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Monday, November 27, 2006

And This Is Real Life

I've been watching the news and hearing about that former Russian spy in Britain who was poisoned with a radioactive isotope and thinking, wow, this is like something out of a book. I'm sure spies and former spies have been killed before, but I'm guessing the assassins make it look like an accident or something, but this is playing right out there on the news for all the world to see and it's not exactly common or something that could ever be considered accidental.

This is that latest story I could find on the spy's death and it also mentions the other people who've conveniently died since Putin came into office.

I don't have any insightful commentary, but as a fiction writer, I find this fascinating. Seriously, if you read about a spy being killed with polonium 210, wouldn't part of you think that the author was stretching the bounds of credibility? When I first heard this story on the news, I was like, huh? And the more I heard, the more stunned I was.

I should probably try to get past the aspects that make it seem like some kind of James Bond movie. A man is dead and if Russian dissidents are being murdered, this is a huge issue.

One of the newscasts I saw had someone who suggested that this man's death (forgive me for not using his name, but Russian names are difficult to spell) was done in such a way as to deliberately draw attention and to setup Putin. And this theory just makes it more surreal. Wow. Can you imagine being a pawn between the Kremlin and some other unknown group out to discredit the Russian president? How frightening would that be?

I probably shouldn't have blogged about this on a Monday morning at 4:30, but I'm held rapt by how this is playing out and wanted to discuss it and see if anyone else was as amazed as I am. Sorry if I mentally wandered all over the place. I'm not at my best at this time of day. (BTW, I would have titled this post "Stranger Than Fiction," but there's a movie by that name and since I've been reviewing what I've seen lately, I thought for clarity's sake, I should pick another title.)