no, seriously, jeebus, c’mon, are you kidding me

Posted on February 19, 2014 by greg

First, some confessional crap. My momma was born and raised in South Carolina. That means I spent a chunk of my youth there. We’re talking Deep South. Somewhere in a box there are photographs of me as a kid wearing a Confederate foraging cap. When I was a boy I actually owned a Confederate battle flag — the Stars and Bars. I grew up hearing about the War of Northern Aggression. And here’s a sad truth: I found the faded romance of the Lost Cause attractive.

Of course, I didn’t have a fucking clue what that Cause was, or what it meant. I just like the idea of heroic country boys standing up and fighting against a much bigger and better equipped army. I felt the same way about the Revolutionary War, about which I was equally clueless.

So I understand these guys, the Sons of Confederate Veterans. I understand they’d like to dissociate the Stars and Bars from its racist history. I get it — they want to distance themselves from dumb-ass, low-class, racist redneck white trash. I understand that they want to see the Confederate battle flag through a gauzy starlight filter that makes the Civil War look like a glamour shot from a cheap magazine.

But let me just say this to the Sons of Confederate Veterans: c’mon guys — wake the fuck up — this is NOT a good idea.

Seriously, the Sons of Confederate Veterans have convinced the Georgia Department of Revenue to allow them to put the Stars and Bars on their license tags. I am NOT making this up. There’ll be an extra fee to get this custom license tag (call it a tax on stupid people), but ten dollars of that money will go to the SCV in order to “promote Southern Heritage through educational activities and preservation efforts around the state.” Whatever the hell that means.

You guys, it doesn’t matter how you want folks to see the Stars and Bars. It only matters that for 98% of the world it’s a hateful symbol of racism and oppression. It only matters that it makes ALL Southern folk look like fuckwits. A symbol means what the majority of people think it means. You remember how the Swastika used to be a Hindu symbol of good luck and prosperity?

No, of course you don’t. Because the Nazis completely shit all over the swastika and now for most of the world the symbol means “I’m a white guy who hates Jews.” That’s what has happened to the Confederate battle flag. Doesn’t matter what it might have meant to your great-great-great granddaddy; now it means “I’m a white guy who hates black folks.” Now it means “Black folks, please throw rocks and shatter the windows of my car.”

Seriously, this is stupid at the cellular level. You can put this licence tag on your brand new Lexus or your Volvo station wagon, but this is what people will see when you drive down the street:

I don’t know…maybe it’s actually a good idea to let these cretinous flag-wankers identify themselves to the public at large. ‘Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.’ as the god-botherers would say. ‘Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.’

This licence tag, I suspect it will bringeth forth rocks through the windows. Can I get a hallelujah?

macho bullshit and a handy gun

Posted on February 18, 2014 by greg

Somebody asked me why I haven’t written anything about the so-called ‘Loud Music Murder’ trial. I said “Because it’s a sad and terribly stupid situation, but there’s nothing new or unusual about it.”

The thing is, this wasn’t about loud music at all. The trial was about a privileged white racist asshole, Michael Dunn. It was about four proud but resentful black teen-aged boys. It was about testosterone and a handy firearm. You remove either of those last two variables from the equation, and none of this would have happened. Remove the gun, or remove the macho bullshit, and everybody goes home alive.

Gas station/convenience store where the murder took place

What folks keep overlooking is the fundamental fact that this tragically stupid incident took place at a convenience store. The entire point of a convenience store is you get in, get what you want, and you leave. You’re there, what…five minutes? Maybe ten? How could things spiral so badly out of control in just a few minutes? Macho bullshit and a handy firearm.

Here’s what happened. Michael Dunn pulled into the convenience story lot and parked next to an SUV. He asked the teens in the SUV to turn down their music. It didn’t matter to him that they were there first, that he pulled up and parked next to them. It didn’t matter that he was only going to be there a short time. He was a middle-aged software engineer and they were black kids playing what he described as ‘thug’ music. He felt they should heed his perfectly reasonable desire for quiet. They should have some consideration for others. The world doesn’t revolve around them. He deserved a little bit of respect.

Michael Dunn

And hey, at first they complied with his request. They turned the music off. But one of the kids asked the obvious question: who the hell did this guy think he was? Nobody asked that jerk to park next to them. Why in the hell should they have to turn off — or even turn down — their music to please him? Fuck him. Fuck him and his disrespect. Turn the music back on. Turn it up louder.

It became a dick-measuring contest. The teenage boys in the SUV weren’t going to back down, because they were teens and boys and they can play their music as loud as they damned well please. Dunn wasn’t going to back down because he was a man with a good job and a handy firearm, and those kids owed him some goddamned respect.

Dunn’s 9mm Taurus handgun

Remove the macho bullshit from the equation, everybody goes home alive.

Dunn told the police he heard a kid in the back seat threaten him. He told the police he saw the kid pick up something that might have been a shotgun (no shotgun was found in the vehicle). So he pulled the Taurus 9mm out of his glove box and opened fire. Ten rounds in total. The first three or four rounds went through the rear door panel and hit 17-year-old Jordan Davis in the liver, lung, and aorta. Killed him almost instantly. The driver of the SUV slammed it into reverse. Dunn stepped out of his car and fired the remaining rounds. To keep their heads down, he told the police. To prevent any return fire.

Dowels showing the entry direction of the gunshots.

Remove the gun from the equation, everybody goes home. Instead, Michael Dunn is going to prison. Jordan Davis is in the ground. How profoundly stupid and sad is that?

Would Dunn have been so confrontational with those kids if he hadn’t had the pistol in the glove box? Maybe, but probably not. Would the situation have escalated so rapidly if it wasn’t for the macho bullshit? Probably not.

Would this incident have happened at all if women and girls were involved? Would there be a funeral for a 17-year-old kid if there hadn’t been a gun handy? Almost certainly not.

This wasn’t the ‘Loud Music’ trial at all. It was the ‘Macho Bullshit’ trial. It was the ‘I’ve Got a Handy Gun’ trial. Macho bullshit and a handy gun — remove those variables from every equation and the murder rate would drop radically. More folks would go home alive.

miracles & ballistics

Posted on February 9, 2014 by greg

It was a miracle, according to Justin Carper of Shelby, NC. A miracle that his 17 month old daughter was able to feed herself a few hours after she’d been shot.

“It went through the top of her shoulder. She was feeding herself using that shoulder, using that arm. The bullet went straight through. You wouldn’t even know. Doctor after doctor have told us that there’s nowhere else the bullet could have gone that would have ended up with this story. My mind is pretty much blown.”

A miracle. Carper writes a Christian parenting blog, so I guess he’s familiar with the notion of miracles. But me, I’m thinking miracles wouldn’t be necessary if Carper had had enough common sense to put his 9mm pistol someplace where his three year old son couldn’t get to it and accidentally shoot his baby sister. And you know what blows my mind? At this point, no charges have been filed against Carper. Praise Jeebus.

Thirteen year old Eddie Zee could have used a miracle that same day, when he and his buddies were playing with a shotgun in Puyallup, WA. But no, instead Eddie was killed. Too bad, Eddie — no miracles for you. At this point in time, no charges have been filed against the parents who left the shotgun in an accessible place.

(photo by Andrijana Pajović)

A few days earlier in Park Ridge, IL, the 14 year old son of Joseph Streff accidentally shot himself with the handgun his dad had given him for Christmas. Since the kid got the weapon in celebration of the birth of Jeebus, I guess we can consider it a miracle that he only shot himself in the leg. He’ll recover.

I guess you could also count it a miracle that the unnamed ‘juvenile’ in Little Rock, AR wasn’t killed when he was shot in the face with the handgun he and his buddies were playing with. Jeebus must have been watching over him — just not very well. Maybe he was distracted. By what?

By Isom Brumfield, who took his 7 year old son with him to an auto parts store in Milwaukee. When it came time to pay for his parts, Brumfield first had to remove his handgun from his pocket. He laid it on the counter, but the clerk (who apparently wasn’t willing to trust in miracles) asked him to put it away. As he was doing that, Brumfield dropped the weapon, which discharged. The round hit his son in the leg. Brumfield has been charged with a misdemeanor — ‘negligent handling of a dangerous weapon.’ How’s that for a miracle?

(photo by Andrijana Pajović)

That apparently didn’t use up Milwaukee’s miracle quota. A couple days later a group of kids (aged 11 to 17 years) were playing with a shotgun in somebody’s basement. The shotgun was loaded with bird shot; when it accidentally discharged, five of the kids were wounded (and, I suspect, most of them were deafened). None of the wounds were life threatening. It’s like an advertisement for bird shot — Less Likely to Kill Your Kids!

That same day in Columbus, OH, a ten year old boy was shot by his eleven year old brother. The victim, happily, lived. According to the boy’s aunt, he ‘found the gun in an alley.’ It’ll be a miracle if anybody believes that story.

In Como, MS, two brothers, 11 and 14, went deer hunting. By themselves. As they were climbing up into a deer stand on the family property, the older brother accidentally shot the younger in the neck and shoulder. Miraculously, the victim is expected to survive. So are the deer.

But miracles were in short supply in Nashville, TN, where seventeen year old Kaemon Robinson and three friends were messing about with a handgun. It accidentally discharged, hitting fifteen year old Kevin Barbee in the face. No miracles here. Barbee was killed, Robinson is facing a murder charge.

(photo by Andrijana Pajović)

A few hours later, in St. Mary’s, WV, an unnamed 15 year old girl was shot in the head while watching television. A neighbor, Robbie Knight, had decided to clean his .40 caliber handgun like a responsible gun owner. Unfortunately, Knight neglected to unload his weapon. It discharged — the round went through the wall of Knight’s home, traveled the distance to the victim’s home, went through that wall and hit the girl in the head. The miracle? At last report, the girl is still alive, although in critical condition.

And in Wichita, KS, a 70 year old man was playing ‘quick draw’ with two boys, aged ten and fourteen. Predictably, the old guy accidentally fired a round, grazing the ten year old in the face. The man was arrested and charged with two counts of aggravated child endangerment. After he was released by police, the old man returned to his home and killed himself with a gunshot to the head.

All this happened in the last week or so. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics around 3500 children and adolescents are killed each year in gun-related incidents. Many of those deaths are preventable. It doesn’t take a miracle; it just takes common sense. Trigger locks, gun safes, prosecution of adults who make it possible for kids to shoot themselves or others.

There are a couple lessons to be learned here. Miracles are totally unreliable. And there’s no mercy in ballistics.

Editorial note: All the photographs are by the amazing young photographer, Andrijana Pajovic

why are there still monkeys

Posted on February 5, 2014 by greg

I didn’t bother to watch the ‘debate’ between Bill Nye and Ken Ham. It would be like watching a ‘debate’ over which is the better school — Harvard or Hogwarts. One is real, the other is imaginary. I don’t care if there are people who actually believe in Hogwarts so long as they don’t claim there’s a rational and scientific basis for that belief.

In the same way, I don’t care if some folks believe the Earth is only a few thousand years old, or that there’s no such thing as evolution. But if they put forth an argument that science supports that idea, then I’m left with no alternative but to assume those people are just stupid.

Case in point: Matt Stopera of Buzzfeed asked some of the creationists at the Nye/Ham bunfight to write a message to, or ask a question of, evolutionists. Here are some of them:

Yes. Yes, it’s completely illogical. Why are you even attempting to bring logic into this? You’re talking about a supernatural being you believe created…well, every single thing in the entire universe and universes beyond, and you’re relying on human logic? You’re talking about an omniscient and omnipresent entity whose mind ‘surpasses all understanding’ and yet you’re talking about logic?

But yes, even considering that, it’s still completely illogical.

Uh…the rotation of the Earth on its axis? See, this is where science comes in handy. The Earth was formed from the slow collapse of an asymmetrical cloud of dust and gasses and other crap leftover from the Big Bang. Since the cloud wasn’t symmetrical, the collapse wasn’t symmetrical either, and that imparted angular momentum to the process, which set the newly formed planet spinning. Since all this took place in space (where nobody can hear you scream and there’s no source of friction other than the nearby moon) the planet continues to spin. Unless you choose to believe that the Sky Magician creates a continuous light show to amuse his humans.

Also? Learn the difference between ‘their’ and ‘there’ and ‘they’re.’

If one existed, you’re damned right I’d be scared. I mean, this is the Divine Creator who said “I have wiped out many nations, devastating their fortress walls and towers. Their streets are now deserted; their cities lie in silent ruin. There are no survivors—none at all. I thought, ‘Surely they will have reverence for me now! Surely they will listen to my warnings. Then I won’t need to strike again, destroying their homes.’ But no, they get up early to continue their evil deeds.”

If there was any truth in Zephaniah 3:6-10, then I’d be scared out of my fucking wits. And that’s just one of dozens of genocidal urges your Divine Creator gave into. That dude is totally scary.

Dude. Okay…the theory of evolution is a theory. The phenomenon of evolution is a fact. It seems nobody taught you what a theory is. Basically, a theory is just an attempt to coherently explain a phenomenon. Here’s an example. In the ancient Greek region of Magnesia ad Sipylum some folks discovered stones that would attract iron. Their theory was that the stones emanated tiny particles that swept away the air between the stone and the iron, and the consequent suction drew iron forward.

We no longer believe magnetism works that way. Why? Because people tested that notion and found it to be wrong. That’s how science works. You observe a phenomenon, you come up with an explanation, then you try to prove that explanation is wrong. If you succeed in proving it wrong, then you adjust the explanation — the theory. Science does NOT attempt to prove a theory is correct.

Our theories about magnetism are more sophisticated now, but we still don’t completely understand it. And yet nobody thinks magnetism is ‘just a theory.’ Magnetism is a fact. It’s what keeps your kid’s artwork stuck to the refrigerator. And evolution is a fact as well.

Seriously, the only thing more stupid than the previous question is the next one.

How did you ever get out of school? Seriously, how can you be so smugly stupid? If somebody taught you that evolutionists believe humans ‘came from monkeys’ then you were lied to. If you believed it without question, then you’ve been played for a sap.

This is really sad. This guy probably wasn’t born stupid. He was trained to be stupid. Somebody told him “Evolutionists believe humans came from monkeys” and he probably thought to himself, correctly, That’s a totally stupid thing to believe. But did he ask himself Do they really believe something that stupid? Apparently not. He didn’t bother to learn what evolution actually means — and nobody encouraged him to. In fact, they probably actively discouraged him from learning about evolution. And he just believed what he was told.

Here’s another place where science comes in handy. Science never believes what it’s told. Science always challenges. Science always demands evidence, and is never completely satisfied with it. That’s why theories — theories of gravitation, of magnetism, of evolution — continue to change over time.

The problem isn’t that some folks believe the Earth is only a few thousand years old or that they believe a Divine Creator cobbled humankind out of “the dust of the ground.” People believe all sorts of ludicrous and stupid stuff, and for the most part no real harm comes of it. The problem is that science is under attack. Not just the results of scientific research, but science itself — science as a system of understanding the physical world. Does it really matter that this guy thinks evolution means humans evolved from monkeys? No.

What matters is that he’s the product of a system that keeps people stupid. Stupid people are easier to control.

from sea to shining wtf

Posted on February 3, 2014 by greg

So this morning I get an email from somebody I don’t know (his…or possibly her…email address was a model of anonymity — a seemingly random jumble of letters and numerals brilliantly designed to be completely forgettable, and maybe intended to put you directly to sleep) asking me this question:

Can you believe the wingers were so mad over that commercial?

I’d only started my first cup of coffee, so it took me a couple of seconds to decipher that. Wingers, I knew, referred to conservatives (nobody calls left-wing folks ‘wingers,’ though I’ve no idea why that is; left-wing folks are called ‘liberals’ or ‘commie socialist pussies’). The commercial, I assumed, was probably a Super Bowl commercial. But which commercial?

Bob Dylan shilling for General Motors? Maybe. The puppy-Clydesdale beer commercial? Possibly — we’re talking mixed-species horse-puppy relationships, and no way was that puppy old enough to be legal. Laurence Fishburn singing Puccini? Probably not — I mean, that opera begins with an execution, and conservatives are usually pro-death penalty.

I decided to seek guidance from that wellspring of Conservative Thinking: FreeRepublic.com. And hey, bingo — found it. It was this commercial:

What’s offensive about a multi-national corporation that sells its product worldwide making a commercial in which folks from different cultures sing America the Beautiful in a variety of languages? Here you go:

I was genuinely offended by the multilingual “America the Beautiful” Coke commercial. I mean REALLY pissed off! Big vote for WORST commercial.

The muzzie part of that ad was even worse than the foreign languages. The Coca Cola suits need to get the message loud and clear that mooselimbs are the enemy and that diversity is perversity. Real Americans should boycott all of their products including the Minute Maid brand.

Sing the song in English – even (especially??) if their speech is accented heavily with their native language.

Just watched the Coke ad. Think I’ll drink Pepsi tomorrow.

[S]o many seem offended by the multi-language Coke commercial. Was this the same Coke comemrcial that showed the gay couple skating? I’d be infinitely more offended by that than what language they were speaking.

[The gay couple skating] was the worst part of a commercial that went out of its way to be offensive on many levels.

I was REALLY pissed off at it. I never drink soda, but that makes me want to start boycotting Coke.

I remember the “like to buy the world a coke” singing commercial. Everyone sang in english. Language unifies. This commercial divides.

And in a classic case of Conservative Martyr Whining, we have this:

Coke airs an offensive ad. Conservatives are the only ones smart enough to recognize the offense and the liberal blogosphere immediately demonstrate their own “tolerance” by calling conservatives intolerant, stupid, racist, bigots for taking offense.

It’s apparently offensive to sing a song praising the beauty of this nation in any language other than English, especially if it’s sung by people who aren’t white, may not be Christian, and possibly aren’t heterosexual. If the folks who were offended by the commercial knew the history of America the Beautiful they’d be even more outraged.

It all began in Scotland in the middle of the 17th century. A minister named David Dickson, who was in and out of trouble for ‘nonconformist’ Protestant thought, wrote a long poem called O Mother Dear, Jerusalem. Seriously long — thirty-one painful verses describing the city of Jerusalem. For example:

Thy houses are of ivory,
Thy windows crystal clear,
Thy streets are laid with beaten gold —
There angels do appear.
Thy walls are made of precious stone,
Thy bulwarks diamond square,
Thy gates are made of Orient pearl —
O God, if I were there.

Despite thirty more verses of that, the poem remained popular among über-devout Protestants for a couple hundred years. Which is how Samuel Augustus Ward comes into the story.

: Samuel Augustus Ward

Ward owned a little music store in Newark, New Jersey, but he was better known as the organist for the Grace Episcopal Church. He also dabbled in musical composition. One summer day in 1882, as he was coming back from a day spent at Coney Island, a tune got stuck in his head. Ward borrowed a friend’s shirt cuffs (which, back in that era, were detachable) and scribbled down the notes to the tune. He called it Materna, and later realized the tune fit the words of Dickson’s appalling poem.

It was a lovely little tune. Almost nobody cared. Ward died in 1903, unaware his tune would become wildly popular a few years later — thanks to Miss Katharine Lee Bates.

Katharine Lee Bates

Katharine Bates was born in Falmouth, Massachusetts in 1859, the daughter of a Congregational minister. She was a rather independent and unorthodox woman. She obtained a degree from Wellesley College, studied for a while at Oxford in England, and eventually became a teacher and a writer.

In the summer of 1893, while she was briefly teaching in Colorado, Bates and some of her fellow teachers decided to visit Pikes Peak.

We hired a prairie wagon. Near the top we had to leave the wagon and go the rest of the way on mules. I was very tired. But when I saw the view, I felt great joy. All the wonder of America seemed displayed there, with the sea-like expanse.

She wrote a poem describing that beauty. The poem garnered a great deal of attention when it was published two years later in 1895. In 1910, her poem (with a few minor changes) was coupled with Samuel Ward’s tune Materna, and became known as America the Beautiful.

Why would conservatives be outraged by the history of this song? Because Katharine Bates lived for a quarter of a century with her ‘friend’ Katharine Coman. We don’t know for certain whether theirs was a sexual relationship, but there’s no doubt about the love they felt for each other. At some point Bates was described by a colleague as being a “free-flying spinster,” somebody who existed on the “fringe on the garment of life.” Bates response: “I always thought the fringe had the best of it. I don’t think I mind not being woven in.”

I think I’d have liked Katharine Lee Bates. I know I like the version of her song in the Coca Cola commercial. It pleases me that lyrics celebrating America written by a lesbian are sung in English and Hindi and Tagalog and Arabic. It pleases me that we see men and women of different races and different ethnic backgrounds and different sexual preferences and different religions celebrating this nation. And yes, even though the message being sent is ‘Buy Coke,’ it pleases me that the message is delivered in a way that is inclusive.

It does show an America that’s beautiful. And it’s a shame that some people can only find hate in that message.

so very not safe for work

Posted on January 31, 2014 by greg

You guys! If you go and join the United State Army right now, you can totally have sex with a goat. Or any other animal — it doesn’t have to be a goat. And it doesn’t have to be the Army, you guys. The Marines and Navy and even the Air Force — all of them offer the very same animal-sexing privileges (probably the Coast Guard too, but are they really part of the Armed Forces…really?).

You probably didn’t know this amazing true actual fact on account of you probably don’t read reliable conservative news sources. But back on December 1st of 2013 Congress repealed Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. What, you ask, is Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice? I’m glad you asked.

Any person subject to this chapter who engages in unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy. Penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete the offense.

Unnatural AND carnal copulation, you guys! According to every conservative source I can find, Congress repealed Article 125 so that Obama can pack the military with the gays and turn These United States into France (or maybe Saudi Arabia, it’s not entirely clear). Also? It was repealed so soldiers can fuck goats instead of fighting wars, which will destroy the morale of our brave, heroic men and women in uniform and make it easier for Obama to institute Shari’a law.

Tony Perkin, president of the Family Research Council and snappy dresser.

Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, says “It’s all about using the military to advance this administration’s radical social agenda.” That radical agenda clearly includes soldiers sexing with the beasts of the field, probably while in uniform (the soldiers, not the beasts — that would just be wrong).

The Christian News Service (and they’re really really Christian, so you know they wouldn’t just make this shit up) interviewed former Army Col. Bob Maginnis (who by coincidence also works for the Family Research Council), who said:

“If we have a soldier who engages in sodomy with an animal — whether a government animal or a non-government animal — is it, in fact, a chargeable offense under the Uniform Code? I think that’s in question. Soldiers, unfortunately, like it or not, have engaged in this type of behavior in the past. Will they in the future, if they remove this statute? I don’t know.”

Col Bob Maginnis, Family Research Council authority on gays in military and bestiality.

Non-government animals, you guys! Soldiers totally sexed them back when it was illegal, and now that the UCMJ has lifted the animal-sexing ban (which, let’s face it, is the very same thing as encouraging them to do it), will those soldiers still want to do the sex with goats? Maybe! Maybe not! Colonel Maginnis just doesn’t know!

The modern military, I declare. In the old days, all the military had to offer was the chance to learn a skill, the comradeship of your fellow troops, and the opportunity to visit exotic lands and kill the people who lived there. But I guess that’s just not enough for kids these days.

Honest, they’re just good friends.

Still I suppose if you’re going to require members of the military to be deployed to war zones four, six, ten times, then you probably have to look the other way while they fuck a goat now and then.

Editorial note: Tony Perkins and Col. Maginnis are apparently unaware of (well, okay, they just choose to ignore) Article 134 of the UCMJ, which outlaws “all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces” as well as “all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.” Which, not surprisingly, includes fucking goats.

the devil is loose

Posted on January 26, 2014 by greg

Naming new things is tough work. Back in the 1850s they had to coin a term to describe the physical manifestation of communications sent over a distance by electrical signal. Somebody came up with telegram. That’s a portmanteau of tele, which is Greek for ‘over a distance’, and gram, also Greek, meaning ‘something written or drawn’. It’s really pretty catchy, but telegram totally pissed off language purists of the day. They absolutely hated it. Hated it.

May I suggest to such as are not contented with ‘Telegraphic Dispatch’ the rightly constructed word ‘telegrapheme’? I do not want it, but … I protest against such a barbarism as ‘telegram.’ [Richard Shilleto, Cambridge Greek scholar, London “Times,” Oct. 15, 1857]

I’m not any sort of purist, but I find Instagram objectionable as a word. It’s so bland and corporate. It could have been worse; they might have called it Instagrapheme which, let’s face it, would have been intolerable. Still, Instagram is an unattractive and unappealing name, and it made it easy for lots of folks (including me) to sneer at it. And we did.

We sneered at Instagram for being a cheap, easy, lazy way to turn crappy photos into images that look artsy. Not ‘artful’ or ‘artistic’ but artsy. We sneered at it because the learning curve for using Instagram is — well, it’s hardly a curve at all. It’s almost a straight line. You shoot a photo with your cell phone, you flip through a couple dozen preset filters until you find one you like, tap to apply it, and hey bingo, you have yourself an artsy photo of your drunken friends at a tacky Chinese restaurant.

That ease of use is a big part of the appeal, of course. It allows any tunahead to bang out a halfway decent photograph. But it pisses off photography purists (purists of every persuasion spend a lot of time being pissed off, have you noticed?). The ease of use is another thing that makes Instagram so sneerable.

I grew up shooting film — and shooting it with a completely manual rangefinder camera without a resident light meter. That gave me certain inalienable sneering rights. But at the same time, I’m totally in favor of the democratization of photography. I love the fact that so many people are out there photographing so many things.

That put me in a damned awkward position. How can I embrace the democratization of photography and at the same time still be able to sneer at Instagram? I told myself the app, at its best, was just a cheap imitation of real photography. At its worst, it was the devil itself. I told myself a lot of people — people who might otherwise actually learn the important mechanics and physics of photography — would substitute the creative process (which, let’s face it, can be really hard work) with the unthinking application of a filter. So I could argue that sneering at Instagram was actually good for photography. Right?

All that sneering was made a lot easier by the fact that I’d never really looked at Instagram. Then I bought a smartphone with a tolerably decent camera. And suddenly everybody was all “Dude, join Instagram.”

So I reluctantly decided to look at it. And to my smug delight, I discovered I was right. It really was a cheap imitation of real photography. It really was an artistic wasteland of hipsters in vests photographing their lattes, and hiphop wannabes shooting pictures of their two hundred dollar sneakers, and women shooting duckface selfies in bathrooms, and …whoa…hold on hold on…what’s this? What the hell is this?

‘This’ turned out to be good work. I started to come across photography I actually wanted to see. Images that impressed the hell out of me and made me want to see more. On Instagram.

I found solid, serious street photography. And good travel and landscape photography. And lawdy, good fine arts photography. I found good editorial news photography. Good color photography, good black-and-white photography. Good portraiture. Good photography. All of it right there in a 3-inch square on Instagram.

And that good shit, it was scalable. It looked good in a 3-inch square on my phone, but it continued to look good in larger versions. I was not expecting that.

Yes, yes — there’s a staggering amount of appalling crap on Instagram, but there’s a staggering amount of appalling crap everywhere in the world of photography. It’s one of the facts you accept if you believe in the democratization of photography. You accept the existence of the crap, and you try to help stem the tide by not making crap yourself.

So hey, I joined Instagram. Quietly. Uncomfortably. Under an assumed name. Like an atheist going to Sunday School. I began shooting a simple little series — something I could delete easily if I decided I was contributing to the crapitization of photography. That project gradually transformed and grew into something more complex, but coherent and constrained — which is how real photo projects start. I may write about that project at another time, but what it meant for me was that I was taking Instagram seriously. How the hell did that happen?

It also meant (in my mind, at least) that I should limit that account to that project.

So I created a second Instagram account. Yes, I actually created a second Instagram account, and devoted it to shooting black-and-white images.

The photographs you see here, and along the side of the blog (and if you’re interested, you can see more of them here) have taught me that Instagram is an incredibly flexible and elastic app. You can shape it to fit whatever you want to photograph, in whatever style you want to photograph it. You don’t have to rely on their crappy little filters; there are some very fine processing apps for your mobile phone that give you a metric buttload of control over the image.

Instagram, it turns out, is not about filters. It’s not even about easily turning crappy photos into artsy ones. It’s about distribution. It’s about putting the photos out there.

Instagram may, in fact. turn out to be the devil after all. It can be that seductive. But it’s the devil that’s likely to have the most influence on the shape of modern photography.

Here’s where I drop in some more esoteric information. Eight hundred years ago King Richard I of England was captured on his way back from the Holy Land, where he’d been cheerfully slaughtering Muslims during the Crusades. While he was imprisoned, his brother John attempted to usurp the throne. When Richard won his release, King Philip of France sent a message to John, warning him. The message read: Look to yourself. The devil is loose.

The analogy isn’t perfect, but the warning is. The devil IS loose. And you know what? I kind of like him.

celebratory gunfire

Posted on January 20, 2014 by greg

For the longest time, Texas has held a comfortable lead in the highly-contested Loopiest Legislators race. There are some seriously crazy-ass folks making laws in Texas. But you have to hand it to Florida — they’ve been making a big push to unseat the Texans. And they’re doing it almost entirely on gun laws.

I mean, Texas will hand out a concealed carry permit to almost any bozo who applies, but even they insist that the permit be issued by a criminal justice agency. Florida? Pffft. Their concealed carry permits are issued by the Florida Department of Agriculture. Seriously — I am NOT making this up. The fucking Department of Agriculture. Why? Who the hell knows?

But this is even more stupid than it appears on the surface, because only law enforcement agencies are allowed access to NICS, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Is the Florida Department of Agriculture a law enforcement agency? Why no, it’s not. Do they have access to federal criminal and mental health information when determining who merits a concealed weapons permit. Why no. No, they do not. (This is where we all shake our heads and say ‘Jeebus on toads’.)

Marion Hammer, pistol-packin’ cat fancier

That sets the tone for Florida’s other gun laws. We’re all familiar, of course, with Florida’s first-in-the-nation Stand Your Ground Law. That law was essentially written by Marion Hammer, the first woman president of the National Rifle Association (and cat fancier!). A couple dozen states in the U.S. have followed in Florida’s footsteps and have similar laws now. The law basically rewards the person who shoots first in a dispute (the party who shoots first is often the only person who shoots at all, since the other party is often too dead to return fire).

Stand Your Ground essentially indemnifies any shooter who claims to have fired his weapon out of fear for his personal safety. Like Curtis Reeves, the former police officer who recently shot and killed Chad Oulson during an argument over texting during movie previews. The texting led Reeves to argue with Oulson, which then led to reckless popcorn-throwing, which (because this is Florida) led inevitably to a dead guy on the floor of the theater. Reeves is claiming he was in fear for his life when he shot and killed Oulson.

Chad Coulson, loser in popcorn versus semi-auto .380 pistol dispute

Chad Oulson, loser in popcorn versus semi-auto .380 pistol dispute

Hell, you don’t even have to hit the person you were shooting at to use a Stand Your Ground Defense. In South Carolina, whose law is modeled on Florida’s, some teen-aged girls got into a fuss with other girls in a club. The second set of girls followed the first set to their home. Shannon Scott, a 33-year-old man (who had a sign in his window — and honest, I’m NOT making any of this up — saying Fight Crime – Shoot First), met his daughter and her friends at the door. He brought them inside, saw the other girls in their car, said he felt threatened that they might attempt a drive-by shooting. So he shot first. Didn’t hit them, though. Hit 17-year-old Darrell Niles, who was across the street, minding his own business. Hit him right in the head. Killed him. Was Scott charged with a crime? No sir.

“[It is] unreasonable to expect Scott is required to go back into his house, in his castle and hope that the cavalry (police) are going to come…. [And people like Scott] cannot be expected to shoot straight always because they are not supposed to have their life in jeopardy.”

Had Scott stayed inside with his daughter and her friends, Niles would be alive. But hey, what’s the point of having a gun if you can’t point it at somebody now and then. Or, in this case, point it in the general direction of somebody who might be thinking about maybe threatening somebody safely tucked inside a solid-walled structure.

Darrell Niles, interrupted bullet’s flight path

And now Ms. Hammer (and no, again, I am NOT making it up — that’s her actual name) is pushing another law in Florida, expanding Stand Your Ground. She’s written new legislation and has convinced two Florida legislators, Greg Evers and Neil Combee (do I need to say they’re Republicans?), to sponsor it. The proposed law would permit gun owners who feel in fear for their lives “to display guns, threaten to use the weapons, or fire warning shots.”

Warning shots. Like in the movies. Because that always works.

Florida legislator Greg Evers, opposed to Shari’a law, okay with random gunfire

You see, it’s okay to fire your gun into the air because those bullets just disappear. Well, okay, they don’t just disappear — they eventually come back to earth. But when they fall back down, they never hit anybody. Well, okay, they sometimes hit people. But they never kill anybody. Well, okay, sometimes they kill people. But hardly ever.

But c’mon, if you can accidentally kill an innocent person across the street by accident, shouldn’t you also be able to accidentally kill an innocent person anywhere? Not all the time. Just now and then. When you’re afraid, of course. Kill them with a gun, that is. Not with a car. That’s criminal. Cars are dangerous.

If this law passes, there’ll probably be celebratory gunfire. Let’s hope those bullets come down in the right place.

gregfallis.com

it's this or get a real job

no, seriously, jeebus, c’mon, are you kidding me

macho bullshit and a handy gun

miracles & ballistics

why are there still monkeys

from sea to shining wtf

so very not safe for work

the devil is loose

celebratory gunfire