Oct 29 2006
Sunburst on the Fraser
I don’t know what Dave’s on about below. Lay off the Grey Goose Dave. Here’s a picture I took today walking the dog along the river.
Archive for October, 2006
Oct 28 2006
Randomly thoughtful with a snootful of Grey Goose
Well now, since I’m home alone at 11:40* on a Saturday night, I thought I’d bore you with the thoughts in my head.
(Side note: as I begin typing this, my ancient dog is making his slow, painful way up the stairs. In his younger days, Maxx would bound up and down those stairs at hypersonic speed. When he would engage in what Julie and I called “crazy dog mode,” he’d take those stairs three at a time, bolt to our room and hop up on our very high bed, spin around, leap off, and come barreling down the stairs again, then tear through the living room, dining room, and kitchen on his way back to do the stairs again…all in the space of 20 seconds. Alas, that journey would take him five minutes now - if he were to embark upon it - not that he’d ever actually complete it. He lost the ability to get up on our bed unassisted quite a few months ago.)
My friends James and Kathy just left a few minutes ago. They called me earlier tonight to see if I’d like to join them for a bite to eat - Julie being out of town for the weekend - so I went to Longo’s and had me a bowl of so-so chicken minestrone. We came back here to watch Good Night, and Good Luck, an excellent movie about Edward R. Murrow and his battle with Sen. Joe McCarthy.
There’s really no mystery as to why George Clooney decided to make this movie now. The parallels between McCarthy’s witch hunts and the current Administration’s tactics of calling anyone who disagrees with their policies as “traitors” or “terrorist sympathizers” are obvious. We were particularly struck by one particular scene, part of which I quote here. Keep in mind this is not a flight of fancy on Clooney’s part, but an actual transcript from a broadcast in 1951:
The Reed Harris hearing demonstrates one of the Senator’s techniques. Twice he said ‘The American Civil Liberties Union was listed as a subversive front.” The Attorney General’s list does not and never has listed the ACLU as subversive, nor does the FBI or any other federal government agency. And the American Civil Liberties Union holds in its files letters of commendation from President Truman President Eisenhower, and General MacArthur.Earlier, the Senator asked, “Upon what meat does this our Caesar feed?”. Had he looked three lines earlier in Shakespeare’s “Caesar” he would have found this line, which is not altogether inappropriate. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”No one familiar with the history of this country can deny that Congressional committees are useful. It is necessary to investigate before legislating but the line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one and the junior Senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly.
We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason. If we dig deep in our history and doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men not from men who feared to write, to associate, to speak and to defend the causes that were for the moment unpopular.
This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy’s methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history but we cannot escape responsibility for the results. We proclaim ourselves, indeed as we are the defenders of freedom wherever it continues to exist in the world but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.
The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn’t create this situation of fear he merely exploited it, and rather successfully. Cassius was right. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” Good night, and good luck.
I’m quite sure there are plenty of people walking around this country that would disagree with me drawing parallels between the Bush administration and Crazy Joe McCarthy. But parallels there are: easily disproved falsehoods, vilification of those with dissenting opinions, attempt to subvert law for political purposes. The main thing that saved us from McCarthyism was that he was not the Chief Executive, but a junior senator from the upper Midwest. And his downfall came when he pissed off Ike by attacking his beloved Army. This time around, the Army is pissed off, and it’s the Chief Executive who’s doing the pissing.
For those of you still reading: here’s the reason I’m home alone tonight. Last night around 9:45, a call came in from Jackie D., a good friend of Julie’s from NYC. Her father passed away unexpectedly yesterday. Julie, being Julie, had long since made friends with Jackie’s parents - Jul called them her “Jewish parents” and they’d sent her Hannukah gifts and whatnot. They seemed like very cool people. Jackie is understandably quite thrown by all this, and Julie had told her when the time came she’d be there. So a quick trip to Continental.com and an early morning flight had her in New Jersey before noon today, to help with preparations and to take some of the burden from Jackie and her mother.That’s my Julie. I know I can’t be as good a friend to others as Julie is, but then I don’t know many people who can be. She’s just amazing, my wife.
Oct 22 2006
Indian Summer, Ft. Langley
I’m not gonna bullshit ya. I’m pretty proud of this shot :)
I took this earlier today on our way to Ft. Langley where we had lunch. I should have been working but I was convinced this would be the last weekend of sunshine and warmth before winter bites our asses. We drove to the ferry and walked on to avoid the five sailing wait. This photo was shot standing on the bridge that crosses a small arm of the river just before reaching the Fort. It’s actually a blend of two exposures, one for the sky and the other for the foreground. The shots were hand-held and didn’t line up very well at all but I don’t think you can spot the blend.
Oct 07 2006
Testing Lightbox Plugin
These photos were taken just the other day while out walking with Diana (human) and Dixie (canine but don’t tell her) along Airport Rd in Pitt Meadows BC. I didn’t have the camera with me at the time but I noticed the light and wished I had. At the end of the walk I just had to grab my camera and go back (it’s literally 20 seconds by car from our house). There’s a number of photos in the series but these are some of my favorites. The photos are straight out of the camera, they didn’t even touch Photoshop. I look forward to playing with them. They’re presented here using a common set of scripts knows as “Lightbox” and implemented on the blog using a Wordpress plugin.