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Archives
give us this day our daily photograph
Electric Beach
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Another Pass the Camera photograph.
tatlfn
That's all the links for now. But I do have a number of my photographs lined up and I will be putting one up every day until I run out. I do have a bunch of film in the pipeline so maybe I won't run out very soon. More books, too.
give us this day our daily photograph
No. 2 END
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There is nothing that says Pacific Northwest more than a Washington State Ferry. Zoe and I were on the way back from the mainland and I shot this out of the sunroof. This was done with the Pass the Camera Canonet.
book recommendations
Here is a twofer. Both books are novels about slavery and the black experience in America. Both are must reads.
The Bondwoman's Narrative
by Hannah Crafts
From the Amazon review:
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Few events are more thrilling than the discovery of a buried treasure. Some years ago, when scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. was leafing through an auction catalog, he noticed a listing for an unpublished, clothbound manuscript thought to date from the 1850s: "The Bondwoman's Narrative, by Hannah Crafts, a Fugitive Slave, Recently Escaped from North Carolina." Gates realized that, if genuine, this would be the first novel known to have been written by a black woman in America, as well as the only one by a fugitive slave. He bought the manuscript (there was no competing bid) and began the exhilarating task of confirming the racial identity of the author and the approximate date of composition (circa 1855-59). Gates's excited descriptions of his detective work in the introduction to The Bondwoman's Narrative will make you want to find promising old manuscripts of your own. He also proposes a couple candidates for authorship, assuming that Hannah Crafts was the real or assumed name of the author, and not solely a pen name.
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This is an amazing book.
The Chaneysville Incident
by David Bradley
This a beautifully crafted book. A story well told and one that should be heard. A great book that should be better known.
military and empire
I've mentioned Chalmers Johnson before. I recommend his book The Sorrows of Empire. If you want to understand why we have such a large military when we have no enemies, since the Soviets folded, and what that means you must read Chalmers Johnson. So much of what is going wrong, from Iraq to the economy, is traced back to this. If you haven't read the book then read these interviews. A must read. I've just started his first book Blowback.
Cold Warrior in a Strange Land
A Tomdispatch Interview with Chalmers Johnson (Part 1)
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The Soviet Union imploded. I thought: What an incredible vindication for the United States. Now it's over, and the time has come for a real victory dividend, a genuine peace dividend. The question was: Would the U.S. behave as it had in the past when big wars came to an end? We disarmed so rapidly after World War II. Granted, in 1947 we started to rearm very rapidly, but by then our military was farcical. In 1989, what startled me almost more than the Wall coming down was this: As the entire justification for the Military-Industrial Complex, for the Pentagon apparatus, for the fleets around the world, for all our bases came to an end, the United States instantly -- pure knee-jerk reaction -- began to seek an alternative enemy. Our leaders simply could not contemplate dismantling the apparatus of the Cold War.
That was, I thought, shocking. I was no less shocked that the American public seemed indifferent. And what things they did do were disastrous. George Bush, the father, was President. He instantaneously declared that he was no longer interested in Afghanistan. It's over. What a huge cost we've paid for that, for creating the largest clandestine operation we ever had and then just walking away, so that any Afghan we recruited in the 1980s in the fight against the Soviet Union instantaneously came to see us as the enemy -- and started paying us back. The biggest blowback of the lot was, of course, 9/11, but there were plenty of them before then.
I was flabbergasted and felt the need to understand what had happened. The chief question that came to mind almost at once, as soon as it was clear that our part of the Cold War was going to be perpetuated -- the same structure, the same military Keynesianism, an economy based largely on the building of weapons -- was: Did this suggest that the Cold War was, in fact, a cover for something else; that something else being an American empire intentionally created during World War II as the successor to the British Empire?.
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What Ever Happened to Congress?
A Tomdispatch Interview with Chalmers Johnson (Part 2)
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The military is out of control. As part of the executive branch, it's expanded under cover of the national security state. Back when I was a kid, the Pentagon was called the Department of War. Now, it's the Department of Defense, though it palpably has nothing to do with defense. Hasn't for a long time. We even have another department of the government today that's concerned with "homeland security." You wonder what on Earth do we have that for -- and a Dept of Defense, too!
The government isn't working right. There's no proper supervision. The founders, the authors of the Constitution, regarded the supreme organ to be Congress. The mystery to me -- more than the huge expansion of executive branch powers we've seen since the neoconservatives and George Bush came to power -- is: Why has Congress failed us so completely? Why are they no longer interested in the way the money is spent? Why does a Pentagon budget like this one produce so little interest? Is it that people have a vested interest in it, that it's going to produce more jobs for them?
I wrote an article well before Cunningham confessed called The Military-Industrial Man in which I identified a lot of what he was doing, but said unfortunately I didn't know how to get rid of him in such a safe district. After it appeared on the Los Angeles Times op-ed page, the paper got a couple of letters to the editor from the 34th district in downtown LA saying, I wish he was my congressman. If he'd bring good jobs here, I wouldn't mind making something that just gets blown up or sunk in the ground like missile defense in Alaska. I mean, we've already spent $100 billion on what amounts to a massive high-tech scarecrow. It couldn't hit a thing. The aiming devices aren't there. The tests fail. It doesn't work. It's certainly a cover for something much more ominous -- the expansion of the Air Force into outer space or "full spectrum dominance," as they like to put it.
We need to concentrate on this, and not from a partisan point of view either. There's no reason to believe the Democrats would do a better job. They never have. They've expanded the armed forces just as fast as the Republicans.
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Any idea of how much the military sucks up? Look at this graphic carefully.
Death and Taxes: ...
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thanks to J-Walk Blog
music
In the Jungle, the Unjust Jungle, a Small Victory
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As Solomon Linda first recorded it in 1939, it was a tender melody, almost childish in its simplicity — three chords, a couple of words and some baritones chanting in the background.
But the saga of the song now known worldwide as "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" is anything but a lullaby. It is fraught with racism and exploitation and, in the end, 40-plus years after his death, brings a measure of justice. Were he still alive, Solomon Linda might turn it into one heck of a ballad.
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iraq
Iraq's descent into madness only moves at a faster and faster pace. There isn't any punishment suitable for those that started this nightmare. The first link is from Riverbend who lives in the middle of this in Baghdad. All the other links only amplify her first hand experience.
Uncertainty...
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We sat drinking tea, mulling over the possibilities. It confirmed what has been obvious to Iraqis since the beginning- the Iraqi security forces are actually militias allied to religious and political parties.
But it also brings to light other worrisome issues. The situation is so bad on the security front that the top two ministries in charge of protecting Iraqi civilians cannot trust each other. The Ministry of Defense can’t even trust its own personnel, unless they are “accompanied by American coalition forces”.
It really is difficult to understand what is happening lately. We hear about talks between Americans and Iran over security in Iraq, and then American ambassador in Iraq accuses Iran of funding militias inside of the country. Today there are claims that Americans killed between 20 to 30 men from Sadr’s militia in an attack on a husseiniya yesterday. The Americans are claiming that responsibility for the attack should be placed on Iraqi security forces (the same security forces they are constantly commending).
All of this directly contradicts claims by Bush and other American politicians that Iraqi troops and security forces are in control of the situation. Or maybe they are in control- just not in a good way.
They’ve been finding corpses all over Baghdad for weeks now- and it’s always the same: holes drilled in the head, multiple shots or strangulation, like the victims were hung. Execution, militia style. Many of the people were taken from their homes by security forces- police or special army brigades… Some of them were rounded up from mosques.
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The Cheney-led Civil War-Deniers
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The Civil War I partly lived through, in El Salvador, cost 100,000 lives over 12 years.
That's an average of 23 per day.
The civil war in Algeria has cost 200,000 lives since 1988, or
roughly 37 killed per day.
And so on. What we're seeing in Iraq is far more horrific than your garden-variety modern-day civil war. It truly, honestly, isn't a matter of debate anymore. As for temperature, it's already twice to three times as hot of some of the most recent, deadliest civil wars.
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Civil war? What civil war?
Desperate to convince voters we're winning, Bush is denying that Iraq is having a civil war. But the facts contradict him.
by Juan Cole
Redirecting Bullets in Baghdad
Bound, Blindfolded and Dead: The Face of Revenge in Baghdad
30 Beheaded Bodies Found; Iraqi Death Squads Blamed
On the Ground in Iraq
The roots of sectarian violence
Baghdad: The Besieged Press
Lara Logan smacked down the "negative Iraq War Coverage" charges
No end but victory
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Unpaid DOD spokesman Josh Trevino wants us to believe that there is a victory possible in Iraq. And I agree. There will be a victory in Iraq.
But it won't be ours.
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Iraq Meltdown Continues: A Wrap-Up
The Window of Controlled Chaos Slams Shut
photography
Tom Fowlks
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thanks to Conscientious
One racist nation
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Contrary to appearances, the elections this week are important, because they will expose the true face of Israeli society and its hidden ambitions. More than 100 elected candidates will be sent to the Knesset on the basis of one ticket - the racism ticket. If we used to think that every two Israelis have three opinions, now it will be evident that nearly every Israeli has one opinion - racism. Elections 2006 will make this much clearer than ever before. An absolute majority of the MKs in the 17th Knesset will hold a position based on a lie: that Israel does not have a partner for peace. An absolute majority of MKs in the next Knesset do not believe in peace, nor do they even want it - just like their voters - and worse than that, don't regard Palestinians as equal human beings. Racism has never had so many open supporters. It's the real hit of this election campaign.
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The Israel Lobby
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For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, but neither explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the US provides.
Instead, the 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.
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[more]
thanks to Antiwar.com
photography
Picturing the Cayuse, Walla Walla, and Umatilla Tribes
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Major Lee Moorhouse of Pendleton, Oregon was an Indian Agent for the Umatilla Indian Reservation and a photographer. From 1888 to 1916 he produced over 9,000 images which document urban, rural, and Native American life in the Columbia Basin, and particularly Umatilla County, Oregon.
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thanks to gmtPlus9
gerry
Gerry was doing better yesterday when we visited her. It was late morning and she does better before noon. We walked into the room and Gerry turned around and when she saw us she broke out into a big smile.
Gerry is holding Zoe's hand.
Last week we brought our little Somali cat up to visit Gerry. His name is Zach and there he is looking up at Zoe.
j8s, panos, and efke25
I got my pictures back comparing my late black J8, with the silver tabbed J8, and Industar-50. They are all pretty close. There is no way of telling looking at 3x5s. I'm of the school that 35mm shouldn't be enlarged beyond 5x7 and I suspect the differences would not be noticable at that level of enlargement. The pictures below are at scanner resolution on my Epson 2450 (not the ideal 35mm scanner but good enough for comparisons.) Make your own judgements. I'm keeping the silver tabbed J8. Now to order those screwdrivers and lube. The I-50 is a keeper, too, for those times of maximum portability.
I've also been looking very closely at the latest version of Panavue Image Assembler. I have the previous version and it works pretty well but wasn't perfect. There was one set of 3 panels that it was having trouble with in one area. The new version nails it. The new version also can be saved in Photoshop layers so you can easily make more adjustments. And it has better capabilities in stitching hand held panels. I'm looking forward to getting my pano shots back this week. I finished out my roll of Efke 25 with some hand held panos to see just what Panavue will do. Stay tuned.
give us this day our daily photograph
Freeland Park
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This is the second of six photographs that I did for the Pass the Camera project at Rangefinder Forum.This is the bottom of Holmes Harbor. The coastline on the left turns left past the headland and forms Honeymoon Bay which is fed by Honeymoon Lake that we live two houses up from the road that goes around it.
book recommendation
The Endurance : Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition
by Caroline Alexander
This is an incredible story. Shackelton left England just as WWI was starting. His plan was to cross Antartica. It didn't work out. After weeks of working there way through pack ice they became trapped in the ice. The drifted in the ice pack for months and eventually their ship, the Endurance, was crushed by the ice and sank. They waited on the ice until it broke up and then took to their three open boats. They made it to Elephant Island where Shackelton took one of the open boats and made one of the most famous sailing journeys in an open boat in some of the most hostile water imaginable. They made it to a whaling station and were able to rescue all the men. No one was lost. Alexander tells a good tale but the photographs are incredible. I've mentioned Frank Hurley, the photographer, before. He used whole plate (6 1/4" x 8 1/2") and half plate (4 1/4" x 6 1/2") plate cameras. As in glass plates. The photographs are printed well and show amazing detail that is typical of large negatives. Incredible photographs under the most primitive and dangerous conditions. And it was fucking cold!
at least one democrat has a spine
A Peculiar Politician
by William Greider
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Senator Russ Feingold is an embarrassment to the US Senate, which makes him an authentic hero of the Republic. The Wisconsin senator gets up and says out loud what half of the country is thinking and talks about every day. This President broke the law and lied about it; he trashed the Constitution and hides himself in the flag. Feingold asks: Shouldn't the Senate say something about this, at least express our disapproval? He introduces a resolution of censure and calls for debate.
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thanks to Bad Attitudes
Russ Never Sleeps
‘Politicians and Pundits Are Afraid,’ Says Wisconsin’s Feingold, As Democrats Abandon Him on Bush Wiretap Censure Motion; Will Senator Become the Eugene McCarthy of ’08 Primaries?
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None of this fits any of the tried-and-true formulations in the red-and-blue American playbook. A mild- mannered Midwestern Senator—Russ Feingold—announces on a Sunday-morning chat show that he’s going to introduce a resolution to censure the President. His grounds are straightforward: that the President’s warrantless-wiretapping initiative violates the law and the constitutional separation of powers. His party’s leaders, all universally understood as coastal-elite figures drunk on their hatred of the President and hell-bent on his undoing—well, they flee en masse, literally hiding behind each other as inquiring reporters try to suss out what they make of the proposal.
“Both Democratic politicians and pundits are afraid,” Mr. Feingold said on March 21 by phone. He was between constituent tours during the week’s Congressional recess. “Time and again, they allow themselves to be intimidated from taking a strong stand against the administration.”
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photography
England - South East
Boats moored on the River Thames, about 1895
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our next president
I agree with Bush
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WASHINGTON -- President Bush suggested yesterday that US troops might stay in Iraq beyond his presidency, which ends in 2009, saying at a press conference that the issue of removing troops from the country ''will be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq."
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Oh, I agree. President Hastert will be withdrawing what is left of US troops. I don't think Bush has another six months of sanity in him. And Cheney lies about his health like Doyle Brunson lies about his poker hands.
I don't think Bush sees 2009 in the White House. I don't think he has it in him. Too much is up in the air for Bush to not have something land on him with both feet, my bet is the collaspe of the Iraqi "government", but it could be a Rove indictment or Abramoff or illegal spying. Bush has problems everywhere and no resiliency to deal with them.
And I think something else, as the election draws near, people are going to be far more willing to elect people willing to impeach him.
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photography
Erika Ritzel
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thanks to Conscientious
global climate change
Rewriting The Science
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As a government scientist, James Hansen is taking a risk. He says there are things the White House doesn't want you to hear but he's going to say them anyway.
Hansen is arguably the world's leading researcher on global warming. He's the head of NASA's top institute studying the climate. But this imminent scientist tells correspondent Scott Pelley that the Bush administration is restricting who he can talk to and editing what he can say. Politicians, he says, are rewriting the science.
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thanks to Huffington Post
You have to sit through an ad, Salon style, for this Time cover story, but it's worth it.
Polar Ice Caps Are Melting Faster Than Ever... More And More Land Is Being Devastated By Drought... Rising Waters Are Drowning Low-Lying Communities... By Any Measure, Earth Is At ... The Tipping Point
The climate is crashing, and global warming is to blame. Why the crisis hit so soon--and what we can do about it
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No one can say exactly what it looks like when a planet takes ill, but it probably looks a lot like Earth. Never mind what you've heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency that would take decades to play out. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us.
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thanks to Huffington Post
fun with art
Counterfeit Art 8
"Sit your ass down and finish your coke, unless you want this to be YOUR last supper."
[more]
thanks to Magpie
the party is almost over
Living Large in Exurbia
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Love him or hate him, I doubt many Peak Oil adherents think that Jim Kunstler is wrong about the unsustainability and gloomy future of America's sprawl culture.
It started for me this week when National Public Radio did a series of stories about Phoenix Grows and Grows (audio) which according to the latest US Census Bureau statistics, is now the fifth largest city in America. But we're not talking about suburban sprawl. The hottest new demographic is the growth of Exurbia, the suburbs beyond the suburbs.
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More vehicle miles traveled! When you live in the Exurbs, you can't walk, you can't ride your bike, there's no buses, there's rarely a train service to get you to the city where your job is. Carpooling is impractical. You are completely dependent on your car and you spend a lot of time in it. You have no choice. Zero choice. That's the simple truth of it. It's a 90 mile commute to Washington, DC. from King George County in Virginia and 60 miles to Richmond, the 9th fastest growing county in the US.
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Jitters
by Jim Kuntsler
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An acquaintance told me a weird story yesterday. Let's call him "E." He runs an Internet consulting company here in Saratoga Springs. It employs about twenty-five people in a downtown building E put up a few years ago.
Last month a freak windstorm ripped through here and took down the electric power for three days. E lost communication with the payroll service (a separate company) that issues his employee's salaries. The storm happened in the middle of the day, Friday, payday.
The power came back on Sunday night, and on Monday two of E's employees each asked for private meetings with the boss. Because of the storm, they said, the payroll company had failed to make electronic salary deposits in their checking accounts. They were concerned because they were late on their mortgage payments and without the past week's electronic paycheck, they couldn't pay their mortgages.
E told me that these were "high-level employees" with substantial salaries who were both living in "very high-end homes," which around here would mean around a half-million dollars (and I know that in some parts of the US, like Washington, DC, or San Francisco, a half-million barely gets you a "pre-owned" raised ranch). He said he was shocked to discover that his executives were living from paycheck to paycheck, in houses that by normal criteria (i.e. pre-bubble standards) they probably couldn't afford.
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Homeowners stretched perilously
More than a quarter in Boston spend at least half their pay on housing. Blacks are hit hard.
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If the nation's real estate boom collapses, its first victims may well be low-income minorities and immigrants in a big US city like Boston.
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thanks to DANGEROUSMETA!
photography
The Doris Ulmann Photograph Collection
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Doris Ulmann (1882-1934) was born and educated in New York City. A graduate of the school of the Ethical Culture Society, a socially liberal organization that championed individual worth regardless of ethnic background or economic condition, Ulmann documented the rural people of the South, particularly the mountain peoples of Appalachia and the Gullahs of the Sea Islands, with a profound respect for her sitters and an ethnographer's eye for culture.
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African-American woman with white kerchief
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thanks to wood s lot
give us this day our daily photograph
Tim's Potato Chips
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This is the first of six photographs that I did for the Pass the Camera project at Rangefinder Forum. It's a series of pictures around Whidbey Island. Tim's potato chips are a Northwest delicacy. However, I'm not so sure about the Wasabi
I'm starting to shoot regularly so there should be a more regular posting of my photographs
book recommendation
Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics
by Jerome Armstrong, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga
The book description from Amazon:
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Book Description
Crashing the Gate lays bare, with passion and precision, how ineffective, incompetent, and antiquated the Democratic Party establishment has become, and how it has failed to adapt and respond to new realities and challenges seized on by the Republican ideologues who are now running—and ruining—our country.
Written by two of the most popular political bloggers in America, the book hails the new movement—of the netroots, the grassroots, the unorthodox labor unions, the maverick big donors—that is the antidote to old-school politics. Fueled by advances in technology and a hunger for a more authentic and populist democracy, this broad-based movement is changing the way political campaigns are waged.
Crashing the Gate is an incisive and provocative book from two activists on the front lines, engaged in the battle to take back politics from entitled, entrenched interests.
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Both authors have major political blogs: Daily KOS (Markos Moulitsas Zuniga) and MyDD (Jerome Armstrong). This is a must read. It lays out the degree the right wing has organized these past 40 years to control ideas and how the Democratic organization have completely missed the boat. In fact the Democratic organization has been counter-productive. In case you haven't noticed. Much food for thought and despair. And some directions for action.
religion
Atheists identified as America’s most distrusted minority, according to new U of M study
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American’s increasing acceptance of religious diversity doesn’t extend to those who don’t believe in a god, according to a national survey by researchers in the University of Minnesota’s department of sociology.
From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in “sharing their vision of American society.” Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.
Even though atheists are few in number, not formally organized and relatively hard to publicly identify, they are seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American public. “Atheists, who account for about 3 percent of the U.S. population, offer a glaring exception to the rule of increasing social tolerance over the last 30 years,” says Penny Edgell, associate sociology professor and the study’s lead researcher.
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thanks to Pharyngula
When Religion is an Addiction
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I remember hearing popular psychological speaker and writer John Bradshaw say that the “high” one gets from being righteous was similar to the high of cocaine. As both a former monk and addict, he knew the feelings personally.
As the religious right pushes its anti-gay, anti-women’s reproductive rights, anti-science, pro-profit agenda nationally and in state capitals across the nation and wins, that high is a sweet fix for the addicted. It gives them a comforting feeling of relief that they’re really right, okay, worthwhile, and acceptable.
Like all fixes, though, it doesn’t last. So, the addict is driven to seek another and another – another issue, another evil, another paranoiac threat to defeat. It can’t ever end. Like the need for heavier doses, the causes have to become bigger and more evil in the addict’s mind to provide the fix.
This mind-altering fix of righteousness covers their paranoid shame-based feelings about the internal and external dangers stalking them. The victim-role language of their dealers, right-wing religious leaders, feeds it. Like alcoholism and drug addiction, the fix numbs the religious addict against any feelings about how their addiction affects others.
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thanks to Pharyngula
"Religious belief itself is an adaptation"
Sociobiology founder Edward O. Wilson explains why we're hard-wired to form tribalistic religions, denies that "evolutionism" is a faith, and says that heaven, if it existed, would be hell.
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It would seem that religion and science have two entirely different ways of understanding the world. Science is founded on reason and deduction and empirical study. Religion, on the other hand, is grounded in faith -- often a leap of faith, in mystery, in living with the non-rational part of your mind. Are those two utterly alien ways of looking at the world? Or is there any common ground?
The only common ground that I see is the one that was approached by Darwin himself. Religious belief itself is an adaptation that has evolved because we're hard-wired to form tribalistic religions. Religion is intensely tribalistic. A devout Christian or Muslim doesn't say one religion is as good as another. It gives them faith in the particular group to which they belong and that set of beliefs and moral views.
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music
Jimi Hendrix - Hear my train a comin
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Jimi plays Hear my train a comin on an acoustic 12 string
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thanks to J-Walk Blog
oil
My Saudi Arabian Breakfast
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Please join me for breakfast. It's time to fuel up again.
On the table in my small Berkeley apartment this particular morning is a healthy looking little meal -- a bowl of imported McCann's Irish oatmeal topped with Cascadian Farms organic frozen raspberries, and a cup of Peet's Fair Trade Blend coffee. Like most of us, I prepare my breakfast at home and the ingredients for this one probably cost me about $1.25. (If I went to a café in downtown Berkeley, I'd likely have to add another $6.00, plus tip for the same.)
My breakfast fuels me up with about 400 calories, and it satisfies me. So, for just over a buck and half an hour spent reading the morning paper in my own kitchen, I'm energized for the next few hours. But before I put spoon to cereal, what if I consider this bowl of oatmeal porridge (to which I've just added a little butter, milk, and a shake of salt) from a different perspective. Say, a Saudi Arabian one.
Then, what you'd be likely to see -- what's really there, just hidden from our view (not to say our taste buds) -- is about four ounces of crude oil. Throw in those luscious red raspberries and that cup of java (another three ounces of crude), and don't forget those modest additions of butter, milk, and salt (another ounce), and you've got a tiny bit of the Middle East right here in my kitchen.
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astronomy
Sensational Sights from Saturn
New raw images from Cassini have captured breathtaking views of Saturn's splendid moons and rings.
[more]
thanks to The Agonist
global climate change
London 'under water by 2100' as Antarctica crumbles into the sea
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DOZENS of the world’s cities, including London and New York, could be flooded by the end of the century, according to research which suggests that global warming will increase sea levels more rapidly than was previously thought.
The first study to combine computer models of rising temperatures with records of the ancient climate has indicated that sea levels could rise by up to 20ft (6m) by 2100, placing millions of people at risk.
The threat comes from melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, which scientists behind the research now believe are on track to release vast volumes of water significantly more quickly than older models have predicted. Their analysis of events between 129,000 and 116,000 years ago, when the Arctic last warmed to temperatures forecast for 2100, shows that there could be large rises in sea level.
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[more]
thanks to Huffington Post
photography
I found a reference to this phototgrapher in a post at APUG. Her work looked familiar and, sure enough, I had posted about her almost three years ago. (Just where does that time go?) However, that link no longer works so here are some more.
Linda Connor
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Linda Connor
Linda Connor
Linda Connor
choice
This is an amazing set of stories about anti-abortionists that get abortions. It makes my head want to explode but then I have to realize that these are religious people, not rational people.
"The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion"
When the Anti-Choice Choose
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Abortion is a highly personal decision that many women are sure they'll never have to think about until they're suddenly faced with an unexpected pregnancy. But this can happen to anyone, including women who are strongly anti-choice. So what does an anti-choice woman do when she experiences an unwanted pregnancy herself? Often, she will grin and bear it, so to speak, but frequently, she opts for the solution she would deny to other women -- abortion.
In the spring of 2000, I collected the following anecdotes directly from abortion doctors and other clinic staff in North America, Australia, and Europe. The stories are presented in the providers' own words, with minor editing for grammar, clarity, and brevity. Names have been omitted to protect privacy.
"I have done several abortions on women who have regularly picketed my clinics, including a 16 year old schoolgirl who came back to picket the day after her abortion, about three years ago. During her whole stay at the clinic, we felt that she was not quite right, but there were no real warning bells. She insisted that the abortion was her idea and assured us that all was OK. She went through the procedure very smoothly and was discharged with no problems. A quite routine operation. Next morning she was with her mother and several school mates in front of the clinic with the usual anti posters and chants. It appears that she got the abortion she needed and still displayed the appropriate anti views expected of her by her parents, teachers, and peers." (Physician, Australia)
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thanks to Steve Gilliard's News Blog
gerry
Things are not going well on the Gerry front. Zoe's mom is worse every time we visit. There is both cognitive and physical decline. Friday we took her out for an ice cream. It had been a week since we had tried to move her. She is usually sitting in a chair when we arrive and leave. This time we had to lift her out of the chair and she could barely move her feet to get moved around so we could put her in a wheelchair. It was a shock. We didn't expect the decine to be this rapid. We will be getting a wheelchair for her and she will be one of those that get out of bed and are put in a wheel chair for the day. She has also fallen twice in the last week. Nothing broken. Zoe is having a hard time. A very hard time.
katrina
For Shame…
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So, what have I been doing for the last six months?
Well, six months ago, I hit the road trying to get my family out of the way of a big storm. Ended up 400 miles away from new orleans. My oldest son and I came back a couple of weeks later ready to try to start putting things back together and build. It was like running into a brick wall.
For the past six months, I’ve been banging my head against this wall, yelling and screaming..and it hurts.
The National Flood Insurance Program run by FEMA (pardon me while I scream) has sent my claim back to the adjustor twice for revisions that have no effect on the settlement amount and they still can’t tell me when I can expect a settlement of my claim. This was insurance that I paid for. I applied for disaster assistance and was promptly buried in paperwork, and now FEMA has sent me a letter telling me I was ineligible for diasater help because I have insurance. Meanwhile, my homeowner’s insurance, who wanted to use their own structural engineer instead of one of the two local engineers that I recommended, has finally agreed that my house leans due to wind rack from the hurricane winds. That only took them five months to figure out. Of course, it only took me and my neighbors about five minutes.
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I think that the inability to rebuild New Orleans is indicative of what this country has become. New Orleans has been destroyed and virtually nothing has been done to rebuild much less protect it from another hurricane and we are now heading into another hurricane season.
just where are those book recommendations?
That's what I would like to know. In the last week I finished two more books that you might be interested in. It's going to get worse. At Zoe's suggestion I went down to a building in Freeland that has free books. They just give the damn things away. Well, not entirely. They want them back after you read them. Fair enough. It's called a library. Who would have guessed? I picked up three books and ordered two more. I really had better get some book recommendations up. They're some really good books.
I'ts been a busy week finishing up a website redesign for an old customer. That's done but there is other work to do. It does pay the bills. I did finish my roll in the Pass the Camera Canonet and passed it on to Blaine. I picked up the film yesterday and have 6 photographs to post in the Pass the Camera Gallery and here starting today.
And I've started shooting black and white. I had been waiting to finish my darkroom before shooting black and white but reality is still getting in the way of that. With the demise of my local lab for developing 120 color, I've been sending my 120 color off island to Panda Lab in Seattle. A recent thread at Rangefinder Forum got me excited to use my Efke 25 that has been sitting in my refrigrator for some months now. I had three rolls of 120 and a 50 box of 4x5 purchased at JandC Photo patiently waiting for that darkroom.
It finally dawned on me (these things take awhile) that, since I'm already sending my color film to Panda that I could also send my black and white. Duh! (I still mean to do that darkroom.) I sent in a couple of rolls of Tri-X that I shot last summer and loaded a roll of Efke 25 in my Hasselbladski. ISO 25 means extremely fine grain but a slow film. I'm excited about the results. Maybe I should load up some 4x5 film holders with my Efke 25?
Since it's been a week since I've posted I have a shitload of links. It may take a few days to get them all up. And those book recommendations too!
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