It’s been almost a year since I posted the first of my grandfather’s letters and I still haven’t posted any of the rest. I still plan to write them out in English and post them, however late. In the meantime, I have video.

I just had several hours of old 8mm video digitized (in 1080P!). Some is from Argentina, and as early as 1966 or 1967, and some is from California in the early 1970s. Tonight I put two videos on Vimeo, since they are mentioned in the first letter from my grandfather and part of their contents described in it.

You can watch them here if you like, but fuller descriptions are on Vimeo.

My grandfather comes to the U.S.: Argentina to San Francisco, 1968 from Robert Pollack on Vimeo.

My grandfather comes to the U.S., 1968, Part II from Robert Pollack on Vimeo.

January 22, 2011 · Changes, Genealogy, Video · 1 comment


There is some vicious satisfaction in this — vented frustration at dishonest or unreasonable commentators.  

A conservative radio host defends Bush’s allusions to WWII and accusations of Obama’s “appeasement.”  At about four minutes, Chris Matthews — whose point, in the end, is that appeasement means giving concessions to the enemy, not talking to him — essentially refuses to continue unless the man demonstrate that he knows the history in the allusion, and he can’t, and it goes on, and on, and on.

May 17, 2008 · Links, Politics, Video · 1 comment


I am not entirely proud of how funny I found these videos to be. You’ll only get them if you’ve ever read long discussion threads at certain message boards or blogs. They’re not thoroughly unclassroom-like, either.

Not safe for work, beware.

April 23, 2008 · Links, Video · (No comments)


This guy has made his own follow-up video, and the New York Times writes about him.

Thanks to HB for the link.

April 7, 2008 · Links, Politics, Video · (No comments)


This is so good it almost seems staged — but if it were staged it wouldn’t be so well acted.

A guy with a camara — judging by his questions and tone, he is presumably a conservative — walks up to a young black guy at an Obama rally and starts asking tough questions. I won’t speculate on what he expected, but the kid is totally disarming.

February 11, 2008 · Links, Politics, Video · 2 comments