Mo Rocca on "delight"

Mo Rocca thinks "delight" is undervalued and underappreciated...

Here he is at the National Archives, talking about Mobituaries and other things.

Blue Marble

It was on this day in 1972 that astronauts on the Apollo 17 spacecraft took a famous photograph of Earth, a photo that came to be known as “The Blue Marble.” Photographs of Earth from space were relatively new.

In 1948, the astronomer Fred Hoyle said, “Once a photograph of the Earth, taken from the outside, is available — once the sheer isolation of the Earth becomes plain — a new idea as powerful as any in history will be let loose.”

The photograph captured on this day thirty-nine years ago was the first clear image of the Earth, because the sun was at the astronauts’ back, and so the planet appears lit up and you can distinctly see blue, white, brown, even green. It became a symbol of the environmental movement of the 1970s, and it’s the image that gets put on flags, T-shirts, bumper stickers, and posters.

The crew of Apollo 17 was about 28,000 miles away from Earth when they took the Blue Marble photo. It was the last time that astronauts, not robots, were on a lunar mission — since then, no people have gotten far enough away from Earth to take a photo like it.

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It was on this day in 1972 that astronauts on the Apollo 17 spacecraft took a famous photograph of the Earth, a photo that came to be known as "The Blue Marble." Photographs of the Earth from space were relatively new at this time.

On Christmas Eve of 1968, the astronauts on the Apollo 8 mission, orbiting the moon, took a photo with the gray, craggy surface of the moon in the foreground and the bright blue Earth coming up behind, only half of it visible. That photo was called "Earthrise," and it really shook people up because it made the Earth look so fragile, and because the photo was taken by actual people, not just a satellite.

And on this day in 1972, the crew of Apollo 17 took another photograph, not only one of the most famous images of the Earth but one of the most widely distributed photos ever taken. It's known as "The Blue Marble" because that's how the Earth looked to the astronauts. It was the first clear photo of the Earth, because the sun was at the astronauts' back, and so the planet appears lit up and you can distinctly see blue, white, brown, even green. It became a symbol of the environmental movement of the 1970s, and it's the image that gets put on flags, T-shirts, bumper stickers, and posters.

The crew of Apollo 17 was about 28,000 miles away from Earth when they took the Blue Marble photo. It was the last time that astronauts, not robots, were on a lunar mission — since then, no people have gotten far enough away from the Earth to take a photo like it.

==

It's an iconic image we have all seen hundreds of times, possibly thousands, and probably the most widely reproduced photograph in history. Because it's in the public domain it has been used for everything from car commercials to the Earth Day flag, printed on T-shirts, postage stamps, billboards, book covers, mouse pads -- most any surface you can print on. It even has its own Facebook page. In the NASA archive its formal designation is AS17-148-22727 but it's commonly known as The Blue Marble Shot, and forty years later we still aren't sure who actually took it... (Atlantic, continues)

Bob Kendrick on the Negro Leagues Museum

A few weeks ago @VandyBoys visited the Negro League Baseball Museum in Kansas City and honored the @NashvilleStars and Detroit Stars in the inaugural David Williams Fall Classic in Nashville. See and hear the impact of Negro Leagues on them: https://t.co/e5jLOVGknn @nlbmprez

— NashvilleMLB (@mlb_nashville) November 23, 2019

The final frontier

I love Mr. Spock because he reminds me of you, I told my father. For the first time that night, I considered the possibility that he was going to survive it.
By Michael Chabon

...In “Star Trek” ’s imagined future, amid the rocks and under the red alien skies of Spock’s home world, Vulcans called that unflagging effort a “philosophy,” enshrined its founder, Surak, and looked with cool condescension on those who did not submit to its regime. But, as I would discover as an undergrad in the halls of the Philosophy Department at the University of Pittsburgh, a redoubt far stauncher than the planet Vulcan of a logic far fiercer than Surak’s, the Vulcan way had little to do with philosophy and even less to do with logic, and there was certainly nothing alien about it. It was just good old repression, of the sort practiced by human fathers, among others, for many long and illogical centuries.

I love Mr. Spock because he reminds me of you, I said... NewYorker

Royce

Royce from Osopher
LISTEN

Canine-assisted immortality!

If the cat doesn't mess it up...

Canine-assisted immortality! pic.twitter.com/JPWe1qTb3U

— Phil Oliver (@OSOPHER) October 14, 2019

Southern Festival of Books 2019

Strolled through the exhibitors pavilion, on the Legislative Plaza in Nashville, at the Southern Festival of Books yesterday. I've done that many times over the years, but because it's usually on a beautiful sunny crisp Fall day (like yesterday), I rarely go inside, into the legislative chambers or underground. One exception: the time I presented, in 2001. (A few others: Bill McKibben, a year or two earlier; Reynolds Price, Willie Morris...)

Fortunately, CSPAN BookTV now covers the festival so I can enjoy the sunshine and see the author appearances later. Connie Britton talked to Samantha Power today... and earlier I saw Paul Theroux at the Southern Festival of Books 2019...

Royce's Spirit

UPDATE: October 20, 2019

Royce from Osopher

Give it up

“It’s much easier to love than it is to hate! Hate eats you up on the inside!” -Buck O’Neil, who died OTD in 2006. I miss my friend, confidant & mentor! His legacy plays on at the NLBM! @JPosnanski @Royals @MLB @MLBNetwork @fox4kc @FSKansasCity @kmbc @KCTV5 @41actionnews @KCMO RT pic.twitter.com/3s8DRKdLGN

— negroleaguesmuseum (@nlbmprez) October 6, 2019

Happy birthday Monty Python

Dilbert meets the Argument Clinic #Python50 ⁦@montypython⁩ @EricIdle ⁦@JohnCleese⁩ ⁦ https://t.co/FrXGiqx6aQ

— Phil Oliver (@OSOPHER) October 6, 2019

And now for something completely different... To celebrate #Python50 the BBC's photo archive team have unearthed and lovingly restored rare @MontyPython photos and documents: https://t.co/WhNGE2txXI pic.twitter.com/Lh1UhlxhH7

— BBC Press Office (@bbcpress) October 5, 2019