Today’s Wall Street Journal reports that some bearish international investors have coined a new term for the countries that they believe are the weak links of the euro zone: PIIGS — which stands for Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain. That follows on the heels of the oft-used term for the most important emerging markets [...]
During last year’s presidential campaign, both McCain and Obama endlessly broadcast ads that promised “good middle class jobs.” And whenever an ad intoned that phrase, up popped an image like the one below, which comes from an Obama campaign stop: burly, 50-something (mostly white) guys wearing dirty uniforms.What drove me crazy about these ads is [...]
(Via the always brilliant xkcd)
(via Adam Richardson)
That President of ours sure can give a good speech. Check out this clip from this commencement address at Arizona State University.My hunch is that Johnny Bunko wasn’t on the desk of his speechwriters, but Obama nonetheless touches on several Bunko lessons — from “Leave an imprint” to “Make excellent mistakes” to Reader Lesson 7: [...]
In 1966, Robert Indiana gave the world a four-letter sculpture that soon became iconic.Today, on Design Observer, I saw a piece that pays homage to Indiana. (“Homage to Indiana” is totally a title for a mediocre independent film — Ed.) Like many works that have parodied Indiana’s work, this four-letter sculpture bears a superficial resemblance [...]
Let’s get a mood check on America in the waning days of February 2009. CNN’s latest poll finds that close to “eight in 10 [Americans] say that things are going badly in the country, with just 21 percent suggesting that things are going well.”No surprise there.But here’s something weird: “Three out of four questioned say [...]
Yesterday afternoon my family and I took in (literally) a stunning piece of art installed at the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum here in Washington. To celebrate Presidents Day, artist Zilly Rosen created an enormous quasi-pointillistic dual portrait of Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama, a photo of which I snapped with my iPhone. You might notice [...]
My iPhone photos from today’s ceremonies here in D.C. aren’t very good, but this one’s a keeper — in part because the woman pictured here is standing on the steps of Constitution Hall, site of the notorious Marian Anderson incident.
Here’s Obama’s speech today as a Wordle ”word cloud,” which give greater prominence to words that appear frequently in a text.
