Looking for Lost Youth II

Is this older woman, a babushka or grandmother-type, looking for her

lost youth? There is a great chance she once looked like the model

on the poster behind her. Your ratings and critiques are invited and

most welcome. If you rate harshly or very critically, please submit

a helpful and constructive comment; please share your superior

photographic knowledge to help improve my photography. Thanks!

Enjoy! John

You visualize two opposite but coexistent "faces" of the eastern part of Europe. The glamorous, western trend and then the old "Russian" (OK Ukrainian) granny, as we have always imagined her, with simple clothes, a broad face. You picture a part of a country rushing forward, and a part of the same country sticking to the past. It is really striking.

Best,

Luca

If you had the insight I have now, you would realize the caption -- the request for critique -- are correct. The old woman actually once could have had the looks (and figure) of the young model (and not so awfully long ago).

Things happen awfully fast in life (life's passage) in the Ukraine. . . . Look beneath those 'simple clothes' and the 'broad face' and you will realize that the clothes are pretty stylish (see the Nike logo?) and the broad face is from overweight, not from some predisposition toward peasantry -- as might be supposed from observance from Communist glorification of the former serfs who emerged into the Soviet sphere.

Thanks for the observance.

John (Crosley)

in particular places, also in Italy, people's faces show their lives, what they have seen and experienced. This is the case here.

Consider the picture with the lion taken in Paris (just under this one): the French woman might be quite older than the Ukrainian, but she has less signs on the face. It must have been tough over there!

Seen the Nike logo! But there is also the heavy sweater, possibly hand made. There's so much in that picture!

Luca

of that ever happening, (outside of a university setting).

Look at the lessons learned from the Viet Nam War.

(None.)

Well, on reflection: None again.

Nobody young really wants wisdom; they already have a lock on it.

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara whose Ford Motor Company background as an executive promised to make him a more 'efficient' Defense Secretary was not saved from ideological errors. He spent the latter part of his life apologizing for the mess he and the Administration of Johnson had made of the Viet Nam war and its pretext for being started admittedly was made up -- phony, a torpedo no one ever saw.

Now we are in a war started because Al Qaeda and Iraq were conflated and it was marketed to us like Wheaties and cigarettes and sold to us on the phony claim (among many) that Iraq had nuclear bombs on drones that were targeted to the East Coast, a claim now admitted by the Administration to be false and without foundation (much to their surprise!!!, they claim). In fact, nuclear inspectors said their nuclear program was stopped in its tracks.

We learn nothing from history, sometimes and history has repeated itself, backed by one of the most cynical Administrations ever to occupy any position of power in this country . . . bar none (and I'm a Republican . . . or so it says on the voter registration rolls).

Secret prisons (until revealed by the New York Times, the abrogation of the Bill of Rights, search and seizure rights gone unprotected, people being kidnapped and tortured -- many things this country once stood against it now stands for on the Arab Street and in the minds also of Americans, and for some, also justified. What reason is there to be an American if it is not to preserve or freedoms, and in this case, where there is a claim of war, where is the declaration of war? And the President claims he can act unilaterally and anything he does is right . . . where in the Constitution does it give him those rights.

Youth seeking wisdom.

They better hurry before they mess up another generation.

I once thought America had the finest government in the world, and now fear it has the finest government money can buy . . . .

Eisenhower famously warned of the encroachments of the military-industrial complex with its revolving door between the 'Pentagon' and military industry and now we find that George Bush Sr.'s Carlyle Group has hired outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair to be an ambassador and he makes more money if the people and countries he influences have conflicts with arms that are supplied by 'The Carlyle Group' He makes scads of money under this contract which was announced long ago, and has been a steadfast supporter of George W. Bush (Bush Jr.'s) war in Iraq. Anybody see a conflict of interest?

Any youth seeking wisdom?

The Carlyle Group also offered millions to former President Clinton (for his contacts in high government worldwide) but got turned down by a President who never even owned his own home before he became an ex-President, maybe in part because his wife's running for President as a Democrat, but she's cozy with Rupert Murdoch, who's a major media magnate and arch-conservative . . . . Politics makes strange bedfellows?

And Murdoch wants to buy the fiercely independent Wall Street Journal and has a history of messing in editorial policy despite no-interference agreements when he buys newspapers. (who can turn him down, he's one of the richest men in publishing -- perhaps the richest man.)

What kind of press coverage would Murdoch get in the transformed Wall Street Journal if he were involved in any business shenanigans -- the Journal is one of the world's best reads for organized business treachery, law-breaking, skullduggery, and other corporate transgressions, but would it remain so, or would it be transformed into a 'good news' conservative outlet a la 'Fox News'?

Youth seeking wisdom?

Maybe we should answer some of these questions.

The woman in the photo doesn't look like she's interested in anything the older woman has to say at all, and the older woman seems impervious to the younger woman behind her.

That's the nature of life; first get some food, a comfortable place to sleep and then worry about all else.

Ukrainians especially distrust everybody connected with politics and too often are right.

Americans probably had best learn a little from the Ukrainians for once.

Thanks for putting up with me Tiffany.

John (Crosley)

Is youth a slave to fashion (among other things) that binds them to chain such as this young lady bears. And, horrible as it is, as we grow older do we try to hide the chains we have bound ourselves in draping ourselves with alternate fashions that only draw attention to our spent youth. Profound, huh?

I like your phrase, "the best government money can buy"

You make a profound comment about the 'fashion' accessory worn by the young woman and how it may 'chain' her and the alternative in the older woman.

Regrettably, I am not the original author of the phrase 'the best government money can buy' but I hoped that phrase might die out in my lifetime -- regrettably it has been given new life.

It is something that only the 'people' themselves can redress, because their representatives are too beholden to the system that gives them that money to get re-elected to cut off their monetary umbilicus . . . .

Pity.

Probably we're forever condemned to things this way unless the citizenry rebels, yet there's little sign of that ever happening.

Thanks for short, insightful comments.

John (Crosley)