Photo of the campaign so far from Doug Mills of The New York Times, showing Barack Obama at a rainy rally Saturday at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
The other photo, from the AP, is from a rally today in Hockeytown.
Photo of West 110th Street Playground in the Times by Sara Cedar Miller/Central Park Conservancy
You don't even need to read the Times' blog entry, Obama, Kennedys Resonate with Youth--just check out the photo.
New York Times photo by Damon Winter
What a great photo... too bad it comes with a thumbsucker of an article, Where Boys Were Kings, a Shift Toward Baby Girls.
New York Times photo by Seokyong Lee
Some breathtaking photos of NYC; for impish commentary, click the 'I' on the first photo.
If Let's be friends and it's "Touching photos of unusual animal friendships" doesn't bring a smile to your face... you may not be human?
So you know how NASA's Voyager space probes carry a Golden Record:
The Voyager message is carried by a phonograph record-a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. The contents of the record were selected for NASA by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan of Cornell University. Dr. Sagan and his associates assembled 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind and thunder, birds, whales, and other animals. To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings from Earth-people in fifty-five languages, and printed messages from President Carter and U.N. Secretary General Waldheim.Maybe they should've sent this poster instead, which compares the size of starships from Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5, etc. (I like, by the way, how Wikipedia entries about these movies and shows read as if they're real).
Every time I see or read about blowfishes, I'm reminded of the time I was in a trendy Japanese restaurant in Seattle and one of my favorite co-workers ever went up--delightfully--to one of the fish tanks and tapped on the glass. At which point she was so startled by the blowfish's predictable reaction that she jumped back, only to swing back onto the glass and laughingly puff out her own cheeks and bug out her eyes in response.
The expression on the faces of the couple sitting at the table directly under the tank only added to my mirth.
Corbis photo via New York Magazine; their caption is worth checking out.
From About.com, Black and White Twins
A mixed-race British mom gave birth to twins recently - one of each.My favorite digg comment: "Let the long term observational studies begin!"
No, not a boy and a girl. Two girls - one black, the other white.
The odds of such a birth are about a million to one, experts said.
So, really, all I need to say is China is asking the public to help them name 18 baby pandas--as the China Daily's headline reads, Love giant pandas? Name them.
(I saw the posting via Gothamist, whose editor extraordinaire Jen Chung is a known panda-addict).
Oh, and the website has photos of all 18--I can't emphasize how great the photos are--as well as little biographical tidbits. Basket girl's, for instance, reads:
Female, born on August 25th, 2006I think Fox should buy the rights to the show; I mean, all they'd have to do each week is show video of baby pandas, it'd be like the 5th-ranked show on tv.
Mothers name: Hua Hua
Birth weight: 121.2g
Current weight: 8.2kg
Features: weaker than her brother Panda No. 11, she has an oval face, is slim, has an open personality, and other pandas the same age like to play with her.
Before the web, 13 photographs that changed the world wouldn't have been nearly so interesting.
For one thing, it probably would never have been written--back in the dark ages, ordinary people didn't publish. Second, you probably wouldn't have seen all 13 photos along with the article. Third, there wouldn't have been hundreds of
interesting reader comments.
So there really should be a 14th photo; maybe a screen grab of this page.
1946 Gandhi photo by Margaret Bourke-White
Check out these enhanced photos on Flickr by Arnold Pouteu of New York City by night; I recommend the slideshow, at 2.1 seconds each.
They're quite good; as someone who's regularly exposed to the works of a great photographer, I'd say his balance is a little off, too much sky/water to city ratio sometimes for my taste. But that may be deliberate.
Like other HDR photos, the luminescence of the scene grabs you... what a beautiful city, how great is it that so many wonderful photographers live here....
Ironically, NYC's interesting contrast of dark and light is being literally washed out--the Times had an interesting article, Tilting at Lampposts, about one woman's fight against light pollution.
Photos by Arnold Pouteu via Flickr.
The latest Times book review section takes a look at photographer Pete Turner's The Color of Jazz, which collects some of the notable album covers that use his photos.
Turner, who learned his craft in the military, apparently is known both for his striking images and the tints he gives them. His photos are great; you wonder a bit what's real and what's not, but somehow they work.
Pete Turner photos Giraffe, Ibiza Women, and Sand Dune in Namibia via Photo District News.
One of my favorite yearly political rituals is seeing what the world's leaders are forced to wear at the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit. I think it's great that some of the most powerful people in the world dutifully line up for photos wearing whatever native garb the host nation's chosen--outfits that usually I've never seen anyone, 'native' or not, wear in public before.
There's something fleetingly egalitarian and almost anachronistic about seeing the American president, in particular, robed outlandishly along with his peers (and not-so-peers).
I imagine soon after the summit disbands thousands if not millions of huts in some 3rd World country adorned with torn-out newspaper photos of the world's grand pooh-bahs, dressed as one of their own. Heck, apart from the Ms. Universe pageant, it's often the one chance the hosts have of exposing the entire world to their sartorial heritage (or lack thereof).
Of course, it's entirely possible the hosts, under the guise of 'tradition', are just trying to top each other in coming up with ridiculous color combinations and fabrics.
If so, this year's Vietnamese outfits may be hard to beat. In the artfully headlined World leaders ill at ease over tunics and North Korea, the London Telegraph wrote:
The leaders of most of the world's major powers were united in discomfort yesterday as they posed in traditional silk tunics following a summit in Vietnam – but failed to show the same common purpose over North Korea.In 2007, it's Australia's turn to host. In anticipation, the Sydney Morning Herald ran an article, Embarrassments: Next time, it's singlets, that started:
A tight-lipped George W Bush looked especially unimpressed with his pastel blue ao dai, a flowing garment that is nowadays worn almost exclusively by women.
Next to him stood a similarly grim-looking Vladimir Putin of Russia, although Hu Jintao, the Chinese leader, appeared more comfortable.
On a slender female form the ao dai, a clinging piece of clothing slit to above the hip, is elegant and alluring, but when sported by middle-aged Caucasian men is substantially less flattering.
The male version, cut slightly differently, has been largely abandoned by Vietnamese men, even on formal occasions. Mr Bush took the first chance he had to remove his once the official photo call was finished, an annual ritual at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit.
The tradition began in Seattle in 1993, when President Clinton offered his guests leather bomber jackets, and they have gone on to don Indonesian batik, Philippine barong made of pineapple fibres and Mexican ponchos.
This year, the leaders had a choice of five colours of ao dai, all of them embroidered with golden lotus flowers. In feudal times yellow was reserved for the king, but it was chosen only by the Thai prime minister and the Vietnamese president, while the Sultan of Brunei, the sole monarch, picked green.
The majority wore blue — traditionally the uniform of petty officials — while all three women leaders dressed in pink.
Despite their efforts to proclaim a united front over North Korea's nuclear ambitions, the positions they took, though sheathed in diplomatic nuances, were almost as varied as the hues of their silks.
It's all very well mocking the dresses worn by political leaders at the end of the APEC meeting in Vietnam this year, but can you do any better? Next year Australia is the host of this summit, and we'd better start now if we're going to design a garment that doesn't shame us in front of the world. That's the challenge this column is setting you this week.There's a funny comment from a reader in response:
With respect to attire for next year's APEC meeting. We have essentially two options: (i) refer to "Ten Canoes" for traditional Australian attire. (ii) Prison clothes (after all, was it not Governor Macquarie who said there are 2 types of people in Australia - those who have been convicted and those who should have been? Perhaps that has some relevance to those attending the APEC meeting.AP photo and caption of President Bush talking with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, rear, as Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada talked to President Michelle Bachelet of Chile, foreground [apparently the two Asian leaders are invisible!] at the economic summit meeting of Asian nations in Vietnam by Tom Hanson/Canadian Press, via the Times.
Ah, the Internet--so much stuff, so little time.
Randall Munroe, a guy who used to work for NASA, runs a site that's trying to "find the funniest image in the world, using voting and some algorithms," and one that's trying to find the prettiest image.
Duh, that would be my beloved. The latter, that is.
Uncredited images from Munroe's site.
As Voltage Self-Illuminating Hair Gel proves, we really are living in an age of miracles, where all our dreams can come true. I feel like I'm constantly stumbling across things on websites that make me go 'wow.'
Photo of product via HouseofRave.com
Flickr has a feature where you can see "random selection of some of the interesting things discovered on Flickr within the last 7 days."
There are a lot of talented people out there, many busy shooting travel, kids, animals, nature, architecture photos. Generally with great color and lighting; mostly 'obvious' yet well-composed shots.
Sometimes startling beautiful.
Nomads child, by Mielna
Round house, by hyperfocusing
Best of the Best Cali, short hair manx, 4, of Trenton, N.J., is seen with her medal at the 2006 Cat Fanciers' Association-Iams Cat Championship at Madison Square Garden, Sunday, October 15, 2006 in New York. Three hundred pedigreed cats representing 41 recognized breeds competed in the show. AP caption and photo by Shiho Fukada.
A Porch and Flowering Meadow, 6 Floors Up
Anne Raver in the Times: David Puchkoff, Eileen Stukane and their daughter, Masha, were sitting on their porch, looking out over a carpet of sedums topped with tiny yellow, white and purple flowers and watching storm clouds build over the Empire State Building. ...More proof that you can find just about anything in New York, usually with a twist.
Mr. Puchkoff, who lives with his family on the top floor of a six-story building on Greenwich Street in the West Village, went to an architect friend, Lawrence Tobe, and told him he wanted a porch. “David wanted a folly, something to take him away from New York,” Mr. Tobe said. “I’ve done some roof terraces, but nothing that cool.” ...
This 1,200-square-foot meadow is planted with thousands of sedums. Native mostly to Europe and Asia, these fleshy plants thrive in heat and drought. (When it rains, they absorb water like a sponge).
Interesting cover from the British newspaper The Independent.
Seen via NewsDesigner.com
