John Brown's Notes and Essays

image from article: The Day the Soviet Flag Came Down Dec. 31, 2021, 11:00 a.m. ET Credit...Maxim Shemetov/Reuters By Serge Schmemann , The New York Times , Dec. 31, 2021, 11:00 a.m. ET [ original article contains a large number of links ] Mr. Schmemann is a member of the editorial board.   On Dec. 25, 1991, at 7:32 p.m., the Soviet flag came down over the Kremlin, and the pre-Revolutionary Russian flag of white, blue and red horizontal stripes took its place. It was a momentous moment, but witnessed by only a handful of foreigners and an irate Soviet war veteran on Red Square. I know this because the foreigners were my wife and children, who cheered as the new flag went up against the night sky, and marked the time. On that day 30 years ago, Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, gave his valedictory address and resigned — which is why I was not on Red Square with my family.  That evening, for The Times, I wrote an obituary for the Soviet state : “Conceived in utopian p...

image from article: Sinclair Lewis and Dorothy Thompson on their wedding day in May 1928 Credit...Smith Archive/Alamy  By Robert Gottlieb , The New York Times , Dec. 31, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ET Excerpt: This is the centenary year of “Babbitt,” Sinclair Lewis’s best — and most misunderstood — novel. He had written five inconsequential books that had received respectable if not excited attention. And in 1920 — at the age of 35 — he had written “Main Street,” the most sensationally successful novel of the century to date: hundreds of thousands of copies sold, and a title that came to stand for the values, both narrow-minded and wholesome, of what we now call Middle America. ... “Main Street,” published late in 1920, exploded on the consciousness of America. There had never been anything like its instant and sustained literary and commercial success. Within months its sales had rocketed past 150,000 (eventually it would sell in the millions), with praise from such sources as Britain’s le...

Thirty years ago, the New Year’s midnight bells also ushered out the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.  image (not from article) from , with caption:  Ringing the bells at Ipatiev Monastery in Kostroma, Russia. By David Satter [jb - see ] , The Wall Street Journal , Dec. 30, 2021 6:34 pm ET; compare this article to another re the USSR (from a different perspective) recently published by WSJ  At midnight on Dec. 31, 1991, the chimes rang out from Savior Tower in the Kremlin and fireworks lit up the sky, marking the final end of the Soviet Union, which claimed to have created heaven on earth. During its 70-year life, the Soviet regime killed at least 20 million of its citizens for political reasons. It also had the mesmerizing quality of a mirage. Its citizens were forced to be actors, playing the part of inhabitants of a new utopia in keeping with the infallible predictions of Marxist-Leninist ideology. As history showed, however, the Soviet Union wasn’t indomitable. I...

 The demonstration of a VR headset at a conference in Miami this month. PHOTO: JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES (from below-cited article) Laura Forman, The Wall Street Journal , Dec. 29, 2021 7:00 am ET, "The Metaverse Isn’t Quite Ready for You, but Your Investment Is Welcome: It could pay off, much like the purchase of land in Manhattan 250 years ago."   *** Question from a male:  How  can I kiss my girlfriend with my meta mask on?  image  from

The purpose of the Public Diplomacy Directorate will be to facilitate the synchronization of Israel's narratives, especially during wartime. By MICHAEL STARR, The Jerusalem Post , Published: DECEMBER 28, 2021 22:28 Updated: DECEMBER 29, 2021 17:25 image from article: Prime Minister Naftali Bennett at the cabinet meeting, December 5, 2021. (photo credit: EMIL SALMAN/HAARETZ)  The Public Diplomacy Directorate – which will coordinate Israel's messaging and communication efforts between different government bodies – was officially re-established during Tuesday's National Hasbara Forum. "After years of neglect that hit Israel in the international arena, we have re-established the Public Diplomacy Directorate, which will respond to the lies spread about Israel online and present it to the world as it really is," Prime Minister Naftali Bennett wrote on Facebook. The purpose of the Public Diplomacy Directorate will be to facilitate the synchronization of Israel's e...

Coronavirus pushed many to return to Eastern European countries like Bulgaria that had seen sharp population declines image from article: New houses on the outskirts of Sofia. PHOTO: BORISLAV TROSHEV FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL By Ian Lovett , The Wall Street Journal , Dec. 29, 2021 8:30 am ET [ original article contains additional, and noteworthy, illustrations ] SOFIA, Bulgaria—When Nicko Aleksiev left this city for France, in 2011, he didn’t expect he would ever live in Bulgaria again. But after the pandemic hit, Mr. Aleksiev was laid off, and—like tens of thousands of other foreign workers in Western Europe—he headed home in June 2020. Now, after more than a year here, he has a job in Sofia and no intention of going abroad again. After decades of mass migration from former Eastern Bloc countries to more lucrative opportunities in the West, the flow of people in Europe is showing signs of reversing.  In Estonia, returnees to the country have outpaced emigrants since 2017. Net m...

"In 1965, the average top chief executive made 21 times as much as a typical worker in America. In 2020,  the ratio was 351 to 1."  From: Nick Romeo," The M.I.T. Professor Defining What It Means to Live," The New York Times , Dec. 28, 2021 image (not from article) from

By Vladislav M.  Zubok ,  The Wall Street Journal , Dec. 22, 2021 9:57 am ET   Subtitle: The U.S.S.R. disappeared 30 years ago, not because of Western pressure or economic hardship but because of Mikhail Gorbachev’s  fatal vision  of reform   image (not from article)  from jb comment: Interesting that this it's not-the-Soviets'-fault piece (what else can one call it?) appeared in the "sale capitaliste" WSJ ... Thirty years ago, on Dec. 25, 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Mikhail Gorbachev stepped down as president, yielding to Boris Yeltsin, who raised the flag of the Russian federation over the Kremlin.   Many Americans, then and now, concluded that U.S. policies had helped to destroy the “evil empire,” which was secondarily weakened by economic and military burdens as well as by national revolt in the republics. And yet, three decades on, these widely believed explanations for the collapse of the Soviet Union are less persuasive .  ...

With the right to abortion under threat, men say they want to play a role in reproductive planning to support their partners By Emily Wax-Thibodeaux , The Washington Post , Yesterday [12/26/2021] at 4:25 p.m. EST [ original article contains additional links and images ]   i mage from article, with caption:  Doug Stein, left, and Esgar Guarín hold posters in New York advocating voluntary vasectomies. (Courtesy of World Vasectomy Day) After Andy and Erin Gress had their fourth child, Andy decided it was time for him to “step up” and help with the family planning. So he did something that the mere thought of makes some men   cringe: He got a vasectomy.   It was early one morning last winter — a brief moment of peace, before juggling getting the kids ready for online school and work Zoom calls. He happened to see a local news story about discounts being offered during “World Vasectomy Day.” He made an appointment that day. His wife had taken birth control pills, but sh...