Christmas And Life’s Meaning
Filed Under Curtain Rods | Posted on December 27, 2008
Despite the vaunted sophistication and intellectual high-mindedness of the modern world, particularly of the West, it is still a festival with religious roots which has this enormous and irresistible force to pull us together.
Christmas is now largely a secular celebration, despite the plaintive cries for us to “remember the true meaning of Christmas” and to [...]
Racing NSW May Have Jumped Gun On Munce
Filed Under Curtain Rods | Posted on December 7, 2008
IT IS always a tragedy to see great traditions come to an end. Reciprocity in racing as we have known it is dead. May it rest in peace. The haste exhibited by Racing NSW in its desire to allow disqualified jockey Chris Munce back on to racetracks was embarrassing and I’m afraid will have far-reaching [...]
Iron Curtain Parted For High-Profile Murder Trial
Filed Under Kitchen Curtain | Posted on November 19, 2008
A Russian court has decided not to ban reporters from the trial of three men accused in the killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya - paving the way for an open trial where details of the much-criticised investigation will be made public.
Politkovskaya, who was slain in her Moscow apartment building in 2006, reported on human rights [...]
Stepping Behind The Iron Curtain Of The East
Filed Under Curtain Rods | Posted on November 12, 2008
The countries of Indochina love themselves some communism. Laos and Vietnam are openly People’s Republics, with red hammer-and-sickle flags lining the streets, while Cambodia fronts like a democracy. (Mao Zedong Boulevard and Josip Broz Tito Street in Phnom Penh hint at the country’s political ideology.)
In Laos and Vietnam, it seems every central square, statue and [...]
Tributes pour in for Rangers’ McColl
Filed Under Kitchen Curtain | Posted on October 28, 2008
RANGERS’ chief executive Martin Bain has led the tributes to former Rangers player and captain Ian McColl, who died on Friday, in his 82nd year, after a lengthy illness.
“He was a magnificent Rangers player, a key member of the famous ‘Iron Curtain‘ defence and the club sends its condolences to Ian’s family,” he said.
Sensationally sacked [...]
Iron Curtain Falls On Google’s Russian Ad Deal
Filed Under Shower Curtain | Posted on October 25, 2008
Russia’s Federal Anti-monopoly Service, FAS, has blocked a move by Google to purchase Begun, an advertising agency. The watch dog group claims they blocked the deal because Google did not provide them with enough information to allow FAS to access whether or not the deal would help or hurt competition.
FAS, the Russian anti-monopoly watch dog, [...]
Alice in Wonderland behind the Iron curtain
Filed Under Kitchen Curtain | Posted on September 24, 2008
A new world lurks in Leila Ataya’s acrylic canvases. The Russian artist has dipped into her own background for her latest solo exhibition, “Long Story about Life”. “Most of my current works depict a magical world, where illusion and reality blur,” she says.
“The represented world is like a fly-agaric; so bright, attractive and beautiful, but [...]
Parting the Iron Curtain
Filed Under Shower Curtain | Posted on August 31, 2008
Mistrust and fear of a foreign power half a world away tainted everyday life, hanging over people like a dark storm cloud.
While politicians worked behind the scenes to both lessen tensions and get the upper hand on the Soviets, jazz musicians were spreading Americana throughout more than 35 countries in the former Soviet Union, Northern [...]
Explain the Rules Please
Filed Under Shower Curtain | Posted on August 20, 2008
I’ve been watching this sport longer than many who read these pages have been alive. So you would think that by now I would know the rules when watching the sport. But over the past few years the rules as I know them have been challenged somewhat, so I guess I need a bit of [...]
Russia And An Economic Iron Curtain
Filed Under Curtain Rods | Posted on August 18, 2008
“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe.” Churchill, 1946 For some time the conventional wisdom has been that the largest economic and military threat the to US is [...]