Marking time  

Via McGee’s Musings I came across Jay Cross’s voluminous posting on time. There’s a bewildering variety of material, but I particularly liked the perpetual headline news:

Things can only get better 

Jonathan Steele has an insightful and contrary analysis of the Russian parliamentary elections in The Guardian.

Steele was one of the few western writers who decried Boris Yeltsin’s 1993 suspension of parliament and drafting of a new constitution, increasing the Kremlin’s powers. “The disputes between president and parliament in the first post-Soviet years were not a recipe for paralysis, as was claimed. They were the inevitable discomforts inherent in developing democratic compromises and a system of checks and balances that Russia had never had in its history.”

Now, although this month’s election looks like a complete triumph for an authoritarian approach, Steele believes it could be the harbinger of constructive change. “A realignment of Russia’s political scene is long overdue. It will not happen overnight, but after this week’s poll the chances that it could develop over the next few wilderness years are marginally better than at any time since the Yeltsin coup of 1993.”