April 15, 2013

Boston

Boston Marathon

Photo by Aaron Tang

October 16, 2012

The Presidential Debates

The second presidential debate will be contested tonight. Included are links to historical presidential debates past as well as old ads/speeches for years with no debates. My favorite link is one of a Democratic Ronald Reagan campaigning for Truman.

2012 Obama / Romney 1

2008 Obama / McCain 1, Obama / McCain 2, Obama / McCain 3

2004 Bush / Kerry 1 (Pt 1) Bush / Kerry 1 (Pt 2) Bush / Kerry 1 (Pt 3) etc.

2000 Bush / Gore (Pt 1.), Bush / Gore (Pt 2.), Bush / Gore (Pt 3.), Bush / Gore (Pt 4.), Bush / Gore (Pt 5.), Bush / Gore (Pt 6.), Bush / Gore (Pt 7.)

1996 Clinton / Dole 1, Clinton / Dole 2

1992 Clinton / G W H Bush / Ross Perot

1988 Bush / Dukakis

1984 Reagan / Mondale

1980 Reagan / Carter

1976 Carter / Ford 3

1972 Nixon / McGovern (no debate)

1968 Nixon / Wallace /Humphrey (no debate)

1964 Johnson / Goldwater (no debate)

1960 Kennedy / Nixon

1956 Eisenhower / Stevenson (no debate)

1952 Eisenhower / Stevenson (no debate)

1948 Truman / Dewey (no debate)

1944 Roosevelt / Dewey (no debate)

1940 Roosevelt / Wendell Wilkie (no debate)

1936 Roosevelt / Landon (no debate)

1932 Roosevelt / Hoover (no debate)

1928 Hoover / Smith (no debate)

. . . . . . . . . .
Semi related: Eisenhower in Color, Inaugural Addresses Past, Abe Lincoln in Person, Teddy Roosevelt Recording

December 31, 2011

Happy 2012

April 14, 2010

Yushu Earthquake

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A huge earthquake struck Yushu province yesterday. It's a remote and beautiful part of the world and conditions there are tough in the best of times. High passes, bad roads, and poor communication are the norm. In my trips there through the region I've made many friends. All must be suffering now.

My guess is that the true scale of this calamity will never be known and the reports of the dead will be wildly underestimated.

An account of my first trip to Jiegu in 1999 (Jiegu is the Tibetan name, Yushu is the official Chinese name): Xining-Garze

News links: NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Google Quake News, Seismic Monitor

Update: Firsthand report of the quake.

Update: The Boston Globe put together a devastating set photographs from the Yushu as in the aftermath of the quake. A story in the NYTimes about post-quake tensions in the area.

January 20, 2009

Inaugural Addresses Past

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Here are the full texts of all the inaugural addresses past.

And a few snippets that stuck out for me (in no particular order):

Lyndon Johnson:

"My fellow countrymen, on this occasion, the oath I have taken before you and before God is not mine alone, but ours together. We are one nation and one people. Our fate as a nation and our future as a people rest not upon one citizen, but upon all citizens.

This is the majesty and the meaning of this moment.

For every generation, there is a destiny. For some, history decides. For this generation, the choice must be our own.

Even now, a rocket moves toward Mars. It reminds us that the world will not be the same for our children, or even for ourselves in a short span of years. The next man to stand here will look out on a scene different from our own, because ours is a time of change—rapid and fantastic change bearing the secrets of nature, multiplying the nations, placing in uncertain hands new weapons for mastery and destruction, shaking old values, and uprooting old ways.

Our destiny in the midst of change will rest on the unchanged character of our people, and on their faith." (video)

Teddy Roosevelt:

" Yet, after all, though the problems are new, though the tasks set before us differ from the tasks set before our fathers who founded and preserved this Republic, the spirit in which these tasks must be undertaken and these problems faced, if our duty is to be well done, remains essentially unchanged. We know that self-government is difficult. We know that no people needs such high traits of character as that people which seeks to govern its affairs aright through the freely expressed will of the freemen who compose it. But we have faith that we shall not prove false to the memories of the men of the mighty past. They did their work, they left us the splendid heritage we now enjoy. We in our turn have an assured confidence that we shall be able to leave this heritage unwasted and enlarged to our children and our children's children. To do so we must show, not merely in great crises, but in the everyday affairs of life, the qualities of practical intelligence, of courage, of hardihood, and endurance, and above all the power of devotion to a lofty ideal, which made great the men who founded this Republic in the days of Washington, which made great the men who preserved this Republic in the days of Abraham Lincoln."

Woodrow Wilson

We are provincials no longer. The tragic events of the thirty months of vital turmoil through which we have just passed have made us citizens of the world. There can be no turning back. Our own fortunes as a nation are involved whether we would have it so or not.

And yet we are not the less Americans on that account. We shall be the more American if we but remain true to the principles in which we have been bred. They are not the principles of a province or of a single continent. We have known and boasted all along that they were the principles of a liberated mankind. These, therefore, are the things we shall stand for, whether in war or in peace.

Harry Truman

The American people stand firm in the faith which has inspired this Nation from the beginning. We believe that all men have a right to equal justice under law and equal opportunity to share in the common good. We believe that all men have the right to freedom of thought and expression. We believe that all men are created equal because they are created in the image of God.

From this faith we will not be moved.

(Partial Speech - mp3)


Howard Taft

The negroes are now Americans. Their ancestors came here years ago against their will, and this is their only country and their only flag. They have shown themselves anxious to live for it and to die for it. Encountering the race feeling against them, subjected at times to cruel injustice growing out of it, they may well have our profound sympathy and aid in the struggle they are making. We are charged with the sacred duty of making their path as smooth and easy as we can. Any recognition of their distinguished men, any appointment to office from among their number, is properly taken as an encouragement and an appreciation of their progress, and this just policy should be pursued when suitable occasion offers.

Grover Cleveland

Care for the property of the nation and for the needs of future settlers requires that the public domain should be protected from purloining schemes and unlawful occupation.

The conscience of the people demands that the Indians within our boundaries shall be fairly and honestly treated as wards of the Government and their education and civilization promoted with a view to their ultimate citizenship, and that polygamy in the Territories, destructive of the family relation and offensive to the moral sense of the civilized world, shall be repressed.

The laws should be rigidly enforced which prohibit the immigration of a servile class to compete with American labor, with no intention of acquiring citizenship, and bringing with them and retaining habits and customs repugnant to our civilization.

John F Kennedy (full speech) (mp3)

Dwight D. Eisenhower (full speech)

FDR's First Innagural (mp3)

John Adams

There may be little solidity in an ancient idea that congregations of men into cities and nations are the most pleasing objects in the sight of superior intelligences, but this is very certain, that to a benevolent human mind there can be no spectacle presented by any nation more pleasing, more noble, majestic, or august, than an assembly like that which has so often been seen in this and the other Chamber of Congress, of a Government in which the Executive authority, as well as that of all the branches of the Legislature, are exercised by citizens selected at regular periods by their neighbors to make and execute laws for the general good. Can anything essential, anything more than mere ornament and decoration, be added to this by robes and diamonds? Can authority be more amiable and respectable when it descends from accidents or institutions established in remote antiquity than when it springs fresh from the hearts and judgments of an honest and enlightened people? For it is the people only that are represented. It is their power and majesty that is reflected, and only for their good, in every legitimate government, under whatever form it may appear. The existence of such a government as ours for any length of time is a full proof of a general dissemination of knowledge and virtue throughout the whole body of the people. And what object or consideration more pleasing than this can be presented to the human mind? If national pride is ever justifiable or excusable it is when it springs, not from power or riches, grandeur or glory, but from conviction of national innocence, information, and benevolence.

November 5, 2008

A Little Historical Perspective

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November 5, 2008

Jenn is Crying Happy Tears

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November 4, 2008

Exit Stage Left

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