MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. AGAIN. THE PRICE THE MILITARY PAY: DUELING TVs #4

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

AGAIN.

THE PRICE THE MILITARY PAY:

DUELING TVs #4

President Obama announced tonight that "the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country."

He added that "This year also saw Iraq hold credible elections that drew a strong turnout. A caretaker administration is in place as Iraqis form a government based on the results of that election." One might be forgiven for thinking that the elections were held last week. The president's only nod to reality came in this call for "a sense of urgency" months late: "Tonight, I encourage Iraq’s leaders to move forward with a sense of urgency to form an inclusive government that is just, representative, and accountable to the Iraqi people."

Fifty thousand American troops remain after the end of this "combat mission."

Some more Obama here and here.

More DUELING TVs:

#1: Power in Iraq, Electric and Political

#2: Warhol/Iranian Woman

#3: North Korea Conducts First Nuclear Test

THE TRANS-SIBERIAN LADA: PUTIN ON THE HUSTINGS?

THE TRANS-SIBERIAN LADA 

VLADIMIR PUTIN 

ON ELECTION DAY, MARCH 26, 2000: 

HIS FIRST RUN FOR THE RUSSIAN PRESIDENCY 

The former president, once again prime minister, made a tour of Siberia in a Lada and set off speculation (such as here) that he is campaigning for a 2012 run to re-gain the presidency. 

For more on Vladimir Putin, see "Putin Observed." 

THERE IS/WAS SUCH A PARTY: August 29, 1991

THERE IS WAS SUCH A PARTY 

THE TWENTY-EIGHTH (AND LAST) CONGRESS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION (CPSU) MEETS IN THE PALACE OF CONGRESSES, THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW, JULY 1990

On August 29, 1991, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR voted "to suspend all activities of the Communist Party pending an investigation of its role in the coup" against Mikhail Gorbachev. More of the story is to be found here. 

By the end of 1991, the USSR itself ceased to exist. 

More in 

RUSSIA REDUX 

OFFICIALS ON THE SACRED WAY TO THE EMPEROR'S TOMB, XI'AN, CHINA

OFFICIALS ON

THE SACRED WAY

TO THE EMPEROR'S TOMB

XI'AN, CHINA

1981

"HERE BE GIANTS"

CHENGDU "PORTRAIT" 1994

CHENGDU

"PORTRAIT"

CHINA, 1994

"HERE BE GIANTS"

RED AUGUST & THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

RED AUGUST &

THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

LI ZHENSHENG

WITH ONE OF HIS PHOTOGRAPHS

OF A CULTURAL REVOLUTION-ERA EXECUTION

McClatchy Newspapers have an article by Tom Lasseter entitled "4 decades later, China still isn't discussing Cultural Revolution." Above is a photograph of Li Zhensheng, author of Red Color-News Soldier, who documented some of those events in China in real time.

LEONARD BERNSTEIN b. August 25, 1918

LEONARD BERNSTEIN

August 25, 1918-October 14, 1990

LEONARD BERNSTEIN

AT THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB

WASHINGTON, D.C.

The New York Times ran a long and interesting obituary, and has made it available here. Some links to other sites can be found here.

Note: A photograph of a frame from Ricky Leacock's film, BERNSTEIN IN MOSCOW, can now be found here.

GORBACHEV GIVES UP THE GENERAL SECRETARYSHIP OF THE CPSU, August 24, 1991

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

GIVES UP THE PARTY LEADERSHIP 

August 24, 1991

UNDER A GIANT 

PORTRAIT OF LENIN, 

GORBACHEV PRESIDES 

OVER THE 28TH & LAST CONGRESS 

OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY 

OF THE SOVIET UNION (CPSU) 

(July 1990) 

Thirteen months later, after a coup involving some of his own men, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary of the party he had led for almost six-and-a-half years. Four months later he resigned as president of the USSR.  

THE YELLOW RIVER: "CHINA'S SORROW"

"CHINA'S SORROW" 

Photograph by Gwendolyn Stewart © 2010; 

All Rights Reserved. 

THE YELLOW RIVER 

NORTH CHINA, 1981 

News of more deaths and missing persons through flooding and mudslides in China in recent weeks brings to mind earlier disasters involving the Yellow River (see photograph above). 

ANOTHER CITY ON A HILLSIDE: SAN FRANCISCO BY THE BAY

ANOTHER 

CITY ON A 

HILLSIDE 

SAN FRANCISCO BY THE BAY 

HAWAII BECOMES 50TH STATE, August 21, 1959

IN HONOR OF 

HAWAII STATEHOOD 

August 21, 1959 

Photograph by Gwendolyn Stewart ©2011; 

All Rights Reserved. 

WALKING THE DOG ON HORSEBACK 

ON THE BEACH 

ON OAHU, HAWAII 

See also

The U.S. Annexes Hawaii

MORE ICE FOR A SUMMER'S DAY: MT. SALCANTAY

MORE ICE 

FOR A SUMMER'S DAY 

MOUNT SALCANTAY 

PERU 

PROVINCETOWN. SUMMER. THEN.

IT'S SUMMER

BEAUTY CONTESTANTS

PROVINCETOWN

THEN

"THE SEVENTIES"

RIGA FOUNDED, August 18, 1201

RIGA FOUNDED 

August 18, 1201 

Photograph © Gwendolyn Stewart 2010; 

All Rights Reserved  

RIGA CHURCH FOUNDED 1225 

Photographed 1984, when Latvia and its capital city, Riga, were part of the USSR.  St. Jacob's Cathedral was founded 1225. 

TED HUGHES b. August 17, 1930

TED HUGHES 

August 17, 1930-October 28, 1998 

Poet Laureate of England 

1984-1998 

From the New York Times article (December 20, 1984) announcing his appointment as Poet Laureate: Ted Hughes was "the son of a Yorkshire carpenter," and "a former rose gardener and nightwatchman at the Rank film studios at Pinewood, England"; he "specializes in poems about animals and birds."  Indeed, it was the publication of a collection of his poems called Crow that occasioned my being sent to photograph him in 1971.  I must have been one of the few people who crossed his path who did not think of him first of all as someone's husband (or, more accurately, widower). 

SALMON SEASON ON SAKHALIN

SALMON SEASON 

ON SAKHALIN 

THE NAVY HELPS. 

THE YEAR IS 1990. 

BORIS YELTSIN IS COMING TO VISIT. 

More on the Sakhalin story here. 

ANOTHER FAMILY OUTING: THIS ONE IN LIMA, PERU

ANOTHER FAMILY OUTING

LARCOMAR MALL, MIRAFLORES

LIMA, PERU

PERU SCENES

TASHKENT COOLS OFF: ANOTHER PHOTOGRAPH FOR A HOT DAY

ANOTHER PHOTOGRAPH 

FOR A HOT DAY 

Photograph © Gwendolyn Stewart 2010; 

All Rights Reserved 

TASHKENT COOLS OFF 

1984 

BACK IN THE USSR 

(UZBEKISTAN NOW) 

WHAT IS NEEDED THIS FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH

WHAT IS NEEDED 

THIS 

FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH 

Photograph © Gwendolyn Stewart 2010; 

All Rights Reserved 

AN OASIS.  EVEN AN ERSATZ ONE. 

THIS ONE IN LAS VEGAS, A QUARTER-CENTURY AGO. 

JANIS JOPLIN'S LAST CONCERT, August 12, 1970

THE LAST CONCERT 

JANIS JOPLIN 

& The Full Tilt Boogie 

HARVARD STADIUM 

Boston, Massachusetts 

August 12, 1970 

RONALD REAGAN TELLS A JOKE. STALINGRAD IS NOT AMUSED.

RONALD REAGAN

TELLS A JOKE

STALINGRAD IS NOT AMUSED

It was August 11, 1984, the summer of the last year of Ronald Reagan's first term, a time of a Cold War newly heated up,
before Nancy Reagan helped convince him that peace made a more useful historical legacy.

It was the summer of the Los Angeles Olympics and the Soviet tit-for-tat retaliatory boycott of those Olympics (we had devastated the Soviets by boycotting their 1980 Moscow Olympics after the invasion of Afghanistan).

In the warm-up to that Saturday's radio address, President Reagan made a 'joke' declaring 'Russia' an outlaw nation, and announcing that the bombs would fly "in five minutes."

Ah, well, it was explained, he did not know the microphone was on.

Ronald Reagan had begun his career, half a century before, as a radio announcer.

I was that summer wandering around the Soviet Union for seven weeks by myself, exploring and taking photographs. By the time I arrived in Volgograd -- formerly known as Stalingrad, I was quite cut off from the outside world.

So it was left to an angry woman in this city in which, as the Soviets saw it, they helped save the world from the Nazis, to inform me that President Ronald Reagan had threatened to bomb the USSR.

More to come in

RUSSIA REDUX

THE HEAT IS ON IN MOSCOW: PUTIN SUMMONS LUZHKOV

THE HEAT IS ON 

IN MOSCOW 

Photograph © Gwendolyn Stewart 2010; 

All Rights Reserved 

MOSCOW MAYOR YURY LUZHKOV 

IN MORE HALCYON DAYS 

With parts of Russia burning and the capital hot and hazardous, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on August 10th summoned long-time Moscow mayor Yury Luzkhov to make an accounting.  (An anonymous Kremlin source let it be known that the mayor should have returned from his vacation earlier.)  Putin also made time in his Tuesday schedule to pour water on forest fires in Ryazan and balm on discontented citizens (in another airborne photo-op). 

JOHN KEY, NEW ZEALAND P.M., b. August 9, 1961

JOHN KEY 

b. August 9, 1961 

 

Photograph © Gwendolyn Stewart 2011; 

All Rights Reserved 

PRIME MINISTER, NEW ZEALAND 

Leader, NATIONAL PARTY, which "has 58 seats and maintains its majority through support agreements with the five-member Maori Party, the five-member ACT New Zealand Party and the one-member United Future Party."