9. PUTIN’S “MODERN LOVE”

This is a response by Vladimir Putin to Jill Abramson, Executive Editor of the New York Times. Putin starts off his letter talking about modern love, and makes an analogy with polar bears, and how they need to be sedated before you hug them.Than he connects to how he was vulnerable, and an easy target, and her loved one was far, and indeed he was still lonely. Puttin makes another analogy to how Siberia is just like modern love, far from anywhere besides its own territory, and very cold. Puttin starts talking about the first time he saw her, and it was on television. His houseboy Dimitri said she was "twerking", and the dance ignited his ambition to have this woman. He mentions his struggle in trying to reach her through social media, just like Facebook, Vine, Instagram, and others, and even says he sent her a Vine video "kickboxing a tranquilized shark". Then he mentions how he could not stop thinking about that woman, even though everyone kept talking about Syria, and he "excused himself from the G20." He later discovers she has a boyfriend called Liam, through the TMZ and decided to shoot him down with tranquilizers, just like polar bears. He concludes with the sentence "When all is said and done, love means shooting at something and making it fall down."

This is a letter so it provides a very casual tone, expressing characteristics such as of a normal conversation.  The letter is humorous and provides a bigger meaning than the story of modern love, there is a whole analogy going on since Vladimir Putin is the president of Russia regarding his actions towards Syria, and the real author of the piece, Andy Borowitz, does an outstanding job with it. The way Bowowitz writes the story has flow, and it seems credible by the way he wrote it even by being made up. He easily accomplishes his purpose to give a humorous side to all the problems in relation Russia along with the Middle East. He finalizes the essay concluding it with a critique in which love in the modern days is seen as shooting something and making it fall down, which is polemic and sadly true, it portrays reality.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2013/09/putin-oped-modern-love-column-new-york-times.html