Modern Russian Dance Music

File this under "Not your grandfather's Russia". I was perusing foreign radio stations on my Alexa app, when I came across this song on a Russian radio station. It sounded so modern, so ... "un-Russian", and it made me curious to know more. Here is a clip of the song being performed on a TV show. I think the song is in Russian, but I'm not sure, I think the couple performing are Ukrainian, and the Russian and Ukrainian languages are very similar, but the song and the dance are great, here it is, at what looks like Christmastime:



When I looked for the song, I found the Original Music Video on Youtube, where at one point it was the most watched video on Youtube by Russians. Clearly, some of my concepts about Russia need updating!

The duo's website: http://vremyaisteklo.com/.
     

Retirement: a thing of the past?

For growing numbers of Americans, yes:

The new golden years? Work, work, and more work

During the economic crisis, some Americans worried that they'd never be able to retire. Now there's evidence that may be playing out, given that older workers are hitting 65 and increasingly staying in the labor market.

A record number of Americans over the age of 65 are working, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A decade ago, about 5 million senior citizens continued to work, a number that had swelled to more than 9 million last month. In 1994, slightly more than 1 out of 10 senior citizens was still working. Now, about one out of five Americans over the age of 65 remains employed.

While some seniors are likely putting off retirement because they want to continue working, it's likely that the shift reflects the economic instability that Americans of all ages are experiencing. More than half of people over 50 years old say they plan to or already have worked past their 65th birthday, with the majority of those saying it's linked to financial reasons, according to survey published this month from The Associated Press‑NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

The ranks of elderly workers are likely to only keep growing, given that about 10,000 baby boomers turn 65 years old each day, a trend that's projected to continue through 2029.

Yet many of those boomers are woefully unprepared for retirement, at least when it comes to their financial health. In an annual survey conducted by investment firm BlackRock, baby boomers said they wanted to have about $45,500 in annual retirement income, although the average boomer had only saved up enough to produce slightly more than $9,000 in annual income.

Of course, Generation X and the millennial generation aren't likely to be in any better shape. The typical Gen Xer has far fewer retirement assets as someone of the same age had 25 years earlier, according to a J.P. Morgan study. Millennials, many of whom are just starting their careers, are hobbled by increasingly high student debt loads as well as an uneven job market.

The share of seniors in the workforce will most certainly continue to rise, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics projecting that almost 22 percent of the 65-and-older set will be working in 2024. [...]

Read the whole thing for embedded links, videos and more.

The answer for some may be to leave the country, for somewhere they can afford to retire to. It's a more attractive option to ending up like this.

     

Esperanto, a created, living language

I thought it was a kind of dead language, like Klingon. But apparently, it's not:



The creator of Esperanto, L.L. Zamenhoff, was a very interesting fellow:

[...] Zamenhof was born on 15 December (3 December OS) 1859 in the town of Białystok in the Russian Partition (north-eastern Poland) in the age of national insurrections. His parents were of Lithuanian Jewish descent, and his wife was born in Kaunas, in one of the biggest Jewish centres of the time. He appears to have been natively bilingual in Yiddish and Russian,[3] presumably the Belorussian "dialect" of his home town, though it may have been only his father who spoke Russian with him at home. From his father, a teacher of German and French, he learned those languages and Hebrew as well. He also spoke Polish, one of the major languages of Bialystok alongside Yiddish, (Belo)Russian, and German, and it was Polish that was to become the native language of his children. In school he studied the classical languages: Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. He later learned some English, though in his own words not very well, had an interest in Lithuanian and Italian, and learned Volapük when it came out in 1880, though by that point his international language project was already well developed.[4][5]

In addition to the Yiddish-speaking Jewish majority, the population of Białystok was made up of Poles and Belarusians, with smaller groups of Russians, Germans, Lipka Tatars and others. Zamenhof was saddened and frustrated by the many quarrels among these groups. He supposed that the main reason for the hate and prejudice lay in the mutual misunderstanding caused by the lack of one common language. If such a language existed, Zamenhof postulated, it could play the role of a neutral communication tool between people of different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds.

As a student at secondary school in Warsaw, Zamenhof made attempts to create some kind of international language with a grammar that was very rich, but also very complex. When he later studied English, he decided that the international language must have a simpler grammar. Apart from his parents' native languages Russian and Yiddish and his adopted language Polish, his linguistics attempts were also aided by his mastering of German, a good passive understanding of Latin, Hebrew and French, and a basic knowledge of Greek, English and Italian.[6]

By 1878, his project Lingwe uniwersala was almost finished. However, Zamenhof was too young then to publish his work. Soon after graduation from school he began to study medicine, first in Moscow, and later in Warsaw. In 1885, Zamenhof graduated from a university and began his practice as a doctor in Veisiejai and after 1886 as an ophthalmologist in Płock and Vienna. While healing people there he continued to work on his project of an international language.

For two years he tried to raise funds to publish a booklet describing the language until he received the financial help from his future wife's father. In 1887, the book titled Международный язык. Предисловие и полный учебник (International language: Introduction and complete textbook) was published in Russian[7] under the pseudonym "Doktoro Esperanto" (Doctor Hopeful). Zamenhof initially called his language "Lingvo internacia" (international language), but those who learned it began to call it Esperanto after his pseudonym, and this soon became the official name for the language. For Zamenhof this language, far from being merely a communication tool, was a way of promoting the peaceful coexistence of different people and cultures.[2] [...]

What a fascinating man. Read the whole thing for embedded links and more.

I've been reading about Esperanto lately, because I've been reading a book about language learning, Fluent in 3 Months. The author, Benny Lewis, recommends learning Esperanto as your first second language, because it's easy to learn, you make progress quickly, and many studies have shown that people who learn Esperanto as their first second language, have a much easier time learning other languages successfully. Benny talks about this on his website:

http://www.fluentin3months.com/esperanto/

[...] I always encourage people to spend just two weeks learning Esperanto, for the purely pragmatic reason of it giving them a boost in their main focus language. There was a great recent TEDx talk specifically about this idea of using Esperanto as a springboard to learning other languages. But moving on from that, those you can use Esperanto with make it all the more worthwhile to learn.

At Esperanto events, I’ve made some fantastic open minded friends, and sang, laughed, argued, flirted (and more…), played, explored and eaten with them there. And while travelling, I’ve met up with other speakers who I know will share the philosophies of the community of open mindedness and friendliness, while being modern and forward thinking.

One way you can meet Esperanto speakers in many cities is via Pasporta Servo, which is kind of like Couchsurfing, only it started many decades before. I also simply use Couchsurfing itself and search for speakers of the language and Google info about the local city’s community. It turns out every city in China has an active Esperanto community, and I’ve met up with several speakers in this trip already!

Of course many of them are into language learning and travel, but we tend to talk about whatever else comes up. In many situations, the structure of the language actually lets you be more expressive than non-constructed languages. [...]

Read the whole page for embedded links, videos, and much MUCH more.
     

WikiHow: for the Awkward Questions

I get random wikiHow links on my iGoogle page every morning. Sometimes they are interesting and or unusual topics. Today's wikiHow tackles an awkward topic:

How to Use a Squat Toilet

If you're traveling to Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and some parts of Latin America, you're likely to encounter a squat toilet (otherwise known as a squatty potty). Even though most of the people in the world (and most of the people throughout human history) find squatting to be the most natural way to go, it can be an intimidating (and messy) task if you've never done it before. Sure, the explicitness of these instructions might make you a little uncomfortable, but not nearly as uncomfortable as it'd be to ask someone how to use a squat toilet, or walk away from one with a mess on the floor and on your clothes. [...]

OK, I can see why reading the wikiHow could save you some... trouble. It then goes on thru the 7 steps of the process... and ends with a video on the topic.

Very educational. In some counties, when they say "Public Restroom", they REALLY do mean PUBLIC. Yikes.

And in some areas of rural China... well, see the video. If you dare ;-)
     

Obama's illegal campaign contributions

Shocking, just shocking. The MSM is giving him a total pass on this. By Pamela Geller at the American Thinker:

Obama's Foreign Donors: The media averts its eyes

I have been researching, documenting and studying thousands upon thousands of Obama's campaign donations for the past month. Egregious abuse was immediately evident and I published the results of my ongoing investigation. Each subsequent post built a more damning case against Obama's illegal contribution activity.

The media took little notice of what I was substantiating. I went so far as to upload the documents so that anyone could do their own research. I asked readers to download the documents and a number of folks pitched in.

Despite dropping the groundbreaking bombshell story of "Palestinian" brothers from the Rafah refugee camp in Gaza who donated $33,000 to Obama's campaign, no big media picked up the story. Jihadis donating to Obama from Gaza? Could there be a bigger story? Foreign donations are illegal, but this story was all that and so much more. The "Palestinian" brothers were proud and vocal of their "love" for Obama. Their vocal support on behalf of "Palestinians" spoke volumes to Obama's campaign.

And yet still no media.

But Obama pricked up his ears. He smelled trouble and while no media asked, he answered anyway. Sen. Obama's campaign immediately scrambled and contended they had returned the $33,500 in illegal contributions from Palestinians in Hamas-controlled Gaza, despite the fact that records do not show that it was returned and the brothers said they have not received any money. Having gone through all of Obama's refunds redesignations etc, no refund was made to Osama, Hossam, or Edwan Monir in the Rafah refugee camp. And still no media. [...]

(bold emphasis mine) There are many other irregularities as well, but the media only focuses on McCain's finances, on things that are not even illegal. Read the whole thing for more details and embedded links.

Pamela Geller is Editor and Publisher of the blog Atlas Shrugs. She intends to keep digging the dirt on this story. I will be watching with great interest.