lukegilman.com : High on the Hog Blog

Purveyor of Idle Observation

I just wanted to call attention to the plight of the stick figure, one of the most dangerous jobs in design. Check out the Flickr Pool – Stick Figures in Peril to learn more.

via BoingBoing, I found this glorious post from the Nonist, Red-Hot and Filthy Library Smut. It’s not as dirty as you might suppose, though bibliophiles tend to be a little excessive in the sexual metaphors. I myself am guilty of engaging in Hot Wet Book Love, though these photographs painfully illustrate how destitute my library experiences really are.

The photographs are from the book Libraries by Candida Höfer and Umberto Eco, who writes the introduction. There is of course, no one on earth better suited to write an introduction to a book on libraries. Needless to say, it is now atop of my wish list if anyone is feeling especially beneficent.

One of the blogs I’m involved with is Houston Metroblogging, a community-based site that’s part of a wider metroblogging network. For the most part it’s fairly mundane check-out-this-new-coffee-shop kind of faire, but every once in a while there’s a brush with real journalism. Case in point -

The preceeding video was one of three posted in Houston Police Officer Involved in ‘Melee’ with Concertgoers. Compare with the airbrushed version from the Houston Chronicle. The video clips are a bit too Rashomon for me to pronounce a verdict one way or the other, but in the past this kind of incident would be swept under the rug as if it never existed. Now that it lives on through the internet it will be interesting to see if it gets any momentum behind it. Just as the internet fosters a long tail in commerce, I perceive there is a latent outrage element at work.

The 2006 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Muhammad Yunus, an economist and founder of the Grameen Bank, which specializes in microloans to the poor. I personally think the choice was an excellent one, though not everyone agrees.

In the stunningly asinine Losing its Lustre, The Economist ($) takes the view that the Nobel Peace Prize committee should have not given out the prize at all rather than give it to Yunus, in order to “preserve its value.” The uncredited writer argues that if the committee could not find a suitable candidate, and clearly the Economist thinks Yunus doesn’t measure up, the “brave” thing to do would be to simply declare that there was no suitable recipient and keep it’s money. It mentions several instances in which the award was or should have been withheld. The Economist somehow fails to mention that one of the 19 instances in which the award was withheld was in 1948, on the grounds that “there was no suitable living candidate.” That also happened to be the year Mahatma Gandhi died, never receiving the prize despite having been nominated 5 times. Bravery? Hogwash.

Yunus, who shares the prize with his organization, Grameen Bank, is an excellent and refreshing choice, one which the Economist, of all publications, should recognize. Microlending enables the poor to become the agents of their own upward mobility by providing much needed capital in a way that turns the traditional benevolent condecension of charity on its head. It recognizes that an impoverished community is nevertheless a market with inherent worth. It operates with an efficiency driven from the bottom up rather than the top down, which economists, of all people, can appreciate. As this years press release notes, “Lasting peace can not be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty.” The Dalai Lama, the 1989 recipient, spoke to this in his lecture, “Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold.”

The problem I think many will have with awarding the prize to Yunus is that he’s a banker, and as any good bleeding-heart knows, aren’t bankers all elitist, money-hungry, penny-pinching, soulless arbiters of interest rates? Isn’t the Nobel Peace Prize reserved for activists and enlightened diplomats? Um, no. Thankfully.

Madeleine Peyroux recently did a set on Morning Becomes Eclectic, mixing some covers of Tom Waits and Serge Gainsbourg into the mix. If you’re new to Peyroux, start out with the excellent album Careless Love. It’s a classic.

Check out: Video of the Morning Becomes Eclectic Set

Official Website: www.madeleinepeyroux.com

Came across this mad mac setup. I’m not jealous. OK, maybe. More on Flickr’s Where We Work Pool

• Michael Lewis, perhaps best known as the author of MoneyBall, takes on the inconspicuously fascinating subject of football’s left tackle in his newest work, The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game.

  Lewis has a preview chapter in the New York Times, “The Ballad of Big Mike” that’s a fascinating read.

• David Remnick profiles Bill Clinton for the New Yorker in “The Wanderer, Bill Clinton’s quest to save the world, reclaim his legacy—and elect his wife.“

• Coffee Geekery rises to new heights with the artisanal movement in top java shops.
  New York Times: Espresso’s New Wave Hits Town.

• “My theory?” Mr. Thomas offered. “White people kill themselves. Black people kill each other. Chinese people don’t die.” from Body Collector in Detroit Answers When Death Calls