Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Names and faces
■ Former President Barack Obama said on his podcast with rocker Bruce Springsteen that he chose a career of public service in part because of his mother. “My mom was a little bit of a free thinker,”
Obama says in today’s episode of Spotify’s “Renegades: Born in the USA.” The Associated Press was granted early access to portions of the podcast. Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, was an anthropologist who worked to help improve the lives of the poor in Indonesia. Obama called her
“kind of romantic” and “not that practical” and said she put a “little bit of that into me.” Obama told Springsteen that he was attracted to public service instead of a big salary because he recognized that the American dream was not achievable for many Black citizens. “When I thought about what I should aspire to, it wasn’t,
‘Man, let me be Jay Rockefeller.’ It was,
‘Look at John Lewis.’” Lewis, a civil-rights icon, served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 17 terms and became the “conscience of Congress” until his death last year. He and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. were trying “to make the world better,” Obama said. “That path looked to me like it was something necessary for me to do. My salvation was there.” The discussion kicked off when Springsteen asked Obama, who graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School, why he chose organizing when there were more lucrative doors open to him.
■ Al Jaffee, one of Mad magazine’s longtime “Usual Gang of Idiots,” celebrated his 100th birthday on Saturday. “Hitting the century mark in age, it’s a nice number” for the brain to consider, Jaffee said with a laugh Thursday from his New York home — even if some body parts don’t “seem to appreciate it.” To mark the occasion, the humor publication announced that its “Mad Predicts the Future” edition, on sale next month, will salute its eldest statesman. The issue’s center-spread article, titled, “Amazing All-Seeing Al Jaffee’s MAD E.S.P.,” will note how the artist’s ever-inventive mind foresaw such ideas as the multibladed razor and the “autocorrect” function — once described and drawn in the artist’s wry style. Jaffee, who made his Mad debut 65 years ago, is best-known for the magazine’s back-page Fold-In — he has created more than 450 of them — and the running feature “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions.” When Jaffee retired in June, Mad published a tribute edition that included his final Fold-In. Jaffee launched his career in 1942, beginning with Joker Comics, and worked continuously until last year. In 2016, Guinness World Records awarded him its title of “longest career as a comic artist.”