Culture

New (old) Library of Congress Photos

I have mentioned before that the LoC is posting some of their photographic holdings to Flickr as they are scanned. Today saw the release of a new batch. This one included photos of senators including these two from PA (my adopted state). The size difference is great (and great).

Penrose is on the left and, at least according to Wiki, was quite the wit. Among other facts about his life

Boies Penrose (November 1, 1860 – December 31, 1921) was an American lawyer and Republican politician from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He represented Pennsylvania in the United States Senate from 1897 until his death in 1921.

Wiki includes the following quotes:

“Public office is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” — Boies Penrose

“I believe in the division of labor. You send us to Congress; we pass laws under which you make money…and out of your profits, you further contribute to our campaign funds to send us back again to pass more laws to enable you to make more money.” — Senator Boies Penrose (R-Pa.), 1896, citing the relationship between his politics and big business.

“All physical and economic tests that may be devised are worthless if the immigrant, through racial or other inherently antipathetic conditions, cannot be more or less readily assimilated…” — Boies Penrose, 1902, Chinese Exclusion and the Problem of Immigration

The first is a truism, the second reality (of all parties), and the third, well I am not sure. I need some context for that one. There is less info on George T. Oliver at Wiki, but he was still quite the business man and politician.

George Tener Oliver (January 26, 1848–January 22, 1919) was an American lawyer, publisher, and Republican party politician from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He represented Pennsylvania in the United States Senate. He was born in Ireland while his parents were visiting there. After graduating from Bethany College, West Virginia (A.B., 1868; A.M.,1873) he studied law in an office in Pittsburgh, where he practiced from 1871 to 1881. He then engaged in the iron and steel industry, accumulating a large fortune. Oliver sold most of his holdings about 1899 and purchased the Pittsburgh Gazette-Times and, in 1900 the Chronicle-Telegraph.

So head over to the LoC’s Flickr feed for the photos and stick around to see how much you will discover and learn while chasing down the subjects of their images. Other images just uploaded include a Suffrage Parade in DC (below), President and Mrs. Wilson at his inauguration, and “Bulgarian giving water – dying Turk, Adrianople” (below).

Ethics should not be digested

Jun 24th, 2008

by Christian Brady.

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or otherwise internalized.

Non Sequitur by Wiley.

BMW makes a car out of cloth and inspires a man of the cloth.

Jun 11th, 2008

by Christian Brady.

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I stumbled across this video today of an amazing concept car by BMW. The idea is simple: the strength and support of a car is not in the skin/sheetmetal but in the bracing underneath it, so why not use something other than metal? GINA has a plastic coated lycra fabric as its skin and the results are amazing. You need to see the video to get a sense of this. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see this make production? I think so.

So at the bottom of the post where I found this story was an auto-generated post titled:Flexible: BMW and Ecclesiology. The end of the video will explain where this post comes from, but the gist is,

The GINA then became a metaphor for how BMW as a company even thinks about cars…or thinks about thinking. For those of us trying to re-think forms and structures in church settings, this little story is a great example of how long-established paradigms could be replaced by faithful innovation.

Uh, maybe.

Monkey god named head of business school.

Jun 7th, 2008

by Christian Brady.

1 comment

From a CNN story:

LUCKNOW, India (AP) — He’s a revered Hindu monkey god. And now, he’s the chairman of an Indian business school.

An Indian Hindu priest performs prayers in front of a statue of the Hindu god Hanuman.

Hanuman, the popular god known for his strength and valor, has been named official chairman of the recently opened Sardar Bhagat Singh College of Technology and Management in northern India, a school official said Saturday.

The position comes with an incense-filled office, a desk and a laptop computer. Four chairs will be placed facing the empty seat reserved for the chairman and all visitors must enter the office barefoot, said Vivek Kangdi, the school’s vice chairman.

“It is our belief that any job that has the blessings of Lord Hanuman is bound to be a success,” said Kangdi.

All Hindus know that Hanuman can lift mountains and leap oceans, but ancient texts make no mention of his business acumen.

The Dude abides on the Wii

May 31st, 2008

by Christian Brady.

8 comments

The Big Lebowski bowling on the Wii

We were playing Wii Sports today, bowling to be specific. If you bowled on the Wii and lost control of your ball you know that when the ball goes skittling back into the folks behind you the camera moves and they all jump up. What I had not noticed until today is that those players, aside from your Mii characters actually playing, change. And look who showed up to bowl today! None other than the Big Lebowski:

Wouldn’t you agree? That must be the Big Lebowski? BTW, I would have gotten a better shot, but he walked away and hasn’t been back since. (True, after 30 minutes of trying, restarting, etc. the crowd varies considerably.) So my friends, even in the Wii, the Dude Abides.

UPDATE: Although no one seems to have noticed his presence in the standard Wii bowling game (and NB the Mii I captured above was not created by me, but is part of the original programming) there is an amusing video that sets a scene from the Big Lebowski to a video montage created in Wii bowling.