From Russia With Love

I like that the new crazy Russia is back. Granted we're not all Cold War and stuff. But let's face it, having Russia around to hate makes things a lot more easier to make sense it.

We're the good guys. They're the bad guys. They're the torturers. We're the ones who pick up James Bond after he's blown up the villain's hide out.

The new crazy Russia is fun. Putin saves a camera crew from a tiger. Russia bans Mr. Hanky. Russia blames us for Georgia. We send aid, they send tanks. Or propaganda.

Come on. It's 1962 all over again.

Just take a look at that poser. You know he's sucking his gut in. That's a dead ringer for the guy Indiana fights around the plane in the first movie. That's a guy we can all agree to hate.

He's our bell weather. With Russia around and acting crazy we know what to hate. They're like the Yankees. Everyone can agree to hate them. No shades of grey. It's black and white. It's the WWE of international politics. They're Snidely Whiplash; we're Dudley Do-Right.

I welcome this return to normalcy. Let's get on with eating tv dinners, building bomb shelters, wearing poodle skirts, slicking back our hair and doing the twist. I don't really have any historical context for any of this stuff because it was before my time. But I did watch a lot of Happy Days reruns when I was a kid. I'm predicting Donny Most is going to be huge next year.

Now I've got to go buy one of those shoes with a poisoned knife in it.