POTY Obama

[Lunar]

click


nothing to see here, move along

[Keystone Phil]

When was this announced?

[Lunar]

When was this announced?

Dec. 17th

[Lief 🗽]

[paul718]

I thought it was gonna be Hank Paulson.

[Padfoot]

I know his biggest achievement this year was winning the presidential race but the picture looks way too campaign-esque to me.  Just a normal picture would have been nice, or perhaps a pose more worthy of an official presidential portrait.  This just looks like a campaign rally sign.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

This is about as shocking as an unplugged electric chair.

[paul718]

I know his biggest achievement this year was winning the presidential race but the picture looks way too campaign-esque to me.  Just a normal picture would have been nice, or perhaps a pose more worthy of an official presidential portrait.  This just looks like a campaign rally sign.

I think it's supposed to look campaign-esque.  Obama was Person of the Year primarily because of his campaign for President.  From what I recall, most Time POTY covers are rather unconventional.

[Wall St. Wiz]

The question here is how many times he will get this over the course of his presidency.  I think at minimum twice if he serves one term, and 4 times if he serves two terms. 

[Padfoot]

The question here is how many times he will get this over the course of his presidency.  I think at minimum twice if he serves one term, and 4 times if he serves two terms. 

Really?  I think 4 times is a bit excessive.  I could see 3 if he serves two terms, both of which are extremely successful or notable in some way.  The number of nods a president usually gets is actually fairly strongly correlated with the number of terms he serves although several presidents have been POTY twice during the same term.  Eisenhower was actually a POTY long before he was elected and Ford is the only president who wasn't selected after FDR became the first president to be POTY.

Bush 43: '00, '04
Clinton: '92, '98
Bush 41: '90
Regan: '80, '83
Carter: '76
Nixon: '71, '72(second time shared with Henry Kissinger)
LBJ: '67
JFK: '61
Eisenhower: '59 (also in '44 before his presidency)
Truman: '45, '48
FDR: '32, '36, '41 (the first president chosen and the only person ever chosen 3 times)


If Obama is eventually selected as POTY 4 times I think at least one of them will come after he has left office.

[minionofmidas]

I thought this meant President Of The Youniverse.

[DownWithTheLeft]

This picture just shows how much of a joke Obama is

[Holmes]

This picture just shows how much of a joke Obama is

[paul718]

This picture just shows how much of a joke Obama is

Lyndon Johnson 1967




Richard Nixon 1971

[angus]

click


nothing to see here, move along

Just got mine today.  I spent nearly an hour digging a tunnel from the front door, over the sidewalk from the front door to the driveway, down the driveway, and then the seven feet or so from the edge of my driveway to the mailbox.  (I've never had a mailbox like that before.  Always had one either just outside my front door, bolted to the wall with a little flip up lid, or the type that requires a key and is stationed alongside many others in some mailroom or sheltered port.  But now I have the kind that looks like a little covered bridge and sits between the sidewalk and the street, and the lady in the white postal van drives up, leans out, and opens it up and puts the mail in, then drives to the next house.)  And just after I'd gotten the tunnel dug the snowplough comes by and piles it up big again.  About that time the mail lady drives by.  She was slow today, having to get out at each box and trudge through knee-deep snow--I don't know what the official total for last night was, but I took my meter stick out and found a flat spot in my front yard and poked it in and measured just over 35 cm, or about 14 inches--and I said to her, "Neither rain nor sleet nor snow nor dark of night shall stay these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."  And she smiled at me as though she'd never heard the postman's motto before.  Maybe the call it Letter Carrier's Motto nowadays.  I wouldn't be surprised.  The do stuff like that.  Flight Attendant.  Food Server.  All those unisex labels replace the traditional ones.  Anyway, she said that the ploughblade would probably come by and redistribute it several more times before the day was over.  (She was right too, because I did the driveway three times so far, and after each time the guy comes along and piles up a couple feet of snow for me to dig.  Like he waits for me to finish and then starts his truck with a grin, pulls his John Deere cap down low over his mullet, and gives me another mess to clean up.)  So then she hands me my mail, which consisted of a single piece:  our latest TIME magazine.  I haven't read it yet.--been busy shoveling and pulling the boy around on his little sled--but I did notice Obama on the cover.  They ought to start calling it OBAMA magazine.  I bet ten of the last twenty covers have had his mug on it.  Gettin' a little old.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm still glad he won.  But it'd be a tad more exciting to see Obama's face on the Man Of The--er, Person of the Year I think they're calling nowadays--if I didn't already have a huge stack of TIME magazines with Obama already on the cover.

[angus]

Okay, I have had a chance to read some of the issue by now.  Love that Louis Vuitton ad on the third page featuring Sean Connory.  They have that one in about every other issue.  Why the hell would anyone wear a black turtleneck on a tropical beach?  It must be so hot under that thing.  Sean's manly, hairy, sculpted, septuagenarian chest must be drenched with sweat by the time the shoot is done. 

Anyway, they make sure to point out, Dear Reader, that Mister Obama is "your choice" for Person of the year.  Given that, no justification is really necessary.  No experts.  No analysts.  No historians.  No economists.  No sociologists.  Just you, dear reader, left to your devices, chose him.  Of course it's always that way, but it's also nice to remind the reader that it is, indeed, your choice.  Not ours. 

That said, it was an excellent choice.

I'm listening to Cornershop.  The album is When I was born for the seventh time.  The sone "Brim full of Asha" is playing.  It's apt, really.  Brim full of Asha is what he brings to the table.  Much else?  Maybe, but we don't really know that yet.

Once you get past the obligatory stories about Mexico's drug wars--and the "Ten Questions" page which features some famous person with little or no training in anything except perhaps singing or acting (and sometimes not even that) giving analysis of world affairs and advice on politics; the "inbox" where every zany nutjob who is somewhat literate and has 29.95 for 52 issues of TIME magazine is invited to write in and share his or her deepest thoughts about the magazines fare, the "Pop Chart" where you learn what rehab clinic Lindsay Lohan is checking into this week, and various other indictments of our shallow, celebrity-obsessed society condensed into a few pages--you get to the part you have actually opened the magazine to read about: the 2008 Person of the Year.

It opens with a collage of Barack images.  Some painted, some digitized, some sculpted, some photographed, and some photoshop'd.  There's an Obama head done, somewhat tastefully (if weirdly) in cents and dimes.  (The choice of cents and dimes, rather than nickles and quarters, is interesting in and of itself, given that Obama quotes Jefferson and Washington far more often than he quotes Roosevelt or Lincoln.  Then again, Obama didn't make the art, just as Obama didn't write the stories in the magazine.  His fanatics made the piece, and they wrote the stories.  Keep this in mind as you read them.)  There's a picture of one Bob Marley-esque rasta version of Obama, and a picture of a shallow-draft racing sloop with Obama's pictured on the mainsail and Biden on the jibsail.  And the name of the vessel?  "Yes we did."  That's probably the weirdest picture of all.  There's maybe ten pages of just pictures.  Then you get to the story:  "Why history can't wait."  It's by David von Drehle.  He's usually a pretty objective observer, and a good writer, so I plunged ahead.  I wasn't disappointed.  Segmented, well organized, and replete with pop-cultural allusions, he makes the case for Barack, Person of the year.  That story is followed by "The Interview."  In it, Obama was modest, demure, respectful, but decisive.  He still maintains that he's going to be "providing a net tax cut," but the one paragraph blurb doesn't give him a chance to detail that.  The interview alone really makes the case, and it has its humorous moments.  (E.g., "Do you ever get angry, and if so, how would we know it?"  Actually, I've wondered about that myself.  There's also a story about the long-lost negatives.  And yes, pictures too.  Obama, circa 1979 with that crazy straw hat.  In some of them he's pulling a deep drag on a cigarette like it's prime Afghani black, just rolled, and he intends to get his money's worth.  Rock on, man.  There's B-ball against North Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough.  (yes, white men can jump.  But apparently half-Kenyan men can jump even higher.)  And the centerfold?  Six degrees of Obama. 

I'm a bit Obamad-out just now.  But I'm about halfway through with the issue.  I think I'll finish my story about the mating rituals of the elephant seals of the antarctic that I was reading before this issue of TIME arrived.  But after I finish I'll probably read the second half of this week's TIME.  If it's as interesting as the first half, I'm sure I'll finish it in one night. 

Overall, it's a good choice for 2008 Person of the Year.  And a pretty good read.



There's dancing behind movie scenes.
Behind the movie scenes - Sadi Rani.
She's the one that keeps the dream alive,
From the morning, past the evening, till the end of the light.

brimful of Asha on the forty-five.
well, it's a brimful of Asha on the forty-five.
brimful of Asha on the forty-five.
well, it's a brimful of Asha on the forty-five.

And singing illuminate the main streets and the cinema aisles.
We don't care about no government warning.
about that promotion of the simple life and the dams they are building.

brimful Of Asha On The 45
well, It’s A Brimful Of Asha On The 45
brimful Of Asha On The 45
well, It’s A Brimful Of Asha On The 45

everybody Needs A Bosom For A Pillow
everybody Needs A Bosom
everybody Needs A Bosom For A Pillow
everybody Needs A Bosom
everybody Needs A Bosom For A Pillow
everybody Needs A Bosom
mine's On The 45

mohamed Rufhi, 45, Lata Mangeshkar, 45
solid State Radio, 45, Fer-guh-son Mono, 45
bonn Publeek, 45
jacques Dutronc And The Bolan Boogie
the Heavy Hitters And The Chichi Music
all India Radio, 45, Two In Ones, 45
argo Records, 45, Trojan Records, 45

brimful Of Asha On The 45
well, It’s A Brimful Of Asha On The 45
brimful Of Asha On The 45
well, It’s A Brimful Of Asha On The 45

everybody Needs A Bosom For A Pillow
everybody Needs A Bosom ....
mine's On The 45

77,000-piece Orchestra Set
everybody Needs A Bosom For A Pillow
mine’s On The Rpm

brimful Of Asha On The 45
well, It’s A Brimful Of Asha On The 45 ....
everybody Needs A Bosom For A Pillow

everybody Needs A Bosom ....

mine's On The 45

[angus]

I forgot to mention one of the most interesting sections of the issue.  There's a great story on the transition of power on page 62.  It goes on for about six paragraphs and is in a section entitled "Fear Itself."  I mention it because there have been some threads about The Office of the President Elect.  I, too, had wondered about it.  Presumptuous?  Preposterous?  Actually, the piece makes a good case for the early transition, and the fact that Obama has been careful not to step on Bush's toes, even though some of his advisors have advised him to immediately start the First Hundred Days, or ask Bush to appoint Obama's choices to key offices as early as late November.  All in all, it answers the question of The Office of the President Elect fairly well.  I can't remember all the threads, or who posted them, but you should look at the piece for answers.

[Ebowed]

There's dancing behind movie scenes.
Behind the movie scenes - Sadi Rani.
She's the one that keeps the dream alive,
From the morning, past the evening, till the end of the light.

brimful of Asha on the forty-five.
well, it's a brimful of Asha on the forty-five.
brimful of Asha on the forty-five.
well, it's a brimful of Asha on the forty-five.

And singing illuminate the main streets and the cinema aisles.
We don't care about no government warning.
about that promotion of the simple life and the dams they are building.

brimful Of Asha On The 45
well, It’s A Brimful Of Asha On The 45
brimful Of Asha On The 45
well, It’s A Brimful Of Asha On The 45

everybody Needs A Bosom For A Pillow
everybody Needs A Bosom
everybody Needs A Bosom For A Pillow
everybody Needs A Bosom
everybody Needs A Bosom For A Pillow
everybody Needs A Bosom
mine's On The 45

mohamed Rufhi, 45, Lata Mangeshkar, 45
solid State Radio, 45, Fer-guh-son Mono, 45
bonn Publeek, 45
jacques Dutronc And The Bolan Boogie
the Heavy Hitters And The Chichi Music
all India Radio, 45, Two In Ones, 45
argo Records, 45, Trojan Records, 45

brimful Of Asha On The 45
well, It’s A Brimful Of Asha On The 45
brimful Of Asha On The 45
well, It’s A Brimful Of Asha On The 45

everybody Needs A Bosom For A Pillow
everybody Needs A Bosom ....
mine's On The 45

77,000-piece Orchestra Set
everybody Needs A Bosom For A Pillow
mine’s On The Rpm

brimful Of Asha On The 45
well, It’s A Brimful Of Asha On The 45 ....
everybody Needs A Bosom For A Pillow

everybody Needs A Bosom ....

mine's On The 45

Great song.