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A great, manufactured, picture
First, a disclaimer. When I showed this picture to Michele, she didn’t see the cross made by the banner and Romney. Without the cross, it is just a snapshot and I am even more convinced that the photographer was shooting the cross than Michele is that she wasn’t. Of course neither one of us knows for sure. End disclaimer.
I like this picture so much because it seems so “made” rather than “taken”. I can just see the wheels turning in the photographer’s mind.The photographer is Christina Clusiau and I imagine her first shooting from the side. Then seeing the potential of the banner and moving to the center to get Romney and the banner to line up. Then, maybe, getting lower to get the banner higher.
If this had been film, Christina probably would have already shot some pictures with the body on which this lens was mounted – sure, she probably had another body but that would have the wrong lens on it – so she would have to hoard her shots. But today, and this is why digital is so great, she probably started with her camera having a clean card and she probably had atleast a hundred pictures left. So she could shoot, maybe adjust the light, shoot again, and wait. When Romney looked up beseechingly, maybe pointing to someone to ask a question, she shot again. Making this picture.
When the light is right and the picture is right, it is easy. An almost opposite picture is one I took of Yosemite last year. We were driving through Yosemite to get to the other side of the Sierras which included driving through the Wawona Tunnel. On the other side is the Tunnel Overlook – a National Landmark because of the view – and it was late in the day. The light was great and all we had to do was get out of the car and point the camera in the general direction of El Capitan. The shot below would have been hard not to get.
Clueless Republican of the day
Thanks to Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire, the winner is
“By the time I feed my family, I have maybe $400,000 left over.”
— Rep. John Fleming (R-LA), in an interview on MSNBC, on why as a small business owner he can’t afford a tax increase.
Glow in the dark
In an article on looking for a cure/vaccination for AIDS, I read – almost in passing – that they have made a kitty that glows in the dark. It seems that researchers were able to place genes a from a glow in the dark Jelly Fish into a cat’s egg. The glowing gene is used as a marker insuring that the egg accepted an anti-AIDS gene they are working on. This leaves me pretty much speechless. For all sorts of reasons.
One is that the article is so nonchalant about the whole glowing kitty thing. A little bit like the glowing kitty part is something we all know about and the interesting part is the AIDS, well, it is probably more important in the short run, but making a kitty glow in the dark; that is – as Che said about sanitation – revolutionary. How long before we have Replicants?
In this case, right is correct
I was driving home from the market and listening to NPR whenm I heard them talk about the Air Controllers Bill that was stalled. Evidently, it is no longer stalled, but it had been stalled because one Senator – man, I even hate honoring that group by capitalizing the name – had put one of those arbitrary Senate holds on the bill. One guy holding everything up. It was Tom Coburn, the Senator from Oklahoma, also known as Dr. – he is a MD – No.
I immediately became pissed off at Coburn, Oklahoma, the Republicans, and the slow driver three cars ahead of me. Then I heard the reason he had placed the hold. The Air Controllers Bill also had some Federal Highway stuff tacked on that include mandatory highway beautification. Coburn didn’t think the highway beautification should be mandatory, he thought that each state should be allowed to divert those funds to other highway projects. Like bridge repair.
I think he is right and the whole thing seems to be a distillation of much of what is wrong with government and much of why people are pissed.
Working backward, I don’t think Congress should bundle disparate items together. When A and B,B=,B’,BB-, are all tacked together, it means that somebody who doesn’t like A’ – let’s say mandatory highway beatification – but doesn’t want to vote against B – say keeping the airlines flying – has almost no choice but to vote for both. There may be political and tactical reasons for it, but it probably means somebody is getting fucked and will be pissed.
That said, no one Senator should be able to hold things up. I know the Senate was conceived as a way to hold things up – that should be read as stabilize, or something – but that has been perverted. Now the Senate has made rules so that one person can hold up everything. That is not serving democracy, that is serving some warped idea of Senatorial congeniality.
That said, the Federal Government shouldn’t be telling the states that they have to beautify a highway anyway. If Mississippi or Georgia want to fix a bridge rather than landscape, I might not agree but I shouldn’t have a say through the Federal Government. It pisses people off. I want to rush in here and say that I am not a states rights kind of guy: I think that the Feds should protect all citizens and the rights of all citizens of the United States no matter where they live. But making sure that somebody has the right to vote, or eat at a lunch counter, or get married is not the same as you must landscape.
And lastly, and most importantly, the federal Government should pay for highways that are truly in the national interest but not – for example – highway 280 by my house 0r even, as far as I am concerned Highway 5 (from the Bay Area to L. A.). This Federal over-reaching bullshit gives opponents a nose under the tent to say the Feds should butt out of everything. I have no idea who put the beautification clause – item, chapter, whatever – in the bill but I suspect it was the Democrats – I really hope not – and that is too bad.