Month: January 2006

an antiquated notion

I think it’s safe to say this no longer applies to this society.

A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.
— Adlai Stevenson

When we have screeds like this where someone insists that, as for those who leaked the facts about citizens’ communications being monitored, “we should then hang them by the neck until they are dead, dead, dead” I think we have left the marked road and are way off in the weeds.

Fringe belief? Maybe. But where are adults on the pro-war side who can talk these eliminationists down? Just a month ago, the son of a former president called for the execution of the chairman of the opposition party.

It should come as no surprise I am renewing my passport.

Now playing: Station To Station by David Bowie from the album “Station To Station” | Get it

new pinhole pictures: too bad to share

Not sure what happened to these. Completely blurry and there are some weird light/dark areas that make me suspect the film is being fogged by a light leak somewhere. The lack of sharpness might be from the fogginess: there is a dark center to some of the images, surrounded by a much lighter periphery. The grain might be adding to the appearance of unsharpness, since this is 400 speed film (I am regretting that decision now).

I picked up a Nikon body cap on eBay the other night so I may hold off on more experiments til that arrives.

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Friday Random 10 + 1

I Remember California / Green / R.E.M.
All I Want is You / Country Life / Roxy Music
Linger / Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? / The Cranberries
Rhyme / Television / Television
Hackensack / Welcome Interstate Managers / Fountains Of Wayne
I Am the Resurrection / The Very Best of The Stone Roses / The Stone Roses
Agaetis Byrjun / Agaetis Byrjun / Sigur Rós
No Glamour For Willi / Television / Television
Point Of No Return / Spike Bonus Disc / Elvis Costello
This Town… / Spike / Elvis Costello

plus extra-groovy bonus track: Moonchild / Frame By Frame [1 – 1969-71] / King Crimson

quit or get fired?

What about “the relative demerits of fooling around with an intern vs. fooling an entire country into going to war based on false evidence” anyway? Where is the outrage from these moral guardians now? How many US service people from their subscriber rolls have been killed or wounded?

Newspapers Urge President to Quit:

Did newspaper editorials condemn Clinton for his screwing around, and lying about it, and leave it at that, or did they come out squarely for his exit from office?
What follows, from an Associated Press rundown on September 15, 1998, is a long list of newspapers that “called for President Clinton’s resignation.” AP added that some of those listed “did so before the release of Kenneth Starr’s report on Sept. 11.” [editor’s note: Sept 11? Odd, that. ]
Indeed, the Philadelphia Inquirer responded to the coming of the Starr report this way: “Bill Clinton should resign. He should resign because his repeated, reckless deceits have dishonored his presidency beyond repair.”
The Los Angeles Times pointed out: “The picture of Clinton that now emerges is that of a middle-aged man with a pathetic inability to control his sexual fancies.”
The New York Times, on its Howell Raines-led editorial page, thundered that until the Starr turn, “no citizen … could have grasped the completeness of President Clinton’s mendacity or the magnitude of his recklessness.” Yet a Washington Post poll that month showed that while a majority of Americans wanted Congress to censure Clinton, they did not want it to boot him out of office.
[Below the fold] is that AP partial list of newspapers calling for Clinton to quit (other papers no doubt joined in later):

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New teeth ‘could soon be grown’

Sign me up for this. BBC NEWS | Health | New teeth ‘could soon be grown’:

Technology to grow replacement teeth could mean
the end of dentures. Scientists at King’s College London
have been awarded £500,000 to help them develop human teeth
from stem cells. The company Odontis, set up by the college, hopes
to develop its research for tests on humans within two years after
successful research on mice. Stem cells, the so-called master
cells, would be programmed to develop into teeth and then
transplanted into the patient’s jaw where the gap is. It is thought
it would then take two months for the tooth to fully
develop.

At any rate, perhaps my kids will never have to go through what I
have if they have the same problems. They think this is 5 years
away from being available.

pinhole results

I took my Frankenkamera out today to see what it could do. Raining, about 40 degrees, dark overcast: perfect 😉

I bought some new film, to minimize the variables, but in a moment of weakness fell prey to some Kodak B&W C41 film, rather than the simple color film I had in mind. I planned to use color for no other reason that choice: I figured there would be more options. However, there were not as many as I hoped and there was something appealing about monochrome film.

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