If you’re Alexander Lukashenko and you’re the president of a poor, irradiated country and even the thugs call you a thug, with your secret secret police and your thick, peasant patois, then you spend your one night in New York City in your suite at the Waldorf Towers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What does the President of Belarus do when he’s in New York for the big UN shindig? Not a lot, according to Peter Savodnik, over at Slate: If you’re Alexander Lukashenko and you’re the president of a poor, irradiated country and even the thugs call you a thug, with your secret secret police and your … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “Despot & the City”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-av","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6813,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/podcast-disarm","url_meta":{"origin":651,"position":0},"title":"Podcast: Disarm","author":"Gil","date":"January 7, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories - season 3 episode 1 Ron Rosenbaum -\u00a0Disarm Our first guest of 2013 is Ron Rosenbaum,\u00a0one of my favorite living writers!\u00a0This episode of The Virtual Memories Show is The Bomb! I've been a fan of Ron's writing (let's call it \"literary journalism\") since reading Long Island, Babylon\u00a0(originally titled\u00a0The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=voyantpublishing&l=as2&o=1&a=1416594221","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5450,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-july-23-2010","url_meta":{"origin":651,"position":1},"title":"Unrequired Reading: July 23, 2010","author":"Gil","date":"July 23, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"In honor of Comic-Con, there isn't a single comics-related link in this week's Unrequired Reading! Surprisingly,\u00c2\u00a0dandyism runs in the family. * * * The shamans of the Marine Corps? Sounds a little Men Who Stare At Goats to me. * * * Nothing can stop that Old Spice Guy. *\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18145,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-681-colin-asher","url_meta":{"origin":651,"position":2},"title":"Episode 681 – Colin Asher","author":"Gil","date":"June 30, 2026","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 681: Colin Asher \"The creation of culture is what marks us as human beings, and the fact that everybody has that desire connects us to each other.\" With his amazing new book, THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL: The Secret Prison History of American Music (WW Norton), author Colin Asher\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/asher2026comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C522&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/asher2026comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C522&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/asher2026comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C522&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/asher2026comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C522&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/asher2026comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C522&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":7249,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/podcast-arts-and-sciences-and-bugs","url_meta":{"origin":651,"position":3},"title":"Podcast: Arts and Sciences and Bugs","author":"Gil","date":"August 19, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories - season 3 episode 17 - Arts and Sciences and Bugs Today's episode of The Virtual Memories Show is a little offbeat, but I have faith in you, dear listener! I take something that seems obscure, and it leads you to somewhere that is not where you expect.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Music"","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/music"},"img":{"alt_text":"david_rothenberg_playing_cicadas_bug_music","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/david_rothenberg_playing_cicadas_bug_music-440x293.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1886,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/more-like-f-mail","url_meta":{"origin":651,"position":4},"title":"More like “F”-mail","author":"Gil","date":"February 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Back in the 1990s when Tom Spurgeon was editing The Comics Journal, he was kind enough to publish some of my short comics reviews. Since the irascible publisher of the magazine was named Gary \"a man should be judged by the quality of his enemies\" Groth, some people thought my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2633,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/crisis-of-infinite-mixed-metaphors","url_meta":{"origin":651,"position":5},"title":"Crisis of Infinite Mixed Metaphors","author":"Gil","date":"October 7, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"From this morning's NYPost: The seismic jolt sent through global stock markets yesterday has ratcheted up the pressure on Fed chief Ben Bernanke, New York Federal Reserve Bank President Tim Geithner and SEC chief Chris Cox - three pivotal players who had hoped for a period of post-rescue bill calm\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}