The most expensive presidential election in US history by far, yet the net result is that we are basically stuck where we were before. Obama wanted to tax the rich a few percent more, take just a little bit from social security and medicare to compromise, Romney wanted to tax the rich less and cut "entitlements" to the "takers". His famous remark about the 47 percent of the US population who were "takers" revealed his true colors to the voters, a few too many of whom were in the 47 percent.
Obama's drone warefare is pretty insidious, killing more civilians than "militants", and his administration has continued cooperation with the congressional attack on real constitutional protections since 9/11, and attacked many more whistleblowers than previous administrations after promising a more open government in his first campaign. His war in Afganistan and Pakistan is also a human rights disaster. And the right claims that he is left, when he is basically what used to be called a moderate Republican in his actions, although a moderate Democrat in his talk. He is clearly an intelligent guy, but falling short of the leader we need in this age of crisis and impending global climate change ticking away like a time bomb.
We did the Bad Santa theme before in 2003, but the choices offered us in the election inspired a new take on this theme. We needed caricatures, so we relied on experts to help us out, but we did the pencil and ink reproduction with Santa attire. Our ditzy deer characters supplied the continuity with the past.
page 1: bob and ani by adele, summer 2011.
page 2: bob and ani, nora and ani venice sunset; bob and ani at Ville d'Este, Tivoli;
Stockholm: Mg13 banquet; fede, monia, ani, bob in sports bar for Italy in World Cup playoff;
bob and ani Stockholm by night, thanks to Andrea!
bonus photos:
bob and ani venice bridge shot; canal shot; venice wedding entertainment.
We should think of something here.
Yeah, dr bob's Year of Pasta. Mathematical Pasta. Screw-symmetric helical tube surfaces that generalize bob's previous torus exploration (also a pasta shape, by the way) that was inspired in the search for a way to talk about general relativity and its Italian connection to a popular audience as a part of the 2011 Outstanding Faculty Research Award talk bob had to deliver in April [first icon below]. Serendipitously transformable to a rotating classical electron model that captured Enrico Fermi's interest nearly a century ago as a young but already boy genius college kid [second icon below]. And led to a new and improved cavatappi surface: the orthogonally tilted model [third icon below].
[Splitting
the Gini Index in Two]And this was the year of income inequality and the one percent, during which Klaus and I were able to come up with a simple calculus application that quantifies the incredible thinning out of the rich at the highest levels as they suck up more and more of society's wealth. Another Italian: Corado Gini.
Ani did another fall as a chemistry adjunct professor at Widener, but was swamped with busy-work grading, not so much fun. But it was nice to be part of an academic family.
Once upon a time in 1996 when we were a two income couple with no time, we did our first long European weekend trip: a vacation deal from SAS to Stockholm (thanks Cyrus!) to see Kjell and Claes. The waterfront was frozen over. 16 years later we returned to Stockholm again for nearly 2 weeks in early July with our Rome/Pescara friends to see Kjell and Claes (and Aino-Linnea!) and many other friends at MG13 .
For photos of our summers 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 in Italy, check out our collection of Facebook uploaded photos. Lots of Italian food shots! Too many food shots.
Fang Li-Zhi, a distant friend who was always warm to us when we crossed paths, and a courageous scientist and champion of fighting for truth.
Leaving behind his life partner ShuXian to whom our hearts go out.
Evandro, he made us feel like family---at least he got to see his granddaughter before checking out suddenly.
Etc.:
This is for later maybe...