Yet another battle anniversary

Wednesday was the 150th anniversary of the third and decisive day of the Battle of Gettysburg.

150 years ago yesterday, the city of Vicksburg, Mississippi fell to the forces of General Ulysses S. Grant.

And seventy years ago today, on the other side of the world, the greatest tank battle in history began, arguably the decisive battle of World War II. In "Operation Citadel", a German army group under Field Marshal von Kluge, striking from the north, and another under Field Marshal von Manstein from the south, attempted to cut off a bulge in the front line near the Russian city of Kursk.

The Soviet high command, anticipating this move, resolved to let the German wave break upon well prepared defenses in depth. In the words of Marshal G.K. Zhukov: "we intended to meet the expected advance of the German forces with powerful defensive measures to defeat them, and first of all to destroy the enemy's armored formations; then, going over to the counteroffensive, we would crush the enemy decisively."

Crush them they did.

RT America

I've recently found a new TV news channel, RT America. To my knowledge it's not on cable; I'm getting it via the Internet on my Roku box. "RT" stands for "Russia Today"; it's a Moscow-based organization that is a spin-off of RIA-Novosti. RT produces two English-language channels, RT Documentary and RT America; an Arabic-language channel, and a Spanish-language one, all of which are available on the Roku box. There is nothing in Russian; like the old Radio Station "Peace and Progress", RT's services are intended solely for foreign consumption.

The quality of the programming varies; many of the news stories are reminiscent of the old Radio Moscow in that there is clearly an agenda being promoted. Reports from Syria, or example, portray the Assad regime as the champion of stable secular government against the chaos and radicalism that rebellion brings.

Some programs are just plain bizarre; a stockbroker named Max Keiser and his wife host a program based in London that might as well be called the Chicken Little Report; he is forever predicting the imminent collapse of the world economy and ridiculing various central bankers. I can't figure out his angle; he never seems to argue for any particular course of action, but just criticizes any and all.

Right now there is a program examining the NSA surveillance controversy, including interviews with anti-NSA demonstrators in New York and a privacy advocate from the National Lawyers' Guild. The show is hosted by one of the angry young women with almost, but not quite, perfect American accents who seem to be ubiquitous on RT.

Earlier tonight someone named Thom Hartmann presented a half-hour interview with Ralph Nader which I thought was very well done. I can almost forgive Mr. Nader for electing George W. Bush in 2000.

Now an Angry Babe is smashing a TV set with a sledge hammer.

There is almost nothing about Russia on RT America, only an occasional brief spot promoting the country as a tourist destination.

Weird, huh?