Steven Spielberg's followup to the hit movie Lincoln will be Obama, starring Daniel Day-Lewis. In this clip, debuted at the White House Correspondents Dinner Saturday night, Day-Lewis shows off how versatile an actor he really is. -via Daily of the Day
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Creative people know a great muse when they find one. Ai Weiwei has 40 cats. Picasso had cats all through his life. Gustav Klimt had a cat who looked like him. And Dali had to be different: He's pictured here with his ocelot, Babou. See a couple dozen artists with their cats at Flavorwire. Link
The following is an article from Uncle John's Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader.
Colonel John Ashley House, Sheffield, Massachusetts. (Image credit: Daderot)
Eighty years before the Emancipation Proclamation freed American slaves, a Massachusetts woman helped free the slaves of that state …just by going to court.
BRAVE WORDS
In 1773 the leading citizens of Sheffield, Massachusetts, met in the home of Colonel John Ashley and drafted the document that some historians have called America's first Declaration of Independence, the Sheffield Declaration. "Mankind in a state of nature are equal, free, and independent of each other," it stated, "and have a right to the undisturbed enjoyment of their lives, their liberty, and property."
Ironically, as the men toiled over the document, which protested English tyranny, they were waited on by Betty Freeman (also called Elizabeth, or Bett), Colonel Ashley's slave. He'd bought several slaves when they were only babies, and they'd been held in involuntary servitude ever since.
Freeman overheard the repeated talk of liberty as the men drafted the Sheffield Declaration. She heard more of the same three years later, when Ashley and his associates discussed the Declaration of Independence, which stated, "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." She got an earful in 1780, when Ashley and his friends mulled over the new Massachusetts constitution, which proclaimed that "all men are born free and equal, and have the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties."
ALL TALK
These were noble words, but none of them were meant to apply to Freeman -not even after her husband, also a slave, gave his life fighting on the American side during the Revolutionary War. Born into slavery, Betty, her sister, and all their descendants would live in slavery forever if Colonel Ashley and others like him had their way.
THE "LADY" OF THE HOUSE
As deeply as she resented her lack of freedom, Betty got along with Colonel Ashley. Not so with his wife, Hannah, a petty tyrant who cruelly beat her slaves over the tiniest transgression. Once, when she had caught Betty's sister, Lizzie, eating leftover scraps of bread dough, Mrs. Ashley accused her of "stealing" food and swung at her with a hot shovel pulled from the fireplace. Betty blocked the blow intended for her sister and received a gash on her arm that cut all the way to the bone. She carried that scar for the rest of her life.
A young girl plays with her cat. The cat must really enjoy it, as it keeps coming back. She will never get rid of this cat. -via Arbroath
The Battle of Britain was Germany's first major defeat in World War II, and it convinced Germany not to invade the islands. But it was long and hard -raging from July through October in 1940.
The first major campaign to be fought entirely by air forces, Germany’s efforts to gain air superiority over Britain by destroying airfields, factories, ground infrastructure and Channel convoys were repelled against all odds by the pilots of RAF Fighter Command.
Britain’s decisive victory prevented Hitler from launching Operation Sea Lion – the German invasion of Britain – and is considered a major turning point in World War Two. But the cost was significant – 544 allied and 2,698 German aircrew killed in action, with 1,547 British and 1,887 Luftwaffe aircraft destroyed.
What did England do with all those wrecked planes? They recycled them, using the metal to manufacture new planes for the war effort. But first, they posed for pictures with them. See 20 Historic Photos of Downed Luftwaffe Aircraft during the Battle of Britain at Urban Ghosts. Link
This graduation announcement was posted by redditor alyak72 in anticipation of the rest of her life. Sadly, school can't last forever. Link -via Happy Place
(Image credit: J Michael O'Day)
In order to make a cup of coffee, first you must assemble a deluxe coffee machine, then throw some ingredients around to a dubstep beat, and then make coffee. At least that's what goes on in this ad for Sanremo UK. -via Viral Viral Videos
Cartoonist and animator Kevin McShane spend two years drawing himself in the style of other cartoon artists. See all 100 drawings at his site. Try to guess whose style each follows, and find out if you're right by enlarging the individual figures. Link -via Laughing Squid
The following is an article from Uncle John's 24-Karat Gold Bathroom Reader.
Here, ladies and gentlemen, are the stories behind some well-known products (and one character) who prefer to be addressed as "Mister."
MR. COFFEE
In 1968, Vincent Marotta and Sam Glazer, high school friends who became partners in a small construction company, decided to start a coffee delivery service. Obsessed with finding a way for people to make better coffee at home, an idea came to Marotta while he was recuperating from brain surgery in 1970. His great idea: A self-contained unit that would heat the water to 200ºF and drip through the coffee grounds once, not over and over again, as was the standard "percolator" method at the time. He and Glazer then hired two ex-Westinghouse engineers to design the product, which he named Mr. Coffee. The product was a hit almost instantly, but Marotta wanted to go national. His other great idea: He hired his boyhood hero, Joe DiMaggio, as the company spokesman. It worked. Within three years, the company dominated the coffeemaker market, producing nearly 40,000 Mr. Coffees a day, with annual sales approaching $150 million. In 1987 Glazer and Marotta, who once referred to himself as "the Michelangelo of coffee," decided to sell the company, but the product -and Marotta's big idea- still dominate.
MR. CLEAN
"Mr. Clean will clean your whole house / And everything that's in it / Mr. Clean, Mr. Clean, Mr. Clean…" Within six months of its introduction in 1958 by Proctor & Gamble (including that earworm TV jingle), Mr. Clean became America's best selling household cleaner. The Mr. Clean character was designed by a Chicago ad agency in 1957, but Proctor & Gamble -perhaps to ward off lawsuits from Yul Brynner, who affected a very similar look as the king of Siam in a popular musical of the time, The King and I- insisted that the character was modeled after a Navy sailor from Pensacola. Internationally, his name is usually translated into the local language- Maestro Lindo in Italy, Don Limpio in Spain, Meister Proper in Germany, and Monsieur Net in Quebec.
MR. BEAN
The following is an article from Uncle John's 24-Karat Gold Bathroom Reader.
You may know the story of how Henry Ford put America on wheels. Here's the story of how he nearly ran the Ford Motor Company into the ditch.
WHEEL MAN
If you're a history buff or just like reading about automobiles, you probably already know how Henry Ford, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, used the moving assembly line and other mass-production techniques to revolutionize the auto industry. He drove the price of his Model T so low that ordinary people, even the workers on his assembly lines, could afford to buy cars for the first time. In the process, Ford, more than any other individual, ushered in the modern automobile age. By 1923, 57 percent of all the cars manufactured in the United States, and half of all the cars on Earth, were Fords.
What's less well-known about Henry Ford is how close he came to destroying the Ford Motor Company in the later years of his life. The only reason you can still buy a Ford today is that the other members of the Ford family were able to wrest control of the family company away from him before it collapsed entirely.
MR. T
Ironically, it was Henry Ford's obsession with the Model T, his greatest success, that initially set the Ford Motor Company on the road to ruin. Ford introduced the Model T in 1908 and for nearly 20 years fought every attempt to improve it or to replace it with something better. For many years, Model Ts had no gas gauge. If you wanted to know how much fuel was in your car, you had to dip a stick into the gas tank. They had no electric starter, either. You started a Model T by turning a hand crank in front of the car. And they had no gas pedals. You controlled the speed with a throttle that was located on the steering column.
Even when Henry Ford did give in and make improvements, he did so several years after his competitors. Result: by the mid 1920s, the Model T was hopelessly outdated. For years Ford had terrorized every other auto company as he dropped the price of the Model T ever lower, from $825 in 1908 all the way down to $290 in 1924. But his refusal to update the car gave General Motors and other competitors the opening they needed. More than one auto maker battled its way back from the brink just by adding improvements to their cars that Henry Ford refused to add to his.
Ford finally announced in mid-1927 that it was ending production of the Model T in favor of the much-improved Model A, but the change came too late. That year Ford sold fewer cars than Chevrolet, GM's largest division. Strong sales of the Model A did put Ford back in first place in 1929 …but only for a year, and by 1933 it was in third place, behind both Chevrolet and Chrysler.
TROUBLE UNDER THE HOOD
By the early 1930s, the company itself was as decrepit as the Model T. It had taken Ford six months to retool its factories to manufacture the Model A, and the disruption cost the company $250 million -the equivalent of about $3 billion today. GM, by comparison, could retool its manufacturing plants in six weeks.
The Yoda we recall from the original Star Wars trilogy was infinitely more realistic than the CGI Yoda in the prequels, even though we knew he was a Muppet, controlled by the masterful Frank Oz. This photo is one of 66 behind-the-scenes snapshots from the set of The Empire Strikes Back, in which we get to see George Lucas skinny, Darth Vader's stuntman, and Carrie Fisher flirting with the entire cast. Link -via reddit
The Art of Manliness shows you how to shave the old-fashioned way, like your grandpa did, with proper shaving cream and a double-edge safety razor. This kind of shave is economical, environmentally-friendly, and results in a better overall shave compared to using modern disposable razors. And the best part:
You’ll feel like a bad ass. It’s nice taking part in a ritual that great men like your grandfather, John F. Kennedy, and Teddy Roosevelt took part in.
Find complete instructions and links to recommended products at The Art of Manliness. Link -Thanks, Brett!
This street art by Jesse Olwen is on a wall, but it's not graffiti. Oh, it looks like graffiti, but it is attached to a wall and can be removed and displayed in a gallery without defacing the property. But while it's outside, it attaches a pleasant picture to a ruin.
I make paintings on wood (which I cut into a graffiti-ish shape. In this piece the words read "PUNK NOT DEAD"), then I paint imagery of things which I consider to be a nice to contrast to the the location I place it in. This piece shows a couple of kittens in front of roses hanging over a demolished pit a few blocks from my apartment here in Incheon South Korea. These are two 4'x4' pieces together, acrylic on plywood.
See more of Olwen's artwork, both inside and outside, at his site. Link
The article at Mother Jones is titled Why Your Supermarket Only Sells 5 Kinds of Apples, but it barely touches on that question (the answer seems to be "because agribusiness"). It's really about John Bunker and his quest to cultivate heritage apple varieties before they are lost forever. See, apples are hard to breed. If you want more apples like the ones on a certain tree, you need to clone it by grafting.
Even when abandoned, an apple tree can live more than 200 years, and, like the Giving Tree in Shel Silverstein's book, it will wait patiently for the boy to return. There is a bent old Black Oxford tree in Hallowell, Maine, that is approximately two centuries old and still gives a crop of midnight-purple apples each fall. In places like northern New England, the Appalachian Mountains, and Johnny Appleseed's beloved Ohio River Valley—agricultural byways that have escaped the bulldozer—these centenarians hang on, flickering on the edge of existence, their identity often a mystery to the present homeowners. And John Bunker is determined to save as many as he can before they, and he, are gone.
Bunker is an apple detective, who looks for such old fruit-bearing trees in order to preserve their genes by grafting. Read about his work, and the history of apple cultivation in America. Link -via Boing Boing
You know how it felt when you found out your boss was paying a co-worker more money than you for doing the same job? In this excerpt from a TED Talk, Frans de Waal presents a classic experiment in which capuchin monkeys were confronted with such unfairness. You'll get a kick out of the way the monkey reacts. You can see the full talk called Moral Behavior in Animals, which covers empathy, reciprocity, and cooperation, as well as fairness, at the TED site. Link -via Viral Viral Videos
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