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Last week, Muscovites got treated to a peculiar sight… a huge green cloud over the city. Because I grew up in North Carolina, my immediate thought upon seeing it (I was jogging to the House of Journalists at the time, running late for a film screening) was “tornado”. Green clouds usually point to a large amount of ice in the clouds, which in turn is a sign of oncoming hail, which could mean that a tornado’s forming nearby. Of course, in Moscow, a tornado would probably mean the End of Days (cue dramatic organ music), rather than a weather phenomenon. What the “green” actually signified this time around was a pollen cloud. It’s a sure-fire way for nature to point out that it’s really spring outside, as opposed to the fake not-quite-spring Moscow usually experiences for all of March and until mid-April or so.
The pollen cloud was a beautiful eerie sight, and I bring it up because of how people reacted to it. There were the usual quips on social networking sites afterward of course, but what got me was the fact that a lot of people genuinely freaked out. This included the people I saw taking pictures of the cloud with awestruck expressions on their faces. An expat friend messaged me that evening, “It’s 2012, it can’t be a coincidence!” He was only half-joking, I think. Nobody likes to see anything unusual in Moscow… or other big cities. Big cities are always destroyed just a little too gleefully in all of the blockbusters. This is beside the fact that the green cloud blanketed Moscow on the anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. Uh huh, that’s right… 26 April. Also a coincidence? Well, yes.
The thing about pollen is that it’s pretty annoying. I don’t even have any major allergies, but my eyes still get irritated in the spring from all of that plant-dust floating around in the air. Don’t even get me started on the state of my (yes, very green) windowsill right now. Nevertheless, after the pollen cloud had come and gone, all of the green leaves in Moscow seemed to unfurl all at once. The horror movie treatment did the trick. The weather turned. The ladies, including myself, ditched the thick leggings. We waited for the other shoe to drop, but it didn’t happen. Sometimes, a freaky green cloud is just a freaky green cloud, even in the year 2012.
2 May 2012
Natalia Antonova
RIA-Novosti
http://en.rian.ru/natalya_antonova_blog/20120502/173168636.html
Editor’s Note:
Here’s the meat of it all:
Sometimes, a freaky green cloud is just a freaky green cloud, even in the year 2012.
Now, that’s the ticket. As for me, I’m old enough not to believe in oddbod conspiracies, rum internet rumour, or flapdoodle speculation. For me to believe it, it must meet a three-fold test:
- Is in character for those involved? Has this happened before with this lot? As people ARE “creatures of habit”, it’s unusual for someone to do something “out of character”. There are rare individuals who think and act “outside of the box”, but they’re very rare (His Nibs and Laurus Škurla are such… Bobby K and Paffhausen aren’t).
- What’s in it for whom? Is it in someone’s interest? Don’t invest things with non-existent conspiracies… trust me, most people can’t keep the security and secrecy needed for a real plot. Ask yourself, “Cui bono?” That’s the normal motivation behind most things… is it in the best interest of this-or-that individual or faction? The First Families prop up the present state of affairs, not because it’s good for the Church or because they’re implementing some notional “plan”, but because it’s good for them and their egotistical view of themselves.
- Who knows whom? Are these jabronies related in some comprehensible way? Again, as a rule, it’s not secretive machination (except in some political cases); it’s simply just a like-minded set of similar individuals with analogous backgrounds. We can see this at SVS, the cabal around Paffhausen, and the lot of Angliochian konvertsy around Freddie M-G and Dreher. For instance, Brum, Eliel, and Fathausen all go back as common disciples of the Mad Hatter guru Podmoshensky and they studied together at Berkeley Theological Union (don’t forget, Fathausen dropped out before finishing a degree). It’s the old “us versus them” mentality.
Again, conspiracies only exist in the fevered imaginations of the ignorant or hysterical. Indeed, the whole notion’s rather ludicrous, isn’t it? That is, what we face isn’t a dragon… it’s a bunch of jokers in a dragon suit (like at Chinese New Year)… quite another thing entirely. Nothing’s what it appears to be… just keep your head clear, observe what’s actually in front of you, and realise that it may take some time for most of the narod to tumble onto what’s really out there. It won’t be easy… it won’t be short… but we don’t face ogres and demons… we just face “freaky green clouds”. Pass me the jug, and take a hit yourself. The world hasn’t stopped being crook in the last 24, has it?
BMD
