Industria de armament…

din România aproape că nu mai există. S-a redus din cauză de necompetitivitate. Este interesant că, datorită necompetitivității, grosul producției merge la export. În Primitivistan?! Nu, în SUA! De-ale economiei de piață.


AM despre alegerile europarlamentare, comentând pe PE.

[…]

[…] The moment overwhelming majority of Russians started to view Western Europe not as a civilizational example to be followed but as a freak show–that was it for Europe. Now, Europe  will either get broken in by the desperate United States or will inevitably turn into multicultural ghetto (the process is well underway) under the watchful eye of European “progressives”.

In general, Russia doesn’t need Europe anymore in any cultural sense. Obviously, remnants of the Russian “oligarchs” and kreakls are more than welcome to get their asses to Europe, where their main real estate is located anyway, granted they leave their assets in Russia–Russia will not cry. In fact, Russia may even rejoice–Europe totally deserved freak show and murderers such as Khodorkovsky to reside there. I am sure, Russians will not also cry if the whole London’s so called “Russian” diaspora will remain there too. Considering who is running Europe and where it is going–new edition of Iron Curtain doesn’t seem to be that radical of a measure. To illustrate, the genuine Left, which was the Soviet one treated sodomy, not to mention gender-fluidity, especially among under-aged children not kindly, to put it mildly. In general, Russians, being grossly underdeveloped and primitive people continue to recognize only two genders–male and female–and view family as a key institution for both reproduction and bringing up children. Forestalling some questions, let it be known that even large portion of Russian urban centers’ “progressive” office plankton still prefers heterosexual relationships and its male part still feels somewhat insecure about not-serving in the Armed Forces–which is a good sign indicating the prevalence of the male origin even among those who, by definition, are not fit to be Alpha-males. But that is the point: Russian values are in a contradiction with the European ones.  This contradiction can not be resolved. Paradoxically, here Russians and many predominantly, albeit not exclusively, white Americans have much in common. In the end, I and my family–we are keenly aware that we wouldn’t be able to live anywhere in Europe, other than Russia. United States? A completely different thing–easy to adapt for culture, especially non-urban one, and some Constitutional Amendments are still there. Will see how long they will endure.

Make no mistake, Russians are not against democracy (a real one) as long as it is a national one–and that is where Russia and Europe diverge dramatically and the gap continues to increase. Europe celebrates Conchita Wurst, Russians celebrate Sasha Prokhorenko and Roman Filipov. Russians celebrate warriors, Europe is engaged in discovering 145th, or is it 167th, gender. So, the fewer European values are “exported” to Russia–the better it is for Russia. Majority of Russian are well aware of this. The faster the rotten pseudo-“intellectual” European heritage, from Frankfurt School, to gender-identity politics, to Bologna Process in education and juvenile justice are removed from Russia, the higher will be the chances, in the end, for Europe (or what will remain of it) to return to its roots, which at some point of time created historically unparalleled intellectual, artistic, economic and scientific expansion. Russia will be there, however, to ensure that no new Hitler will emerge from it. That is good enough and no one even dreams about new de Gaulle–it is too much to ask of Europe or of what remains of France.  In the end, Paris looks (and smells) so “good”nowadays, that I better stick to St. Petersburg or Montana.


MoA ne spune despre bucătărie.

How Moon of Alabama Is Made

In one of the interviews Seymour Hersh gave last year about his life as a reporter he was asked to give advice for other writers. He offered three tips:

  • Read before you write.
  • Know more than you write.
  • Get yourself out of the way of the story.

Moon of Alabama writings try to follow those rules. This though is a meta piece about our writing for Moon of Alabama. The third rule thus does not apply.

To publish five to six original pieces per week, each on a different issue, requires appropriate tools, time, and a disciplined workflow.

The first half of my days is spent with gathering news. It starts at at 7:00 or 8:00 am with scrolling through the last night’s tweets of the 600 Twitter accounts I follow. If there are links of interest they get opened for later reading. Then comes a walk through the major newspapers’ headlines and news agency sites. At the end of this process there are 20 or more open browser tabs that require further attention.

After a quick glance they get either closed or saved. The links and headlines will be copied into Notepad++ where each general current issue – Syria, Boeing 737 MAX, China tariffs, etc – has its own file. If there are usable excerpts or quotes they are added too. It is pretty much noon by the time the general reading is finished.

After a quick lunch comes a short check of Moon of Alabama. Comments caught in the spam folder ask to be liberated. The last night’s treads might be in a need of a clean up.

Another reading round follows through the dozens of blogs on our Links page. In between more stuff comes up on Twitter that again deserves attention. Now, six hours after the workday began, the information collection phase is mostly finished.

Then comes the big question of the day. What should I write about? What is the issues where I could make an interesting point that others have missed?

At times the answer is obvious. On other day there is absolutely no idea and even a walk through the neighborhood does not help to make that decision.

Luckily there are also days where I  get help from my neighbors and friends.

The writing itself is rather quick. To type up the raw version of an 800 word story takes only about two hours. Most of the details come from earlier research or from previously collected links. The following editorial and production process now often takes longer than that.

The first reading through the raw story checks for the basic logic and completeness of a piece. Does it really make the point it is supposed to make? Are there claims in it that need to be substantiated? Is this or that detail necessary to make the point or is it just fluff? Do the quotes or excerpts make sense? If necessary, details and links get added or cut at this time. Pictures will have to be found, cropped, resized, uploaded and linked.

So far all this is is done in basic HTML directly in the editor the Typepad system provides. Only now follows the switch to the better readable rich text mode that you see here.

The second reading includes style and layout issues. Are there boring repetitions or long nested construct over which a reader might stumble? Does this sentence use the right tense? English is not my first language and I never lived in an English speaking country. I often need help with it. I use Leo.org to find synonyms or better English expression for whatever meaning I have in mind.

The last reading is abstract from the content and strictly to eliminate typos. Inevitably some will escape.

Time to publish? Not yet. A break is necessary to distance oneself from the text. Filling the cloth washer or running some errant helps with that.

Then follow the last three tasks – find a headline, write a summarizing intro sentence and formulate the end. All three are most important for the attractiveness of a piece to readers and to commentators.

Only after all three are edited and rechecked for mistakes the ‘Publish’ button gets pressed. The day’s work is finally on its way to you, the readers of this site.

It is also you, the readers, who make Moon of Alabama possible.

Your writer and host lives alone and is quite frugal. My apartment is in a small town that has now became part of a big city. Everything I need is within easy walking distance. This is the ideal place to do such time consuming work.

But there is also a need for income. I depend on you who read this to contribute to it. Email ‘MoonofA @ aol.com’ for my address and bank connection. Or use the Paypal button below to send whatever you are willing to spare down my way.

Thank you. – b.

Cam așa mi-am imaginat și eu.

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