The Airportline: Observations

An old man with a terrible cough put down his Arabic newspaper and looked at me. I was laughing, in the library. In the library people are serious and quiet. But I read this article in the International Herald Tribune about the Major race in the Russian city of Sochi (host of the Winter Olympic Games in 2014) and it contains the best introduction I've read in a long time, one paragraph that illustrate both the comedic and confusing events which, for a person that has never been to Russia, makes the country such a fascinating and at the same time scary place:

Now in the running to become mayor of the southern Russian city of Sochi: A former ballerina for the Bolshoi Ballet; a porn star who sometimes goes by the name "Velvet Angel"; the head of Russia's largest Masonic lodge; an Anglophile newspaper mogul; a Yeltsin-era reformer who is anathema to the Kremlin; and, among 15 or so other contenders, the president of Russia's Arm Wrestling Federation.