The Cuteness Stimulus
Obama transition team acts to counter national cuteness deficit by posting photos of Sasha and Malia getting ready for their first day at school”
Aww …
Since we’re c (4) educatin’ with this post, why not throw in a policy angle? I got that from the Obama-Biden Transition Project’s Flickr’ page where I noticed that the photos are all held under an “all rights reserved” copyright. Given that the Transition is seeking to serve the public interest, it seems to me that it would be nice to release these photos under a Creative Commons license of some sort. In practice, it almost certainly doesn’t make a difference since the Transition presumably wants these images to be disseminated widely and isn’t going to be denying anyone permission or writing any cease-and-desist letters. But that’s all the more reason to go Creative Commons and serve as a model for other institutions out there.
65 Responses to “The Cuteness Stimulus”
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January 5th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Well, presumably it’s so they CAN write cease-and-desist letters to those rightwingers who would take the photos and alter them so that Obama is wearing muslim garb or michelle has horns or something like that.
January 5th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
I, for one, would like to see less of this kind of thing. Less Daddy Of The Nation stuff, more Chief Bureaucrat stuff. More governing, less personality. More secretaries, fewer kiddies. No offense – they’re very cute – but he’s not King.
January 5th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Something can be all rights reserved AND creative commons licensed. CC is just boilerplate license language, and you can pick and choose what if any restrictions you want.
January 5th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
If you like this one….. wait til they get their puppy….
hopefully a Sawtelle breed.
January 5th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Perhaps it’s a mistake? Change.gov has a Creative Commons license, after all.
http://change.gov/about/copyright_policy
January 5th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
I’m reading Sawtelle now…enough with the ghosts already.
January 5th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
I think the “all rights reserved” is the Flickr default, isn’t it? If so, then probably just inattention/intertia rather than any deliberate decision.
January 5th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Intuitively I’m inclined to agree with Poodle, but then we have Gordon Brown over here and he’s a complete disaster, because on top of the fact that his policies are rubbish, he is simply unable to communicate with the public or pretty much anyone for that matter. And that’s a pretty important aspect of being a politician.
January 5th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
I’m sure Michelle Rhee is grateful for the vote of confidence the Obamas gave her in sending their daughters to a D.C. public high school. Oh wait, that didn’t happen. Like Yglesias did, the Obama girls will go to a lily-white, expensive prep school.
BTW, don’t give me the nonsense that this is for security reasons. The Secret Service could have guarded these girls in a public school, just like they did with Amy Carter. It’s just more liberal hypocrisy at work. Public school for regular blacks and poor whites; lily-white private schools for rich liberals.
January 5th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
DTM – You’re very perceptive. You’re correct that in wishing for less People Magazine type coverage, what I was really advocating was an abandonment of policy initiatives.
January 5th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Lemme take a more narrow approach: How about the Obamas keep their kids out of the media, and the media keep their mitts off the Obama kids?
January 5th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
The Secret Service could have guarded these girls in a public school, just like they did with Amy Carter.
How many of Amy Carter’s schoolmates had cellphones, dipshit?
January 5th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Lemme take a more narrow approach: How about the Obamas keep their kids out of the media, and the media keep their mitts off the Obama kids?
Because, if not, bad things will happen?
January 5th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Miss Amy switched to private school after one year in the White House.
January 5th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
“How many of Amy Carter’s schoolmates had cellphones, dipshit?”
How many of the Obama girls’ schoolmates will have cellphones, dipshit? Try again, asshole.
January 5th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
“Miss Amy switched to private school after one year in the White House.”
Better one than none.
January 5th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
“I might note that my understanding is that the near-successful assassination of Reagan in 1981 sparked a serious re-thinking of Secret Service procedures.”
Please. Just admit that the Obamas don’t want to send their kids to a regular public school filled with regular black people. The truth will set you free.
January 5th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
The cuteness bomb is irresistible. Bill Cosby is now President.
The girls need a pony, which should be named Holden. Caroline Kennedy, who was cute and had a pony in the White House, should give them the pony. Why do I always have to tell people perfectly obvious things like this.
January 5th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Just admit that the Obamas don’t want to send their kids to a regular public school filled with regular black people.
It’s worth noting that, despite Michelle Rhee’s fantastic photo shoots, D.C. doesn’t actually have regular public schools.
January 5th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
I hope they go for a bald mutt and name it Joe the Dog.
January 5th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Yes! White House cuteness
I want puppy-chasing NOW, dammit!
January 5th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Just admit that the Obamas don’t want to send their kids to a regular public school filled with regular black people.
Shocking news: rich people send their kids to private school. You are aware that several presidents have sent their kids to the very same school, right? You are quite clearly a racist.
January 5th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Someone should write a Greasemonkey script that changes the text of any post by Fred to “I don’t like black people.”
In other news: mort wins so far.
January 5th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Black people who go to private school aren’t regular black people.
Regular black people are all, like, poor and stuff. And carry guns, or, as regular black people call them, “gats.”
January 5th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
For people with mixed feelings about cute, try F@ck You, Penguin.
January 5th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
How many of the Obama girls’ schoolmates will have cellphones, dipshit?
Um, what? Are you implying younger kids don’t have cell phones?
January 5th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
“Um, what? Are you implying younger kids don’t have cell phones?”
No; you are implying that you aren’t intelligent enough to follow this thread. Try again.
DTM,
You’re whistling past the graveyard. Dems continually oppose voucher programs that would give regular (i.e., not rich) people the opportunity to send their kids to private or parochial schools. At the same time, they send their kids to private schools. That’s hypocrisy. I have no problem with them sending their kids to private schools, but I do have a problem with them doing so while favoring consigning those without their resources to the likes of D.C. public schools.
January 5th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
How many of the Obama girls’ schoolmates will have cellphones, dipshit?
Since Fred the bigot was polluting somewhere else when this was discussed here: for better or worse, being the school of the DC ruling class means that Sidwell Friends is set up to deal privacy as well as security.
It’s not as if Fred gives a shit about the Obama kids. Perhaps he’s upset at being deprived of furtive cameraphone shots of them in their gym clothes.
January 5th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
…deal with privacy as well as security. MY’s infecting us all.
Also: what DTM said. And Fred’s voucher spiel was stale in 2007.
January 5th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
…deal with privacy as well as security. MY’s infecting us all.
Also: what DTM said. And Fred’s voucher spiel was stale in 2007.
January 5th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
I bet there new school does a lot of teaching to the test and rote memorization – just like princess rhee suggests. Hopefully there school will not be shut down at the end of the year due to its low performance.
January 5th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
DTM,
A broad-based voucher program wouldn’t mean every student would get admitted to schools like Sidwell Friends, but it would open up a market for new schools taking different (and likely, more effective) tacks. Educational entrepreneurs could easily create smaller, more effective schools on lower per-student cost than the existing public schools. Heck, I’d probably start a school to educate African American kids. I’d open only to boys, hire retired black Army NCOs to instill discipline, and I’d have the school day start with military style calisthenics, followed by a healthy, balanced breakfast so the kids would be better able to sit still in class for six hours. I could easily get better results with that kind of school than with the feminized approach typical in public schools.
The Obamas and most Dems don’t care about that though. Their concerns about public education are kabuki.
January 5th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
When daydreaming about education reform, my mind rarely strays to thoughts about how awesome it would be to see black kids get screamed at by drill sergeants.
Odd, that.
January 5th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Heck, I’d probably start a school to educate African American kids. I’d open only to boys, hire retired black Army NCOs to instill discipline, and I’d have the school day start with military style calisthenics, followed by a healthy, balanced breakfast so the kids would be better able to sit still in class for six hours. I could easily get better results with that kind of school than with the feminized approach typical in public schools.
I’d vote Republican just to see you try to pull this off.
January 5th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Hm. I guess the above-mentioned Greasemonkey script will have to be amended to include “I fetishize the military, and am insecure about my masculinity.”
January 5th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Fred, oh dear Fred….
Educational entrepreneurs…yup, let them do for public education what housing, automotive and banking entrepreneurs did for their respective industries. The private sector is not a silver bullet.
…so the kids would be better able to sit still in class for six hours.
Yeah, right. This shows you to be…..well let me just say, differently informed. Kids this age can’t. To make matters worse, budge cuts and test focus have reduced recess, PE, Art and Music time which had always allowed students of this age group to blow off steam and refocus.
I am sure, being the exception that you are, that you were able to sit still in class for six hours, but that is not the way that normal kids function.
January 5th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Have you ever seen pictures of Amy Carter being hounded by reporters? You can’t keep the media out of public property and there’s no reason to subject the Obama kids to that – not even the important objective of impressing Fred.
January 5th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
“yup, let them do for public education what housing, automotive and banking entrepreneurs did for their respective industries. The private sector is not a silver bullet. The private sector is not a silver bullet.”
Funny that you miss what the worst firms in the banking and auto industries have in common with public education: they’re all “too big to fail”.
The issue isn’t private sector versus public sector, and it’s not about silver bullets. It’s about a market place of ideas where 1) different approaches are tried, and 2) successful approaches are expanded. If you think PE, art and music are so important to schools, you could start a school focused on that. I could start a school where black boys get the male role models and discipline they are lacking now. We can objectively measure which approach works better. Perhaps both approaches will work best with different sub groups of students.
Better than the current one size fits all approach which is foisted on those who can’t afford alternatives to public schools.
January 5th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
I’d vote Republican just to see you try to pull this off.
Don’t know Fred: his first innovative school proposal involved interlinked metal fastenings and flexible hand-held braided devices to enforce discipline.
January 5th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Sheesh, MY disease is catching: don’t knock Fred for his fantasies of edjumacatin’ those picaninnies like it’s 1855.
January 5th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
WillieStyle,
Won’t be necessary to pull the elephant lever. Fred’s dream school actually exists (well sorta, the law does require they let in females and white people).
http://www.nvvam.org/photos/abpa/cadets.jpg
Those are cadets at one of Chicago’s five military academies. Since Chicago’s School Superintendent Arne Duncan is the new Secretary of Education, I imagine we will see more public military schools around the country.
January 5th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
beowulf, actually several urban districts are developing such single sex academies. They are going slow as research is limited as to effectiveness. After decades of fad jumping, districts are a bit shy about embracing unproven ideas. As DTM pointed out, charter schools, often run with assistance from the urban districts (and the money travels with the kid), are popping up to fill niche needs/philosophies. In Texas urban areas that I know, some single sex formats are being tried.
Charters have mixed results. And a few charter entrepreneurs have pulled a “Madoff “ .
January 5th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Facts are not copyrightable.
January 5th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
In fact, the behind-the-scenes-on-election-night Obama-and-family photos posted to the Flickr “Barack Obama” account right after the election were tagged with a Creative Commons license, not the standard “all rights reserved.”
January 5th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
I don’t mind the behind-the-scenes, family shots. Obama has a happy personal life, and he has young kids. It’s kind of nice to see a real family in the White House, and yeah, maybe he’s using it to build political capital, but you know what? It actually makes me feel good. It makes me feel like he values family and women and children. And as a woman, I’m moved by that. Besides, it’s better than the Clinton’s sham marriage and W’s seemingly non-existent family values. I guess that makes me an easy mark…
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