PUTIN & THE DUMA ELECTIONS, A DOZEN YEARS ON

THE RUSSIAN

DUMA ELECTIONS

December 4, 2011

VLADIMIR PUTIN WELCOMES GEORGE W. BUSH

TO DINNER AT THE PETERHOF PALACE

ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA, JULY 2006

AT THE TIME OF THE G-8 SUMMIT

Hosting the G-8 summit in your native land when it is your country's turn in the rotation is one of the perks of being the president (or prime minister or chancellor) of a G-8 member. To Vladimir Putin fell the prize won for Russia by the first Russian president, Boris Yeltsin. Dmitry Medvedev was not so lucky as to have one on his watch. If former president Putin wins next March's election, he will be set for at least six more years in office, and so can look forward to another G-8 hosting stint.

Twelve years ago, in 1999, the Duma elections were taken as a sign of then Prime Minister Putin's potential prowess as a presidential candidate to succeed Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin resigned in his favor. Putin was duly elected.

The Duma elections held today were likewise looked to for what they said about Putin, though he was not on the ballot. The results so far seem to show a significant drop-off in popularity on the part of United Russia, the party of power, the party officially in power.

THE CENTRAL BUDDHA AT THE LONGMEN GROTTOES, 1981

THE LONGMEN

(DRAGON GATE)

GROTTOES III

THE BUDDHA AT THE

CENTER OF THE ENSEMBLE

For more information, see here

For a Buddha in a side cave, see here

ALEXANDER HAIG b. December 2, 1924

ALEXANDER MEIGS HAIG, Jr.

December 2, 1924-February 20, 2010

SECRETARY OF STATE HAIG

IN HIS STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICE

Published in Business Week, 1982

Alexander Haig has been called a "political general" and "the acting president during the final months of the Nixon administration." He referred to himself as the "vicar" of foreign policy when he was named Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State; he last only a year and a half in that job. The quote above is interesting ("Today [1982] the U.S. is observing the unraveling of the classic Soviet empire.") Haig is more often remembered for asserting (literally) control after President Reagan was shot.

General Haig's career from West Point on is marked with encounters with many of the hot spots of the Cold War and many of the key players in the high places of the U.S. National Security apparatus, from MacArthur to McNamara, and, of course, Henry Kissinger.

One of the richer obituaries comes from across the pond, from the U.K. Guardian (here). The Telegraph's contribution is shorter, but adds some interesting details (here). Both do go on about the Falklands and Haig, not even mentioned by The New York Times in its Haig obituary (here).

THREE BOYS AT PLAY

THREE BOYS

AT PLAY

&

READING IS FUN II

Reading is Fun I here

A LONGMEN GROTTO BUDDHA AND HIS SURROUND

LONGMEN GROTTOES

II

ON THE SIDE

More here

MONUMENT VALLEY II

MONUMENT VALLEY

II

ON THE NAVAJO RESERVATION

(ARIZONA-UTAH)

NEAR THE FOUR CORNERS AREA

Monument Valley I here

CARL SAGAN b. November 9, 1934

CARL EDWARD SAGAN

November 9, 1934-December 20, 1996

CARL SAGAN

ASTRONOMER, ASTROPHYSICIST, COSMOLOGIST,

POPULAR SCIENTIST AND

SCIENCE POPULARIZER EXTRAORDINAIRE

For more, see here

STEPPING UP IN LIMA, PERU

STEPPING UP

AT THE

MAGIC WATER

CIRCUIT

LIMA, PERU

NINETY-FOUR YEARS SINCE THE GREAT OCTOBER REVOLUTION

THE BOLSHEVIKS

SEIZE

THE

WINTER PALACE

November 7, 1917

(October 25, 1917, O.S.)

THE WINTER PALACE

THE HERMITAGE

ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA

Photographed in Leningrad, the USSR, in 1984

Power was seized in October/November 1917 not from the Tsar; Nicholas II had been overthrown in the February Revolution earlier in 1917, and not by the Bolsheviks (their leader Lenin was absent in Switzerland at the time).

It was Premier Alexander Kerensky's Provisional Government that was in the autumn of 1917 headquartered in the Winter Palace, and found itself the object of the coup the communists organized, successfully. It took a Civil War and more, but the Soviet Union founded out of this "Great October Revolution" lasted until December 1991.

SUNDAY WHIMSEY: HAPPY FACE ORCHID

IN A DREAR

WORLD

A BIT OF WHIMSEY