Shiva is sometimes depicted as doing many things at once. Thursday, I attempted to emulate Shiva, but with less slaying of evil demons and more tech support. Also, when you’re building a database that has people’s names in it, making 2 columns, one for “first name” and one for “last name” makes it a lot easier to sort names in alphabetical order than having one column for “name”.

Been reading Russia and the Arabs by Yevgeny Primakov. He was a Russian official who was relatively highly placed, and the book talks about the events in the Middle East from about 1955..1990 from a perspective that’s pretty different from the one in the West. The copy I have is an advance uncorrected proof, and the book won’t be available to the general English-reading public until November. I don’t know whether it’d really be worth buying at retail. The author isn’t very engaging or a good storyteller, and the book seems like it’s intended for readers who already know a lot about the Middle East’s recent history.

It has a few good sound bites though. “We knew pretty early on that traditional Arab culture is incompatible with Russian-style socialism. However, it was not ideologically correct to say this” was one of them. “I’m sorry I’m late! It’s not my fault; Jordan is the only country where Arab drivers always stop at red lights” was another. Also, a Russian official said, “Hey, we’ve got your back! We’ll support you in your endeavors!” to Nasser early in 1967, and that’s a big reason why the Six Day War happened when it did.