Category: food

inconvenient truths

The Washington Monthly:

[California]’s per capita electricity usage [has] remained flat while it’s increased 50% in the rest of the country. If you look at total per capita energy use, it’s actually declined since 1970 (compared to a modest increase in the rest of the country). At the same time, smog levels in Southern California have been substantially reduced. And do you know why? Largely because California has passed laws forcing it to happen.

Of course, we all know the result, don’t we? As the Republican Party and the corporate community are so fond of declaring, regulation like this inevitably leads to economic disaster. Businesses fail, incomes drop, and the economy goes into a tailspin. It’s nothing short of a disaster.

I don’t want to spoil the surprise but does anyone really think that California in the 80s, 90s, and today is an economic basketcase?

photo captions

Shutterbug: Picture This! – Panoramas:

Images Archivesart 0805Picturei02
Monument Valley: This classic panorama came to us from Dave Hughes, who worked with a Leica R4 and Leica Telyt-R 250mm lens on a Manfrotto 3221 tripod and 3030 head. He exposed Fuji Superia 100 film at f/8 at 1/125 sec and stitched 10 scanned vertical exposures together with Photoshop 6.
© 2005, Dave Hughes, All Rights Reserved

I realize Shutterbug is an ad-supported magazine, but I’d like to see a caption like this:

Monument Valley: This classic panorama came to us from Dave Hughes, who spent several hours with maps and calendars to time the light for this shot. He drove 300 miles and slept in his car to make sure he got the light he planned for. He took several series of exposures to ensure he got the shot, then drove back to be at work the next morning.

The only thing they could do to make it more of a sales pitch would be to offer the same bundle of gear used in each shot.

One of my pinhole confréres took this shot:

Images Archivesart 0805Picturei13

and here’s the caption:

Waiting To Cross: Mark J. Messerly sent us this unique image made with an Abelson Scope Works Omniscope on Ilford HP5 film with a 15-second exposure. We admit to being stumped as to this piece of gear, but it sure is an interesting shot.
© 2005, Mark J. Messerly, All Rights Reserved

They mean, we don’t know how to advertise this. Finding out what one is wasn’t that hard.

I understand their business model and don’t begrudge them their living, but when it’s more about the gear than the image, the magazine ought to be called “Camera Gear,” he says, as he eliminates any chance of appearing in the magazine.

the last three days

were spent here. Pictures to follow. Pretty place, but uncooperative weather. How uncooperative? We had to go out and buy sleeping bags. In August.

In the picture Google offers, the thin line you see trailing out into the water, parallel to the tree covered peninsula, is a long spit that is only accessible at low tide. Luckily we had a good minus tide while we were there, so we got a good experience out there.
Just over an hour away but it felt like a world away. From Tacoma, it would be an easy weekend trip on any weekend.

on genres

I have grumbled more than once in these pages about genres as something that comes between readers and books they might like: my argument is that genres are more useful for marketers and bookstore staff than readers (or writers).

Words and Pictures:

It didn’t fit any categories, and thus would suffer the worst fate of all for a book project: bookstores wouldn’t know what section to put it in. There is no surer death-knell for a book project than that.

<update> further discussion of this idea is here.

help?

So this pinhola/Holga contest closes on the 12th. I am trying to figure out what I should submit.

I get 4 entries, and would like to diversify. My pinhole shots are here and the Holga stuff is here.

Any suggestions? You can just comment on the stuff at Flickr, if you see anything you like.

Thanks!

dress rehearsals

Larry seems to have stepped in a mess here, but this point stuck out for me:

Iran, meanwhile, is sitting in the catbird’s seat. They have a well-trained and highly competent surrogate force in Hezbollah. Hezbollah’s successful attack on Friday on an Israeli naval vessel is a reminder that Hezbollah is not a bunch of crazy kids carrying RPGs and wearing flip flops. I would be willing to wager that at least one Iranian military advisor was helping Hezbollah launch the missile that hit the Israeli ship. But Iran is doing more than simply engage in tit-for-tat. They are thinking strategically.

My history classes, where they mentioned the Spanish Civil War, usually worked in the fact that Franco’s troops used tactics and equipment supplied by Hitler’s Germany: the war in Spain was a proving ground for what became the bloodiest conflict the world has yet to see.

In a purely pragmatic sense, can you blame Iran for leveraging this, especially as it offers real-world testing of their capabilities against the enemy they expect, even want, to fight?