19 July 2016. Fourth Acquittal in Freddie Gray Case

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I saw this on FB:

Again, there’s a desperate need for an INDEPENDENT investigator/prosecutor. We need someone who has NO connections to the police or law enforcement, someone to undertake an INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION, let the chips fall where they will. As for this case and others… a white cop shoots black man/woman and they say, “You’re free to go, our apologies for your inconvenience, Officer. The taxpayers will pick up the tab for your defence. Have a nice day, Officer. We’re so sorry for your inconvenience!”

Paul Miller

The cops walk free… all the time. Zimmerman walked free… after illegally carrying (and using) a weapon on Neighbourhood Watch. Now, tell me that there’s no racism in the USA…

BMD

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13 January 2013. Sergei Yolkin’s World. Vigilantes Against Smoking

Vigilantes Against Smoking

Sergei Yolkin

2013

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In Russian, Народное ополчение (Narodnoe Opolcheniye: People’s Militia or Muster) brings up visions of Minin and Pozharsky during the Smuta, of the First Patriotic War against Napoleon, and the desperate defence of Moscow, Leningrad, and Sevastopol in the VOV. This caricature also has overtones of the Sov era Добровольная Народная Дружина/ДНД (Dobrovolnaya Narodnaya Druzhina/DND: Volunteer People’s Posse) and of Soviet anti-drunkenness posters. To use the word ополчение as he did, Yolkin’s taking a sly dig at the current anti-smoking campaign. He’s hinting that it’s overblown and more than a little self-serving. Again, a Russian would be au fait about many of these things, and would grasp Yolkin’s point immediately, but a Westerner needs a heads-up on it all to see the thrust of the jab.

I chose “vigilante” as the rendering of ополчение because “militia” would be too formal… and the picture makes it clear that Yolkin finds the whole thing too ludicrous for words. It’d also give it a military colouring that Yolkin’s not trying to convey.

BMD

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On Friday, the newspaper Izvestiya reported that RF Gosduma deputies proposed a ban on smoking rooms in buildings, smoking onscreen in TV and movies, and for the new anti-smoking law to enter into effect immediately, not in phases, on 1 January 2014.

11 January 2013

Sergei Yolkin

RIA-Novosti

http://ria.ru/caricature/20130111/917724306.html