iran 1, america 0

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Okay, this is humiliating. The United States initiated an unprovoked war with Iran…and we lost. We lost in every measurable way. In the 250 year history of the US, we’ve never suffered such a calamitous and decisive strategic loss.

The US military may never recover from this. Oh, sure, over time we can rebuild our weapon stockpiles. And we’ll maintain technological military superiority over (most of) the world. But in terms of reputation and confidence, we’ve shit in our pants. That stink won’t go away.

We have Comrade Trump and Pete Hegseth to directly blame for this. But it’s not only the fault of those fuckwits. We elected Trump. You and I may not have voted for him, but there’s no escaping the fact that we, as a nation, elected him a second time, knowing exactly who and what he is. We elected him and, again, that stink won’t go away.

Obviously, starting a war with Iran was massively stupid in the first place. Hell, starting a war with any nation instead of using the soft power of diplomacy is massively stupid. But Jesus suffering fuck, if you’re stupid enough to start a war, at the very least you need to make sure you have a solid, practical plan to win it. At the very least, make sure you have clear objectives that are attainable militarily. At the very least, make sure you have a plan for after you’ve achieved those objectives. At the very fucking least, make sure you can justify the war to the families and friends of the troops who’ll die in it.

But all that would require professional military leaders. We don’t have many of those left. Pete Hegseth saw to that. There’s never been a Secretary of Defense so blatantly unqualified to hold that post as Pete Hegseth. A long history of serious alcohol abuse should have been enough to disqualify him. A repeated history of fiscal mismanagement (of both Concerned Veterans for America and Vets for Freedom) should have been enough to disqualify him. A history of marital infidelity and sexual abuse of women (including an accusation of rape that was derailed by a financial settlement with the accuser) should have been enough to disqualify him. His lack of military leadership experience should have been enough to disqualify him. Hell, his arrogant and offensive personality should have been enough to disqualify him

How can the US lose a war against Iran? Put this bonehead in charge.

But no. Trump wanted him and MAGA gives Trump whatever he wants. Hegseth is the only Secretary of Defense whose approval to the position required a tie-breaking vote by the Vice President. No Democrat voted for him; only three Republicans opposed him.

Hegseth proceeded to recreate the military in his own image. White, male, arrogant, reckless, careless, vindictive, testosterone-poisoned, extreme Christianist, and deeply deeply stupid. He and Trump approached Iran like schoolyard bullies. And Iran kicked sand in our face.

The United States is weaker now–weaker in almost every respect. Our international reputation is shit; our military has been effectively embarrassed, our economy is in shambles, any claim the US ever had to moral/ethical leadership is now as dead as Marley’s ghost.

Like I said at the beginning, this is humiliating. And (assuming this nation survives Trump and his MAGA lemmings) maybe that’s a good thing. Our only hope to regaining a place in civilized international society is to learn a little humility. We can’t just insist we’re great. We need to aim at just being decent, and hope we can make it so.

doesn’t really matter

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I generally think conspiratorial thought process are the province of cranks and folks who watch too much television. So I find it sort of alarming when people I know to be thoughtful, intelligent, reasonable, and logical start suggesting that the recent incident at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was staged.

I understand some of the reasons they feel that way. Let’s face it, it was a weird and improbable event in itself. Much of the apparent weirdness is compounded by the fact that most folks don’t really understand how perimeter security works or how difficult it is to shoot a moving target. There’s no reason they should have an understanding of those things. But a little clarity might help.

The moment Allen Cole ran through the security magnetometer

People keep asking how Cole Allen (I don’t know why everybody keeps calling him ‘the shooter’ since even the Secret Service agrees he never fired a shot) got through so many security personnel. Why, they ask, weren’t the security staff paying more attention? And how did the Secret Service officer firing his weapon at Cole Allen miss him?

Here’s why the security staff wasn’t paying more attention: their job was done. Once all the invited guests had been cleared and admitted into the ballroom where the dinner was taking place (one level below the checkpoint where Allen was stopped), the ballroom was made secure. The ballroom doors were closed and guarded, as were the elevators, stairs, and escalators leading to that level. At that point, the duty of security had been passed to a different team. Perimeter security is relaxed and the physical apparatus can be dismantled. It just saves time. The fact is, staff aren’t very concerned about intruders because there’s no place an intruder can go. When Cole Allen scooted through the magnetometer, he only succeeded in boxing himself in.

How did the Secret Service officer manage to fire at least four times at a target only a few feet away from him and miss? I blame this on television, which gives viewers a wildly unrealistic understanding of firearms and shooting. Hitting a moving target with a handgun is hard, even with training. The faster the target is moving, the harder it becomes (and Cole Allen was fast). Toss in the stress and adrenaline produced by an event of this kind, and it becomes harder still. Most often, you end up firing at a space the target occupied a fraction of a second earlier. It’s not all that surprising that the officer missed (well, missed Cole Allen, anyway; it seems likely he accidentally tagged one of his fellow officers).

But that misunderstanding of how the world actually works is just part of the reason folks are leaning toward the belief that the incident was staged. Another reason is that nobody trusts the current administration to tell the truth about anything. Representative democracy depends in large part on the assumption that 1) the government use of power is legitimate and 2) the citizenry can generally rely on the government to be consistent and relatively honest. Neither of those assumptions apply anymore.

It’s not just that everybody in the Trump administration lies, or that there’s no penalty for lying, or even that they don’t care if everybody knows they’re lying. Down at the bone, the consistent, pervasive, ubiquitous lying erodes the very concept of Truth or shared reality.

For a lot of folks, what actually happened at the WHCD doesn’t matter as much as what they believe might have happened.

thisness and whatness and something more

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I find I’m less and less interested in photographing stuff. By stuff, I mean things. Objects. Including people. Back in the late 1980s, William Eggleston declared, “I am at war with the obvious.” I’m not at war with it; I’m just no longer interested in it.

When you photograph things…and it doesn’t really matter what that thing is… you’re basically saying THIS is important. This thing, this object, this building, this person, this whatever. It’s an acknowledgment that THIS very specific, individual thing is worth your attention. Almost all photography is about THIS. I’ve spent most of my life photographing THIS. Look at THIS. This is how I see THIS.

There’s a term for that–the ‘thisness’ of things. Haecceity. Yeah, it looks like I just chucked a bunch of vowels and consonants into a jar and shook them up, but it’s an actual word (by the way, it’s pronounced hek-SEE-ity; I know you’re wondering about that). It refers to the unique, irreducible, often undefinable properties and aspects of a thing that distinguishes it from all other similar things. It’s what makes each identical twin an individual. It’s what makes your dog special. It’s what makes that elm tree distinct from all other elm trees. It’s the dings and dents and scars of life that makes this different from all of that. It’s the thisness of a thing.

If you’re interested in learning more about the concept of haecceity, do a search on John Duns Scotus, the 13th century Franciscan friar who put it together. I considered adding some of that in his post, but decided I’d rather pound a nail through my foot. My specific individual foot.

Much (maybe most) photography is an attempt to capture the haecceity of a thing. Every photograph of, say, a flower is an attempt to reveal the beauty of that specific individual flower. Every photograph of a water tower or a puppy or a pickup truck or a pair of old boots is an attempt to say THIS puppy or THIS boot is unique and special and is worthy of my attention. And let’s face it, most of those attempts fail.

Instead of capturing the haecceity of the thing, we more often capture the quiddity of the thing. Yes, quiddity is also a real word. It refers to the qualities and properties a thing shares with others of its kind. That photograph of the puppy or the boot is more likely to reveal a sense of puppyness or bootness. It’s the whatness of the thing…the thing that makes it a puppy or a boot.

That’s not a criticism. Depicting the essence of puppyness or bootness can be captivating. People familiar with that specific puppy or that particular boot may recognize it as an individual, but a lot of folks will look at your photograph of a puppy or an old boot and think, “Yeah, now THAT is what I call a boot, right there.” Which is another way of saying they appreciate its bootness.

I began this by saying I’m less and less interested in photographing stuff. These days I’m less interested in the thisness or the whatness of things. I still shoot those photos, of course. It’s most of what I shoot. But for the last few years I find myself trying to photograph something less tangible, and I’m not even sure I know how to describe it. I want to photograph…I don’t know, moods? States of mind? An ambiance maybe. A feeling.

I want to shoot photos that can express a sense of what it’s like to be there.

Yesterday on Bluesky I posted this photograph. It’s not about the haecceity of the dog (who was a wonderfully irreducible and highly individual dog named Luka) or his quiddity (although there was a lot of dogness going on with Luka) or the guy or the street or the city. It’s not about any THING.

I want it to be about being up early on a wet, chilly morning, bringing take-home breakfast back to your apartment while gainfully employed people pass by, isolated in their cars, trying to get to work on time. I want it to be about the dampness of the air and the noise and smell of traffic and the softer sound of a dog’s feet on cement. I want it to be about two beings who care for each other and are comfortable in their companionship, even though they’re of different species.

I want it to be about all of those things. But that’s a lot to cram into a photograph, and I don’t feel like I succeeded. It’s not quite there–not quite what I want it to be–but I like to think I’m getting closer.

cinematic epistemology

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It’s pretty clear that the main actors in the war against Iran are operating under a system of cinematic epistemology. I’m talking about Comrade President Trump, the Secretary of What Used to be the Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth, and the entirety of Comrade Trump’s Cabinet of Nazgûl.

Cinematic epistemology is a term coined by Julian Sanchez. Basically, epistemology is the study of how we know what we know–how we achieve an understanding of how the world works. Cinematic epistemology is an understanding of the world grounded in movies. It’s naive, of course. Love in real life doesn’t work out the way it does in a rom-com. Criminal investigations aren’t done they way they’re depicted in television cop shows. Wars aren’t fought and won they way they are in action films.

But that’s exactly how Trump and Hegseth viewed their assault on Iran. Send in the Air Force, bomb the absolute shit out of a bunch of targets, let Hegseth make a few movie speeches accompanied by manly hand gestures, let Trump threaten our enemies and mock our allies, intimidate the nation into submission. Surely, once our allies saw our overwhelming military might, they’d wish they’d been a part of the war. Surely, once Iran saw they were up against a vastly superior military force, they’d quickly give in. TrumpCo knew it would take longer than a movie screening, but in their minds the outcome was pretty much guaranteed. Punch Iran in the face, take the fight out of them, roll credits.

It didn’t help that it largely did work like that in Venezuela. That quick, limited, precise military operation only solidified their cinematic world view. Trump, on Fox News, even said, “I watched it literally like I was watching a television show. If you would’ve seen the speed, the violence…it was an amazing thing.” But Iran isn’t Venezuela. Everybody knew Iran would hit back. Well, everybody but the folks encouraging Trump to attack Iran.

Iran, predictably, did hit back. They hit everybody in the region who’d who’d cooperated with the US. Trump and his people were surprised. “They weren’t supposed to go after all these other countries in the Middle East,” Trump said. “Nobody expected that. We were shocked.” He went on to say, “Nobody, nobody, no, no, no. No, the greatest experts—nobody thought they were going to hit.”

The actual experts, of course, knew Iran would hit back. Actual experts assumed Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz. The actual experts understood the international scope of a shooting war involving Iran. The actual experts realized a war in Iran could/would lead to a global energy crisis that could/would result in fuel and food shortages in the US and possibly a global recession.

The problem with actual experts is that the Trump administration got rid of them.

TrumpCo, of course, doesn’t know what to do now. Hegseth apparently wants to keep bombing, hoping somehow that just a few more bombs will make all the difference. Trump is bored with the movie; it’s lasting too long and he’s not enjoying the plot; he’d like to just leave the theater. He’s bored with the movie and furious that he bought a ticket to begin with. He’s pissed and desperate and is flailing about wildly.

My biggest fear right now is that Trump, out of spite or because he has a child’s self-control, will decide to set fire to the theater.

bikes make you 12

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Here’s the thing about bicycles: they turn you into a 12-year-old. It’s hard for some folks to admit, but there it is. Solid fact. You get on a bike, and every single cell in your body remembers what it was like to be twelve years old. It doesn’t matter what sort of bike you ride, or why you ride, or when you ride, or the manner in which you ride, you become twelve again. It’s just a fact.

You cycle for fitness? That means riding hard and fast…which is what you did when you were twelve. Not all the time, of course, but every 12-year-old on a bike has ridden like the demons of Hell were chasing behind them. It’s fun to ride fast and hard. Sure, sure, sure, you may be genuinely serious about fitness. You may be wearing lycra and Shimano RC9 cycling shoes because adults believe in optimization. You may be measuring stuff (pulse, cadence, average speed, elevation gain, etc.) because adults feel the need to measure stuff and compare results. But down the bone and gristle, you’re riding like you’re twelve–because it’s fun. There’s a weird joy in cycling really really fast.

Who likes riding really really fast? 12-year-olds, that’s who.

You cycle for transportation? You’re twelve. Your bike is how you got around when you were twelve. You rode your bike to visit your friends, you rode to school, you rode to the park, you rode to the local market to buy candy or a soda or shoplift cigarettes. Now you’re riding to the office or to a coffee shop to meet friends or to the market for fresh vegetables (and if you smoke, please shoplift your cigarettes; don’t give those fuckers your money). Yes, yes, cycling is an efficient, healthy, cost-effective, environmentally friendly means of transportation, and that’s all very adult…but there’s a part of you that knows you’re riding your bike because it’s fun. You’re twelve.

You KNOW your parents would forbid you from riding your bike here.

You ride gravel? You do cyclocross or single tracks? You mountain bike or ride BMX? You’re twelve. You’re riding across the neighbor’s lawn, you’re riding your bike through a construction zone, you’re riding through the neighborhood park, you’re deliberately riding through a puddle, you’re taking your bike where your parents explicitly told you NOT to ride. You’re doing it partly because it’s fun and challenging and partly because your parents told you NOT to ride there. Ask yourself, at what age do kids start being rebellious? Twelve. This is NOT a coincidence.

This is 12-year-old behavior. This is childish. This is fun.

You need more evidence that cycling makes you twelve? Ask your non-cycling friends (you probably have some) how they feel about cycling in general. Odds are they think it’s…childish. It’s not how adults get around. Adults drive. Adults don’t have time for frivolous stuff like riding bikes. Why can’t you just grow up and act your age? (HINT: because you’re twelve years old.)

Still more evidence? Okay, simple test. Get on your bike. Get it in motion. Now take your feet of the pedals, stick them out straight, and gently swerve left and right and left and right, rhythmically back and forth as you coast. How does that feel? It feels great, doesn’t it. You’re twelve.

You’ve done this. If you haven’t done it, you’ve wanted to do it. Go ahead, do it; it’s fun.

You can put on lycra, you can strap a briefcase to your rack. put a bag of groceries in your pannier, you can buy a cargo bike and take your kids to school…doesn’t matter. You know what else doesn’t matter? Your age. If you ride your bike, you become twelve years old again. It just happens. Accept it.

No, don’t just accept it. Celebrate it. You see all those people in cars and pickups and SUVs? They’re locked into adulthood. You? You get to be twelve years old your entire life.

this isn’t a war of choice; it’s a war of impulse

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I read an article recently that referred to “Trump’s hastily planned war.” Hastily planned? This is a war plan drawn on the back of a bar napkin. To describe this as a half-assed war plan would be complimentary. I’ve also seen this war described as “a war of choice.” That’s wrong too. It’s war of impulse–a war that began because of Trump’s urge to do something without giving any thought to the consequences. He’s not conducting a war; he’s winging it.

And it’s entirely pointless. Even if we knew what Trump thought he might accomplish by starting this unprovoked war, it wouldn’t matter…because there’s nothing meaningful that can come out of it. Regime change? Not gonna happen, really. We’re talking about a hard-line extreme Islamic leadership backed up by 125,000 devout and devoted members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, backed up by another 50-90 thousand paramilitary Basij volunteers. The US and/or Israel can kill a whole lot of religious leaders with bombs and missiles, but you can’t kill an army that way. Hell, neither Russia nor the US could destroy the Taliban in Afghanistan, and they’re a ragtag military group. Very dedicated, but not militarily sophisticated.

Another reason Trump has given for starting this unprovoked war is to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Which they were incapable of doing. They weren’t capable of doing it even before Trump’s attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities nine months ago; US intelligence estimates back then suggested it would be around a decade before Iran could develop a nuclear weapon and a means to deliver it to the US homeland. Maybe Trump can claim this time he really really really obliterated their nuclear program. But hey, they’ll just start up again, with Russia’s help.

Look, Iran has been a low level threat against the US since 1979. The government of Iran is a fucking nightmare, both to its neighboring countries and to its own people. Every US president since then has done something to punish Iran. So yeah, we’ve been in constant conflict with Iran. Our relationship with Iran is a lot like our relationship with North Korea. But here’s the thing: there’s not much we can do to make Iran (or North Korea, for that matter) a better place.

Smarter presidents than Trump looked at Iran and tried to moderate their behavior through diplomacy, propaganda, and aid packages. Trump shitcanned international aid, killed off the US propaganda outlets (like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty), and replaced professional diplomats with venal, greed-headed real estate vultures. Now US international policy is grounded in threats, insults, open corruption, and the occasional punch in the face.

So how does this unprovoked (and yes, I’ll keep repeating the fact that this stupid war was unprovoked) war end? Fuck if I know. If we’re lucky, Trump will just announce that he’s won the war and will withdraw US forces from the region. The world economy will remain fucked up; the US economy will be tanked, but at least we won’t be in a stupid war. Or at least we won’t be in that particular stupid war. Trump is perfect capable of starting another stupid war somewhere else. Like Cuba.

If we’re not lucky? I hate to even think about it.

how stupid is this war?

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All wars are stupid, even the rare necessary ones. Some folks say war is never necessary, and while I respect that belief, I disagree with it. I believe there are a few valid reasons for a nation…any nation…to go to war. All of those reasons are responsive–taken in response to some specific act. Military aggression by another nation, for example, or the protection of innocent human life. Maybe even to restore international order.

All three of those reasons would apply to a war defending Ukraine against the Russian invasion. None of those reasons apply to Trump’s decision to initiate a war with Iran. In fact, a war with Iran actually aids Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

As I said three weeks ago, You attack Iran, and Iran hits back. I’m just a random guy who reads a lot and follows the news, and even I knew Iran would 1) retaliate militarily and 2) close the Strait of Hormuz. By all accounts, Comrade President Trump’s advisors told him the same thing. He discounted their advice and attacked Iran anyway.

Closing of the Straits jeopardizes the economies of most of Europe, most of whom are providing support to Ukraine. Closing the Straits benefits Russia, because Russian oil becomes more in demand. Russia’s oil and gas revenue financed the invasion of Ukraine, and the sanctions imposed by the US and Europe against Russian oil have made it more difficult for Russia to sustain their aggression. The US has lifted some of those sanctions in order to keep fuel prices in check. The revenues generated by lifting the sanctions helps Russia in its invasion of Ukraine.

Russia, by the way, has also been supplying Iran with 1) the drones used to attack ships in the Straits and US forces deployed in the Middle East, and 2) intelligence regarding the locations and defensive characteristics of US forces. Russia has absolutely no incentive to stop providing drones and intel to Iran. The longer the Iran war goes on, the better for Russia and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Trump is better at dancing than he is at conducting a war, and he sucks at dancing.

Trump’s assault on Iran and subsequent lifting of Russian oil sanctions not only helps Russia achieve its political and military objectives, it also hurts traditional US allies and sows global chaos. And as usual, Trump has absolutely no plan to resolve any of this. He is, however, making bank off the war. Trump’s sons invested heavily in companies that manufacture…that’s right. Drones.

None of this was necessary. It will take years…maybe generations…to undo the damage Trump has inflicted on the United States in fifteen months. But it would be nice if we could kickstart the recovery by putting lots of Trumps in prison.

in which i fuck up (but still have fun)

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Let me first say this: I enjoy the hell out of my wee Ricoh GR3X camera. I’ve owned and used lots of cameras over the years, but I’ve never had one that suits my approach to photography so perfectly. I love that I can quickly shift between full manual control (which is a slower process but gives me control over every aspect of the exposure) and a setting that allows me choose the aperture I want and let the camera handle the rest (which is quicker and far more useful for street photography).

Last Friday I took a walk and decided to try something new. For the first hour or so, I’d shoot entirely in monochrome using the street settings AND I wouldn’t chimp the results. (For non-photographers, ‘chimping’ is reviewing the photos you just shot, which can inspire you to go “Ooh ooh” like a chimpanzee.) The second half of the walk, I’d shoot normally.

This where I fucked up. I somehow managed to change the street settings so the camera’s ISO was set to a minimum of 6400. What does that mean? ISO refers to the standardized scale that measures the sensitivity of a digital camera’s sensor to light. All you really need to know is this: the higher the ISO, the more ‘noise’ you see in the final image. In daytime, standard ISO settings are usually between 100 to 400. I was noodling around with an ISO that was at least sixteen times higher than normal. The result? Images like this:

As you can see, noisy. But because I was refusing to chimp, I was unaware of the problem. So for an hour or so, I kept wandering, kept looking at stuff, kept shooting at the wrong ISO. When I saw a pair of workmen–one prone on the sidewalk with his head inside a manhole, the other feeding some sort of conduit tubing into the hole–laboring with the golden dome of the State Capitol Building behind them, I paused long enough to shoot a photo. I was confident I composed a decent shot, and the camera did its best to find a correct exposure based on the settings…but yeah, noise.

The thing is, I’ve learned to trust the camera. I’ve learned it’s incredibly responsive, that (assuming I’ve set it up properly) it allows me to shoot quickly, reflexively, on impulse. For example, I saw this tattooed guy in a tee shirt, toting bags of groceries, and wearing a ski mask. He was at a crosswalk, waiting for the traffic light to turn (or for the traffic to ease up enough for him to jaywalk). There was no time to properly compose a shot, but with the Ricoh all I had to do was react. I simply raised the camera in his direction and pressed the shutter button. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Except, of course, for that ISO of 6400.

Noisy. Harsh. But I can’t blame the camera. I’m the one who fucked up. I’m not saying these photograph would have been great if I hadn’t fucked up, but they’d have been…well, better.

And that’s okay. Making mistakes is human, right? And I’m an avid believer in what Alfred Stieglitz called ‘practicing in public.’ He wrote,

“Some people go on the assumption that if a thing is not a hundred percent perfect it should not be given to the world… Either you feel that a thing must be perfect before you present it to the public, or you are willing to let it go out even knowing that it is not perfect, because you are striving for something even beyond what you have achieved.

I wouldn’t claim these photographs are ‘given to the world.’ More like inflicted on the world. But yeah, I’m surely ‘striving for something beyond what I’ve achieved.’ Because what I’ve achieved here is that I fucked up. I suspect I’ll continue to fuck up on (I hope) an irregular basis.

Despite fucking up, I still had a good time. I not only believe in practicing in public, I also believe any walk on a sunny day is a good walk. And I believe in the reality of the Happy Accident, of which I have some evidence: I actually rather like the final ISO-fucked photo, which happens to be a selfie.