Obama images (Obamages?)

So things have settled down a little bit and now Mr. Obama has been hard at work for several days. Like I have been saying, I think this has been a historic event, one that many many many people across America and around the world will remember and reflect back upon for the rest of their lives. However, as I also have been saying, he doesn't get a free pass from me and I am going to be liberal with criticisms when I feel they are merited.

Here are some cool images of our new Chief Executive:

First, the action figure (if you ever want something and you can't imagine that anyone would ever have created it, check Japan first.)

The inspirational leader:



Ready for al-Qaeda:


Now, more conventional shots from the Boston Globe -- More conventional, perhaps, but they are excellent and fascinating -- make sure to check the rest of them out!





Here are some of the famous shots from outer space 9example below).

Here's a good point: ...the GeoEye-1 satellite would be taking images of President Obama’s inauguration from 423 miles up — in space. This could only have worked on a clear day so clouds didn’t block the view. Good news: It was a clear day, and the pictures (above and below) look great.


You know, this guy just seems like he can not lose on the weather... Remember this yahoo who wanted everyone to pray for rain on the night of his DNC speech at Mile High Stadium? It couldn't have been a lovelier summer night. And I can tell you first hand that when he gave his acceptance speech in Grant Park Nov. 4th, it was fantastic weather in the Chicago area... a week later it was freezing.

Sweet Home Chicago

Back from our Washington D.C./Virginia trip -- Jefferson, Madison, Library of Congress, Embassy Row, Spy Museum, lots of stuff. Pictures and comments to follow.

Finally Finished Hirohito Book

I finally finished a book I started last fall, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, by Herbert Bix. Here's the Booknotes interview and transcript for that book. Lengthy (as it had to be) but very well-researched and thorough. I wanted to read this after I saw the film Japan's Longest Day, about the intrigues amongst members of the Japanese military and cabinet in the final days of WWII. Prof. Bix takes the Emperor to task for his leadership in military aggression towards China, Korea, Southeast Asia, The United States, Britain, and The Netherlands, and documents how it was in both Japan's and America's best interests after the war to portray him as a peace-loving figurehead so as to keep Japan as a buffer against Soviet and Chinese communism during the Cold War. Well worth reading, but make sure you either set aside a good chunk of time, or else be prepared to pick it up and put it down quite a bit before finishing.

Weekend Stuff

Items:

• Magazine Art (soon to be on blogroll) Excerpt: We like art. Art wants to be seen; it does no good if it can't be seen. There's a lot of art that's been hidden away for fifty or a hundred years or more—hidden away not because it's bad art, or because someone tried to suppress it, but just because it was part of something transient. Once that transient thing had its day in our living rooms, it fell from view and the art that it held was lost to us.
• Click for a timeline of the history of the world by Milo Manara. This one has all the good stuff left in it. (NSFW.)
• We saw Hot Fuzz last night and we loved it! Make sure to see Shaun of the Dead either shortly before or shortly after so as to be able to make fresh comparisons, of which there are numerous to be made.

Schlesinger Obit, Samurai Vader, IQ Scarcity, Floyd/Bee Gees Mashup

Items:

• Farewell to historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. NYT obit excerpt: Mr. Schlesinger wore a trademark dotted bowtie, showed an acid wit and had a magnificent bounce to his step. He was a lifelong aficionado of perfectly blended martinis. Between marathons of writing as much as 5,000 words a day, he was a fixture at Georgetown salons when Washington was clubbier and more elitist. In New York, he was a man about town, whether at Truman Capote’s famous parties or escorting Jacqueline Kennedy to the movies.
• Here's Darth Vader's uniform Samuraized. Excerpt: Transforming Vader into a Samurai, or a Samurai into Vader, required the integration of several design motifs that married the traditional with the fantastic. "First, we hit on the idea of adding the 'front crest', which was designed based on the Imperial Icon, to the front of the helmet," says Yoshitoku. "By adding this, the 'leader of the Imperial Army' image is emphasized, as ancient Japanese military commanders used their ancestral family emblems on their front crest. We also added a Vader-like design to the face guard (called a menpo) which features a handcrafted look as if artisans of the past had done it."
• I'm sure we all know people for whom the phrase "scarcity of IQ" applies. Here's a thumbnail economic analysis of that phenomenon. Excerpt: In practical terms, "Conservation of IQ" is used to argue for limits on immigration, against various meliorist attempts, and possibly even for eugenics. I've heard it used to argue for outlawing marijuana, which of course destroys brain cells... ...I don't assign special status to The Conservation of IQ for two reasons. The first is the Flynn effect, or the fact that measured IQs have been rising steadily over time. This implies some combination of a) IQ gains come naturally under conditions of progress, and b) IQ statistics are to some extent phony and don't measure real intelligence. We can debate the mix, but either deflates fears that IQ is somehow especially scarce or endangered. These data also suggest that IQ is an artifice to be unpacked rather than a primary category.
• Pink Floyd meets the Bee Gees!

Audio Technologies Described in 1901 Edition of 1876 History Book

Below are some scans I made of some pages of an old book I have from 1901 by a historian named John Clark Ridpath. Here are online copies of a couple of his other books. These pages talk about advances in technology, such as the telephone and phonograph (note how those terms are capitalized). The next couple of (yet-unscanned) pages described the electric light and the Brooklyn Bridge. Maybe I can scan them in later for another blog entry.

I appreciate some of the thoughts expressed on page 654:

Perhaps the most striking feature of the civilization of our times is exhibited in THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, as illustrated in the thousand applications of discovery and invention to the wants of mankind. At no other age in the history of the world has the practial knowledge of nature's laws been so rapidly and widely diffused; and at no other epoch has the subjection of natural relations to the will of man been so wonderfully displayed. The old life of the human race is giving place to the new life, based on science, and energized by the knowledge that the conditions of man's environment are as benevolent as they are immutable.

I'm a huge audiobook fan (right now I'm listening to the unabridged audio of the new book Halsey's Typhoon, which is a detailed study of this incident) so I was interested to read this passage from pages 657-58:

Some experiments have already been made looking to the utilization of the Phonograph as a practical addition to the civilizing apparatus of our times. It has been proposed to stereotype the tin-foil record of what has been uttered in the mouth-piece, and thus to preserve in a permanent form the potency of vanished sounds. If this could be successfully and perfectly accomplished the invention of the Phonograph would, doubtless, take rank with the greatest of the age, and might possibly revolutonize the whole method of learning. It would seem, indeed, that nature has intended the ear, rather than the eye, as the organ of education. It seems to be against the everlasting fitness of things that the eyes of all mankind should be strained, weakened, permanently injured, in childhood with the unnatral tasks which are imposed upon that delicate organ. It would seem to be more in accordance with the nature and capacities of man and the general character of the external world to reserve the eye for the discernment and appreciation of beauty, and to impose upon the ear the tedious and hard tasks of education. The Phonograph makes it possible to read by the ear, instead of by the eye; and it is not beyond the range of probability that the book of the future, near or remote, will be written in phonographic plates and made to reveal its story to the waiting ear rather than through the medium of print to the enfeebled and tired eye of the reader.

And if you don't believe him about the occular challenges, just ask Henry Bemis. I'd hate for Ridpath to be disappointed by mass blogospheric eye strain, but I bet he'd love podcasts.

Profiles of Pre-Mayoral Daleys From 1930s and 70s

I was going through some of the interesting old books I have on my shelves and playing with my HP PSC. One of them (not that old) is the 1975-76 Illinois Blue Book (which was actually white that year). The Blue Book is a government publication that contains all sorts of information about Illinois politicians, etc. There were a few of them from different years that I found in a resale shop once for $0.25 each or something like that. Here's the current occupant of the mayor's office.

And here's his dad with some of his pals from the 1939-40 volume of that same publication:

I have some real old books from the late 1800s and early 1900s from which I want to scan some stuff as well, just need to take the time to make sure I don't mess up their spines when I copy them.

Saw CIA Movie; Conservative Praises Hippies; 1876 Harper's Cartoons; Unfilmable; Jigsaw Puzzles

Several items of interest:

• The ♥G♥ and I just got back from seeing The Good Shepherd, about the early days of the CIA. I liked it, even though Roger Ebert rogerebert.com didn't. More comments on this film later.
• Via Glenn Greenwald -- I thought these were some interesting observations by conservative Christian Rod Dreher, who is a columnist for the Dallas Morning News. Excerpt: The fraud, the mendacity, the utter haplessness of our government's conduct of the Iraq war have been shattering to me. It wasn't supposed to turn out like this. Not under a Republican President. I turn 40 next month -- middle aged at last -- a time of discovering limits, finitude. I expected that. But what I did not expect was to see the limits of finitude of American power revealed so painfully. I did not expect Vietnam. As I sat in my office last night watching President Bush deliver his big speech, I seethed over the waste, the folly, the stupidity of this war. I had a heretical thought for a conservative - that I have got to teach my kids that they must never, ever take Presidents and Generals at their word - that their government will send them to kill and die for noble-sounding rot - that they have to question authority. On the walk to the parking garage, it hit me. Hadn't the hippies tried to tell my generation that? Why had we scorned them so blithely?
• Here are a bunch of Harper's Weekly cartoons by Thomas Nast and others about the disputed 1876 presidential election. Here are the members of the Electoral Commission.
• A list (with explanations) of impossible-to-film novels. Excerpt: Remembrance of Things Past -- Also known as ‘In Search of Lost Time’ (which makes it sound like a Jules Verne yarn), Marcel Proust’s contribution to the world of literature is so difficult to film as it’s so damn long. The novel is divided into seven books, each one long enough alone! Although I’ve only managed to read the first two books, the entire volume seems to be autobiographical, about a sickly young man who aspires to be a writer, despite the distraction of 19th Century society. Proust’s novels incorporate the idea of scents, sounds, and certain objects pushing associated memories to the fore. Probably more suited as a TV serial, there have been a few films, mostly adapting one of the books. The best is Time Regained, starring Catherine Deneuve and John Malkovich. If anyone can do it: The closing moments of Terence Malick’s New World displayed the kind of editing that can summarise years in seconds with aesthetic brilliance. He’s the man for such a mammoth, ethereal task, though half of it would probably be shots of trees.
• LBNL, Jigsaw Puzzles: A Brief History.
  

Very Interesting Documentary on Adolf Eichmann Trial

We're partway through (hope to finish tomorrow) a fascinating documentary on the 1961-62 trial and sentencing of SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann from several years ago, called The Specialist: Portrait of a Modern Criminal. It's all footage from Eichmann's trial, without any commentary or explanations except those of the judge, prosectors, witnesses, and Eichmann himself. The footage was shot by a filmmaker named Leo Hurwitz (here's part of an interview with his son, Tom, who has done stuff for PBS) and this film was put together by another filmmaker (who wasn't even born at the time) named Eyal Sivan. It's well-worth viewing.

I wonder if the media handlers in Saddam's trial were going for the same effect as this trial, kind of like when they had Colin Powell Adlaicize the U.N. prior to the invasion of Iraq.

The doc says it is insipired by Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, a well-known work by philosopher Hannah Arendt, of which I have an unread (by me, anyway) copy right here. I might dig into that after I get myself to finish the unjustly procrastinated Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan.

Here's a contemporary newsreel, here's a summary of how the Israeli Secret Service caught him, and here is practically every piece of documenation you could want on the 4 1/2-month-long trial.

Odds and Ends

A few things of interest lately (cleaning out some favorites links):

• I freakin' LOVE this Black Sabbath/Kurosawa mash-up in which War Pigs is synched up with a trailer for Seven Samurai.
• I also have to enthusiastically point you towards this renditon of Sunday Bloody Sunday by George "Double-U2" Bush. You didn't know he could sing? Check him out on Imagine too.
• Attention, scholars: Here's a collection of Greek, Roman, Germanic, and 19th-Century American documents from the University of Chicago.
• Attention, fans of Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot! This site is for you!
• Nominations will start being accepted this Friday (Nov. 10) for the 2006 Weblog Awards. Put it on your to-do list! Oh yeah, regular voting is tomorrow, btw.
• Did I list this before? The Wikipedia Blog? Well, if not, there it is. If so, there it is again.
• Here are some Action Philosophers! free previews. (Did I list that before? If so/not so, etc. etc.)