<div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Surely, one of the most infuriating aspects of modern media life -- at least here in the US where I happen to be nervously sitting at the moment  -- is the lusty abandonment of narrative consistency and removal of even recent history from many 'news' stories. So Khodorkovsky, described only a few short years ago by the 'quality press' as essentially a thief, was transformed, once the Putin vs. Khodorkovsky story was firmly in place, into a besieged reformer </blockquote></div> it's reminiscent of the way that, in Orwell's _1984_, the people rushed out to demonstrate their hate for Eurasia, only to find that the Enemy du jour (according to the Party Line) was instead Eastasia. What traitor had faked the signs to say "Eurasia"? they asked. The fact that Eurasia had been the Enemy had been flushed down the memory hole. some think that _1984_ was simply based on a critique of Stalin's USSR. But if read carefully, it's clear that a lot of it comes from his experience in the UK, including the role of mainstream press. E.g., Stalin was an official Bad Guy -- until he was allied with the UK -- and then became a Bad Guy once again when the war ended. -- Jim Devine "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.