The Chelyabinsk Meteor, Vladimir Putin misses an Opportunity

Founded in 1736, Chelyabinsk, Russia has eluded the headlines.  But for a fateful day on February 15, 2013, they still claim anonymity on the world stage.  At 9:20am, an object brighter than the sun raced across the southwestern Russian sky, but did not maintain elevation, eventually bursting into flames still 20 miles up. The exploded meteorite produced a huge shock wave and sent small fragments of alien rock raining onto Chelyabinsk. This explosion far surpassed the atomic bomb used on Hiroshima by President Franklin Roosevelt. Oh yes...all those scientific detection devices used to warn us against alien attacks we see in films? Useless.  The Russian peeps were taken totally by surprise.  1,500 were injured, most from glass broken by the shock wave, and eventually a rock hit the ground with a radius over 60 feet (see middle picture...kinda reminds you of "John Carpenter's The Thing"). NASA?  Useless.  Our government funded space agency was clueless.  They happily reported on the event after the fact.

Most of the injuries were minor.  Scores were temporarily blinded (a la "Day of the Triffids"), one woman suffered a broken spine, and Mr. Putin reported skin flakiness several days after examining the damage.  An hour after impact, Chelyabinsk residents began smelling a burning odor.  As the world stock markets begin to collapse, and oil prices plummet, Russia is in for some very tough times.  The Chelyabinsk meteor is, perhaps, a metaphor for those rapidly approaching difficult times.  If any nation can endure a grim period...it is Russia, as we have seen throughout history. However damaging the meteor was....no one died, and the city residents went back to work shortly after the boom.  No teddy bear memorials or national days of prayer, or blue ribbon commissions...just real people going to work to make society function.  A lost concept, nowadays.  

Now for some Monday morning quarterbacking.  Would it not have been great if Russia's propaganda system decided to have some fun with an all too tight world community?  For example...I would have loved if the media in Chelyabinsk put out sketchy reports that corpses in hospitals and morgues seemed to re-animate. Oh yes...here's one.  Russia's Minister of Defense should have relayed to the U.N. that all contact had been lost with an internationally manned weather station near the crash site (no matter that this station doesn't exist).  The reaction of the  Unites States' all too inept State Department would have been classic.  I would have payed for Wikileaks to intercept those emails Washington would have sent to our ambassador in Moscow (...does anyone even know who that is?). Finally, law enforcement entities in Chelyabinsk should have reported some unusual rioting and looting in which perpetrators seemed to be biting other residents and police.

My hat is off to the residents of Chelyabinsk.  Hard working regular people with no need for a world remembrance day every February.  In a world community heaping sickeningly sweet admiration on anyone claiming to be a victim, our Russian friends hold themselves out as adults.  They look up, when others look down.  They go to work, when others call in sick.  They walk forward, when others hide.  In the coming economic malaise, the spirit of Chelyabinsk should be emulated.