Culture
Tuesday 31 March 2020
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![Dominic Gregorio]()
Dominic Gregorio
senior, University of Pennsylvania
“I wish the economy and the academy were not so easily incapacitated by the common cold. I wish (U. Penn) President Gutmann had heard the COVID-19 mortality rates in the U.S. were just above 0.1 percent, very similar to the seasonal flu, and acted like it.”
Read more...Colleges and universities have canceled classes or moved them online in response to the COVID-19 epidemic, prompting a backlash from some students. But claims that the disease is like the common cold are false. -
![All across the Internet]()
All across the Internet
“Read the classics. This is a quarantine letter by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was isolated in south of France in 1920 due to the Spanish influenza.”
Read more...The “Scott Fitzgerald quarantine letter” has gone corona-viral in Russian and English. It is a fake – the original was published as satire by the humor website McSweeney’s on March 13, 2020. -
![Margarita Simonyan]()
Margarita Simonyan
Editor-in-Chief of RT (Russia Today)
“We will publish your book because we still remember a time when books were banned, and do not wish to see it return...we believe in free speech.”
Read more...Publisher Hatchette Books dropped Woody Allen’s memoir after protests from his ex-partner’s son, journalist Ronan Farrow. That prompted Simonyan’s defense of free speech, but Russia bans hundreds of books, websites and other media. -
![Mike Hughes]()
Mike Hughes
Chauffeur, daredevil stuntman, and flat-earth believer
“I don’t want to take anyone else’s word for it. I don’t know if the Earth is flat or round … I just couldn’t dismiss it (flat Earth theory) after four to five months researching this.”
Read more...The flat-earth conspiracy got to “Mad Mike” Hughes – so much so that he built a rocket to see for himself. It ended with his demise. -
![The Daily Mail]()
The Daily Mail
British Tabloid
“Twitter is stunned to discover during the impeachment hearing that Ukrainians prefer Kyiv is pronounced 'KEEV' and not 'Key-Ev' and it is a point of national pride in defiance of the Russians.”
Read more...The capital of Ukraine is two syllables, Ky-yiv, not ‘KEEV.’ The latter is a mistake in pronunciation. -
![RIA Novosti]()
RIA Novosti
State news agency
“Specialists of MIA [International Information Agency] Rossiya Segodnya analyzed 82,000 stories about Russia published in the top media of the seven leading Western countries in the first half of 2019. So, 49.81% of the materials were negative. Another 48.12% of the [stories] were neutral.”
Read more...One third of the articles surveyed came from the UK. The Russian news outlet Meduza found many of the negative articles share the same author -- an expat based in Russia. His articles tend to be translated from Russian tabloids. -
![Olga Skabeyeva]()
Olga Skabeyeva
Rossiya-1 television host
“Never [presented Ukraine in a negative light] on purpose.”
Read more...After Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russian state media should not paint Ukraine in an unfavorable light, Rossiya-1 state television host Olga Skabeyeva claimed she had never trashed the country on purpose. The data, however, suggests Ukraine-bashing is Russian state-media policy. -
![Yeni Safak]()
Yeni Safak
Turkish daily
“Muslim man in India killed by mob after being accused of cow slaughter.”
Read more...Despite Yeni Safak’s headline, the article, written by Reuters, indicated the slain man was not a Muslim. -
![Sergey Lavrov]()
Sergey Lavrov
Russian Foreign Minister
“In the field of sports, there are power battles which are mainly aimed at ensuring that an Anglo-Saxon group of states determines the rules, including with regards to the use of doping.”
Read more...Russia’s foreign minister has claimed an “Anglo-Saxon” group of states is dictating anti-doping policies to the world. Current anti-doping rules follow the World Anti-Doping Code first introduced in 1999 in Switzerland, to which 660 sports organizations, including Russia’s, are signatories. -
![Times of India]()
Times of India
Indian news outlet
“Russia has endorsed India's move of abrogating Article 370 and bifurcating the state of Jammu & Kashmir, saying the exercise was ‘carried out within the framework of the Constitution of the Republic of India.’”
Read more...No reference to this subject is found in the Russian Foreign Ministry’s briefing of August 9, the date cited in the article. No such quote can be found on the foreign ministry’s website, and ministry has not responded to a question on the quote. -
![Dmitry Smirnov]()
Dmitry Smirnov
Head of the Russian Orthodox Church’s patriarchal commission for family, motherhood and childhood protection
“Women are weaker intellectually [than men]. Of course, there are some Marie Curies, though that is rare.”
Read more...Biopsychosocial studies show significant differences between the sexes. How these differences affect general intelligence remains a subject of academic discussion. Smirnov’s comment made headlines throughout Russia and sparked a public discussion. -
![Twitter Account of Russian Embassy in U.K.]()
Twitter Account of Russian Embassy in U.K.
Official Russian Foreign Ministry social media account
"#Ukraine’s language law comes into force, prohibiting Russian from being spoken by doctors and teachers. Clear violation of human rights and #MinskAgreements."
Read more...Ukraine’s new language law does not prohibit doctors from using Russian or any other language with a patient. Doctors can be penalized only if they refuse to speak Ukrainian.
