Phrase of the Day: Butterfly Polka

That is: Polka-Babochka, butterfly-polka. Edward Luce says it is "straight from the Stalinist propaganda lexicon, where it was used to indicate something alien." Here's Vladimir Putin on what he doesn't like about Russian school textbooks:

Many school books are written by people who work to get foreign grants. They dance to a butterfly-polka that others have paid for.

--Edward Luce, The New Cold War 107 (2009).