Julian at the lake

Hudson River Valley, New York

Photo: Phil Mansfield for The New York Times

Lewis Powell

Powell in irons aboard the monitor USS Saugus, 1865
Photo uncredited

Powell attempted unsuccessfully to assassinate US Secretary of State William H Seward, and was one of four people hanged for the conspiracy to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln.

Stefano Pilati

Photo: Hendrik Kerstens

If you're lost

Time After Time
Lyrics: Cyndi Lauper

Lying in my bed I hear the clock tick,
And think of you.
Caught up in circles,
Confusion is nothing new.
Flashback, warm nights,
Almost left behind.
Suitcases of memories,
Time after...

Sometimes you picture me,
I'm walking too far ahead.
You're calling to me, I can't hear
What you've said.
Then you say, go slow.
I fall behind.
The second hand unwinds.

If you're lost you can look and you will find me,
Time after time.
If you fall I will catch you, I'll be waiting,
Time after time.

After my picture fades and darkness has
Turned to gray,
Watching through windows you're wondering
If I'm okay?
Secrets stolen from deep inside.
The drum beats out of time.

If you're lost you can look and you will find me,
Time after time.
If you fall I will catch you, I'll be waiting,
Time after time.

You said go slow,
I fall behind.
The second hand unwinds.

If you're lost you can look and you will find me,
Time after time.
If you fall I will catch you, I will be waiting,
Time after time.

Time after time.
Time after time.
Time after time.

Piaggio

Vespa GTS 300 Super

Greek/Bulgarian Border

Photo: Boryana Katsarova/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

NYTimes: A line of trucks waited near Kulata, Bulgaria, to cross the border into Greece. Bulgaria requested "urgent help" from the European Union to reopen border crossings shut for nearly a week by angry Greek farmers protesting against low food prices.

Timberland

(photographer unknown)
Torrance Chelsea Boot
Moss Waxed Suede

After the Ball

London

Photo: Getty Images
BBC Online: A sculpture of polar bears floats down the Thames, past the Houses of Parliament as part of a promotion for natural history TV channel Eden and to remind MPs of global warming.

Town Coke

Lock & Co.'s traditional bowler hat.
©James Lock & Co., London
£250.00

Glenn Greenwald

Barack Obama will have spent his first several days in office issuing a series of executive orders which, some quibbling and important caveats aside, meet or actually exceed even the most optimistic expectations of civil libertarians -- everything from ordering the closing of Guantanamo to suspending military commissions to compelling CIA interrogators to adhere to the Army Field Manual to banning CIA "black sites" and, perhaps most encouragingly (in my view): severely restricting his own power and the power of former Presidents to withhold documents on the basis of secrecy, which has been the prime corrosive agent of the Bush era. As a result, establishment and right-wing figures who have been assuring everyone that Obama would scorn "the Left" (meaning: those who believe in Constitutional safeguards) and would continue most of Bush's "counter-Terrorism" policies are growing increasingly nervous about this flurry of unexpected activity.

The Oval Office

Pete Souza/The White House

21 January 2009

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Jill Biden, former President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Clinton at the National Cathedral. (Photo: Doug Mills/The New York Times)

Washington, D.C.

Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images
NYTimes:

[To] walk a mile or so with the crowd was to observe that there was a general cheerfulness in the air as the people were drawn to a place and a moment they wanted to be. By mid-morning it was clear that the audience to watch Mr. Obama’s inauguration would surely rank with the crowds of any other inauguration, or with the 1963 multitude that heard the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

Lincoln's Bible

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them - that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works - whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day - because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control - and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart - not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

At last

"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals," Obama said. "Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake... [W]e are ready to lead once more."

West Point Leadership Qualities

From Andrew Sullivan:

Cadets at the U.S. Military Academy Thursday announced the nominees for the 2nd Annual Cadet Choice Award for the movie character that best exemplifies West Point leadership.

The nominees are:

Bruce Wayne in “The Dark Knight”
Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg in “Valkyrie”
Indiana Jones Jr. in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”
John Hancock in “Hancock”
Harvey Milk in “Milk”
James Bond in “Quantum of Solace”

Lebanon

via BBC Online:
A boy takes part in a protest outside the UN headquarters.

Joan Walsh: Salon

On Sunday's Lincoln Memorial Concert:

If you're looking for snark, go elsewhere. (OK, the bald eagle thing was kind of hokey.) I am officially over my Rick Warren tantrum (at least until I see him Tuesday); between Episcopal Bishop Eugene Robinson's moving blessing to open the concert, to the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus singing "My Country Tis of Thee" where Marian Anderson sang it almost 70 years ago (after the Daughters of the American Revolution kept her out of Constitution Hall because she was black), followed shortly thereafter by the Navy Men's Glee Club. Rick Warren, you can't take that away from me. When the openly gay Robinson called on God to "bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people," I knew we're not in Dick Cheney's America any more.

1996

Photo: Mariana Cook
The New Yorker:

MICHELLE OBAMA (1996): There is a strong possibility that Barack will pursue a political career, although it’s unclear. There is a little tension with that. I’m very wary of politics. I think he’s too much of a good guy for the kind of brutality, the skepticism.

When you are involved in politics, your life is an open book, and people can come in who don’t necessarily have good intent. I’m pretty private, and like to surround myself with people that I trust and love. In politics you’ve got to open yourself to a lot of different people.
...
If I had stayed in a law firm and made partner, my life would be completely different. I wouldn’t know the people I know, and I would be more risk-averse. Barack has helped me loosen up and feel comfortable with taking risks, not doing things the traditional way and sort of testing it out, because that is how he grew up.

Hendrik Hertzberg

Illustration: Tom Bachtell

What the public does anticipate is not miracles but competence, and its confidence in Obama’s abilities has grown. In the most recent survey—a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released on December 24th—eighty-two per cent of those questioned said they approved of Obama’s performance during the transition.
...
Obama’s ratings are unusually high—fifteen points higher than either of his two predecessors’ at the corresponding moment in their transitions, and arguably higher than anyone’s since the modern era of polling began. “Obama walks in with nearly twice the support on the economy that President-elect Clinton had in January, 1993, and he beats Ronald Reagan as well,” Keating Holland, CNN’s polling director, said.

http://tinyurl.com/85k5w2

NYTimes/CBS Poll

NYTimes:

President-elect Barack Obama is riding a powerful wave of optimism into the White House, with Americans confident he can turn the economy around but prepared to give him years to deal with the crush of problems he faces starting Tuesday, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.

While hopes for the new president are extraordinarily high, the poll found, expectations for what Mr. Obama will actually be able to accomplish appear to have been tempered by the scale of the nation’s problems at home and abroad.

The findings suggest that Mr. Obama has achieved some success with his effort — which began with his victory speech in Chicago in November — to gird Americans for a slow economic recovery and difficult years ahead after a campaign that generated striking enthusiasm and high hopes for change.

As the nation prepares for a transfer of power and the inauguration of its 44th president, Mr. Obama’s stature with the American public stands in sharp contrast to that of President Bush.

Mr. Bush is leaving office with just 22 percent of Americans offering a favorable view of how he handled the eight years of his presidency, a record low, and firmly identified with the economic crisis Mr. Obama is inheriting. More than 80 percent of respondents said the nation was in worse shape today than it was five years ago.

By contrast, 79 percent were optimistic about the next four years under Mr. Obama, a level of good will for a new chief executive that exceeds that measured for any of the past five incoming presidents. And it cuts across party lines: 58 percent of the respondents who said they voted for Mr. Obama’s opponent in the general election, Senator John McCain of Arizona, said they were optimistic about the country in an Obama administration.

Delaware

Photo: Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times

President-elect Barack Obama waved as his train pass through Claymont, Del., on its way to Washington on Saturday.

NYTimes: As he did throughout his campaign, Mr. Obama evoked imagery of Lincoln, in word and deed, as he embarked on an abridged version of Lincoln’s journey by rail to the capital before his own inaugural festivities in 1861. The trip offered a segue from celebrating his victory to confronting the daunting challenges that await him in office.

Ché B.

Hurry, Tuesday

Asked their view of President Bush at the end of his presidency, 75 percent said they are glad he is leaving, according to a CNN-Opinion Research Corporation poll taken in December. Only 23 percent said they will miss him.

John Mortimer 1923-2009

“Dying is a matter of slapstick and pratfalls,” he wrote in “The Summer of a Dormouse: A Year of Growing Old Disgracefully” (2000). “The aging process is not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes you over and runs off laughing. No one should grow old who isn’t ready to appear ridiculous.”

via Andrew Sullivan:

George W Bush face masks are reduced to make way for new stock of Barack Obama masks at Angels Fancy Dress store on Shaftesbury Avenue on January 15, 2009 in London, England. The Barack Obama masks are some of the first to go on sale in the UK, just days before Mr Obama is inaugurated as the President of the USA on January 20, 2009. By Oli Scarff/Getty.

President-elect Obama

Drawing: Dean Lancaster, Age 12
From NYTimes

Washington, D.C.

NYTimes

Gaza City

Photo: Mohammed Salem/Reuters
Israeli troops edged closer to the heart of Gaza City on the nineteenth day of the Gaza war. The Palestinian death toll in Israel's Gaza offensive topped 1,000 according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.

Kerns, Switzerland

Photo: Urs Flueeler/Keystone, via Associated Press

Secretary of State Designate Clinton

Photo: Doug Mills/The New York Times

Gaza

Photo: Khalil Hamra/Associated Press
NYTimes: Palestinians cried after hearing news about their dead relatives, outside the morgue in Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, in northern Gaza. As the war entered its 18th day, the Israeli military said its warplanes launched 60 airstrikes overnight in a continued drive to destroy Hamas's ability to fire rockets into Israel.

The Blue Eagles

Photo: David Walter Banks for The New York Times
Thomas Galvin, 15, practices on the trombone. He will march with his high school band, the 95-member Blue Eagles marching band from Austell, Georgia, in President Obama's inaugural parade. "To finally be able to do something this big. It's making me nervous right now. It's really, really scary. I can't wait," said Kevon Radford, an 18-year-old senior who also plays the trombone.

Illustrator: Max

Senator-designate Burris

Senate leaders Harry Reid and Dick Durbin bestowed the senator-designate title on Mr. Burris in a joint release:

"The Secretary of the Senate has determined that the new credentials presented today on behalf of Mr. Burris now satisfy Senate Rules and validate his appointment to the vacant Illinois Senate seat. In addition, as we requested, Mr. Burris has provided sworn testimony before the Illinois House Committee on Impeachment regarding the circumstances of his appointment.

“We have spoken to Mr. Burris to let him know that he is now the Senator-designate from Illinois and as such, will be accorded all the rights and privileges of a Senator-elect.

“Accordingly, barring objections from Senate Republicans, we expect Senator-designee Burris to be sworn in and formally seated later this week. We are working with him and the office of the Vice President to determine the date and time of the swearing-in.

“As we had outlined to Mr. Burris, a path needed to be followed that respects the rules of the Senate. We committed to Mr. Burris that once those requirements were satisfied, we would be able to proceed. We are pleased that everything is now in order, we congratulate Senator-designee Burris on his appointment and we look forward to working with him in the 111th Congress.”

Idaho, US

Photo: Stuart Isett: www.isett.com
NYTimes:

When Jan McFarland Cox, an artist and designer, first approached the architect Tom Kundig about building a house here in the high desert of southern Idaho, she did not know the project would consume nearly a decade of her life. But as the years went by — most of the delays had to do with selling her old house and getting permission to build the new one — she never thought seriously about abandoning it, she said. More surprising, both she and her architect ended up feeling the delays were a good thing.

“We had time to refine and refine and refine,” said Ms. Cox, who is 61. “And the house got better each time.”

When a project goes on for so long, Mr. Kundig said, and when the client is fighting to stick to a budget amid rising construction costs, as Ms. Cox was, “there’s a discipline that starts to come into play.” During the long process, he added, Ms. Cox clarified her needs, allowing him to “edit out the indulgences.” The resulting house, finished last summer, is strikingly simple even for Mr. Kundig, whose award-winning work is known for its uncomplicated forms.

Chuck Close

Portraits of Brad Pitt
Daguerreotype
W Magazine

Jack Cafferty

George Bush's record as a student, military man, businessman and leader of the free world is one of constant failure. And the part that troubles me most is he seems content with himself. He will leave office with the country $10 trillion in debt, fighting two wars, our international reputation in shambles, our government cloaked in secrecy and suspicion that his entire presidency has been a litany of broken laws and promises, our citizens' faith in our own country ripped to shreds. Yet Bush goes bumbling along, grinning and spewing moronic one-liners, as though nobody understands what a colossal failure he has been.

NYTimes:
For "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," David Fincher, the film's director, worked with the special effects company Digital Domain to best achieve the backwards-aging process of the title character. Here Mr. Fincher and Ed Ulbrich, Digital Domain's executive vice president for production, discuss how Benjamin Button was built.
.....
Using a motion-capture system Digital Domain scanned Mr. Pitt’s face as he cycled through more than 120 different expressions. “What that gave us,” Mr. Ulbrich said, “was a database that lets us know everything about how Brad’s left eyebrow moves and how his right eyebrow moves and what happens to that little furrow in between the eyebrows. And what happens to your left and right nostrils separately when you open your mouth the widest," Ulbrich said. "We now had a library of pretty much everything his face is capable of doing.”

Photo: Merrick Morton/Paramount Pictures

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Director: David Fincher

Pyongyang

Photo: Korean Central News Agency, via European Pressphoto Agency
NYTimes: A mass rally of workers from the Chollima Steelworks took place in Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea. Attending the rally were leading officials of ministries, national institutions and working people's organizations and citizens, over 100,000 in all.

Then and Now

From Think Progress:

In an analysis [by the Pew Research Center] comparing the mood of the country in 2000 and the mood of the country today, Pew found that a “mere 13% of Americans are now satisfied with the way things are going in the country, compared with 55% eight years ago.”

May I just add that Cheney/Bush/Rove can continue to lie to the American people and rewrite their history even as they're living it, but their crimes and misdemeanors will not go unpunished.

Illustrator: Jeffrey Fisher