Obama and ASU

i have a few things to say about Obama’s commencement address at ASU this week.

First, i think the address itself was really good.  I like how he keep’s it real.  Even though he now officially part of “The System” he can still talk about short-term election-winning activities and doing what’s good for the country.  That makes me happy.  He says:

In the face of these challenges, it may be tempting to fall back on the formulas for success that have dominated these recent years. Many of you have been taught to chase after the usual brass rings: being on this “who’s who” list or that top 100 list; how much money you make and how big your corner office is; whether you have a fancy enough title or a nice enough car.

You can take that road – and it may work for some of you. But at this difficult time, let me suggest that such an approach won’t get you where you want to go; that in fact, the elevation of appearance over substance, celebrity over character, short-term gain over lasting achievement is precisely what your generation needs to help end.

I also thought it was cool how he was able to relate Winston Churchill to Kurt Warner:

Just look to history. Thomas Paine was a failed corset maker, a failed teacher, and a failed tax collector before he made his mark on history with a little book called Common Sense that helped ignite a revolution. Julia Child didn’t publish her first cookbook until she was almost fifty, and Colonel Sanders didn’t open up his first Kentucky Fried Chicken until he was in his sixties. Winston Churchill was dismissed as little more than a has-been, who enjoyed scotch just a bit too much, before he took over as Prime Minister and saw Great Britain through its finest hour. And no one thought a former football player stocking shelves at the local supermarket would return to the game he loved, become a Super Bowl MVP, and then come here to Arizona and lead your Cardinals to their first Super Bowl.

Each of them, at one point in their life, didn’t have any title or much status to speak of. But they had a passion, a commitment to following that passion wherever it would lead, and to working hard every step along the way.

But by far my favorite thing about him going to ASU and not getting an honorary degree is The Daily Show skit about it.  They just take ASU apart.  Click to watch:

Obama poster drama

I heard a great podcast yesterday on NPR about the iconic Obama poster (seen above). The poster is done by a fascinating artist named Shepherd Fairey.  It’s a little known fact that Fairey is also responsible for the Andre The Giant “OBEY” sketches that i remember from the 90’s.  He really gets around.

In this case, Fairey took a photo he found on Google and then altered the neck, the eyes and the colors (and cropped out George Clooney) to make a poster than came to symbolize the campaign.  Shepherd always claimed that he made the poster from an Associated Press photo and about a month ago, it was finally determined which photo he used and who the photographer was. It was a photo of Obama sitting at a press event in Darfur with George Clooney.

All this would be nice and peachy except that because the photo was an AP photo, the AP came to Fairey and threatened to sue if he didn’t dish out a percentage of revenue he made from the poster. Fairey acknowledged that he’s willing to pay the standard license fee and attribute the photo to the original photographer but he won’t be bullied into paying.  So, instead he sued the AP in an attempt to discourage companies from punishing artists for creating art.

While his argument stands on fair use, to me the real issue is about people making derivative works. It’s the 21st century and lots of people take lots of images and transforming them into art. If each is penalized into paying a bounty for the original source we’re limiting and hurting society.

In this day and age, users are both consumers and creators of content.  So many YouTube videos have copyrighted works in them.  Last week there was a huge fiasco around Facebook’s Terms of Service when they claimed they owned all user uploaded material.  Thankfully, they backed off.  But the backlash from the users illustrates that ownership of property, attribution, and sharing is really important to the web.

If anything this just leads me more and more into believing in Creative Commons. It’s truly the only mechanism that let’s people properly manage their rights

One of the more amazing photos i’ve seen

Check out this image of Obama’s inaugural speech.  It’s a 1400 Megapixel photo.  This allows you to do some ridiculous zooming in.  You can even check out Bush’s sour face.  Pretty cool.   Here’s the article where the photographer explains how it was done.  Click on the photo below to see the sweet details

A power, pop-culture, family

i just realized this:

Obama’s chief of staff is a guy named Rahm Emanuel.  Two interesting facts about him i learned from his Wikipedia entry:

1. He was the inspiration for the character Josh Lyman on Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing.  My sister would know better but i believe he was pretty cool
2. Rahm’s brother, Ari Emanuel, is the inspiration for the character Ari on HBO’s Entourage (Jeremy Piven).

Is that not an amazing made-for-tv family?!  I wonder if they sit around the dinner table over Thanksgiving and talk about which fictional character is cooler?   While Lyman is probably a better person, i’d give the edge to Ari as he’s much more entertaining and popular.   What do you think?

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We Now Live in Obama Nation

Last night we elected Barack Hussein Obama to be president of United States.  I’m incredible excited about this – much more so than i thought i would be.  I find that i’m constantly wedged between people who are overly optimisitic about the political situation in American and people who are consistenly negative and pessemistic.  Listening to Obama last night, i couldn’t help but caught up in the hope and optimism that is reverbirating through the country.  Some things i feel:

1. We have an intelligent president again.  Obama was president of the Law Review at Harvard.  You don’t get there by being competent.  Clinton was this way too.  Bush wasn’t. I like the thought of having a President who can take in lots of inputs and process them intelligently.
2. I feel that Obama will be more transparent than past Presidents.  This isn’t a rip on Bush but rather a reflection of our times.  With the rise of the Internet, information is everywhere and the world is becoming exposed.  You can no longer protect information. Instead you need to over-communicate and release it.  Angelina Jolie figured this out and releases more press releases than any other celebrity around and i think Obama has too.  One line he spoke yesterday was: But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree.” makes me think we’ll more information from the Obama camp than we’ve heard from past presidents
3. The return of Joe Biden.  Biden was a Senator at age 30 and was once thought to be the future of the Democratic party.  Time hasn’t shown that to be true but it’ll be interesting to see how he puts his foreign relation skills to use
4. Shedding the dillusionment of American Politics.  Most people i know couldn’t care less about what the govement does. “It doesn’t matter to me” is a common response.  But, these same people felt inspired by a candidate for the first time (at leat that i can remember).  The passion i saw the older generation talk about JFK, i saw people talk about Obama and i felt it too.  If Obama would have lost, i think we would have lost the younger voters forever.  Fortunately it’s moving in the other direction

I’m happier than i ever thought i’d be about a President.  Last nigth when the results were announced all the cars in Hollywood started honking their horns for about 30 minutes. It was loud, obnoxious and totally amazing.

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NYTimes is the only legit map

I’m at work and trying to figure out who’s winning the election and what i notice is that every site is different.  Some have called over 15 states already whereas others have only called 2.  How can this happen?  It can happen b/c lots of sites are just making the news up.

The NYTimes however has a map that is reporting county by county and showing that reporting in real time.  This is real facts and you can see the actual information as it comes in.  Sure, they are way behind Yahoo, CNBC, CNN and BBC in results but they happen to have the real deal.  That’s where my browser’s going to be for the next few hours.

County by County

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Undecided Voters

I thought this was a good article by David Sedaris in The New Yorker:

I don’t know that it was always this way, but, for as long as I can remember, just as we move into the final weeks of the Presidential campaign the focus shifts to the undecided voters. “Who are they?” the news anchors ask. “And how might they determine the outcome of this election?”

Then you’ll see this man or woman— someone, I always think, who looks very happy to be on TV. “Well, Charlie,” they say, “I’ve gone back and forth on the issues and whatnot, but I just can’t seem to make up my mind!” Some insist that there’s very little difference between candidate A and candidate B. Others claim that they’re with A on defense and health care but are leaning toward B when it comes to the economy.

I look at these people and can’t quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention?

To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

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Am I the only one…

who thinks that if McCain is elected that he’ll pass away and Palin will become President?  I know everyone knows that it’s a possibility but i’m SURE it will happen. It’s almost destiny.  Here’s someone who was in city council until 1996 and then mayor from 1996 – 2002 of Wasilla, a town of 5500 people.  This is the size of my high school.

Only in America can someone go from being a mayor of a town of 5000 to leader of the free world in 4 years.  Very interesting times….

World Peace? We’re Closer than we think

During my trip to Maui, i brought along the book “The Post-American World” by Fareed Zakaria. It’s a good read (not done yet). One part i really liked at the begging was when he was talking about how war and organized violence have declined substantially over the past 60 years – and dramatically over the last two decades. This was news to me. He writes:

The general magnitude of global warfare has decreased by over 60% [since the mid-1980's], falling by the end of 2004 to its lowest level since the late 1950’s. Violence increased steadily throughout the Cold War – increasing sixfold between the 1950’s and early 1990’s – but the trend peaked just before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the extent of warfare among and within states lessened by nearly half in the first decade after the Cold War.

To that Harvard’s professor Steven Pinker argues, “That today we are probably living int he most peaceful time in our species’ existence.”

This seems so contrary to what i feel everyday due to the constant news of terrorism, bombings, airline accidents, etc. Zakaria addresses this saying:

One reason for the mismatch between reality and our sense of it might be that, over these same decades, we have experienced a revolution in information technology that now brings us news from around the world instantly, vividly, and continuiously…. Every weather disturbance is “the story of the century”. Every bomb that explodes is BREAKING NEWS. It is difficult to put this all in context because the information revolution is so new. We didn’t get daily footage on the ~2 million who died in the killing fields of Cambodia in the 1970’s or the million who perished in teh sands of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1908’s

But now the deaths of ten, because they are seen up close, make the world seem more and more dangerous. When, in fact, the opposite is true.

Joke: How many is that?

Got this from here and it gave me a chuckle.

Donald Rumsfeld is giving the president his daily briefing. He concludes by saying: “Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed.”

“OH NO!” the President exclaims. “That’s terrible!”

His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sits, head in hands.

Finally, the President looks up and asks, “How many is a brazillion?”