Jumping Jehosephats!

A body painting done on nude people that's an optical illusion that creates an image of Obama when viewed from a certain angle? Well, OK... I guess...

By the way, when typing the title of this thread I got interested in the origin of the expression 'jumping jehosephats'. From AnswerBag:

Jehosaphat was a wealthy king of Jerusalem. One day an army came from Koopastan to steal Jehosaphat's princess and his mountain of gold coins. Jehosaphat challenged the most feared fighter in the Koopastanian army to one-on-one combat. Right before battle, Jehosaphat ate powerful mushrooms from his kingdom. Legend has it that during the confrontation, Jeosaphat doubled in size and leaped onto the warrior, crushing him flat. Recent scientific studies show that the Basidocarpus todensae mushroom of the desert has certain chemotactic properties that increase hematocrit levels in the myofibrils of muscles, verifying the possible "doubling in size".

The people of Jerusalem created epic songs about "Jumping Jehosaphat". Don MaClean's ballad "American Pie" is a modern take on these traditional mandolin pieces. The saying quickly grew in popularity with the advent of the printing press and the translation of the bible, and the influx of Christianity throughout the world.

Hmmm... maybe it's the mushrooms that connect these two items.

Helloooo American Digest visitors. Weird picture, aint it?

Google hurt my feelings.

Man, a search for 'moron' leads to one of my posts?
Noooo... say it aint so!
Thanks a lot Google, ya bunch of disrespectful PUNKS.

Through the eyes of strangers

It is always interesting to look at drawings of foreign places, and foreigners, from the days that predated photography.

The artists of those eras must have grown up in very homogeneous societies, and as a result they frequently struggle depicting the visible ethnic details of foreigners.

Usually, these drawing are done by Europeans during the Age of Exploration. The blog Japan Post has a post Pictures of foreigners from 17th/18th century Japan that links to a Kyushu University digital archive that has pictures drawn by the Japanese of their view of foreigners.

Europeans are included, but there are also many pictures of other nationalities. Frequently, it is difficult to place where the people drawn were supposed to be from. for example, in the picture to the left, I can't quite decide if they're Polynesians or American Indians (D'oh, the linked website says they're Brazillians).

The Kyushu University site is in Japanese. I think this is the correct link to the gallery page of drawings of foreigners. The complete list of galleries appears to be located here.