Inside PBS Blog

Does Nancy Pelosi know who's running Russia?

That was one of the debates that erupted in PBS's corner of cyberspace this week.

During an Aug. 11 appearance on "Tavis Smiley," the House speaker said she was disturbed by the timing of Russia's invasion of Georgia, which occurred at roughly the same time the Olympics opened in Beijing.

"It was interesting to me to see the news talk about the invasion of Georgia while Putin was just sitting there at the Olympics. There was something wrong with that picture," Pelosi told Tavis. "People were being killed, and Putin is sitting in the stands at the Olympics as if nothing is going on."

"Foul!," cried visitors to YouTube's PBS Channel, where the clip was posted.

"People, especially Nancy here, should start to realize that [Vladmir] Putin is NOT the president of Russia ANY MORE. So if he's at Beijing, so be it. … Russia's president is called Dimitri Medvedev. Just so you'd know, Nancy," wrote eklectric.

Others came to the speaker's defense, noting that Putin still wields enormous influence.

"She never said he was President. But he is the Prime Minister, so his job is foreign policy. Which includes invading other countries," genoendicott wrote.

Elsewhere, the crafty producers of "Wide Angle" have found a novel way to illustrate the rigor of China's education system, the subject of the program's recent "China Prep" documentary.

The producers have asked visitors to the site to answer questions from the gaokao, China's college entrance exam.

Sample question: "In a square with four sides A, B, C and D, the intersection of lines AC and BD is O, and E is the midpoint of section OD. AE is the extended line which intersects with CD at F. If the length of line AC = a, and the length of line BD = b, then the length of line AF is = "

Says BZ, "[The] length of AC and BD should be the same because they are diagonals of a square, right?"

Mark agrees: "Yes, AC is equal to BD, so a and b are equal lengths."

Rhonda thinks their both nuts: "No. It's longer. The answer was E."

Then there's Cathy, who wrote, "Wow. I have a B.A. in English from an American university. I'm feeling pretty stupid right now. These people are gonna bury us."

Finally, my PBS Engage colleagues and I got a kick out of a comment Byron Henderson left on our sister site, PBS Vote 2008.

Responding to a blog entry about the "broken record" vibe of this year's seemingly endless election, Byron wrote, "It won't be too long before we have to retire the expression 'broken record.' As the age of analog music fades into history, few people will even have a sense of what it means. Just an observation."

And a good observation it is!

What do you think?

Are you willing to cut politicians some slack if they misspeak on TV? What is the length of line AF anyway? What other analog era expressions would you like to see slip away like sand through an hourglass?

Share your thoughts in the comments section below.