Lenin's Tomb

Have you ever been to Moscow? Crankyjewishguy (CJG) has, several times as a matter of fact. And one of the world's strangest sights is in Moscow, inside Lenin's Tomb in Red Square to be precise. There, the actual body of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin lies in a climate controlled, plexiglass crypt so that nearly a century after the Russian Revolution, the man looks like he just stepped out of the office for a quick nap. And if you're willing to wait in line, you can catch a glimpse of him in eternal repose. When CJG's older son was five, he took him all the way to Disney World to wait in line for 45 minutes to meet Mickey Mouse, but Mickey was alive. He's not sure it's worth such a long wait for a guy who can't even pose for pictures with your kid. However, if you feel your kids need to learn that life isn't all cartoon mice and flying elephants, the ten hour flight to Moscow might be well worth it.

That is not reality, kids. This is reality:

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, father of the Soviet Union, takes the world's longest nap

 in an effort to get himself in the Guiness Book of World Records.

Now the debate is open once again in Moscow about whether it's time to bury Lenin in a more traditional fashion, one that doesn't require a team of specialists to keep him looking exactly as he did the day he died. A deputy in Vladimir Putin's ruling United Russia Party, which favors sticking Lenin in the ground, put it diplomatically when he called the current arrangement "an absurd pagan-necrophilic mission." This, of course, is heresy to an older generation of Russians who cling to the Soviet past.

CJG has no opinion, rare for him, on whether to move Lenin or leave him alone, but he's wondering when some American entrepreneur is going to step forward and offer to buy the body, move it to the U.S. and use it a prop to demonstrate the excesses of a national health care system.