The New York Times and Vladimir Putin.

On Sundays I have the New York Times delivered - between five and ten pounds (the record is 12lb.) of paper in eight to ten sections, a large chunk of it advertising. I read some of it in bed - after having separated the sections which don't interest me. 

Today there were two longish articles on Vladimir Putin, and I was struck by the tone adopted in both of them. The first, by Stephen Lee Myers, entitled "Never Let Them See You Sweat" attempts a sort of psychological profile of Putin, drawing on his background as a practitioner of judo and as a KGB agent in East Germany at the time of the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain.  Putin, it is claimed, disdains weakness. A commentator at the Carnegie Moscow Centre is quoted as saying that Putin's tactics are strong but that he lacks a strategy.  Putin's action in increasing his involvement in Syria is partly explained away as a move to distract attention from "Russia’s disastrous intervention in eastern Ukraine".

The second article by Neil MacFarquar is entitled "On Syria, Putin is Catering to an Audience at Home".  As the title suggests Russia's growing involvement in the Syrian tragedy is mainly an effort to boost his popularity at home, ignoring the fact that he currently enjoys approval ratings in Russia that any Western leader would die for.   His recent diplomatic activity in meetings with the leaders of Turkey, Israel and the Palestinian Authority are dismissed as an attempt to attract more attention to Putin himself, and as a way of leveraging a meeting with President Obama.

The head of the Center for the Analysis of Middle East Conflicts, in Moscow, is quoted as saying “He has to leave Russia to demonstrate that he is not isolated, that he is a respected member of the international community gathering in New York.”  As the Myers article says  "Putin will swagger through New York seeking to regain the spot on the world stage he believes he has been unjustly denied by his rivals in the West."

The thing that struck me in both pieces was the way in which Russia's actions were described as being the consequence of the vanity and ambition of one man.  There was little acknowledgement that Russia might have a genuine interest in the Middle East, even that nations other than the United States might have the right to pursue their own foreign policies.  Anything which deviates from what Washington wants is dismissed implicitly as the result of the perverted ambition of one man, who (of course we all agree) is "bad" and power hungry.  

It would be entertaining to see in the mainstream media a scrutiny of US foreign policy carried out with the same underlying premises about the motives of the leaders and without the axiomatic belief that US always acts for good in the world.  

While (cf the Myers article) one could hardly say that Obama's tactics are strong, one could certainly say that he lacks a strategy.  Unless the strategy is one of creating failed states and chaos throughout the Middle East, in which case it would be one of unimaginable evil.

In the MacFarquar article it says "Mr. Putin has claimed repeatedly in recent years that the chaotic state of the world, particularly the level of violence in the Middle East, is because the United States is the solitary power. The underlying idea is that things were better off when the Soviet Union was around to check American might."

It is an interesting argument and one with which I tend to agree (see my previous blog Another Thirty Years War?). But its merits are not discussed.  It couldn't possibly have any merit, because it was uttered by Putin.  

Instead it is explained as a Putin tactic - a way he might frame his speech at the UN with a pitch about "establishing a new pillar so that power in the world is more balanced.”  

So this is the way the NYT shapes opinion among its readers.  And much of the mainstream media are much, much worse. 

Paleo Conservatives and Neo-Conservatives.

I have been surprised on several occasions in the last year to find that I am in agreement with the writings of so-called "Paleo-Conservatives" - in particular Pat Buchanan and Scott McConnell, both I believe founding members of The American Conservative.

Their take on international affairs is orthogonal to that of the neoconservatives. For example back in July, Buchanan expressed sensible views on the nuclear weapons deal which had just been hammered out with Iran, and the potential cost to the US and the Republican party if it was rejected. And McConnell had an interesting article entitled "Why is America Addicted to War" (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42399.htm) in which he questioned the dangerous US policy in Ukraine.

Today I came across Buchanan's article "Putin: Friend or Foe" (http://buchanan.org/blog/putin-friend-or-foe-in-syria-124083) in which he discusses Russian policy in Syria.

Rather than follow the mainstream press line that whatever Putin does must necessarily be bad and therefore opposed by the West, he asks the sensible question of what is the motive for Putin's action. He quotes Winston Churchill:

“I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.”

He then analyzes Putin's policy and finds it far more rational than that being pursued by Washington.  Defeating Assad, he points out, would likely lead to an ISIS or similarly minded government in Damascus, something that Russia wants to avoid at all costs.  The policy the US is pursuing would likely lead to that very outcome.  Is that what they really want?

Again the "Cock-Up vs. Conspiracy" dichotomy comes to the fore.  Are policy makers in Washington so stupid as to not realize the consequences of Assad's defeat?  Or is that what they really want - a radical Islamic state with territory extending from the borders of Lebanon to the edges of Bagdad with ethnic murder on the scale not seen since WW2?  As Buchanan points out this would inevitably lead to calls for a full-scale US invasion and a war which would probably define a generation.

Answers to the Art Quiz.

For all of you who looked at the Art Quiz posted last Saturday (12 Sept.)  here are the answers.

Please blow your own trumpet if you did well and let the world know.   The best score on pub night was 32/40.  But this was a table of five or six advanced VISA students.

VISA PUB NIGHT QUIZ.

SIGNATURES.
How painters signed their art.
1. How did Marcel Duchamp sign the urinal (Fountain) submitted to Society of Independent Artists exhibition in 1917?
Ans. R.Mutt

2. How did Vincent Van Gogh sign paintings he considered ready for sale? 
Ans. Vincent

3. How did Claude Monet sign his paintings? 
Ans. Claude Monet + date.

4. How did Leonardo da Vinci sign his work? 
Ans. He didn't

5. Which painter only signed works at point of sale?. 
Ans. Picasso

QUOTES.
Which artist or artists said or wrote the following?
6. "Art is never finished, only abandoned". 
Ans. da Vinci.

7. "If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint', then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced".
Ans. Van Gogh.

8. "Pablo. Oh Pablo, he used to be a good painter now he is just a genius." 
Ans. Georges Braque.

9. "I can't tell you if genius is hereditary, because heaven has granted me no offspring."
Ans. James McNeil Whistler

10. "Gordon's gin makes us very very drunk".
Ans. Gilbert and George.

CANADIAN ARTISTS.
11. Which Canadian artist, because of shortage of funds for materials, sometimes used gasoline to thin oil paint, thereby creating a nightmare for future curators?
Ans Emily Carr.

12. Which Canadian painter met his end at Canoe Lake in suspicious circumstances, possibly murder?
Ans. Tom Tomson.

13. Against a regiment I oppose a brain
And a dark horse against an armoured train.
For which Canadian painter were these words by poet Roy Fuller, the inspiration for one of his most famous works?
Ans. Alex Colville.

14. Which Canadian artist was mentored and championed by the New York critic Clement Greenberg and became a famous Color Field and Abstract Expressionist painter.
Ans. Jack Bush.

15. Which Canadian artist drove a Rolls Royce and owned several aeroplanes and threatened to publicly burn over a thousand of his prints in a dispute with Revenue Canada. Ans. Tony Only

ANAGRAMS.

16. HOV GANG. Surname - two words.                                    Ans . Van Gogh.

17. SCANT LOBE. Surname - one word.                                   Ans. Constable.

18. LAME OIL CHANGE. Surname - one word.                           Ans. Michaelangelo.

19. YEN YON LOT. First and surname- two words.                    Ans. Tony Onley

20. AN JOY SACK. initials and surname by which artist is known. Ans. A.Y. Jackson.

LIFE HISTORIES.
21. Name the French artist whose first and preferred language was Peruvian Spanish.
Ans. Paul Gaugin.

22. Name the artist who was born in Edinburgh and who has lived in England, Canada and Trinidad.
Ans. Peter Doig.

23. Name the French painter born in the Danish West Indies (St. Thomas) of a creole mother and a father of Portuguese Jewish descent.
Ans. Camille Pissarro.

24. What American artist was born in a town in the Russian Empire (now in Latvia), where he attended a Talmudic school, emigrated to USA at age 10 and attended high school in Portland, Oregon?
Ans. Mark Rothko.

25. Which French painter was heavily involved in the French Revolution as a Jacobin and as a friend of Marat and Robespierre, but who, unlike them, survived and lived in exile in Brussels after the Bourbon Restoration.
Ans. Jacques-Louis David.

FAMOUS PAINTINGS.
26. What work of art exists in four versions - two pastel (1893 and 1895) and two oil paintings (1893 and 1910) with the 1893 version being stolen in 1994 and the 1910 version stolen in 2004?
Ans. The Scream by Edward Munch.

27. This famous square painting executed in 1908 - 09 is composed of oil paint with applied layers of gold leaf.
Ans. The Kiss by G. Klimt.

28. This famous painting of the Spanish Golden Age, depicts the Royal Family and includes the painter working at an easel. Who is the painter? Or what is the name of the painting?
Ans. D. Velasquez. Las Meninas.

29. Of what painting did its creator stipulate that it should not be exhibited in Spain until a republic was established there (later amended to the establishment of liberty and democracy).
Ans. Guernica by Picasso.

30. What is the name, given by Giorgio Vasari, the Renaissance art historian, to a portrait of the wife of Francesco del Giocondo - a name by which the painting is now known?
Ans. TheMonaLisa.

ODD FACTS ABOUT FAMOUS ARTISTS
31. A famous modern artist's full name comprises twenty words, but he is best known by his mother's family name. Who is he?
Ans. Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso.

32. This satirical artist was born in Berlin in 1893 and died there in 1959. Bitterly anti-Nazi he left Germany in 1933 for the USA. After his arrival in there

he changed his style completely. He returned to live permanently in Berlin in 1958 , but died within 6 weeks of his return after falling downstairs following a night of drinking.
Ans. George Grosz.

33. This American artist was a Ruthenian Catholic (Byzantine Catholic). He suffered from St. Vitus' Dance as a child and Robert Hughes said of him 'He was one of the stupidest people I'd ever met in my life. He had nothing to say'. 
Ans. Andy Warhol.

34. What pair of famous artists were married to each other twice? 
Ans. Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.

35. This artist was known by over thirty names and he became famous after his work "Thirty Six Views of Mt. Fuji" appeared.
Ans. Katsushika Hokusai

GENRES.
For each question three artists will be given. Identify the genre or movement with which they are associated.
36. Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris. 
Ans. Cubism.

37. Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Everett Millais. 
Ans. Pre-Raphaelite movement.

38. Rene Magritte, Hans Arp and Max Ernst. 
Ans. Surrealism

39. Emil Nolde, Max Beckmann and Otto Dix.
Ans. German Expressionism.

40. C. Pissarro, C. Monet and E. Manet. 
Ans. French Impressionism.

TIE-BREAKER QUESTIONS.
101. The Australian painter Sidney Nolan painted a series of paintings about an Australian outlaw and folk hero. What was the series called?
Ans. The Ned Kelly Series.

102. This bisexual Art Deco painter was born in Warsaw and was part of the Paris Bohemian art scene in the 20s. When she died in Mexico she was a baroness. Ans. Tamara Lempicka

103. Name as many as you can of the top five richest artists in the worl.d.
NB There is not universal agreement on the list. So name up to five and earn a point for each one in the top ten.
Ans. 1. Damien Hirst 2. Jeff Koons 3. Jasper Johns. 4. David Choe
5. Andre Vicari. 6. Takashi Murakami. 7. Anish Kapoor 8. Anthony Gormley 9. Gerhard Richter. 10. David Hockney.

Source complex.com and design museum 

Narcos.

I have just finished watching the last episode of Narcos on Netflix.  It is an excellent ten part series which deals with cocaine production and trafficking in South America and the struggle against the gangsters involved in the trade.

It is outstanding television, which is exciting, colourful and informative. I give it the highest recommendation.

While it is a drama with real-life characters - Pablo Escobar and other narcotrafficantes, and agents of the Colombian state and the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) - at the same time it has something of a documentary feel, with voice-overs from Agent Murphy, one of the DEA agents involved.  

So there is an explanation of how the cocaine business moved from Chile, after Pinochet had all the producers and traders there shot, to Colombia.  Colombia, being the northernmost state in South America, with coasts on both oceans, had a long tradition of smuggling, - marijuana and emeralds were prize commodities before cocaine.  

The series progresses from when Cucaracha (Cockroach), one of the few survivors of Pinochet's massacre, introduces small-time operators in Medellin, to the possibility of dealing cocaine.  At first they deal locally but soon realize how much money could be made shipping to the USA.   Very soon these operators realize they would be better off working together and they form a cartel under Escobar's leadership. They get very rich very quickly.   It is reckoned that at the peak the cartel was bringing in $60 million a day!  It is estimated that Escobar personally was worth 30-50 billion dollars!

There are scenes in the show where the gangsters have so much cash they don't know what to do with it.  They end up burying stashes of US banknotes in holes in the ground throughout Colombia.  

With his wealth, Escobar bought soccer teams, and gave lots of money for schools, hospitals and churches in his native Antiochia, and western Colombia.  He gave money to the door and was seen as something of a Robin Hood in Medellin, an image he was careful to cultivate.  

But wealth was not enough for him.  He had ambitions of becoming a national leader and got himself on an election ticket as a deputy to a candidate for a senate seat.  With Escobar's money the seat was easily won, and then, surprise, surprise, the candidate resigned leaving Pablo as the legally elected senator.

With some assistance from the DEA, opponents in the Senate, uncovered official details of an earlier arrest for small-time drug trafficking, and Escobar was publicly humiliated and forced to resign.

This led to a campaign of terror, in which many politicians and leading figures were murdered.  The most audacious was the shooting of a presidential candidate who supported extradition to the US for narcotrafficantes.  In fact three candidates were murdered during the same election in 1989.  

When the newly-elected president vowed to continue with the policy of extradition, Escobar heightened his war against the state.  Probably the worst crime was the bombing of an Avianca flight, on which the president was due to fly.  At the last minute he was persuaded not to. Over 100 people died following the explosion.

He later modified his tactics to include the kidnapping of prominent Colombians as well as the liberal use of bombs and bullets.

There was counter-violence as well, both from right-wing paramilitaries and death squads as well as rival gangsters, especially the Cali cartel.

The TV series stops before the end of the saga.  Escobar is still alive, having escaped from the resort-prison in which he was confined, just as the army move in to finally deal with him.  So there is more to come in Series 2.  

There are only a few months left in Escobar's life as the series ends, so I hope in Series 2 we see how the Cali cartel took over, and then when it is broken up how the centre of the trade moves to Mexico, bringing with it all of the murder and mayhem that Colombia experienced.

The show was directed by a Brazilian director Jose Padilha, and it is a Brazilian actor, Wagner Moura, who plays Escobar.  It is in both Spanish and English (subtitles in English when Hispanics are speaking, and presumably for the Latin American market in Spanish or Portuguese when gringos are speaking).

It is pleasingly non-didactic.  There are no real shoot-em-up heroes. The leading role is that of Escobar, and while his ruthless murderous nature is made all too clear by his actions, he still comes across as a human being.  Likewise the DEA agents are not portrayed uncritically. In fact I found DEA Agent Murphy, who you might, in a simpler format, call the good guy, a rather unsympathetic character.  

The production values are very high and the violent scenes are very convincing, but violence is not gratuitously shown, as say in a Quentin Tarantino film.

Personally having spent a year in Colombia, I enjoyed  hearing Colombian Spanish and seeing the country depicted on TV.  It really is a very beautiful and varied country.  Its major cities, Bogota, Medellin and Cali are all cities located in splendid mountain valleys with moderate climates - in fact Bogota at 8,800 feet can be decidedly cool, frosts being not unknown.  But Colombia also has a Caribbean coast, spectacular mountains and equatorial jungle.  

My memory, mostly of western Colombia, is of a green country, with mountains seldom far away.  This comes across in Narcos, with some lovely shots of the country.

But it is a tragic country, which has had more than its fair share of violence and civil strife.  When we were there in 1976, it was well-known for its crime and violence and one never felt entirely safe.  But in fact that period was one of the more stable ones in its history.  It was a couple of decades after la Violencia, a civil war in the 50s mainly over land, but before the later strife of the 80s and 90s introduced by cocaine and the drug cartels.  

Simon Bolivar, the Liberator of Colombia and Venezuela (his sword features in Narcos) despaired of bringing peace and order to the land comparing it to "ploughing the sea".  At present Colombia seems to be enjoying a more peaceful period.  Indeed Medellin is now seen as a exemplar of modern urban planning. But with such a history I am not sure I would bet on peace, order and good government being a permanent feature of Colombia's future.

Another Thirty Years War?

We have now had almost non-stop war in the Middle East since the US (with UK and the 'Coalition of the Willing') recklessly and illegally invaded Iraq in 2003. It is war since 2001 if we include Afghanistan in the extended Middle East. War and chaos seem set to last for a lot longer, with no end in sight for the conflicts in Syria and Yemen or the mayhem in Libya. It could very well end up rivalling in duration, barbarity and consequence an earlier catastrophic conflict.

I refer to the Thirty Years War in Europe in the early part of the seventeenth century. Although referred to now as a singular 'war' it was actually a series of conflicts, centred on the German states. According to historians,it was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in all of European history.

Most of the following brief outline of the War is taken from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War).

It was initially a war of religion between Protestant and Catholic principalities in the disintegrating Holy Roman Empire. But nearly all of the great powers surrounding the area of what is now Germany, got drawn into the conflict.

Following the various conflicts takes some effort (see Wikipedia article for a chronology). The religious dimension involved three factions - Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists. The political dimension involved the great power conflict between the Hapsburg Empire (which comprised Spain and territories in Austria, the Low Countries and Italy) and France with the Ottomans involved in the east.

The Scandinavian (Danish and Swedish) kingdoms became involved opportunistically hoping to gain territory and influence in northern Germany and Poland.

The War along with accompanying famine and disease had a devastating effect on the German states and those surrounding it in Italy, the Low Countries and the Czech lands. It is estimated that the male population of the German states was reduced by almost 50 percent overall, with the losses in some areas much higher. For example Wurtternberg lost three quarters of its population. Villages were particularly hard hit, because mercenary armies were often not paid and relied on plunder for sustenance.


The War also had the effect of bankrupting most of the combatant powers. 

 All in all it was a complete disaster.

The current wars in the Middle East have a lot in common with the Thirty Years War. There is the religious conflict - Sunni vs Shia (and Alawite) with each side backed by a regional power (Saudi Arabia as champion of the Sunnis and Iran as champion of the Shias). There is great power involvement - the USA on the side of Saudi Arabia and Russia on the side of the al-Assad regime in Syria. And then there is Turkey hoping to gain territory and influence in northern Syria.

The Thirty Years War ended with a series of treaties between all of the combatant parties, collectively known as the Peace of Westphalia. This laid the ground for the future international system which held more or less until the early years of our century. Wikipedia describes it as follows:

The Peace of Westphalia established a new system of political order in central Europe, called Westphalian Sovereignty, based upon the concept of co-existing sovereign states . Inter-state aggression was to be held in check by a balance of power. A prejudice was established against interference in another nation's domestic affairs.

Note the prejudice against interference in another nation's domestic affairs. While this principle did not prevent great power wars, such as the two World Wars of the Twentieth Century, it did more or less stop the ongoing interference into the affairs of other sovereign nations, which can lead to perpetual war.  Unfortunately this principle has been seriously violated since the ending of the Cold War.

In the last decade of the Twentieth Century the US invaded Panama, bombed Serbia and Sudan, and was heavily involved in the fight to unseat the elected government of Nicaragua. Things have got much worse.  In the Twenty-First Century with the US, along with some NATO allies, conducting all-out invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Aerial bombardment of Libyan government forces, conducted by NATO, achieved the goal of unseating Muammar Qaddafi, but left the country in chaos without a government. The US has fired missiles from drones and aircraft in Pakistan and Yemen in targeted killings, with unknown numbers of civilian casualties. For the last few months Saudi Arabian forces have been bombing Yemen, with US support and cooperation, and there has been hardly a murmur of protest. 

This is not to say that the US might not have real enemies in some of the places it has invaded or bombarded.  But there are other means of solving conflicts short of military intervention. Ending conflicts by diplomacy rather than warfare was one of the aims of the Westphalian peace.

Of course the US is not the only power to violate the non-interference principle - Israel is another serious violator, along with China and Russia - but it has certainly been the worst. The goal of 'regime change' in countries directly opposed to US interests, has become almost a principle of US foreign policy. And it is a very dangerous one.  

The end of the Cold War opened all kinds of opportunities for the West. Unfortunately these opportunities have been abused. The lessons learned from the catastrophic Thirty Years War and its ending in the Peace of Westphalia seem to have been forgotten. And another Thirty Years War seems to be a distinct possibility.

Art and Art Trivia Quiz.

Here are the questions of a pub-type quiz on art and art trivia which were used at the Vancouver Island School of Art (VISA) Pub Night, on Friday 11th. September.

The best score on the 40 questions was 32.  There were teams of 4+ people.

Try the quiz and see how you do.  No looking at the Web for answers!  The rules on pub night were that anyone caught looking at cell phones had to sit under the table.  No one was so humiliated!

VISA PUB NIGHT QUIZ.

SIGNATURES.
How painters signed their art.

1. How did Marcel Duchamp sign the urinal (Fountain) submitted to Society of Independent Artists exhibition in 1917?

2. How did Vincent Van Gogh sign paintings he considered ready for sale? 3. How did Claude Monet sign his paintings?

4. How did Leonardo da Vinci sign his work?

5. Which painter only signed works at point of sale?.

QUOTES.
Which artist or artists said or wrote the following?

6. "Art is never finished, only abandoned".

7. "If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint', then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced".

8. "Pablo. Oh Pablo, he used to be a good painter now he is just a genius."

9. "I can't tell you if genius is hereditary, because heaven has granted me no offspring."

10. "Gordon's gin makes us very very drunk".

CANADIAN ARTISTS.
11. Which Canadian artist, because of shortage of funds for materials, sometimes used gasoline to thin oil paint, thereby creating a nightmare for future curators?

12. Which Canadian painter met his end at Canoe Lake in suspicious circumstances, possibly murder?

13. Against a regiment I oppose a brain
      And a dark horse against an armoured train.
For which Canadian painter were these words by poet Roy Fuller, the inspiration for one of his most famous works?

14. Which Canadian artist was mentored and championed by the New York critic Clement Greenberg and became a famous Color Field and Abstract Expressionist painter.

15. Which Canadian artist drove a Rolls Royce and owned several aeroplanes and threatened to publicly burn over a thousand of his prints in a dispute with Revenue Canada.

ANAGRAMS.

16. HOV GANG. Surname - two words. 

17. SCANT LOBE. Surname - one word.

18. LAME OIL CHANGE. Surname - one word.

19. YEN YON LOT. First and surname- two words.

20. A JOY SNACK. initials and surname by which artist is known.

LIFE HISTORIES.

21. Name the French artist whose first and preferred language was Peruvian Spanish.

22. Name the artist who was born in Edinburgh and who has lived in England, Canada and Trinidad.

23. Name the French painter born in the Danish West Indies (St. Thomas) of a creole mother and a father of Portuguese Jewish descent.

24. What American artist was born in a town in the Russian Empire (now in Latvia), where he attended a Talmudic school, emigrated to USA at age 10 and attended high school in Portland, Oregon?

25. Which French painter was heavily involved in the French Revolution as a Jacobin and as a friend of Marat and Robespierre, but who, unlike them, survived and lived in exile in Brussels after the Bourbon Restoration.

FAMOUS PAINTINGS.

26. What work of art exists in four versions - two pastel (1893 and 1895) and two oil paintings (1893 and 1910) with the 1893 version being stolen in 1994 and the 1910 version stolen in 2004?

27. This famous square painting executed in 1908 - 09 is composed of oil paint with applied layers of gold leaf.

28. This famous painting of the Spanish Golden Age, depicts the Royal Family and includes the painter working at an easel. Who is the painter? Or what is the name of the painting?

29. Of what painting did its creator stipulate that it should not be exhibited in Spain until a republic was established there (later amended to the establishment of liberty and democracy).

30. What is the name, given by Giorgio Vasari, the Renaissance art historian, to a portrait of the wife of Francesco del Giocondo - a name by which the painting is now known?

ODD FACTS ABOUT FAMOUS ARTISTS
31. A famous modern artist's full name comprises twenty words, but he is best known by his mother's family name. Who is he?

32. This satirical artist was born in Berlin in 1893 and died there in 1959. Bitterly anti-Nazi he left Germany in 1933 for the USA. After his arrival in there he changed his style completely. He returned to live permanently in Berlin in 1958 , but died within 6 weeks of his return after falling downstairs following a night of drinking.

33. This American artist was a Ruthenian Catholic (Byzantine Catholic). He suffered from St. Vitus' Dance as a child and Robert Hughes said of him 'He was one of the stupidest people I'd ever met in my life. He had nothing to say'.

34. What pair of famous artists were married to each other twice?

35. This artist was known by over thirty names and he became famous after his work "Thirty Six Views of Mt. Fuji" appeared.

GENRES.
For each question three artists will be given. Identify the genre or movement with which they are associated.

36. Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris.

37. Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Everett Millais. 38. Rene Magritte, Hans Arp and Max Ernst.

39. Emil Nolde, Max Beckmann and Otto Dix.

40. C. Pissarro, C. Monet and E. Manet.

TIE-BREAKER QUESTIONS

101. The Australian painter Sidney Nolan painted a series of paintings about an Australian outlaw and folk hero. What was the series called?

102. This bisexual Art Deco painter was born in Warsaw and was part of the Paris Bohemian art scene in the 20s. When she died in Mexico she was a baroness.

103. Name as many as you can of the top five richest artists in the world.

NB There is not universal agreement on the list. So name up to five and earn a point for each one in the top ten 

NOW ITS BLOWBACK TIME - THE WEST SHOULD HAVE LISTENED.

Now listen you, people of NATO. You’re bombing a wall which stood in the way of African migration to Europe, and in the way of Al-Qaeda terrorists. This wall was Libya. You‘re breaking it. You’re idiots, and you will burn in Hell for thousands of migrants from Africa and for supporting Al-Qaeda. It will be so. I never lie. And I do not lie now." 

This is what Muammar Gaddafi wrote in an open letter obtained by the Russian daily Zavtra and published in May 2011 several months before the Libyan leader was killed.  

No doubt Saddam Hussein and Bashar al Assad could have made equally prescient warnings about the dangers of deposing them.  But US/NATO went right ahead doing their utmost to achieve regime change.  

With Iraq it was straightforward invasion.  That turned out badly and western electorates wouldn't stand for sending more troops to die in foreign adventures.  So when a chance came up to depose Qaddafi in Libya they bombarded from the air, abusing a UN Security Council resolution, mandating civilian protection.  

And with Syria they used proxies, arming the opposition to the Assad regime via the CIA with weapons from Qaddafi's arsenal and encouraging the flow of money and weapons from Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.  

Of course it is all done in the name of removing odious dictators.  But the US has supported a lot of odious, brutal dictators in the past, ranging from the very same Saddam to the Shah (Reza Pahlavi) of Iran;  from Mobutu of Zaire to Somoza in Nicaragua etc. etc.  Indeed there is a new tyrant emerging almost next door to Syria, who is tolerated if not loved by USA.  I refer to Field Marshall el Sisi in Egypt, who shows every sign of becoming a new middle eastern tyrant (was it LBJ would said "A bastard, but our bastard"?)  

So I am afraid the moral argument doesn't hold much water for me.  Simply put the US cannot tolerate regimes which won't bend the knee to US hegemony.  

The blowback from Libya has been building for the last few years, as the trickle of refugees across the Mediterranean has grown along with the presence of ISIS and other jihadi groups.  Just as Gadaffi  warned.  And the blowback from Syria has now exploded creating a serious refugee crisis for Europe.  

Sadly very few commentators link these disturbing events with Western efforts to remove the dictators.   No lessons seem to have been learned. Rather we hear calls for more bombing of ISIS or a more determined effort to oust Assad.  I am afraid it is only going to get worse.