For the first time in 15 years, I watched a Ukrainian TV show and discovered something interesting. The show consists of not-very-famous singers, actors and performers being given a name of a very famous singer (e.g. Michael Jackson, Beyonce, George Michael, Montserrat Caballé, Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Lady Gaga, Edith Piaf, etc.) and then having to imitate this singer as closely as possible.

Here are the show’s ingredients:

1. A performer presses a big button and is randomly assigned the name of a famous singer to imitate.

2. The performer spends a week preparing to imitate the star whose name s/he has been assigned.

3. A very talented skinny young acting coach with wild hair and in a ratty T-shirt assists the performer.

4. A singing coach with a baby grand piano assists the performer.

5. A team of make-up artists transforms the performer’s appearance.

6. Before the transformation, the performer is interviewed by a beautiful show hostess with very black hair.

7. The performer gets into a magical elevator that takes him or her to be transformed.

8. All the performers sing live, making sure their voices sound as close to those of the starts they imitate as possible.

9. The performance is judged by 4 judges, one of whom is an opera singer and one is a famous older stand-up comedian.

10. The performances are judged based on the Eurovision system.

11. The winner of each segment gets a money prize that is donated to his or her favorite charity.

12. The winner has to perform the winning song once again.

13. Each of the performers is randomly assigned a singer to imitate for the next segment of the show.

Now, the question: the Russians saw the astounding success of this show in Ukraine and stole the whole idea. They imitated everything to a T, even the lighting and the scene decorations. There was a single thing among the 13 points that I listed here, however, that the  Russians did not steal. Which of these 13 ingredients of the popular Ukrainian show did the Russians have no use for?

Acts of terror, as revolting as they may be, supply us with a motive. Someone is angry about some foreign policy and takes out revenge on innocent civilians. Yet the timing of this horrible event is baffling. There is no current aggressive military action. The US have pulled out of Iraq, things are winding down in Afghanistan. Any enemy of the United States knows very well that any kind of terrorist attack on innocent civilians on American soil would outrage the world and result is a swift retaliation. Everyone knows that.

This “everyone” is a blethering fool. Nobody cares about what happens thousands of miles away. “The world” is in no way more outraged about what happens in the US than about what happens in New Zealand, Chile or Russia. The losers on Facebook who huff and puff in fake outrage that nobody in the US cares as much about an explosion in Syria as they do about the Boston bombing are as clueless as the author of the quoted post. It is normal to care about what is close and can affect you personally. It is also normal to feel a lot more indifferent to things that happen far away and have no impact on your own life.

I remember when I first came to Canada and was watching an investigative report on A&E, I heard the show host say that the whole world was eagerly awaiting the decision in OJ Simpson’s case. I laughed for 15 minutes at the stupidity of somebody who really believes that some stupid murder trial can be of interest to the entire world. Like the world doesn’t have its own trials, problems, issues, etc. in every single country.