johnkemeny.com

 

Patrick Moberg illustration. BTW, BHO will be President number 44 = !5 = number of derangements of the set {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}.

Born on this date in 1847 in Makó Hungary on the Romanian border (a stone’s throw from Vallaj, where my dad was born), the son of a wealthy grain merchant of Jewish origin (like my paternal grandfather) and a German mother who was a devout Roman Catholic, young Joseph Pulitzer always dreamt (like many Hungarian boys of yore who were weaned on the children’s fantasy Hári János doc) of being a soldier.  After not qualifying for the Austrio-Hungarian Army nor the French Foreign Legion, he fulfilled his dream by coming to America and joining the Union Army in 1864.

In 1872 he bought his first newspaper for $3000.  He became famous after he bought New York’s World, transforming newspaper journalism with pictures, cartoons, and a liberal editorial ethic.  He fought against the Spanish American war, a war bought and paid for by rival “yellow journalist” William Randolf Hearst.

    

He survived the “newsie’s” strike of 1899.  Newspapers were distributed by young orphans and homeless children for a meager 10 cents per hundred – and they would have to eat the cost of unsold papers!  This is all commemorated in the Disney musical mega-flop Newsies.

We all know about his endowment ($500,000) for journalism and literature prizes.  He also happened to mentor the entire field of journalism serving in the public interest.  He mentored Nellie Bly, who’s expose, Ten Days in a Mad House, was groundbreaking firsthand journalism.  We can thank Pulitzer for Pulizer prize winning editorial cartoons, such as the following by Mike Luckovich.  You may not be able to pick up a Pulitzer, but you can enter the 2007 Scientific Integrity Editorial Cartoon contest, or Science Idol – but hurry, the deadline is May 22^nd.

         

On April 6, 1906, 12 days before the San Francisco earthquake, cartoonist James Stuart Blackton and Thomas Edison released the first animation – a film of a man puffing cigar smoke while his sweetheart rolled her eyes in disapproval, a dog jumping through a hoop, and a juggler. They used Edison’s newly invented Kinestoscope (which Edison had patented the same year, 1897, as the phonograph ), and called the film The Humorous Phases of Funny Faces. Blackton had studied Edweard Muybridge’s pioneering sequential photographs for inspiration.

You can study the book, Animation, The Whole Story by Howard Beckerman , animation professor at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Or you can read all kinds of stuff , the blog of Ren Hoek and Stimpson J. Cat creator and animator extraordinare John Kricfalusi (pronounced like my name, ‘JohnK’ :-O, he also happens to be of Hungarian origin, though he was born in Canada – ‘falusi’ means ‘from the town of’ and ‘s’ is pronounced ‘sh’ in Hungarian).

Ren was fashioned after Hungarian actor Peter Lorre , an inspiration for many cartoons (see Tex Avery’s wonderful rendition). During the Hayes Commission investigation of the late 40s, Lorre was asked to name anyone suspicious he had met since coming to the United States. Lorre responded with a list of everyone he knew. As a young man in Vienna, Lorre was a student of Sigmund Freud. Alice was a student of Sophie Freud, Sigmund’s granddaughter.

This cartoon, printed in a Russian newspaper, says “We never taught them to do that…” .  The paper was closed down.  You can find the original politically incorrect cartoons on Michelle Malkin’s blog. Not so incidentally, Michelle’s site has recently been subjected to a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.  Here is where to find the “Buy Danish” Corner Banner Code.

 

In September 2000 I recieved the following email:

Congratulations!  You’ve won a Personal Video Recorder from TiVo! A team of discriminating judges read the essay you submitted to “The Great TiVo Giveaway Contest” and decided you were most definitely in need of our help!

The contest was the idea of the, now reclusive, original TiVo evangelist Richard (TiVolutionary) Bullwinkle.  My winning essay was the following poem (with serious apologies to Lewis Carroll):

Easy billing, and smiling TIVOs
Are nimble and glisten on the tube.
Commercials are where the boredom goes
And where Mom and Dad’s wrath is engaged.

“Beware of the Infomercial, my son!
The engine oil, the home gyms glut!
Beware the Station Break, and shun
The 30-second sp’t!”

With his old remote in hand
Long time he surfed for shows he sought,
But with TIVO’s Suggestion Guide
It was done without a thought.

And, as he watched, eyes ‘n ears attune,
An Infomercial soon leaped out,
It alleged, sincerely loon,
And soon began to shout!

“Buy two! Buy four! Easy financing. At your door!”
The verbal assault would last and last,
But he took control, TIVO’s control,
And sent it spinning to the past.

“And hast thou slain the Commercial spot?”
“Thanks to TIVO!” revealed the boy.
Oh famous day! Hooray! Hooray!
They chuckled in their joy.

Easy billing, and smiling TIVOs
Are nimble and glisten on the tube:
Commercials are where the boredom goes
And where Mom and Dad’s wrath is engaged.

Oh cay, not grate rime or ti ming (past spelt chequer) .  But it got me my first TiVo.  My low-tech wife Alice said no-way could I buy a TiVo, but here was one she couldn’t refuse (she now agrees with former FCC Chairman Michael Powell about TiVo, and is addicted to TiVo).