A BRIDGE TO SOMEWHERE

A BRIDGE 

TO 

SOMEWHERE 

In celebration of same: 

"Bridges to Nowhere" 

having become a common, and easy, political target 

IN HONOR OF MEMORIAL DAY

IN HONOR OF 

MEMORIAL DAY 

FLAG & FAMILY AT THE WINDOW 

ALONG A BOSTON PARADE ROUTE 

Watching the parade from the comfort of one's own home, the mother with a child on her shoulder standing back just a bit to the man's left, in the shadows. 

One in a series on "THE SEVENTIES" 

(For more, see under "SELECTED SUBJECTS" to the right.)

This year Memorial Day actually falls on the date (May 30) of the original Decoration Day (1868). 

For a view of  Arlington National Cemetery with a glimpse of the flags placed on ("decorating") each grave in honor of Memorial Day, see here. 

For more on ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY, see under "SELECTED SUBJECTS" to the right. 

JOHN F. KENNEDY b. May 29, 1917

JOHN F. KENNEDY 

May 29, 1917-November 22, 1963 

Part of a frame of a film screened at the JFK Library, Boston, in connection with a commemoration of the Cuban Missile Crisis and its resolution.  Perhaps this is from THIRTEEN DAYS?  Shall have to check. 

This is not the whole frame as presented in the film, and it is not a cropping afterwards.  I deliberately used a telephoto lens in the kind of extreme close-up I have often used in my photojournalistic work. 

Here I wanted to catch something of the intensity of crisis as it was lived through, and the president's centrality to it, for better and possibly, in part, for worse (the possibility that his actions caused Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to misjudge him). 

Since President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize has just been in the news again (for snubbing or being snubbed by his "fellow Peace Prizewinner" Lech Walesa), it does give one a bit of pause that neither Kennedy nor Khrushchev nor  the two in tandem were given such an honor. 

OBAMA DOES WARSAW

OBAMA DOES 

WARSAW 

THE PEOPLE GATHER BEFORE 

THE TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER 

LOOMING ABOVE 

STALIN'S GIFT TO POLAND 

THE PALACE OF CULTURE AND SCIENCE 

WARSAW 1981 

 

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was one of  Barack Obama's stops in his European-tour-ending trip to Poland.  {more to come} 

PETER THE GREAT FOUNDS ST. PETERSBURG, May 27, 1703

PETER THE GREAT 

FOUNDS 

ST. PETERSBURG, 

May 27, 1703 

THE PETER AND PAUL FORTRESS, 

ON THE SITE OF 

THE FOUNDING OF ST. PETERSBURG, 

PHOTOGRAPHED FROM 

A HYDROFOIL IN 1984 

St. Petersburg (once-upon-a-time-Petrograd and once-upon-a-longer-time-Leningrad) has been known as Russia's Window on the West; it was founded by Tsar Peter the Great in the course of a war with Sweden. 

Two of St. Petersburg's native sons, Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin, now rule Russia. The capital remains in Moscow, although there had been talk for a time on moving it back to St. Petersburg. 

More on Peter the Great 

here 

& 

here 

More scenes from St. Petersburg 

here 

& 

here 

& 

here 

& 

here 

& 

here 

& 

here 

For more about Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, click on their names in the column to the right ("Selected Subjects") 

LENIN & MEDVEDEV, ANCESTORS & THE FUTURE; ALSO LIBYA & PUTIN

RED SQUARE 

AT DUSK 

LENIN'S MAUSOLEUM (right) 

ST. BASIL'S CATHEDRAL (left), 

AND A BABUSHKA 

SWEEPING RED SQUARE 

AT DUSK, MOSCOW, 1984 

Following up on yesterday's post about the exhibit in the State History Museum that quotes Lenin's sister on their maternal grandfather's ethnicity and religious conversion (see here), another photograph of Red Square back in the day.  A generation after the photograph was taken in 1984, and almost two decades after the Soviet Union fell, Lenin's mortal remains still remain in the mausoleum that once held Joseph Stalin as well. 

Meanwhile, in Deauville, France, today, the G8 met with Libya on its mind.  Russian President Dmitry Medvedev let it be known through his press secretary that the NATO members of the G8 had asked Russia to take on a mediating role in the Libyan crisis.  There was, Reuters tells us, no word on whether Medvedev would undertake such a mission.   There was moreover some suspicion cast on the news the Russian president's office was putting about:  "a G8 diplomatic source" was quoted as saying, "We must have not heard the same thing."  A tad catty for a diplomat?   Truth-telling?  Or a failure to get the memo? 

AP had another angle on the story:  Asking Russia to mediate was not a sign of Russia's indispensability, but a ploy to placate a supplicant still at the fringes of the action.  The American president's National Security team threw in a few flattering words:  "Russia has relations, not just in Libya but across most of North Africa. ... We can benefit from those types of consultations and contacts with them."  And President Obama himself was said to be "'leading that initiative to work with the Russians' on Libya." 

Well, Russia still does have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.  And it did not use its veto power back when authorization was sought for this campaign against Libya, or against the present Libyan authorities, or to preserve human life in Libya.   This was President Medvedev's choice to make, and suddenly the other half of the Russian ruling Tandem, Prime Minister Putin, the once and possibly future president, seemed to beg to disagree (details here). 

NEW EXHIBIT IN THE STATE HISTORY MUSEUM IN MOSCOW CONFIRMS SOME JEWISH ANCESTRY FOR LENIN

REVEALING NEW EXHIBIT 

IN THE MOSCOW 

STATE HISTORY MUSEUM 

AN HISTORIC PHOTOGRAPH OF THE STATE HISTORY MUSEUM (left) and THE KREMLIN (right), WITH ST. BASIL'S VISIBLE BETWEEN THEM IN THE DISTANCE. 

THE YEAR IS AN HISTORIC ONE (1984); MUCH OF THE WIDE OPEN SPACE IN FRONT IS NOW  FILLED UP WITH THE OKHOTNY RYAD SHOPPING MALL. 

The AP has a review of a new exhibit of documents in the State History Museum which are said to "give surprising insights into top figures of the Soviet Union." 

The article highlights a letter written by Lenin's oldest sister "saying that their maternal grandfather was a Ukrainian Jew who converted to Christianity to escape the Pale of Settlement and gain access to higher education," and discusses the context and implications.  

The article has been reprinted in different periodicals; the Washington Post includes a slide show of the exhibit. 

Lenin is still officially on display in the mausoleum further along the wall of the Kremlin leading deeper into Red Square in the photograph above.   The mausoleum itself can be seen here. 

JOHN KING FAIRBANK b. May 24, 1907

JOHN KING FAIRBANK 

May 24, 1907-September 14, 1991 

JOHN KING FAIRBANK 

CHINA SCHOLAR 

 AT HOME 

More Fairbank here 

& 

here 

The Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, here 

CHINESE MEAT MARKET THEN (YAN'AN 1981) II; THE FOOD MARKET NOW

MARKETING FOOD 

IN CHINA 

Then & Now 

MEAT FOR SALE IN THE 

MARKET IN YAN'AN, CHINA, 

IN 1981 

(Second of two photographs; 

the first, close up, here) 

A Washington Post article about changes in the Chinese diet "Reshaping World Markets" (though most of the current specifics concern the U.S. soybean market) can be found here. 

Included is the story of Liu Shuwen, who went "from street chicken vendor to poultry industrialist."  He is said to have grown up "incubating chicks under his bed," and to have left "the countryside" (unspecified) to come to Beijing thirty years ago, about the time of the photograph above. 

CHINESE MEAT MARKET THEN (YAN'AN 1981) & THE QUESTION OF FOOD SAFETY NOW

FOOD & 

FOOD SAFETY 

IN 

CHINA 

Then & Now 

MEAT FOR SALE IN THE 

MARKET IN YAN'AN, CHINA, 

IN 1981 

(First of two photographs; 

the second here (May 23) 

Advice on shopping for food in today's China, from CNN: 

"With so many food safety scandals in China, everyone seems to have a philosophy on how best to eat. Avoid seafood. Never eat meat from the local market. Don't eat Chinese branded dairy products including cakes."  (More here.) 

NORA EPHRON HITS SEVENTY

NORA EPHRON 

b. May 19, 1941 

Left to right: SONYA HAMLIN 

JACQUELINE SUSANN 

NORA EPHRON 

DAN WAKEFIELD 

An episode of the Sonya Hamlin Show, back in the days when writer-director-producer Nora Ephron presumably did not feel bad about her neck.  Her most recent film:  Julie & Julia (more about Julia Child here; more about Dan Wakefield here). 

THREE PORTRAITS SELLING... CUSCO, PERU

ANOTHER 

THREE 

PORTRAITS 

CUSCO, PERU 

Dentistry 

Street Triptych #2 

(First One Here) 

THREE PORTRAITS FOR SALE: LIMA, PERU

THREE PORTRAITS 

FOR SALE 

STREET TRIPTYCH 

LIMA, PERU 

See also 

here 

LEE HSIEN LOONG DONS A HAIRSHIRT? REFLECTIONS ON THE ELECTION OF MAY 7, 2011

THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE 

OF SINGAPORE 

AFTER THE ELECTION  

OF MAY 7, 2011  

LEE HSIEN LOONG 

PRIME MINISTER OF SINGAPORE 

The commentary after the elections in Singapore last Saturday, May 7, made it sound almost as though the ruling PAP (People's Action Party) had lost while winning sixty percent of the vote and eighty-one out of eighty-seven parliamentary seats. 

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong himself called it a "watershed" election; his Foreign Minister, George Yeo, lost his seat; "the opposition Workers’ Party won a multiple-seat district for the first time," and the opposition won four more seats overall than it had in the last parliament. 

The decline in the popular vote for PAP, from seventy-five percent in 2001 and sixty-seven percent in 2006, to the current sixty percent (a landslide in the U.S.), seems to be another of the reasons for P.M. Lee's analysis that "This election marks a distinct shift in our political landscape which all of us must adjust to," adding that even "some of those who voted for us, clearly expressed their significant concerns both on the issues and our approach to government." 

Now, according to Lee, there would be a period of "soul searching" for this ruling party in an almost one-party system in this city-state that pulled itself from third world to first world country in one generation.  Ahead of the election, his father, Lee Kuan Yew, first post-independence leader of Singapore, and still "Minister Mentor," delivered "stern warnings" to Singaporeans that "there could be 'consequences' if they voted for the Workers' Party." 

  

More about Prime Minister Lee here 

More analysis of the election, the issues, and the underlying trends 

here 

here 

here 

here 

MAY 9: VICTORY DAY IN THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR; MOSCOW CELEBRATES

VICTORY DAY 

in the 

GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 

May 9, 1945 

USSR VICTORY STAR 

Photographed in 1984 

May 9, 2011:  In Red Square today, the USSR's successor state, Russia, celebrated the sixty-sixth anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany.  There either was, or was not, a particularly impressive display of military might, depending on who was looking, and who was telling the story.   The Telegraph called it "a display reminiscent of Russia's Soviet-era might."  It did provide a video.  The BBC had its own correspondent in its video.  The Washington Post got the main facts in print:  Twenty-six million Soviet citizens were killed in the war -- the Great Patriotic War, aka World War II.  "Nearly" twenty thousand members of the military forces marched by the Tandem of President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.   Military musicians and be-medaled veterans were part of the spectacle, and then, in, the final image, "a 4-year-old boy, the latest generation, so far removed from the Soviet Union ... touched his hand to his hat, a baseball cap from the Gap." 

A handy hat with which to crown the story, or at least, to end it.  But to what end, or ends?  What symbolism for the cap from the Gap?