27 July 2012

There still ain't no truth in Pravda

The old but true Russian maxim "There is no truth in Pravda and no news in Izvestia"* remains as true as it is old, I can say now after checking today the Pravda's front page. Here is a good example:

In fact my attention was drawn not by the subject of the article, which is the IDF Caracal** battalion 33, but a "side" remark at the lede of the article above (the very last sentence): "Дамы, которые отчаялись найти в Израиле другую работу, охраняют страну от террористов и контрабандистов" or, in my basic translation to English, "Ladies that have despaired to find another work in Israel, protect the country from terrorists and smugglers".

Yeah. So the "ladies" look to two years of military service that involves quite dangerous and exhausting activities on our southern borders as the source of income. The writer obviously didn't study any aspect of the subject matter. For instance the fact that the "income" barely covers bus tickets home (if and when the home leave is granted), ice cream, cigarettes and/or lipstick. The writer definitely doesn't know anything of Caracal's history nor does he understand the way a girl gets recruited to Caracal.

The unit started as a continuation of a great and successfully ongoing tradition: youngsters from all over the country unite in small "core" groups that serve as seed for new settlements or social work communes, with a proviso that the group will serve together in an army unit. The main contingent comes from the socialist Working and Studying Youth movement. Since its inception, the unit grew to a battalion size and allows today recruiting of outsiders, after a fairly exhaustive and exhausting series of tests.

Two thirds of the battalion are women, and the experiment proved to be a success. Still, as far as augmenting its soldiers' income, it is not different from any other regular army unit. But go and explain it to the Pravda scribe...


Here are the boys and the girls of the Caracal battalion, after a "beret ceremony" (too long to explain). Not a single one of them has found a paying job yet. But every single one, no matter the gender, could kick the Pravda reporter's ass all across the Arava desert.

So yeah - don't go to seek truth in Pravda. It's still a futile business.

Better watch: more pictures of "gainfully employed" Caracal's boys and girls. Jokes like this one:


included.

(*) "Pravda" means "truth" and "Izvestia" means "news" in Russian, if you haven't heard this one before. Both Pravda and Izvestia were leading Soviet newspapers, still proudly sticking to the Soviet traditions.

(**) The name is borrowed from the beautiful desert feline Caracal:


The number of the battalion, 33, was chosen to honor the 33 fallen female soldiers of Palmach.

14 comments:

shaun downey said...

The hell with the article but that Helo Kitty rifle is OMG sooooo cuuuuute!!!!!!!

Perhaps there are baby rifles with Tellytubbies on them

SnoopyTheGoon said...

I guess one could find some. Where there is a customer, there must be a product.

Louise said...

I never realized this before, but Pravda bears an uncanny similarity to most of North America's mainstream media.

"Fact checking? What's that? Spin doctoring is what we do."

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Possibly, but there is one small difference: during the Soviet time and partially at least, today, Pravda was and is diligently manufacturing "facts" to project a picture of the world convenient to the regime.

With Western media it is just sloppiness and disregard for inconvenient info. Not exactly the same.

KatieNorcross said...

I just love that Hello Kitty rifle. Works on many levels. If the pink rifle doesn't kill the enemy with laughter, it will kill them with the bullets.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Uhu...

Dick Stanley said...

I also love the Hello Kitty M-16, but some of those berets look like dead flapjacks.

Dick Stanley said...

You are too generous. With media like CNN and NYTimes, it is their preferred leftie narrative. And they would report the IDF unit the same way, knowing, as they do, nothing about the military of any country, including their own.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Yeah, well, it's not that easy to make something useful out of beret. Some people succeed, but not I. Anyway, it's mostly part of "aleph" (weekedns, parades, etc) uniform here.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

You must be right at that, still I have trouble imagining NYT and CNN editors fake facts to suit their world view. Omission will be more of their tool, I guess.

Dick Stanley said...

I've always hated berets. I think they look stupid on soldiers, even the frogs. When the U.S. Army started wearing them, I knew they were going downhill.

Dick Stanley said...

Exactly. They lie by prevarication. A distinction without much of a difference, however.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Right. Half-truth is a lie as well.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

The French rule the fashion - for ever and ever. So here we all are, wearing berets...