The real question is: why CIA had classified Russian jokes on their file?
maybe they wrote them
CIA Declassified Coldwar Russian Jokes [pdf]
231–240 of 272 posts
Re: CIA Declassified Coldwar Russian Jokes [pdf]
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
> he memed you No. This has to stop. For the love of all that is good and holy this has to be the line in the sand that we do not cross. This is too much for the English language to take and still survive. Meme cannot be a verb.
>> Meme cannot be a verb. Yeah, stop verbing your nouns, dammit.
Yeah, nobody ever does that. Go ahead, google it.
Re: CIA Declassified Coldwar Russian Jokes [pdf]
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds like bias to me. We're genetically hard-wired to be attracted to those different to us. For example, I don't think that (on average) the locals where I live are particularly beautiful in comparison to other countries, but a lot of foreigners seem to disagree with me.
>We're genetically hard-wired to be attracted to those different to us. Source?
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/may/24/genes-human-...
I'll look for better (primary) sources when I'm not on my phone if I remember. I vaguely remember seeing a bunch of stuff about how humans naturally gravitate towards genetic diversity, unless there's some roadblock preventing it. I don't have a source offhand though so until or unless I find one, remember to add your salt :)
Re: CIA Declassified Coldwar Russian Jokes [pdf]
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
You would if you lived in a country where merchandise was available infrequently. Stores often were empty of any wares - so fish store is empty of fish and meat store is empty of meat. ;)
Thanks. "No, this is the empty fish shop. The empty meat shop is across the street."
There also must be a play on words in original (untranslated) joke. "You don't have any meat?" in russian can be understood as "Do you have any meat?" and as "Is it your shop that has no meat?".
Re: CIA Declassified Coldwar Russian Jokes [pdf]
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like how Ronald Reagan delivers this joke: https://youtu.be/mN3z3eSVG7A?t=131
What a great find. Linked from that video, a great one on ageism in politics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z97_qDsrqgU Reagan surely knew to carry himself in a presidential manner.
> Reagan surely knew to carry himself in a presidential manner.
He was a good actor.
Re: CIA Declassified Coldwar Russian Jokes [pdf]
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
>We're genetically hard-wired to be attracted to those different to us. Source?
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/may/24/genes-human-... I'll look for better (primary) sources when I'm not on my phone if I remember. I vaguely remember seeing a bunch of stuff about how humans naturally gravitate towards genetic diversity, unless there's some roadblock preventing it. I don't have a source offhand though so until or unless I find one, remember to add your salt :)
That study was only about genes for immunity, not about genes in general.
Re: CIA Declassified Coldwar Russian Jokes [pdf]
#237Over here in Romania the Radio Yerevan jokes were some of the most famous ( http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=Radio_Yerevan_Jo... ). My favorite one: """ Q: Is it true that Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov from Moscow won a car in a lottery? A: In principle yes, but: 1. it wasn't Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov but Aleksander Aleksandrovich Aleksandrov; 2. he is not from Moscow but from Odessa; 3. it was not a car but a bicycle…
Maybe echoes this:
A neighbour accuses Hershel the casserole he'd given him was returned broken. They can't settle the case and so go to house of justice.
"Your honour, none of this ever happened", replies Hershel. "Please explain", says the judge.
"First, This man has never given me any casserole"
"Second, I've returned it all in good shape"
"and third, it was already broken when he handed it to me"
Re: CIA Declassified Coldwar Russian Jokes [pdf]
#238OK, I need to add my favorite Russian joke here: A German and a Russian die. Neither has been the best person in their life, so they get sent down there. When they arrive in hell, the devil says, "Well, especially bad people have been dying lately, and we're all full up. I can only accept one of you, the other will go to purgatory and get a chance at redemption." He proposes a simple test of their human decency: Each…
True story. Russian guy's name is Ivan Pavlov.
I guess that was /s.
FWIW, I recently met someone whose father was a dog-tender for Pavlov. The father was condemned based on Article 58 of the 1934 Soviet penal code (section for "Contacts Leading to Suspicion of Espionage", i.e. he had relatives in Finland) and was for some time in camps and after that, not allowed to keep any good job. A dog-tender was an allowed job; Pavlov was a very nice old man who treated his workers well. Pavlov died then before the war and the family then took a longish tour of the Gulag.
Re: CIA Declassified Coldwar Russian Jokes [pdf]
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless you refer to old(er) working class women with a hard life I don't see how any reasonable person can think that's even remotely a basis for a joke, given how much more beautiful Russian women look on average. Just walk around Russian cities. Having lived in the US for a decade and having been to Russia and Ukraine several times, sometimes for months living in a rented apartment, I know which country I'd choose…
Might be something to do with higher competition. Some countries have lower male-to-female ratios.
Indeed. Russia has one of the lowest male-to-female ratios in the world: 0.86 males per each female.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_sex_ratio
I understand where that comes from: it's a stereotypical generalisation, but Russian middle-aged men drink themselves to death. Large areas of Russian countryside operate on granny energy only.
So, the "supply" of women exceeds "demand" in Russia.
What puzzles me more is how UAE, Qatar and Kuwait have such a high male-to-female ratios. Is it because of large populations of foreign workers that are predominantly male?
Re: CIA Declassified Coldwar Russian Jokes [pdf]
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
I lived in Poland for a while. I've heard at least one of these from people who lived there before solidarity.
My parents always said that bad politics creates the best comedy. There's a lot of comedy shows filmed in socialist Poland and they're amazing. Both really clever and funny. Even though they had to be reviewed by censors first, the things that got through were still very much about politics. Some so pointed, I still don't know if the censors were too lazy to read the script, or ignored the rules...
I always wonder if the subversive elements that make it through aren't "missed" necessarily by a censor. I like to think that it's an act of subversion, a protest-by-omission, by some of the few people of conscience deep in the belly of the beast.