Things that make you go... Hmm

Things were difficult under Soviet Communism, but are they really that much better under Mafia-controlled pseudo-Democracy?

If the attractiveness of female tennis players is any indication, then the answer is a resounding yes.

Consider the stereotypical image of a Russian woman under Soviet Communism. The images we saw in American made them out to be something out of a Grimm folktale - a short, stout woman toiling in the dirt or waiting in a bread line, wrapped in a drab, gray-tone dress, a black kerchief covering her hair & tied beneath one of her many chins, in need of a professional facial waxing, and a leg waxing, and maybe some on... well you get the idea.

Now picture the Russian woman of today as exemplified by just about any modern tennis professional (eg, Maria Sharapova, Anna Kournikova, Maria Kirilenko, Anna Chakvetadze, Ekaterina Bychkova, Anastasia Rodionova), the plethora of recent fashion models from Russia, or the thousands of Russian mail-order brides advertised widely on the internet.

All things being equal, perhaps mafia-controlled corruption has at least one advantage over Soviet-controlled corruption. Hmm.

THEN: Nadezhda Belonenko, c1950 . . . . . . . . . NOW: Maria Sharapova, 2006.
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