Apparently Obama is related to Brad Pitt, and Clinton to Angelina Jolie.
Obama has a prolific presidential lineage that features Democrats and Republicans. His distant cousins include President George W. Bush and his father, George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Harry S. Truman and James Madison. Other Obama cousins include Vice President Dick Cheney, British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill and Civil War General Robert E. Lee.
+ Article
here.
Labels: politics
The Wall Street Journal, after perhaps a lackluster week (I've been grabbing the absent neighbor's deliveries each morning) put out a great paper today. Try the links below, but if they expire, either read them through the back door (
details here) or swing by for the print edition at The Sadbear.
+
A Thinking Man's Speech (Peggy Noonan dissects Obama's race speech; heaps praise)
+ The
Marvel of Marfa (superb art writing, blends depth with accessibility)
+
The Black Keys (new album and mini bio)
+ The
Cuban Art Revolution (w/ slideshow)
+
Thoughts on movies that remind you they're just movies
Labels: Black Keys, film, journalism, Obama, Wall Street Journal
Arthur C. Clarke
died this morning. Watch his
last message to man, posted to YouTube in December when was completing his “90th orbit around the sun”.
“I am sometimes asked how I would like toe be remembered. I've had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer, space promoter, and science popularizer. Of all these, I want to be remembered as a writer, one who entertained readers and hopefully stretch their imaginations as well.”
Labels: deaths, film, science fiction, space
“She established contact, and immediately those two whales seemed to relax.”Read the whole thing; it's so good.
Expert: Dolphins have “a great capacity for altruistic activities.”
Labels: animals, science
A really interesting article from the
K-Zoo Gazette on the racially-diverse
Western Michigan basketball team. I think it's an interesting article in that I've never really seen race treated this bluntly before in a sports article. Usually it's a little dicier than that.
Also, I found this blog,
Improbable Soccer, which highlights some interesting things about the world's most popular sport. Choice quote (in a post entitled "The Most Distinguished Team In The World! …according to Wikipedia," which is about how he likes searching Wikipedia for interesting facts about teams from small, relatively insignificant countries):
"So if you, as I do, go traipsing through Wikipedia, RSSSF, The Roon Ba, and others searching for obscure teams and small leagues, you might, right about the time you lost coherence, come across KPMG United FC in the MFL League in the Turks & Caicos Islands.
And you would then come across the following list, as did I (you know what? Screw this second person schwa. I can’t keep it up - so just pretend you’re reading an erudite article in the second person - pretend I’m William F. Buckley, but less dead, and more football oriented)."Labels: interesting shit, journalism, race relations, sports
A creator of
Rate My Cop says, “Our website's purpose is to break the stereotype that people have that cops are all bad by having officers become responsible for their actions.”
Meanwhile, the vice president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association
struggles with the notion of freedom of information and the First Amendment.
The site's database was compiled from public records and does not include personal information.
Update: The site was
censored by GoDaddy.
Also, listen to
this recording that plays two Linkin Park songs at once, demonstrating that all Linkin Park songs sound exactly the same. Use the volume control interface on your computer to turn on and off the left or right channel, to compare one song to the “other”.
Labels: censorship, Internet, law, music
Chabon's got a sweet article in the New Yorker about
superhero costumes. And yes, "unitard theory."
Labels: authors, awesome shit, superheroes, uniforms
The Toronto Power Company tunnels look fascinating.
Also, check out the Hillsdale Praxis Blog posts on
Pennygate and a high school's
two-second limit on hugs.
Labels: architecture, kids, photography, trends
On an only slightly related and far more trivial note, I saw the "blacker black" and had to post
this.
Perhaps the most garish sports uniform of any kind? Somehow I figured that it wasn't possible for black and only black to make a uniform completely shitty - I always had
teal or
magenta pegged in that role. This is, after all, Oregon. The same people who brought you such luminary uniforms as
this. So go figure.
Labels: basketball, black, uniforms
From
Washington Post via Kansas City Star via
Design Observer:
Researchers in New York reported last month that they have created a paper-thin material that absorbs 99.955 percent of the light that hits it, making it by far the darkest substance ever made — about 30 times as dark as the government’s current standard for blackest black.
The material, made of hollow fibers, is a Roach Motel for photons — light checks in, but it never checks out. By voraciously sucking up all surrounding illumination, it can give those who gaze on it a dizzying sensation of nothingness.
