Plus We Have a Motorcade [Thursday, March 6, 2014, 1st period]

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

"Right, so if you've been watching the news out of Ukraine--and if you haven't, fix that--you might have noticed that all guys who are presidents aren't exactly created equally. For example if either of the guys I worked for went to Congress and asked for, well, anything at all, really, they would have had a six month fight about it, not given him a big ol' rubber stamp to march on into another sovereign nation."

He arched up an eyebrow. "If any of this is news to you, click off of TMZ for fifteen minutes and read some real stuff, okay? Today I want you to tell me how the president in your country--reality...whatever...thing works. Is he more of a Putin or an Obama?"

He paused. "And if he's a Putin in terms of wandering around shirtless on top of horses a lot, you can just skip telling me that, okay? I want to keep down my breakfast."

Comments

Re: Tell Josh about your president!

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

"Did you have natural resources?" Josh asked. "Putin likes those."

Re: Tell Josh about your president!

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

Eleanor took a moment to wonder whether ADAM counted as a natural resource.

"We had something rather explosive," she admitted, "and Ryan was dead-set on not letting the outside world ever know about it. The city collapsed well before that became a threat."

She frowned. "Is that's what's going on in this Ukraine? A fight for natural resources?"

She had only just learned that there was an Internet. She had yet to figure out things like "news websites."

Re: Tell Josh about your president!

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

"It depends who you read," Josh hedged. "A lot of pundits in Washington view it as a massive dick measuring contest, but that's because they're obsessed with dicks."

Thank you, Josh.

"Basically, you need about two hundred years of Russian history and an understanding about the Soviet Union and it's breakup and how that affected their place in global politics," Josh said. "Add that to how Russia is feeling a little hemmed in by European Union countries and they lash out...with a tiny, slight...invasion thing."

Re: Tell Josh about your president!

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

"I ... didn't realize the Soviet Union had broken up," Eleanor said sheepishly, before adding, "I'm from 1968. I presume that happened in the half-century that I missed."

So that he didn't think she was some kind of imbecile who had just sort of missed the event.

"Is Russia trying to re-form the Union?"

Re: Tell Josh about your president!

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

"I don't think they're going that far," Josh replied, "but they are trying to reassert their control over the former republics. Crimea is a Russian section of Ukraine, as far as that goes, but it's still part of, you know, not Russia."