On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions. From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
This series was created by Alain Chamot (1971-2020).
Photos are back! Apologies for the long delay. I was busy as hell, then sick, then sick and busy as hell, and yesterday I don’t even want to talk about.
fallsroad, The Machinery of Joy.
LT in Oregon, Lwater.
Email me a link to your one or two favorite pics on a photo site like Flickr (do not send the image itself please) and I will put up favorites in open threads. Send a short caption if you want one.
Click on the photos for a link to the photographer’s website. To see all photo threads, click on ‘photo blogging’ at the bottom of the post.
If your computer cannot read our email links at top right, my email is (remove the zeroes): portus0jackson0ii at yahoo dot com.
MikeJ
Political Wire has 2012 polls:
Obama 46%, Huckabee 45%
Obama 47%, Romney 42%
Obama 50%, Palin 44%
Obama 48%, Pawlenty 35%
Shoe
Tetrises
This explains a lot about Tetris actually.
Elie
I love these photos…
Fallsroad’s photo is massive and dominant — scary like almost a photo of a dinosaur where you can see its teeth
LT in Oregon’s photo is subtle — takes you to a mysterious place — love its soft feel
Thanks again for this feature…
SGEW
Ye gods, I love good photographs of machinery. It’s almost perverse.
So, open thread: Has everyone seen Obama’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech?
Personally, I think it’s his finest one yet, could be. Just . . . wow. I’ve heard that he wrote it in its’ entirety (besides editing, maybe? anyone have a link?); in any case, I think that this thing might have justified th’ prize itself, maybe, perhaps, kinda.
But seriously; it’s an incredibly important statement, an historical one, methinks, of Obama’s political identity, multinational policy doctrine, and personal philosophy. Extraordinary, really, and deserves re-reading. Lot to parse, actually.
[Fallows’ take here, in which he coins (for the first time I’ve seen it, anyway) the term “Obamism” as the philosophical successor to Niebuhrism. I think that this is spot on.]
SGEW
[Text of speech here.]
asiangrrlMN
Excellent pics as always, Tim F. Sorry that you were sick and busy as hell. Hope things are better now.
Off to watch Obama’s NOBEL PRIZE acceptance speech. Bitchez.
darryl
What’s the best place to expatriate oneself to? I’m sick and tired of Murkin diptards.
Morbo
Ooh, somebody’s a fan of old school industrial?
Steph
I had switched several lights in our house to those CFL bulbs, but now I’m reading that they may be bad for health? Not the mercury content, but the way they function. Anyone know anything about this?
I’ve switched back to incandescent bulbs in the meantime. I want to be green, but I have two little kids here…
Tom Hilton
Both very cool photos, and great together. Which, it occurs to me, I haven’t seen a lot of comment about in these photo threads (may well have missed it, as I haven’t read every comment). So I’ll say it: TimF does a tremendous job selecting shots that work well together.
SGEW
Seconded. Heartily.
Bad Horse's Filly
Cool pictures. Always a good break in my day. Sorry to hear you were sick.
Hey, has anyone heard from Laura W lately? Am I just missing the threads she’s in? Seems like forever since I’ve read her snark.
Elizabelle
@SGEW:
Ditto from a non-dittohead. Great photos and Tim’s a great editor.
What fresh hell is this? From USA Today:
Uh,no, not really.
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2009-12-10-airplanephones10_ST_N.htm
PLEASE DON’T LET US GET BIERSACKED!! NO CELL PHONES ON PLANES DURING FLIGHT.
Had to say that loudly enough to talk over the engine noise and the noisy person on her cell in seat 13 C.
Or I could just type it, quietly and pleasantly, on my laptop with wireless aloft: Please don’t let us get Biersacked!
Virgin America offers free wireless this month; it was fabulous. Not much you can’t email or text that needs saying — LOUDLY — to someone 35,000 below while 17″ from your neighbor.
Yes to keyboarding and tapping. No to yapping.
You are now free to move about the cabin.
Elie
@SGEW:
Just finished reading it. Thanks for the link..this is a great speech from a great speechifier. Lots of memorable lines but for me, the great part about the speech is that it is given in the context of a leader who was derided for receiving this prize so associated with humanitie’s deepest aspiration – peace. I think he addressed the contradictions but the essential necessity of finding meaning for the need for peace and that sometimes paradoxically, it cannot be provided without war — war controlled by rules but war nonetheless.
I did not have time to hear it fully, but the read was excellent. Thank you for highlighting — I had forgotten this was happening..
Jay in Oregon
I was just coming here to see if there was a photo blogging update!
I love your selections, Tim.
asiangrrlMN
@SGEW: Thirdeded!
And, SGEW, I am listening to the last portion of Obama’s speech. You know, the problem is that he insists on being rounded and complex and in-depth rather than spouting platitudes and sound bites.
Full disclosure: I am more to the left than many here, but not as far to the left as some. I have had my issues with Obama’s handling of certain issues, but overall, I have been impressed with the way he’s handled the presidency.
Back to his speech. He refuses to pander by saying what would be popular. He is willing to risk the wrath of, well, everybody to say what he believes to be true. That doesn’t mean that I agree with everything he says, but I am confident that he has put in a great deal of thought to everything he says and believes. This speech was multi-layered, thoughtful, sobering, and will be completely misrepresented by our media and the right. Still, it makes me glad that the grownups are back in charge.
@Bad Horse’s Filly: I saw her briefly in one of last night’s eleven billionty threads.
asiangrrlMN
@Elizabelle: Fucking A, man. No fucking cell phone calls on a plane. What fresh hell this? Sigh.
Elizabelle
I am going to push back on cell phone use in flight. Comments on USAToday story running strongly against allowing them.
It would be taking away a last refuge for many who enjoy reading, napping, etc.
You can get up and move, if you must, to escape a noisy “quiet” Amtrak neighbor. Not so on planes.
No Biersacking!!
Elie
@asiangrrlMN:
Yeah, you know the media are reading it now trying to figure out what they can twist to make some weird interpretation…”little minds”
I agree with your comment on his Presidency which is still very young. I am a lefty for the most part but less ideological than pragmatic..
SGEW
[tldr, whatevs]
Way too much to parse through in the Nobel speech (the specifics of the contradictions alone!), but I thought that this was, in a way, the thematic core of the address:
(emphasis added)
I kind of think that this is sorta noteworthy.
My favorite response? Victor Davis Hanson, trying to be snarky at the National Review: “In short, Obama, in a mere 4,000 words, was trying to explain that even Noble Laureates like himself have to use force, but that they will do so in a way unlike that of George [W.] Bush.”
Um. Yes. That’s kind of the point.
LT
Woo hoo! Thanks, TimF.
And: Why are planes being considered some kind of “last refuge” from cell phones? So silly – what about wild rivers and woods and such? That said, seems like a safety issue. Flight attendants need control and attention in ways that train or bus or whatever staff don’t. Not to mention the fact that a whole lot of us would be tempted to kill someone jabbering on a phone. That’d be added danger in the confined time on a plane.
Why not just allow texting and instant messaging?
LT
P.S. Hell of a shot, fallsroad. Is that actually the inside of a clock? Too cool.
Max
Read the speech and I think it’s one of his best. But, I like most of his speeches, especially Philly, Notre Dame and Grant Park. I’m adding this one to my favorites list.
It will be sad to see the Obama haters in the media, the right and the left parse his words and use passages out of context in order to further their narrative and agenda, but in the end, it says more about them than it does about Obama.
Yes, I’m an O-bot, loud and proud, but even if I step back and try to be objective, I come to the conclusion that Obama is exactly the man we need to lead us at this point in history.
Tom Hilton
@LT:
Sadly, most of the backpackers I know now carry cellphones (edit: or satellite phones) into the wilderness; I’m one of the few who refuse to do that. To me, it isn’t wilderness if you aren’t out of touch.
Tom Hilton
And while I haven’t watched the Nobel speech, I did read it, and thought it was just right–dealing head-on with the paradoxical situation he’s in (a wartime President getting the Peace Prize) and articulating a foreign policy based on both basic decency and realism.
Tim F.
@Tom Hilton: I would do it. Turned off, of course. The GPS I bought my sister for her wedding has since saved her life.
LT
@Tom Hilton: I agree with TimF. I take mine, turned off, and am glad to have it if something goes sideways. (Where I went this year they wouldn’t have worked anyway, but that’s another issue.)
Linkmeister
My first thought on seeing these wonderful photos? Ooh, steampunk!
Alas, no book recommendations to go with the pics.
Ah well. Try the website devoted to the genre. Its authors claim to be “The New Speculative Fiction Clearing House.” Lotsa links to bibliographies, reviews, organizations, newsgroups.
asiangrrlMN
@Elie: The first meme, as seen on Yahoo! is, “President Obama defends two wars as he accepts Peace Prize.” Goddamn it, he did more than ‘defend’ two wars! Shit. Just fucking shit. Really. And, I’m more ideological, but am slowly recognizing with old age that small steps are better than none.
Tom Hilton
@LT and @Tim F.: my girlfriend would be on your side. I refuse to get a cellphone for any reason, though (and if I had my way, cellphones would be outlawed altogether)…so it’s no surprise that I don’t think they belong in the wilderness.
I rely on exactly what I relied on before cellphones were around: proper preparation, navigational skills, contingency planning, risk avoidance, just generally knowing what the hell I’m doing. Beyond that, I accept that a certain amount of risk comes with the territory.
The flip side is that cellphones encourage people to go hiking without adequate preparation (the Boston Globe had an article last December about a big jump in the number of hiker rescues on Mount Washington, due to unprepared cellphone users).
I think we lost something profound when the last blank spaces on the map were filled in. I think we lose something analogous when the most remote places in the country are just a phone call away.
LT
@Tom Hilton: Well, hard to argue with you. Perhaps I have to check myself. (I got a cell phone first in my late thirties, in 2002, when my sis was very sick and then dying and I was doing a lot of traveling and caring for her perfect self. That’s also the year I got married – in reference to your girlfriend comment. Sigh. I’m old, and different.)
Fallsroad
@ LT #22:
Yep. It is the mechanism for a medium sized table chiming clock my parents bought in Germany in the 1960’s, taken up close. Something about the angle gives the illusion of a much larger size than it has in reality.
Thanks to Tim F. for making the photo selections and especially for the thoughtful, complementary pairings he has created.
Tom Hilton
@LT: ugh–been there, a couple of years ago, with my parents. My mother’s cancer was the reason we finally got a car.
btw, I always feel a little odd using the word ‘girlfriend’; we’ve been living together for 12 years.
Something Fabulous
@Bad Horse’s Filly: I was just wondering the same thing! LauraW, if you are here, was it you who said yellow tail pinot noir was any good? Saw it for $3.50 yesterday at the grocery and thought it was likely too good to be true… or good.
Laura W
@Something Fabulous: Yeow. I heard my name all the way over here in NC. Figures it was associated with wine.
It might have been me with the Yellow Tail Pinot, but I can’t recall the last time I had that, so probably not. Maybe LilBrit or South of I-10? I don’t drink red unless it’s cold out. And while I think their wines are great values, there is so much variation in the many offerings year to year it’s nearly impossible to say that because last year’s Shiraz was great, this year’s will be the same. I remember one year (2003?) wherein their Cab was my fave. And I never drink straight Cab! I will say that I find the Shiraz/Grenache to be their most consistent wine, regardless of vintage. I note the 2008 is now out. Have not tried, but expect it to be “serviceable”.
It’s way out of the price range you mention, but I tried this for the first time last week at the company Xmas party and loved it to death. Managed to get out of the door with the one intact back-up bottle. The perks of being best friends with your employers.
And while I’m here, let me address something Mr. Cole said in an earlier post re. Black Box Wine. Based on his assertion that their Shiraz was “FTW”, I swallowed my pride and bought a box of wine for the first time in my entire life. It was OK on the first night, by night #2 it was tasting very foul. By night four, I threw it out. The NZ Sauvignon Blanc box was SO FREAKISHLY BAD I poured the first glass down the sink. (You need to know that’s a statement.) I took the entire box back to the market yesterday and demanded a refund, telling the manager: “There is no way that wine could be on purpose!”
/wine chat
Elie
@asiangrrlMN:
Its some weird phenomena where I think they think if they credit his rationality, somehow it completely makes the last ten years or so completely insane… I feel at some level its a defense and a fear..
I am so proud of that part of him…the courage he has to stick by reality and reason in the face of extreme weird illogicality. Not sure I could do it — KNOW I couldnt do it!
I have a tendency to stew on things and hopefully he doesnt
Something Fabulous
@Laura W: Neat! never heard of it before– I’ll look out for it. I am broke these days, but if ever am working again will let you know what I think of it. Yellow Tail is usually a bit more than that bargain price, I believe, so I was even MORE skeptical to try it. Thanks for the summary!