Neatorama |
- Now Hear This: Radio War Propagandists
- Jordan's $1.5 Billion Star Trek Theme Park
- 11 Horrible OSHA Violations
- The Art of Clean Up
- Alternative Histories Filled With Monsters
- Pugs Preparing For The Hurricane
- Pop Icons in Historical Pictures
- When Geodesic Domes Were All The Rage
- The Comically Surreal Artwork Of Exit Man
- Simplistic Stylish And Strange Animated Short-"The Employment"
- Russia Plans to Build Tunnel to Alaska
- Tire That Self-Inflates Whenever It Rolls
- Hurricane Irene Store Signs
- Graffiti for Grandmas
- Ekranoplan in Dry Dock
- Frying Pan "Planets"
- When Countries Go Extinct Thanks To Low Birth Rates
- A Toast to The Beatles
- Bad Mothering Lawsuit Thrown Out
- The 21km Tribute to Steve Jobs
- Superhero Bust Banks
| Now Hear This: Radio War Propagandists Posted: 29 Aug 2011 05:07 AM PDT
During America’s wars, they were considered entertainers more than harbingers of fear to U.S. troops. But sometimes media stars like Tokyo Rose and Hanoi Hannah broadcast strategic information that there’s no way the enemy should have known. As radio propagandists transmitting from enemy capitals, their job was to undermine the morale of opposing troops in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Uncle John examines the careers of seven infamous enemy broadcasters of the 20th century.
Iva Toguri was born in Los Angeles in 1916 and graduated from UCLA with a zoology degree; she was visiting Japan when war broke out in 1941. She was hardly a household name in World War II -until the name given her by Allied forces in the Pacific made her an international celebrity. Wartime Activities: Tokyo Rose played American music and used American slang during her 20-minute daily newscast on Radio Tokyo’s “The Zero Hour” while she predicted attacks, identified American ships and submarines, and even peppered her conversation with the names of prominent individuals. Listeners thought she was uncannily accurate, but she had little impact on the offensive juggernaut that first isolated and then defeated Japan. Postwar: After the war, Toguri was arrested, convicted of treason, and imprisoned; she was released for good behavior in 1956 after serving six years. Upon moving to Chicago, where her family ran a store, she insisted she had always been a loyal American. She claimed that she was forced to make the broadcasts, and Allied POWs who worked with her confirmed her story years later, convincing president Gerald Ford to pardon her in 1977. In January 2006, she received the Edgar J. Herlihy Citizenship Award from the World War II Veterans Committee; she died in September of that year. 2. LORD HAW-HAW
Wartime activities: From 1939 to 1945, his radio broadcasts to England on the “Germany Calling” program were designed to undermine the morale of the English, Canadian, Australian, and American troops, as well as the citizens of the British Isles. Joyce reported Allied ship losses and planes shot down, and bragged about Nazi secret weapons with the goal of demoralizing the Allies. Postwar: Joyce was captured by British troops, who got the last “haw” when the war ended. He was tried and hanged for treason in early 1946. 3. LORD HEE-HAW
Wartime Activities: Kaltenbach’ thick Midwestern accent became familiar to British listeners, who dubbed him “Lord Hee-Haw” to differentiate him from “Lord Haw-Haw.” Kaltenbach’s reign on the air came to an end with the collapse of the Third Reich. Postwar: He was under indictment in the United States for treason, but the Soviets got the last “hee.” They arrested him in Berlin in 1945 and refused to release him to American forces. The broadcaster died within a year in a Soviet prison. 4. AXIS SALLY British and American GIs on the march through Italy in the last months of World War II were familiar with the radio voice of “Axis Sally.” Rita Luisa Zucca, born to a Manhattan restauranteur, called herself “Sally” while broadcasting propaganda first for Benito Mussolini’s fascist government and then for Nazi Germany. She was a regular voice on the “Jerry’s Front” program that aired from Rome. She’d come to Italy before the war to look after her family’s estate and was forced to renounce her American citizenship to keep the property from being expropriated by Mussolini’s government. She was 30 when she was hired as a radio announcer in February 1943. Wartime Activities: Her theme song was “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” and her signature sign-on was “Hello, suckers!” She mixed pop music, news of Allied troop movements, and appeals to the British and American troops to surrender. Postwar: Sally was captured by the U.S. Army in Milan on June 5, 1945, with her newborn baby. Tried in Italy for collaboration with the enemy, she was convicted and sentenced to four and a half years in prison. Released after nine months, she lived the rest of her life in obscurity in Italy. 5. BERLIN BESSIE
Wartime Activities: Radio Berlin hired her as an actress and announcer in 1940. The Allied soldiers called her a variety of names: “Berlin Bessie,” “Olga,” and “The Bitch of Berlin.” Introducing herself on air as “Midge,” she tried to convince listeners that their wives and sweethearts back home were being unfaithful. Between American tunes, she made anti-Semitic remarks and criticized president Franklin D. Roosevelt. She stayed on the air until Berlin fell in 1945. Postwar: Gillars tried to blend in among the thousands of displaced Germans, but she was captured and flown to the United States in 1948 and charged with treason, convicted, and imprisoned until her release in 1961. She took up residence in an Ohio convent and later earned her degree from Ohio Wesleyan in 1973. She went on to teach French and German at a prep school, and died of natural causes in 1988 at age 87. 6. SEOUL CITY SUE
Wartime Activities: When the Korean People’s Army captured Seoul in 1950, Anna went to work as a radio announcer on Radio Seoul. Her programs featured names of American soldiers captured or killed, and threatened newly arrived soldiers and ships sitting off the coast. She also taunted African-American soldiers for their lack of civil rights in the United States. She delivered all this in a monotone against a backdrop of soft music. American soldiers dubbed her “Seoul City Sue” after the 1946 pop tune “Sioux City Sue.” Postwar: A few days before the U.S. forces retook Seoul from the North Koreans, the Suhs evacuated to the north. Anna lived there until her death in 1969. 7. HANOI HANNAH
Wartime Activities: Trinh made as many as three radio broadcasts daily in an attempt to demoralize the American troops who were defending South Vietnam from an insurgency from the north. To the GIs, she became “Hanoi Hannah” and “the Dragon Lady.” She played antiwar songs popular in the United States, and read the names of soldiers who had recently been killed or imprisoned. U.S. forces were impressed with her military intelligence, which included details about where individual units were deployed. Postwar: After the war, Trinh and others revealed that their wartime information came from the American military newspaper Stars and Stripes. Today, she lives in relative obscurity with her husband in Ho Chi Minh City (the former Saigon). In the United States, her voice can be heard on the computer game “Battlefield Vietnam.” ___________________
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| Jordan's $1.5 Billion Star Trek Theme Park Posted: 29 Aug 2011 03:38 AM PDT
Supposedly the park will be open in 2014. Would any of you take a trip to Jordan to see it? |
| Posted: 29 Aug 2011 03:27 AM PDT If you read There, I Fixed It, then you already know there are a lot of people with stupid solutions to serious safety concerns, but just in case you can’t get enough, there’s always this BuzzFeed collection of terrible OSHA violations. |
| Posted: 29 Aug 2011 03:19 AM PDT Ursus Wehrli is an artist and comedian from Switzerland. In his latest picture book, The Art of Clean Up, he meticulously rearranges components of photographs to be neat and tidy and completely meaningless. See more examples at Colossal. Link | Artist’s site -via Metafilter |
| Alternative Histories Filled With Monsters Posted: 29 Aug 2011 03:18 AM PDT I know I just shared a Flickr set of alternative histories with pop culture icons, but Etsy seller Matthew Buchholz has an equally notable art series featuring artwork of historical events reimagined to incorporate monsters, aliens and robots. Link Via Laughing Squid |
| Pugs Preparing For The Hurricane Posted: 29 Aug 2011 03:08 AM PDT The hurricane has come and gone now, but after seeing so many pictures of people preparing for the disaster, I have to admit that this gallery of pugs anticipating the worst is a breath of fresh (and cute) air. |
| Pop Icons in Historical Pictures Posted: 29 Aug 2011 03:03 AM PDT Flickr user Agan Harahap created a great series of images depicting heroes, villains and other pop icons Photoshopped into historical photographs. The result is a funny take on world history filled with icons we all recognize. Link Via Mental Floss |
| When Geodesic Domes Were All The Rage Posted: 29 Aug 2011 12:15 AM PDT It’s hard to believe that people once thought we’d all be living in domes by the year 2000, but this delightful retro article from Popular Science confirms that the future is a lot squarer than people in the 60s and 70s thought it would be. The geodesic dome was the brainchild of R. Buckminster Fuller, who felt that the simplicity of design and ease with which it could be built would catch on like wildfire across the country, and claimed rather ambitiously that it could replace all manner of traditional housing. However, Fuller hadn’t taken the cost of repairs into consideration, nor the problems that would be encountered bringing the dome up to code, and the awkward shape of the panels made replacing them a real pain, so the geodesic dome fad fell along the wayside, becoming nothing more than a vision of the future that was never meant to be. If you want to read more about the “dome of the future”, follow the link to PopSci, where you’ll find lots more info, and pages from past Popular Science articles detailing the rise and fall of the housing dome fad. |
| The Comically Surreal Artwork Of Exit Man Posted: 28 Aug 2011 11:29 PM PDT Heavy pop, liquid designs and sheer surreal madness collide in Exit Man’s unusual artworks. These busy, colorful pieces use bold, curved lines to guide you around the scene, and looking at them kinda feels like taking your eyes on a rollercoaster ride. Want to hang one of these ocular amusements on your wall? Then follow the link to Exit Man’s Society6 page and support his vision! Link -via ComicsAlliance |
| Simplistic Stylish And Strange Animated Short-"The Employment" Posted: 28 Aug 2011 11:19 PM PDT If you think your life is strange, watch this animated short and thank your lucky stars that you don’t have to deal with the strangeness this guy deals with every day. Made by Santiago Grasso, this short yet insightful cartoon has lots to say and plenty of style to keep your eyes satisfied. This is animation for the lost, with a stark style that matches the dark subject matter, and an overall feeling that some people will identify with from frame one. Watch it while you’re at work and you just might end up with a better appreciation of what you do for a living! |
| Russia Plans to Build Tunnel to Alaska Posted: 28 Aug 2011 05:28 PM PDT
Link -via Gizmodo | Image: St. John Fisher College |
| Tire That Self-Inflates Whenever It Rolls Posted: 28 Aug 2011 05:15 PM PDT (Video Link) Benjamin Krempel founded a company called PumpTire, which is marketing a rather unique bicycle tire. It has a partially open tube on the outer circumference. As the wheel turns, it opens and closes the tube, which draws air from the outside and pumps it into the interior of the tire. When the tire reaches maximum pressure, it shuts off. In a test ride featured in the video, the tire inflated from 22 to 52 psi after three and a half minutes of riding. Link -via DVICE |
| Posted: 28 Aug 2011 05:07 PM PDT Hurricane Irene is causing havoc along the east coast, but some business owners in its path retained their sense of humor, at least long enough to thumb their noses at the storm -just before evacuating. See a collection of such business signs at Buzzfeed. This one is my favorite. Link |
| Posted: 28 Aug 2011 03:10 PM PDT
Alison Kilian of Spiegel Online explains:
Link (Photo: Andreas Koepcke) |
| Posted: 28 Aug 2011 02:09 PM PDT
We've featured the Ekranoplan, the insanely huge sea plane (something between a hovercraft and an airplane) developed by the Soviets before, but most photos of the beast we've seen had been old and grainy black and white photos. Livejournal user igor113 took a ton of new photos of the Ekranoplan as it is currently sitting on a dry dock, rusting away like yet another Cold War relic. Check 'em out: Link - via Core77 See also: Bigger is Better: 7 Insane Soviet Projects |
| Posted: 28 Aug 2011 01:08 PM PDT
No, that's not a new planet discovered by NASA. Rather, it's part of Devour, a series of photographs featuring the bottoms of frying pans by Norwegian photographer Christopher Jonassen. Link - via The Fox is Black |
| When Countries Go Extinct Thanks To Low Birth Rates Posted: 28 Aug 2011 12:07 PM PDT
Given the low birth rates of some countries (I'm looking at you, Hong Kong* and Singapore), it's only a matter of time before they simply depopulate themselves out of existence. But how long do they have? The Economist did the (wild) projection:
*Yes, I know that Hong Kong is not an independent country, but it operates like one. |
| Posted: 28 Aug 2011 10:10 AM PDT We’ve featured a lot of burnt toast art here on Neatorama, and more than a few posts about The Beatles–but now the twain shall meet, in mixed media artist Henry Hargreaves’ series, Toasted, large-scale portraits made entirely of bread. See the rest of the fearsome foursome in all their crunchy, buttery glory on Flavorwire. Link |
| Bad Mothering Lawsuit Thrown Out Posted: 28 Aug 2011 10:04 AM PDT
Children have the right to sue parents for emotional distress, but courts will only pursue a case if the parent’s behavior is “extreme or outrageous.” The Illinois court found that none of the mother’s behavior fit that description. Link -via Fark (Unrelated image credit: Flickr user EikeR) |
| The 21km Tribute to Steve Jobs Posted: 28 Aug 2011 09:25 AM PDT Joseph Tame has only been an Apple product-owner for five years (since he purchased a 5th gen iPod Classic) but he’s happily professed his love of the company’s tech since. Tame claims that “[h]aving an iPhone really has changed [his] life,” and as a tribute to Steve Jobs after the recent news of his resignation, Tame used his iPhone’s Runkeeper app to record his 21km logo-shaped marathon through the streets of Tokyo. To read more about the tribute and see other works of GPS art, check out Tame’s Art of Running. Link |
| Posted: 28 Aug 2011 07:43 AM PDT Superhero Bust Banks – $15.95 Saving your pennies is hard work. Don’t trust your coins to just any piggy bank. You need a Superhero Bust Bank from the NeatoShop to protect your loose change. These banks mean business. The Superhero Bust Bank is available in:
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Superhero items. |
The following is an article from the book 
1. TOKYO ROSE
The British gave the nickname “Lord Haw-Haw” to a collection of announcers on the English-language propaganda broadcasts from Hamburg, Germany, during World War II. But it was William Joyce, who claimed to be a British citizen, who came to symbolize Lord Haw-Haw as the chief Nazi sympathizer. Born in the United States and raised in England and Ireland, Joyce was a member of the British Union of Fascists and was about to be arrested when he fled to Germany in 1939.
A native of Dubuque, Iowa, Frederick Wilhelm Kaltenbach was on a bicycle tour of Germany after his high school graduation in 1914 when he was detained due to the outbreak of World War I. He liked Germany well enough, but after his release a few months later, he returned home and went to college. He joined the U.S. Army in 1918 but stayed stateside for the duration of the war, after which he earned his master’s degree in history from the University of Chicago. As a schoolteacher in Dubuque, he founded a Nazi-style club for boys in 1935 that was so controversial, the school board fired him. Kaltenbach promptly returned to Germany to work for Joseph Goebbels’ propaganda ministry as a broadcaster.
Mildred Gillars, who was born in Maine, dreamed of being an actress but instead wound up as radio announcer “Berlin Bessie” for Radio Berlin in World War II. After dropping out of Ohio Wesleyan University, she left the United States in the 1930s for Dresden, Germany, to study music. She was working as an English teacher at the Berlitz School of Language in Berlin when war broke out across Europe in 1939.
During the Korean War, a Methodist missionary from Lawrence County, Arkansas, became the North Korean radio announcer better known a “Seoul City Sue.” Born in 1900, Anna Wallis Suh graduated from the Scarritt College for Christian Workers in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1930 and undertook a mission to Korea. After marrying Korean schoolteacher Suh Kyoon Chul, she dropped out of the missionary service of the Southern Methodist Conference and became interested in Korean politics.
Trinh Thi Ngo, born in Hanoi in 1931, was a Vietnamese radio personality who became the voice of anti-American propaganda during the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s. She was the daughter of a prosperous factory owner and learned English because she loved American movies like Gone With The Wind. By age 25, she was an English-language news broadcaster on Vietnam’s national radio in Hanoi.
The article above was reprinted with permission from 
Apparently,the king of Jordan is a huge Star Trek fan so like a true Trekkie, he wants to show his love for the series as much as possible. The only difference -he’s ridiculously rich. So he’s decided to build his own Star Trek theme park in his own country for a cool price of $1.5 billion. He’s already made agreements with CBS, Paramount and Rubicon Group Holding -all companies who have the rights to the series.
For a century, Russia and the United States have considered building a tunnel or a bridge across the 64-mile Bering Strait — the body of water that separates Siberia and Alaska. Now the Russian government is making serious plans to build a transcontinental railway and tunnel system at the cost of $65 billion:
Who says that street art has to be for young punks? A graffiti course in Germany is teaching the art of spraying to an unlikely segment of the population ... senior citizens!
An Illinois appellate court dismissed a case that two grown children have pursued against their mother for two years. The lawsuit accused Kimberly Garrity of bad mothering for a long list of complaints, including making the daughter come home at midnight, threatening the son at age 7 over buckling his seatbelt, and failing to buy toys on occasion.
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