Mightier than the Sword

Time has a photo-essay entitled “Obama’s Nation of Hope” by Christopher Morris. The following photograph grabbed my attention. In one simple image the transcendental ideal that is America is shown being breathed into life from a historical giant, Abraham Lincoln, to a boy who firmly retains his balance while gazing higher up; the continuity of [...]

USAservice.org

A website is born, “dedicated to President-elect Obama’s national call to service” In a true Obama-fashion and much like other websites they created during the presidential campaign, this one is intended to serve as a central hub for the coming together of a people around a common goal. I am certain that it will serve [...]

All the Living Presidents

Below are photographs from the meeting of President-elect Obama with all the living presidents at the Oval office in the  White House. Here is what I find to be striking: The placements of hands as each of them is posing for these and most other photographs from this event. The main contrast is between the [...]

BE THE CHANGE

The official Obama inauguration poster. You can buy it here.

“The Younger Man Appeared to Have the Calmer Head in a Crisis”

A brief summary of the historic presidential election that culminated in the election of Barack Obama to become the 44th president of the United States can be found here. An excerpt from this article, entitle “America’s historic election year,” is shown below:
…As the Republican ticket drew level, then briefly overtook him in the opinion polls, [...]

The Quiet Storms

As we remember those that are getting swept by the silent tsunamis at distant lands and shores, we should also keep in our hearts and minds those going through the quiet storms that are shaking the foundations of the lives of many in our own backyards.
Yet again, I shall return to the words of President-elect [...]

The Silent Tsunamis

Yesterday was the fourth anniversary of the 2004 Tsuinami of the Indian ocean, which caused a tremendous amount of destruction, took the lives of more than 200,000 people, and caused the displacement of many others. It was a moment that shall remain transfixed in the collective imagination of all the people. In a previous post, [...]

O! and Leadership by Example

There has recently been a tremendous amount of buzz spreading all over the internet around the shirtless pictures of President-elect Barack Obama. O!, gushed The Huffington Post.
Thinking about this incident, I could not help but be impressed by the subtle, but symbolic, example it sets for the nation. Every bit of news coverage of  his daily work activities during the [...]

The Energy Innovation Imparative

For an intellectual insight into the background and thinking of Prof. John Holdren, who is just appointed to be Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), check out a journal article published [...]

Obama’s Science and Technology Team

President-elect Obama has announced his Science and Technology Team. Via change.gov:
President-elect Obama announced his appointment of Dr. John Holdren as Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). He also announced [...]

The Making of a President: Interpretations

I would not dare add my words next to those of the seminal speeches of Barack Obama shown below in condensed word cloud representation with the exclusion of common words in the English language. It is very striking to note that each of these speeches have a particular and unmistakable message and theme as exemplified in [...]

The Making of a President: Seminal Obama Speeches in Word Cloud Representation

Portraits: Youthful Obama

Along with their story about the selection of Barack Obama as the person of the year, Time has pictures of him taken in 1980 by Lisa Jack, a then-20-year-old-aspiring-photographer.

Chance Encounter
In 1980, when Obama was a freshman at Occidental College in Los Angeles, he was approached by an aspiring photographer named Lisa Jack, who asked him [...]

Time’s Person of the Year

The “Person of the Year” has been chosen to be Barack Obama. Given the unprecedented nature of his accomplishment and the far-reaching consequence of his election to become the 44th president of the U.S., this decision did not surprise me all that much. The runners-up were Henry Paulson, Nicolas Sarkozy, Sarah Palin, and Zhang Yimou. They [...]

The Confidence Man

Below is an extract from a blog entry posted by Amy Sullivan at Swampland, on August 29, 2008, that I thought was an accurate assessment and reflects some of the sentiment I described in the previous post. I am quoting it here in its entirety for your reading pleasure:
You’d think we’d remember by now. Obama and his [...]

Barack Obama

This is a thought put together much later than almost all has been said about the person of Barack Obama and the significance of his rise to the highest office in the land. As my former teacher would say, it is better late than never. What pushed me even more to jot down my thoughts on this [...]

The Unsung Hero

Here is a post at Condé Nast Portfolio about David Plouffe, who Obama referred to as being the unsung hero of his campaign. In a way, the sucess of the campaign they effectively put together is a good manifestation of the laws of incremental returns, one that was built by a gathering of resources and the [...]

Dr. Steven Chu

 
Dr. Steven Chu succinctly highlights the enormity of the global warming crisis and makes a compelling case energy usage efficiency improvement. This presentation is filled with pieces of information that debunk a lot of the myth about energy consumption needs and economic development, the large scale savings that can be brought [...]