Sometimes you can have it all

Today's having-it-all exhibit: Alexander Borodin.

Borodin was both a chemist and a muician, two fields that would seem to demand total concentration for excellence, yet he refused to choose between them.

The leading chemist of Czarist Russia, Nikolai Zinin, an early mentor of Borodin, is supposed to have told him: "I have placed all my hopes in you to be my successor one day. You waste too much time thinking about music. A man cannot serve two masters."

See the book "The Imperial Laboratory" by Galina Kichigina for more on their relationship, and for late-Czarist chemistry in general.

Borodin served both masters pretty well. As a scientist he became one of the co-discoverers of what are called "aldol reactions." I'm  told (I am hardly qualified to judge such poiints) that aldol reactions are foundational to organic chemstry. As a musician, he attracted the favorable attention of such peers as Franz Liszt, Alexander Glazunov, and Nikolai Rimski-Korsakov.

Borodin composed durable chamber music, most famously his String Quartet 2 in D major, composed in 1881, featured more than seventy years later in a Broadway musical, and later in a Hollywood movie, Kismet.

So, yes: you can have it all. Ain't life grand?

One gutsy lady

Apparently this is a reporter of Georgian nationality, reporting on Georgian state TV regarding the Russian invasion of her country, a couple of weeks ago.

As you'll see, she's hit by small arms fire ... and continues doing her job unfazed.

Awesome. Watch for yourself.

Her name is Tamara Urushadze.

The name and the incident have both become a blogosphere sensation. Says TMZ: "Don't let your boss see this video, you'll never be allowed to call in sick again."

Defensible Choice from Time

The more loyal of my readers my remember my grousing a year ago about Time Magazine's choice for 2006 Person of the Year. It was "you." The cover pictured a computer, with a reflecting surface used for its screen, so the reader, or casual walker-by of a newsstand for that matter, would see him/herself on/in the screen as POTY.

I thought the whole thing was a cop-out, and that Time should stick closed to the idea of an idiosyncratic individual newsmaker for this honor -- the idea that inspired the first Man of the Year cover in 1927 (Charles Lindbergh) and most since.

The first woman to receive the nod, by the way, was Wallis Simpson, in 1936.

Time has come through for us traditionalists this year. Its POTY is ... Vladimir Putin of Russia. I'm not crazy about the aesthetics of Putin's ugly mug staring out at us but, hey, maybe that's just me.

Its a defensible choice, since Russia has been one of the world's great powers under one political regime or another since around the time Napoleon ran into trouble there, and the head of state there is almost inevitably important to the destinies far beyond its borders.

Obviously, the naming of a POTY is not a political endorsement. Henry Luce wasn't expressing his happiness about the abdication of a monarch when he put Mrs Simpson on the cover, either.

Joseph Stalin (not a Russian, strictly, a Georgian) was POTY twice: 1939 and 1942. He was Hitler's ally when the first of those covers appeared, and had become Hitler's adversary by the time the second did.

Yuri Andropov shared POTY status with negotiating partner Ronald Reagan in 1983.

Gorbachev was POTY twice -- 1987 and 1989. The first of those recognitions concerned his efforts to reform the Soviet Union from within. By the second such cover, it was clear that the process had brought an end to that superpower.

The point is, I guess, this: I shouldn't be disheartened. I couldn't really have expected that I'd win twice in a row. Heck, even Gorbachev has that off-year in '88.

Oleg Deripaska

Things are rolling ahead for a deal in which Russian mogul Oleg Deripaska will buy the Canadian auto parts concern Magna International. The European Commission has approved, [why is the EC ruling on a deal involving chiefly Russian and Canadian firms? Ah, the wonders of globalization!], as have Magna's shareholders, and a Canadian court.

The deal is that Deripaska's firm, Russian Machines, will buy US$1.54 billion in Magna's stock. When the smoke clears, OD through Russian Machines and another company he controls, Stronach Trust, will control 70% of the target's voting shares.

Also, the Toronto Stock Exchange has given its approval to the issuance and listing of the new voting shares the arrangement requires.

Why should you care? Recall that this spring, when Daimler was auctioning off its Chrysler division, Magna was a serious bidder. Deripaska was already then in the market for contgrol of Magna. Although Magna didn't get Chrysler, the fact that the Deripaska deal went forward anyway does illustrate a continuing story of great significance, the consolidation of the automotive and related industries.

http://cfaille.blogspot.com/2007/05/rise-of-deripaska.html

Anatoly Fomenko

I'd like to recommend the drawings of Russian mathematician Anatoly Fomenko.

Here's a URL. http://anatoly-fomenko.com/art/main.php

From what I understand, Fomenko is a brilliant mathematician, who has taken it into his head that he's also a historian -- although his theories in the latter sphere (his "New Chronology") have the whiff of the crackpot about them.

Still, the drawings have a wonderful quality to them, combining minimalism and surrealism if you will. What is the minimum you can do on a two-dimensional surface to produce a surreal result?