From the Earth to the Moon: Vintage NASA Photographs

Nearly 700 NASA photographs will be auctioned tomorrow at Bloomsbury Auctions in London. 

Prices range from $400 to $15,000. Collectors can bid online. 

NASA ~ Apollo 11 ~ July 1969

Buzz Aldrin ~ Gemini 12 ~ November 1966

William Anders ~ Apollo 8 ~ December 1968

Neil Armstrong ~ Apollo 11 ~ July 1969

Presidents Day

Had the good fortune to visit the Morgan Library with a friend today to see the Lincoln Speaks: Words that Transformed a Nation exhibit, put together by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

The exhibit provides a chronology of Lincoln's readings and writings from his youth to death. While his Gettysburg Address and Second Inauguration were among the most familiar documents, there were several handwritten letters and executive memoranda that were remarkable both for their symbolism and simplicity. Less than three months after signing the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln penned a private letter to Andrew Johnson, then military Governor of Tennessee, encouraging him to raise a force of "50,000 armed and drilled black soldiers" who if sighted on the banks of the Mississippi "would end the rebellion at once."

Transcript:

Private
Executive Mansion
Washington March 26, 1863

Hon. Andrew Johnson

My dear Sir:

I am told you have at least thought of raising a negro military force. In my opinion the country now needs no specific thing so much as some men of your ability, and position, to go to this work. When I speak of your position, I mean that of an eminent citizen of a slave-state, and himself a slave-holder. The colored population is the great available and yet unavailed of, force for restoring the Union. The bare sight of fifty thousand armed, and drilled black soldiers on the banks of the Mississippi, would end the rebellion at once. And who doubts that we can present that sight, if we but take hold in earnest? If you have been thinking of it please do not dismiss the thought.

Yours truly

A. Lincoln

I've been a Lincoln history buff since the third grade when my grandfather hoisted me above the silver chest to explain an ancestor's framed Civil War vellum commission papers signed by Lincoln in 1862, and countersigned by then Secretary of War Edwin M Stanton. An earlier commission before the Civil War was signed in 1853 by Franklin Pierce, and countersigned by his Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, four years before Davis became President of the Confederate States of America.

Frosty the Snowman?

"What makes you assume that I'm a snow man?"
 Liza Donnelly ~ The New Yorker

The Fog of War

Or the fog of deceit?

Last Thursday we were at the New York Rangers game at Madison Square Garden when the Gardenvision cameras broadcast a tribute to retired U.S. Army Command Sargeant Major Tim Terpack. We all stood and applauded, yet I felt for Terpack who looked very uncomfortable under the media glare. The following night, NBC News anchor Brian Williams broadcast this segment on the NBC Nightly News.



Now Terpack's discomfort makes sense. Williams wasn't telling the truth. Yes, he and his NBC News crew were in a Chinook helicopter that day in Iraq in 2003 but they landed an hour later and were nowhere near the helicopter struck and grounded by RPG and AK-47 fire. Veterans who were there and heard Williams' report cried foul. On his NBC Nightly News broadcast last night, Williams was forced to make this tortured apology:

"On this broadcast last week, in an effort to honor a veteran who protected me and so many others after a ground fire incident in the desert during the Iraq War invasion, I made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago. It did not take long to hear from some brave men and women in the air crews who were also in that desert. I want to apologize. I said I was in an aircraft that was hit by RPG fire. I was instead in a following aircraft. We all spent two harrowing nights in a sand storm in the Iraq deset. This was a bungled attempt by me to thank one special veteran and by extension our brave military men and women veterans everywhere -- those who served while I have not. I hope they know they have my greatest respect and now my apology. When we come back . . ."

The Stars and Stripes has the real story, where Williams explains that "I would not have chosen to make this mistake, I don't know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft for another."

Huh?

Stop dissembling, Mr. Williams. Get over yourself, you and your ego were caught in a lie.

Was Williams humbled? Nope, there he was at the Garden again last night, feeling no shame and yucking it up with Tom Hanks.

P.S. If you can bear it, listen to Williams describe the incident in a March 2013 interview on Late Night with David Letterman. His practiced modesty and verbal flourishes like "We were over Indian territory" indicate a narcissistic personality disorder.

A Walk in the Snow

Mark Ulriksen ~ The New Yorker

Watching out for Bill de Blasio

It's been a year since Mayor de Blasio dropped poor Staten Island Chuck on his head at the annual Groundog Day ceremony. Chuck died a few days later. The New York Post reports that Chuck's daughter Charlotte is expected to look for her shadow tomorrow, hopefully without the hapless Mayor.