faire l’idiot dans les ruelles

Posted on February 15, 2013 by greg

I’m completely comfortable writing about photography in most circumstances. I’m less comfortable when I’m writing about — I started to say my photography, but that sounds so pretentious. I’m less comfortable writing about the photographs I shoot. But about a month ago I received an email asking me the following questions:

I guess what I’m asking is how do you develop a personal photography project? Do you just pick a thing and start taking picture of it? Do you make up rules or guidelines before you start? How do you start a photography project?

I nattered on about my approach to the Faux Life series and the Traffic Signal series. But it occurs to me that I haven’t really addressed the actual questions. Since I promised I’d write about each of the three photo series I’ve included on this site, I thought maybe I could use this third piece to at least attempt some answers.

in case you were wondering where the power was

Do you just pick a thing and start taking picture of it? Yes. Well, no. Sometimes.

With the Faux Life series I knew what I wanted before I shot the first photograph — but that’s a conceptual series. I had to develop the concept before I could shoot the series. So in that case, yes I picked a thing and started taking photos of it. The Traffic Signal series grew out of a different project — one that focused more on writing than on photography. It wasn’t until I’d shot some photos of traffic signals that I actually became interested in them as a distinct theme. So no, I didn’t just pick a thing and start taking photographs of it. I hadn’t even considered it as a thing until after I’d taken several photos in which traffic signals were featured.

With the Larking about in Alleys series I was doing just that. Larking about in alleys and shooting photos of stuff I saw there. I’d no idea of making it into a coherent series until a friend of mine (the delightful Beckett Gladney) suggested it.

tobacco row

Do you make up rules or guidelines before you start? Yes. Well, no. Sometimes.

Since the Faux Life series was conceptual, I obviously had to come up with some basic rules before I began shooting. 1) Rephotograph moments from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer (or Angel) television series, 2) shoot them in black-and-white, 3) post-process the images to shift the focus or make them more dramatic, 4) find an appropriate (or an inappropriate) line from a Jane Austen novel, 5) insure that both the image and the text combine to create something not found in either original.

Those were the ‘rules.’ But I discovered I had to be flexible within the confines of those rules. For example, I’d originally intended to rephotograph action sequences — chase scenes or fights. But they turned out to be surprisingly uninteresting. I learned that the more quiet and nuanced scene carried more emotional impact.

in an alley nothing is ever quite straight

The Traffic Signals series was significantly easier because it had significantly fewer rules. Just the one, really: photograph a traffic signal in such a way that it provides an unexpected perspective of such a commonplace device. Simple.

On the other hand, Larking about in Alleys turned out to be surprisingly more difficult. Initially, I was truly just larking about — wandering idly through alleyways to see what I could see, and doing it for the simple reason that I enjoy seeing stuff not really intended to be seen. But once I began the series, I needed it to be cohesive and coherent. It had to require more than simply being IN an alley and shooting a photograph. The photo had to have (and yes, I realize how loopy this sounds) a certain alley quality. It had to have alleyness.

probably trespassing

And that meant I had to think about alleys. Alleys in American cities are basically utilitarian. They’re working spaces rather than commercial spaces. They tend to be cosmetically ignored; nobody really cares how an alley looks. They tend to be narrow and confined, though they often open up unexpectedly into a wider space (as seen below). Alleys aren’t usually built for traffic — not in the sense of the efficient transport, by foot or vehicle, of goods or people from one place to another. For the most part, alleys aren’t intended to be thru-ways; they’re a temporary destination — a place to load and unload. Although they’re usually open to the public, the public isn’t expected to use them. The public most certainly isn’t expected to lark about in them.

alley opens into parking lot

Once I’d developed a sense of alleyness, I began trying to shoot photos that would suggest those alley qualities. It’s not as easy as you’d think.

But that’s it. That’s how I develop a photography project. Which is to say, that none of the three series on this website developed in the same way. I realize that’s not a particularly helpful answer to the questions. But hey, I’m a writer, not a photographer.

alley in the mist

I don’t think it’s terribly difficult to start a photography project. I suspect it can be difficult to do something original, or to do it in an original way. And I have absolutely no help to offer about that.

Oh, and about the title of this piece? It’s my understanding (and many thanks to Sonya Butler) that Faire l’idiot dans les Ruelles is French for Larking about in Alleys. It sounds so much more amusing in French.

a sad and shabby sort of patriotism

Posted on February 13, 2013 by greg

This week’s display of squalid politics by Congressman Steve Stockman just makes me sad. I’ve written about Stockman before. It wasn’t so much that he chose to invite Ted Nugent to President Obama’s State of the Union address. That was certainly shabby behavior. But what I find most sad is this line from Stockman’s press release:

“I am excited to have a patriot like Ted Nugent joining me in the House Chamber to hear from President Obama.”

A patriot. Stockman considers Ted Nugent a patriot. What sort of patriot wonders if the United States would be better off if the Confederacy had won the U.S. Civil War? Here’s what Nugent wrote in a Washington Times column:

Because our legislative, judicial and executive branches of government hold the 10th Amendment in contempt, I’m beginning to wonder if it would have been best had the South won the Civil War.

Nugent is certainly free to disagree with the U.S. Supreme Court. I often disagree with them my ownself. But it would never occur to me to wonder if maybe the Confederacy should have prevailed in the Civil War. Steve Stockman has some odd ideas about what constitutes patriotism.

Congressman Steve Stockman (Republican Lunatic – Texas)

And what sort of patriot dodges the draft, brags about it, but encourages others to enlist in military service and fight in our wars? In a 1977 interview in High Times magazine, Nugent discussed how he evaded the draft.

So I got my notice to be in the draft. Do you think I was gonna lay down my guitar and go play army? Give me a break!

To prepare for his draft physical, Nugent described how he stopped bathing, how he ate nothing but a junk food diet, how he urinated and defecated in his pants. He told the interviewer he smoked meth before reporting for the physical, apparently to be sure he was in the right frame of mind. And, of course, Nugent was declared unfit for military service.

I may disagree with folks who avoided military service during the Vietnam War, but I respect those who were forthright about it — the men who went to prison for refusing to report, even the ones who chose to leave the country rather than fight for a war they didn’t believe in. Those people made principled decisions and they accepted the consequences. I have no respect for people who supported the war but chose to game the system because they simply couldn’t be bothered to serve in the military. In that same High Times interview, Nugent went on to say this:

But you know the funny thing about it? I’d make an incredible army man. I’d be a colonel before you knew what hit you, and I’d have the baddest bunch of motherfuckin’ killers you’d ever seen in my platoon. But I just wasn’t into it. I was too busy doin’ my own thing, you know?

Here’s another ‘funny’ thing about it: Steve Stockman considers this hypocritical braggart to be a patriot.

Ted Nugent (woman-hating, gun nut, coward, pedophile Republican – Michigan)

I don’t think Nugent’s sex life has anything to do with patriotism — you can, I suppose, be a pedophile and still love your country — but I’m going to mention it here anyway, just as an indication of exactly how much bad behavior Stockman is willing to overlook when he’s inviting guests to the State of the Union speech.

Nugent is a self-confessed pedophile. He’s admitted to numerous sexual relationships with underage girls and young women. One of them was Courtney Love, who has publicly stated she gave Nugent a blow job when she was twelve (which would have made Nugent around 28 years old).

A lot of rockers in those days probably did the same thing — and also got away with it. But Congressman Stockman professes to be concerned about young girls. In fact, he opposes immigration reform because he claims it will result in the sexual abuse of girls.

Our failure to secure our border has led to horrific, tragic stories of innocents brutally smuggled into the United States to serve as slave labor, and thousands of young girls forced into prostitution.

Apparently he’s less concerned about the welfare of young girls who voluntarily give blow jobs to rock musicians. Maybe he thinks that’s an example of entrepreneurial spirit?

Still, I admit Nugent’s sexual kinks have nothing to do with his qualities as a patriot — only his qualities as a human being. Stockman, to my knowledge, never claimed Ted Nugent was a decent human being; he only said Nugent was a patriot. So what makes this aging rock musician a patriot in Stockman’s eyes?

I can only assume it’s Nugent’s passionate hatred of President Obama and women Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, Barbara Boxer, and Dianne Feinstein.

In case the audio is unclear, here’s what Nugent said:

“I was in Chicago and I said ‘Hey Obama, you might want to suck on one of these you punk.’ Obama, he’s a piece of shit, and I told him to suck on my machine gun. Then I was in New York and I said, ‘Hey Hillary you might want to ride one of these into the sunset you worthless bitch.’ Then I was out in California and I thought, Barbara Boxer, she might want to suck on my machine gun. Hey Dianne Feinstein, ride one of these you worthless whore.”

Imagine the reaction from Republicans if a Democrat had invited a guest who called President George W. Bush ‘a piece of shit’ to the State of the Union address.

I’m a fan of the First Amendment. I’m pretty close to being a free speech absolutist. I’m proud to live in a nation where pathetic asswipes like Ted Nugent feel free to say any hateful thing they want. But it’s shameful for an elected official of our government to consider Nugent a patriot.

Ted Nugent is no patriot. He’s a coward and a bully. He had an opportunity to serve his country in a war he supported; he chose, instead, to shit his pants. Like every other American, Steve Stockman also had an opportunity to express his patriotism and join the military when he turned eighteen. Did he? No.

Stockman, however, had a unique opportunity to demonstrate his patriotism. On 19 April, 1995 Timothy McVeigh detonated a bomb at the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, including 19 children under the age of six. Stockman, an arch-conservative serving his first term in Congress, received an anonymous fax shortly after the explosion, containing information about the terrorist event. It says something about Stockman’s politics that domestic terrorists felt he was enough of a kindred spirit that they’d send him a fax about the explosion. But even more revealing is what Stockman did with that fax.

He sent it to the headquarters of the National Rifle Association. Sometime later he also forwarded it to the Justice Department.

So maybe it’s not so odd that Steve Stockman considers Ted Nugent a patriot after all.

a five dango city

Posted on February 8, 2013 by greg

It was a cold, cloudy, wet, grey, miserable sort of afternoon and I was downtown with a couple of hours to piss away on nothing in particular. In other words, a perfect time to go larking about in alleys. Alleys are best photographed in rotten weather because there are fewer people working in them. I actually like the people who work in alleys, but they tend to be camera-shy. And suspicious. It’s just easier to do alley work in foul weather.

So I slipped the little X10 in my pocket and headed out to find a nice juicy alley. First, though, I thought I’d make a little detour to visit to the river.

courthouse across the river

I’m of the opinion that you can never go very wrong making a detour to visit the river. Any river. That said, I have to admit there are certain aspects of a river that make you better appreciate a good alley. Like the absence of walls and buildings to block the wind. Let’s face it, rivers suck at wind-blocking.

On the other hand, the absence of all those walls and buildings gives rivers the great advantage of meteorological drama. With rivers you get all that accompanying sky. And you get it twice — once overhead and once in reflection.

there are always pigeons along the river

There really wasn’t anything particularly interesting going on at the river. There was the usual flock of pigeons morris-dancing around in the sky. Despite the cold and wet, there were a few intrepid bicyclists and runners tooling up and down the riverwalk and bike path. There were a couple of really bitchy Canada Geese fussing at each other.

It took me a while to figure out why it was so quiet. The construction that’s been taking place along the riverwalk for the last couple of years is largely finished. There were no generators coughing away, no backhoes, no bucket trucks or forklifts, no men with jackhammers. The riverwalk was…quiet.

riverwalk intersection

For years the Des Moines city planners have been making a considerable effort to draw people back into the downtown area. It’s not just that developers have been building loft apartments and faux brownstones — the city has been adding a lot of public art and other quality of life amenities. There’s a new dog park, there’s a skating rink, there are bike trails and pedestrian bridges, there’s a botanical center and a science center and a historical building — all near the river.

Construction has just been completed on a small, two-level riverwalk pavilion. When it opens, it’ll include public restrooms (and trust me, that’s important in a city) and a small cafe or coffee shop.

And in front of the pavilion: five dango.

the dango of jun kaneko

The dango are large ceramic sculptures by Japanese artist Jun Kaneko. A dango is a sort of Japanese steamed dumpling. These don’t look anything like dumplings, but I think there is something dumplingish about them. They’re not bland like dumplings, but they’re simple and strangely comforting. These are happy-making works of art.

There’s something very sweet and childlike about the dango. They were only installed a few weeks ago, but they seem to fit right in along the river. Seeing them, touching them, watching other folks look at them with a sort of bemused confusion — it makes me ridiculously happy.

Still, I hadn’t set out to look at the dango; I’d set out to wander idly through alleys. So I didn’t stay.

the court avenue bridge

But before I ventured forth alleyward, I decided to check out the other structure that’s been under construction along the riverwalk.

Rivers flood. All of them, they all flood. If you look at the large version of the photo below (or almost any photo of the riverwalk) you’ll see several lines of flood levels. What you can’t see are the tree-trunk-sized logs jammed up in the infrastructure beneath those bridges. When the Des Moines River has once-in-a-century floods (which we seem to have every five years or so now, thanks to climate change and the short-term planning of the old Army Corps of Engineers), it really floods. It’s not uncommon for those balustrades to be under water.

police department

I’m mentioning that because the other structure that’s been under construction is a storm pump station. It’s designed to keep those pesky once-in-a-century flood waters under control. Both the pump station and the new pavilion have exceedingly cool flood doors that can be closed during high water. They look a lot like the doors you see protecting the island lairs of James Bond villains.

I spent an absurd amount of time looking at those doors. I don’t really want to see the river flood, but at the same time I can’t wait until the river floods.

flood pump station

I was just getting ready to head out and find a friendly alley when my cell phone chirped. I discovered I’d spent about two hours walking a grand total of about three and a half blocks. I had to hurry to meet my friend, so I took a shortcut through an alley.

I did manage to shoot a photo in the alley. But it was blurry.

dimwit sheriffs

Posted on February 6, 2013 by greg

I have on occasion chided gun control advocates for their lack of knowledge about the very weapons they want to regulate. It’s a pretty basic concept: if you want to regulate certain weapons, you should at least make some minimal effort to educate yourself about those weapons and they way they function. Otherwise you’re going to look like a fucking dimwit.

The same applies to gun rights advocates. If you’re going to make arguments defending your Constitutional rights, then you should at least make some minimal effort to educate yourself about the Constitution and the nature of those rights. Otherwise you’re going to look like a fucking dimwit.

I’m thinking primarily of that small group of county Sheriffs who’ve taken it upon themselves to inform Congress and/or the President of the United States that they don’t have to enforce laws they don’t like. Like this dimwit from Hancock County, Ohio, who wrote a letter to President Obama, saying:

It has come to my attention that you and some of your administration believe that the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution of the United States is up for your personal interpretation, and that there is a movement underway from the White House, and the Senate, and the Congress to take away the right of the people of this free country to keep guns and ammunition for their personal defense and security.

It’s come to my attention that Sheriff Michael Heldman spends too much time reading the lunatic rants at FreeRepublic.com and other extremist web sites. There is no ‘movement’ underway by anybody to deny the right of lawful citizens to keep firearms. That’s just the paranoid delusion of people who’ve watched Red Dawn too many times.

Hancock County, Ohio Sheriff Michael Heldman

Sheriff Heldman thoughtfully reminds the president that the Constitution of the great state of Ohio guarantees “The people have the right to bear arms for their defense and security.” He goes on to say:

You have my solemn promise that I will defend the Constitution I swore to uphold. Our free citizens will remain free citizens, and as free citizens, we recognize as our only ultimate governmental authority — the Constitution of these United States.

Any edict, regulation, or so-called ‘federal law’ which infringes on the right of the citizens of Hancock County, Ohio to keep and bear arms for their security will not be tolerated, recognized or enforced by me or my office.

That’s a spectacular display of dimwittedness. Sheriff Heldman might consider taking a few moments to read that Constitution he’s so concerned about. It states pretty clearly in Article VI that the good citizens of Hancock County, Ohio are required to follow the same so-called ‘federal law’ that everybody else living in the United States has to follow.

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

That little bit about the supreme law of the land? That’s called the Supremacy Clause, and it basically means Federal law trumps State law and that the Constitution of the United States trumps the constitutions of the individual states. Including Ohio.

In other words, Sheriff Heldman is legally and ethically bound by his oath of office to uphold and enforce the law of the land as it’s written.

There’s another part of the U.S. Constitution that might interest Sheriff Heldman; it’s called Article III. It says: The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court. That means there’s only one body that has jurisdiction over the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution — and folks, it ain’t the Sheriff of Hancock County, Ohio.

Fortunately for Sheriff Heldman, nobody has written a law like the one he’s vowing not to follow. Nobody has even written so much as a draft of such a law, let alone attempted to pass it. And no, there’s no secret Executive Order issued by the Kenyan Muslim Communist Anti-Christ to outlaw or seize guns. So the sheriff can relax.

But if a law was drafted, and if both houses of Congress passed that law, and if the President of the United States signed it, then Sheriff Michael Heldman would have a legal duty to enforce it, whether he agreed with it or not. That applies to every sheriff in each and every one of the 3,141 counties and county equivalents in the United States. Including the following sixty dimwits:

Sheriff Blake Dorning – Madison County, Alabama
Sheriff Ana Franklin – Morgan County, Alabama
Sheriff Andy Hughes – Houston County, Alabama
Sheriff Scott Mascher – Yavapai County, Arizona
Sheriff Joe Arpaio – Maricopa County, Arizona
Sheriff Adam Christianson – Stanislaus County, California
Sheriff Jon Lopey – Siskiyou County, California
Sheriff Tom Bosenko – Shasta County, California
Sheriff John D’Agostini – El Dorado County, California
Sheriff David Hencraft – Tehama County, California
Sheriff Dean Growden – Lassen County, California
Sheriff Dean Wilson – Del Norte County, California
Sheriff Mike Poindexter – Modoc County, California
Sheriff Thomas Allman – Mendocino County, California
Sheriff Mike Downey – Humboldt County, California
Sheriff Margaret Mims – Fresno County, California
Sheriff Greg Hagwood – Plumas County, California
Sheriff Bruce Haney – Trinity County, California
Sheriff Justin Smith – Larimer County, Colorado
Sheriff Terry Maketa – El Paso County, Colorado
Sheriff John Cooke – Weld County, Colorado
Sheriff Stan Hilkey – Mesa County, Colorado
Sheriff Bill Snyder – Martin County, Florida
Sheriff Frank McKeithen – Bay County, Florida
Sheriff Mike Scott – Lee County, Florida
Sheriff Roger Garrison – Cherokee County, Georgia
Sheriff Stacy Nicholson – Gilmer County, Georgia
Sheriff Scott Berry – Oconee County, Georgia
Sheriff Roy Klingler – Madison County, Idaho
Sheriff Kieran Donahue – Canyon County, Idaho
Sheriff Denny Peyman – Jackson County, Kentucky
Sheriff Robin Cole – Pine County, Minnesota
Sheriff Brad A. DeLay – Lawrence County, Missouri
Sheriff Charles M. Heiss – Johnson County, Missouri
Sheriff Steve Cox – Livingston County, Missouri
Sheriff Frank Denning – Johnson County, Missouri
Sheriff Ed Kilgpore – Humboldt County, Nevada
Sheriff Tony Desmond – Schoharie County, New York
Sheriff Richard Devlin Jr. – Otsego County, New York
Sheriff Micahel A. Helmig – Boone County, Ohio
Sheriff A.J. Rodenberg – Clermont County, Ohio
Sheriff Bob ‘Big Block’ Colbert – Wagoner County, Oklahoma
Sheriff Glenn E. Palmer – Grant County, Oregon
Sheriff Gil Gilbertson – Josephine County, Oregon
Sheriff Tim Mueller – Linn County, Oregon
Sheriff Craig Zanni – Coos County, Oregon
Sheriff John Hanlin – Douglas County, Oregon
Sheriff John Bishop – Curry County, Oregon
Sheriff Larry Blanton – Deschutes County, Oregon
Sheriff Jim Hensley – Crook County, Oregon
Sheriff Pat Garrett – Washington County, Oregon
Sheriff Dan Staton – Multnomah County, Oregon
Sheriff Mike Winters – Jackson County, Oregon
Sheriff Brian Wolfe – Malheur County, Oregon
Sheriff Al Cannon – Charleston County, South Carolina
Sheriff Chuck Wright – Spartanburg County, South Carolina
Sheriff Wayne DeWitt – Berkeley County, South Carolina
Sheriff Larry Smith – Smith County, Texas
Sheriff Terry Box – Collin County, Texas
Sheriff Joel W. Richardson – Randall County, Texas

The office of sheriff is a unique office, to be sure. But it doesn’t confer on those elected to that office the right to ignore the law if they don’t agree with it. These 61 dimwits should either publicly state that they’ll honor their oath of office, or they should have the courage and integrity to resign in protest.

Siren

Posted on February 4, 2013 by greg

So. My fingernails. They’re red. Bright red. Incredibly fucking red. I have incredibly fucking red fingernails. I’m typing this with fingers that have incredibly fucking red nails. It’s really distracting.

Last night, during the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl, while it looked like San Francisco might actually make a comeback, I had my fingernails painted incredibly fucking red. The actual shade of red, according to the label on the bottle, is Siren. No, I’m not making that up. Siren. Also on the label is a warning:

Avoid Heat and Flame

For all I know, Heat and Flame may be other shades of red. And if they’re redder than Siren, you can bet your ass I’ll avoid them. But I assume the manufacturers of Siren are actually warning me NOT to put the bottle of fingernail polish in a fire. I hadn’t even considered putting the bottle in a fire — not until they told me NOT to. Now it seems like it might be an interesting experiment.

why yes, my fingernails ARE incredibly fucking red

You may be wondering why I had my fingernails Sirenized. I got to confess, there were moments when I wonder that my ownself. I did it for an Iron Photographer photo. I have discussed the IP process before. I can’t even begin to tell you about the phenomenally stupid shit I’ve done for Iron Photographer photographs. I need to point out that Iron Photographer is about creating artful photographs, not about doing stupid shit. But it’s surprising how often the process involves some degree of stupid shit.

This time it involved Siren. And a shovel. Seriously, it always makes sense while you’re putting the photo together. It’s only when you look at it afterwards that you begin to ask yourself “What the HELL was I thinking?”

Now I have to figure out how to remove this incredibly fucking red nail polish before I can leave the house. Or answer the door (I have an order of Thin Mints scheduled to be delivered and I do NOT want to have Siren-red nails when I’m handing over some cash to the poor innocent Girl Scout. Or her mother).

deserved better

Posted on February 3, 2013 by greg

Chris Kyle was murdered yesterday. There’s a good chance you’ve never heard of Kyle, though he was famous in some circles.

Kyle was one of those guys — the ones they make American movies about. He was the son of a church deacon who became a cowboy, then joined the military at the age of 24, and eventually found himself as a sniper in a SEAL unit. And because he was one of those guys they make American movies about, he became the most lethal sniper in the history of US military.

The Department of Defense credited him with more than 150 confirmed kills. His own count put him at more than 250 kills.

Chris Kyle

How you personally feel about somebody who’s killed a couple hundred people during war — well, that really doesn’t matter. These facts matter: he was decorated half a dozen times, he was wounded in action a couple of times, he protected a lot of US troops during the decade he was on active duty, as a civilian he participated in a program to help veterans with PTSD recover, and yesterday Chris Kyle was shot at close range and killed.

The extreme right wing immediately exploded with conspiracy theories. The following are quotes taken verbatim from various contributors to FreeRepublic.com:

“I think mooslims are responsible.”

“Islam, Democrat, it’s all the same. Enemies of a free America.”

“It’s a hit, period. We are at war and the president is on the wrong side.”

“Don’t forget Breitbart. And, yes, I think he was offed.”

“Obama is offing his enemies one by one..nothing would surprise me about this Administration, absolutely nothing.”

“They should be offed first. A worthless opposition party is our hugest obstacle. So yes, they should be afraid. The war will be on them. They are pushing it that way. A biased state media its also a problem.”

“Think of it. A ‘civil war’ is eminent, being pushed by a radical leader to boil and explode. He knows that a good portion of his army will split, and that the most dangerous among them, a sharpshooter, someone who could take out this said radical leader. Would it not be in his best interest to take the sharpshooter down before the civil war broke out?”

“Chris Kyle is one of the latest who I believe to have been killed by this Administration.”

“The moment the seals helicopter went down in the Afghanistan ambush, weeks after the Bin-laden raid, I thought it was suspicious, and every Seal death since has been suspicious to me. There is a massive cover-up going on and those that are a threat are being killed.”

“After Obama had our Ambassador killed(YES I believe that was a hit..it was an attempt to swap the Blind Sheihk for Stevens, that was the original plan) I believe Obama is capable of ANYTHING.”

“There is a theory circulating around the Internet that all the recent shootings that are receiving widespread attention are not coincidences and that it is being coordinated at the highest levels to push the anti-gun agenda. So far it’s only a theory but if even one of the shooters can be captured and linked to the Obama administration it would stop them dead in their tracks and expose them for what they really are. O’s not getting away with anything; the hens will be coming home to roost soon.”

It quickly became known that the suspect alleged to have murdered Kyle was a former Marine with PTSD — one of the people Kyle was attempting to help. You might reasonably think that information would mute some of the conspiracy comments.

It didn’t.

“[S]uspects name is Eddie Routh, former Marine, arrested for DWI. Take it with a grain of salt, it’s early yet.”

“Allegedly murdered by a ‘veteran with PTSD’ who Chris was mentoring as a volunteer. Probably just a BS story we’re being fed.”

“[T]his POS is/was in the Marines.” He’s a pawn…he’s either being paid, having his family threatened, or in some other way coerced. Maybe he’s dying of cancer and he was promised his family will be taken care of, if he just “does this little thing” for Barry. After all, Barry’s ruled that he can kill ANY American ANYTIME he wants. Too damned many SEALs have been assassinated recently.”

It must be horrible, to be so afraid all the time. These people must live in a constant state of anxiety and suspicion. They feel so threatened by so many things on so many different fronts. The scenarios they concoct are so removed from reality that it must be exhausting to maintain them. I sort of feel sorry for these people.

Maybe they find some strange comfort in thinking of themselves as being on the same ‘team’ as Chris Kyle. If so, it makes it all the more shameful for them to drag him into their deranged conspiracies.

I suspect I’d have disagreed with Chris Kyle’s politics. Since I never met him, I’ve no idea what I’d think about him as a person. He is said to have decked Jessie Ventura in a bar after Ventura said something disrespectful following the wake of a SEAL member who died in combat — and I’d guess anybody who’s ever heard Jessie Ventura speak has wanted to deck him at some point. By all accounts, Chris Kyle was a nice guy. A nice guy who killed a couple hundred people. I haven’t a clue whether I’d have liked him or not, but I can guarantee you this: I’d have loved to have a beer with him. This was a guy with stories to tell.

Chris Kyle

This is what I know: for a decade this guy put on a uniform and put his own ass on the line. I have nothing but respect for that.

Chris Kyle deserved better than this — better than to have been shot down on a gun range in Texas. Better than to be used as a hook for conspiracy theorists.

scary-looking guns

Posted on January 31, 2013 by greg

So I watched yesterday’s Senate hearing on gun safety (or as Wayne LaPierre would call it, Gun-Grabber-Palooza). I was pleased to see a woman on the panel of experts. Yes, Gayle Trotter is a gun rights advocate, but at least it was a break from the usual panel of white middle-aged men. I was looking forward to what she had to say.

Here’s a true thing: I generally expect women to be more reasonable than men. More practical, more thoughtful, more grounded in reality. I think that’s true much of the time. Not yesterday. Yesterday Gayle Trotter’s testimony was misleading at best; at worst it was irrational and — there’s no nice way to say this — stupid.

gayle trotter

Much of her testimony was an impassioned defense of assault-style weapons. She testified,

[W]omen are speaking out as to why AR-15 weapons are their weapon of choice. The guns are accurate. They have good handling. They’re light. They’re easy for women to hold. And most importantly, their appearance. An assault weapon in the hands of a young woman defending her babies in her home becomes a defense weapon. And the peace of mind that a woman has as she’s facing three, four, five violent attackers, intruders in her home, with her children screaming in the background, the peace of mind that she has knowing that she has a scary-looking gun gives her more courage when she’s fighting hardened, violent criminals.

That’s her argument. A woman needs a scary-looking gun when she and her children are being attacked in their home by multiple hardened, violent criminals. Trotter even told the story of Sarah McKinley:

Home alone with her baby, she called 911 when two violent intruders began to break down her front door. The men wanted to force their way into her home so they could steal the prescription medication of her deceased husband, who had recently died of cancer. Before the police could arrive, while Ms. McKinley was on the line with the 911 operator, these violent intruders broke down her door. One of the men brandished a foot-long hunting knife. As the intruders forced their way into her home, Ms. McKinley fired her weapon, fatally wounding one of the violent attackers and causing the other to flee the scene.

That’s a sad and scary story. And it actually happened. But not quite in the way Trotter suggests. The fact is, Sarah McKinley didn’t use a scary-looking assault rifle to protect herself. She used a Remington 12 gauge shotgun — a weapon that wouldn’t be regulated under the new proposed gun control laws. Although Trotter didn’t actually state McKinley used an AR-15 to defend herself, she certainly suggested it. Her testimony was deliberately misleading.

But it was her irrational and stupid testimony that was, in my opinion, more deleterious. She argued that women need firearms to counter the superior strength and size of a male attacker. That sounds logical, doesn’t it. After all, men do tend to be bigger and stronger than women. Men do tend to be the aggressor in domestic disputes. So surely a woman having access to a firearm would make her less vulnerable. Right?

No. Not right. This is where being trained as a criminologist comes in handy. Here are some actual facts:

Relatively few incidents of violence against women involve strangers; their attackers are almost always men with whom they are close: boyfriends, husbands, fathers, etc.
Research shows men who batter women frequently use firearms to scare them, threatening to shoot them, or shoot their children, or shoot their pets. In other words, abusive situations often begin with men already holding a firearm.
Most incidents of domestic violence occur under circumstances in which women are attempting to reduce the tension; they’re trying to avoid a fight. When somebody does reach for a weapon, it’s almost always the man.
In the last wide-ranging study that looked at the use of firearms in domestic violence, the data revealed that for every instance in which a woman used a gun to successfully defend herself there were more than eighty instances in which a woman was murdered by her abuser.

By the way, that study was done in the late 1990s. It was the last such study because in 1996 NRA-supported Republican Members of Congress passed a law banning the use of federal funds for research that promoted gun control — and since any research that might suggest guns were a hazard could be interpreted as promoting gun control, all such federal research was halted.

Once you actually unpack Gayle Trotter’s argument that guns make women safer, once you look at real world data, it becomes clear her argument is…well, irrational and stupid. In her testimony, Trotter cites ‘research’ which she claims supports her argument. The work she cites is a book called More Guns, Less Crime, by John Lott. A panel of sixteen scholars under the aegis of the National Research Council examined the claims made by Lott; fifteen of them found his claims to be either invalid or unconvincing. It’s also worth noting that Lott, when his findings were criticized on several websites, used ‘sockpuppet identities’ to support his claims.

john lott

In other words, John Lott is perhaps not the most reliable of sources when it comes to firearm statistics.

Let me also say this: there ARE some valid and logical arguments that can be made against the suggested ban on assault-style weapons. It’s true some weapons that would be affected under the proposed ban are on the list for no other reason than because they’re scary-looking. But any valid arguments are undermined when gun rights advocates present testimony that is deliberately misleading or simply stupid.

walking

Posted on January 29, 2013 by greg

I don’t really like to go walking in the morning. I like to wake slowly. Maybe read a bit before I get out of bed. I like to ease into the day. Drink some juice, eat my morning Advil, have a cup of coffee with too much sugar and too much cream. I like my mornings comfortable. I like my mornings unhurried.

So it makes no sense whatsoever for me to rise early, dress hurriedly, skip my juice and coffee (but not my Advil), and head out for a long walk — especially when it’s damp and chilly. Which is what I did yesterday. But you know…fog and mist, dude. Fog and mist.

why my shoes were muddy

I don’t like to walk in the morning, but I do like to walk in fog and mist. And since those conditions occur more frequently in the morning — well, there it is.

I like to walk in the fog and mist because they smooth things. They soften the corners of things, they plane off the sharp edges. They make the world soft and a wee bit vague. Fog and mist elevate the ambiguity of the world — everything seems less solid, more forgiving. Less harsh, more indulgent. More romantic, and I mean romantic in the medieval sense of the term. Open to adventure and mystery and imagination.

rail bed

I enjoy purposeless walking. I don’t walk for exercise, and unless I’m on an errand, I rarely walk with a destination in mind. Well, that’s only half-true. It’s not uncommon for me to walk to or toward a specific location, but that location isn’t really a destination. I’m not going to that spot for any particular reason. In fact, I’m not really going there at all. It’s just a vague geographical marker, a reminder to suggest I should consider turning around and heading homeward.

I rarely have anything that resembles a schedule, but I always have work to do. Taking a walk gives me a pleasant interruption during my day; walking idly toward a specific fixed point provides me with a very flexible timetable. If I want to walk for, say, an hour, I have a general sense how far I’ll walk in thirty minutes. I know, for example, that it will take me about forty minutes to reach the heliport (which, okay, isn’t really a heliport at all — it’s just a concrete slab that was probably the foundation of some sort of shed, but I’ve never felt any overpowering compulsion to adhere strictly to reality). So when I get close to the heliport, I can decide to turn around and begin walking vaguely in the direction of home. Or I can keep walking. It’s a system.

heliport

Even though I often walk with a camera tucked away in a pocket or in a bag slung over my shoulder, I’m usually not walking to shoot photographs. I’m normally not actively looking for things to photograph. I’m just walking. With a camera. On the vast majority of my walks, the camera never leaves my pocket or bag. I do sometimes go on photo-walks, but that’s a whole nother thang.

For me, most of my walks are a form of meditation. I generally walk mindfully, as Buddhists like to say. When I was part of a Zen community in Washington, DC the roshi explained mindfulness to me; he said it was the quality of being in the immediate moment, fully aware and cognizant of what’s going on around you, but not involved in it or with it. I was able to tell him, “Dude, I was a private investigator for seven years; I did a lot of surveillance; I’ve got seven years of practice at being mindful.”

So as I walk I notice a lot of stuff. Birds, the condition of a passer-by’s shoes, signs in windows, bits of paper being shuffled along by the breeze, the breeze itself. I can notice stuff and appreciate it without being distracted by it. I don’t feel any need to try to ‘capture’ it with a photograph.

i saw this stick

But at the same time, it usually registers when I see something that might make an interesting photo. Sometimes it only really registers after I’ve taken a few steps. It’s like my brain sends up a flare and it takes a moment for the flare to rise high enough for me to see it. Dude, you just walked by some interesting graffiti — you might want to turn around and take a look. Like that.

It sounds almost robotic in a way, though it doesn’t feel that way. I mean, it’s as if there’s some sort of algorithmic process taking place below the conscious level. A quiet decision-making process I can mostly ignore. Dude, you just stepped in some mud. “Is that important? If ‘no’ then keep walking; if ‘yes’ then stop and clean shoes.” Naw, not important. “Keep walking. Will it be important later? If ‘no’ keep walking; if ‘yes’ walk on the grass” Yeah, it might important later when I get home. “Walk on grass.”

Everybody has those internal discussions. Don’t they?

eight ball

This is why most of my walks are solitary. If I’m with another person, there’s a social obligation to interact. I like walking with other people, don’t misunderstand me. It’s just a different experience. And not always a pleasant one — for them, that is. I usually have a good time. But as I said, I walk fairly slowly. More an amble than a walk. A stroll. A meandering stroll. And I stop now and then. And I comment on stuff. “Do you smell cinnamon?” “That woman had the most extraordinary eyebrows.” “Did you hear that? Black-capped chickadee.” “Sign painters should be required by law to learn the rules of apostrophization.”

I can be annoying on a walk.

powerball

Yesterday morning on my walk I noticed the lottery jackpot was US$130 million. This afternoon I think I’ll walk toward one of the local convenience stores. Maybe I’ll stop and buy a lotto ticket. There’s one about fifteen minutes away, one about twenty-five minutes away, and another about forty minutes away.

This is what passes for a scheduling decision in my life.

gregfallis.com

it's this or get a real job