Die. Laughing.

Now sometimes life doesn't quite go your way...

Compare and Contrast

Fernando Torres

Rooney

Zidane

Ronaldo

Ronaldinho

Maradona

For bonus comparisons,

Ronaldinho vs Zidane

Ronaldinho's Nike commercial, and Ronaldo's response

So says Yeito

So what's your Brazil name?

http://www.minimalsworld.net/BrazilName/brazilian.shtml

Beckenbauer!

Last post for today:

Beckenbauer!

Litany for Dictatorships

Written in 1935. As relevant today as ever. Dictatorship recognizes no directions, left or right.

Damn them. DAMN them.

And damn all those who use another dictatorship as an excuse to impose their own, who cloak their tyranny under the betrayed flag of democracy.

===

Litany for Dictatorships

by Stephen Vincent Benet, first published in 1935

For all those beaten, for the broken heads,
The fosterless, the simple, the oppressed,
The ghosts in the burning city of our time...

For those taken in rapid cars to the house and beaten
By the skillful boys with the rubber fists,
-Held down and beaten, the table cutting the loins
Or kicked in the groin and left, with the muscles jerking
Like a headless hen's on the floor of the slaughter-house
While they brought the next man in with his white eyes staring.
For those who still said "Red Front" or "God save the Crown!"
And for those who were not courageous
But were beaten nevertheless.
For those who spit out the bloody stumps of their teeth
Quietly in the hall,
Sleep well on stone or iron, watch for the time
And kill the guard in the privy before they die,
Those with the deep-socketed eyes and the lamp burning.

For those who carry the scars, who walk lame - for those
Whose nameless graves are made in the prison-yard
And the earth smoothed back before the morning and the lime scattered.

For those slain at once.
For those living through the months and years
Enduring, watching, hoping, going each day
To the work or the queue for meat or the secret club,
Living meanwhile, begetting children, smuggling guns,
And found and killed at the end like rats in a drain.

For those escaping
Incredibly into exile and wandering there.
For those who live in the small rooms of foreign cities
And who yet think of the country, the long green grass,
The childhood voices, the language, the way wind smelt then,
The shape of rooms, the coffee drunk at the table,
The talk with friends, the loved city, the waiter's face,
The gravestones, with the name, where they will not lie
Nor in any of that earth.
Their children are strangers.

For those who planned and were leaders and were beaten
And for those, humble and stupid, who had no plan
But were denounced, but were angry, but told a joke,
But could not explain, but were sent away to the camp,
But had their bodies shipped back in the sealed coffins,
"Died of pneumonia." "Died trying to escape."

For those growers of wheat who were shot by their own wheat-stacks,
For those growers of bread who were sent to the ice-locked wastes.
And their flesh remembers the fields.

For those denounced by their smug, horrible children
For a peppermint-star and the praise of the Perfect State,
For all those strangled, gelded or merely starved
To make perfect states; for the priest hanged in his cassock,
The Jew with his chest crushed in and his eyes dying,
The revolutionist lynched by the private guards
To make perfect states, in the names of the perfect states.

For those betrayed by the neigbours they shook hands with
And for the traitors, sitting in the hard chair
With the loose sweat crawling their hair and their fingers restless
As they tell the street and the house and the man's name.
And for those sitting at the table in the house
With the lamp lit and the plates and the smell of food,
Talking so quietly; when they hear the cars
And the knock at the door, and they look at each other quickly
And the woman goes to the door with a stiff face,
Smoothing her dress.
"We are all good citizens here. We believe in the Perfect State."

And that was the last time Tony or Karl or Shorty came to the house
And the family was liquidated later.
It was the last time.
We heard the shots in the night
But nobody knew next day what the trouble was
And a man must go to his work.
So I didn't see him
For three days, then, and me near out of my mind
And all the patrols on the streets with their dirty guns
And when he came back, he looked drunk, and the blood was on him.

For the women who mourn their dead in the secret night,
For the children taught to keep quiet, the old children,
The children spat-on at school.
For the wrecked laboratory,
The gutted house, the dunged picture, the pissed-in well
The naked corpse of Knowledge flung in the square
And no man lifting a hand and no man speaking.

For the cold of the pistol-butt and the bullet's heat,
For the ropes that choke, the manacles that bind,
The huge voice, metal, that lies from a thousand tubes
And the stuttering machine-gun that answers all.

For the man crucified on the crossed machine guns
Without name, without ressurection, without stars,
His dark head heavy with death and his flesh long sour
With the smell of his many prisons - John Smith, John Doe,
John Nobody - oh, crack your mind for his name!
Faceless as water, naked as the dust,
Dishonored as the earth the gas-shells poison
And barbarous with portent.
This is he.
This is the man they ate at the green table
Putting their gloves on ere they touched the meat.
This is the fruit of war, the fruit of peace,
The ripeness of invention, the new lamb,
The answer to the wisdom of the wise.
And still he hangs, and still he will not die
And still, on the steel city of our years
The light falls and the terrible blood streams down.

We thought we were done with these things but we were wrong.
We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom.
We thought the long train would run to the end of Time.
We thought the light would increase.
Now the long train stands derailed and the bandits loot it.
Now the boar and the asp have power in our time.
Now the night rolls back on the West and the night is solid.
Our fathers and ourselves sowed dragon's teeth.

Our children know and suffer the armed men.

Yet another archival dredging

I need to re-start my writing.

=====
Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2001 04:46:16 -0400 (EDT)

Setup: I'm an agnostic, a former rabidly anti-evangelical who was that way thanks to conversions in the family. (I've mellowed with age and no longer feel compelled to snarl/snap at evangelicals) Last April I visited my cousins and my auntie in Houston, who are very evangelical and who I love very much but who test the limits of my mellowing.

(They took me to church on Sunday, for one. That was a real teeth clencher, but all for the family, hey?)

Since young I've been unable to eat crustaceans without flinching. Molluscs, fine, raw oysters even. But not crabs/lobsters/prawns. Until I went to the Army, I would refuse to eat a single mobile crustacean. I mean a single. I didn't eat one unless by accident, and then would stop and pick through every single liftable thing on my plate until I had winnowed out every single crustacean. Yes, I was a terribly picky eater.

(One day in boot camp, after a long, long day's work with lack of sleep and physical work starting to tell, I went to the messhall for dinner. The cooks plopped onto my messtray perhaps one of the most disgusting dishes I ever ate in the Army -- prawns and hairy gourd (as bad as it sounds.) So there I was, with a bone-deep weariness that you have to experience to understand, and this glop of sticky stuff in front of me. I had eighteen years of avoidance behind me. And I stared at the plate for all of fifteen seconds before I realised that there really was no other viable way out. That's then enlightenment struck, and I realised that there is no facet of the human psyche that is not modifiable, given enough pressure. That and the garbage point story (but that's another story))

Well, April is crawfish season, and the first day I landed there, there was enough talk and anticipation among my cousins that I knew what was going to come and had plenty of time to steel myself for it.

I just didn't know how bad it would be.

Why didn't I speak up and say I didn't like shellfish, you say? Well, since I saw that all my relatives were so hyped up about it, I felt that I just couldn't let them not have their five pounds of cockroach-of-the-sea -- and that after I'd been in the army, there was really no excuse for me, since I knew that I was able to make myself physically eat the things.

We'd already had lunch, and so being Chinese and prone to idle gluttony, we wandered over to the nearby foodcourt and sat down for our second round. My cousin's husband drifted over to the crawfish stall (I still remember it being called Crawfish Beignets) and ordered four pounds of crawfish etouffee.

So I'm sitting there chatting with my cousins, when back comes my cousin's husband with this opaque garbage bag full of HUGE. RED. COCKROACHES. He upends the bag over the table (which is covered with this plastic tablecloth/garbage bag) and in front of me, in all their chitinous glory, are about 100. HUGE. RED. COCKROACHES.

And I smile, grin at my cousins, and dig in, picking up those wet -- fresh from the boiler, no less -- clawed things, snapping their tails off with this sickening hollow crack, breaking the tails in half, like with their bigger cousins (makeitstopmakeitstop), yanking out the meat, stripping off the digestive tract and popping the meat into my mouth. And chewing. And chewing.

Then after each tail is done, cracking open the little claws, all the while convinced that they're going to come to life and snip off my fingers, breaking the body, sucking the juice out of the gills (right above the little once-scurrying legs), getting massive, massive chili burn.

And smiling. And smiling.

And talking. And talking.

And getting up twice to go to the toilet, splash water on my face, wash my hands, stare at myself in the mirror, feel the little cockroaches screaming "I WANT OUT OF HERE!!!! LET ME OUT OF HERE!!! YOU BASTARD, WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?!", wiping my mouth, and diving back into the fray.

And eating about four pounds of crawfish myself (seconds, thirds even, with none of my cousins suspecting a thing.)

So... that's the crawfish part of the anecdote.

Later that night, I get into a conversion argument with my other cousin. He and I sit down for hours, from ten till three in the morning, debating (a useless thing for me to do, but he wouldn't stop), discussing, evading. Until finally, since I have a flight the next day, I make him a promise to cut the flow off (besides, he got uncomfortably close when we started discussing my pride, but that's another story too.)

I promise him, with all my heart, that I'll sit that night, and pray. Pray and try with an open mind to see if I can accept Jesus as my personal saviour. I do this too because I'm myself wondering -- the seed of doubt planted well, but would it wither?

So after he's gone back, I sit down and think. And pray. And think and pray. And open up whatever heart I can, and then, out of the blue comes my answer, a vision if you will. I'm still wondering if it's a touch of the divine, incidentally, or just my subconscious ticking over. And the answer is:

A crawfish.

A Platonic crawfish etouffe.

And at that point, I know what has been revealed to me.

So the next morning, I go and talk to my cousin. And I tell him that I tried, I really did; and that I had a vision. And that vision was a crawfish.

And as expected, he cracks up laughing -- until I tell him my hidden secret; that I probably ate more shellfish yesterday that I had in literally my entire life. That I hate, abhor, can't tolerate the sight or smell of shellfish (note that I say nothing about the taste). And that to come to him and embrace his brand of Christianity would be exactly in spirit -- exactly! -- the same sacrifice to family happiness that I'd made yesterday.

Of course, it was a lot greater a sacrifice, since I couldn't make it.

I could stomach some parts -- some parts were surprisingly sweet -- but the whole was completely indigestible and entirely against my nature to approach, yet alone embrace. Note that this does not at any point preclude a conversion, but it would require such a deep destruction of my mental makeup that I don't think that whatever converted would be "me".

Neither he nor any other members of my family had realised that I was in the least bit malcontented with eating crawfish. I was actually quite proud of that, since it showed me that I could still be cheerfully inscrutable even among people who know me reasonably well.

And apart from a few other inconsequential things, that's pretty much it in its cliche ridden, rambling glory. If nothing else, it shows that the divine and I have a good relationship if it can grant me visions with this perfect -- divine, even! -- irony.
=====

Strange Dreams

A blast from the past:

=====
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 09:25:46 -0400 (EDT)
So this morning I woke up after having one of the most vivid dreams I've ever had -- and you lucky people are going to have to plow through the strange strange visions I had this morning. I suppose the writing could do with some kind of structure instead of being a single long run-on paragraph but it was written with my eyes shut so that I wouldn't lose my memories of the dream.

----

I dreamt i was in my old house, 91 Chun Tin Road, running in late by 10 minutes for a meeting -- a _crucial meeting_ with Bloomberg. All the lights are off in the living room and there are benches everywhere with a a projector showing the new Bloomberg modelling GUI. Dave Lakshmanan is showing the GUI off and so I sit down in the crowded dark wooden benches next to someone, and promptly fall asleep. And when I'm asleep I dream that my hands are moving the mouse on the screen... and when the presentation is over, Jim Driscoll drags me to one side and says "don't you _EVER_ come for another meeting and fall asleep and talk really loudly
in your sleep. To which Rich Shriver's voice drifts in from off stage saying "I didn't need to hear that!" And then I go outside to the driveway, among the orangey tiles to change clothes into my army pants and a black Cobra T-shirt, and as I'm changing I look at the window and see that on the back side of the bookshelf placed smack up against the window, there are these land lobsters growing. Not small ones, but genuine horrors the size of your arm; and when I go back into the house to gibber at the Bloomberg cleaning staff, they ignore me until I've sat down for lunch with Kim and have finished eating -- what else -- a lobster; we get up to go upstairs to discuss something in the computer room and all of a sudden these giant lobsters emerge from hiding behind the bookshelves and converge on the leavings _finally_ prompting Bloomberg staff to come around and exterminate them all. So I escape upstairs and am busy picking out another
set of clothes and preparing to change clothes before my inevitable chewing out with Shriver when Andrea Gotelli pops his head (and just his head -- there is no body that I can see) across the window from the balcony and starts going in on one of his long rants about how life is treating him like crap, to the accompaniment of me folding clothes -- all the clothes I've ever owned somehow seem to be inside my old ceiling to floor closet, from which I'm drawing them and putting them back. The only thing I can really remember Andrea saying besides a general slagging of the Spanish, and how everyone are so stupid for loving red wine (which can't be the real Andrea) is how the only decent wines in the world come from the East Coast of France... And so as I'm folding clothes, I come across yet another fucking lobster which this time seems to want a piece of me. I run away, get the Bloomberg staff to swear they'll take care of it, then cross the hallway into the old bathroom. But when I open the door, it's not my old single tub bathroom after all -- it's this gigantic, GIGANTIC palatial room which sould have come out from Versailles, with mirror and gilding and chandeliers everywhere, and an incongruous single person bathtub that happens to be smack up against the only window in the room. Admittedly it's a very nice bathtub which has gold taps and is already drawn and waiting for an occupant so I skin down and get in (after checking for lobsters) and start a nice long soak. Only to be awoken by this annoying Upper East Side matron (not really, since the only one I know is a very very nice lady, but you know the stereotype) who walks in with who else but Yishen and Julia, showing them around the place throwing a sales pitch. It's hilarious -- the matron is saying something about how one can install a speaker next to the bath tub to page other people in the
house to which I respond what's wrong with raising the voice to which she says something like "In a 20 room apartment one can only shout so far." And so after more banter, I get up out of the bath (whch miraculously parts to let me rise up dry and clothed to talk to Yishen and Julia, trying to find out what they're doing here in what I thought was my remodeled bathroom (hey, in dreams anything may happen) to which we open one of the six doors in the room and walk out past the sole porcelain and gold inlaid sink, out into a long corridor on the side of the sides of an atrium, the column of light which is being let down stretching as far above and below as the eye can see, with occasional flickers of movement at the bottom. So we walk along the corridor, catching up (for apparently we haven't seen each other in forever) and I find that we're somewhere in the 40's in New York because Julia says it's only 70 blocks to go up to Columbia. And then we've traversed the corridor and are in a long hallway that again stretches as far as the eye can see on both sides, full of people but none of the foot traffic at _all_ affecting this thick plush white carpeting. So we enter this door offset from the hallway and apparently are in this bedroom, which is filled with boxes, but which is draped with this incredibley thick yet beauiful silk brocade, _everywhere_ on the tall 16 foot ceilings. And there's two beds, which have never been used in this room, and one other door, into which we go and there's yet _more_ draperie, which I didn't believe possible, and everything is painfully Louis XIV. And this is where I wake up.

1 1/2 hours to dream it, 20 minutes to write it, 1 full day to be freaked out about it.
=====

Perhaps I should have slept more and dreamt less...

Some pictures from Log Island

On a dull day, Stockholm looks like this (2006)

But on a bright day, the sun, the Sun!


The air is so sharp and clear...


And the greenery stuns.


But even the brightest sunlight can't break through an alley in Gamla Stan


No matter, it's beautiful at night.


And not quite the midnight sun to round it off (10:30 pm)

Homeless in Singapore

I haven't taken any pictures, so as to preserve these people's privacy. And I'm also not saying where I saw them in case some bloody minded person decides to go and report them to the police. There are such fucking selfish people...

Admittedly I could be wrong as to whether they're truly homeless or not. But an uncle asleep in a Burger King or KopiTiam at 2am, so that they can get aircon, is almost certainly not going home for the night. It's the same look and same exhaustion as I've seen in New York, if less smelly and better dressed.

More and more in Singapore. Not a good trend.

Bitches for Friends

Apparently I have bitches for friends.

But thanks for the love in putting together the edit (such as it is.)

Some Good World Cup Links

Decent commentary
http://www.whoateallthebratwurst.com/

All the 2006 World Cup goals.
http://germany2006goals.blogspot.com/

The best pub team in the world
http://www.oldlions.co.uk/home.html

T-shirts! (Best one -- Wir sind die Roboten)
http://www.spreadshirt.net/shop.php?sid=89747

World Cup Holiday

Light blogging for a while. すまない。

Individual or Group Excellence?

Yen Yen has made an interesting post on the Finnish education system. It brings up a very important point re:

Basically, out of 41 participating schools, 15 year-old Finnish students topped the world in Math, Science, Reading, and Problem-solving skills (participating countries included Japan, Korea and Hong Kong – no mention of Singapore).

And what’s very interesting is that they also have a very small percentage of difference between the top performing students and the lowest performing students.

In other words, the Finnish school system has managed to get all their students to perform at a fairly high level rather than focus on only a top group of ‘elite’ students.

I find it rather ironic that Singapore, with its strong emphasis on conformance and not rocking the boat, pushes an elitist meritocracy quite so strongly. Rather than putting boats on stilts, why not raise the tide?

I have strong views on the utility of specialists -- they're great in a given context, but they're useless once the context shifts. The rat -- the ultimate generalist -- does a lot better in any environment than the lion.

Back from Krung Thep

And tired...

An interesting post from Landover Baptist Church (warning -- may offend the religious). I guess if they back it up with quotations... but we all know the saying about who may quote scripture.

[howl]Won't you guess my name...[/howl]

In Krung Thep Again

In the City of Angels, for a business trip. I like it more each time I come back. So vibrant, in so many ways...

Back in the Lion City on Sunday evening.

Three Little Pigs

Yet more clumsy, clumsy parody from a 21 year old. I see this stuff now and wince. But since I can't be arsed to think and write about the rather exhausting past two weeks, this will have to do.

Minutes of XVII meeting, IX Division of the Committee for Public Security
Members attendant :
Director N. Chuikov.
Deputy Director V. Ilanov
Comrade P. Kasich
Comrade C. Stukach
Comrade T. Lyubanska
Members unable to attend:
Comrade A. Stukach
Comrade B. Stukach
1. The meeting was convened by Deputy Director V. Ilanov at 16:32 on 8 October 1984.
2. Director N. Chuikov stated that global socialism was an attainable goal, which would be realised in all the committee's lifetime.
3. Director N. Chuikov expressed surprise at the lack of participants in the meeting.
4. Comrade C. Stukach informed Director N. Chuikov that both Comrades A. Stukach and B. Stukach would be unable to attend the meeting.
5. Director N. Chuikov reiterated that all members of the Committee for Public Security are to attend come rain or shine.
6. Comrade C. Stukach regretfully informed Director N. Chuikov that Comrades A. Stukach and B. Stukach were unable to attend the meeting by virtue of being deceased.
7. Director N. Chuikov declared that this was an inadmissible excuse. All members of the Committee for Public Security are expected to be faithfully present at all prescribed meetings. No exceptions are allowed for any reason whatsoever.
8. Comrade C. Stukach said that he would apprise both Comrades of their duties as members of the State's functionary organs.
9. Director N. Chuikov expressed his sympathies at Comrade C. Stukach's loss. The question of circumstances surrounding the deaths of Comrades A. Stukach and B. Stukach was raised.
10. Comrade C. Stukach replied that both Comrades A. Stukach and B. Stukach were slain by a cannibalistic imperialist counter-revolutionary functionary who entrapped these heroes of socialism.
11. Director N. Chuikov deeply regretted the loss of the valiant Comrades A. Stukach and B. Stukach. They would be sorely missed.
12. Deputy Director V. Ilanov enquired as to the cannibalistic nature of the imperialist enemy.
13. Comrade C. Stukach stated that both Comrades A. Stukach and B. Stukach were eaten by the insidious enemy agent hereafter referred to as B.B. Wolf.
14. Comrade P. Kasich questioned whether Comrade B. Stukach was employing a figure of speech.
15. Comrade C. Stukach retorted that both Comrades A. Stukach and B. Stukach were physically cooked and eaten by B.B. Wolf.
16. Comrade T. Lyubanska retched on the floor.
17. Deputy Director V. Ilanov motioned for a recess of five minutes.
18. Comrade T. Lyubanska vehemently seconded the motion.
19. A recess was taken at 16:42 on 8 October 1984 by the IX Division of the Committee for Public Security.
20. At 16:48 on 8 October 1984, the IX Division of the Committee for Public Security reconvened.
21. Director N. Chuikov reprimanded Comrade T. Lyubanska for tardiness. A motion was raised to suspend Comrade T. Lyubanska's secondary privileges for a seven day period.
22. Deputy Director V. Ilanov seconded the motion.
23. As duly noted, Comrade T. Lyubanska will have all secondary privileges suspended. Comrade T. Lyubanska is to turn in her bathroom key and soap bar at the end of the meeting.
24. Director N. Chuikov reiterated that timeliness is of the essence. To build a global socialist state built upon true Marxist-Leninist dialectic, all stated timings must be adhered to.
25. Deputy Director V. Ilanov asked Comrade B. Stukach to recount the circumstances surrounding the death of Comrades A. Stukach and B. Stukach.
26. Comrade C. Stukach replied that Comrade A. Stukach had been staying in his dacha, in the Kara suburb, north of Moscow on the night of October 5 1984. While Comrade A. Stukach was busy composing a treatise on the inevitability of victory of Marxist-Leninist dialectic over the imperialistic capitalistic forces of the so-called First World, a squad of twenty men closed upon Comrade A. Stukach's dacha. Using main force, the twenty man squad hammered down the walls of Comrade A. Stukach's dacha and held him down. B.B. Wolf approached the valiant hero and as his men held the valiant Comrade A. Stukach down, ate Comrade A. Stukach alive.
27. Comrade T. Lyubanska was violently sick.
28. Director N. Chuikov commanded Comrade T. Lyubanska to leave the room.
29. Comrade T. Lyubanska left the room.
30. Deputy Director V. Ilanov motioned that a five minute recess be imposed.
31. Comrade P. Kasich seconded the motion.
32. A recess was taken at 16:56 on 9 October 1984 by the IX Division of the Committee for Public Security.
33. At 17:00 on 9 October 1984, the IX Division of the Committee for Public Security reconvened.
34. Director N. Chuikov remarked that this efficiency was a good sign. All members of the State should strive to reach such a high level of time saving. Twenty percent time saved was no small matter.
35. Deputy Director V. Ilanov enquired as to the circumstances surrounding Comrade A. Stukach's death. Were the walls of proper construction, to be so easily torn down by a mere twenty men? Surely good Soviet construction would withstand twenty thousand men, as it had during the Great Patriotic War.
36. Comrade C. Stukach replied that the dacha had been built by the imperialist Tsarist forces before the light of socialist reason was brought to the Rodina.
37. Director N. Chuikov remarked that this tragedy was undoubtedly the cause of inferior construction.
38. Deputy Director V. Ilanov enquired as to the circumstances surrounding Comrade B. Stukach's death.
39. Comrade C. Stukach replied that Comrade B. Stukach was surprised in bed on the night of October 6th 1984 by the collapsing of the walls around him. The same squad of twenty men attempted to seize Comrade B. Stukach, but forewarned by the death of Comrade A. Stukach, Comrade B. Stukach managed to slay a good number of the traitorous lackeys in the pay of the imperialist B.B. Wolf.
40. Deputy Director V. Ilanov expressed admiration for the prowess of Comrade B. Stukach. No doubt, when fired by the righteousness of the cause in this never ending class struggle, Comrade B. Stukach was inspired by the spirit of the New Soviet Man.
41. Director N. Chuikov retorted that it was more likely that the imperialist lackeys were complacent and that as time goes by the triumph of the dialectic is inevitable.
42. Comrade P. Kasich fervently affirmed Director N. Chuikov's remarks.
43. Comrade C. Stukach proceeded to recount that despite Comrade B. Stukach's valiant efforts, he was overwhelmed and suffered the same fate as Comrade A. Stukach.
44. Deputy Director V. Ilanov enquired as to whether Comrade C. Stukach had lived in a dacha similar to that of Comrade A. Stukach.
45. Comrade C. Stukach replied that though Comrade B. Stukach did indeed live in the Kara region, his dacha was built by Soviet engineers. However, it was built in during the period of a certain Jew's* appointment as Secretary of Public Affairs.
46. Director N. Chuikov remarked that Comrade C. Stukach's family seemed to have a propensity to stay in houses built by enemies of the State.
47. Comrade C. Stukach retorted that he lived in an dacha built by Comrade E. Drubenskaya during the Great Patriotic War. It had doubled as a defensive bunker during the great battles which the fascists had encountered during their ill-fated and in any case doomed from the start attempt to capture Moscow.
48. Comrade P. Kasich remarked that no doubt the unsoundness of doctrine leads to unsoundness of construction.
49. Director N. Chuikov noted that Comrade P. Kasich had a propensity to state the obvious.
50. Deputy Director V. Ilanov expressed the sentiment that B.B. Wolf had lived far too long.
51. Comrade C. Stukach agreed with this sentiment, but declared that the reign of terror imposed by B.B. Wolf had come to an end.
52. Comrade P. Kasich inquired as to how this situation had come about.
53. Comrade C. Stukach replied that on the night of October 7th 1984, B.B. Wolf and his squad of lackeys approached his dacha. Thanks to the solid construction and Soviet architecture as exemplified by Comrade E. Drubenskaya's handiwork, all the imperialists were thwarted and exhausted in their attempts to destroy Comrade C. Stukach's dacha. When the foolish imperialists had exhausted all their energy, Comrade C. Stukach left the dacha and proceeded to kill all the capitalist lackeys in true righteous fervour, as a true New Soviet man should.
54. Director N. Chuikov enquired what Comrade C. Stukach had done with B.B. Wolf.
55. Comrade C. Stukach replied that he had broken B.B. Wolf's arms and legs.
56. Director N. Chuikov expressed the importance of knowing the fate of the agent provocateur B.B. Wolf. Is B.B. Wolf still alive.
57. Comrade C. Stukach replied that an eye was fair payment for an eye.
58. Director N. Chuikov commanded Comrade C. Stukach not to be deliberately obscure. What was the fate of B.B. Wolf.
59. Comrade C. Stukach replied that B.B. Wolf had been eaten. By Comrade C. Stukach.
60. The meeting of the IX Division of the Committee for Public Security was declared closed by unanimous votes by reason of ill health at 17:15 on 9 October 1984.

Recorded by O. Riabtchenko,
17:20 October 9th 1984.