из цикла "Тяжёлые времена"

Не могу удержаться. Фрагмент из письма бывшей коллеги, американки, повышающей квалификацию журналистов Средней Азии (фрагмент с купюрами):

Here in Jalal-Abat, some journalism students are trying to put together a
student newspaper each week... The second edition had an article
on the front about how students should register for the upcoming
parliamentary elections, a great scandal being the turning over of the
votes of the university for the president or a certain candidate by the
rector grateful for his job. The edition also had an article saying that
the fact that Kyrgzystan TV had so much Russian programming wasn't that
great a service for the many rural and young people of the land. And this
was next to a story about a popular DJ on Uzbek TV, which people tune in
because they understand it. SO two hours after the edition was printed, the
state paper in town got a letter from a reader (a fast reader, apparently!)
who criticized the quality of the student publication. the letter had the
headline, "Who pays for ... newspaper, the US or Karimov?" ... The kids were
called in to the governor's press secretary and yelled at. THe kids were a
bit nervous, of course, but not a little bit pleased that they were being
taken so seriously. I fear it had the desired effect, though, as the
decision has been made to 'slow down' and the current edition is all about
love stories for Valentines Day.

And so it goes down here, where the Uzbeks have cut the gas so it is
freezing, and my translator is an evangelical Christian and I was
interviewed on the subject of my first love affair.