Russian Breakthrough in Children’s Leukaemia Treatment

Our kids deserve the best… all of ’em!

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Read this:

http://mat-rodina.blogspot.com/2010/10/russian-breakthrough-in-childrens.html

The author of the post is right to state:

Don’t expect to hear about this in the Anglo-American press, where anti-Russian propaganda is more important than the lives of their own children. Even when or if they do acknowledge this, doubtlessly, they’ll blatantly try to steal this as their own invention, credit to themselves, as they do with everything.

This is why most people throughout the world have come to hate contemporary Americans. We’re no longer the Americans who stood tall in the anti-Hitler coalition, we’re no longer the Americans who cared to see that prosperity existed at ALL levels of our society, and we’re no longer a country that cares for the least amongst us (if we did, 15 percent of the population wouldn’t lack health insurance). Americans are spoilt and petulant children who use psychobabble to justify their tantrums.

You can have the America of TR and FDR… you can have the America of Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater too… or you can have the crass materialism of the Tea Party in their place (don’t you hate it when materialists wrap themselves up in religious rhetoric?). Greed vs the American Dream for ALL… well… which one do you want?

BMD

Is It SO Hard to Say, “I’m Sorry”, Fr Alexander?

The widow’s mite… why didn’t you condemn it going to Bobby K?

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God is looking for spiritual fruits, not religious nuts.

Seen outside a Protestant church in Loudonville NY (10.10.2010)

Turdus ipse sibi malum cacat (The thrush shits his own ruin).

Corvi lusciniis honoratiores (The crows receive more honour than the nightingales).

Simia simia est, etiam si aurea gestet insignia (A monkey is a monkey, even if you cover it with golden medals).

Vulpes haud corrumpitur muneribus (You can’t mollify a fox with gifts).

Furemque fur cognoscit, et lupum lupus (A thief knows a thief, a wolf knows a wolf).

Cynical Roman Sayings

Quite often, I read websites with opinions differing from mine… it’s a good exercise, for not only it keeps one aware “of what the other side is doing”, it often stimulates one’s own thinking, so, one has to be thankful that such zhlubtsy exist… truly, for they allow you to see facets of your argument that you didn’t notice, and they often help you to make a better case (it’s that old “law of unintentional consequence” striking again, kiddies).

For instance, “Alexander Lebedeff is a respectable man”… well, I’d like to believe that, but there’s the matter of his unprovoked attack on Kristi Koumentakos. If he were a “respectable man”, he’d make a public retraction of that (as the original attack was rather public), and he’d apologise for his imputation that Ms Koumentakos was suing the Church for love of filthy lucre (there is no other way of reading his fulminations on this matter). For instance, does Mr Lebedeff condemn the use of “hush money” to hide clerical malfeasance? He is VERY silent on that topic… compare it to his loquacious attacks on Ms Koumentakos. Nevertheless, the “hush money” came from the “widow’s mite”, as Mr Lebedeff put it… and no one gave their money to the Church for it to go to pay off greasy lawyers and to hide the nasty sins of crank clergy, I’d say. I’m not talking theory here; I’m talking fact (as someone told a friend of mine, “We’re waiting for the Frenchman to die”).

Let’s take this further. No one gave their money to the Church so that dishonest priests could embezzle it… and then have the guilty party placed upon the Church payroll after their supposed defrocking! Mr Lebedeff is SILENT on this… why? It’s worse than a legal settlement, for a settlement, at least, is legal. This is criminal under the law, yet, Mr Lebedeff is mute on this. No matter how you slice it, it’s a culpable use of the “widow’s mite”, according to his definition. Also, note that the priest involved didn’t pay back the money lost, indeed, there was a 250 G settlement paid for out of the “widow’s mite”… where is Mr Lebedeff’s condemnation of that? Mr Lebedeff, are you giving the clergyman involved a “get out of jail free” card merely for being of the clerical estate? It certainly appears so…

There’s also the matter of Mr Lebedeff’s known “flexibility”… he was one of the loudest voices in favour of ROCOR parishes in Russia until it became expedient to change his mind… then, he did a 180, without any apology for his earlier stance, or without any apologies to those he had savaged in the defence of Vitaly’s Folly. Indeed, none of those who supported the nastiness of the Ustinovshchyna have apologised for any of their actions. It’s all gone down the memory hole (rather, there are those who are energetically trying to stuff it down there)… in any case, they were nothing but lay people, or clergy without “connections”… they weren’t First Families, so, who cares?

In short, Alexander Lebedeff has as much schmutz on his plate as all the rest of us do, and he’s no exemplar or tribune of morality (neither am I, I must say… I’m just a reporter, not an exemplar or preacher). I don’t bloody care if you can quote “proof-text” Scriptures and the Fathers on this or that… that’s irrelevant. What I find germane is that Alexander Lebedeff thought nothing of savaging Kristi Koumentakos publicly, and holding her motives up to public obloquy. That’s crank and nasty. It’s saying that the Church is “by the clergy, of the clergy, and for the clergy”. That’s not so… the Church is ALL of us, clergy and laity together… and the sooner that some clergy learn that, the better (I’m not hyper-clerical or anti-clerical… both of those are crank distortions).

Tomorrow, 11 October, is Eric Iliff’s birthday… he would have been 29 years old. Remember him in your prayers… light a candle for him… do something good for someone else in his name. He was a victim of crank clergy and their apologists (the entire SVS cabal is particularly guilty in this)… pray for the repose of the soul of this innocent sacrificed by the clerical party. Note well that they refuse to tell the full truth on the matter. You can honour Alexander Lebedeff, or you can honour Eric Iliff… I know where I stand. What about you?

It will last as long as we’re supine and “take it”… be like the people in Yekaterinburg in ’99… speak out! It’ll hurt… it’ll hurt a great deal… but we’ll cut out the cancer… there’s no other way.

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Sunday 10 October 2010

Albany NY

The Tragic Death of President Kaczyński Helped Poles and Russians to Destroy Dangerous Stereotypes

Six months ago, a plane carrying the Polish President and members of a high-ranking Polish delegation crashed near Smolensk. On 10 April 2010, Poland suffered grief and pain that no other state has probably ever suffered. The country lost, in a fraction of a second, its entire political and military leadership, dozens of prominent public figures, scientists, and religious leaders.

The disaster occurred at 10.56 MSK (07.56 UTC 02.56 EST 23.56 9 April PDT). The Polish equivalent of Air Force One needed to fly only just one more kilometre to reach the runway of Smolensk-Severny airfield. The delegation was slated to attend memorial events marking the 70th anniversary of the execution of Polish Army officers by the NKVD in the Katyn forest near Smolensk. This event was so politically important to the Poles that the flight crew of the presidential craft decided on landing amidst thick fog, in disregard of the local air controllers’ advice to the opposite. As the plane was flying below the approach glide slope, it hit a tree with a wing at an altitude of 8 metres (@26 feet). The disaster claimed 96 lives, including those of President Lech Kaczyński, his wife Maria, the Chief of the Polish General Staff, the commanders of the Polish Air Force and Army, an Archbishop of the Polish Orthodox Church, and dozens of other high-ranking officials. An unprecedented tragedy struck Poland.

Both Russian politicians and ordinary people sympathised with what the Poles were going through. Yuri Solozobov, an expert with the Institute of National Strategy, said in an interview with VOR, “Polish society was compelled to reconsider many inveterate prejudices concerning Russia. Russia’s reaction proved one of utmost friendliness. In an extraordinary display of goodwill, Moscow granted Polish investigators access to classified archival documents. Russia declared a period of state mourning for the crash victims in what proved an unparalleled development in the history of bilateral relations. However, aside from Russia’s official reaction, rank-and-file Russians empathised with Poles, who appreciated this as a manifestation of utterly sincere emotions”.

This kind of reaction rather exploded the accumulated mistrust and chill in bilateral relations, above all, in Poland. Many problems were quickly settled, including those related to Polish history. Russia handed over to Poland an unprecedented number of archival documents on the Katyn tragedy, and on a number of other sensitive issues. The two countries’ leaders set up an ad-hoc commission that effectively addressed some involved and controversial problems, and Polish President Bronisław Maria Komorowski, who said that he “thought highly of the commission’s performance”, recently received the co-chairmen of the commission, Torkunov and Rotfeld.

Polish leaders have acknowledged that Russia has done a lot more than they expected as regards an investigation into the disaster. Over four months, Moscow handed over to Poland a huge amount of materials, specifically eleven volumes featuring eyewitness interviews, disaster site inspection records, as well as articles and documents found at the crash-site. On 21 September, Russia handed over to Poland the original of the plane flight log. US experts, too, admitted that Russia was very diligent in its investigation of the tragic incident. John Cox, director of the Safety Operation Systems Company, a flight security expert, says that he was favourably impressed by his contacts with Russian investigators, finding them outstanding professionals who cared for their reputation. Russian experts, Mr Cox said, closely cooperated with the Polish authorities, so it is safe to claim that this is, indeed, the joint investigation that both parties need.

By now, the Interstate Aviation Committee inquiry into the circumstances of the tragedy is over, and it’s now engaged in preparing a detailed report. The document is due to be sent to Polish experts, who are expected, in a matter of two months, to make public the final conclusions on what caused the terrible air crash near Smolensk six months ago.

9 October 2010

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/10/09/24967854.html