There’s a fascinating article up on one of The New York Times’ various blogs about the most iconic photographs from President Bush’s tenure in office. Errol Morris sits down with some of the traveling Associated Press photographers and discusses at great length some of their favourite photographs.
Month: January 2009
Quick Environment Links
TNR’s Environment and Energy blog has a list of links concerning some recent news about the environment. Check it out at the link below:
Quick Hits: So *That’s* Where The Trees Went Edition – Environment and Energy
Baby Boomers
There’s an article on The Plank today concerning the newest column in The New York Times (“Generation B“). Michelle Cottle writes that:
I realize how hard it must be for boomers to confront the reality that they no longer occupy the demographic sweet spot that makes advertisers and TV execs hang on their every word–or to accept the fact that all the Botox, Viagra, and Rogaine in the planet will not halt their steady march into the category of “senior.” But do they really need their own weekly column in the paper of record detailing how very, very difficult and disappointing it is to no longer be the center of the universe? Can’t they just vent their frustrations on individual Facebook pages like all the hip kids do?
It all reminds me of something my dad (a baby boomer himself) said over Christmas. We were talking about Hunter S. Thompson and the 1960s and my dad referred to the period as a brief blip of liberation followed by a culture where the baby boomers became more consumer-driven and materialistic than their parents and then proceeded for the most part to become horrible parents that spoiled their children.
I really hope that decades from now some anthropologist or sociologist goes back and does a comprehensive study of that generation and what influenced it to shift from the mantra of the 1960s to the one of the 1990s.
Link via The Boomers’ Latest Tantrum – The Plank .
A Thousand Plateaus
For a class on Contemporary Theory (more properly modern French thought) I am in the midst of reading A Thousand Plateaus by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. In the translator’s foreword to my edition Brian Massumi writes:
A concept is a brick. It can be sued to build the courthouse of reason. Or it can be thrown through the window. What is the subject of the brick? The arm that throws it? The body connected to the arm? The brain encased in the body? The situation that brought brain and body to such a juncture? All and none fo the above. What is its object? The window? The edifice? The laws the edifice shelters? The class and other power releations encrusted in the laws? All and none fo the above “What interests us are the circumstances” Because the concept in its unrestrained usage is a set of circumstances, at a volatile juncture.
Just thought that was interesting and worth sharing. Enjoy.
Digitizing Books
The Daily Dish has an interesting article up about the future of books and Google’s effort to digitize them. Andrew Sullivan quotes another writer who wrote of the recent settlement allowing Google to digitize thousands of books that:
No one can predict what will happen. We can only read the terms of the settlement and guess about the future. If Google makes available, at a reasonable price, the combined holdings of all the major US libraries, who would not applaud? Would we not prefer a world in which this immense corpus of digitized books is accessible, even at a high price, to one in which it did not exist?
Perhaps, but the settlement creates a fundamental change in the digital world by consolidating power in the hands of one company.
Here’s the link to the original article that Sullivan pulls from which is also an interesting read although it is quite long.
Great sound effects
A YouTube video for a sound production company:
Obama’s Speech Writer
From a story posted a little while ago on The Guardian about Obama’s chief speech writer:
When Barack Obama steps up to the podium to deliver his inaugural address, one man standing anonymously in the crowd will be paying especially close attention. With his cropped hair, five o’clock shadow and boyish face, he might look out of place among the dignitaries, though as co-author of the speech this man has more claim than most to be a witness to this moment of history.
Jon Favreau, 27, is, as Obama himself puts it, the president’s mind reader. He is one of the youngest chief speechwriters on record in the White House, and, despite such youth, was at the centre of discussions of the content of today’s speech, one which has so much riding on it.
For a politician whose rise to prominence was largely built upon his powers as an orator, Obama is well versed in the arts of speech-making. But today’s effort will tower over all previous ones.
Reading about the people that President Obama has surrounded himself with just fascinates me. His ability to find talent and surround himself with it is just astounding. Regardless of how the next four years go I do hope that someone composes a book a la “Team of Rivals” about his campaign and his presidency.
Link via Barack Obama’s inauguration speech … crafted by 27-year-old in Starbucks | World news | The Guardian .
Diptych – Different POVs
Diptych – Different POVs, originally uploaded by Sherie Beth.
Found this on Flickr today. I just loved the different colours and textures in this shot.
Marketing Like Obama
Found this today on YouTube. It appears as though companies are jumping on the themes of President Obama’s campaign and trying to use them to drive consumerism. As great as I think it is that a company like Starbucks is encouraging involvement in the community I find myself a little disgusted that they are using a moment like this as another reason to consume. I also am a little perplexed as to how Starbucks can legitimately claim to encourage consumers to be sustainable (which they try to do in the video). Drinking $3 coffee in a paper cup is about as unsustainable as it gets in my opinion.
On a slightly related sidenote the design in this video is just great. The colors, animation, and music is amazing.
Rebutting the Daily Kos
In an article posted this morning the Daily Kos quote Washington Post writer David Ignatius who wrote:
Obama’s speech showed us, once again, that the new president really means it when he says that he wants to create a new kind of politics for a “postpartisan” America. This has been difficult for some of his supporters to accept, in their rage against the Bush presidency and their understandable desire to settle scores with those who took the country into a dark and painful time. But Obama wants none of it. “On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.” Did that cause a moment of self-reflection at Rush Limbaugh’s offices, or at the Daily Kos? I doubt it, but one can always hope.
Hunter at the Daily Kos then preceded to rail against Ignatius and wrote that:
I would feel better about these pointed words towards us (and by direct extension, me) if I knew which things counted as the “petty grievances” that a radical voice like mine should be “reflecting” upon. Which were they? Was it speaking too loudly of the devolution of the United States into unapologetic torture? Was it complaining of the lives lost in Iraq, or making petty noises that even the president should follow the Constitution when it came to spying upon certain Americans, or making the case for their internment?
It’s views like this that make me sick to consider myself a liberal, or a Democrat. Hunter here seized on the phrase “petty grievances” and yet somehow largely ignored that which came after. As part of that Obama quote he talks about “the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.” I’m sorry Hunter, you’re a great writer and your blog has some great content, but here you’re simply perpetuating those dogmas that have created such a partisan divide and created the context in which it has become exceedingly difficult to actually accomplish anything.
I will not disagree with you nor try to argue that your stances on torture, the Iraq War, etc. are wrong or misguided; in fact, I agree with you wholeheartedly. What I disagree with is you presumption that these views are moderate, correct, and ought to be put into practice as they are. The fact is that these are the views of a significantly liberal blogger and represent just one worldview. Now, granted, your worldview is probably a little more encompassing than Limbaugh’s, O’Reily’s, or Hannity’s but that doesn’t give you or your ideas the power to simply be the unquestioned proper way of handling something. What you and other liberal and conservative bloggers fail to realize is that the views and opinions that the other side hold are just as apparent, natural, and “right” as you believe yours to be. By believing that you are the voice of reason and logic you are pushing the opposing population out of the political arena. By delegitimatizing the politics of the Limbaugh’s, O’Reily’s, and Hannity’s of the nation you are strengthening their conviction to stand up for what they see as right and natural too.
If you, and your opposites on the right, cannot set aside your ideals and work to incorporate the views and people of the opposition, then it will be exponentially more difficult to accomplish anything of substance in these next four years. President Obama desires to move past party politics in order to incorporate the entire population of the nation. Yes, he probably does believe that the ideas of Limbaugh are ludicrous, but he does not simply write them off as such. He gives the appearance of thoughtfulness and challenges those who disagree to speak up and present their ideas to him (notably, Krugman with the stimulus package). By acknowledging that the opposing views are legitimate and working toward incorporating the entire population of the United States into the political arena President Obama is putting this nation first. I would only like to see the political commentators on each side do the same.