Points of Entry: The Blog

Found an article re-published online from a 1993 print edition of the NYT that gives a little perspective regarding what Americans *could have* known about the Armenian energy crisis; as we talked about in class, it was not front-page news, so this likely did not reach many people. In fact, this re-publication is an example of how much technology and the internet help us to have the option to become globally aware. We (people who invest time understanding Eurasian society) did not know about the Velvet Revolution, but if we wanted news about Armenia, it would be easy to find. This is more like something you might stumble upon if you keep up with the news. 

Since the last topic of our class deals with Russia’s “Sphere’s of Influence”, I felt that this was an interesting data graphic that compares both US and Russian arms sales throughout the decades. I felt that this graphic does a descent job of showing where both countries spheres of influence may lie - with respect to arms sales and military support. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSa5ZCYIcGA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=nSGsqoI_0KM

This one has a little more information, but is also a little more dramatic. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvXROXiIpvQ

- The Fatal Eggs, Ch12, final paragraph

I thought that this was an interesting and important passage included at the end of the text. The novel serves as a satirical warning of the potential dangers of unchecked pursuits; here a scientific one being symbolic of communism-a form of social engineering. Despite all the horrific consequences of Persikov’s scientific experiment, his successor attempts to recreate his work. I suppose this passage serves as a final warning and reminder the reader that history can always repeat itself, sometimes intentionally. 

After dozens of controversial activity from the EPA, a new claim that radiation can be good for you seems to be one of the strangest accusation made from this environmental agency.

*Ricardo Ornelas  

“Written in 1924 during Stalin's rise to power, The Fatal Eggs attacks the Bolsheviks' belief that scientific development could lead to human perfection: the miraculous light ray is revolutionary red. Bulgakov's parody is vividly surreal, and while this might be his way of avoiding censorship, the bizarre images and dark humour are enjoyable.

The tensions Bulgakov draws between natural and man-made adds to this strangeness: the ray that creates monstrous reptiles and chimeric chickens is made from electricity, and these creatures even sound mechanical, "like a locomotive giving off oil and steam". Flashes of electric light and the ongoing whirr of telephones and wireless add to the sense of a society bent on achieving technological mastery[...]”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/17/fatal-eggs-mikhail-bulgakov-review

Thought this review was a great way of making some more societal connections with the text! 

Is the “shimmer” like the “ray?”

2012 horror movie, based on a “monstrous” premise.

Visualization for a play based on The Fatal Eggs.

Thirty years later, ghost towns in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

The Food of the Gods is referred often in The Fatal Eggs and I can see why in this horror (maybe comedy) movie trailer   

*Ricardo Ornelas-Montes

Muhammad Yunus discusses how microfinancing is changing the lives of entrepreneurs all over the world especially women. 

*Ricardo Ornelas

“Many countries have been racing to establish links to Central Asia, currently to participate in the construction of pipelines into the newly accessible gas and oil fields, activities that entail political and military posturing as well as diplomatic maneuvering, for pipelines “signify and embody alliances and cooperation” and establish “axes for the international projection of influence””

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/81hrpw/key-and-peele-foreign-intervention

“As a result, therefore, man (the worker) only feels himself freely active in his animal functions – eating, drinking, procreating, or at most in his dwelling and in dressing-up, etc.; and in his human functions he no longer feels himself to be anything but an animal. What is animal becomes human and what is human becomes animal. Certainly eating, drinking, procreating, etc., are also genuinely human functions. But taken abstractly, separated from the sphere of all other human activity and turned into sole and ultimate ends, they are animal functions” (Karl Marx, Estranged Labour).

"Well, as I see it, the only form of happiness is animal happiness, and you want to take that away from him” (Tolstoy 415).