If one is so inclined to pay attention to politics, to the new president and his administration and his dizzying foray into ‘how many executive orders can a president sign in his first 100 days of office’, or how many protests can happen almost instantaneously if something is done that the old guard isn’t please about, we here at the Asylum try to step back and ignore as much as we can so as not to interfere with our various duties and functions throughout the day, e.g., attending to the master of the Asylum, Henry; listening to good classical and jazz music, reading, writing, watching a good movie from the 1940’s, cocktail hour, and of course, work.
But what is more interesting, hysterical, bemusing and at times, downright insane than the politics (if that’s possible) is reading, listening or trying to make sense of the media’s coverage of the president, no matter whether it’s Left, Right, Alt-Left, Alt-Right,”independent” or apathetic. It is, in a word, nuts!
Websites that we once trusted for some sort of ordered, reasoned, unbiased reporting and writing have become so vitriolic that even with our cynical and sarcastic outlook on most things, we cringe with embarrassment at the level of lunacy making it’s way to these once trusted websites.
If they hated Trump before the election and inauguration, then they really, really hate him now. If the loved him before, then they are spellbound, love struck with each and every move he makes. Then there are the websites of a conservative leaning, who now can’t stand him – Whaaat? And then the tepid websites that continue their sanguine outlook on the whole affair, with a haughty wait-and-see approach. Evidently they enjoy the wait as it renews their sense of superiority.
The apathetic sites tend to be comical, without meaning to be, and the independent sites are anything but independent.
So, we thought we would do our own “independent” study, searching for a truly independent site, with engaging topics, crisp and intelligent writing, factual and unbiased reporting and presentation of as many sides to an issue that can be covered.
Our winner is RT.com. Now, we do have a bit of bias ourselves here at the Asylum towards Russia. We love the classical music that their enormously gifted composers have given us, enjoy vodka, are mesmerized by their architecture, love studying their history , enjoy hearing native Russian’s speak broken English and also are devotees of Russian literature. Given those biases, our review of RT.com resulted in watching compelling programs, top notch interviews (check out their YouTube channel) unbiased (as best as we can surmise) reporting, with topics covered that you just won’t see covered from sites or media outlets here in the States (Soros-funded NGOs aiming to bring down our govt – Hungarian Foreign Minister) and (Assad: West is telling Russia that Syrian Army went too far in defeating terrorists (FULL INTERVIEW) being just two examples.
There is another way we look at RT.com, and it may seem trite or out of place when describing a website and media outlet, but it applies at least in our minds and that is “of age”. It’s a website and media outlet that assumes its’ readers and viewers have a mind and can read an article or listen to an interview with facts and viewpoints presented, and then make up our their own minds about it all. They treat their viewers as adults, without the condescending attitude and obvious bias of so many main stream media outlets. Refreshing! There’s no real leaning one way or the other from what we’ve witnessed. Interviewed guests and reporters can say or report what they want to without being suppressed. It’s actually a pleasure to watch their broadcasts, read their articles or view their YouTube offerings. Of course this is all just our opinion but we wanted to send along our offering if you’ve found the websites you typically visit to be a bit nutty lately. Give RT.com a try if you haven’t already.
Honorable mention to another website we frequent, www.theintercept.com
And to end this dispatch, rather than present a classical music clip from one of the great Russian composers that we’ve highlighted in other dispatches, we thought we’d send along the following partial soundtrack to an overlooked, but brilliant movie from 1990, The Russia House. For us, this music somehow beautifully and elegantly depicts Russia, though none of us here at the Asylum have been there. Enjoy!
TunePlay – THE RUSSIA HOUSE (1990) Jerry Goldsmith with Branford Marsalis
Photo Credit (front page): By Uroš (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
Photo Credit: By Sollok29 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
Photo Credit: By Christophe Meneboeuf [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
Dispatches from the Asylum 