Entries from November 2008 ↓

In case you missed one of the over 700 newspaper front pages, in 66 countries, commemorating the Obama victory—for example, Tel Aviv, Israel’s Maariv, above—now you can go to the Newseum’s web site and collect the whole set.

Take a look at some of the best American ones, below, after the jump. It’s interesting: When you check out a whole bunch, and see the designs, you can kind of detect which papers were inspired (e.g., the Hartford Courant, of all places), and which were just phoning it in. Also, actually, I think Will Smith was right, on Oprah, today: The Chicago Sun-Times did a cool cover, but, man, the Philly Daily News kinda came wit’ it.

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On July 1, 2008, Bill Gates, above, stepped down from full-time work at Microsoft Corporation, the company he founded with friend Paul Allen in April 1975. How does his departure affect the now-and-future direction of this corporate behemoth, a company whose software runs over 90% of the world’s computers, with assets of over $70 billion, and whose market capitalization approaches a quarter of a trillion dollars?

This is the fundamental question Mary Jo Foley provocatively addresses in her new book, Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft Plans to Stay Relevant in the Post-Gates Era. Foley is a guest, today, on my WBAI-NY / 99.5 FM radio show, NONFICTION, this afternoon, Friday, November 7, 2 pm ET.

Then, Alisa Lagamma, curator of a show running at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “The Essential Art of African Textiles: Design Without End,” will talk about the exhibition and the wide universe of visual materiel the continent’s cloths present.

You can hear their ideas by tuning in at 2 pm. If you’re outside of the New York tri-state, you can check out our stream on the web. If you miss the live show, check out our archive for up to two weeks after broadcast.

With all the talk about Sarah Palin possibly running for president in 2012, could it come to this: A showdown with her former, now 77-years-old-but-still-fit mentor, John McCain?

Kind of reminds me of something Darth Vader once said: “I’ve been waiting for you, Obi-Wan. We meet again at last. The circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but the learner. Now I am the Master.” Word is, Vader looked awesome in a burgundy, crocodile-print stiletto, too.

[via Panopticist]

Two years ago, Microsoft’s soulful “Mad World” commercial, directed by gaming ad auteur Joseph Kosinski for the debut of Epic’s Xbox 360 game, Gears of War, posted a brand new level of artistry for the marketing of videogames.

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What’s interesting about McCain’s concession speech, this week, was, in that brief presentation, he showed all of the statesmanness that was absent during his campaign. He was gracious, no-nonsense, and direct.

So is the cyborgian monster as which he’s caricatured, above, on this t-shirt. Well, maybe this guy’s not so gracious. S-XXL, $16, in red, white, or blue, from Hoodman.tv.

With McCain-Palin now lying at the bottom of the ocean, and the ship’s rats swimming away from the wreck, the truth is now coming out about what a fistful Sarah Palin was to deal with.

According to The Huffington Post,

Now that the 2008 election is over, reporters are spilling all the juciest, and previously off the record, gossip from the campaign trail. Much of it is about the infighting between Palin and McCain’s staff, as Newsweek‘s treasure trove of post-election gossip reveals.

However, perhaps one of the most astounding and previously unknown tidbits about Sarah Palin has to do with her already dubious grasp of geography. According to Fox News Chief Political Correspondent Carl Cameron, there was great concern within the McCain campaign that Palin lacked “a degree of knowledgeability necessary to be a running mate, a vice president, a heartbeat away from the presidency,” in part because she didn’t know which countries were in NAFTA, and she “didn’t understand that Africa was a continent, rather than a series, a country just in itself.”

It gets worse, and I’m not even going to spoil it for you. Watch the clip, and hear about her tantrums and infighting, then read about her other clothing sprees, the boner-rific way she once greeted McCain staff, and why she was silent during McCain’s concession speech. 2012 awaits, bay-bee!

What Obama supporters feel, now that the campaign is over, according to The New York Times‘ “Election Day WordTrain.”

The New York Times‘s “Election Day WordTrain,” above, shows the aggregate mind states of the concerned electorate. Readers enter a one-word description in fields the Times provided on the page. Above, in black, is, over the course of the day, so far, how all respondents feel.

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