“The best way to preserve a child’s vision is to let them see things their way rather than yours”*…
Kira Cook contemplates a series of photos taken by kids of their (unaware or surprised) parents…
… somehow, these malevolent images are borne from the tiny fingers and eyes and perspectives of the ones who love us… most?!
Children, of course, know little to nothing about “crafting” a good portrait. They know naught of symmetry, or contrast, or depth of field. They do, however, know the specific power of finally having control over the rectangular device normally glued to their parents’ hands. They pound that round red button at will, capturing images from their abbreviated heights, their lilliputian thumbs obscuring the lens, often blurring the image with their relentless movement.
These pictures remind us that while we study our children, they study us back. Before we speak, we see. For months before spoken language ever enters the relationship, a child gazes upon its mother for hours, every day. The gaze of the child is the least judgmental, the most accepting. When a child takes a portrait of their parent, there is an absence of so many of the elements that inherently exist in the portraits an adult makes. There is no moralizing, for one. No manipulation. They don’t bother to hide or deny the aspects we normally do in photos. In fact, unlike in every other photographic example, there is a total absence of forethought or editorializing…
More (and more on the) unflattering portraits that do what kids do best, wholeheartedly engage with the present moment: “The Humbling Tyranny of the Photos Our Kids Take of Us,” from @kirahesser in @romper.
* Jacob Liberman
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As we say cheese, we might recall that it was on this date in 1839 that Samuel Morse, a professor of art and painting at the University of the City of New York (now New York University) in Paris to promote his invention of the telegraph, met with Louis Daguerre.
Morse was fascinated by Daguerre’s daguerreotype—the first practical means of photography. Morse wrote a letter to the New York Observer describing the invention, which was published widely in the American press and stoked broad interest in the new technology. On his return to New York, he taught classes in the technique to his colleagues at NYU and others– including Mathew Brady, one of the earliest photographers in American history, famous for his depictions of the Civil War.
“There is nothing permanent except change”*…
Menudo has been ranked one of the Biggest Boy Bands of All Time by several publications (Billboard, Us Weekly, Seventeen, and Teen Vogue, among others)– the only Latin band on their lists. The Puerto Rican boy band, founded by producer Edgardo Díaz in 1977, has had 39 members– who’ve been routinely replaced as they “age out,” usually at 16. It has launched the careers of a number of popular international stars, including Ricky Martin (in Menudo 1984–89) and Draco Rosa (1984–87), and sold over 20 million albums worldwide.
The band disbanded in 2009, but re-formed on its old template in 2019. And it’s just announced its latest roster, bringing its count of members up to 44…
Nearly a year after Menudo Productions announced they were on the search for new members to form the next generation of Menudo, the band has officially unveiled the five boys that will comprise the group.
On Monday (March 20), Nicolas Calero (10), Gabriel Rossell (13), Andres Emilio (14), Alejandro Querales (15) and Ezra Gilmore (12) were announced as the new faces of the eternally youthful boy band. And, in celebration of the announcement, the group also released their very first single “Mi Amore,” the first song off their upcoming debut album…
What’s old is new again: “New Menudo Boy Band Members Unveiled,” from @billboard.
* Heraclitus
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As we board the Ship of Theseus, we might recall that it was on this date in 1958, at 6.35am, that Elvis Presley reported to the Memphis draft board to be inducted in the U.S. Army. From there Elvis and twelve other recruits were taken by bus to Kennedy Veterans Memorial Hospital where the singer was assigned Army serial number 53310761.
“Trees are sanctuaries”*…
John Lewis-Stempel recounts a day in the life of an oak and the creatures that call it home…
Our friends the trees have an unremarkable life, or so it seems to us. They come into leaf, their fruit drops, or is gorged on by birds and the winds of autumn strip them of their dressing to leave them as the cold, bare sentinels of winter.
However, if we were to stand, tree-like ourselves, in a British copse and watch a single oak tree for an entire 24 hours — say when spring hatches out of winter — what would we see?…
Among their deceptively inert branches, trees shelter feathered Pavarottis, scuttling beetles, opportunistic fungi and fierce owls. A quick– and delightful– course in woodland ecology: “A day in the life of an oak tree, from mistle thrush in the morning to mice at midnight,” from @JLewisStempel in @Countrylifemag.
* Herman Hesse
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As we deliberate on the deciduous, we might send fertile birthday greetings to John Bartram; he was born on this date in 1699. An American botanist, horticulturist, and explorer, based in Philadelphia for most of his career, he was judged by Swedish botanist and taxonomist Carl Linnaeus to be the “greatest natural botanist in the world.”
He started what is known as Bartram’s Garden in 1728 at his farm in Kingsessing (now part of Philadelphia)– considered the first botanic garden in the United States. His sons and descendants operated it until 1850; it still operates under a partnership between the city of Philadelphia and a non-profit foundation, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that”*…
Noah Smith‘s sobering reflection on the rise of authoritarianism and illiberalism…
[This week] is the 20-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq — a multi-decade debacle that would see hundreds of thousands of innocents killed, trillions of dollars flushed down the drain, America’s image in the Middle East destroyed, and the acceleration of the end of U.S. hegemony.
[This week] is also the [time] of the summit between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, in which the leaders of the two authoritarian great powers reiterate their de facto alliance. With one of those powers actively engaged in a war of conquest against a peaceful neighbor, and the other threatening to do the same, the world is in danger of plunging back into the horrors of the early 20th century.
So this is the perfect [time] to repost a fairly melodramatic post that I wrote two years ago, about the rise of authoritarianism and illiberalism. I don’t apologize for the over-the-top language, since I think it’s difficult to overstate the danger; we humans have a strong tendency to stick our heads in the sand until it’s too late, and we need to wake up.
But we also need to remember a crucial piece of this story: It was American folly that began this baleful trend. Our victories in World War 2 and Cold War 1 gave the U.S. the unique opportunity to build a world where countries don’t invade other countries; when we invaded Iraq without cause or provocation, we threw away that opportunity. We brought back the principle of “the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must”. We opened the gates, and allowed the Darkness back into our world. Now it’s our responsibility to help fix what we broke…
Illiberalism is on the march, all over the world- thoughts on what’s happening, why, and what we can do about it: “The Darkness,” from @Noahpinion. Eminently worth reading in full.
* Martin Luther King Jr.
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As we face the future, we might recall that it was on this date in 1933 that Germany opened its first concentration camp, Dachau. Initially intended to intern Hitler’s political opponents (communists, social democrats, and other dissidents), it’s “mission” was enlarged to include forced labor, and, eventually, the imprisonment of Jews, Romani, German and Austrian criminals, and, finally, foreign nationals from countries that Germany occupied or invaded. There were 32,000 documented deaths at the camp, and thousands that are undocumented. Approximately 10,000 of the 30,000 prisoners were sick at the time of liberation by U.S. forces in April of 1945.
“Inflation is when you pay fifteen dollars for the ten-dollar haircut you used to get for five dollars when you had hair”*…
Mike Konczal unpacks happens when one takes the AEI graphic of items that have had high and low inflation, but extend it to all categories…
This graphic is in the news again:
Its creator is Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute, who last posted an update to it in July 2022. He’s been doing a version since at least 2016, and if you read enough economics blogs or content you’ve probably seen some iteration of it.
People are talking about it again after Marc Andreessen posted it under the headline “Why AI Won’t Cause Unemployment.” Andreessen describes what people generally take away from it – blue line capitalism and dynamic, red line government regulations and stagnant…
Matt Yglesias noted on twitter that he’s “come to think it’s misleading — by being very selective in which categories of labor-intensive services it chooses to chart, it’s generated a narrative that relative price shifts are just about government regulation.”
That seems correct to me; these categories are pretty loaded. Let’s see if we can do better by including every possible category… let’s download all of the current Consumer Price Index (CPI) data off the BLS download site…
Since the BLS is constantly changing categories, we have to select the items that exist in both January 2000 and February 2023 to duplicate the chart. That leaves us with 62 categories. Doing a quick glance (and seeing in Perry’s own chart) the year-by-year evolution over time doesn’t really tell us much, so we can go with a simple bar chart for overall change. Let’s chart that here in full:
There are a few key takeaways looking at it this way:
In our version of the AEI chart the number one item isn’t health care but ‘delivery services,’ which is “fees for delivery of items such as letters, documents, and packages at non-US Postal Services facilities.”Think UPS or FedEx. This is pretty far from a government monopoly, indeed it’s the private sector alternative to a government program. But it is services and it is labor intensive.
The biggest thing, to me, isn’t “regulations” but whether it’s a service or a good…
More on how and why that matters in “A Better AEI Graphic of Inflation Over the Past 20 Years.”
* Sam Ewing
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As we ruminate in the rise, we might recall that it was on this date in 2006 that Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey sent the first tweet.
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