay bar, before one of his stilettos broke) battling Joseph Stalin, but I took her lead:

   Smith: Mr Stalin.
   Stalin: Who are you? How did you get in to the Kremlin?
   Smith: It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you’re not actually mammals.
   Stalin: Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.
   Smith: You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area.
   Stalin: Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach.
   Smith: There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You’re a plague and we are the cure.
   Stalin: Death is the solution to all problems. No man, no problem.

As Agent Smith contemplates Stalin’s response, a Soviet Red Guard shoots Smith in the back with an AK-47. As Smith appears to die, Joseph Stalin turns into Agent Smith.
   Agent Smith 1, Soviet Union 0.

Things are looking down for the Russian auto industry, but then, the writing has been on the wall for years. This al-Jazeera report looks at UAZ and VAZ (the latter makes the Shigulis, Okas, Ladas and other models). I would guess that even the price-conscious these days are more likely to buy Indian-built models such as the Hyundai i10 than a Lada.

   At least government departments still buy them, unlike the UK where it’s no longer uncommon to see Lexus and Subaru police cars.
   But most of the Russian brands need new models if they are to keep up with Korea, India, Turkey, the Czech Republic and even Uzbekistan. Newer cars like the Siber are still out of reach of many Russians. And there are only so many Shigulis and Volgas you can sell before people ask, ‘Wasn’t that the same shape you sold during Brezhnev?’

Zap2It has a good interview with two of the producers of US Life on Mars, Josh Appelbaum and Scott Rosenberg, on the finalé on Wednesday night there.
   At least the show has been given a proper sending off from ABC there.
   The story is rather brief so I won’t excerpt much. But it does make me wonder how they will tie in all the episodes this week, as there are some wildly varying possibilities of why American Sam is in 1973. From the story:

“It wasn’t terrifically complicated[,]” to have the season finale also be the series ender, Rosenberg said in a phone interview Tuesday. “We always knew what the season finale would be, and we always knew what the series finale would be. We just didn't expect to get to the series finale this quickly.”

   Since the beginning the producers have said Jason O’Mara’s Sam Tyler will not be in a coma, so that rules out the original reason.
   I still think Sam is in a USSR ESP experiment, but who knows?

Citing a lack of resonance with the audience, ABC has announced the American version of Life on Mars will finish after this season.
   I learned this when I got back from a full-on day out of the office, in an email sent from Tanya on our team.
   It should mean the run will be longer than the UK’s, and fans (and I count myself as one—I like both UK and US versions) won’t have to wait long to find out what happened to US Sam Tyler.
   I still think he’s part of an ESP experiment for the Soviet Union, inadvertently trying to discover who or what God is.

After a duffer last week, the latest US Life on Mars was, for a change, brilliant.
   There was no British equivalent to this ninth episode, which continues from the cliff-hanger of the seventh. We discover Ray Carling has a brother and the plot appears to be an inquiry into his disappearance.
   But Sam was hearing a strange message from someone who seems to know he is in 1973. Considering he came up, in the seventh episode, with the address at 35 Stewart Drive from printer’s codes at the bottom of forms, it’s too coincidental for him to find a dead body there. Someone is pulling the strings.
   The great thing is that there were good Sam and Annie scenes, one of the things that worked with the original series.
   However, as with last week, we no longer hear his life-support machines or any sign of the present.
   Annie is puzzled by Sam’s ability to predict her close call at the hands of Vic Tyler in the seventh episode—a remake of the original eighth. In the American version, Sam shares his visions of a woman with a red dress with Annie, which his British counterpart did not. She also reveals some of the things he has told her about 2008—Sam’s knowledge of “the future” was another entertaining element of the original, which this episode had.
   I think we can write off the coma theory. The mystery caller appears at the end of this episode, though his face is not shown. He takes the tape of Sam’s interview from the FBI agent leading the inquiry, smashing those of Gene Hunt and Ray Carling. (Does smashing the plastic spool do anything to magnetic tape? Clearly this chap is not from 1973!) He places the tape into a folder marked ‘Aries Project’, clearly connected to the CCCP—the Soviet Union. (If it is top secret, why would this be marked? Why would the logo even have English lettering?) Inside the folder are plans of one of the miniature “toys” that US Sam has been seeing.

   This is a great departure from the original, and sets up a great mystery—I am getting the same buzz I did as the second series in the UK came to a conclusion and the fan base was speculating like crazy over what was happening to Sam.
   I can also say this is the first totally original script—the third aired so far—that has the same level of intrigue as the British episodes.
   Remember, as with Ashes to Ashes and Alex Drake, there are scenes in US Life on Mars that do not feature Sam Tyler, so Gene, Ray, Chris and Annie have their own lives independently of him—which means this is not of Sam’s mind’s making.
   So, what has happened to American Sam Tyler? Because I do not think Aries is a red herring and the original script is penned by one of the story editors, Bryan Oh, along with Tracy McMillan (Journeyman). Last week there was a mention of nanobots and a Soviet scientist.
   If there are Journeyman shades here, then who else knows about Sam? Is he a Soviet agent who is part of an experiment in remote future projection, someone who has believed so much in the visions that he does not believe he is back in his own time? But that the experiments left him in New York, and his Soviet masters are trying to learn about his experiences? That during the height of the Cold War, the Soviets used this method to get future technology (hence Sam is a cop, in a position of authority) and that one of the few things that can get sent back are nanobots? That the Mars Rover in US episode 2 actually was sent to space as part of this experiment? Does the USSR have stations scattered through time rather than space? Is there an astrological significance to Aries, the first sign of the zodiac? How does this tie in with the Cataldo Houses?
   It sounds way-out to anyone who has only ever seen the original series, and I certainly never heard this theory bandied about chat rooms back in 2006 when Life on Mars neared its end.
   If US Life on Mars continues on this path, with this depth of writing, I will be very pleased, and ABC should be as well.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn has died aged 89, according to the Associated Press.
   Not only was he a great author (admission: I have only ever read passages of his books), he was one of Russia’s straight-shooters.
   I like to think Solzhenitsyn was largely fair, pointing out the faults of Russia and the west.
   These excerpts from the AP report in the International Herald–Tribune interested me most, because they continue to hold lessons for us today:

He attacked the complicity of millions of Russians in the horrors of Stalin’s reign. “Suddenly all the professors and engineers turned out to be saboteurs—and they believed it? … Or all of Lenin’s old guard were vile renegades—and they believed it? Suddenly all their friends and acquaintances were enemies of the people—and they believed it?”
   The Stalinist era, he wrote, quoting from a poem by Alexander Pushkin, forced Soviet citizens to choose one of three roles: tyrant, traitor, prisoner.

and:

While avoiding a partisan political role, Solzhenitsyn vowed to speak “the whole truth about Russia, until they shut my mouth like before.”

   The first quote is an important reminder that we need to always be vigilant, and remember—rather than rely on others to tell us what we should remember.
   The second reminds us of our own duties.
   And Solzhenitsyn’s life—staying firm despite being sent to the gulag—is an inspiration to us to remain firm in our truest beliefs. It is a romantic notion to say ‘[His accounts] inspired millions, perhaps, with the knowledge that one person’s courage and integrity could, in the end, defeat the totalitarian machinery of an empire,’ but one that finds instant appeal for me.

Some more photos to share from around Wellington, New Zealand, and to show it’s not always sunny!

   This is actually Chews Lane but I thought it was strange seeing a second sign, on the opposite side, reading Tow Away Lane—but in the style of a regular street-name sign. Hence the filename Odd Name for a Street. Across the road is the local HQ for the Fairfax Press.    A lot of cities have fleets of so-called “green cabs” and Wellington is no exception. There are these ugly little eggs running around called Toyota Priuses, which may have looked good for about, ooh, one Oscar telecast’s arrivals. After that, they got pretentious.
   This one has the licence plate 0 SMOG. But it’s a hybrid, so when the petrol engine is in play, it does generate something out of the exhaust, surely? I know we have unleaded fuel and catalytic converters, but from what little I know of emissions this still generates more pollution than the regular Ford Falcon LPG cabs that run around Wellington—which, technically, should have this plate. If Wellington’s main taxi company is clever, it can tell us how many LPG Falcons it has running and compare the quantity to the fleet of these Green Cabs.
   I think Green Cabs is doing a good thing, generally, and certainly a Prius’s interior room is sufficient for most journeys, but I can remember the 1980s when most cabs here ran on natural gas, be they Holdens or Fords, and generated far less pollution than modern cars. We have, of course, the National Government of the 1990s to thank for their demise, and the Labour Government to continue its “rival’s” (ha ha) folly.    People my age will remember the Trades’ Hall and how it was the site of a bombing in the mid-1980s. Caretaker Ernie Abbott was the victim of the after-hours blast. I don’t think it was ever solved and I wonder if it qualifies as our first terrorist bombing.
   Trevor Loudon shares some theories on his blog but he admits they are hearsay. He refutes the rumour that it was a right-wing group and instead points to Marxists and various pro-Soviet groups committed to unseating the Muldoon Government. The irony is that the Labour Government that followed proved more anti-union and right-wing than they might have expected. One commenter on Mr Loudon’s blog wrote, ‘If your theory is true Trevor then the irony of the outcome was classic. They got a Labour Government alright, but it contained good’uns like Douglas, Prebble, Bassett, De Cleene, Caygill & Moore.’
   However, Loudon is also right in responding, ‘True Spirit, but the Soviets also got NZ's anti nuclear policies and the destruction of ANZUS. Which do you think the Soviets cared about most?’
   Whatever the case, we began losing a lot of our values and the integrity of our national system that decade, after the change in government. We can trace the growing gap between rich and poor right back to 1984, when we moved from a reasonably egalitarian and fair society to one which has an underclass and domination by foreign corporations.

[Cross-posted] As we watch the tributes flow in for the late former Russian president Boris Yeltsin, the article that seems to be best balanced that I have encountered so far is from the Associated Press. It is not for me to speak in depth of Mr Yeltsin, as I only know of his image—outside Russia, it was often congenial, but more often confusing. I might not have agreed totally with his approach, but he led at a difficult time. I hope his passing yesterday helps the Russian people create dialogue, learning and understanding that they can apply to their collective future as world citizens. The fact we can even consider them, and so many former Soviet republics, our neighbours on this planet is, perhaps, due in some great respect to Mr Yeltsin.

Why did Vladimir Putin attack the US most recently? Simple: he’s been watching the American MSM and seeing how division has crept in to the United States, and figures, ‘I’d rather go back to that old CCCP system. If we follow this democratic route that the US wants us to, we’ll become divided and fight one another. I’ll have a population that doesn’t even vote for the most part, and half the bunch spends the rest of the time hating the guy at the top. I might as well side with the Red Chinese: at least they are keeping their population in check with few revolutionary elements that get out of hand, depriving them of their basic human rights.’