"YOU, PUTIN": NEMTSOV "WHACKS" BACK

"YOU, PUTIN"

a.k.a.

"THE AUTHORITIES"

are responsible if one of us

gets killed --

or better still, for keeping us

from getting killed in the first place --

BORIS NEMTSOV

IN THE GOVERNMENT

1998

Today, four days before the Russian presidential election, Prime Minister Putin, while on the one hand promising the electorate a brighter future by 2020 -- when he could still be president -- with the other did a bit of jujitsu on his opponents.

From the beginning, from when he was Prime Minister the first time, Putin has been dogged by suspicions that he was not above using deadly dirty tricks to achieve power. Today he was accusing the opposition of being ready to use a "sacrificial murder" to bring him low. They will, he said, "whack someone and then blame the authorities for it," Reuters reported.

Boris Nemtsov, a former First Deputy Prime Minister under Boris Yeltsin (see photograph above), and a long-time and vocal opponent of Putin's (see here), did not let this ploy go unanswered. Nemtsov, whom Kathy Lally of the Washington Post calls "a foe Putin appears to despise more than most" (a badge of honor?), called the Prime Minister on this latest form of campaign demonizing (mirror-imaging?): "If the head of the federal government, who controls all intelligence agencies, makes a public statement that he has information about such a provocation and such a crime, he must do everything to prevent it and not just publicly scare Russians."

"I, PUTIN" here

A recent profile of Nemtsov, here

MARIO ANDRETTI HITS SEVENTY-TWO

MARIO GABRIELE ANDRETTI 

"DRIVER OF THE CENTURY" 

b. February 28, 1940 

MARIO ANDRETTI 

at the WATKINS GLEN GRAND PRIX 

October 1972 

Published in Women's Wear Daily, October 11, 1972 

Mario Andretti's website here 

His racing statistics here 

"I, PUTIN": A FILM AND A PHOTOGRAPH

"ICH

PUTIN"

"I, PUTIN"

Vladimir Vladimirovich

Tonight, in Germany, on ARD TV, was the first broadcast of the first part of a multi-part documentary on Vladimir Putin: "Ich, Putin: Ein Porträt" ("I, Putin: A Portrait"). Der Spiegel has a long piece on the filmmaker, Hubert Seipel, and the film, here. The website for the film is here; to watch the video, click "Videos" on the left of the page. Some commentary (in German) can be found here and here.

A couple of comments from Spiegel Online: "German documentary filmmaker Hubert Seipel was recently granted unprecedented access to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for his film 'I, Putin.'" And "The world is used to images of Putin as a virile master or Judo and no-holds-barred political infighting. But the films shows [sic] Putin in a much different light, as a lonely, exhausted man cut off from the world by his job and stubbornly fending off physical decline."

Since there is an emphasis on the aging leader, who is to turn sixty in October but is looking to take on at least one more six-year stint as President shortly, above is a close-up and personal photograph of Vladimir Putin not long after he turned fifty.

More Putin here, and much more Putin here.

The initial episode uploaded to Youtube, here.

Lyudmila Putin, here.

Some pushback to Putin, here.

PLUMBING THE DEPTHS: A GOOD "RACE TO THE BOTTOM"

PLUMBING THE DEPTHS

LOOKING DOWN INTO

SQUAM LAKE

NEW HAMPSHIRE

(before "On Golden Pond")

KOFI ANNAN TO WORK ON SYRIA CRISIS

THE NEWLY-APPOINTED

U.N.-ARAB LEAGUE

ENVOY ON THE SYRIAN CRISIS

KOFI ANNAN

as

UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY-GENERAL

served from 1997-2006

Co-Winner, NOBEL PEACE PRIZE, 2001

Kofi Annan's new post has been called a "near-impossible job." He was officially chosen jointly by his successor at the U.N., Ban Ki-moon, and the head of the Arab League, Nabil Elaraby. This was part of the U.N. General Assembly work-around after the Russians and the Chinese made it impossible for the Security Council to sanction the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Some discussions of Annan's record and prospects for success ("is he the right trouble shooter for Syria?") can be found here and here.

"CAR TALK": THE MICHIGAN PRIMARY IS COMING

THE MICHIGAN PRIMARY

IS COMING

(February 28, 2012)

ROBERT BOOTH

Michigander

Another Cadillac Fan

Today another Michigander, Mitt Romney, was so happy to be back in the sometime car capital of the world that he pealed off the names of the American cars he and his wife Ann owned, or used to own, including a Mustang, a Chevy pick-up truck, and a Dodge truck for him, and "a couple of Cadillacs" that "Ann drives."

A HALF-CENTURY OF "GODSPEED, JOHN GLENN": FRIENDSHIP 7 LAUNCHED, February 20, 1962

THE FIRST AMERICAN

TO ORBIT THE EARTH

February 20, 1962

JOHN H. GLENN, JR.

as U.S. Senator (D-Ohio)

Served from 1974-1999

"There are old pilots and bold pilots, but no old, bold pilots." -- E. Hamilton Lee, 1949 (here)

Former Mercury Seven astronauts John Glenn b. (July 18, 1921) and Scott Carpenter (b. May 1, 1925) have happily lived to prove the rule and join in multiple celebrations of the events of fifty years ago. Back then the Americans were playing catch-up to the Soviets, and then "surpassed and overtook" them; now they depend on the Russians to get up into space -- as John Glenn lamented in the midst of the commemoration (here).

He did get to talk to three crew members up in the International Space Station today, including Commander Dan Burbank (here).

A wealth of material, everything from newsreel film from fifty years ago to scenes of Glenn and Carpenter addressing NASA workers this weekend, is to be found here and here and here and here and here.

CHINA THEN & NOW: XI JINPING & CAVE HOUSES IN SHAANXI

CAVE HOUSES IN SHAANXI

&

THE MAKING OF

A CHINESE PRESIDENT

A CAVE HOUSE IN YAN'AN

SHAANXI PROVINCE, CHINA 1981

A CAVE HOUSE NEAR XI'AN

SHAANXI PROVINCE, CHINA 1981

Notice that the house is built below the level of the fields

In all the hoopla surrounding the visit to the U.S. last week of Chinese Vice-President (and President-Select, President-Presumptive) Xi Jinping, the story of the seven years he spent living in a cave house in Shaanxi was highlighted again and again.

The cave house in which Mao Zedong lived in Yan'an, in Shaanxi province, is to be found here.

JOHN WARNER TURNS EIGHTY-FIVE

JOHN W. WARNER

b. February 18, 1927

SENATOR JOHN WARNER (R-VA)

on the Armed Services Committee

Senator 1979-2009

U.S. Secretary of the Navy, 1972-1974

More details of his biography here

With Senator Sam Nunn, here

BO YIBO b. February 17, 1908

BO YIBO

February 17, 1908-January 15, 2007

BO YIBO

(2nd from right) at the 16th Congress

of the Chinese Communist Party, November 2002

The members of the Presidium of the 16th Congress pictured are (seated left to right), ZENG Qinghong, WAN Li, SONG Ping, BO Yibo, and SONG Jian.

The 16th Congress was the last one attended by Bo Yibo, a former Vice-Premier of the People's Republic of China and one of the Eight Immortals of the Chinese Communist Party. Bo was by this time ninety-four years old.

Also attending the Congress in a leadership position was his son, Bo Xilai, then the governor of Liaoning (see here and here) and now the Party Secretary of Chongqing. In recent years, Bo Xilai has been widely seen as campaigning for one of the (currently) nine seats on the Party's Politburo Standing Committee, the inner sanctum of power in the PRC. His campaign, as Reuters has detailed it, consists of "a high profile war on crime, economic policies to boost Chongqing and a nostalgic Communist revival to win over support from the conservative old guard."

Recently, his efforts seem in danger of being derailed. Some details here and here and here; more as the story unfolds in the run-up to the 18th Party Congress, due this fall.

THE WILD SWANS OF JUNG CHANG LAND ON THE STAGE AT AMERICAN REPERTORY THEATER

"WILD SWANS"

AUTHOR

JUNG CHANG

"WILD SWANS" THE PLAY

which had its world premiere

the American Repertory Theater

Cambridge, Massachusetts

yesterday

is based on her 1991 book

Some background on the play, including information about the playwright and director, and about how an eight-hundred page memoir subtitled "Three Daughters of China" (Jung Chang and her mother and grandmother) was worked into a two-hour drama focusing on the husband and wife of the middle generation, is to be found here and here and here. The theater's WILD SWANS website is here; the production runs through March 11 in the U.S. and then moves to the U.K.

The Boston Globe now has a review, here.

Some impressions of the play, seen March 1, here.

JAMES SCHLESINGER IS EIGHTY-THREE

JAMES R. SCHLESINGER

b. February 15, 1929

JAMES SCHLESINGER

as the first U.S. Secretary of Energy

under President Jimmy Carter

Published in the October 9, 1978, issue of Business Week (p. 91)

Schlesinger has also been Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and Secretary of Defense under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford (details here); currently, among other posts, he is Chairman of the Board of MITRE (details here). A more recent photograph is to be found here.

HAPPY ONE-HUNDREDTH BIRTHDAY TO THE STATE OF ARIZONA

ARIZONA

IS ADMITTED AS

THE 48TH STATE

OF THE U.S.A.

February 14, 1912

HOPI SILVERSMITH FROM

THE SECOND MESA, ARIZONA, 1988

A few scenic views of Arizona here and here and here; two recent articles, here and here.

WHO IS XI JINPING? SLOTTED TO BE THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF CHINA

XI COMES

TO WASHINGTON

XI JINPING

INTRODUCED

as the heir-apparent

at the 17th Congress

Another photograph and some information here

Some background and speculation ahead of Xi's meetings tomorrow with the U.S. president and vice-president, and stops at the State Department and the Pentagon, here and here and here and here