I think I am the only one who finds these things interesting, but since I wasted all the time extracting and uploading all the old caricatures, you get to look at more of them.
If for some reason you want to see more, please don’t hesitate to click on my previous posts.
The following set of caricatures from the Soviet satirical magazine Krokodil is indicative of the treatment of the Vietnam War in the Soviet press. While stepping up the propaganda war, the Soviet Union was quietly shipping ammunition and advisers to Vietnam. During my army years, I served with a guy who was one of the Soviet military advisers in Vietnam; according to him, they were forbidden from displaying any kind of Soviet insignia, didn’t wear the uniform and pretended to be either some kind of sports trainers or construction workers.
The Holocaust Remembrance day falls on May 2 this year and in the few following posts I will publish several documents concerning the treatment of the Jewish population in my hometown of Odessa, Ukraine issued by the Romanian Authority which occupied Odessa from 1941-1944.
At the beginning of the occupation there were 80,000-90,000 Jews who did not evacuate from Odessa. When the city was liberated on April 10, 1944 there were reportedly only 600 left. Somewhere in the Odessa Region my 6-year old Father survived in the ghetto with help from kind people and lots of luck. The area where he lived with my Grandmother was occupied by the Italians who were not very enthusiastic about being in the war and their relative reluctance to torture and execute the Jews might have resulted in more survivors than in the areas controlled by Romanians who proved themselves to be ruthless murderers.
Many places in Odessa and the Region have memorial markers where the executions were conducted, such as a place where over 25,000 Jews were burned alive shortly after the occupation started. Unfortunately, I never stopped or paid attention to them, probably like most people. I saw more memorial markers today, while researching this post, than I remember seeing when I still lived in Odessa.
The Russian text is found in the National Archives of the Odessa Region, translation mine. If I have time and patience I will also try to translate a personal memoir written by a survivor; translation is a long and tedious process, and even though I start with a machine translation, it still doesn’t always come out right. Feel free to let me know if I can correct some grammar or spelling errors.
Guardian published an interesting list of 25 people it the heart of the meltdown listing 25 individuals and entities who (in their opinion) had a hand in our current economic situation. As indicated in the comments to the article, not everyone agrees with their choices which include Alan Greenspan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and others. Other people think that Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Milton Freedman deserve to be included as well.
My favorite nominee – American and British Public:
There’s no escaping the fact: politicians might have teed up the financial system and failed to police it properly and Wall Street’s greedy bankers might have got carried away with the riches they could generate, but if millions of Americans had just realized they were borrowing more than they could repay then we would not be in this mess. The British public got just as carried away. We are the credit junkies of Europe and many of our problems could easily have been avoided if we had been more sensible and just said no.
To that I add overly-encouraging real estate agents, overestimating appraisers, extra-helpful mortgage brokers and anyone who profited on these loans. The reason the scheme worked is that it was structured as a multi-level-marketing pyramid with profits multiplying at the top, while the bottom supplied new applicants. These were the members of the public too, just as guilty as the rest.
I wrote about it earlier, but some years ago I was predicting this collapse when it still sounded a lot like conspiracy theory and I’d like to be included in the list of people who saw this coming. I guess I am always pessimistic (and defeatist) anyway so my predictions didn’t sound out of character.Right now my pessimistic worldview tells me that no one knows how to get out of the crisis. Many qualified people offer solutions both in academia and business but any action would be experimental, and I can only hope it will be easy on the test subjects.
In the meantime I’d like to wish all victims of the economic crimes, especially local Sprint employees, good luck. Every day I think about what would happen if I lose my job and nothing encouraging comes to mind, so I feel for the people who have to make these choices today, on someone else’s terms, in this economy. There is no question your company was mismanaged and robbed and it’s not your fault (unless you are the one who did the mismanaging and robbing, then it’s your fault, I hope you invested with Madoff). I hope you will find something soon, a secure well-paying job where your talents will be appreciated. You’ll be better off even if the pay is not the same. Good luck!
Before I move on with the continuation of my ever-popular crapperseries I’d like to clarify something. The reason I am writing these is not to get some compassion for the misery that I and my countrymen had to go through. Even with the lack of modern conveniences millions of happy and meaningful lives were lived in the USSR. Many scientific breakthroughs were made by people who after work went back to their crappy communal apartments. Many cultural masterpieces were created by people with no running water in sight. Millions of children were conceived while someone else was sleeping in the other corner of the same room. On the other hand, there are miserable people leaving in the mansions with 6 bathrooms and loads of toilet paper. What I am trying to say is that life conditions are important but even more important are families, friends, surroundings, etc. When everything else is peachy, the toilet paper shortage is not so relevant.
Now back to the subject.
Outdoor Plumbing.
Outdoor plumbing is an oxymoron.
There wasn’t any plumbing outdoors. In most of the rural areas and old parts of town for their natural needs people visited an outhouse. Regular outhouse looked kinda like this sans the raccoon, heating and funny signs. It was normally situated above the giant hole in the ground which sometimes was pumped out à la “Dirty Jobs”. (notice the abundance of the French words in my blog). I am not sure how the rest of them were emptied but I’ve never heard about septic tanks until I got here. Some of these were regular “squat” types and the other ones had a way to sit down on a toilet seat. If you ever get to visit one of these I recommend to not look down the hole. Just take my word on this.
People who owned these outhouses kept them clean and tried to insulate them from cold. I’ve never seen a heated one, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t any. During the cold times of the year these places did not encourage prolonged sessions with a funny book.An old army joke talked about having to have a partner while going to the bathroom above the Arctic Circle: one will do his business and the one other will stand by with an axe in case the first one had to be separated from the toilet. In these areas liquids freeze before they hit the ground.
As I’ve mentioned above, many toilet facilities were of the “squat” type where you’d find a hole of various shapes (with some evil crap inside, don’t look down) and sometimes there were markings where to place you feet. Feet placement was also guided by disgusting stuff on the floor. You just had to try not to step in the unknown hazardous waste (not all people have excellent aiming skills and that’s all I’m going to say about that). When I was in the army our outdoor facility was a huge concrete building with 40 to 60 holes in the floor and a 20 yard trough for #1 (I’ve heard that Chiefs stadium has some of these). In the morning, when 300 people visited it at the same time my eyes would tear up, and not because I was so proud or whatever. It wasn’t a smell anymore, it was a wall of ammonia-laden mist. Surprisingly,within few minutes, the smell became bearable and you could go on about your business. To sanitize the out-buildings they spread some kind of powder similar to mix of DDT, dry Clorox and Lysol. I should also mention that the building had no doors and partial walls so all the warmth was generated…sorry, I told you not to look down there. When we were on a mission they just dug a trench and surrounded the area with tarps (no roof). Notice that the squat toilets did not discriminate against handicapped, elderly and pregnant women. Just imagine doing it with any of these conditions. I still have great balancing skills. Sometimes people rebelled and improved the age-old design as shown in exhibit to the right. Sometimes it was more ingenuous than that but this will give you an idea. Notice that there are no dividers. Enjoy the company!
If you are feeling deprived of the genuine squat toilet experience, some schmuck is promoting a device to convert your nice, comfortable throne into a squatting nightmare. It will cure your depression, impotence and make your hair grow back. I, on the other hand, will enjoy some time in one of my two bathrooms with an issue of “Consumer Reports”. To be continued.
P.S. This blog is not responsible for trauma caused by your attempts to climb up on your toilet. Do not try this at home.
Guardian published an interesting list of 25 people it the heart of the meltdown listing 25 individuals and entities who (in their opinion) had a hand in our current economic situation. As indicated in the comments to the article, not everyone agrees with their choices which include Alan Greenspan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and others. Other people think that Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Milton Freedman deserve to be included as well.
Sometimes people rebelled and improved the age-old design as shown in exhibit to the right. Sometimes it was more ingenuous than that but this will give you an idea. Notice that there are no dividers. Enjoy the company!
