This video of Sarah Palin being interviewed before she pardons a Thanksgiving turkey is almost too good to be true. (Via Swampland.)

A glimpse inside the pirate’s lair in Puntland, Somalia, last month, courtesy of Al Jazeera. (Via The Oil and the Glory)

The euphoria over the election of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America may have died down, but there remains a feeling—on the street, in people’s homes, in cafes and bars—that this momentous event is still percolating through society and will continue to do so for months, probably years, to come.
I live in a predominantly black neighborhood in Brooklyn, on the border of Crown Heights, scene of a race riot in 1991, and Prospect Heights, a small, rapidly-gentrifying area where just a couple of generations ago few whites would consider living.
Today, black, white, gay, straight, Jew and gentile co-exist as well as any group of people living on top of each other can. Obama’s election did little to change the geniality that characterizes daily life in many of Brooklyn’s vibrant, multiethnic communities. But it certainly changed the way I, as a white, Jewish, British immigrant, perceive, and feel proud for, my black neighbors.

On November 4 and 5, the joy over Obama’s election could be heard in the shouts and car horns echoing down our block, seen in the newspaper and magazine headlines that trumpeted a historic victory the next day, and sensed in the unusually good mood that seemed to envelop most New Yorkers for the rest of the week. It was as though the Yankees had won the World Series and the entire city was a fan.
A couple of weeks on, and that sense of victory can still be felt, whether it be a celebratory toast at a party or a snippet of conversation overheard in the street. New Yorkers have a much greater tendency to talk to each other than Londoners. And traveling home on the 2 subway train the other day, I overheard a Hispanic girl complement a black female passenger who was wearing a large pin with a picture of the Obamas above the slogan “Africa’s First Family.” Her compliment was a simple as “I like your pin.” Yet it implied “I’m with you, too.”

The last stop on the 2 line in Manhattan is Wall Street, a neighborhood that is in desperate need of “hope” and “change” and a “yes, we can” attitude. As the train rumbles into Brooklyn, white passengers disembark in the upscale neighborhoods of Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope. By the time it reaches my stop, at Eastern Parkway-Brooklyn Museum, the white exodus is almost complete save for perhaps a few white students who have opted for the cheaper rents of Crown Heights.
As a white passenger it is hard not to look at the faces of your fellow black commuters—students and workers, mothers and fathers—and wonder what it means for them and their children that after so many generations of inequality and oppression, a black man is headed for the White House? How would they have felt if, as many had quietly feared, white voters had deserted the black candidate in the privacy of the polling booth? Does it mean anything to them that more white men and women voted for Barack Obama in 2008 than John Kerry in 2004?

After exiting the train I make my way down Washington Avenue, a disheveled thoroughfare lined with shabby bodegas and peppered with numerous barber shops and hair braiding salons, Caribbean restaurants and a check cashing office. The weather is still mild enough for people to continue the summer habit of congregating on the pavement, many sitting on fold out chairs and engaged in animated conversation.
I don’t feel any more welcome weaving between them in the dawn of the age of Obama than I did last month. After all, I am still a gentrifier, a yuppie whose very presence threatens to perpetuate the steady influx of young whites to the area and to continue to drive up real estate prices and rents. But I do feel as though the gap between us has narrowed. For all they know I could have been one of the millions of white Americans who manned phone banks or fanned out across polling stations, who pulled the lever or pushed the button that helped put Barack Obama where he is today.
For if the simple act of electing a man can only go so far in healing the wounds of slavery and segregation, it does at least prove one thing. That in the space of a little under a couple of years, America has undergone a momentous change.

McKenzie would “roar around the office shouting ‘Ferret up your trouser!’ ” whenever he wanted to alter made-up pages at top speed. “Then he might shout, ‘Reverse ferret!’ and all the pages would have to be changed all over again.”

I have no doubt that Shafer is right when he attributes the New York Post’s reverse ferret to Murdoch’s desire to keep the new administration sweet. It would not be the first time he has proven his malleability in the face of raw political power (see UK elections passim.) But I do wonder whether Shafer ought to be giving Post editors just a little more credit.

After all, the Post did all it could to tear into Obama’s campaign. But that fight is over. The first African American has been elected to the White House with a clear mandate. Even John McCain is making nice. Meanwhile, newspapers and magazines cannot publish fast enough to meet reader demand for Obama stories. Under such conditions what newspaper wouldn’t release a commemorative post-election special and stick Obama on the cover every day? (And while we’re at it, let’s not forget the Post endorsed Obama, albeit grudgingly, during the Democratic Primary, in January.)

Rupert Murdoch and the Reverse Ferret (Slate)

Ancient readers of EINY may remember a photograph I took of the sanctuary of Beth Hamedrash Hagadol synagogue on the Lower East Side way back in 2005. (Full size version here.) Well, now it has a wider audience. A couple of weeks ago, I was approached by an author at Wikipedia to see whether I would release the photograph under a Creative Commons license. Since Wikipedia must be one of the research tools I turn to most often, second only to Google, it seemed selfish not to agree.

I interviewed a handful of Russia and Central Asia specialists, who seemed largely to agree that while McCain had much greater knowledge and experience of the region, his outright hostility towards Russia threatened to do more harm than good to American interests in the region. Obama, while obviously less experienced, appeared to be tacking in the right direction by turning for advice to people like Michael McFaul, a democracy hand from Stanford Univeristy, who is perceived as having a firm yet nuanced view of the region.

One of the most fascinating insights came from Steve LeVine, a Russia and Central Asia specialist for BusinessWeek, who pointed out that following its August invasion of Georgia, Russia appeared all-powerful in the region. But the economic shock of September/October and rapidly falling oil prices had swung the balance of power back in America’s—and Europe’s—favor.

LeVine is author of what looks like a fascinating book about the Central Asian oil industry, called The Oil and the Glory: The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea. If you’re interested, there’s a video of his Authors@Google talk on the subject last year on YouTube.

I’ve always said that British journalism is the best in the world. Finally, a video to prove it. (Not entirely safe for work.)

UK Reporter Drunk on Hope (Gawker)

(Via Mimi)

The anecdote is one of many insightful and funny tales in the audio production that accompanies The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions, currently on show at the Met. As some EiNY readers already know, my wife Sofie produces most of the audio tours for the Met. And though I have not had a chance to see the exhibition yet, I know from many conversations over the past few months that this is one of the most rewarding tours she has produced in recent months.

As its name suggests, the show is a retrospective of works acquired during Philippe de Montebello’s 31 years at the museum. And it has been timed to coincide with his departure at the end of the year. What I find so interesting about this show, and particularly the audio production, is that it focuses not just on the significance of the works, but on the behind-the-scenes tales of how and why they were acquired.

As anyone who has taken a tour at the Met knows, Philippe de Montebello has a soothing baritone that is made for radio. And his discussions with the Met’s curators give a real insight into the process behind acquisitions. Indeed, there was so much great material that the podcast which accompanies the show, and which the above anecdote is taken from, easily stands on its own.

The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions (Audio extras)