Local Russian Community Reacts to Boston Bombings

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The Boston bombings hit especially close to home for the local Russian community after reports surfaced that the two suspects might have ties to the Russian region of Chechnya. Rev Arkady Migunov heads a small but growing Russian Orthodox community (Annunciation Orthodox Church) in the Southside, but recently one thing was on his mind whilst he prays. He said, “When I heard about it, I was like ‘oh my gosh’ again, something terrible happened. I didn’t know that those guys were from Chechnya”. Migunov said that he remembered the troubled history his country had with Chechnya for a long time, saying, “The story goes back centuries, there were times when Russia would send forces to Chechnya, and the Chechen people would fight back”. However, in spite of the connection to his homeland, he said that the problem isn’t a matter of nationalities. Members of his church expressed anger and sadness after the attack. Rev. Migunov said, “I’m very sad and I pray for those people who suffered, for those people who got injured, for those people who even did that”. Tonight, Rev Migunov will lead a special prayer for the victims of the Boston bombings at Annunciation Orthodox Church.

19 April 2013

Lorena Inclan

CBS 47 WETV (Jacksonville FL)

http://www.actionnewsjax.com/content/topstories/story/Local-Russian-community-reacts-to-Boston-bombings/WKGAbUHqIkC0FgTv0i02LA.cspx?rss=3568

Northeastern USA “Blown Away” by Blizzard Nemo, 9 Dead

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A potentially record-breaking snow storm brought the northeastern USA to a grinding halt and left nine dead. Thousands lost power amidst flight cancellations and a nuclear plant shutdown, as authorities declared states of emergency in five states. A blizzard dumped record snow of 97 centimetres (38 inches) in parts of Connecticut as it continued blowing through Boston and the rest of New England on Saturday. Life was returning to normal in New York City, where up to 31 centimetres (12 inches) of snow fell. New York airports reopened earlier Saturday, after being closed for nearly a day. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, “We were very lucky. We avoided the worst of it”.

In neighbouring Massachusetts, snow tapered off in the afternoon after reaching around 60 centimetres (24 inches), and authorities lifted a state-wide ban on all driving after 24 hours. Instruments recorded wind gusts of 120 kilometres an hour (75 miles per hour) through the night at Boston’s Logan International Airport, which wasn’t expected to reopen before late Saturday. On Cape Cod, the hook-shaped Massachusetts peninsula jutting into the Atlantic, waves up to 6 metres (20 feet) high crashed onto beaches. Jane Miller, a resident of Nantucket Island off the coast of Massachusetts, told reporters, “This has been like a hurricane with snow”. She said that the island was spared heavy snowfall, but surging tides prompted the local government and Red Cross to open a shelter at a high school for people living near the coast who wanted to evacuate. Coastal flooding was particularly bad along Massachusetts’ southern mainland coastline, a stretch that was also hit in the October hurricane-turned-superstorm Sandy. The US Postal Service suspended service in seven states.

In New York State, media reports said that a car that skidded out of control struck a female pedestrian, and a man died in a tractor rollover while clearing his driveway. A Massachusetts 12-year-old died of carbon-monoxide poisoning when he sat in the family car to warm up after helping his father shovel snow. Named Blizzard Nemo by the Weather Channel, the storm’s heavy snow and terrifically-high winds toppled trees, causing caused power outages for more than 600,000 people across Massachusetts, New York, Maine, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Some 400,000 blacked out electric customers were in Massachusetts alone, where the Boston Globe published a photo of total storm whiteout with the headline: “Blown Away”. Late Friday, power outages caused a shutdown of the Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Plymouth MA, according to a local radio station.

According to the National Weather Service, parts of Connecticut appeared to have received the heaviest snowfall, ranging up to 97 centimetres (38 inches) in Milford and 91 centimetres (36 inches) in other areas. The coastal town of Portland ME received a record 74 centimetres (29 inches) of snow. A news crew for CNN reported that the doors of their satellite truck had frozen shut overnight on Cape Cod, and it took them an hour to reopen them. Wind whipped snow drifts more than a metre (40 inches) high in Boston. A city worker told the DPA that it was the worst storm since 1978, when a 36-hour blizzard killed 100 people in Massachusetts and neighbouring Rhode Island. In the 1978 blizzard, hundreds of cars were stranded in the snow, and some drivers froze to death along interstate highways. More than 5,000 flights were cancelled since Friday, and, at its height, the storm shut down all rail traffic from Philadelphia to Boston. The governors of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and Maine declared states of emergency.

Prime News reported that Russian airlines Aeroflot and Transaero plan to maintain scheduled flights to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on Saturday despite anticipating huge snow falls from snow-storm Nemo. Nemo, which hit the northeastern USA on Friday evening, is expected to be one of the most powerful in the history of New York. Over 4,700 flights were cancelled across the USA due to the storm. Aeroflot said, “There’ve been no changes to our timetable”, whilst rival Transaero reported, “departure is expected as normal”, for its morning flight to New York. Meanwhile, the weather was also making life hard in Moscow, where pedestrians and drivers woke on Saturday to find the city covered in a slippery coat of glass-like ice after freezing rain fell overnight, causing accidents on several main highways into the capital.

New England braced on Thursday for a possibly record-setting winter storm, with forecasts of up to 2 feet (61 centimetres) of snow already causing airlines to cancel thousands of flights and utilities to prepare for power outages. The storm was blowing in from the Midwest where it began dropping snow on the Chicago area on Thursday afternoon. It was due to bring light snow to the Northeastern USA on Friday morning before ramping up to blizzard conditions by afternoon. Alan Dunham, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service, said, “This one doesn’t come along every day. This is going to be a dangerous winter storm. Wherever you need to get to, get there by Friday afternoon, and don’t plan on leaving”.

In Boston, which was expected to see some of the heaviest snowfall, on Friday, Mayor Thomas Menino ordered the city’s schools to close and urged businesses to consider allowing staff to stay home, to reduce the risk of commuters getting stranded. Menino told reporters, “We’re hardy New Englanders, let me tell you, and used to these types of storms. But I also want to remind everyone to use common sense and stay off the streets of our city. Basically, stay home. Stay put after noontime tomorrow”.

City officials up and down the northeastern USA were bracing for the storm, readying fleets of ploughs and salt trucks to keep streets clear, whilst airport officials advised travellers to try to reschedule flights ahead of the storm. The National Weather Service said Boston could get 18 to 24 inches of snow (46 to 61 centimetres) on Friday and Saturday, its first heavy snowfall in two years. Light snow is expected to begin falling around 07.00 EST (04.00 PST 12.00 UTC 16.00 MSK 23.00 AEST) on Friday, with heavier snow and winds gusting as high as 60 to 75 miles per hour (97 to 121 kilometres per hour) as the day progresses. Kim Buttrick, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Taunton MA said, “It’s the afternoon rush-hour time frame into the evening and overnight when the height of the storm will be”. Cities from Hartford CT to Portland ME expected to see at least a foot (31 centimetres) of snow.

9 February 2013

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_02_10/US-northeast-blown-away-by-blizzard-Nemo-9-dead-VIDEO/

Editor’s Note:

There was little disruption here in Albany NY, even though it’s at the geographical centre of the Northeast and it’s the transportation hub of the region (all major roads and trunk rail lines in the Northeastern USA converge on Albany). There was a snow emergency declared by Mayor Jerry Jennings, but he cancelled it before it took effect, as so little snow has fallen. We took a lovely motor through the lower Adirondacks this afternoon after services, and there was little snowfall as far north as Lake George (75 kilometres (46 miles) from Albany). The Lake George Winter Carnival was in full swing, with no problems due to the weather (the Carnival runs during the weekends of February… so, if you’re in the region, check it out). It was a fairly-comfy -5 (23 degrees Fahrenheit), with no biting winds (trust me… it can get MUCH more nastier than that in this neck of the woods; it was a balmy winter day by my lights). My Nicky bought a bumper sticker with three bears on it… so, it was a good adventure. No, we didn’t “suffer” in the least. We had no power outages, no heavy snows, and no disruption to normal life. We lucked out.

BMD

8 November 2012. A Sad Fact about the Late Election…

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John Wiener of The Nation wrote the following:

If only white people had voted on Tuesday, Mitt Romney would’ve carried every state except for Massachusetts, Iowa, Connecticut, and New Hampshire, according to the news media’s exit polls. Nationally, Romney won 59 percent of the white vote, a towering twenty-point margin over Obama (exit polls were cancelled in nineteen states by the consortium of news media that run them). The pattern isn’t limited to the South, with its history of racism and segregation. Even in the deepest blue states, white voters went for Romney… 53 percent in California, 52 percent in New York, 55 percent in Pennsylvania.

Liberals hoped that whites who opposed Obama in 2008 would learn toleration and acceptance of racial difference after four years with a black president in the White House. However, what happened was the opposite… Romney won 4 percent more of the white vote in 2012 than John McCain won in 2008. In New York and Wisconsin, Romney won 6 percent more of the white vote than McCain in 2008; in California and Florida, he won 7 percent more; in New Jersey, he won 8 percent more. Even in Massachusetts, where Obama’s margin of victory was 61 percent, Romney increased the Republicans’ proportion of the white vote by four percentage points over 2008.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/171093/bad-news-about-white-people-romney-won-white-vote-almost-everywhere

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The pattern is clear. White men went for Romney… that was accentuated amongst white rural men… and strongest of all amongst white men over 55. Most of all, Romney was the champion of the Anglo white male. Romney did NOT win a majority amongst white women… but his plurality amongst white men was so marked that it wiped that out.

I’ll be clear. I’ve heard the word “nigger” used once too often in my presence by white men who thought that I shared their hate and bile towards people who haven’t done a thing to hurt them. White men have drunk the Kool-Aid… and so-called “Born Again Christians” are the worst of the lot. Our Lord Christ would reject the whole bunch… no exceptions.

Look at the above map… the Anglo rural population swallowed the Grand Olde Pervert propaganda whole. The urban agglomerations where most of the American population lives rejected the Ayn Rand rubbish purveyed by Romney and Ryan.

We’re all in this together… that’s why socialism is the way to go. Either we all advance together or we all fall together. The rapine and theft by the Affluent Effluent has to end. Either that, or, we’ll have a revolution that’ll make 1917 look like a kid’s play…

BMD

 

A Romney Victory Would Likely Expand Income Inequality

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Charles W Kegley, Jr is a founding partner of Kegley International, Inc. and Distinguished Pearce Professor of International Relations Emeritus at the University of South Carolina, where he served as chairman of the Department of Government and International Studies. Professor Kegley spoke to VOR about the upcoming American presidential election and his view of the candidates.

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The overall contours of American foreign policy are likely not to change very much no matter who’s elected, because, historically, elections don’t determine changes in policies. They do change the style and the emphasis. For President Obama, should he be elected, and I think that might happen and I hope it happens, I think we’d have a deepening of relations between the USA and Russia. Romney is harder to read, as he previously called Russia “the Number One Foe of the USA”. Should he win the election, as he has no job experience in the foreign affairs whatsoever, he’d have to learn fast. I hope he doesn’t go back to a Cold War vision of what it means to conduct American foreign policy. Most people in the USA, both policy-makers and the informed electorate, criticised him for ill-informed and ill-advised comments on the USA. It became a joke in the USA, as he didn’t seem to have a coherent and rational approach. I don’t know if he has one. Unfortunately, he relies on advisors that previously worked in the Bush administration. That doesn’t bode well, because some of those people are responsible for misguided policies.

Romney claims that he’s a businessman and that he knows how to fix things. However, there isn’t much evidence to support that. He made himself a lot of money, but when he was Governor of the State of Massachusetts, his state ranked almost at the bottom of job creation. Frankly, his policies would harm the poor and small businesses, and reward the very wealthy. Therefore, it’s likely that income inequality would expand under his policies. I don’t know how to describe his thinking about international economics. He claims he can cut the deficit, but the numbers don’t add up. He can’t expand the military budget enormously and reduce the deficit, too. I’m very pessimistic about what would happen, but I think too much weight has been put on the fact that he was a businessman most of his life and not in the public sector.

7 November 2012 (MSK)

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_11_07/Romneys-win-would-likely-expand-the-inequality-expert/