Toto, We Are In The White House

One of the blogs that I read regularly is say la vee and she highlighted the official White House Flickr photostream in one of her recent posts and as I scrolled through the images I felt like I was living a mini history lesson right there.

Yes, the pics are all part of the 'we the people - you the people - this house is our house - this house is your house' message that the Obama administration is pushing out. Oh, and the message? It matches the campaign rhetoric - they are pulling the curtain back and we do see the Wizard and Wizardress in there.

But we also get to see much more.

Crowded meeting rooms full of important people - and not always the image of that meeting that you'll see in Time magazine.

The art that he has chosen to hang in his office.

The comments that accompany the pictures, written by 'we the people.' Some are insightful, some are juvenile. Commenters begin to then comment on each other's comments and so goes the viralness of the web.

The White House PR and Tech plans mesh at this point. It's another chapter in the Axelrod/Obama guide to the Internet and the common web-connected (wo)man.

I'm going to (try) add it to my list of sites that I drop into.

It's my homework.

Best Take On The Inauguration

I love Maira Kalman. And she's back with her occasional works for the New York Times, here:
http://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/the-inauguration-at-last/

In one of the frames, she illustrates the Lincoln Bible that Obama used for his swearing-in and references a woman near her who asks, "Why on the Bible? Why not on the Constitution?"

Maira says that it's a very good question.

The Boy posed the same question - well, the first half of it.

Now I have the answer.

One of the first books we bought for him after he was born was "Stay Up Late", which illustrates the Talking Heads song of the same name.

I like the re-connection of him to her.