29 August 2011. VOR Presents… The Ten Happiest Countries in the World

Sociologists from the World Value Survey (WVS) Foundation determined the happiest countries, based on surveys taken in the past 30 years. According to the researchers, the happiest country in the world is Denmark, as life becomes happier for the Danes with each passing year. Among the main criteria that respondents stated in surveys were health, welfare, and access to education. In the above image, we see Danish football fans.

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Second place in the ranking of the happiest countries in the world belongs to the island of Puerto Rico (under US rule).

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Quite unexpectedly, Colombia was in third place. Indeed, during the 1960s, there was no stop to the fighting between the various political factions there.

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Iceland took fourth place amongst the happiest places in the world.

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Northern Ireland is in the fifth spot amongst the happiest countries in the world.

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Interestingly enough, the Republic of Ireland (Southern Ireland) won sixth place in the ranking of the happiest countries in the world.

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Switzerland is in seventh place in the ranking of the happiest countries in the world.

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The Netherlands occupied the eighth place in the ranking of the happiest countries in the world. {By the way, they’re drinking a cannabis-based liqueur, Squeeze Hennep, 14.5 percent alcohol by volume… I wonder what kinda buzz it gives… perspirin’ minds DO wanna know: editor}

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Canada was in ninth place in the ranking of the most fortunate places in the world.

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Austria closed out the list of the top ten happiest countries in the world according to the World Value Survey.

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12 August 2011

Voice of Russia World Service

http://rus.ruvr.ru/photoalbum/54567953/54567964/index.html

Editor’s Note:

I noticed that none of the places listed were “Free Market” economies… all were on the Social Market to one extent or another. So-called “Free Market” countries purchase ease and leisure for a tiny minority at the expense of the brutalisation of the majority of the population. Therefore, no rightwing junta (such as the Bush or Cameron cabals) can provide broad-based happiness. When you add to that the hostility to happiness shown by American Radical Sectarians (AKA “Evangelicals”, Mormons, Pentecostalists, et al), it’s no surprise that the USA didn’t make the list! The USA IS the richest country in the world… the disparity between the Five Percenters and the rest of us is staggering. In fact, that disparity is greater than it is in some Third World states. We have a job to do…

BMD

27 August 2011. Politics Through a Cartoonist’s Eyes…

Do note Standard & Poors… their “downgrade” was a pure political manoeuvre… they didn’t do that to George W Bush or Ronald Reagan… and they were FAR worse than Barack Obama is…

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Rick Perry wants to abolish the EPA… in order to please his fatcat oil magnate backers… let’s have an “orange” river in Johnstown PA again, and let’s have the Monongahela River catch fire again! NO PROBLEM!

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Money talks and bullshit walks… that’s the long and the short of it all…

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Yet, the CWA and IBEW forced Verizon to back off… that’s a good omen for the future. Why don’t the Republicans condemn the fat bonuses that the execs receive on the backs of the workers and rate-payers? Perspirin’ minds wanna know!

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The rich don’t believe that you should get ANY aid if you’re unemployed… “if they’d rather die, then, let them do it, and decrease the surplus population”… the unrepentant Scrooge lives, and he votes Republican…

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Rick Perry achieved his “economic miracle” by shorting education, abusing workers, and coddling the bosses… any questions?

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There’s not tuppence difference between the GOP candidates… all would stamp their boot full-force into your face and feel NOTHING afterwards…

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Why wasn’t Wall Street’s bailout unconscionable, Tea Party? Is is different when your billionaire backers steal using their lawyers and politician friends?

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Here’s why Sarah, fortunately, is going to crash and burn…

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24 August 2011. The Russian National Ballet Troupe “Kostroma”

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Editor’s Foreword:

It’s very difficult finding downloadable videos of this troupe’s performances… there are only a few short snippets commonly available. That’s all that’s available, I fear.

BMD

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Editor’s Afterword:

The Kostroma ensemble is more of a “folk” and not a “classical” troupe. That is, its dancing style is more derived from folklore models than it is from the canons of classic choreography laid down by Marius Petipa and Michel Fokine. In many ways, “folk ballet” is more accessible than the classical ballet (which depends more on sophisticated characterisation and aesthetics). Certainly, it’s more “athletic” (even though ballet of all sorts is more strenuous than most sports)… it’s more “electric”, but it’s at the loss of a certain subtlety (but that’s only detectable by the cognoscenti, who don’t hold it as a blemish, for one doesn’t expect one thing to be another). It’s “plainer” than the “artistic” forms of the Bolshoi or the Mariinsky, but it’s just as demanding on the performers. I don’t have prejudice for either the folk or the classical ballet… both forms are self-contained with their own intrinsic canons and conventions. There’s some overlap, of course, but, generally speaking, a classical performer doesn’t move into the folk sphere, and vice versa. Each is a cultural adornment in its proper space.

BMD

VOR Presents… Russian Tricolour Day

Exactly 20 years ago, on 22 August 1991, our old 17th century flag became the official state symbol once again.

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The traditional Russian flag consists of three equal horizontal stripes of white, blue, and red. At different times, popular folklore interpreted this colour combination in different ways, but there’s never been an official version. A popular and widespread description relates that the white symbolises nobility, the blue stands for faithfulness, and the red represents courage.

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Everyone acknowledges that the legitimate “father” of the tricolour was Tsar Pyotr Veliki. He issued a decree on 20 January 1705 stating that “all trade emporiums” had to fly the already-existing white-blue-red flag; he finalised its pattern, and determined the order of its horizontal stripes. By the way, what inspired Tsar Pyotr to choose these particular colours remains a mystery {some sources maintain that the colours of the Dutch flag guided Pyotr, which was a red-white-blue horizontal tricolour: editor}.

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It took two centuries for this flag to become the official national banner; in 1896, on the eve of the coronation of Tsar St Nikolai Aleksandrovich, the Justice Ministry determined that the National Flag should “definitively be a white-blue-red tricolour and nothing else”.

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Since 1993, when President Boris Yeltsin issued a decree reinstating it as the national flag, the tricolour has become a part of our lives. Today, the white-blue-red banner is not only on office buildings and in the big bosses’ offices. One can see the tricolour at all sorts of occasions… at football matches, public anniversaries and holidays, and even at weddings.

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In the image above, we see one of the festive events celebrating RF National Flag Day.

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In the image above, at the Petropavlovsky Fortress in St Petersburg, we see a drill executed by an honor guard on RF National Flag Day.

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22 August 2011

Voice of Russia World Service

http://rus.ruvr.ru/photoalbum/55007927/55007930/