I’m assuming the poignant service for Jimmy Carter in the National Cathedral went over TFG’s head and he got bored. Mercifully, the CSPAN camera didn’t linger on his mug for very long.

Large building with a circular tower on top of it and a Goodyear blimp flying over it. The awning over the front is topped with big, stylized letters that read 'AIR SHOW'. There are people milling about. The vibe is modern, almost futuristic, the style is art deco. The caption on front reads, 'Air show pavilion---The epic of human flight shown within, in graphic sequence. Without,---a mighty searchlight's beam directs the way to the fair. A Century of Progress---Chicago's 1933 World's Fair.'

I love the art deco lettering on this modernist “Air Show” building from the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, “A Century of Progress.”

Source: The Newberry Library Digital Collections, Modern MS Monroe Exposition vol. 28 no. 37.

Public Domain Image Archive, pdimagearchive.org.

“Digitization Complete for World-Renowned Franco Novacco Map Collection,” www.newberry.org….

Newly digitized map collection makes over 750 sixteenth- and seventeenth-century maps available online.

Had to cut short a walk this afternoon because I was not dressed for the wind, which was making 19°F / -7°C feel like 5°F / -15°C.

Besides marking a massive mob attack on the Capitol four years ago, this date reminds me of the early signs of the coronavirus pandemic a year before that and of my parents' tumble down the stairs in that same period, my father landing on my mother. That’s also when I finished writing “Blogging Histories of Knowledge in Washington, DC,” meeting with my coauthor in Frankfurt a.M. via FaceTime from a hotel room in North Conway, NH.

I had to relocate to NH for eldercare 20 months after that. That means I’ve lived up here for 40 months now, though I still haven’t got used to all the changes. Except for becoming a grandfather—that part has come easy to me. My grandchild is a joy.

Color photo of three women installing things in a shiny metal round structure. The front part (image foreground) has a wider circumference than the rear part (image background). The bodies of the women, one standing and doing something overhead, framed by the other two working on something closer to the floor, seem almost choreographed, embodying the dignity and high purpose of their labor.

Women installing assemblies and fixtures in the tail fuselage of a B-17F bomber (Flying Fortress) under construction at the Douglas Aircraft Company in Long Beach, California, in October 1942. The bodies of the women seem almost choreographed, embodying the dignity and high purpose of their labor. Photo by Alfred T. Palmer for the U.S. Office of War Information.

Source: Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Color Photographs, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017878924/.

🇺🇦 Excellent satirical primer on the Russo-Ukrainian War: a half hour of military and foreign policy animations by @Freeonis in 2024 (in Ukrainian with English subtitles), youtu.be…

Propaganda poster illustrating falling bombs from a plane bearing swastikas above a picture of a frightened mother and child. Background is pink. Spanish text is red. the bombs, plane, mother, and child are in varying shades of black. Spanish text: '¡Acusamos de asesinos a los facciosos! Niños y mujeres caen inocentes. Hombres libres, repudiad a todos los que apoyen en la retaguardia al fascismo. He aqui las victimas.'

Poster from the Spanish Civil War, ca. 1936–39. The main text reads, “We charge the rebels as assassins! Innocent children and women die. Free men, repudiate all those who support fascism in the rearguard.” The text, bottom right, with the arrow pointing at the mother and child reads, “Here are the victims.” Note, too, the black and red triangle of the Anarchists in the lower right-hand corner.

Source of image and main text translation: Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego, https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb5188576r. This page also offers historical context and analysis.

A book that manages to historicize a century of strongman regimes in an accessible and readable way while maintaining intellectual and scholarly rigor is a helluva thing. If you haven’t yet read Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present (Norton, 2020), I highly recommend it.

Strongman regimes … turn the economy into an instrument of leader wealth creation, but also encourage changes in ethical and behavioral norms to make things that were illegal or immoral appear acceptable, whether election fraud, torture, or sexual assault.…

Rulers who come into office with a criminal record … have a head start. They know that making the government a refuge for criminals who don’t have to learn to be lawless hastens the ‘contagion effect.’ So does granting amnesties and pardons, which indebt individuals to the leader and make blackmailers, war criminals, and murderers available for service.

– Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Strongmen, chap. 7

21°F / -6°C outside with a real feel of 11°F / -11.5°C, and people are still ordering iced coffee drinks.

Who would the strongman past and present be without those crowds that form the raw material of his propaganda? His secret is that he needs them far more than they need him.

– Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Strongmen, chap. 5

Propaganda is also a system of attention management that works through repetition.

– Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Strongmen, chap. 5

At its core, propaganda is a set of communication strategies designed to sow confusion and uncertainty, discourage critical thinking, and persuade people that reality is what the leader says it is.

– Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Strongmen, chap. 5

Molly White, “Elon Musk and the right’s war on Wikipedia,” www.citationneeded.news…

Title frame of movie: backdrop is the metal siding of an airplane factory. Besides the title, director, studio, and date in black, there is a silhouette of a man, faceless, of course.

I enjoyed rewatching “Saboteur,” dir. Alfred Hitchcock (Universal Pictures, 1942). It offers plenty of action and suspense from Los Angeles to New York City, inside and outside, with positive patriotic messaging that could put twenty-first-century billionaires and MAGAheads to shame.

Cartoon ringing in 1911, the new year personified by a mischievous youngster in an airplane in the sky, who Old Man 1910, standing on the ground next to his wrecked car, is gesticulating at. Caption at the bottom; 'The old and the new.'

“The old and the new” – front-page cartoon by Bryant Baker for Puck, December 28, 1910. Source: Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2011648851/.

“What Is Salting, the Organizing Tactic Spicing Up the Labor Movement?” by Kim Kelly www.teenvogue.com…

In the United States, “January 1, 2025 is Public Domain Day: Works from 1929 are open to all, as are sound recordings from 1924!" by Jennifer Jenkins and James Boyle, Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain.

Hitler had been in his early twenties when he made an important discovery. He felt most alive when losing himself in something he found sublime, like a Richard Wagner opera or the sound of his own voice.

– Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present (Norton, 2020), chap. 1

“Die Welt am Sonntag veröffentlicht einen Gastbeitrag, in dem Techmilliardär Elon Musk für die AfD wirbt. Mitarbeitende der Redaktion sind empört. Meinungschefin Eva Marie Kogel reicht ihre Kündigung ein.” www.spiegel.de…