Word: brezhnevs
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Todorov has a special interest in politicians, people for whom physiognomy can be destiny. Take Mikhail Gorbachev. After the ursine Leonid Brezhnev, Gorby was Kris Kringle. His rounded cheeks, his careless hairlessness, even his great red spot all left him looking disarmingly rumpled. That was a guy who not only could dismantle an empire and knock down a wall but would also remember to keep caramels in his pocket for the grandkids. Vladimir Putin, by contrast, is less gentle grandpa than live mink. President George W. Bush may have looked into Putin's soul and been reassured by what...
...Germany. Her sense of the essence of the 1960s must be very different from that of Wessis of the same age - less flower power and protests against the Vietnam war, more Soviet tanks rolling into Wenceslas Square to crush the Prague Spring, and the numbing Soviet leadership of the Brezhnev era. Christian Wulff, 46, Governor of Lower Saxony and one of the most prominent young leaders in the Christian Democrat party, told reporters last month: "We need to look at the 1968 generation with a greater degree of sophistication. They did bring about change. But in many cases they threw...
...year old Russian joke has Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev having a smoke with U.S. President Richard Nixon and French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing. Nixon produces a steel cigarette case inscribed with the words "To our leader, from the GOP." Giscard opens a silver case bearing the simple inlay "To my dear Valery." Brezhnev shrugs and flips open a massive gold case, with the inscription set in diamonds: "To our beloved Czar Nicolas II, from the grateful Russian gentry...
...cares whether Nixon or Giscard ever smoked - or ever shared Brezhnev's company together? Their function in the tale was simply to underscore Russians' jaundiced view of their own rulers. I was reminded of this joke from my youth by the furor over President Putin's recent acquisition of a unique piece of jewelry. At the Russian president's reception for American tycoons, Robert Kraft, the owner of this year's Super Bowl Champions New England Patriots, showed Putin his 2005 Super Bowl ring. It's a 14-karat, four ounces white-gold piece, studded with 124 diamonds arranged...
...gifts, according to his staff. Kraft made the ring a gift to Putin to demonstrate his respect - and, one hopes, his intention to invest in Russia to his and Russia's mutual profit. However, the morning after this ring-giving, I heard a remake of the 30 year-old Brezhnev joke: Putin, Bush and Chirac meet at a party. Bush shows off his steel ring, inscribed with: "To our leader from the GOP." Chirac sports a silver band, inscribed with the words "To my dear Jacques." Not to be outdone, Putin silently produces a white-gold ring, studded with diamonds...