Proof Positive

Another politician in an infidelity, from the 'family values' sect, or rather party. Big deal. Why did he own up rather than spouting obvious denials and attacking the victim like a good republican? Maybe some shred of decency buried out of plain view, or because the facts were about to come out in a big way? And, who cares? Of course, with Fox shouting a denial so loud we now know they gave the senator warning.

Kind of funny. It wasn't a thought process. I saw the headline and automatically knew it to be a blatant falsehood. Simply because I've followed their claims in the past, and this is totally consistent with their other lies, and in no way resembles statements they make which are truthful. (Anyone notice the wsj is beginning to sound like a few wheels have come off their wagon too?)

Speaking of MSM, I heard a discussion on NPR about the GLBT community beginning to come out in China. They talked of fighting aids and how msm's are becoming an accepted part of the prevention dialog. Huh? Then I heard them say it stood for "Men who have Sex with Men." We've known for ages there is not really a liberal media in this country. Maher summed it up nicely saying we have a center right party and a crazy party. I'd say the media is similar, except I'd describe it is being far right, with fox representing the batshit violent crazy ass fringe. Kind of puts a wry twist on the GOP being in bed with MSM.

I Did It Again

The right whines. Always, even when they were in charge of the house (not anymore), the white house (not anymore), and the media (still being run by cons for the rich by the rich, and they are still denying that truth). They bitch about political correctness when they are called on their flat out lies, racial slurs or other hate speech, including when they repeatedly incite violence. When their inciting gets people killed or discriminated against they go through an unfunny version of the Monty Python "Wink, wink, nudge, nudge..." routine for their base, while trying to deny they could have influenced their base into doing what they vehemently suggested by shouting from the rooftops.

Palin is providing a small case study. She repeatedly lied about opponents in the election, and simply repeated the lies more often when the facts came out, trying to surmount them. Now she pretends she misunderstood Letterman, a lie in action and words. I know the right tries to mock intelligence, but who is actually dense enough to think Letterman wasn't referring to Bristol? What daughter was already knocked up by a jock (under her parent's roof, implying they blessed the sleepovers)? Which daughter is now an adult public figure open to tasteless barbs, and promoting abstinence she couldn't be bothered with? Who even remembered the younger daughter before the witless Sarah intentionally put her in the spotlight in a slimy way in a bizarre battle of wits?

Sarah, decent people consider it vilely abusive to use their children in this disingenuous manner. Now, wouldn't it be something if Bristol skipped attending the game with the fam for a little action with the steroid king? Of course that didn't happen, we're not blessed with instant karma.

*******************************************


Here's another shot from Goldstream Provincial Park, and a couple processed versions. This was a 3.2 second exposure, and I had to clean up a couple spots. Not sure where they are coming from, somewhere on/in the telephoto lens. It was taking these shots, that I finally figured I needed to turn off the Image Stabilization when using the tripod, particularly in low light. It is great for reducing blur in normal hand held shots, but not for tripod work.


This processing reminds me vaguely of the Asian paintings/drawings of stormy seas. I think I like it better in lower resolutions.


I thought this processing was cool. It feels like a cool day, and to my taste it is also cool in a neat way.

Meandering

I was thinking about "heroic measures" in the medical sense. The survival rate for heart attacks are at a level which not long ago would have been unimagined. I probably got on this line of thought because tragedies still happen. I stumbled across the news that two months ago today Andy Hallett died of congestive heart failure. He was the host, Lorne, in Angel which I have been watching. Damn, he was young.

Then I thought of Darth Cheney. Here's a greedy (mr. Halliburton), cowardly (mr. multiple-draft-deferments), vicious (mr. torture), and amoral (duh!) creature. The doctors who helped this thing survive, do they look back and see anything heroic? Is this perhaps an even worse tragedy than the talented actor to did not survive?
ps - I love the gop operative (who was Colin Powell's chief of staff) that described Darth Cheney as "lonely, paranoid, frightened Dick Cheney."

Here's the picture BD mentioned, "Aaron's Old Man," followed by another which more clearly shows why they call it the "Old Man."



Here's the bus in which a year and a half ago I wrote my first full length play. (Still needs workshopping...). And six months ago where it was just too cold. With the small wood stove and damp firewood it doesn't warm up once the temp is below 15 F. At least not after a couple hours...


This is about a hundred feet down from the bus.

Coming Back From Going Back

It amazes me to hear the right whine about anyone's sharp tongue, especially after they brown-nosed and bent over at every opportunity for arrogant (and inefficient) bullies like Rummy and Bolton. I guess a sharp tongued non-white male candidate for the court is judged by different criteria. Why do the biggest bullies bawl the most about being bullied?

I spent last week in Canada. This time I came back from vacation feeling really refreshed. December I came back chilled (NOT chilled out), early April I came back decompressed, and this time I just feel good. Spring gets some of the credit. I'm slowly getting my pictures up on Flickr, and finding that I'm getting more shots I like than in the past. Is it possible that I'm learning?

Here's a picture of a C-47 (DC-3), which I took at the British Columbia Aviation Museum.


The same picture with the colors shifted to a nostalgic tint reminiscent of my aviator's sunglasses. That and the picture itself reminded me of my old and all but forgotten career in Naval Aviation. I go back and forth on which version I like better.



Here's my favorite of several moving water pictures.

Nothing On the Right

As you may have already guessed, I like this tree and how it frames the Space Needle. It is next to McCaw Hall. I've taken pictures three different Saturday mornings, and probably will one more time with different lenses. I'm still working on technique mostly, but I get a few images I really like. This is one, and a cropped version of the post-processed image. I think it looks better full size if you want to follow the links. Bellevue has a lot of glass high rises. Most are not terribly attractive in my mind, but it does let in daylight. I may not post any of them, but I want to get some pictures of reflections on the sides of buildings.



START RANT:
I don't have patience. Not a whit. The last 28 years of uninterrupted republican rule have brought our nation to the brink of destruction, and it was done with amazing speed, so we need to retreat just as fast. Yet, it seems we are too blinded and fractured by single issue lunatics and other noise to see we're on the edge. Denial is so easy until... To carry the metaphor further, we are on a hogback ridge and we can easily tumble into obscurity with missteps in most any direction. I'm saying at least two very harsh things implicitly.

First, I lumped Clinton in with republican rule. Partly because I was in the service when he made the situation even worse for my friends with his DADT (Don't Ask Don't Tell) policy. It is the cowardly kind of passive aggressive approach to supporting, encouraging, and nurturing discrimination I'd expect from the right who don't seem to believe there is any possibility for personal happiness without standing atop of people they delightedly hold in misery. From my viewpoint, he was so far past moderate he became a gop enabler. (And even that wasn't enough for the right, who attacked him incessantly because giving them their way over half the time wasn't sufficient.)

Second, I laid the blame for the descent of our nation at the feet of the republicans. I've made a lot of quips based on observation. Like, "Democrats hold truth as a core value, and one they often fail to meet. Republicans aren't saddled with this burden, as they view truth as an occasional and quaint tactic." "If you want to know what evil deeds conservatives are up to, simply listen to what they accuse others of doing."

My biggest problem with republicans is not that they are sold out to the highest bidder, as that is a widespread non-partisan failing. Now, Democrats at least make a token effort to represent the wishes (good or bad) of their constituency. Republicans first and last allegiance is to the party itself, which serves the very worst of corporate america, and nearly always vote as a block per their master's bidding. They'll use anti-abortion harpies, haters of civil liberty, the christian right fringe (the ones with less tolerance than the taliban), etc. to break up anything which has even the potential of helping average productive people. You see, simply being wealthy is not enough. The less wealth others have, the more power they can wield with their wealth. GOP = Greedy Old Plutocrats.

So, after 28 years of nearly unchecked plutocracy we've approached the authoritarian corporate/government rule over the populace of which Mussolini dreamt. The last eight years have been a race to the finish line. We're nearly there, and we've merly slowed the momentum at this point. Now, we need a head long dash back towards real democracy and fairness for all. The golden showers of Reagan's tinkle on economics never happened, because it relies on the good will and intentions of those whose ethics enable them to horde wealth which rightfully belongs to thousands or even millions of other people.

Let's see if we can't lift up the disadvantaged for just a little while, instead of letting the over advantaged walk all over us. You know, a political system where the government is run by the people rather than the inverse. Where corporations make us stronger, rather than becoming too big to fail and outsourcing their failures along with our wealth and security. Where they pay their fair share of taxes rather than having conservatives siphoning off most the tax dollars we paid for undelivered infrastructure and services.
:END RANT

Taking It Out On Art

My fury at the discussions we're having over torture have a root. Beyond the conviction that arguing it might be kind of effective is an act of profound cowardice. Rather, it is a deep feeling of impending betrayal from the country I served for a decade. We surrendered our liberties and ethics so quickly under Bush/Cheney I'm perhaps too cynical when it comes to having faith we will again find our way into honor. If the fear and hate mongers win on this what is the next step? Correcting emancipation?

To get my focus off those thoughts I turn to art, and at times it is just a way of expressing my concerns to move focus outward. This picture is of a different, less directly hurtful form of societal hubris. It still conveys the arrogant disregard of surroundings which gets to me. It is titled Civilization Comes To Spring.


Right now most of the images are just things I find interesting or beautiful. The buds on the lilac in my yard have become twigs with leaflets and flower buds. This is a different rendition which was intended as an intermediate step. I liked it enough that I kept a copy.


I'm going to try to move away from posting multiple versions of the same photo, though I'll keep posting mulitples to flickr for a while longer. As I play around more with taking shots and processing them I'll start posting my favorite result, rather the bloggy approach I've been taking.

Cruiser

I'm still working on getting my pictures quickly composed and shot, and taking varying exposures with regards to aperture/time, and only occasionally tweaking ISO. I need to get a better understanding of that and exposure length to decrease/increase the degree of washout.

Here's another shot of the Chevy. It took me a while to figure it out, but Dave and Jerry identified it as a late 60's Impala, and with some googling I figure it to be a 1967 Impala. I remember the models about six years later which were huge old boats. It's amazing how much time is eaten up in post-processing. I was low on memory, and just maxed my motherboard, upgrading from .5 to 3.0 gb. (That's more memory than my first four machines had in total -- on their freaking hard drives.) That sped up the editing several fold.

Tweaked the sky, the car, the painted surface of the car, the rest of the background with slightly different effects to bring out the details, before blurring and other effects were applied, and layers blended and merged in different ways and orders to get the following two versions. Here's the original.


As I was stepping through blending options this caught me. It has the look cars had in our mind's eye back in the mid 70's when I did a bit of cruising and racing around in a beat up '67 firebird with an overpowered high performance big block.


This is more of an effect to bring out some details and stylizing for an antique car. Some similar affects, but more nostalgic. Rather than trying to evoke the coolness of the cars as we lived for them and defined ourselves with, a purty rose-colored rendition. With the car colors given a bit of a cool feel.