Monday, February 24, 2014

too legit to quit

Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs recently stated about the circumstances in Ukraine: "A course has been set to use dictatorial and sometimes terrorist methods to suppress dissenters in various regions.” 

Below, an antiseptic against those pesky dictatorial and sometimes terrorist methods, foreign or domestic.


Update 02/28/2014: Ukraine will be confronting sabotage on the part of the Russian kleptocracy and its cronies, vacillation on the part of the EU and the US, as well as internal shortchanging. Ukraine will benefit generally from the EU more than from the Russian Federation, now and in the long run ... but it's like dealing with a slightly shinier Mephistopheles.  

Update 03/01/2014: Vladimir Putin has set in motion not only a scary destabilization of Ukraine but his own discrediting.  Russia is aiding and abetting Viktor Yanukovych, wanted for mass murder, also a big time swindler.  Putin showed good judgment in Edward Snowden's case, bad in this case.  Yanukovych is a liability, he has lost feasibility to the point that he can't even defend Russian interests.  With the military push, Putin is encouraging violence in Crimea and elsewhere rather than seeking its de-escalation and some compromise, he isn't seeking "normalization"  ... and he has tipped his hand all too quickly.

Update 03/03/2014: Sen. John McCain is correct in saying Russia's "crown jewel" is Ukraine, but the dumb yahoo forgets that a Cold War goes both ways, nationalist demagoguery and militarist profiteering being telltale signs.  Maybe Putin learned a thing or two from the US playbook.  Hard to breathe with all the hypocrisy.  

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Tim's Vermeer, believing isn't seeing

A good rule of thumb may be to critique only the things that one respects.  However, this can't always be the case ... when one doesn't believe the hype, such as the hype of Tim's Vermeer (2013) directed by Teller: sonyclassics.com/timsvermeer/

                                   Tim Jenison's copy of Johannes Vermeer's The Music Lesson.

One can agree or disagree with the unraveling of the so-called mystery of Vermeer, that he used a sort of camera obscura.  Man or machine etc, the implications are pretty hackneyed.  I can admire Jenison's perfectionism but it's not carried over into the painting itself.  Look closely, it's not all that remarkable, flat, a bit "high school" as they say ... nothing 'gainst high school students because some of them are great artists.  Jenison doesn't have formal training, but the excuse undercuts the premise.  The result's mediocre even with "cheating," far from a Vermeer or good photorealism for that matter.  Technology just doesn't replace talent, which's another kind of eye, another kind of vision.