A Tale of Two Gigs

 

In some spaces, gig work used to be known as freelance work, but it seems that the need for hip, cool or woke labels has changed that.  Bottom line, us non-payroll, non-temp “employees” are out there working in an atmosphere that can range from respect and acknowledgement of worth to abuse and cheating.  The two “gigs” I’m describing are real, and while I’m not going to name them, those described here will know, if they read this, who I am writing about.

 

Both gigs started out in very similar ways; I am a photographer who also writes, codes and programs when work comes my way.

The first gig involved still and video coverage of a beautiful resort in northern Arizona, which evolved into website development, video presentations and geo-referenced maps of the facility and its surrounding areas over the course of the eleven years I have worked for them.  Throughout, they have treated me with dignity, respect, and have paid both deposits and final invoices in full and on time.  There have been changes in management and growth of the company and the facility over time but the philosophy and practice of treating those who work for them very well has remained.

 

The second gig started out with an introduction and meeting at a local trade show; business cards were exchanged and needs and plans were laid out.  I didn’t expect a call back at all, much less as quickly as one came, but the bottom line was that the owner needed photographs of his product as soon as possible.  Prices and terms were discussed, agreed to and a shoot was scheduled. That initial shoot was followed by a dozen more over a six-month period; for a while the company was literally a dream gig.

 

That “dream” soured a bit when I agreed to work on site to create a web presence and online store for the company.  At first, I simply did the work, deployed the site and turned in the hours I on a weekly written invoice. One of the issues that reared its head at that point was that, while the owner knew his market and how to build products that rose in both price and prestige within that market, he knew (and still knows) virtually nothing about coding and deploying a website.  Add PayPal payment portals to the website and all the issues that can present themselves in that milieu (returns, failure to deliver on time among them) and work becomes less than pleasant.  The unpleasantness increased when significant updates and design changes were made, and the trust implied by written invoices dissolved and I was told to clock in with a timecard.

At that point I should have been made an employee but was told that I would remain a 1099 contractor and taxes would be my own responsibility.  I wasn’t particularly happy with that arrangement, but it was what I was offered.

 

Another issue came with the use of the timeclock; I was regularly “shorted” on my pay.  For example, if I worked 11 hours and 45 minutes, I was paid for 11 hours and 30 minutes.  5 hours and 14 minutes got 5 hours pay. When confronted, early on, I was told it was an “offset” for supposed breaks I never took. Over four years that "shorting" adds up to over 40 hours of unpaid work.

 

That wasn’t the only example of less-than-truthful behavior; customers regularly complained that the owner would continually promise, for example, a two-week delivery of a relatively simple order.  We would usually get angry calls after six or eight weeks without a delivery.  The day before this writing a customer who heard that same promise (prior to making a deposit payment) came into the shop wondering where his [products] (that he paid for eight weeks earlier) were; the over-promising and un-delivering is known throughout the industry, but the products are so good that it is overlooked… for the most part.

 

Concurrent with the timeclock paradigm was the purchase of a very expensive machine that would take the place of four or five production employees.  I was assigned the task of learning the ancient software that ran the machine… without access to any tech support whatsoever.  It became a source of constant vitriol from the owner who couldn’t understand why programming it took so long to accomplish and why the incredibly complex designs he called for were difficult at best.  His behavior became insistent and insulting, regularly telling me I had “a finger up my a** or had my “thumb up my a**” or that I was “jerking off” or “peeing too much” or “smelled like a**.”

 

Somehow, he associated domineering and insulting behavior with motivation. Here’s the bottom line on this boss: He has a macho attitude.  He has had failures in his family life.  He hates (and that is not an oversimplification) that I have the only job in the entire shop that he simply can’t do, no matter how much he blusters and insults, and that apparently is an insult to his manhood.

 

So, there you have it, and I am sure you noticed a difference in the amount of copy for each of the two clients. The reason for that is simple; a good client takes care of you as much as you take care of them, and there really isn’t much beyond that to say.  A bad client can make you wonder why you ever got into the business you’re in, and leave you depressed, angry and underpaid. It’s hard, in this economy, to advise you to walk away from the martinets who can make your life miserable, but it is something to think about.  I won’t mention either client by name, but those who know me know who I am writing about, and no, client number 2 has not gotten better.

 

16 September 2024:  On Sympathy

 

Over the past 112 days I have tried to come to grips with the death of my son.  I think I've been moderately successful, but who knows. Each day I look at, and touch, the small black box that contains his mortal remains, and think of the totality of our lives together:  The bump on his mother's belly that moved and kicked with what we convinced ourselves was fetal joy each time I would lean down and talk to him... Then the tiny, beautiful human being who only seemed to want two things:  Breast milk and company... Then as a two year old, endearing with absolutely no sign of the "terrible twos" beyond the need to entertain his three stepsisters by jamming Cheerios up his nose... Then the "Firsts": First best friend (his new baby brother, George), first bicycle, first day of school, first flight in a small aircraft... then bio-mom and her three harpies went one way, while Critter, George and I headed west to Santa Monica.  California was a revelation for the boys... Everything about it, except the schools, made the trip worth the while. More firsts: life near the Pacific, first flying lessons, first cross country flight in a small plane from Santa Monica to Florida, first time to be counted as a minority, first sight of women at a "clothing optional " beach. After five years, back to Arizona where we built a new family complete with a mother, Deborah, who understood what the word "mother" meant.  First job, bagging groceries and corralling carts at Basha's, then delivering pizza, then running a crew for a residential mover.

 

30 June 2024

 

On May 25th, at 12 O'clock in the afternoon, I got a call from an ICU doctor at Mercy One Hospital in Waterloo Iowa.  She asked me if I was the father of Christopher Staats, my son.  I answered that yes, I was his father and I asked if there was a problem.  She said yes, and that I should get up there (from Phoenix) as soon as possible.  I replied that I would get a flight on Monday,  as there was little chance I could get a flight this quickly on Memorial Day Weekend.   She then told me not to wait and that I didn't have that much time as Chris was in a coma, and that I should try and find a way.  My heart literally sank and I promised that somehow I would get there in time.  I reached out to my cohorts at AEROBridge to see if anyone had a trip planned to the midwest from the west coast or southwest. No one had such a trip planned, so I started looking for airline flights. To my amazement there were two seats on an American Airlines flight into Des Moines, about an hour and a half from Waterloo, and I booked one.  I messaged Chris's best friend Mike and gave him the news about Chris and asked if he could pick me up in Des Moines and get me to the hospital; he agreed.  The flight picked its way through enormous thunderstorms and we got in on time at midnight.  After picking our way through thunderstorms and distant tornadoes, we got to Mercy One at 3 AM.

 

When I got to the ICU and spoke to the doctor I learned that he had been found on his bedroom floor by his girlfriend, unresponsive and apparently without a pulse.  She claimed to have provided CPR, but her story is suspect as it changed over and over.  Bottom line, she eventually called 911 and the local fire department came and began CPR in earnest. It took them 26 minutes to restore his pulse; two defibrillations and three epinepherine injections were administrated.

 

Despite their work, Christopher had been anoxic for too long and the damage to his brain was too great and it was simply a matter of time before his autonomous functions would cease and he would die.  In the interim, he was placed on a ventilator, which kept his body alive.  I discussed organ donation with the wonderful nurses and doctors at Mercy One, and shortly thereafter a counselor from the Iowas Organ Donation Network met with me to discuss the process of finding recipients; when she informed me that it would be a minimum of 24-48 hours to facilitate the donations, I asked the doctor if Christopher could remain alive without gross assistance to his heart and respitory system, in the form of a mechanical CPR machine known as a "thumper." The doctor was honest with me and said that it was highly unlikely that Christopher could last 24 hours without that support.

 

By 1130 that morning (May 26) Christopher's body was failing and it became obvious that terrible decisions had to be made. The first was to decide whether or not to sign a "No Code" form which would stop any further CPR efforts, if they became necessary. Deciding to sign, and then signing that form was the first of the two hardest things I have ever done. It literally broke my heart and my spirit. When I had been reassured that there was no hope whatsoever that Christopher would regain consciousness, I informed his mother, who was driving to Waterloo from Wyoming and would not arrive until after 5 or 6 o'clock that evening, of his deteriorating condition and the doctor's recommendation that life support be withdrawn.  She agreed that it was the right thing to do, and I signed the form to remove life support, whispered a prayer in his ear, kissed his forehead and promised I would take care of his beautiful daughter and said good bye to my extraordinary, beautiful son.

 

The life support apparatus was removed at 12:03 and at 12:07 he peacefully drifted off.

 

There will not be a single day in my future that I do not think of him, love him, miss him. My world has lost much of it's color and joy, and while I will never get it all back, my future will be tinted again on some distant day by the memories of and love from and for my Critter.

 

1 May 2024

 

"This is a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness."

Benjamin Netanyahu.

 

They're only children of darkness, Bibi, because YOU turned off their lights.

 

30 april 2024

 

...I think many who either castigate or congratulate the current crop of protestors seem to forget one important fact: In 20 years (or less, in some cases) these "kids" will be running the country. Spit on them now if you must, but understand that if you do you'll still be voting (successfully or not) for or against them in the future. Best course of action: Listen to them; that doesn't mean agreeing with them, but like all Americans, they deserve their First Amendment rights.

 

What Hamas did was vile. They are murderous garbage with no consideration as to what their actions have loosed upon those they rule. As for me, I believe the Israeli response has shot the country in the foot; In the law of the Hebrews, the "eye for eye" was to restrict compensation to the value of the loss. Frankly, I believe that a 35:1 response goes far beyond that compensation, especially considering that many of that larger number are non-combatant women and children. When one takes into consideration how capable the IDF, Mossad and Shin Bet are when it comes to pinpoint retribution, using the equivalent of a stiletto rather than the political sledgehammer that they continue to use, it's increasingly difficult to find justification for the ongoing bloodshed.

 

Nevertheless, what's done is done and my only hope is that that foot wound does not become politically septic. Lastly, the 35,000+ casualties had families and friends who live on; many of them are the seeds for more years of terrorism, toxic fruit that will one day bloom, and the world will have no-one but Netanyahu and his cohorts to blame.

 

24 april 2024

 

...well, here may be proof that Neanderthals may not have gone extinct, after all: MTG. And here, courtesy of my favorite actual news source, the New York Times is my favorite description of her and her fellow congressional clown posse:

 

"It’s not simply that Ms. Greene has taken such a Putin-pleasing approach to Russia’s war in Ukraine (Ukrainian Nazis? Really?) that the term “useful idiot” feels unavoidable. She has, in very little time, undermined the influence of her party’s entire right flank, driving less unhinged Republicans — most notably the House speaker, Mike Johnson — to brush back her and her ilk like the poo-flinging chaos monkeys they are."

 

Good morning.

 

17 April 2024

 

Got a message from the daughter of someone I was quite close to long ago... Devastated by the loss of her mother, she asked me about grief. I told her that I learned about loss and grief at a very young age... I was 15 when I lost my mother to cancer. From 57 years of experience, I know now that grief is something that softens over time but will never fully leave you. Some think that's a bad thing; it's not. Grief will morph into a smile or sigh when you see or hear or smell something that triggers a memory of the loved and lost. I carry a catalog of those in my heart, and the only fear and sadness that I have is that the ravages of old age on my brain will dim them into a mist that I can no longer penetrate.

 

April 9 2024

 

...so the garbage in the arizona supreme court have ruled that an 1864 total ban on abortions is the law.

 

what's next?

 

April 5 2024

 

More ridiculous, cover-your-ass bull from Israel as they try to convince the world that it was a mistake to butcher 7 aid workers:

 

"The IDF did not know it was striking the WCK workers and was convinced it was targeting Hamas operatives, Yoav Har-Even, head of the IDF fact-finding and assessment mechanism, said in the briefing.

 

Though WCK vehicles are marked with the organization’s logo and name on their roofs, that logo was not visible to the cameras tracking the vehicle at night, Har-Even said — a key factor in the failure, he added."

 

Absolute nonsense. Pure bullsh*t. The Elbit FLIR (Forward Looking Infra Red) targeting cameras on those drones can image a license plate from 5000 feet AT NIGHT. They saw, and knew, what they were firing at. In response, Israel now announces that the two officers in charge of that unit have been "fired." Better Idea Number One: Arrest, try, convict and imprison them. What they did was murder, and despite Netanyahu's smirking admission (during questioning about the murders) that people die in war, there are rules.

 

Finally, lest you think I am anti-Israel, I am not. I've worked with an Israeli disaster relief NGO, Israeli Flying Aid on a number of projects in hot zones; they are among the most capable, compassionate and dedicated people I've ever met. I won't bore you with the old "some of my best friends are Israeli" line, even though that is the case.

 

Wrong is wrong; murder is murder. Period. If the murder of the WCK crew was a single incident, it would still be heartbreaking and it would still be murder. But the WCK seven are added to a list of over 200 aid workers Israel has killed with indiscriminate air strikes and cannon fire. Israel did not start this war, this time; it was a reaction to the insane Hamas attacks of 7 October. Nevertheless, between the two combatants, Hamas and Israel, there is no longer a shred of humanity left. Hamas doesn't care about the lives of those they supposedly represent and support, and the Israeli military doesn't either.

In reality, Hamas has sealed Israel's future. Out of the Gazan rubble will emerge tens of thousands of jihadi's who's only mission will be silent and deadly retribution. Those jihadi's are children now, children who've watched and experienced what happened to the WCK crew as it happened to their mothers, sisters, brothers, grandparents, friends and acquaintances. They won't forget and they won't forgive what Netanyahu has done, and our future selves will pay for it.

 

3 April 2024

 

...I don't believe for an instant that the Israeli strike that butchered the World Central Kitchen volunteers was a mistake. It was a missile strike from a drone, and the sensors the operator was looking at were clearly showing the WCK logo on the roof of the SUV he or she put a missile through. Israel, it's time for new leadership and accountability. Ignore that need and sooner or later your friends in the world are going to say "goodbye, hope the end isn't too painful, see you on the other side" when the overblown revenge bibi is using to cover up the intelligence failures (that allowed 7 October to happen in the first place) inspire Israel's enemies to end things once and for all. I don't think that time is far off, sadly, and hope the Israeli's don't pull what they have in Dimona out and cook one off when they're called to account for netanyahu's crimes.

 

11 March 2024

 

..ok... having watched 20 Days In Mariupol again, I've come to the conclusion that it's time to send a message to the morons in Congress (and yes, they are behaving like certifiable morons) about A: aid to Ukraine and B: stop supporting a home-grown despot who thinks it's ok to tell eurotrash like putin to just do whatever they want in Europe. Because if you watch 20 Days, you'll see exactly what putin and the garbage leading russia want. So it's time for congressional republicans to decide if they're Americans or just something else that happens to live in America. If it's the latter, remember their names on election day and vote for anyone other than them... because if you don't, and if trump and the republicans are elected and get their way, the bags you see over and over in 20 Days will be filled with OUR young men and women.

 

8 March 2024

 

...the Stepford Senator from bammy who gave the dicktator's rump a kiss or two last night kind of reminds me of those cute little miners in the movie Galaxy Quest.

 

If you know, you know... just don't limp around her.

 

2 march 2024

 

Ok. Reality time h. I am soooo tired of trump and his acolytes with their nonsense about Biden not securing the border. So; here's a few things to consider.

 

1: No, trump DID NOT make the border more secure or less porous. In fact he did the opposite, building walls that, in more than a few cases, literally fell down after the first hard rain. What he DID do was tell the gullible, over and over, that he was securing the border, and they ate it up like a free serving of grits and gravy. These are the people you see and hear as they quack about trump being the only thing that can stem the tide of illegal immigration.

 

2: NO-ONE, AND I REPEAT NO-ONE seems to be willing to address the real elephant in the room. That elephant is Mexico and its neighbors to the south. America has to deal with the last 50 yards of a 2500+ mile migration through Mexico. That route through Mexico is obvious and well-known to virtually everyone in the Mexican population. Why is Mexico not held accountable? Why is that? Why isn't Mexico stopping those migrants? Anyone have any ideas that don't begin with pointing fingers at whoever is in power?

 

3: Tying border security funding in with aid to Ukraine is an example of just how galactically stupid our republican Congressional representatives have become. First, the impetus for that tie-in and block comes from trump, and that reason alone should be enough to be ignored, but it's apparently not. Second, if Ukraine falls to putin's russia, we will be in a European war again. Putin will march on his neighbor within days of Ukraine falling, and NATO will be in the fight. If we, and our partners in the NATO bloc are "lucky", we'll only lose young men and women; if we're not, we'll lose both cities and a future. Trump and his congressional sycophants have proven, through their actions, where their allegiances lie, and they are not in America. Telling putin that America will stand back while he attacks a NATO ally simply because that ally hasn't met the two percent of GDP defense budget is laughable to begin with; coming from a deadbeat like trump, it's borderline hysterical. An election is coming; you can get caught up in nonsense and golden sneakers or you can be sensible and choose the future you want and your kids deserve.

 

8 may 2023

 

Why do AR-15 aficionados need these weapons? They're not good hunting guns. Why? By design, a 5.56 caliber round out of an AR-15 leaves the barrel at 3000 feet per second; in Allen, Texas, with most of the victims within 20 meters, the round got there before the sound. When a 5.56 round hits a "soft" target, the slightest amount of resistance, be it flesh or bone, causes it to tumble and splinter. The result is a small entry wound, usually less than an inch across, and an exit wound roughly the size of your fist. Anything in its trajectory is destroyed or shattered and blown out the exit wound. This is a weapon of war, meant to disable an enemy even if the aim is slightly off. Hit in the arm? You'll lose it. Upper leg, say goodbye to your femoral artery and most of your blood inside of a couple minutes. This is not a recreational weapon; it is meant to maim and kill, and as we've seen in the last month or so, it does a very good job. It belongs in the hands of the trained military. Period. This is a weapon whose sole purpose is to kill humans.

 

Dinky Dao 23

 

May 2023

 

Our beautiful tiny friend, Dinky Dao, has gone on to join those beautiful beings who have come into our hearts and homes before her - Tater, Twink, Cinder, Sierra, Gus, Farfel, Spike, Jasmine, Shadow, Buckwheat, Sasha, Guinevere, Kizzy, Arlando the Great, Greta, Tigger, Mona, Mitzi, Mandy, Butch, Bird, Demetrious and Pete, the Bird Who Couldn't Really Fly Very Well. After a tough start we rescued her and gave her 13 years of love, care and compassion. We will miss her all the days we have left to live.

 

Texas Sheepherders.

 

13 May 2023

 

Here's what the republican party is actually all about.  Despite massacres at schools, stores and streets in Texas, have they done ANYTHING to restrict gun ownership?  Of course not.  What they ARE doing is enacting laws to restrict voting rights, specifically targeting democratic-leaning cities like Houston. The problem is they don't THINK we're stupid and sheep-like enough to stand for this... they KNOW we are stupid and sheep-like enough to stand for this.  And our lambs are the ones who suffer and die.

 

How Sad IS America?

 

7 May 2023

 

...here is the saddest indictment of America today, following the massacre of 8 people at a Texas mall:  "It was just kind of chaotic for a second. Then when someone said, ‘shooter,’ we all ran to the back of the store,” Mr. Palakiko said. “As Americans, we’re used to this, because everyone knew exactly what to do.”

 

Kaleo Palakiko, 36.

 

You Bet Your Life...

 

7 May 2023

 

...thoughts and prayers time again, people! The latest contestants in the You Bet Your Life When You Go Shopping competition need them.  7 victims this time, in an outlet mall in Texas, along with the shooter. Tune in tonight when Cruz, Greene and the NRA explain to us all how a police officer saved the rest of the shoppers after "only" 7 died.  Of course, those three will ignore the fact that if we had logical gun laws in this country there's a distinct possibility that those 7 might be eating Sunday breakfast right now.

 

"Isms"

 

29 April 2023

 

..of all the "isms" - agesim, sexism, jingoism (look it up), out there, the one we seem to be content to just live with is barbarianism.  To wit: A guy gets scammed for $20 bucks for parking at a Houston restaurant... so he goes back out after getting a table, shoots the scammer in the back, kills him, and GOES BACK TO HAVE DINNER AT THE RESTAURANT.  WTF.  A 20-year old kid and her friends get lost in Apple Knocker Land, NY, drive up the wrong driveway and some moronic mouth breather shoots a 12-gauge shotgun with SLUG LOADS into her car and then into her neck.  Her friends try to get her help, but one of my nurse friends told me that if she'd been shot on a gurney in an emergency room surrounded by trauma surgeons there still would have been no way to save her.  (By the way, how big is a 12 gauge slug?  Hold up your hand and look at your thumb.  That's how big.)  In another shooting in East Crackerville, USA, a kid knocks on the wrong door and some 84 year old jackass answers the knock with (thank God) a .32 calliber popgun to the head of the kid looking for his younger brother. So. How many of us Americans were killed by guns?  In 2022, that number (excluding suicides) is 20,138.  How many of those were kids under 18? 1,676.  Gun violence is now the leading cause of children's death in America.  Here's an interesting statistic:  In the 20-odd years the U.S. had troops in Afghanistan, we lost a total of 2,402 sons and daughters there.  In the same period, TEN TIMES that number of children were killed by guns in America. Why are we statistically such a bastion of barbarianism? Money. Between the NRA and the money the gun manufacturing lobby pours into politics (and simultaneously pushing a bastardized interpretation of the Second Amendment into the brains of those easily swayed by money and fancy commercials) America doesn't have a chance to go back to civilized society.  I've had people ask me "well, if it's so bad, what can we do?"  My answer?  Leave, if you've got the money.  And soon. Europe. Japan. Costa Rica.  Anywhere but here because it just isn't going to get better. There's too much gun money, and too many politicians eager to get and spend it.

 

Clarence Thomas and the tolerance of bullshit.

 

13 April 2023

 

Enough with this crap.  Clarence Thomas should be impeached immediately as this nonsense of "not influenced by Crow..." is just that, nonsense.  The latest is that Crow, a billionaire, suddenly became interested in a rundown property in Savannah and purchased it... from Clarence Thomas, his mother and his late brother.  Then, as Thomas's mother was living in one of the properties, he saw fit to "begin work on tens of thousands of dollars of improvements..." on the property that she was living in.  Is there no accountability, much less shame, in the Supreme Court that they'll overlook this?  It's time to remove Thomas from the bench.  Period.  And, by the way, is there no such thing as a gift tax if a non-family member takes you on millions of dollars worth of trips?  Just curious as to how long Thomas and his wife are going to get away with this.  As we keep hearing, no one is above the law, and it's past time to apply it to the Thomas's.

 

Death and the Second Amendment... Mass School Shootings since 1999.

 

30 March 2023

 

Thurston High School

Columbine High School

Heritage High School

Deming Middle School

Fort Gibson Middle School

Buell Elementary School

Lake Worth Middle School

University of Arkansas

Junipero Serra High School

Santana High School

Bishop Neumann High School

Pacific Lutheran University

Granite Hills High School

Lew Wallace High School

Martin Luther King, Jr High School

Appalachian School of Law

Washington High School

Conception Abbey

Benjamin Tasker Middle School

University of Arizona

Lincoln High School

John McDonogh High School

Red Lion Area Junior High School

Case Western Reserve University

Rocori High School

Ballou High School

Randallstown High School

Bowen High School

Red Lake Senior High School

Harlan Community Academy High School

Campbell County High School

Milwee Middle School

Roseburg High School

Pine Middle School

Essex Elementary School

Duquesne University

Platte Canyon High School

Weston High School

West Nickel Mines School

Joplin Memorial Middle School

Henry Foss High School

Compton Centennial High School

Virginia Tech

Success Tech Academy

Miami Carol City Senior High School

Hamilton High School

Louisiana Technical College

Mitchell High School

EO Green Junior High School

Northern Illinois University

Lakota Middle School

Knoxville Central High School

Willoughby South High School

Henry Ford High School

University of Central Arkansas

Dillard High School

Dunbar High School

Hampton University

Harvard College

Larose-Cut Off Middle School

International Studies Academy

Skyline College

Discovery Middle School

University of Alabama

DeKalb School

Deer Creek Middle School

Ohio State University

Mumford High School

University of Texas

Kelly Elementary School

Marinette High School

Aurora Central High School

Millard South High School

Martinsville West Middle School

Worthing High School

Millard South High School

Highlands Intermediate School

Cape Fear High School

Chardon High School

Episcopal School of Jacksonville

Oikos University

Hamilton High School

Perry Hall School

Normal Community High School

University of South Alabama

Banner Academy South

University of Southern California

Sandy Hook Elementary School

Apostolic Revival Center Christian School

Taft Union High School

Osborn High School

Stevens Institute of Business and Arts

Hazard Community and Technical College

Chicago State University

Lone Star College-North

Cesar Chavez High School

Price Middle School

University of Central Florida

New River Community College

Grambling State University

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Ossie Ware Mitchell Middle School

Ronald E McNair Discovery Academy

North Panola High School

Carver High School

Agape Christian Academy

Sparks Middle School

North Carolina A&T State University

Stephenson High School

Brashear High School

West Orange High School

Arapahoe High School

Edison High School

Liberty Technology Magnet High School

Hillhouse High School

Berrendo Middle School

Purdue University

South Carolina State University

Los Angeles Valley College

Charles F Brush High School

University of Southern California

Georgia Regents University

Academy of Knowledge Preschool

Benjamin Banneker High School

D H Conley High School

East English Village Preparatory Academy

Paine College

Georgia Gwinnett College

John F Kennedy High School

Seattle Pacific University

Reynolds High School

Indiana State University

Albemarle High School

Fern Creek Traditional High School

Langston Hughes High School

Marysville Pilchuck High School

Florida State University

Miami Carol City High School

Rogers State University

Rosemary Anderson High School

Wisconsin Lutheran High School

Frederick High School

Tenaya Middle School

Bethune-Cookman University

Pershing Elementary School

Wayne Community College

JB Martin Middle School

Southwestern Classical Academy

Savannah State University

Harrisburg High School

Umpqua Community College

Northern Arizona University

Texas Southern University

Tennessee State University

Winston-Salem State University

Mojave High School

Lawrence Central High School

Franklin High School

Muskegon Heights High School

Independence High School

Madison High School

Antigo High School

University of California-Los Angeles

Jeremiah Burke High School

Alpine High School

Townville Elementary School

Vigor High School

Linden McKinley STEM Academy

June Jordan High School for Equity

Union Middle School

Mueller Park Junior High School

West Liberty-Salem High School

University of Washington

King City High School

North Park Elementary School

North Lake College

Freeman High School

Mattoon High School

Rancho Tehama Elementary School

Aztec High School

Wake Forest University

Italy High School

NET Charter High School

Marshall County High School

Sal Castro Middle School

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School

Great Mills High School

Central Michigan University

Huffman High School

Frederick Douglass High School

Forest High School

Highland High School

Dixon High School

Santa Fe High School

Noblesville West Middle School

University of North Carolina Charlotte

STEM School Highlands Ranch

Edgewood High School

Palm Beach Central High School

Providence Career & Technical Academy

Fairley High School (school bus)

Canyon Springs High School

Dennis Intermediate School

Florida International University

Central Elementary School

Cascade Middle School

Davidson High School

Prairie View A & M University

Altascocita High School

Central Academy of Excellence

Cleveland High School

Robert E Lee High School

Cheyenne South High School

Grambling State University

Blountsville Elementary School

Holmes County, Mississippi (school bus)

Prescott High School

College of the Mainland

Wynbrooke Elementary School

UNC Charlotte

Riverview Florida (school bus)

Second Chance High School

Carman-Ainsworth High School

Williwaw Elementary School

Monroe Clark Middle School

Central Catholic High School

Jeanette High School

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Tucker Carlson.  30 March 2023

 

...wow.  just when you think the gop and fox can't possibly sink any lower into serial scumbaggieness, they come out, en masse, and blame the Nashville shooting on "trans violence."  To wit:  "Fox News host Tucker Carlson featured a photo of the shooter superimposed with the words “Trans Killer” on his Tuesday show. The chyron read: “We are witnessing the rise of trans violence.” " Greene and the rest of the clown posse followed suit; amazing that they'll squirrel around for any reason other than the shooter used an assault rifle on children. Pretty soon, I think their reasoning for mass shootings will be tied to breath and a pulse.  Future quote:  "Well, if he/she/it hadn't been alive, they wouldn't have been able to massacre that entire school full of kids..."

 

Death and the Second Amendment... a reason to just skip school Part 300 or so. 27 March 2023

 

...time for the GOP and the NRA to break out their prayers and condolences.  Heaven frigging forbid they should do something about the weapons that some garbage just shot 3 nine-year-old children and their 3 teachers at a Christian academy in Nashville today.  Two assault weapons and a handgun were used by a 28-year-old lunatic that simple legislation might have prohibited her from owning, much less using.  America - Land of the Free [to blow your head off] and the Home of the [they're not] Brave [enough to stand up to the gun lobby lest they stop donating to their campaign funds].  Let's face it.  It's not going to change.  We're already numb enough because today's murders aren't going to be the last ones we see and so we're just going to cluck and pray and hope it isn't our sons, or daughters, or wives, or fathers, or friends who die because of legislative cowardice.

 

Accountability?  Hah.  14 March 2023

 

...well, trumpers (and acolytes of the church of Mother Tucker) while you're trying to decide whether your money is safe at the Cornholio National Bank of East Nangatang Missibama, understand that this whole mess is simply fallout from the bill the orange nightmare signed in 2018 loosening the banking oversight protections built into Dodd-Frank.  "Accountability?  We don't need no accountability... we don't got no accountability.  we are the Federales!"

 

Put Them Kids To Work, Dammit! 9 March 2023

 

Hey gang!!! Kids not bringing home enough cash from the paper route?  Not making enough mowing the neighbor's lawns?  Well, here's the solution!  Move to Arkansas! 13-year-olds can now work in meat packing plants, thanks to republican governor sarah hucklebuck sanders signing a law loosening "burdensome" restrictions on age verification.

 

The Reality of Immigration.  7 March 2023

 

As I sit here recovering from relatively major surgery (in my book, anything over one incision counts as "major" surgery) and reading yet another article about how not to handle the immigration "issue" a few things dawned on my recently anesthetized coconut.

I am the son, grandson, great grandson and nephew of immigrants. White ones.  German and Dutch ones. They came here when all you really needed was a ticket on a ship and be basically borderline healthy, i.e., you didn't have smallpox or TB. Oh, one other thing, it would help if you weren't Asian. My ancestors got off a boat and shuffled through the chaos at Ellis Island in New York Harbor, cleared all the hurdles and were dropped off by a ferry on the island of Manhattan.

 

They lived for a time in Harlem before moving north into the "suburbs" - Elmsford, New York in Westchester County. They did well, too. When World War Two beckoned they all served; one in the Pacific infantry, my Dad in one of Patton's tanks, one in the OSS behind the lines in Europe, one in the 8th Air Force, and one became a Naval Aviator flying Hellcats in the Pacific. They understood the debt freedom had called.

 

I am not only the descendant of those immigrants, but I am also alive because of immigrants. The parents of the cardiologist who saved me from the widow maker that was about to pop and kill me immigrated from Taiwan.  The parents of my urologist who managed to rid me of kidney stones (while simultaneously making me smile) immigrated from the Middle East. The parents of my Primary Care Physician immigrated from Viet Nam; the parents of his Nurse Practitioner immigrated from the Philipines. The parents of the surgeon who operated on me last Wednesday immigrated from India. The anesthesiologist who sent me off to la-la land last Wednesday was Italian-American and the rest of the hospital staff was a polyglot collection of every possible combination of ancestry, NONE of whom magically appeared in America with a sense of both ownership and entitlement. They all worked hard to scratch and climb a ladder that asks nothing beyond realizing the potential for achievement and meeting that goal.

 

In some quarters immigrants are seen as interlopers undeserving of the chances and opportunities graced upon those who came before. Nothing could be more destructive to the futures we face.  Understand that the talents of the hands that feed you, heal you, help you, teach you, entertain you and do everything they can to make sure you can reach YOUR goals are not limited to those burdened by the chance (or benefit) of a specific skin color or national origin.

 

 

The Art of The Bamboozle.  27 February 2023

 

...so, East Palestine, I watched as you cheered on the mango nightmare despite the fact that the rules he and his team of morons put in place pretty much guaranteed that sometime, somewhere, the unsafe and unregulated trains that he mandated would fail as we all witnessed.  Welcome to the world of consequences.  You got what you voted for.  Watching you cheer for him and call him "president" while listening to his usual nonsense of "it's everyone else's fault, not mine!" I can only shake my head and mourn the real consequences, the ones you're not thinking about... The damage that spill has caused, and will cause, will be visited upon your children and grandchildren; vinyl chloride and the rest of the bitch's brew that spilled are not only carcinogens, they cause gene mutations. Don't take my word for it, look up Minimata, or the Love Canal, or Agent Orange and you'll get an idea of what's coming, and it's a lot worse than a couple thousand dead fish.  So THINK next time you're waving a banner or wearing a moronic red hat and wondering if Trump 2024 is a good idea. Then look your kids in the eye and start figuring out how you'll explain why you think so.

 

What?  The Teacher Has A Gun?  27 February 2023

 

Pro-carry teachers, I want to apologize, in advance, for both the tone and content of what I am about to write. Let's say that a kid walks into your class with a weapon, intent on murder. You know who the first victim is? You. Why? Because you're either standing in front of the class or sitting at your desk in front of the class; ergo, you're the most visible and (if teachers begin carrying weapons en masse) the most dangerous target for the shooter. Here's a small lesson: Count to three. By that time, if the shooter is carrying an AR-15, he's shot you three or four times. You're no longer a potential hero, you're a bloody mess on the wall and the floor. Your students are now panicking and screaming and trying to head for the door, where the shooter is. Even if you had your popgun on your hip, you couldn't react anywhere near in time to do something about the murderer; you'd have to get it out of the holster, rack a round (unless you were stupid enough to keep one in the chamber) click off the safety, try to aim it and shoot at a moving target 30 feet away and, by the way, not take out any of your students who are, as mentioned before, panicking and running for the door the shooter came in. Bottom line, teachers with live weapons are not the solution that the NRA so vehemently wants you to believe in. Stronger weapons laws, stronger and more effective background checks, closing the gun show loopholes and instead of old chair warmers masquerading as cops, schools should hire actual SROs who won't hide behind a wall pissing themselves when they should be doing their job are SOME of the solutions. THINK about it; not thinking around weapons is just how people get hurt.

 

Mindless Idiots With Guns Killing Americans Who Don't Have Guns.  21 February 2023

 

We've already had more mass shootings than days that have passed in 2023, so ok, it's time for a little logic about assault weapons. First off, the only reason I keep hearing from the gun lobby and "hobbyists" is that owning one is their Second Amendment right. All right, let's think about our Constitutionally guaranteed rights. For example, it is every American's right to express themselves under the First Amendment. However, in examining case law, the Supreme Court "ruled unanimously that the First Amendment, though it protects freedom of expression, does not protect dangerous speech."

 

In other words, yelling "fire" in a crowded theater when no such conflagration exists can lead to criminal prosecution. That said, our most sacred right (in my opinion, of course) is not blanket permission to put others in danger simply because you have the right to speak freely and say something galactically stupid.

 

As for the Second Amendment, "The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms and was adopted on December 15, 1791, as part of the first ten amendments contained in the Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that the right belongs to individuals, while also ruling that the right is not unlimited and does not prohibit all regulation of either firearms or similar devices. State and local governments are limited to the same extent as the federal government from infringing this right, per the incorporation of the Bill of Rights."

 

The critical sentence within the ruling is "that the right is not unlimited and does not prohibit all regulation of either firearms or similar devices." So, while it is a right to "keep and bear arms" that right may, and should in the case of assault weapons, be regulated to the point where such weapons are banned for use by the general public.

 

Why should they be banned? Assault weapons (and think about that label for a second: Assault Weapons) are not hunting rifles, and, in my opinion again, are an asinine choice for home protection, mostly because in the confines of a house if you miss (and don't rip someone's gizzards out) that round is going to go through a wall or two. If your kid, or dog, or grandma is behind one of those walls, you have a victim you probably didn't want to send to the hospital thanks to your assault weapon.

 

Next, despite everyone who favors assault weapons mentioning that they are "semi-automatic" don't let that little bit of English fool you. I've shot an AR-15... (Yes, us Libtard Snowflakes have friends who owned - note the tense there - AR-15s.) And yes, an AR-15 is a semi automatic weapon, which means that with each trigger pull, it goes "bang", a round comes out of the barrel and most of the recoil energy is used to extract the fired shell, insert another shell, and cock the weapon for the next shot. In plain English, instead of having the weapon keep killing simply by holding down the trigger, you have to physically do it yourself. Again, drawing on my own experience with an AR-15, you can empty a ten round clip in less than ten seconds; you just have to keep twitching your trigger finger. If you have a 30 round clip, or worst case, two 30 round clips taped together so that all you have to do is eject the first clip, flip it over and insert the other one, the math is easy to do. Adding five seconds for a practiced shooter to flip and insert the second clip, you've got 60 rounds out in a little over a minute.

 

Think about it. 60 rounds in a little over a minute. That's not a description of hunting. That's a description of chaos.

So yes, the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear arms...

 

Last: A large contingent of Republican politicians are suggesting that arming teachers and staff is a good idea. Nothing could be farther from the truth. And installing armed guards at the door is another one. Why? Think about it: Someone has decided they're going to shoot up a school, so they do a little recon and see where the guards are. So when the time comes to commit their filthy acts, they've already chosen the first victim: The guard. To those who say "but he's/she's armed, too," think about this: All the shooter has to do is raise, aim and fire his AR-15. Most law enforcement holsters have a snap on them to keep their weapons secure, so, when the time comes they have that little bit of extra time spent on unsecuring the weapon, drawing it, aiming and firing. By which time they're most likely already hit, and the shooter's in.

 

Sorry, AR-15 owners. You haven't given me a single argument for why these assault weapons should be available to anyone who wants them beyond a 230+ year old Amendment to the Constitution written and promulgated when a rifle took nearly a minute to fire and reload. The right to own one is there, true, but the need is not.

 

Finally, mental health restrictions. Yes, they need to be in place for ALL owners of weapons, not just assault weapons.

 

 

A New Year.  Happy or Not It's Coming. 31 December 2022

 

Here comes 2023. I guess we'll see.

 

China and The Covid Lesson. 30 December 2022

 

...so China's latest Covid response will (and should) provide a lesson to the world.  It is essentially Darwinian.  They've dissolved their Covid restrictions, to the point of allowing unmasked relatives in ERs, pretty much guaranteeing an enormous outbreak and deaths in the hundreds of thousands, if not many, many millions.  Their booster vaccination rates, particularly among senior citizens, is very low (as in the low teens) and that particular population will suffer the brunt of the outbreak.

 

So let's review:  China's economy is starting to tank, Covid, Flu and RSV health care costs are skyrocketing, especially within the elderly population, and the government has decided to let these diseases rage until herd immunity takes hold.

 

It's cold beyond words, but... it will eventually work.  So. Don't want to watch grandma and grandpa drown in their own snot in some hospital hallway? Stop listening to the anti-vax bullshit, get boosted, wear a mask, and be disciplined for a little while longer.

Here endeth the lesson.  Hopefully you'll be alive when, in a year or two, Facebook sends me one of those "share your memory" messages.

 

Film Versus Digital. 23 December 2022

 

One of my students expressed an interest in souping and printing actual film; I gave her a list of what she'd need to buy and bless her heart she's ordered most of it. I am looking forward to being in a darkroom again; it's a magical thing. I can remember printing photos of my late mother soon after she passed (when I was one of the nerds in the school's Photography Club) and as the image came up in the trays I had quite a moment seeing her reappear before my eyes.  Those moments shaped the life I've lived since then.

 

I miss film, to be honest.  Actually, I do and I don't. I love the speed and creativity that digital gives me; things that I used to try to do with film, with hours if not days in between the attempts, I can do in camera now... or minutes later in photoshop. I can shoot an aircraft on a ramp in Scottsdale, and literally seconds later my client in Wisconsin can see what I've shot. Amazing. Or I can shoot a portrait session and show the subject and the stylists what is good and what needs to change and get the subject's opinion and (hopefully) approval before I even strike the lights and pack everything up.

 

 Again, amazing.

 

 No, what I miss most about film IS film, the actual tactile piece of chemically coated plastic.  I can look at a slide or a negative and know that it was with me, wherever I was... This one went to Africa with me, this one went to Europe with me, this one was in the delivery room when my son was born, this one was with my entire family on some long-ago beach in Martha's Vineyard.   That's what I miss most about film. Sure, I can look at a CF card or an SD card and know that it came along for the ride, but with film the actual light of Africa, or Europe or the delivery room or a sunny beach actually fell upon it and in the end created the images I've made.

 

Magic.

 

 

Well, ok.  Elections are over, war in Ukraine is not.  23 December 2022

 

For those of you who've just gotten back from another solar system, the 2022 mid-term elections are over.  Sort of.  In most of America the losers lost and went home, but here in Arizona, well, that's not quite how the republican losers are seeing it.  Like wealthy, entitled petulant children they seem to be holding their breath, in a legal sense of course, until we give them jobs they are utterly unqualified for.  Lake, Finchem and Hamadey, three of the most repellent humans ever. They lost because there are just so few neo-nazi white supremicist election deniers they could count on.  Lake has retreated to mar-a-lardo to perfect her ass kissing routine, Hamadey looks like he wants to bring a large caliber weapon to convince elections officials that he won and they better change the results, and Finchem is hopefully going to take his ridiculous cowboy hat to someplace else and try to convince his new neighbors that he really is a patriot, as opposed to a traitorous dog who wants the Constitution changed so that only white males can do anything at all.

 

Do It Myself.  16 December 2022

 

Needed new front disc pads.

 

Option 1: Honda dealer wanted $139 PER AXLE plus tax.

 

Option 2:  Get DuraLast top of the line ceramic pads, and pad grease, $28.71

 

Having a Dad who taught me how to do it myself:  Priceless.

 

Micro Monday. 27 November 2022

 

Sooooo... last weekend we had "Small Business Saturday."  I'd like to propose "Micro Monday" where solo gig workers - photographers, painters, graphic artists, handymen and handywomen, mechanics and the like get a day when THEY are the focus of commerce.

 

Being a "solo" I can tell you that we all have the same dreams, goals, bills and families that we support as everyone else does.  In many cases the revenue generated by our art, skills or talents have to be supplemented by second (or in some cases, third) income sources.  For me, that means three days a week designing and programming sewing patterns for high end seats used in offroad vehicles, as well as photography lessons.

 

Photography, though, is my lifelong passion - shooting, post-processing and printing, and what "free" time I have after the bills are paid and the family is fed is consumed by that passion.  So, this coming Monday, if you know someone like me, look into what they do, and how well they do it, and if you can, choose them over a small (or large) business for a change.

 

A Gypsy's Life In A Song. (Which Glen Campbell Made Famous). 24 November 2022

 

My gypsy's life wouldn't be the same, nor worth living, without you.

 

It's knowing that your door is always open

And your path is free to walk

That makes me tend to leave my sleeping bag

Rolled up and stashed behind your couch

And it's knowing I'm not shackled

By forgotten words and bonds

And the ink stains that are dried upon some line

That keeps you in the back roads

By the rivers of my memory

That keeps you ever gentle on my mind

 

It's not clinging to the rocks and ivy

Planted on their columns now that bind me

Or something that somebody said

Because they thought we fit together walking

It's just knowing that the world will not be cursing

Or forgiving when I walk along some railroad track and find

That you're moving on the backroads

By the rivers of my memory

And for hours you're just gentle on my mind

 

Though the wheat fields and the clothes lines

And the junkyards and the highways come between us

And some other woman's cryin' to her mother

'Cause she turned and I was gone

I still might run in silence, tears of joy might stain my face

And the summer sun might burn me 'til I'm blind

But not to where I cannot see you walkin' on the back roads

By the rivers flowing gentle on my mind

 

I dip my cup of soup back from a gurglin'

Cracklin' caldron in some train yard

My beard a rustling, cold towel, and

A dirty hat pulled low across my face

Through cupped hands 'round the tin can

I pretend to hold you to my breast and find

That you're waiting from the back roads

By the rivers of my memories

Ever smilin' ever gentle on my mind.

 

Happy Thanksgiving.

 

AZ Political Shuck and Jive, Kari Lake Edition.  3 November 2022

 

...so lake pulls out the old "I didn't say what you heard me say" crap out of the bag, a la' the mango nightmare.  And, of course, because she said she didn't say what we all heard her say, her supporters are going to rewrite their aural history and say to us lefties that "of course she didn't say what we heard her say because she says she didn't say what we heard her say so we obviously didn't hear her say what she said because she said she never said it."

 

Welcome to Arizona politics, where a tv news presenter thinks she can shuck and jive herself into office because, primarily, her supporters believe whatever she says, because if she says it, it must be true, unless of course, she says she didn't say it which then makes it yet another leftie attempt at making her sound like the...  Oh the hell with it.  Many of you are going to vote for this clown anyway so why bother you with logic.

 

Republican Minds and Mouths - Arizona Edition.  27 October 2022

 

You sittin here and yakkin right in my face

I guess I'm gonna have to put you in your place

You know if silence was golden

You couldn't raise a dime

Because your mind is on vacation and your mouth is workin' overtime

 

You quotin' figures and droppin' names

You tellin' stories about the dames

You're overlaughin' when things ain't funny

You tryin' to sound like big money

You know if talk was criminal

You'd lead a life of crime

Because your mind is on vacation and your mouth is workin overtime

 

You know that life is short

Talk is cheap

Don't be makin' promises that you can't keep

You don't like this little song I'm singin'

Just grin and bear it

All I can say is if the shoe fits wear it

If you must keep talkin

Please try to make it rhyme

Because your mind is on vacation and your mouth is workin' overtime.

 

Thank you, Mose Allison

 

Arizona Voters: Election 2022 Version.  25 October 2022

 

I used to be astonished at the gullibility of the average Arizona republican voter.  no more, though.  they've surpassed my comprehension of just how masochistic Arizona republican voters have become.

 

Forget trump; he was/is the embodiment of one of my favorite H.L. Mencken quotes: "On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

 

Seriously?  Donald Trump as president?  I went through the entire 2016 campaign saying to myself "nah, people aren't that stupid." Again, in 2020, after 4 disastrous years of trump and his toady circus, finding myself saying "nah, people cannot possibly want this jackass in the white house for another 4 years..."  Followed by "whew.  the country has come to its senses."  Then, of course, the blubber-assed moron inspired 6 January simply because he didn't like losing, literally fabricating amazing stories about everything from "mules" to space lasers to Venezuelan coders, to God knows what else.

 

You know what it's really all about, though? I believe support of grifters like trump and his toadies is simply because white people aren't going to be the majority in a decade or so... and some of those white people are scared crapless that they will get treated the way those new majorities who will replace them were treated.

 

Which brings us to Arizona.  The republican candidates running for major offices boggle the mind, especially when you consider they might very well win.

 

Kari Lake? A trump sycophant whose career up until now has been to dress well and read someone else's words, while pretending to be a "journalist." Her "platform" has included "firing" the federal government as well as a moronic plan to line and cover the 1400 miles of canals our water flows through in order to prevent evaporation.  Ask a question of her on Monday, get an answer, ask same question on Friday, get diametrically opposed answer.

 

Finchem for Secretary of State?  Are you kidding me?  This is someone who not only aided and abetted the January 6 insurrection but participated in it.  There are videos of him parading through the crowd, at the Capital, wearing his "signature" 10-gallon hat; he also took part in the attempt to deliver the work of the illegal alternative electors' scheme, which is why, besides the actual riot, he was in D.C. on 6 January.

 

I could go on and on about the last people you want to elect, my fellow Arizonans, but instead I want you to think of this:  You complain about the state of Arizona?  The (public) schools? The roads?  The homeless? The drug problems?  And you want to blame all that on Democrats, right?  Here's what the Republican party DOESN'T want you to remember:   31 out of the past 40 years, a republican has sat in the governor's mansion:  Meacham, Symington, Hull, Brewer and Ducey.  For the past 24 years, the republican party has dominated both houses of the legislature.

 

So, if you want to blame someone, stop listening and watching the attack ads; they're designed to distract you, rather than inform you.   Quite frankly, the republican party has gotten us into this mess; it's not Biden's fault, or Hobbs' fault, it is literally the "fault" of the people you have already elected.  Want change? Then guess what? Think about what you're doing.

 

Chauvin Is Guilty

 

20 April 2021 Part 2

 

Today, Derek Chauvin was found guilty on Murder 2, Murder 3 and Manslaughter, and was immediately remanded to jail.  Whatever the state sentences him to, the REAL punishment will most likely come at the hands of his fellow prisoners, unless he is kept segregated.  My opinion?  Keep him in the general prison population and let the real people hand down a sentence on top of the years he will get.  He deserves a long, slow and painful death.  THAT would be justice.

 

Eye and COVID

 

20 April 2021

 

Ok, so I got my vitrectomy and it wasn't too bad... from speaking with others who have had it done, I kind of expected to be awake during the surgery but Dr. Prasad had an emergency surgery to perform and my surgery was delayed at least 45 minutes. So the nurses put me on a gurney and told me to relax.  I am good at relaxing.  I fell asleep and when I woke up the surgery was finished.  I felt cheated.  I wanted to see what having my eye vacuumed out looked like. Oh well.  The floaters are gone and the colors rendered by that eye are much brighter.

 

On 18 April I got my second dose of the Moderna vaccine; this experience was much better than the first shot. The first shot hurt like hell.  For some reason the volunteer who did the shot did it so high up on my shoulder that it felt like it went straight into the bone.  Within an hour I could not move my arm without excruciating pain, which lasted four days.  When I got the second dose I explained what had happened after the first dose and could she please blast me further down my deltoid.  She did, and other than feeling like I got a noogie it was, and has been, pain free.  So no Corona cooties here, except of course the very occasional one that comes in a clear bottle with a lime jammed in the neck.

 

Eye

 

30 March 2021

 

So, tomorrow morning at 830 I am going to be sedated; while I am under my head will be immobilized, my right eye paralyzed, pain free courtesy of injections that I really don't want to think about. I am about to have a vitrectomy. It involves a very sharp small knife and a miniature vacuum cleaner that will proceed to empty said eyeball, thereby ridding it of the floaters I've had for years. Here endeth the lesson. Now for the human side, it's my right eye, so it's not my "working" eye, my shooting eye, basically not my dominant eye... but I do like depth perception.

 

Votes

 

29 March 2021

 

So, I'm trying to understand the current batch of Republicans.  This week's question:  Why, instead of trying to keep people who probably won't vote for you from voting, don't you try to get them to vote for you?  Even pretending to care might make a difference.

 

I'M BACK!

 

27 March 2021

 

Well, I finally managed to work my way through the ridiculous covid vaccine system that somehow got put in place in Arizona.  What a goat rope, to say the least.  And now, of course, that there are actual vaccinations to be had, trump's mighty band of idiots are taking credit for it.  Right.  A year of "it's a Democratic hoax", and basing critical policy on the rantings of various sychophants, including the "pillow guy" and suddenly he's been on the case all along.  Right.  The only things trump has regularly been on are the golf course and his squatty potty. But the really true believers buy the hoax and vaccine denials nonsense, hook line and sinker.

 

Unfortunately for them, not getting a vaccine that they deny is working on a hoax is going to be an exercise in Darwinism.

 

Good news for rational politics, bad news for the deniers, some of whom will deny themselves right into an ICU where some of THEM will drown in their own snot.

 

"Justice" Kavanaugh

 

8 October 2018

 

...I don't KNOW that Kavanaugh tried to rape a 15 year old way back when.  I have my suspicions, borne of living, for a while, in a place full of entitled trust fund babies who I DO know pushed that particular envelope and got away with it. But my suspicions about something that happened that long ago, no matter how they are judged in the court of opinion, aren't enough for a court of law. Which brings me to what REALLY should have disqualified Kavanaugh.

 

I understand that the hearings were stressful for him; what better test could he have been subjected to? And, make no mistake, he failed that test.  He proved, beyond the proverbial shadow of a doubt, that he has a temper he cannot control, a political bias that he does not want to control, a boundless contempt for those who have the nerve to question his integrity, and not a shadow of compassion for the victims of sexual assault.

 

America COULD have seen all these things. But we were a collective dog in a yard full of squirrels. Every time we should have been looking at what were the facts, not the insinuations and accusations, no matter how valid we judged them to be, we collectively shouted "SQUIRREL!!!" and looked the other way.  Too Bad.  It was our moment, and we blew it.

 

What Money Is To Some People

 

5 March 2018

 

This morning I read a beautiful article in the New York Times about a homeless woman who passed away on "her" subway grate in New York City, and for some reason, my mind wandered back 20 years or so to a time in Los Angeles and a good friend who was on the verge of homelessness and called out for help.

 

We both graduated from the same high school, Woodlands, in Hartsdale, New York and we had very similar backgrounds, which included a love of aviation. While mine was photographic, his was a love of aeronautical engineering, and after an eight month search he had finally found what he called his "dream job" helping to design components marketed by a supplier to large scale manufacturers.  The only "fly in his ointment" was that the eight month job search had literally drained his savings and he was roughly $300 short (after my loan of $500) on his overdue rent.  The housing market being what it was, his landlord was ready, and willing, to evict him and his sons in less than a week if he couldn't come up with the entire rent payment.  There was nothing left for him to sell and come up with the $300 - no car, or computer, or TV worth anywhere near the $300, and I was similarly tapped after the $500 loan, as well.

 

Over coffee we mined our memories of who was successful and might be able to help and, and in that pre-Google world we "411'd" and called many of our old friends, only to find that we were not alone in our poverty.  Way down that list was a person we both knew, someone I'll call "M."

 

M was born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth.  His father owned a very successful children's clothing business and a beautiful home, belonged to an exclusive country club and rewarded each of his two sons' accomplishments, however mundane, lavishly.

 

After high school M went on to college and then to medical school; after internship and residency his final choice of practice was anesthesiology.

 

 A big, if not huge, mistake.

 

M eventually  became an addict, was fired from three hospitals and lost his license to practice by 1983, having spent his free time driving around New England filling prescriptions for Demerol with which he injected himself. The final initial straw (there was more to come) was when he passed out in the OR during an operation. Somehow, he got his license back and rebuilt a practice on Long Island as, you guessed it, an anesthesiologist.  By 1996, he was in trouble again, and lost his license again, only to have it reinstated. In 2015, he was sentenced to 15 months in prison for essentially dealing the deadliest opioids - Oxycontin and Fentanyl - to addicts, including women who paid "in trade."

 

Stepping back to that phone call, we contacted M to see if he could help. He refused, saying that he had just paid $75,000 for a custom Corvette. My friend lost his apartment the next week and,because he had nowhere to live, lost his sons and his new job. So while I understand completely the hesitation to help someone in need, I will never understand rubbing the salt of a shiny new car into someone's wounds. Despite the spoon, the trust funds, the lucrative career the one thing M never had and couldn't buy was compassion. Whether that was the reason for his lifestyle I will never know, nor do I care to. I know that the lack of compassion and human kindness made dealing death an acceptable trade off for a bit of fellatio, and the need to aggrandize himself by bragging about his new Corvette while refusing an inconsequential monetary helping hand probably made him feel like the big man he wasn't.

 

My aeronautical friend?  He got through the hard times, found a place to live - paid for initially with a job at a Los Angeles McDonalds - got his kids back, raised them right, and recently retired from Boeing. M, if recent photographs are any indication, is just a pathetic old man who borrows wheelchairs and canes in a play for sympathy at his court appearances. And, while the woman in the New York Times story has passed away, she did so with a host of strangers who did everything they could to help her, despite the demons in her that kept that help at bay. Money, its acquisition and stewardship apparently never entered into the thoughts of those who helped.

 

 

 

14 August 2017

 

Those who don't recall history doom us all to repeat it.

 

A couple nights ago, the garbage in the photo to the left, along with thousands of his fellow trash, decided to invade a relatively peaceful city in West Virginia. Spurred on by the twitter feed of our idiot in chief, they came supposedly to protest the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee.  If you believe that is the reason for their gathering, I have a bridge you might be interested in purchasing. The real reason as I see it was to "save" white america.  From what I have no idea.  Racial "impurity" perhaps?

 

 When the nazis came to power in the 1930s they did so by convincing people that the root of their problems lay in everyone except them.  In the years to follow, the nazis literally tore much of the free world to pieces, along with millions upon millions of innocents. The fathers and mothers of american baby boomers laid down many of their lives in a protracted war that changed the face of the entire planet.

 

Now, 70 years on, the ideology that nearly destroyed the earth is back in the form of losers who, for one reason or another, find it necessary to blame the "sad state of the country" on everyone but themselves.

 

Here's an example.  I have a friend whom I've known since I was a small child. She is of Polish descent, a third generation american whose father was a ball turret gunner in the 8th Air Force. She wrote a screed on one of the social media sites lambasting everyone BUT the neo-nazi garbage that started the fight in Charlottesville.  There is a part of me that wants to take her to task publicly and remind her that, 78 years to the day, the nazi army was marshalling on the western border of her ancestral home and in less than a month would invade and decimate the entire country, including members of her extended family not quite lucky enough to immigrate to the United States.  I am saddened beyond words that the world we will leave our children will probably have to fight the battles of the 1940s all over again; this time at home.

 

3 July 2017

 

 How I got started in photography.

 

I've been asked many times how I became interested in photography, and how it lead to a lifelong love and career.  The answer goes way back to when I was eight years old.

 

On a late August day in 1959 I was standing on the porch of our little house in Elmsford, NY. It was a truly idyllic place, with a couple acres of lawn to cut and care for and a little stream running through it.  I looked out to where my mother, father and a few neighbors were standing near the bridge over the stream and wondered why, when everyone else was standing there in shorts and summer shirts, my mother was wearing a winter coat. She also seemed very upset about something, too.  That something turned out to be a diagnosis of advanced breast cancer which, it also turned out, was why she was always cold.  Hence the winter coat.

 

At dinner that night, my older brother Bill and I learned of the diagnosis; I imagine it meant more to Bill than it did to me as I was as clueless as a rock as to what the word "cancer" really meant. I did know that it upset everyone, especially my father who, for the first of two times in our lives together, sat at the table crying.

 

Fast forward to a month or so later, and my mother was admitted to Phelps Memorial Hospital in Sleepy Hollow, New York, where she was scheduled for a radical mastectomy. Back then, lumpectomies and other modern treatments were little more than a researcher's dream, and a radical mastectomy was a vicious cut-to-the-bone exercise in last ditch efforts.  I later learned that Dr. Donovan, and his team, removed breast tissue, muscle and  lymph nodes down to the bones of her chest and right arm. When all was said and done, and the biopsies came back, though, the prognosis was very poor. I learned this the hard way

 

My mother was in a private room at Phelps, and the bathroom was filled with the bandages and tapes the nurses needed to change regularly. Because of this, I was told that when nature called I needed to use to bathroom down the hall. So, when nature called, I walked out to use the bathroom. As I was walking back to my mother's room I heard my father's voice. It sounded strange, like he was crying as he was trying to talk.  So I stayed outside the solarium door and snooped. Probably shouldn't have, in hindsight. The bottom line is that Dr. Donovan was very sorry, but the prognosis was " six months, and then she'll pass fairly quickly after that."  That was the second time I heard my father cry.  I went back to my Mother's room and said nothing.  For 26 years.

 

That night, my Dad and Uncle Bob shared a scotch or three when we got back from the hospital. Eavedropping again, because I was having trouble sleeping, I listened as Uncle Bob told my Dad that "six months? The little one won't even remember what she looks like."

 

When my mother came home from the hospital, I started taking pictures of her.  First in color, and then in black and white.  Hundreds of them.  I became Phillips Photo's (on Old Tarrytown Road) best customer for a few years.  A few years, because, despite the original prognosis, my Mom lived another seven years, passing away in March, 1967.  She even continued to work, as the cashier at Old Tarrytown Road Elementary School cafeteria for a few years after her operation.

 

When I was ten, I found out that photographers actually got paid for their pictures; I got a shot, with my Kodak Instamatic, of Uncle Bob accepting a trophy after he won a golf tournament.  He sent it in to a friend at the New York Daily News and I ended up being paid ten dollars for it. Ten dollars to a ten year old in 1961 was a fortune! I used it on my first trip to Aunt Ethel and Uncle Bill's house in Panama later that summer.

 

Serendipity and the kindness of photographic masters over the years have lead me here. i still love to shoot, and computers and software have replaced the Microdol, Dektol, hypo, stop bath, enlargers, and steel tanks of my youth. But it is still a magical art to me, and always will be.

 

Two things: First, those 26 years of silence ended in 1985 when, during an argument with my Dad, I recited the conversation he had with Dr. Donovan in 1959. It broke his heart. I am eternally sad that I didn't have the discipline to keep that to myself. Second, all but three of the thousands of photographs I made of my mother were destroyed in an apartment fire in March, 1997 thirty years, nearly to the day, from her passing.

 

November 2016

 

America has gone and done it and elected Trump to the presidency. I cannot believe that so many were taken in by this bombastic, cheeto-colored cheat. It's just beyond belief.  I'd like to personally congratulate all of his supporters on being taken in by the biggest con in the history of the world. He claimed he was going to "drain the swamp" and sweep out all the old guard and bring a new Washington to life, and then proceeds to nominate, you guessed it, much of the old guard to positions of power. He's also hell bent on ignoring the laws regarding nepotism while merrily bringing in his family members into positions of power.  On top of all that, he is planning on reducing taxes, not for the people who need a tax break but for people like him: The ultra rich. So much for the common man and woman.  We are so screwed.  And when the feces hits the fan, all you mouth breathers that voted for him will blame the media.  Guess what?  The media wasn't in the voting booth with you.  You did it to yourselves.  So congratulations, idiots.

 

 3 March 2016

 

Well, a good bit of time has passed since my last entry, and much has happened... but the main thing, the unbelievable thing, is that Donald Trump is the front runner in the Republican party's bid to elect a president.

 

I can only ask myself "is America truly THAT stupid to seriously consider Donald Trump as a viable candidate?"  The answer seems to be a resounding yes, and not just among the mouth-breathing jingoist/racist/supremacist crowd, either.  Otherwise "normal" Americans are falling for his b.s. in droves, apparently, with absolutely no eye on either the future OR Trump's past.

 

The bottom line with Trump is that the only thing he is truly good at is self-aggrandizement.  He believes in nothing beyond himself and is a panderer of galactic proportions.  He has failed, time and again, at his business ventures, which doesn't seem to bother anyone as he blames each failure on "the government" while, in reality, each failure was the result of simple bad management and overspending. The real issue is that each of his failures haven't cost him a dime; his failures came on the backs of thousands of employees and sub-contractors who walked away from each of his failures with nothing or, in the case of the latter, ten percent of what they earned, if they were lucky.

 

I know this because I know ex-Trump employees and sub-contractors, and not in the way Trump "knows" people... I know them as true friends and former neighbors, people who lost jobs, retirement accounts, homes and futures while Trump thrived.

 

So now we Americans are looking at a world that needs cool, reliable and knowledgeable leadership, none of which apply to the bloviating Mr. Trump.  If by some enormous political misfortune his (and the Koch Brothers') billions buy him a four year lease on Pennsylvania Avenue we will see the end of the world as we know it. America will be lucky to simply "be" much less be great again.

 

 30 August 2015

 

Katrina

 

Ten years ago, I was sent to New Orleans on assignment and embedded with Customs and Border Protection air assets in Hammond, a suburb to the north of town. I'd been to New Orleans a couple dozen times before and it was (and remains) one of my favorite cities for a host of reasons... the cuisine, the music, the people, the architecture among them. It was heartbreaking to see what had happened, and more heartbreaking when one realized that one of the main reasons for all the suffering could be attributed to so many stupid reasons, beyond the delayed reaction of authorities to the disaster.  I'm told, for example, that the Army Corps of Engineers (ACoE) spent nearly $250 million on a study to determine the feasibility of building an island in Lake Pontchartrain upon which one of the tribes would build a casino. The year before, the ACoE spent one-fifth of that amount on another study that determined, not surprisingly, that a Category 2 hurricane would overwhelm the levee/pump system.  At least someone knew what was coming.

 

 Mayor Ray "Chocolate City" Nagin (his own nickname for the city, lest you think I am waxing racist) made a number of unbelievably stupid decisions as well.  The worst, in my opinion, was to forbid the school system to use the thousands of school buses as evacuation vehicles. Instead to taking forty or fifty thousand people out of town, they ended up sitting, unused, in ten feet of fetid lake water while the almost exact number they could have gotten out of town roasted in the Super Down or sat in the tropical sun in front of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.  On that note (the convention center) while thousands baked, hungered, thirsted and, in some cases, died in front ot the Morial center, a couple dozen terrified Louisiana national guard troops stood watch over tens of thousands of MREs and untold gallons of water on the Morial loading docks.  Neither made it to the crowds in front -  the guardsman were afraid of the riot that would have ensued... or so I am told.  Who knows what the real story is or was.

 

One of the more pointed facts about Katrina is that the destruction was not limited to New Orleans... they just got the lions share of the press coverage, probably because so much of what happened, particularly in downtown and the Lower Ninth, could have and should have been prevented. But out in Placquemine Parish and points east, the sheer brutality of Katrina's power was beyond humbling.

 

The shot to the left was a neighborhood of town homes.  The pool has a car in it, and there are a few intact roofs, but the homes themselves are piles of lumber... not the piles of lumber that you see here, those are from the waterfront homes.  What's left of THESE homes are in piles a mile or so further inland.

 

 This was where the storm actually came ashore, unhindered, and at full Category 3 strength.  As bad as the situation was in New Orleans proper, if the storm had veered a little to the west, just 20 miles or so, and hit with this kind of ferocity, there's little doubt that the casualty figures would have been in the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands a New Orleans would have looked like the photo at the left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These were pilings for the L and N Railroad bridge across Bay St. Louis. The pilings for the I-90 bridge across the bay, seen below, fared no better. This was the area where the 150 MPH storm literally blew perpendicular to the coastline, evidenced by the fact that the elevated signs for Circle Ks and Waffle Houses, erected parallel to the wind, were left intact while the only recognizable thing where the Waffle Houses stood were their ubiquitous red stools, bolted to the slabs,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Route 90 at Bay St. Louis. The road, all six lanes, was just gone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then there are the photos you have to think about... this one shows a 40-odd foot shrimp boat in the middle of a pine forest... Two things:  The L and N Railroad tracks (you can see the grading at the bottom of the photo) on the west side of Bay St. Louis are about a mile from the water.  And the boat came straight down into the forest, which is why you don't see broken trees right next to it.  Think about the power it took to do that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, there's the I-90 Condo... if you look closely at the top left of the photo, you can see the twin of this building - which just floated, more or less intact, into the middle of the road during the storm.  I love all the Caterpillar D9s and earth movers surrounding it as if they're trying to figure out what to do with it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ten years on, the Lower Ninth is still reeling.  Nagin is a chump who is now a federal prisoner thanks to serial dishonesty. He was the kind of self-serving bastard that set New Orleans up for what happened... pretending to care while lining his pockets.

 

 

 26 June 2015

 

 Welcome to the first day of my first blog. I have no idea what it is I want to do with this, yet, but I'll figure it out.

 

Today is actually a landmark day in America... the Supreme Court has decided that gays and lesbians are deserving of equal treatment under the law. This is, in my opinion, a good thing, if only because now the government can concentrate on the rest of the problems this country faces... like racism, equal pay for equal work... you know, the basic stuff.

 

One day, we may all be considered equal, and equally deserving. I hope that day comes in my time.

 

Enough politics. My new site is up and running, and nowhere near as crowded and confusing as it was. It's built on a combination of Adobe Muse and Adobe Dreamweaver; at some point Adobe will listen to the Muse community and add the functionality we are all clamoring for. In the meantime, I'll just keep coding in both and hope for the best.

 

Welcome to the site!