Prof. Boerner's Explorations

by Gerald Boerner

“My pictures do not belong to me.”
— Edouard Boubat

“You cannot live when you are untouchable. Life is vulnerability.”
— Edouard Boubat

“The most important thing is to go out and see the stars, not to see them in books.”
— Edouard Boubat

“The wandering photographer sees the same show that everyone else sees. He, however, stops to watch it.”
— Edouard Boubat

“To live, to experience the world, to communicate with a camera, all these are interrelated and cannot be separated from everyday live.”
— Edouard Boubat

“Was it the same light that enchanted the first photographers? It is the same, and it is still brand new — it is something that never wears out.”
— Edouard Boubat

“Taking photographs is not something that happens only in a moment I press the button. It is a full-time occupation. For me there is difference between leisure and work.”
— Edouard Boubat

“Because I know war… because I know the horror, I don’t want to add to it… After the war, we felt the need to celebrate life, and for me photography was the means to achieve this.”
— Edouard Boubat

“There are certain pictures I can never take. We turn on the TV and are smothered with cruelty and suffering and I don’t need to add to it. So I just photograph peaceful things. A vase of flowers, a beautiful girl. Sometimes, through a peaceful face, I can bring something important into the world.”
— Edouard Boubat

“A photographer is a witness. He has a moral duty. Every picture must be true and honest. I believe a photographer’s strength is his ability to accurately record reality. There are photographers who think they are lucky if they find unusual or special subject. But it is never the subject that is so marvelous. It is how alive and real the photographer can make it.”
— Edouard Boubat

Edouard Boubat (1923 – 1999)

Edouard Boubat  was a well known French art photographer. He was born in Montmartre, Paris. After studying typography and graphic arts at the Ecole Estienne, he worked in a printing company but dreamed of being a photographer. After WWII he decided to go for his passion and become a photographer. He focused on the poetic aspect of life and things. He took his first photograph in 1946 in reaction to the banality and horrors of the Second World War and was successful immediately, receiving the Kodak Prize the following year.

Afterwards he travelled the world for the magazine Realites, but always kept a special interest in photographing his hometown, Paris. I’ve recently discovered French art photographer Edouard Boubat, whose career began in 1945, in reaction to the horrors of World War II. My favorite (and one of his most favorite) photographs is Lella, taken in 1947, who looks directly at the camera and is wearing a black bra underneath a sheer white top. I’ve included two of my other favorites. He sought to make photographs that were a celebration of life. The French poet Jacques Prévert called him a "Peace Correspondent." His son Bernard is also a photographer.

Boubat was known for his romantic images of Paris and its people after World War I as well as portraits from various countries around the world such as India, Morocco, and London. He started making photographs in 1945 or 1946, in reaction to the banality and horrors of the Second World War. He sought to make photographs that were a celebration of life. He worked as a freelance photojournalist on contract to the magazine "Réalités" in the 1950s and 1960s and travelled widely throughout his career. He worked as a press photographer, and went freelance in 1968, after which he travelled widely.

[NOTE: The material below consists of selected portions of an interview of Boubat by Frank Horvat. The full interview is cited below and is well worth reading for those interested in a more complete understanding of Boubat’s work… GLB]

In a photo there are always too many things, except when it’s a good photo. To speak specifically of my own work – because that’s what we are here for – I believe that, from the very beginning, I managed to make photos where there was nothing more than what was needed. Take the little girl draped in dried leaves, where everything else is but a blur. It was just after the war, all it shows is that little girl. Click. Or the man with the baby, by the seaside. Nothing but him.

What Robert Frank, Eugene Smith, Cartier-Bresson did, they could no longer do. Or Doisneau. His Paris no longer exists, he could never again find that atmosphere of the 50s. I was told that the same tennis player, photographed in New York, Berlin or Paris, wouldn’t "give" the same photo, because the atmosphere wouldn’t be the same…. Atmosphere is nothing, and at the same time it’s a lot. One notices it when looking at a movie from fifty years ago. This is one thing that a photo can catch, sometimes without intending to.

I know that one doesn’t get more than two or three good photos a year. But there are some blessed moments. I remember a superb morning, in Brazil: I arrive at an old circus, and I know right away that I have to take photos, that something there is being given to me. Of course I took some other photos during the rest of that trip, but without really believing in them, it wouldn’t even have been worthwhile developing the rolls, I knew I would never blow them up. There are days when one walks around without getting a single photograph, without running into anything. There I refuse. But there are other times when things are offered to me, like gifts. I arrive, I stroll around town, everything is given. Click. It’s like the story of the magic gift, which comes up in many teachings, for instance by the Sufis, but also in some of our own legends. But in order to seize that gift, one has to be prepared. If I am, and if my camera is there at the right moment, click, all I have to do is accept it.

In photography we use some marvelous words, like "aperture." One is the camera’s diaphragm, which is a mechanical thing, but there is also our own "aperture", our own opening up to reality. Take the photo of the man on the seashore. It was my first trip to Portugal, I believe it was in 1956. In those days traveling seemed extraordinary, there were very few tourists, we had been on the road for two or three days, we arrived at a hotel by the seaside, Sophie was a little tired, and I said, "I am going to the beach," I had only my little old Leica, and that man was there, click. I had only arrived half an hour before, but there he was, with his child, as if he had been waiting for me, and so I took my first photo of Portugal, a photo that will endure. I had come a long way, I had dreamt of Portugal, so in a sense I too was waiting for him, there was expectation on both sides. In some way, a photo is like a stolen kiss. In fact a kiss is always stolen, even if the woman is consenting. With a photograph it’s the same: always stolen, and still slightly consenting.

My assignment was to cover the life of a man living in the street – as you know, about one third of the people in that city live and sleep on the pavement. What I remember best are the mornings, that is something else I would like to talk to you about, even if it doesn’t exactly answer your question. But I am doing it on purpose, just to annoy you a little. I would like to speak of those mornings. Click. I remember people still asleep, like corpses in shrouds, in fact some were actual corpses, in actual shrouds.

Those mornings with that fabulous light – I always loved that light. Or the mornings in New York, we haven’t been there together, but we certainly lived the same thing: one goes out to have breakfast, the sky is blue, when you leave the coffee shop, the fellow behind the counter says: "Take care" (English in the original), it’s just a wonderful thing. Or that other morning, when I woke up in an Indian village, the previous evening the people had welcomed me, saying: "You may sleep here." So I really slept there, on the ground, there wasn’t anything else, I got up very early – when you sleep on the ground you get up early – and I made that photo of the village, with those hens, that cow, in that foggy light. And on that occasion, to come back to your question, there was nothing to be refused, the photo was in front of me. Click. I only shot two or three, there was no reason to take fifty. In those rare moments, when there is nothing to be refused, one doesn’t have to shoot ten rolls, the photo is there.

Thanks to Eugene Smith, I had been sent to the South of France – I didn’t have a penny at the time – to do a story on corn. I was using a Rollei – and in a Rollei, you recall, there are twelve pictures. I had finished covering the story, I was going to take a train at six in the evening, it was four o’clock, there was one last photo left in the camera. I pass a yard on the farm, I see my tree with the hen, click, I take the photo, it was simply to finish my roll. There is only one photo of the hen and the tree, it was picture number 12.

There is a word we haven’t used yet: virginity. It is a very beautiful word, though nowadays one makes light of it. But it is very important. To make a photograph, the plate must be virgin, but your eye as well. Some say "innocent. Boubat is an innocent guy." I am no more innocent than anyone else. When one has been in Africa or in South America or in India, where there were hundreds of thousands of lepers, one cannot remain innocent. I was in an African village and everyone was shaking my hand and from time to time I would realize that they didn’t have fingers. Poor Boubat acted as if he hadn’t noticed. Because he had seen them, poor beings, their difficulty in just standing on their feet, the suffering they endured for a bowl of rice. No, I am not innocent. But, still, one must retain a certain innocence to keep one’s eyes fresh – and I have that innocence. People say, "Oh, good Boubat, brave Boubat, what nice photos he makes!" But my purpose is not to make nice photos, even though sometimes I like to show bouquets of flowers. But what does it mean, showing a bouquet of flowers? It means knowing that, behind that bouquet, there is all the misery of the world. Through that bouquet, the photographer may suggest something that is beyond.

But for me there is another key word, which means almost the opposite: "face up." For me, to photograph is to face up to something. My "gift-moments" come when, one way or the other, I have to face up. That’s what I often say to young people, who show me their photos of shadows on walls or torn posters, more or less manipulated in the darkroom. "It’s interesting," I say "but you haven’t faced up to anything." In my case, before any important photo, I get stage fright, even more so at my present age than when I was less experienced, and in spite of working with a light that I know well, in a studio that I had built to my specifications, with assistants, stylists, make-up artists, hair dressers, who are all there to help me. I may rehearse before shooting, I may shoot fifteen rolls on a subject – but I still get stage fright.

Background and biographical information is from Wikipedia articles on:

Edouard Boubat that can be found at…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edouard_Boubat

Also:

Edouard Boubat Biography…
http://www.horvatland.com/pages/entrevues/01-boubat-en_en.htm

by Gerald Boerner

“Remember the Maine!”
— Popular outcry in the U.S.

“The free man cannot be long an ignorant man.”
— William McKinley, President

“Once the United States is in Cuba who will drive it out?”
— José Martí, Cuban Revolutionary

“Cuba ought to be free and independent, and the government
should be turned over to the Cuban people.”
— William McKinley, President

“…a mess, a quagmire from which each fresh step renders the difficulty of extrication immensely greater…”
— Mark Twain

“We can no longer afford to disregard international rivalries now that we ourselves have become a competitor in the world-wide struggle for trade.”
— U.S. State Department Memorandum

“There had been about [five hundred] Spaniards at Daiquiri that morning, but they had fled even before the ships began shelling. In their place we found hundreds of Cuban insurgents, a crew of as utter tatterdemalions as human eyes ever looked on, armed with every kind of rifle in all stages of dilapidation. It was evident, at a glance, that they would be no use in serious fighting.”
— Theodore Roosevelt

“The guns that thundered off Manila and Santiago left us echoes of glory, but they also left us a legacy of duty. If we drove out a medieval tyranny only to make room for savage anarchy we had better not have begun the task at all. It is worse than idle to say that we have no duty to perform, and can leave to their fates the islands we have conquered. Such a course would be the course of infamy. It would be followed at once by utter chaos in the wretched islands themselves. Some stronger manlier power would have to step in and do the work, and we would have shown ourselves weaklings, unable to carry to successful completion the labors that great and high-spirited nations are eager to undertake.”
— Theodore Roosevelt

Veterans Day: Remembering the Spanish-American War

The Spanish–American War was a military conflict between Spain and the United States that took place between April and August 1898, over the issues of the liberation of Cuba. The war began after American demands for the resolution of the Cuban fight for independence were rejected by Spain. Strong expansionist sentiment in the United States motivated the government to develop a plan for annexation of Spain’s remaining overseas territories including the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam.

Spanish armored cruiser
Cristóbal Colón. Destroyed
during the Battle of Santiago
on 3 July 1898.

The revolution in Havana prompted the United States to send in the warship USS Maine to indicate high national interest. Tension among the American people was raised because of the explosion of the USS Maine, and the yellow journalist newspapers that accused the Spanish of oppression in their colonies, agitating American public opinion. The war ended after victories for the United States in the Philippine Islands and Cuba.

On December 10, 1898, the signing of the Treaty of Paris gave the United States control of Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam.

Related Conflict: The Philippine Revolution (Tagalog War)

The Philippine Revolution (1896 – 1898), called the "Tagalog War" by the Spanish, was an armed military conflict between the people of the Philippines and the Spanish colonial authorities which resulted in the secession of the Philippine Islands from the Spanish Empire.

The Philippine Revolution began in August 1896 upon the discovery of the anti-colonial secret organization Katipunan by the Spanish authorities. The Katipunan, led by Andrés Bonifacio, was a secessionist movement and shadow government spread throughout much of the islands whose goal was independence from Spain through armed revolt. In a mass gathering in Caloocan, the Katipunan leaders organized themselves into a revolutionary government and openly declared a nationwide armed revolution. Bonifacio called for a simultaneous coordinated attack on the capital Manila. This attack failed, but the surrounding provinces also rose up in revolt. In particular, rebels in Cavite led by Emilio Aguinaldo won early victories.

 Battle of Manila Bay.

A power struggle among the revolutionaries led to Bonifacio’s execution in 1897, with command shifting to Aguinaldo who led his own revolutionary government. That year, a truce was officially reached with the Pact of Biak-na-Bato and Aguinaldo was exiled to Hong Kong, though hostilities between rebels and the Spanish government never actually ceased.

In 1898, with the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, Aguinaldo unofficially allied with the United States, returned to the Philippines and resumed hostilities against the Spaniards. By June, the rebels had conquered nearly all Spanish-held ground within the Philippines with the exception of Manila. Aguinaldo thus declared independence from Spain and the First Philippine Republic was established. However, neither Spain nor the United States recognized Philippine independence. Spanish rule in the islands only officially ended with the 1898 Treaty of Paris, wherein Spain ceded the Philippines and other territories to the United States. The Philippine-American War broke out shortly afterward.

Philippine-American War

The Philippine–American War, sometimes known as the Philippine War of Independence was an armed military conflict between the Philippines and the United States, which arose from the struggle of the First Philippine Republic against United States annexation of the islands. The war was a continuation of the Philippine struggle for independence, following the Philippine Revolution, led by Emilio Aguinaldo and the Spanish-American War.

The struggle officially began on June 2, 1899, when the Philippines declared war against the United States and it officially ended on July 4, 1902, after Aguinaldo’s surrender. However, remnants of the Katipunan and other resistance groups, such as the Muslims and Pulajanes continued hostilities until June 15, 1913 (Battle of Bud Bagsak).

1899 political cartoon by Winsor
McCay. Reference to the United
States taking control of the
Philippines from Spain at end of
the Spanish American War
and the subsequent
Philippine-American War

The war led to the establishment of the Anti-Imperialist League by Mark Twain, who staunchly opposed the war, as well as to writing of The White Man’s Burden by Rudyard Kipling which is a poem about colonialism. In its aftermath, the war would change the cultural landscape of the islands with the introduction of the English language, the disestablishment of the Catholic Church, and the impact of an estimated 200,000-1,500,000 casualties.

Historical background

The Monroe Doctrine of the 19th Century served as the political foundation for the support of the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain in the United States. Cubans had been fighting for self determination, on and off, since the Grito de Yara of 1868.

Cuban struggle for independence

In 1895, the Spanish colony of Cuba was the site of a small armed uprising against Spanish authority. Financial support for the "Cuba Libre" rebellion came from external organizations, some based in the United States.

In 1896, the new Captain General for Cuba, General Valeriano Weyler, pledged to suppress the insurgency by isolating the rebels from the rest of the population ensuring that the rebels would not receive supplies.

 Detail from Charge of the 24th
and 25th Colored Infantry and
Rescue of Rough Riders at
San Juan Hill, July 2, 1898
depicting the Battle of
San Juan Hill.

By the end of 1897, more than 300,000 Cubans had relocated into Spanish guarded concentration camps. These camps became cesspools of hunger and disease where more than one hundred thousand died.^[9]

A propaganda war waged in the United States by Cuban émigrés attacked Weyler’s inhuman treatment of his countrymen and won the sympathy of broad groups of the U.S. population. Weyler was referred to as "The Butcher" by yellow journalists like William Randolph Hearst. The American newspapers began agitating for intervention with stories of Spanish atrocities against the Cuban population.

USS Maine

In January 1898, a riot by Cuban volunteers, most of whom were Spanish loyalists, broke out in Havana and led to the destruction of the printing presses of three local newspapers that were critical of General Weyler. These riots prompted the presence of an American Marine force in the island: although there had been no attack on Americans during the rioting, there were still fears for the lives of Americans living in Havana. Concern focused on the pro-Spanish Cubans who harbored resentment of the growing support in the United States for Cuban independence. The U.S. Department of State informed the Consul-General in Havana, Fitzhugh Lee, a nephew of Robert E. Lee, that the Maine would be sent to protect United States interests should tensions escalate further.

Path to war

Upon the destruction of the Maine, newspaper owners such as William Randolph Hearst came to the conclusion that Spanish officials in Cuba were to blame, and they widely publicized this theory as fact. They fueled American anger by publishing sensationalistic and astonishing accounts of "atrocities" committed by Spain in Cuba. A common myth states that Hearst responded to the opinion of his illustrator Frederic Remington, that conditions in Cuba were not bad enough to warrant hostilities with: "You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war."^[17] Lashed to fury, in part by such press, the American cry of the hour became, "Remember the Maine, To Hell with Spain!" President William McKinley, Speaker of the House Thomas Brackett Reed and the business community opposed the growing public demand for war.

 With the end of the war,
Colonel Theodore Roosevelt
musters out of the U.S. Army
after the required 30 day
quarantine period at
Montauk, Long Island,
in 1898.

Senator Redfield Proctor’s speech, delivered on March 17, 1898 thoroughly analyzed the situation concluding that war was the only answer. Many in the business and religious communities, which had heretofore opposed war, switched sides, leaving President McKinley and Speaker Reed almost alone in their opposition to the war. On April 11 President McKinley asked Congress for authority to send American troops to Cuba for the purpose of ending the civil war there.

On April 19, while Congress was considering joint resolutions supporting Cuban independence, Senator Henry M. Teller of Colorado proposed the Teller amendment to ensure that the United States would not establish permanent control over Cuba following the cessation of hostilities with Spain. The amendment, disclaiming any intention to annex Cuba passed Senate 42 to 35; the House concurred the same day, 311 to 6. The amended resolution demanded Spanish withdrawal and authorized the president to use as much military force as he thought necessary to help Cuba gain independence from Spain. President McKinley signed the joint resolution on April 20, 1898, and the ultimatum was forwarded to Spain. In response, Spain broke off diplomatic relations with the United States and declared war on April 25. On that same day, Congress declared that a state of war between the United States and Spain had existed since April 20 (later changed to April 21).

Peace treaty

With defeats in Cuba and the Philippines, and both of its fleets incapacitated, Spain sued for peace.

Hostilities were halted on August 12, 1898, with the signing in Washington of a Protocol of Peace between the United States and Spain. The formal peace treaty was signed in Paris on December 10, 1898, and was ratified by the United States Senate on February 6, 1899. It came into force on April 11, 1899. Cubans participated only as observers.

The United States gained almost all of Spain’s colonies, including the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico. Cuba, having been occupied as of July 17, 1898, and thus under the jurisdiction of the United States Military Government (USMG), formed its own civil government and attained independence on May 20, 1902, with the announced end of USMG jurisdiction over the island. However, the United States imposed various restrictions on the new government, including prohibiting alliances with other countries, and reserved for itself the right of intervention. The US also established a perpetual lease of Guantanamo Bay.

On August 14, 1898, 11,000 ground troops were sent to occupy the Philippines. When U.S. troops began to take the place of the Spanish in control of the country, warfare broke out between U.S. forces and the Filipinos resulting in the Philippine-American War.

Background and biographical information is from Wikipedia articles on:

Spanish-American War that can be found at…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish-American_War

The Philippine Revolution that can be found at…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Revolution

Philippine-American War that can be found at…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine-American_War

by Gerald Boerner

“We didn’t tackle well today but we made up for it by not blocking.”
— John McKay, USC

“I’ve found that prayers work best when you have big players.”
— Knute Rockne, Notre Dame

“Football is not a contact sport-it is a collision sport. Dancing is a contact sport.”
— Duffy Daugherty, Michigan State

“The man who complains about the way the ball bounces is likely to be the one who dropped it.”
— Lou Holtz, Arkansas

“I don’t expect to win enough games to be put on NCAA probation. I just want to win enough to warrant an investigation.”
— Bob Devaney, Nebraska

Intercollegiate Football: First Game

College football is American football played by teams of student athletes fielded by American universities, colleges, and military academies. It was the venue through which American football first gained popularity in the United States. College football remains extremely popular today among students, alumni, and other fans of the sport.

History

Modern American football has its origins in various games, all known as "football", played at public schools in England in the mid-19th century. By the 1840s, students at Rugby School in England were playing a game in which players were able to pick up the ball and run with it, a sport later known as Rugby football. The game was taken to Canada by British soldiers stationed there and was soon being played at Canadian colleges. The first football game played between teams representing American colleges was an unfamiliar ancestor of today’s college football, as it was played under soccer-style Association rules. The game between teams from Rutgers College (now Rutgers University) and the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) took place on November 6, 1869 at College Field (now the site of the College Avenue Gymnasium at Rutgers University) in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Rutgers won by a score of 6 "runs" to Princeton’s 4.

The 1869 game between Rutgers and Princeton is important in that it is the first documented game of any sport called "football" (which also encompasses the game of Association Football) between two American colleges. It is also notable in that it came a full-two years before a codified rugby game would be played in England. The Princeton/Rutgers game was undoubtedly different from what we today know as American football. Nonetheless it was the forerunner of what evolved into American football. Another similar game took place between Rutgers and Columbia University in 1870 and the popularity of intercollegiate competition in football would spread throughout the country.

1906 St. Louis Post-Dispatch
photograph of Brad Robinson,
who threw the first legal
forward pass

The American experience with the rugby-style game that led directly to present-day college football continued in 1874 at a meeting in Cambridge, Massachusetts, between Harvard University and Montreal’s McGill University. The McGill team played a rugby union-style game, while Harvard played under a set of rules that allowed greater handling of the ball than soccer. The teams agreed to play under compromise rules. The Harvard students took to the rugby rules and adopted them as their own.

Walter Camp, the "Father of American Football", pictured here in 1878 as the captain of the Yale Football team

The first game of intercollegiate football in America between two American colleges that most resembles the game of today was between Tufts University and Harvard on June 4, 1875 at Jarvis Field in Cambridge, Mass., won by Tufts 1-0. A report of the outcome of this game appeared in the Boston Daily Globe of June 5, 1875. Jarvis Field was at the time a patch of land at the northern point of the Harvard campus, bordered by Everett and Jarvis Sts. to the north and south, and Oxford St. and Massachusetts Avenue to the east and west. In the Tufts/Harvard game participants were allowed to pick up the ball and run with it, each side fielded eleven men, the ball carrier was stopped by knocking him down or ‘tackling’ him, and the inflated ball was egg-shaped – the combination of which marks this game as the first game of American football.

A photograph of the 1875 Tufts team commemorating this milestone hangs in the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Indiana. Harvard and Yale also began play in 1875 though under rules that made their game, as well as the aforementioned Princeton/Rutgers game, significantly different from what we know as American Football compared to the Tufts/Harvard contest which is more closely the antecedent to American Football than these other games. The longest running rivalry and most played game between two American colleges is between Lafayette College and Lehigh University.

Walter Camp, known as the "Father of American Football", is credited with changing the game from a variation of rugby into a unique sport. Camp is responsible for pioneering the play from scrimmage (earlier games featured a rugby scrum), most of the modern elements of scoring, the eleven-man team, and the traditional offensive setup of the seven-man line and the four-man backfield. Camp also had a hand in popularizing the game. He published numerous articles in publications such as Collier’s Weekly and Harper’s Weekly, and he chose the first College Football All-America Team.

College football increased in popularity through the remainder of the 19th century. It also became increasingly violent. In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt threatened to ban the sport following a series of player deaths from injuries suffered during games. The response to this was the formation of what became the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which set rules governing the sport. The rules committee considered widening the playing field to "open up" the game, but Harvard Stadium (the first large permanent football stadium) had recently been built at great expense; it would be rendered useless by a wider field. The rules committee legalized the forward pass instead. The first legal pass was thrown by Bradbury Robinson on September 5, 1906, playing for coach Eddie Cochems, who developed an early but sophisticated passing offense at St. Louis University. Another rule change banned "mass momentum" plays (many of which, like the infamous "flying wedge", were sometimes literally deadly).

Other Events on this Day

• In 1789…
  John Carroll of Maryland is appointed as the first Roman Catholic bishop in the United States.

• In 1860…
  Abraham Lincoln defeats three other candidates to become the sixteenth U.S. president.

• In 1869…
  Rutgers defeats Princeton 6-4 in the first intercollegiate football game.

• In 1888…
  Republican Benjamin Harrison receives fewer popular votes but more electoral votes to defeat incumbent Grover Cleveland and becomes the twenty-third U.S. president.

• In 1928…
  Republican Herbert Hoover defeats Democrat Alfred E. Smith to become the thirty-first U.S. president.

Dates and events based on:

William J. Bennett and John Cribb, (2008) The American Patriot’s Almanac Daily Readings on America. (Kindle Edition)

Background information is from Wikipedia articles on:

College Football that can be found at…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercollegiate_football

The anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall is neigh… Next Monday will mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall and the end of the Cold War. After almost half a century of living with a divided Germany and the smoldering conflict between the communist and western worlds, often fought through ‘proxy’ states like Vietnam, etc., was changed in a moment.

This event deserves your attention and appreciation of the changes precipitated…

Where the Berlin Wall First Fell: Historic Border Crossing Finally Gets a Facelift – SPIEGEL ONLINE
Source: www.spiegel.de

The former border crossing at Bornholmer Strasse may have been the spot where the Iron Curtain cracked wide open, but 20 years on there is little in this drab corner of East Berlin to indicate its historic significance. That is set to change now that Berlin has commissioned a firm of architects to create a new square to commemorate the events of Nov. 9, 1989.

Not all historic places announce themselves with pomp and fanfare. Sometimes they can be modest and unassuming, even a little bit shabby.

The Bösebrücke bridge to the north of Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg district is just such a place. This desolate corner of east Berlin is the spot where the Iron Curtain cracked wide open 20 years ago. It was here that East Berliners streamed past the suddenly moribund Bornholmer Strasse border checkpoint and into West Berlin at approximately 9:20 p.m. on Nov. 9, 1989. Yet today there is little to indicate that this is the place where communist East Germany entered its death throes. … [MORE]

Joe McNally, an outstanding photographer, shares… On assignment in Africa, he captured images of athletes in the Rift Valley training for New York’s marathon. These images are incredible, as would be expected. Read and enjoy…

New York Frame of Mind….. | Joe McNally’s Blog 
Source: www.joemcnally.com

Yankees won. Cool. I’ve been a Yankee fan before I even knew anything about NY. We lived in Cleveland when I was a kid, and my dad would only bring me to the ballpark when those damn Yankees were playing. He brought me down to the third base seats and Casey Stengel was standing in the coaches box. My dad yelled, “Hey Case!” Stengel was standing there, thumbs hooked in his belt, and gave me a wink and a quick wave. Been a Yankee fan ever since, though, like Yogi, I did have a hard time liking anybody in pinstripes back when The Boss was in full cry.

Corny, right? But hey, it was the 50’s. In Cleveland.

Big sports stuff in NY last weekend. The Iggles handed the Giants their heads and other parts of their anatomy, and the NYC Marathon was won for the first time in a long time by somebody whose address isn’t the Rift Valley. I spent 3 weeks in this astonishingly beautiful place for the National Geographic when I was doing a story for them on the limits of the human body. (Though now that Usain Bolt is running, we should re-define those limits. That guy’s amazing.) … [MORE]

Some neat computer buys for less than $500… This article lists ten netbook or notebook computers that you can get (in their basic configuration) for under this price point. It looks like there are some good buys in this list, but be aware that a fully-functional configuration can go up from about $400 to about $1200 for one model that I checked out.

But still, it’s worth checking out…

Best Laptop, Desktop and Tablet PCs Under $500 – Yahoo! Shopping 
Source: shopping.yahoo.com

With the launch of Microsoft’s new operating system, Windows 7, the budget end of the spectrum is suddenly ripe with value. Unless you need a high-performance machine you can push to the very extreme, you’ll find plenty of amazing systems under $500. Here are a few of our favorites.

1. Dell Studio Hybrid Desktop, $499

Call it "green" if you must, but make no mistake: Dell’s hyper-efficient Studio Hybrid doesn’t play favorites when it comes to color. The chic little desktop can be ordered in six colors, and makes good on its Earth-friendly reputation by using 70 percent less power than a typical desktop, measuring 80 percent smaller, and made from 95 percent recyclable materials. An Intel Pentium Dual Core processor and GMA X3100 graphics chip also set it a cut above the standard netbook crowd when it comes to processing power. … [MORE]

Motorola DROID Review: It’s here… Verizon Wireless releases its new smartphone today, the DROID. It is positioned to be an iPhone ‘killer’ and has a keyboard as well as touch screen. It remains to be seen how the apps will line up, but this review seems to indicate a positive note. If you are with Verizon (the only company to use the communication protocol upon which this phone is based), you may want to check it out.

BTW, anyone else out there tired of smartphones being tied to only one cellular company? It’s a pain. I don’t know why these cellular phone companies (I’m not speaking of the wireless providers) bind themselves to a single service provider. It seems short-sighted and bad for business, but it continues…

Let me know what you think…

Motorola DROID review (Verizon Wireless) – Nerd World – TIME.com 
Source: nerdworld.blogs.time…

By now you’ve seen Verizon’s iDon’t/DROID Does campaign on TV or on the streets. The first commercial can be found here. It’s a bit tongue-in-cheek and Verizon has admitted this, but it does highlight a handful of things that the iPhone clearly cannot do. It should also serve as a clear indication that any rumor of the iPhone moving to the network is now squashed. Or they’re confident enough that Apple won’t hold a grudge. The former scenario is more likely. (See the best travel gadgets of 2009.)

Motorola’s DROID has a very industrial look and feel to it. Gone are the days of lightweight and dainty devices. You don’t have to coddle the DROID or shell out an extra $30 for a case. Wrapped mostly in metal, the DROID is chock-full of features that have become standard on ‘smartphones’ or whatever else you want to call these mini computers. Here’s a quick rundown on features and specs: … [MORE]