Middle-Aged Russians Fear Their Children are Being Corrupted by the Internet and Their Parents by Television

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 23 – Middle-aged Russians say they know what to blame for their country’s troubles: the young are being corrupted by the Internet and the old are being corrupted by television. Only the dwindling number of those who don’t rely on either can possibly save the country.

            This is one of the latest anecdotes collected by Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/46388/-) that provides a glimpse into what Russians are really thinking. Among the best of the rest in her current collection are the following:

·       Three inmates of a Russian prison are talking. One says he was sent to jail for criticizing the war criminal Girkin. The second says it was because he backed the Russian hero Girkin. And the third says he is Girkin.

·       Putin and Lukashenka have now visited Valaam together. Perhaps they will soon go to The Hague together as well.

·       Duma deputies reverse course when ordered to do so. One day, three submitted a bill to deprive those whose citizenship is based on birth. Three days later, they all denounced that idea.

·       The Duma plans to ban the International Criminal Court. Soon it will ban sunrises in unfriendly countries and gravity that is making it more expensive for Russian planes to take off.

·       Moscow says Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow are an act of international terrorism, Apparently the Russian bombing of Odesa is only one of petty hooliganism.

·       Russian state media have been prohibited from talking about the decline of birthrates in Russia. Apparently now people will only be born and not die and then everyone will be amazed that there are only 70 million Russians left.

·       Russians are amazing. They’re afraid of everything except going to fight in Ukraine and dying there for unknown reasons.