New Year Address / Happy New Year

RantWoman sends her readers sincere good wishes for gains in health, wealth, patience, humor, joy in the New Year. May you always feel the presence of God, the spiritual, moral, intellectual forces that sustain you and may this presence ever flower in new ways every year.




This is RantWoman. Mercifully, God keeps showing up even when RantWoman falls far short of all that. Here is RantWoman's New Year's Day edition of holiday song and dance, bearing in mind that it's already long past New Year's for at least some of RantWoman's readers. RantWoman is starting from....Moscow!

Putin New Year Address from Red Square, and Russian National Anthem
http://youtu.be/gk37rm8Icuo

Presently, RantWoman's most frequent experience of President Putin comes either as occasional radio snippets from speeches or as Putinisms on translator boards. The latter is usually the more amusing. Putin likes to talk tough, worse in some respects than, say, Harry Truman. The question on translator boards is always just how graphic should one make Putin in English. Translators tend to be imaginative. Enough said?

RantWoman's main point: RantWoman has not looked at a picture of President Putin up close in a long time. But thanks to software that both gets close and blows things up, er, enlarges them, RantWoman noticed that the strain of office is showing up on President Putin's face. He does not look so good. Hold him in the Light at least.



Okay, maybe not exactly this light. Parody, from last year, the president and prime minister basically joined at the hip with Putin telling Medvedev what to say
http://youtu.be/XD2BocijK_k


RantWoman looked at former President / now Prime Minister Medvedev's address from last year. RantWoman can see why the young parodist trying to talk with eggs in his mouth looks just like PM Medvedev. Putin did not give exactly the same speech this year as Medvedev last year, but darn close. RantWoman THINKS only one of them mentioned 1000 years of Russian history, but the speeches were long on exhortations about moral uplift and the good of the nation. More translation than that is beyond RantWoman's Light but how about readers just go with the flow and see where you get.


RantWoman checked out http://lenta.ru  and learned that at a publication called Vedomosti, the voting is in for Person of the Year. Among the awardees, a certain punk band and some volunteers who plunged into flood relief in Krymsk. RantWoman does nt assume flood relief in Krymsk is uncontroversial; RantWoman finds enough flavors of controversy at least for now with the punk band.
http://lenta.ru/news/2012/12/28/vedomosti/


Reprise of the famous punk performance at Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow. Warning: much to find offensive
http://youtu.be/yZKaBh9pX64


A news clip shortly after March 8, International Women's Day, "Celebration of Justice and Morality."
Women argue that they are prayerfully protesting the blurring of church and state; reference to other artistic protests including one against "Nuclear Orthodoxy"
http://youtu.be/Ee2NMYkzdVw

Interview with one of the band members, about art and protest, religion and society, sanctification instead of desecration
http://youtu.be/P6vCHXQlRig


More on her trial including a statement against her protest
http://youtu.be/qetOJFQSN2M



Another take:

Film Director Aleksandr Nevzorov, paraphrasing, "I am not a per son of God. I realy do not see the difference between one group of people in strange clothes dancing around and singing weird things and another group of people in different strange clothes singing different weird things.

http://youtu.be/bcjPZysMvaU



Does this give RantWoman's monolingual readers at least a nibble of what the protest meant for Russians. RantWoman would like to promise atighter set of thoughts, but it might now happen.



And now a word from the other side: The Cathedral of Christ the Savior before and after punk band.



History and some striking pictures

http://www.sacred-destinations.com/russia/moscow-cathedral-of-christ-the-savior.htm



The Destruction of the Christ the Savior Cathedral, 1931, with musical soundtrack

http://youtu.be/YFlx55OANg8



One clip about restoration of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior

http://youtu.be/rHq7ZX54fZA



History of the Cathedral, with choral background
http://youtu.be/ZZuSY10cFXE
RantWoman verdict: the cathedral has been through a lot worse than a certain punk performance. Probably it and Orthodoxy will survive this as well.


Plus, at the moment, RantWoman has other things on her mind. RantWoman heartily thanks RantMom for a rousing endorsement of the Home and Garden Channel commercial free broadcast of the2013 Tournament of Roses parade. RantMom consumes her video content through her television. RantWoman congratulates her for doing something different and looking for the Rose Parade in channel zones other than where she usually hangs out. Go Mom.
The Home and Garden Channel on the Tournament of Roses parade
http://www.hgtv.com/rose-parade-2013/show/index.html


Building the HGTV Tournament of Roses Parade Float, 65 stills
http://www.hgtv.com/on-tv/rose-parade-2013-building-the-hgtv-rose-parade-float/pictures/index.html


Speaking of the Rose Parade, in the category of "Oh Look, Blind people do that too," a clip of the Ohio State School for the Blind Marching Band appearance in the 2010 Tournament of Roses Parade. RantWoman finds herself peculiarly relieved: parade orbanizers put the band near the beginning of the parade. RantWoman thinks not having to march after too many equestrian contingents probably has a lot to recommend it.
http://youtu.be/SavfY5gHV70


10 whole minutes of the OSSB at a football halftime. Quakers who have fallen under the sway of the Gospel According to Harry Potter and who marvel about how several iterations of Harry Potter flick have somehow magically been released the weekend of different years' Annual Session will appreciate one number.
http://youtu.be/zKrRSxehfto


Another Opportunity to see Script Braille

http://youtu.be/I9pyKWE-HOM

RantWoman apologizes but she is too distracted by SUNSHINE to curate properly and view the whole clip; it's an act of faith that viewers will be offered some kind of overhead view to appreciate the whole effect.


An article from the fundraising phase of the OSSB trip to the Rose Parade:
http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2009/12/marching-panthers-headed-to-rose-parade.html


And if RantWoman needed more reasons to whine, moan, grumble, exude dyspepsia and generally not deliver as much joy and peace as she MIGHT wish, RantWoman is called to a single standard of truth grumble. The article about the fundraising mentions a desire that people send checks rather than use some or another electronic contribution option. RantWoman wonders whether this is because the people doing the fundraising did not know of / research electronic options or whether the options available are inaccessible or whether a significant swath of contributors might not be all up for that electronic stuff anyway.


The single standard of truth point: it does not matter whether you want (PLEASE) to hire RantWoman to do something computery or you want to exploit RantWoman's volunteer zeal for free, either way the tools you / we chooise will have to be accessible. The exact scope of laboring with involved in that standard is a topic for another day. In the Meantime HAPPY NEW YEAR!