"STRATEGY 31," July 31, 2010

"31" 

Photograph © Gwendolyn Stewart 2010; All Rights Reserved 

BORIS NEMTSOV 

IN THE YELTSIN GOVERNMENT 

"Strategy 31" protestors in Russia today marked the first anniversary of their attempts to demonstrate in honor of the freedom of assembly promised by Article 31 of the Russian constitution.   Always the rallies are scheduled for the 31st of any month that has one.   The authorities seem to keep making the protestors' point that such demonstrations are needed by refusing to give permission for them, and, as today, by breaking them up. 

Prominent among those arrested in Moscow was Boris Nemtsov, one-time first deputy prime minister of Russia (see photograph above), and now head of Solidarity, the Russian version, which has the name but not the numbers of its Polish cousin.  AP reported that "An Associated Press reporter saw Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov dragged to a police car and driven away. The rally had barely started."  Others, according to the Wall Street Journal, shouted "Freedom!" and "Russia without Putin!" and held up "31" signs. 

DOWN BY THE SEASHORE, SOCHI, RUSSIA

DOWN BY THE 

SEASHORE 

AGAIN 

Photograph © Gwendolyn Stewart 2010; All Rights Reserved 

SOCHI, RUSSIA 

BACK IN THE USSR, 1984 

Future home of the 2014 Winter Olympics 

DOWN BY THE SEASHORE, LIMA, PERU

PERU CELEBRATES THE 

189th ANNIVERSARY 

OF ITS INDEPENDENCE 

© Gwendolyn Stewart 2010; All Rights Reserved. 

DOWN BY THE SEASHORE 

LIMA, PERU 

As Peru winds up two days of its Independence Day celebrations, a quiet picture down by the sea.  (For pictures of pomp and circumstance and President Alan Garcia, see elsewhere on this blog.) 

BILL BRADLEY, b. July 28, 1943

BILL BRADLEY 

b. July 28, 1943 

 

BILL BRADLEY CAMPAIGNING 

FOR THE U.S. SENATE, 1978 

Ran successfully; served (D-NJ) from 1979-1996; ran for president, 2000; lost the Democratic nomination to Al Gore. 

LUSHAN GRAVES: CHINA THEN & NOW

CHINA THEN & NOW 

LUSHAN GRAVES, 1981 

"HERE BE GIANTS" 

BENT

THE GAP 

BENT 

© Gwendolyn Stewart 2010; All Rights Reserved 

NIGHTLIGHTS: A TOWER BLOCK IN BLACK AND WHITE

NIGHTLIGHTS 

ARCHSTONE NORTH POINT 

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 

JULY 2010 

NIGHTLIGHTS: THREE GEMS OF THE BOSTON FINANCIAL DISTRICT

NIGHTLIGHTS

THREE GEMS OF

THE BOSTON FINANCIAL DISTRICT

BEAUTY: ANOTHER FAVORITE PORTRAIT

ANOTHER 

FAVORITE PORTRAIT 

BEAUTY 

WHERE "EVERY PROSPECT PLEASES, AND ONLY MAN IS VILE"

WHERE

"EVERY PROSPECT PLEASES,

AND ONLY MAN IS VILE"

AN AMERICAN WATERWAY

BEFORE ENVIRONMENTAL

CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING

What a river ran through

OIL...OIL...OIL

OIL...OIL...OIL

34.9¢ GAS

PAUL VOLCKER IN THE NEWS

PAUL VOLCKER

IN THE NEWS

PAUL VOLCKER AS CHAIR OF

THE FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD

Paul Volcker is back in the news, almost a generation

after he left as head of the Fed, after Alan Greenspan

took it on, and after Greenspan gave way to Ben

Bernanke. Having passed him over a more substantive

position, President Obama gave Volcker a title and a "rule,"

the "Volcker rule."

The New Yorker profile is generating a lot of buzz,

even as it seems evident that Volcker was as much

used as useful in trying to bring about financial reforms.

As John Cassidy writes in that profile: "On January 21, 2010, President Obama, with Volcker towering over his right shoulder in the White House’s Diplomatic Reception Room, urged Congress to enact 'a simple and common-sense reform, which we’re calling the Volcker rule—after this tall guy behind me.' Volcker smiled and looked sheepish. The term hadn’t been in the speech draft that the White House had forwarded to Volcker’s office the previous night. David Axelrod, the President’s political adviser, had inserted it at the last minute, framing it with some populist language about the 'army of industry lobbyists' that was fighting reform. 'The Volcker rule' immediately entered the political lexicon, thus associating the White House with a figure known for his independence and integrity. 'The other advantage of it,' Volcker joked to an associate, 'is that if it doesn’t fly they can throw me under the bus.'" (More here.)

GERALDINE FERRARO WINS DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION FOR VICE-PRESIDENT, July 19, 1984

GERALDINE FERRARO

WINS DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION

FOR VICE-PRESIDENT, July 19, 1984

WALTER MONDALE & GERALDINE FERRARO

ARE CHEERED AT THE 1984

DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION

IN SAN FRANCISCO

Then Representative Geraldine A. Ferraro (D-New

York) was the first, and until John McCain chose

Sarah Palin for the Republicans in 2008, the only

woman nominated to the national ticket of either

major U.S. party.

Ronald Reagan and George Bush won the election

in 1984. Barack Obama and Joe Biden won in 2008.

KURT MASUR b. July 18, 1927

KURT MASUR

b. July 18, 1927

KURT MASUR TAKES A BOW

Carnegie Hall, November 28, 2006

Maestro Masur Conducting the London Philharmonic

A review of those November 2006 concerts can be found here.

Bernard Holland, the reviewer, records "waves of friendship"

greeting Kurt Masur, "a genuine warmth like nothing he

experienced during his years in New York as the music director

of the New York Philharmonic. In those eleven years, he notes,

the conductor "was received as something of a drill sergeant in

charge of a wayward platoon, a kind of bitter medicine designed

to urge the orchestra of its loose ways."

A similar theme is highlighted in Anthony Tommasini's review of

Masur's May 12, 2010, return to guest conduct the New York

Philharmonic, here. Tommasini observes that the maestro "seemed

deeply gratified by the warm applause and bravos he received

when he appeared onstage at Avery Fisher Hall...." He too mentions difficulties in Masur's earlier tenure in New York, but then comes to the point: "The program of Beethoven’s exuberant First Symphony and Bruckner’s challenging Seventh Symphony, the only one he [Masur] will present this season was ideally suited to his musical strengths. Standing upright and looking in his element, he conducted both works from memory, a master musician among respectful colleagues who responded with lively, richly characterized Beethoven and glowing, serenely beautiful Bruckner."

Live long enough, and have the good fortune to be allowed to play to your strengths --

Kurt Masur's own website is here.

NICHOLAS II, THE LAST RUSSIAN CZAR, DIES A VIOLENT DEATH WITH ALL HIS NEAREST & DEAREST, July 17, 1918

THE LAST TSAR DIES

July 17, 1918

INFORMAL MEMORIAL TO

TSAR NIKOLAI II (CZAR NICHOLAS II)

& HIS FAMILY, SVERDLOVSK

(YEKATERINBURG), RUSSIA (USSR), 1991

Out in the Urals, where Europe meets Asia, on the night of July 16-17, 1918, Nikolai II and his family and close retainers were killed ("murdered" or "executed") by "the Bolsheviks" in the Ipatiev House.

Almost sixty years later, in 1977, the Soviet regime, headed by the Politburo, decided to do away with the Ipatiev House, lest it become too much of a magnet. Its local instrument, the First Secretary of Sverdlovsk, Boris Yeltsin, a construction engineer by training, had the deed done. He was to regret this later, of course.

And now, Sverdlovsk is Yekaterinburg again, and this last imperial ruler of Russia, described in the history books when I was coming up as a good family man, but (at best) a poor excuse for a ruler, is deemed worthy of sainthood: Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer.

Similarly, modest informal memorials that appeared on the site of the former Ipatiev House (such as the one in the photograph above) have been replaced on that site by The Church on Blood in Honor of All Saints Resplendent in the Russian Land. Nicholas II's grandfather, Alexander II, has his Church on Spilled Blood, as we have seen; but I doubt anyone has ever mistaken Nicholas II for a Tsar-Liberator.

Two days ago, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and German Chancellor Angela Merkel came to pay their respects in this "Church of All Saints" as part of a Russo-German summit in Yekaterinburg [see photograph #14].

RUSSIA REDUX

ROBERT MOTHERWELL d. July 16, 1991

ROBERT MOTHERWELL

January 24, 1915-July 16, 1991

ROBERT MOTHERWELL AT M.I.T.

A standard short bio of Motherwell identifies him as "one of the major artists of the Abstract Expressionist movement and also the leading spokesman for that generation of artists," and identifies "certain recurrent themes and motifs, such as the monumental Elegies to the Spanish Republic, the intensely brooding Iberia paintings, and the lyrical Opens."

PBS featured Motherwell in one of its American Masters programs.

One of his daughters, Jeannie Motherwell, has contributed an engaging set of "Recollections" of her father, with vivid details of the artist's attempts to shape his working environment.

Motherwell himself gave an extensive series of interviews at the time of the photograph above, interviews lodged at the Smithsonian under the title Oral history interview with Robert Motherwell, 1971 Nov. 24-1974 May 1, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, and available on line here.

MORE YAN'AN: THE LEADERSHIP CAVE HOUSE GATHERING ROOM

MORE YAN'AN

THE CAVE ROOM IN WHICH

THE LEADERSHIP OF THE

CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY

MET IN THE YAN'AN PERIOD

AS PRESENTED IN 1981

Compare The First Party Congress

The Sixteenth Party Congress

#250: SUNSET ON THE RIVER YAN

SUNSET ON

THE RIVER YAN

YAN RIVER, YAN'AN, CHINA, 1981

Yan'an is where Mao Zedong & Co. holed up during World War II. It was memorialized by Edgar Snow in RED STAR OVER CHINA, and became the exemplar for the Yan'an Way (or Yenan Way).

More recently, Jonathan Mirsky has written a piece both illuminating the shining star Mao appeared to some, especially in the days of Yan'an, and revealing something of the realities of the place and time. "What initially bowled over many followers," Mirsky writes, "was the illusion they had seen something pure." Sidney Rittenberg told Mirsky, "Even the fierce winds and bleak landscape of Yan'an seemed unsullied to me." But according to information from a retired general, "[S]ometimes they buried people alive, or left them to slow death. The simplest method of getting rid of people was to tie them together and make them walk into a lake or river, where they would drown."

More Yan'an:

Mao's cave

Mao's horse

A Yan'an welcome

A Yan'an factory workshop

HERE BE GIANTS

OBAMA TO NEW LOW

OBAMA

AT NEW LOW

IN THE POLLS

BARACK OBAMA MAKES A POINT

"Public confidence in President Obama has hit a new low," reports the Washington Post, drawing on a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

"IT WAS 20 YEARS AGO TODAY": BORIS YELTSIN WALKS OUT OF THE PARTY

"IT WAS 20 YEARS

AGO TODAY"

BORIS YELTSIN WALKS

OUT OF THE PARTY

"IT WAS the Party's last hurrah. ...

"Four thousand, six hundred eighty-three delegates were called to the Twenty-Eighth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, but only one walked out of the Congress, out of the Palace of Congresses, and out of the Party forever. That one was Boris Yeltsin. A handful of journalists were waiting in the foyer as he passed through, and I was one of them.

"The long day was winding down into night, and the long Congress was winding down into the history books. It was July 12, 1990, the next-to-last day of a contentious two-week convocation of the leaders of the Soviet Union, the mighty and the small. It was evening outside and a bit dull inside the lobby of the great Palace of Congresses.

...

"Suddenly a rush! Boris Yeltsin had unexpectedly interrupted the proceedings to ask to speak, and to the astonishment of the auditorium, had announced his resignation from the Party. As head of the Russian Republic, he said, he could not continue to be subjected to the directives of any party. The father of the country he was to be, above the fray, above any parties. I flew downstairs to station myself by the door to await his exit."

Continued in "Pivot"

Chapter One of RUSSIA REDUX

by Gwendolyn Stewart

and here