Ward Kimball's home movie footage of Walt Disney playing with a backyard scale model railroad in 1948.
posted by zzazazz on Apr 4, 2013 - 5 comments

Robert Sherman passed away yesterday at the age of 86. Robert, along with his brother Richard Sherman, was a Disney legend. Together, they wrote the songs of "Mary Poppins", "The Parent Trap", "Bedknobs and Broomsticks", "The Jungle Book", "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and of cousre, "It's A Small World." [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen on Mar 6, 2012 - 46 comments

The Electric Grandmother (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5) was a made-for-TV movie from 1982, based on the short story "I Sing the Body Electric!" by Ray Bradbury. It deals in mortality, grief, abandonment, artificial (emotional) intelligence, and other themes suitable for children. [more inside]
posted by eric1halfb on Oct 17, 2010 - 20 comments

Oh hai here's a flow chart showing the creative/organizational process of a (Walt) Disney film. Stay away from the morgue.
posted by billysumday on Dec 10, 2009 - 23 comments

Michael Massing on the Israel lobby and the controversy over the Mearsheimer/Walt article. Massing describes the article as having "serious shortcomings"; the reaction to the article as "hysterical"; and he provides evidence that "on their central point—the power of the Israel lobby and the negative effect it has had on US policy—Mearsheimer and Walt are entirely correct." He summarizes AIPAC's goals: "... to keep Israel strong, the Palestinians weak, and the United States from exerting pressure on Israel." Earlier article on the Israel lobby by Massing. Also: Mearsheimer and Walt respond to their critics.
posted by russilwvong on May 19, 2006 - 75 comments

The Israel Lobby. Writing the London Review of Books, John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Harvard University's Stephen Walt argue that American foreign policy in the Middle East has been diverted from the national interest by a powerful domestic Jewish lobby:

[T]he thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the ‘Israel Lobby’. Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country – in this case, Israel – are essentially identical.

The article is an edited version of a longer working paper (pdf). While the authors focus on the potency of the Jewish lobby, including organizations such as AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, they also point to the role of evangelical Christians who believe that Israel's existence is a necessary precondition of the Second Coming, a group whose importance has been remarked upon elsewhere.
posted by Dasein on Mar 17, 2006 - 145 comments