Happy Tax Day!
A FRIENDLY REMINDER OF WHY YOU NEED TO VOTE!
Some days we just need to be quiet. That explains why I’ve not posted anything extra over the weekend. With the weather being better, I was able to relax and sleep, repairing some of the damage done by almost two straight weeks of rain. When I wasn’t sleeping, I watched the news unfold in Gaza, sitting outside with the dogs, and enjoying Tipper celebrating her birthday. The kids managed to mow the lawn without too much arguing. The dogs rolled around over the fresh-cut grass. We watched as a neighbor’s two-year-old tried kicking a soccer ball and missed repeatedly.
I mentioned yesterday about the huge furry head Tipper got for her birthday. It’s roughly three times the size of her normal head with blue and black fur and a textured face that looks rather vicious. She decided to wear it while G was moving, along with her white and red cape. It was an interesting look.
We have a lot of families who walk through the neighborhood when the weather is nice. A family with a little one, probably 14-16 months old, was out about the same time as the kids. The little guy was already fussy. He absolutely wanted to be carried. Then, he saw Tipper. The volume of his screams went up enough that I heard them from inside the Recovery Room. The little guy was wrapped around his dad’s leg, screaming as much as his little lungs allowed. I think his dad thought the baby was just continuing to fuss, but the look on this baby’s face said otherwise. I’d be willing to be Tipper was in his nightmares last night!
Today iLearn testing begins in Indiana. This is that wonderful time of year when the state attempts, miserably, to make all our multi-shaped personalities fit into the round hole that adults think they need to fit. I cannot say enough bad things about standardized testing. Studies have repeatedly shown how deficient they all are, and iLearn continues to be one of the worst ever conceived. Neurodivergent children are especially misserved during this testing. There are limited resources to help kids get through these tests and if you don’t know about them and advocate for your children, they won’t get the help. I hope our kids will grow up and outlaw this imbecilic means of pushing children toward sameness rather than glorifying their individuality.
We’re still keeping a close eye on the Middle East. President Biden has said that the US will not help Israel retaliate. What the weekend proved, however, is that we can help minimize the effects of attacks without setting foot on soil. Israel is not a member of NATO, yet we are spending MILLIONS to help them defend themselves against attack. Why won’t we do the same for Ukraine? If one deserves our help, there’s no reasonable argument for denying the other. Either we’re in, completely, or we’re out. We can’t afford to let Russia win any more than we can afford to give Iran any manner of foothold. Both are controlled by absolutely insane people who have no concern for human life. We need to put them both out of commission.
G told me yesterday that he needs AA batteries. So, I put together a small order that’s being delivered this morning. A third of the cost is taxes and fees that I wouldn’t need to pay if I could drive. 😒This drives me nuts. On the bright side, it was here before 7:30.
It’s been over three weeks since I’ve set foot outside the confines of the yard. I’m feeling that maybe it’s time to get out again. We’ll see how safe I feel wandering with the dogs today. Meanwhile, Solaris has the zoomies. No place on the bed is safe.
Let’s talk briefly about this morning’s picture. It was taken almost exactly 16 years ago. This is the first time we shot with Alicia. The rain you see is real, not manufactured. We originally processed the 8-megapixel image in black-and-white because technology at the time barely made the rain visible in color. For this morning, we took the processed .TIFF file (because I don’t have the RAWs) and colorized it, then enhanced the texture to pick up on the rain.
Alicia was just stepping into modeling. Her eldest son, Benjamin, was still the tiniest little guy. Now, she’s happily married, living in Florida, and has two more little buggers running around keeping her busy. Looking back on memories like this makes me smile, and make me very happy there was no lightning that morning. I miss moments like this and cherish them to the core of my being.
Taking Pictures That Offend
Almost everyone has taken a photo they wished later hadn’t happened. Maybe it was on a drunken spree with friends, or a vacation where it didn’t seem to matter. Perhaps you were caught making a funny face as you sneezed. There are a lot of embarrassing pictures floating around all over the Internet. We tend to laugh at them and move on.
Other pictures might have seemed okay when they were taken but didn’t age well. For example, those intimate pictures of you and your spouse felt loving and romantic when you took them. The day after the divorce is finalized, though, the pictures feel offensive. I’ve gotten take-down requests for such pictures multiple times over the years and, most of the time, I reluctantly oblige.
Life isn’t so simple for a photojournalist, however. They don’t have time to “set up” a shot. They don’t get to choose better-looking “models.” They don’t get to wait until the light is better, and they never have a full crew hanging around to make sure everyone looks their best. Photojournalists take the shot that’s in front of them. That’s all. They don’t run the subject past an editor first. They don’t have time to get permission from everyone involved. The moment happens, you take the shot. That’s the job.
Such appears to have been the case on October 7 last year when amateur photojournalist Ali Mahmud took a picture that won the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism‘s Photo of the Year. Nikon and the Associated Press jointly sponsor the award. In the midst of Hamas’ attack on a music festival being held in Israel, Mahmud snapped a photo that includes an image of the corpse of a German-Israeli citizen killed by Hamas terrorists. The image’s content is horrible, frightening, and offensive. However, the photographic quality is on point. The image provokes emotions and captures the reality of war. War is not pretty.
Plenty of people are upset that Mahmud won the award. They claim the photo dishonors the memory of the young woman killed. Some are protesting both the school and the sponsors of the award. Their opinion is that he is taking advantage of a person who was killed in this act of war.
Director of Photojournalism at the Missouri School of Journalism’s Reynolds Journalism Institute, Lynden Steele defends the decision: “The Reynolds Journalism Institute and Pictures of the Year strongly condemn the Hamas attack on October 7, and we continue to mourn the loss of innocent lives and human suffering that is occurring in the ongoing conflict. Reactions to the team Picture Story of the Year express the greater emotions related to that conflict. This year and every year, the photos in the competition are selected by a panel of professional journalists tasked with identifying compelling representations of the significant news events of the year. While we understand the reactions to the pictures, we also believe that photojournalism plays an important role in bringing attention to the harsh realities of war.”
Now, to be fair, there is some reasonable concern that Mahmud and those he was with (including a videographer) may have only been in the position to capture the photo because they had advance knowledge of the attacks. If they did have advance knowledge of the attacks, they had a responsibility to report those attacks. There’s not a lot of question on that matter. However, Mahmud denies having any such knowledge. He was just there, part of the crowd, as these horrible things happened in front of him.
Here’s the thing: war is offensive. From its start until its final cease-fire, there is nothing about war that is acceptable. To illustrate war with benign images of explosions from high above, pictures of warplanes flying in the sky, or even soldiers hiding safely behind a wall, is immoral because it removes the danger, the disregard for life, the utter destruction, and the gut-wrenching reality of war’s horrors. There is no way to adequately, honestly, sufficiently capture war without showing crushed, broken, bombed, shot, hung, and dishonored naked bodies of innocent people who didn’t ask to be involved in the conflict.
We don’t want photos of war that are so watered down that we can’t see the war. We need to be offended by war lest we accept it as a normal part of life. We need to be angry about those who initiate and those who perpetuate war. We need to be disturbed that there are people among us who find these detestable conditions acceptable. Anything less is immoral and makes us accessories after the fact to the murder and destruction taking place.
Yes, the photo makes my stomach turn. No, the young woman didn’t deserve what happened to her. Yes, this is a photo we need. We need to see what really happened. Words are not enough. We need the photo and it deserves the award.
No, I’m not going to show it to you.
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