To the learners of Russian,
My hope is that interest in learning Russian doesn't stem from, and greater familiarity with the Russian speaking countries doesn't result in, unconditional acceptance of and agreement with ways these countries function in and principles they rest upon which are in stark contrast with positive Western values... Enthusiastic fondness for and keen interest in a culture are fraught with danger to be all embracing, including of its ugly and regressive features. Critical thinking and level headed judgement need not be forsaken. If it walks, looks and quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck and not some unique cultural phenomenon to be accepted nonjudgementally.

^{https://stackoverflow.com/editing-help
https://russian.stackexchange.com/help/formatting
https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1777/what-html-tags-are-allowed-on-stack-exchange-sites
A machine generated curiosities, texts syntactically more or less sound with zero sense, funny: http://archive.is/3vfoX}

^{at your workplace the host is you
so pocket every little screw
you are the owner, guest you're not
take home from workplace every nut}