PotD / Social Commentary

Getting By With A Little Help

November 17, 2015

But what we can do, as flawed as we are, is still see God in other people, and do our best to help them find their own grace. That’s what I strive to do, that’s what I pray to do every day.—Barack Obama

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]The cane sits close to my desk, just in case I need the help. I hate the damn thing. I hate the sight of it, and even more the fact that I should probably use it more than I do. Rain will force me to use it today, I already know. Tomorrow may be another such day as well. With winter beginning to set in, the days when I need the help are going to begin outnumbering the days I don’t. I am somewhat pissed off by the knowledge there are 80-year-old men out running marathons while I can’t get down the hall to the bathroom without assistance.

I never have liked asking for help. Somewhere in my head, for some reason, me asking for help is a sign of weakness. I don’t mind others asking for help when they need it, though I am slightly annoyed when a certain five-year-old asks for help tying her shoes when she’s yet to try for herself. I don’t want to ask anyone for help and I don’t like so often being in a position of needing help that, at times, it feels as though I can’t do anything without some form of assistance. Losing any bit of my independence strikes deep at my soul, leads to depression and questioning my own value in the world. I have quite possibly thrown my cane across the floor in frustration.

Yet, here I am again this morning, needing to lean on something, or someone. I woke up this morning barely able to move. Independence is a myth. I’ve become reliant on Kat and some days when she has to be gone for prolonged periods I often limit my own activities for fear that, should something happen, there’s no one here to help (the cats are absolutely no help at all). When I go for a walk, I have to make sure my phone is well charged in case I should fall, become lost or confused, or need a ride home.

I never expected to have these limitations at this age and it angers me to no end that I can’t keep up with everyone else on the planet. Needing help, even from an inanimate object totally under my control, is emotionally deflating.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]I am one of the lucky ones. Despite my challenges, I have always known that someone has had my back; friends who have made sure I had something to eat, that drove me to doctors appointments, and kept a roof over my head. Not everyone is so fortunate. Nearly four million people in the United States will experience homelessness this year. Of those, almost 60 thousand of those are veterans; 1.3 million are children. They’re just out there, on their own, struggling to exist.

The second stanza of the poem on the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor reads:

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

At this very moment, there are 10,000 Syrian refugees, and more from other war-torn countries, waiting at our shore, looking for help. Yet, because of the cowardly actions of a handful of Daesh morons, there are many of us wanting to hide behind a wall of fear and not let them in. We would rather let them starve or die of hypothermia than accept the risk that comes with being compassionate.

If America has become this country who is afraid too afraid of the shadow of terrorism to keep the refugees of that terrorism alive, then we have lost every last shred of our independence; our fear cripples us just as severely as arthritis in my back and legs. I have a cane on which I can lean, and friends ready to help. The millions homeless and those fleeing terror need help as well. The time has come to step up and be that help.[/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

Grumpy Old Man

November 16, 2015

Am I grumpy? I might be. But I think maybe sometimes it’s misinterpreted.—Harrison Ford

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I don’t think of myself as a smoker. I don’t like cigarettes at all; can’t stand the damn things. I light my pipe when the situation around me is frustrating and I need to detach and focus on something that doesn’t involve sending my blood pressure further into the stratosphere. Surprisingly, the need to do so doesn’t occur as often as one might think. And yeah, I know it’s better to use a match than a lighter, but hey, expediency was important, not the quality of the smoke. If you’re going to bitch at me, go away. I’m grumpy.

It was determined long ago, before I was even 30, that I would eventually become a Grumpy Old Man. How that was evident at such a young age, I don’t know. Perhaps I’ve always been fussy. I do know that I’ve always had a short fuse and very little tolerance for stupidity, which seems to have grown dramatically. In fact, I’m willing to bet that the world’s overly abundant ignorance is another contributing factor to my blood pressure issues. The universe should be paying for my medicine. Grumpy Old Man status has been achieved and the morons of the world, all seven billion of them, are to blame.

What I wouldn’t have guessed some 30 years ago is that there would be so very much Grumpy Old Man fodder; it’s everywhere. Let’s start with the idiots in the neighborhood who apparently don’t recognize a stop sign when they see it. The signs for the all-way stop are not hidden behind trees or difficult to see from a distance. No, the people running them are just completely selfish assholes who don’t give a damn about anyone’s safety, including their own. I may have been seen standing out in the street yelling at them more than once, hoping their cars blow up. Why? Because I’m a Grumpy Old Man.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]I was recently complaining about the fools running the stop signs and someone referenced the character of Mr. Wilson from Hank Ketcham’s cartoon, Dennis the Menace. I can support that comparison. Mr. Wilson was someone who just wanted some peace and quiet in his retirement years, and low-and-behold the Mitchells move in next door and give birth to one of the brattiest little kids to ever don a pair of overalls and carry a slingshot. Understand, Dennis wasn’t even old enough for school. Why the hell did the kid have a slingshot? I can totally understand Mr. Wilson’s frequent frustration.

The world needs grumpy old men. If it weren’t for us, the rest of the world would be grabbing another beer and continually shouting, “Hey, watch this!” How do you think terrorist groups are formed? There obviously were no grumpy old men around to slap the insolent jackasses upside the head when they first suggested killing large numbers of people for the attention. What were they thinking, that the collective peoples of the world would just say, “Oh, you poor thing, here, have a cookie?” No, the world responds by blowing the fucking morons to smithereens. Asswipes.

I am quite content to take on the Grumpy Old Man role; I’m settling into it and it feels as comfortable as an old sweater. At some point, I’m going to need a larger front porch on which I can set a rocking chair so that the visual impact of the role is complete. I’m also going to need a dog that growls at anyone smelling of fancy men’s perfume. Being a Grumpy Old Man is my right, my destiny, and I happily embrace this important social position. Now, hand me my pipe and stay the fuck off my lawn! [/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

Those We Hold Dear

November 14, 2015

Dear sisters and brothers, we realize the importance of light when we see darkness.—Malala Yousafzai

Katherine (2015)

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I was up early this morning, reading through the various news accounts of all that has happened in the past twenty-four hours. Even before I kicked myself out of bed, I wondered if I should abandon our theme and speak directly to the tragedies that have taken place. Without a doubt, this is a very solemn morning and it is not inappropriate that we might gather those we hold dear, hug each one tightly, and be thankful for the breath we breathe.

We have been reminded, once again, that tragedy is a severe part of the human existence. Those who are precious to us, whose lives are most dear, can be taken quickly, and it doesn’t take terrorists for that to happen. As I was scrolling through my newsfeed this morning, there was a taste of sadness much more personal and close to home in the small town of Red Oak, Oklahoma, where a dear soul suffered a heart attack and died as the library she managed was robbed. Red Oak is a small town of about 400 people, from where my brother and I graduated high school. The loss of one there is perhaps even more upsetting to that community that the loss of well over a hundred in Paris.

Faces around the world are filled with sadness, anger, and disbelief this morning. For far too many people, pictures of dear ones are now all they have left, underscoring yet again why photographs are so important. Faces of those we love are not faces we wish to ever forget, no matter what happens in the near or distant future. We want to remember the smiles, the laughter, the silliness, the greatness, the beauty, and the uniqueness of those we love. The relatively small price of portraits is irrelevant compared to the value of the memories these pictures hold.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Kat may throw something at me when she sees the caption under her picture this morning. “Only my dad calls me Katherine,” she’ll likely say. I’ll remind her that I also used the boys’ full names with their pictures earlier in the week and am just being consistent. She will, depending upon the presence of children, toss me a look or a gesture communicating her displeasure, then continue with her reading.

I take many more pictures of Kat than what I post, but of all this year’s portraits this one may be my favorite. I don’t know what anyone else sees, but I look at this photograph and see the face of one who loves to love; not just me, not just her children, but most anyone she meets who isn’t a complete asshole. Here is a face of one who forgives, encourages, sacrifices, and labors for those she holds dear; one who has served her country and values its freedoms. I love this face.

The winds that have plagued Indianapolis the past two days are finally calm. Dear friends in Paris are confirmed safe and well. Children have slept past their typical far-too-early wake-up time. Tragedy and terror and sadness are not going to overwhelm the day here.

Not everyone in the world shares that reality, though, and our heart goes out to those who wake up this morning without the face of that loved one to greet them, whether in Paris, or Red Oak, or anywhere else. Through all that has happened, and whatever might yet come, may we all know Peace, may we all find Hope, and may the faces of those we hold dear bring us Joy.[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD / Social Commentary

Love, Everyone

October 3, 2015

Welcome Home (2013)

Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.—Buddha

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]What’s wrong with people? I look through the news this morning and all I see is hate. Republicans hate democrats. This religion hates that religion and both hate anyone who disagrees with them. White hates black, black hates white, and they both hate brown. If I were to do a quick, informal estimation, which is exactly what I’m doing right this moment, I would say that roughly 80% of what has been tossed at me this morning ultimately contains a hateful message. Where is the love? Where is the empathy? Where is any attempt at actually wanting to get along with other people.

Here’s the great paradox of the 21st century: we’re willing to spend billions of dollars (collectively) looking for love, trying to find love, improving ourselves so that we’re more lovable, but we don’t do a damn thing toward actually loving other people. We are as selfish about love as we are everything else in our lives. We want it all to come to us, knock on our door, overwhelm us with emotional goodies, and reaffirm our sense of how valuable we are to the world. We define love not as something we feel toward other people, but by the quantity of warm fuzzies other people give to us.

In other words: we don’t have a fucking clue. For all the talk about love, we fail to realize that love is an act of giving, not an act of receiving. Love is not something that happens to you, but something you distribute to others. Love is not doing something based on what you feel, but what you feel based on what you’ve done. Love is active, not passive. Love is not something to be found, but something we create, from the center of our being, so that we might give it to someone else. Love is not narrowly limited to a familial relationship, but an over-arching sense of inclusiveness and responsibility to the greater good of humanity.

Love holds no bias, nor fear, but includes everyone.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]So, we are, and have been for a while, at this point in the United States where we have had more mass shootings (where more than four people are shot), than there have been days in the year. We foolishly ask why this keeps happening. Some want bans on weapons. Some want tighter control on those with diagnosed mental disorders. Some want everything locked down and stored in a box where no one can get to it. None of those are solutions. We cannot solve with legislation what was not caused by government in the first place. There is only one reason we keep shooting ourselves: we’ve forgotten how to love.

It was a mere 45-50 years ago that we, my generation and those just older than us, were all about peace, and love, and happiness. We were sure that we could change the world with love, and ultimately we were correct, but we didn’t see it in the way we thought we would see it. We thought love would give us things, take away responsibility, make life more relaxed. What we failed to realize is that love creates responsibility and when we fail that responsibility, we fail love. Love doesn’t just chug along like a toy train circling the Christmas tree. Love requires maintenance, effort, and a completely selfless attitude.

Where is the American society failing? Don’t blame government, Republican orDemocrat. Don’t blame religions, present or absent. Don’t blame race or economics. Blame the total and complete absence of love. We’ve stopped loving, we’ve stopped teaching our children to love, and we’ve stopped letting love be the guide by which we live our lives. In a world where we’ve all but thrown love out the window, is it any wonder that society has gone to hell in a handbasket?

Love, everyone. You won’t learn how until you try.[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD / Social Commentary

Shame, No Shame

October 1, 2015

All Wash(er)ed Up (2010)

In the face of patriarchy, it is a brave act indeed for both men and women to embrace, rather than shame or attempt to eradicate, the feminine.—Alanis Morissette

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I grew up being taught that everyone had a responsibility to work hard. Both my parents worked long hours. I had my first paycheck at 14. Sitting around idly isn’t something I do well. I fail to understand this act of binge-watching television series because after about an hour everything in my body tells me I need to be up being productive. We were taught that it didn’t matter what you did, that all jobs contributed to the greater good and deserved people’s respect. Looking down on, or shaming someone, just because of their occupation was about as rude and ignorant a thing one could do.

So, as I’ve grown up and gotten a taste for how the world actually is, I am continually disappointed when this particular sin of shaming other people shows up, typically denigrating a friend for something they’ve done to feed themselves and/or their family, complete with name-calling and harassment. As this has happened within my circle of friends three times in the past five days, I’m calling bullshit on the shame patrol. There is no shame in working hard, no shame in getting one’s hands (and body) dirty, no shame in sweating hard, and certainly no shame in doing jobs you don’t especially like just to keep the lights on and food on the table.

One of the earliest impacts on my sense of work ethic was a WWII veteran named Warren Hartsocks. A short, stocky man who never lost his buzz cut, Hartsocks had dropped out of school to join the military. The US Army taught him to be a mechanic and that’s what he proceeded to do the rest of his life. If you came across Hartsocks during the day, he was likely wearing a well-stained wife-beater t-shirt and baggy grey pants, equally stained. He was missing most his teeth, eternally had an unlit stogie in the corner of his mouth, had a vocabulary that would make a sailor blush, and in the summer his body odor could get pretty strong. People called him a dirty, foul-mouthed mechanic and tried to avoid him, but he worked hard for every dime he made, was a gentle soul, and took the time to teach me how to fish. [/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]The list of occupations society often shames is too long, but here’s a list of the ones that I see most often:

Retail workers, because, you know, those clothes at the mall just jump on the rack by themselves.
Construction laborers; that house you live in just built itself.
Mechanics, like you can change a fucking tire by yourself.
Strippers, cam girls, etc., one of the truest forms of capitalism’s supply and demand.
Grocery baggers, who carry your chips and ice cream so you won’t snag a nail.
Janitors, because lord knows you’re too busy to empty the damn trash yourself.
Farm workers, laboring sunup to sundown because you just have to have strawberries in December.
Meat packers, constantly covered in blood.
Food service employees, because minimum wage would make them too rich.
Truck drivers, on the road too long to get you those damn strawberries.

I can only think of one occupation that deserves shame: Politicians. Our country’s founders envisioned elected office to be one of public service, not privilege or power, and certainly not one that led to wealth. The concept was that a person would give a period of time to serve the people from their elected districts, not pander to ridiculous ideologues and corporations with deep pockets. Politicians inherently serve only their own interests at the expense of the rest of us. They have taken us from being a democracy to an oligarchy. Public office was never designed to be a position of profit, but one of giving to one’s country.

Too many days I go to bed totally disappointed in the human race. We shame those who work the hardest and praise those who contribute to our demise. Perhaps the real shame is on us all.[/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

Lies, Lies, & More Lies

September 30, 2015

charles i. letbetter - lies, lies, and more lies

charles i. letbetter - lies, lies, & more lies

Bathed in White (2010)

Men are liars. We’ll lie about lying if we have to. I’m an algebra liar. I figure two good lies make a positive.—Tim Allen

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Once upon a time, in murky-memoried days of my youth when I really didn’t know what was going on, my father used to refer to that month before an election as lying season. He would be disturbed to find that the season is pretty much continual now, with neither a start nor end point. There’s no truth coming out after an election, politicians just spread the lies on that much thicker and because they’re fed through a media machine in the form of soundbites, we swallow the greater percentage of those lies, hook, line, and sinker.

Gullible is what we are. We want so desperately to believe our leaders that we’ll believe them when they say something so enormously stupid such as, “Planned Parenthood only exists to perform abortions.” That’s nonsense and we know it, but apparently we’re not doing a good enough job calling them on it. We just let them lie.

Of course, we’re pretty good at that lying thing, too. The biggest lie we tell is, “I’m fine.” No, we’re not. We’re depressed, concerned, hurting like hell both physically and emotionally, tired of having to suck it up day in and day out to just keep things around us from falling apart, and we’re sick as fuck of all the lies. We’re done with people telling us they have a solution when they don’t even have a firm grasp of the problem. We’re upset. We’re pissed off. We’re worn out. This is the real reason so many people support marijuana legalization: we’re looking for an escape from all the bullshit.

That last line is probably a lie. I have absolutely no facts to back it up, but hey, it sounds good and fits my political opinion. If I repeat it enough times you’ll believe it, maybe. [/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]I am amused that we have to have truth-telling websites such as Snopes.com and Politifact.com to help us determine what’s a lie and what isn’t. To demonstrate how bad it is, I’ll post some recent lies, and then the link to the truth. You decide whether you want to click the link or believe the lie.

“When I left Washington, we had a $5 trillion surplus.” Uhm, wrong.
You can get a free Tiffany diamond ring by commenting on a video on Facebook. You know better.
Obamacare doesn’t require members of Congress “to abide by the same rules that all of the other Americans do.” Bullshit.
A video depicts Muslim refugees in the Netherlands beating a teenaged girl because they don’t approve of her Western attire. Not even close.
Mexico doesn’t have birthright citizenship, and Americans are the “only ones” to have it. So says the Oompaloompa candidate with the hair. He’s just ignorant.
Muslim refugees are demanding that the city of Munich, Germany, ban Oktoberfest. Do you smell pants burning?

Lies are all around us and a big part of the reason there are so many of them is that we don’t stop sharing the damn things. We need to realize that we can’t trust cable news outlets (any of them). We can’t trust anything posted as a meme on social media. We can’t trust pretend news sources on the Internet. Everyone is lying to us.

Except the dog. Dogs don’t know how to lie.[/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

Purpose

September 19, 2015

On A Pedestal (2014)

I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose.—Charlie Chaplin

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]The universe may be making a comment on one’s day when one gets up in the morning and the first thing in the newsfeed is an article on death; specifically, how the primary causes of death have changed since 1990, a mere 25 years ago. High blood pressure still tops the list, which reminds me I need to take my pill. But then, articles like this don’t help any, either. They just make my blood pressure a little higher. You know, worry and all.

What seems obvious, looking at the primary causes of death, is that we are all committing suicide in one way or the other. Take a look at these figures:

Source: The Lancet

How many of those are the direct result of our mode of living; lifestyle choices we make, excesses in which we indulge, knowing full well the consequences but still choosing to go right ahead and tempt fate. What’s the purpose? Do we only live so that we can orchestrate our own deaths in less-than-spectacular fashion? If we are creating lives so unbearable that we must worry, smoke, drink, and overeat in order to cope, what’s the fucking point?[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Christian author and megachurch pastor Rick Warren has written and talks extensively about “the Purpose Driven Life,” and popular culture has latched onto his concepts of a religious-based purpose to living. Many other self-help gurus have done the same thing, trying to use religion, or some universal sense of spirituality as a basis for there being some reason to exist. The recently deceased Dr. Wayne Dyer once said:

Everything in the universe has a purpose. Indeed, the invisible intelligence that flows through everything in a purposeful fashion is also flowing through you.

Religion serves as the defining purpose of life for many millions of people around the world. The concept that some force greater than the individual has predetermined a course or fate for their lives is attractive because it relieves them of the responsibility of having to determine that course or establishing some purpose for themselves. If one dies inappropriately young, or endures a lifetime of poverty, then religion offers the excuse that there was some greater purpose at work.

But what if there is no universal purpose? Humans are but a blip on the timeline of history. The cosmos got along just fine developing itself and evolving and doing things before we came along. What if our presence here is of no consequential purpose at all, but rather a momentary sideline amusement while everything else takes a breather? We are, after all, apparently hell-bent upon our own destruction. How can that be of any benefit to the greater good of creation? What benefit does the universe derive from our presence?

At the moment, I’m not seeing any great over-arching purpose to humanity existing beyond this current stage of universal evolution. I suppose that, in some form or fashion, we might provide a link to whatever it is that comes next, but by the time that stage of existence comes into being we, as a species, will have long been forgotten. Perhaps, we might want to consider changing our approach.[/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

Education

September 18, 2015

Think A Minute (2013)

The paradox of education is precisely this – that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.—James A. Baldwin

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]My mother was a teacher in more ways than one. Yes, there are a few people out there who endured, and survived, the trials and tribulations of being in her classroom. She didn’t stop teaching when she walked out of the classroom, though. Education, she believed, was something that began the moment one woke up of the morning and didn’t end until one was unconscious at night. She saw the potential for making every moment a teaching moment, and she wasn’t going to let one’s education be incomplete.

Mom always said she was 5′ 2″ tall. I’m sure she was at one young point in her life. Most of my life she was about an inch shorter than that, and she continued shrinking. That never stopped her, though. She couldn’t be bullied, by administration, student, or parent. To cross her as an adult meant being on the receiving end of a tongue-lashing that damn-near drew blood. To cross her as a child meant bending over, grabbing your ankles, and being thankful her arthritis prevented her from swinging that paddle as strongly as she might. In her mind, the first thing one needed in an education was discipline and respect. One didn’t begin learning until those two things were present.

At the same time, though, Mother could be incredibly compassionate. Being the preacher’s wife in a small town meant she usually knew when a student’s family was struggling. School policy prevented her from helping a child directly, but she would find a way to make sure a child had food at home, or clean clothes, or in at least one case light by which to read. Hugs were something she handed out readily, even long after one left her classroom. After school tutoring wasn’t’ part of a program; it was just something she did as student’s had need.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Mom would not have done well in today’s schools. She understood that an education isn’t just information one learns to regurgitate on command, but how we learn to take that information and improve our lives and the lives of others. She hated standardized tests because she knew that people can’t, and shouldn’t, be standardized and neither can the education system that teaches us. She taught more by living than by lecturing. She set an example for her students that was worth following.

I look now at how schools have changed and want to cry. We have so woefully underfunded our schools that teachers show up to find absolutely no resources in their classrooms, not even textbooks or dry erase markers. We totally misunderstand the point of education when we think test scores are a sufficient or accurate measure of learning and/or teacher adequacy. Library shelves sit empty because there’s no money for books. We wonder why there’s a teacher shortage in almost every state, not realizing that by the time teachers pay for all their supplies, books for their classrooms, and materials for students, they’re not longer making a living wage!

I’m glad that the little ones can now come home and watch re-runs of Mr. Rodger’s Neighborhood on Netflix. They are thoroughly enthralled as they pick up the values education that are no longer part of the school curriculum. Education for them is a very different experience than it was for my sons, and almost unrecognizable compared to my experience. That we have allowed the situation to deteriorate is inexcusable and everyone is at fault. We have no education system when we refuse to learn. Even Mother couldn’t solve that problem. [/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

Ambition

September 17, 2015

INTENSITY (2012)

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.—Helen Keller

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]There is something seriously wrong with the world when schools inspire and encourage fear and suspicion rather than learning and ambition. Fear and suspicion lead to remission, fighting, and ultimately war. Learning and ambition lead to cooperation, understand, and progress. That there is anyone in the world who promotes the negative over the positive is a point of concern, but when it is the institutions we entrust to teach and prepare the next generation, we should be furious.

On Monday of this week, news broke of a 14-year-old student at MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas who was arrested for making a clock for his engineering class. Ahmed Mohamed is a young man of Sudanese descent. In fact, his father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, ran for President of Sudan earlier this year. The whole purpose of putting Ahmed in the Texas school was to encourage his ambition in science and technology. Unfortunately, when Ahmed’s English teacher saw the briefcase containing the clock, he didn’t bother to ask the student what it was. Instead, the teacher made the false assumption that it must be a bomb and reported Ahmed to the principal, who in turn called the police.

I find it interesting that this happened at a school named after the late five-star general, Douglas MacArthur. The tough-as-nails general with a reputation for pushing his troops to their very limit, for accepting nothing short of victory, would almost certainly be embarrassed by the school. General MacArthur once said,

It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear.

The general understood that fear is always the enemy, and that ambition and learning are the solution.

School principal Daniel Cummings (972.600.7370, dacummings@irvingisd.net) made a grave error in choosing to punish Ahmed for his ambition, and deserves to be held accountable for such an egregious mistake. Fortunately, more intelligent forces across the country have attempted to make up for the school’s inadequacy. Tech giant Google invited Ahmed to it’s tech fair this weekend. Facebook founder, and soon-to-be-dad, Mark Zuckerberg invited Ahmed to visit him at Facebook’s headquarters. Officials at NASA have reportedly even offered Ahmed a job (Ahmed was wearing a NASA t-shirt when he was arrested). The growth of the hashtag #IStandWithAhmed has been dramatic.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]The bigger response came from much higher up. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan tweeted: “We need to be encouraging young engineers, not putting them in handcuffs. #IStandWithAhmed”

Then, almost immediately after Duncan’s tweet, the President weighed in with: “Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It’s what makes America great.”

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest explained further:

“The president, like many of us, was struck by the news reports of this particular incident. The fact is, America’s best teachers and our schools and our best schools, at least, nurture the intellectual curiously of all of our students. And this instance, it’s clear that at least some of Ahmed’s teachers failed him.

Ambition is one of the traits of humanity that differentiates us from animals. More than relying on instinct, we have the ability to push ourselves to do things we don’t necessarily have to do. Ambition, fueled by curiosity and the desire to move forward, is what leads to innovation, progress, and invention. Without ambition, we are no better than sloths sleeping on a tree limb.

The model shown in today’s picture was also a person of considerable ambition. Short of stature, she pushed herself, and her body, to achieve a level of strength and muscle tone that enabled her to perform feats of physical strength not generally attributed to people of her gender or profession. Her ambition led her to excel.

Earlier in his administration, President Obama was quoted as saying:

We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and wear nice clothes and live in nice apartments but don’t want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realize their full potential.

Regardless of what we want to do with our lives, ambition is required to succeed. When ambition is suppressed, discouraged, and even punitively punished, we destroy that which drives us to become better, that which improves our society, that which moves us forward. We need ambition, not only for ourselves but for others. We should never accept anything less.[/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

Point of Origin

September 16, 2015

Royalty (2011).Model: Danelle French. Face paint: Jennifer Baxter

That means that every human being – without distinction of sex, age, race, skin color, language, religion, political view, or national or social origin – possesses an inalienable and untouchable dignity.—Hans Kung

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]For as long as I can remember, I have had to answer the question, “where are you from?” No matter where I’ve lived, with no regard to how long I might have lived there, the accent with which I speak has never quite matched where I live. I’ve never minded answering the question because it seems reasonable to me that point of origin is a central part of our identity. What amuses me, though, is that as I get older and tell people I’m from Oklahoma (forget those first 12 years in Kansas), they sometimes give me a quizzical look and respond, “No you’re not. You don’t sound or act like anyone from Oklahoma.” For that, I am grateful.

Point of origin has always, throughout history, been an important part of our identity. To which tribe one belonged could mean the difference between free or slave, or even life and death. Our species began as nomadic foragers, roaming to where ever food and shelter were most readily available, but the place from where we started, our point of origin, has always been, and strongly remains, a critical factor upon which judgments, whether just or not, have been made. Inherent social construct inserts a geographic tag into our identity from which there is no escape.

One of the reasons our point of origin so often comes into question is because we, as a species, don’t stay put. Even after all the building of cities and farms, creating and fighting over national borders, and even cruel attempts at keeping people in or out of certain places, we are now more migrant than we have ever been. Our point of origin is but a GPS marker from which all our travels begin. Move so much now that scientists who study such things are referring to the 21st century as the age of the migrant. Not only are we already moving around a lot, it’s going to get worse.

We are all migrants, not because we are born as such, but we cannot help becoming such, leaving our point of origin, sometimes by choice, but with increasing frequency because we have no choice. By engaging in this conversation, it is important to understand the vocabulary. An emigrant is someone known by where they have left. An immigrant is known by where they are going. Coming or going, though, there are over one billion people on the move at any given time, and that number is growing rapidly.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Thomas Nail, a philosopher at the University of Colorado, recently published a book, The Figure of the Migrant (Stanford University Press, 2015), in which he explains:

People today relocate to greater distances more frequently than ever before in human history. While many people may not move across a regional or international border, they tend to change jobs more often, commute longer and farther to work, change their residence repeatedly, and tour internationally more often. Some of these phenomena are directly related to recent events, such as the impoverishment of middle classes in certain rich countries after the ﬁnancial crisis of 2008, subsequent austerity cuts to social welfare programs, and rising unemployment. The subprime mortgage crisis led to the expulsion of millions of people from their homes worldwide (9 million in the United States alone). Foreign investors and governments have acquired 540 million acres since 2006, resulting in the eviction of millions of small farmers in poor countries, and mining practices have become increasingly destructive around the world—including hydraulic fracturing and tar sands. This general increase in human mobility and expulsion is now widely recognized as a deﬁning feature of the twenty-ﬁrst century.

Whether to keep us out, keep us in, or simply segregate us for statistical purposes, both societies and governments are concerned with our point of origin as a defining piece of information. There is no escape. The more we move, the more we are connected to where we began. Our great migration is a tremendous force of social change and progress. The world into which one is born holds little resemblance to the one in which we die.

So, more than ever, there remains this question: where are you from?[/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

Self

September 15, 2015

The Beauty In Nature (2009)

Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.—Golda Meir

[one_half padding=”4px 0 px 0 4px”]Over the years, I think more has been written about the self than any other topic. Self-worth, self-esteem, self-identity, self-loathing, self-love, and self-help are all topics that have lined bookshelves and stores as long as humans have put ink on parchment. We are very concerned about ourselves and have little difficulty discussing ourselves endlessly, especially now that we have social media so that we can broadcast every ridiculous and trivial detail about ourselves to the entire world. With the advent of phones with cameras, we’ve even started taking voluminous pictures of ourselves, and call them selfies. We are, and always have been, quite full of ourselves.

What has been born out by countless research, however, is that for all our bravado, we really don’t like ourselves all that much. How one sees one’s self determines to a large degree how one sees others. Where we are unsure of our own qualities we find fault in others in an effort to compensate for and distract from our insecurities. We don’t like our bodies, so we shame the bodies of others. We are embarrassed by our own sexual proclivities, so we express outrage at the sexual identities of others. We feel inadequate in our own understanding of a subject, so we refer to those who are experts on that subject in as unflattering a way as possible.Every negative we see or imagine in ourselves we reflect back in some way negatively on others. [/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]For several years, self-help and self-improvement books and audio tapes have been one of the world’s best-selling genres. We understand that our view of ourselves is inferior and misguided, but we are unsure how to best address the issue. Then, studies have shown, once we purchase the book and begin to see what is required to change, we give up and stop reading. We want to improve ourselves without having to make any significant changes or sacrifice to our current lives. If possible, we would happily take a pill to make it all better, but to have to actually work toward improvement is something very few of us are disciplined enough to actually do.

So, we continue, from one generation to the next, parent to child, handing down the same foibles and shortcomings that have limited us since the dawn of our existence. We fight the same wars, often with the same group of people, we have the same arguments, we battle the same ghosts as everyone who has gone before us. We blame others for refusing to change, to grow, or evolve, not wanting to realize that the problem is more with us than with them.

We talk a lot about improving the world, but we must first start by improving ourselves.[/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

Pain

September 14, 2015

Attic Fashion (2011). Model: Sarah Harris. Hair & Makeup: Christopher Thompson. Styling: Tiffany Gilstrap Scott.

Without pain, there would be no suffering, without suffering we would never learn from our mistakes. To make it right, pain and suffering is the key to all windows, without it, there is no way of life.—Angelina Jolie

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Humans are designed with a built-in warning device called pain. We feel it soon after we are detached from our mother’s umbilical cord. Hunger is our first experience with pain. We cry and someone feeds us. The pain is our body’s way of telling us that something isn’t working correctly, that a part of us needs attention. Yet, as a society we are intolerant of pain and just as we remove the batteries from smoke detectors so that we don’t have to put up with the screeching sound going off at unexpected moments, we try to mask or cover or ignore the pain we feel. We shove the pain into our emotional attic and try to forget that it exists.

As young children, we are taught that expressing our feelings of pain is not acceptable. “Walk it off.” “Suck it up.” “No pain, no gain.” Our intent is to dissuade children from complaining about every little insignificant boo-boo they encounter. “If it’s not bleeding, you don’t need a bandage.” The longer-term effect, though, is that from those very early moments we teach children that feeling and expressing pain is a bad thing. No one wants to hear about your pain. Ignore it and it will go away. Be tough and play through the pain.

Often, however, that strategy backfires on us. My father’s youngest sister succumbed to cancer perhaps sooner than was necessary because she chose to treat the pain, not the cause. Rather than being consistent with the chemotherapy, she chose alternative treatments that only covered up the pain. Only when the pain became intolerable did she return to her doctor, and by then the cancer had spread too for treatment to be effective. She didn’t even communicate to her family that anything was wrong until the pain became debilitating. She didn’t want them to worry. She had seven children and wanted to put pain aside to care for them. While her attitude might seem noble, in the end it took her from them sooner than might have been necessary.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Part of our problem in dealing with pain is that we look at it as an inconvenience and a bother rather than the warning system it is. When, as a child, we first encounter something hot and we pull back from it, learn to treat it with some respect and don’t touch it again without taking appropriate precaution to not burn ourselves. That is an appropriate response to pain. Consider what causes the problem. Fix it, if possible. Respect what caused the pain and then take steps to not repeat the pain again. Yet, we don’t apply that formula too often once we pass the age of five. We prefer to ignore the pain and keep going.

Philosopher/poet Kahlil Gibran penned these wise words:

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses
your understanding.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its
heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the
daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem
less wondrous than your joy;

And you would accept the seasons of your heart,
even as you have always accepted the seasons that
pass over your fields.

And you would watch with serenity through the
winters of your grief.

As we get older, pain becomes a more constant part of our reality. There are some pains, both physical and emotional, that will never go away no matter what we do. Our challenge is to not look at our pain as an inconvenience, but rather an opportunity to learn.[/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

Humanity

September 13, 2015

Held Together (2010)

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.—Mahatma Gandhi

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Humanity is baffling. How can the same species that produces individuals of great caring and compassion also produce those of great hate, deceit, and cruelty? How can some countries with practically no economic standing offer to take in more refugees than they can hold while another with every economic advantage in the world prefers to build a wall? How can one claim there is sanctity in life and still desire to put people to death?

The multiple paradoxes of humanity, though, are part of what defines us. One doesn’t see other species wake in the morning pondering whether to participate in the genocide of millions. In being given the choice to choose between right and wrong, we create an everlasting and inherent struggle between doing that which preserves ourselves and acting toward the greater good. While this struggle has always been within us, we seem blind to the lessons that would be taught by the actions of others and still look for ways to justify our own selfishness and greed while doing our best to minimize the good of others.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]What makes the difference in whether make choices for the good of all or the good of ourselves is a matter of focus. When we only look in, we do not see the needs of those around us, no matter how blatantly obvious they may be. When we only look outward, we see those needs and feel compelled to respond to them, perhaps neglecting the necessity of our own care and well-being. Trying to look both directions, though, only sets up more conflict and confusion as to what we should do.

Humanity has no easy answers. To be human is to struggle, continually, with right and wrong, good and bad, selfish or selfless. Humanity has had great successes and colossal failures based on the decisions of a few individuals. When kindness is answered with greed we become monsters. When cruelty is answered with compassion we become angels. Humanity has the ability to be either, and we each decide in which camp we will reside with the dawn of every morning.[/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

Pain In The Ass

September 11, 2015

Pain in the Ass

You gotta love livin’, baby, ’cause dyin’ is a pain in the ass. —Frank Sinatra

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Today’s meme is insulting to some and offensive to many, but at 4:30 AM EDT, which is when I’m writing this, I really don’t give a shit. I didn’t care last week, either, when I created the pain in the ass meme. Sure, it’s Friday and we tend to try and shrug things off by focusing on the weekend, but I’m rather tired of having to be nice all the time and judging from several conversations I’ve had lately I get the impression that many of you are feeling the same, you just don’t feel that you can safely voice your opinion without getting into trouble.

I’m not aware of any objective research on the subject, but observationally it seems that men seem to be more likely to be a pain in the ass than women. I think it might be because we have control issues and have difficulty letting the people around us think for themselves and act in their own best interests. Guys then use their fists or declare war when they don’t get their way. What a complete pain in the ass those guys are.

Religious people are a pain in the ass to those who are not, and vice versa. For those who are not religious, we really don’t give a flying fuck what anyone else believes and we sure as hell don’t appreciate your beliefs getting in the way of things we want or need to do. For those who are religious, those who are not are a pain in the ass because they threaten and question one’s faith and cause one to second-guess what they’ve been taught.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Politicians, in general, are a pain in the ass, but at the current moment I’m especially fed up with the overly-abundant crop running for President. Every last one of them is a pain in the ass. Watch them today. This is the fourteenth anniversary of the 9/11 bombings and I’m willing to bet every last one of those jackasses manages to politicize the event rather than actually memorializing those who were lost. Done. Over them. Next, please.

People asking for money or trying to scam money are a pain in the ass. My email is full of both. Some are wanting me to support a cause. Some want me to support a politician. Some want me to take out a high-interest business loan. Fuck all of them. You know who gets my money? My family. We take care of our needs first, then, if there happens, by some miracle, to be anything left over, we’ll use it to help people who have legitimate need, not something they’ve concocted for a campaign.

Okay, so maybe I’m in a mood this morning. We all have the ability to be a pain in the ass from time to time, but there are too many people for whom being a pain in the ass has become a dominant personality trait. Everyone else on the planet is trying to make the most of their pathetic lives and we don’t need jackasses getting in the way. So, to all the pains in the ass we’ve mentioned, and those we didn’t: Fuck you, fuck off, get the fuck out of our lives. Now, enjoy your weekend.[/one_half_last]

Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this week’s photographs are strictly those of the author: charles i. letbetter, and do not necessarily reflect the attitudes or opinions of the models involved in the pictures. If you don’t like what you see, don’t blame the model. Thank you.

Art / PotD / Social Commentary

Being Awesome

September 9, 2015

charles i. letbetter - charles i. letbetter

Being Awesome

It is possible to become discouraged about the injustice we see everywhere. But God did not promise us that the world would be humane and just. He gives us the gift of life and allows us to choose the way we will use our limited time on earth. It is an awesome opportunity.—Cesar Chavez

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Awesome; some people have it in abundance, other’s couldn’t buy it if it were packaged and on the dollar store shelves. Awesome goes beyond the ability to do something different and extraordinary. Awesome is the ability to remain cool, graceful, compassionate, and approachable while setting an example worthy of being emulated. Those who are the most incredibly awesome can’t seem to help themselves; the awesomeness almost seems to come oozing from the pores in their skin. In contrast, others seem to botch everything they do and serve more as a life lesson in how not to do things; no matter how hard they try, something always goes wrong.

One of the first awesome people I ever met was the late pianist, Van Cliburn. I was only six years old when the rather reclusive, and to some, difficult, performer gave a brief exhibition somewhere close enough to us that my parents were able to take me. I had been taking piano lessons myself for a couple of years at that point, but was nowhere near the prodigy he had been. I was mesmerized watching his hands fly over the keyboard.

After he finished playing, everyone had gathered around for autographs and my mother was trying to guide me that direction, but this was also the first time I had seen a twelve-foot grand piano. I was as interested in the instrument as I was the person playing it and slipped away from my mother and sat my short little self on the piano bench. From my perspective, the piano was huge and scary.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”] I let my fingers lightly touch the keys, being very careful to not actually press one down; I was shy and attention was the last thing I wanted. But as I sat there, pretending to play scales and finger exercises, it was probably inevitable that a finger would slip. When it did, the sound coming from the piano seemed massive, though it was just a single tone. I pulled my hand back quickly and looked around for Mother, expecting to be in trouble.

Instead, the tall, lanky frame of the great pianist came over, sat next to me on the bench, and said, “Go ahead, play.” I was scared, so he took my small hands in his massive ones and placed them on the action. All I could manage to play was a simple scale. Van Cliburn, being awesome, was full of praise. “See, you did it,” he said quietly. “Don’t be afraid. You can do great things.” Awesome.

I’ve met plenty of other awesome people over the years, enough that the stories could go on for hours. The thing about truly awesome people is that one never expects them to be as awesome as they are; it just seems to happen. Yesterday, a friend took me by surprise and quietly invited a large number of people to like our Facebook page. As the numbers began to jump, it took me a moment to figure out who was responsible. Betty Blade Holly is one of those people who can’t hide the awesome.

I know there are others. Maybe you’re one of them. Don’t be afraid. Be awesome.[/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

Dust On The Trail

August 4, 2015

Dust On The Trail. Model: Lisa Petrini

A photographer is like a cod, which produces a million eggs in order that one may reach maturity. ― George Bernard Shaw

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Death can be a difficult issue to discuss with children, especially when it comes to family members. One moment, you think they have a grasp of it, then later, seemingly out of the blue, the topic comes up again with new questions that need to be answered. With a five- and a six-year-old around the house, the subject comes up surprisingly often, sometimes in ways we weren’t expecting. Trying to figure out how best to respond to those questions and situations is a mixture of wiping tears and trying to not laugh at the wrong time.

We were driving past a mortuary and its large cemetery one afternoon when Baby Girl pipes up and informs us that this was where her pre-K teacher, Miss ‘Nay, works. When questioned as to why her teacher would work at a cemetery, the little darling responded without hesitation, “That’s where she puts the people she doesn’t like.”

Miss “Nay was horrified to hear of the exchange. She’s a jolly, pleasant woman who does a great job with children, but might be a bit superstitious. “I can’t stand dead people,” she told us. “I don’t even go to funerals.”

More frequently, and certainly with less humor, it is Little Man who raises the subject, frequently in tears over the loss of his great-grandmother a couple of years ago. Trying to explain to him that people don’t live forever and that his great-grandmother had lived a long life does little to appease him. She’s not here now, and that’s what counts. At other times, though, he can look out across a cemetery and explain that once one has expired that, rather than becoming dust, our bodies become tree seeds that grow new forests. While perhaps missing a biological step or four, that perspective of a renewable life is certainly less traumatic and easier to discuss.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Growing up in rural Oklahoma, and especially the son of a minister, death was such a normal part of life for us that we were almost callous about it. After all, we played and ran in large fields where it wasn’t unusual to come across whole sun-bleached skeletons of cows. The general opinion of ranchers at the time was to only remove a cow carcass if it was diseased and posed a health risk to the herd. Coming across skulls in the dust just wasn’t that uncommon.

Western philosophies have evolved over the past couple of generations where we no longer see death’s natural role in the life cycle. Instead, we see that passing from life to dust as the ultimate unfairness, the unjust removal of someone important to our lives. We expect explanations where there are none to be had and look to blame people who are not genuinely at fault. In matters of violence that should never have happened, our sense of outrage stems from our own sense of privilege that the deceased should never have been taken from us; a warped sense that it is we, more than the dead person, who have been short-changed.

Today is the thirteenth anniversary of my mother’s sudden and very unexpected death, a mere six months and four days after my father’s passing. I was living in Atlanta and one of the challenging decisions we had to make was whether the boys should go to their Mema’s funeral. To do so would mean them missing the first two days of school, but to not take them would deny them the emotional closure we thought they might need. We left the decision up to them. They opted to not go. As one of them put it, “We’ve been to enough funerals this year.”

Life is a wonderful thing, but sooner or later we all become dust on the trail. Love now. Live now. Find peace. Embrace the full cycle of life, even when it seems unfair.[/one_half_last]

Nature / Photography / PotD / Social Commentary

Cool Water

August 3, 2015

Cool Water

All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt. ― Susan Sontag

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Water. For a lot of people across the Midwest United States, it’s something we’ve had a bit much of this summer. There’s been no short amount of rain and with it has come a significant amount of flooding, sometimes in areas that had never seen such a problem before. For all those people who are still cleaning up from the devastating effects of those floods, there doesn’t seem to be any shortage of cool water.

Wet conditions don’t prevail everywhere, though, and Western states have continued a drought that started in 2012 and is well beyond critical levels. The National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA) reports that for the month of June approximately 14 percent of the US was plagued with severe to extreme drought, an increase of five percent over May. July numbers aren’t ready yet, but don’t expect them to be any better. Good luck finding cool water around here.

If you want cool water that is actually clean and drinkable, there aren’t that many sources. The entire planet is experiencing a shortage of the stuff and the situation is getting worse. Numbers from aid organizations and charities vary a little bit, but the United Nations reports that 783 million people, that’s over one-tenth of the world’s population, does not have access to clean water. 2.5 billion people do not have adequate sanitation. What’s the resulting impact? 6 to 8 million people die annually from the consequences of disasters and water-related diseases. And if you think throwing money at the problem is the answer, you’re wrong. The UN estimates it would take 3.5 planets Earth to provide enough water to sustain the existing population at the current lifestyles common to Western Europe and the US. The UN also reports that, “By 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world population could live under water stress conditions.”

We’re not exactly doing well with this cool water thing, are we? I’m pretty sure the majority of people in the US take for granted how fortunate we are to have the easy access to clean, cool water that we do. We don’t have to walk for miles. We simply turn on a tap and it’s there. We don’t even have to worry too often about it being clean.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Aid organizations have been trying for years to draw our attention to the global water issue without too much luck. In California early this year, Governor Jerry Brown issued an executive order requiring, among other things, a 25% reduction in water usage across the board, no exceptions. Just this past week, the Internet nearly choked as pictures of Melinda Gates, wife of world’s richest man Bill Gates, was photographed carrying drinking water on her head in solidarity with women in Malawi. Still, at the end of the day, most Americans and Western Europeans ignore the looming disaster.

Today’s picture is a tempting one as we’ve created a double exposure by merging an image of a babbling brook with that of a young woman bathing in a stream. The cool water looks comfortable, refreshing, and alluring. This is a fairly complicated image that not only blends two separate photographs but changes from color to black and white as one moves from left to right across the picture. The result is a blend of emotions as our perspective of the image changes.

Back in 1963, on his album Cattle Call, which produced his signature song, singer/actor Eddie Arnold also included the song Cool Water, about a cowboy crossing the desert with his horse, Dan.

All day I’ve faced a barren waste
Without the taste of water, cool water
Old Dan and I with throats burnt dry
And souls that cry for water, cool clear water.

Dan’s feet are sore he’s yearning for
Just one thing more than water, cool water
Like me I guess he’d like to rest
Where there’s no quest for water, cool clear water

If something doesn’t change, and quickly, those are sentiments we may all soon share.[/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary / Uncategorized

Independent Thought

July 1, 2015

Tied To TV (2006)

“No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore to us the belief in our own guidance.” ― Henry Miller

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Our obsession with media was predictable, and widely predicted. Even by 1964, when television was allegedly in its Golden Age, children’s author Roald Dahl saw the enslavement factor so obvious as to include it in one of the characters in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Saying matters have only grown worse since is a severe understatement. Not only have we become more enslaved by media, but we continually create new forms of media to keep our minds, and our opinions, closely tied to whatever output mechanism manages to keep our highly unreliable attention for more than five seconds. We know we’re addicted and that our habit is bad for us, but we are absolutely unwilling to even attempt to break the cord, firm in the belief that we are better off with the knowledge that media imparts.

Granted, there was one a time when media such as printed pamphlets and newspapers were beneficial. In fact, one can reasonably argue that our country’s Declaration of Independence from England would never have happened if not for the influence and information distributed by Thomas Paine is his Common Sense pamphlet. Since 1837, the press has wielded sufficient influence as to be referred to as the fourth estate (a reference to pre-revolution French society divided into the estates: the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners). As the reach of the press grew, so did its influence. In 1897, Francis P. Church validated the presence of Santa Claus by telling little Virginia that, “If you see it in the Sun, it must be true.”

As the reach of the press grew, so did its influence. In 1897, Francis P. Church validated the presence of Santa Claus by telling little Virginia that, “If you see it in the Sun, it must be true.” Edward R. Murrow was the voice of all that was true in the 1950s and following him Walter Cronkite became known as “the most trusted man in America.” Not that everything in the field of journalism was always reliable, but there was a basis of trust and expectation of honesty that allowed people to ingest their information with a sense of security.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]The media monster to which we are now tied has no sense of security to it at all. We have gotten to the point that we allow the media we consume to do all our thinking for us. If something is not validated by our preferred source, then it simply cannot be correct. That multiple sources are never in agreement doesn’t seem to bother us. We choose sides and assume that one is always wrong while the other is always correct, when often the truth of a matter is nowhere near what we’re being told by any major source.

Thomas Paine said something that I think is poignant:

There are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts: those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord.

Notice what is missing from that definition: external influence. Not that Paine expected people to just automatically know everything, but rather he expected that they would take information, such as what he produced, and use that to think, reflect, and come to a reasonable opinion of one’s accord. There’s not accommodation here for allowing any external party to make our opinions for us. In fact, Paine and his peers would find the degree to which we’ve surrendered our thought process to be quite alarming.

Declaring Independence from media is difficult. One has a need to be reasonably informed and the expectations of today’s society are such that one’s need for information is almost immediate. At the same time, though, we should never allow that media to do our thinking for us. Talking heads spouting opinion rather than fact need to be severed from the public arena and not fed their diet of shares and likes and hashtag mentions. We need to take time to step away, to reflect on what we’ve been told and form our own opinion, then see what thoughts might bolt into our minds of their own accord. [/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

Beyond The Declaration

June 29, 2015

Patiently Waiting (2011)

“I will not be “famous,” “great.” I will go on adventuring, changing, opening my mind and my eyes, refusing to be stamped and stereotyped. The thing is to free one’s self: to let it find its dimensions, not be impeded.” ― Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Ah, Monday; that point in the week in which boss’s try desperately to pull employees back in from the distractions of the weekend, and last week, to focus on the work that lies ahead, focusing on what needs to be done next. The task is not easy. When such celebration has occurred on so many different fronts the temptation is to try and keep the party going for as long as possible. After all, who doesn’t like a party? Sure, we know one can’t party all the time, but do we really have to go back to work just yet? Can’t the celebration go on just a little bit longer?

Fortunately, there’s Facebook where we can be as shallow and meaningless as humanly possible and therefore totally deny the fact, on a cosmetic level, that there is work to be done. Half my friends have rainbow-fied their profile picture so that, as more than one person has pointed out, my newsfeed looks somewhat like a Skittles™ factory just exploded all over the place. That alone will keep us from ignoring the important strides that were made last week. Everyone jump on the bandwagon, even if you can’t plan an instrument.

Independence doesn’t stop on one event, though, and for many people today is just another Monday. The kids are off to daycare. The car needs a tuneup. Don’t forget to call and make the baby’s six-month appointment with the pediatrician. Sure, Mommy and Mommy may have gotten married over the weekend, but on a practical level the commitment was already there and this morning, well, it’s pretty much back to work. The presence of a ring on a finger doesn’t change the fact that the newlyweds could, in some states, still lose their jobs, be denied seating in a restaurant, or have difficulty adopting. [/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Independence is an every day declaration that one will not let the world overwhelm them, that one will not allow themselves to be injured by the biases of others, that two steps forward does not then require one step back. While the label on this liberty may be new, the challenges of upholding this Independence are much the same today as they were this time last week. One still has to stand firm, one still has to be defiant in the face of ignorance, and in some states one might even still need to engage in acts of some civil disobedience to simply get their government to abide by the law.

Look at the date on today’s picture. When it was taken in 2011, what they were doing, having a baby as a lesbian couple, was groundbreaking. They couldn’t marry. Their families weren’t necessarily supportive (some members were, others not so much). Society totally shunned them. Healthcare laws worked against them. At that point, less than 15 percent of Americans said they supported equal marriage rights. For couples like this, the freedom gained last week merges with, and perhaps adds some glitter to an independence that has been growing for several years.

Make no mistake, there is a shiny newness to the Independence now available to our LGBTQA friends, but as they claim that Independence that realize that this is just a marker along a journey that is not yet complete. An important marker, to be sure, but just as that Declaration of Independence ignited some difficulties between those new US citizens and King George III, this Independence also faces challenges. Maintaining Independence is often more challenging that its declaration. Welcome to Monday. Time to move forward.[/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

An Independence Of Your Own

June 28, 2015

Being In Control (2010). Model: Angela Denton

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I anticipate a lot of talk this week about Independence and what it means. There will be a lot of flag waving, a lot of history (heavily slanted to match one’s opinions), and a lot of chest thumping on the part of Americans. All that is well and good, I suppose. We’re coming into this week all riled up because of everything that happened last week and it probably does us well to take some time and really look at our heritage, the good, the bad, and everything in between. While I’m not sure an honest assessment has ever been possible (the victor writes the history books), to understand why our country was founded and the conditions for that declaration on July 4, 1776 is an obligation we have as citizens. If there’s one thing on which our country is largely united, it is that our Independence is well worth celebrating.

Plus, we really like to blow stuff up. I mean, we REALLY like to blow stuff up. The bigger, the brighter, the louder, the better. I don’t know how it is where you live, but my neighbors have already started, much to my chagrin. I’m an early riser. These posts don’t write themselves, after all. Being that by 4:30 AM I’m usually up and slinging various curses at whatever piece of furniture upon which I’ve stubbed a toe, I typically can’t help falling asleep around 10:00 each evening. This week, however, my neighbors have taken to random acts of patriotic celebration just a wee bit early. Their timing is perfect; just as I’m about to doze off, BOOM! Blowing stuff up is a time-honored means of celebrating our country’s Independence. Folks get upset when one complains.

We also like to take this time to brag about how great America is and tout all our accomplishments over the past 239 years. Nothing wrong with that, either, though one might argue that the list is getting shorter rather than longer. As the world changes, military and economic powers inevitably come and go in terms of superiority and influence. We do well to be proud of our country, but should be cautious that we don’t allow that pride to blind us to our own shortcomings and the need for continued progress on more issues than I have space to list here. Flying an American flag means little when beneath that flag there are still people starving, homeless, and relegated to second-class citizenship for any reason.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Independence is more than just a national thing, though, and if we’re going to celebrate it we should look as much at the individual side of that word. Personal independence, to not be under the influence or reliant upon external entities of any kind, is something many of us tout, but few actually have. Those who do are often labeled as troublemakers because they don’t follow along blindly with the group, or loners because they don’t have the need to be constantly surrounded by people who agree with them. Independent women, especially, are likely to be insulted, referred to in unkind terms, and outcasts from male-dominated portions of society. She may even be told that she is violating the tenets of her religion. If that woman happens to be a person of color, her independence is likely critical to her survival but be sure she will be criticized at every step for expressing that independence.

By now you are likely asking what any of this has to do with today’s photo. Provocative, isn’t it? I chose this picture because if there is one place where personal independence has exploded it is with our sexuality. We have gone beyond occasional expressions of one inclination or another to fully embracing who we are, who we choose to love, and how we choose to express that love. We have also tossed out the window the reliance on old stereotypes and are beginning to let who and what we are in the bedroom extend to more of our lives outside that space. Look at the picture and you see a young woman who is very much in charge of the moment, exercising her independence in a very personal way.

Personal independence takes many different forms and what is appropriate and necessary for one may not fit another. Independence for a child is being able to go to the restroom on their own. Independence for the elderly may be caring for themselves in their own home. Independence for a wounded warrior may be the ability to stand on prosthetic legs after losing theirs to an improvised exploding device. Independence is being able to exercise the right to vote without unnecessary rules getting in the way. Independence is being able to proudly say I am who I am and no one can tell me to be different. This is the independence worth celebrating. Fireworks optional.[/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

And The Living Is Easy

June 27, 2015

A Quiet Moment (2012). Model: Sarah Harris

“All in all, it was a never-to-be-forgotten summer — one of those summers which come seldom into any life, but leave a rich heritage of beautiful memories in their going — one of those summers which, in a fortunate combination of delightful weather, delightful friends and delightful doing, come as near to perfection as anything can come in this world.” ― L.M. Montgomery, Anne’s House of Dreams

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]So much has happened this week. Global media and the Internet hardly know where to turn because the amount of excitement, and in some cases concern, is overwhelming. We do well to focus on one thing at a time and this week has seen the country grapple with issues of race and symbolism, healthcare, affordable housing (hope that one didn’t sneak past you) and marriage equality. We’ve been so very busy with what’s going on in our own country that we’ve largely ignored anything happening elsewhere. Greece appears to be going into default. The self-proclaimed Islamic State killed dozens in France, Tunisia, and Kuwait. China has been selling 40-year-old meat. The Vatican officially recognized the Palestinian State. This has not been the quiet summer week I had anticipated when we started on Sunday.

In fact, if this is how the summer is going to start, I’m rather fearful of where we might go next. Both of the really big Supreme Court rulings have been handled now. There’s no more good news left to immediately anticipate. Should we be setting ourselves up to deal with disaster, death, and destruction? Certainly, there are some who are calling for such in the wake of this week’s rulings, but we tend to look upon those as extreme views, and, like almost everything Americans say, we don’t actually expect anyone to follow through on those threats.

Summer is that time we want to just live in the moment, not worry about what happened yesterday or might happen tomorrow, but throw caution to the wind and enjoy what is happening right now. Certainly, we need those moments. We need a lot of those moments. Our minds do not respond well to this constant overflow of information and we desperately need and long for days where the valve is shut off for a few minutes and we can just soak up the sun and give our minds time to process. If we keep going at full tilt, then we put our health and perhaps even our lives in danger. Stress kills and has a large arsenal of weapons at its disposal. [/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]At some point in the future, maybe ten or even twenty years from now, we might look back on this summer and remember something, but what will it be? Will this week’s SCOTUS decisions be the highlight? For those directly affected by the outcome, perhaps so. I have friends from high school who were quite anxious about applying for a marriage license yesterday. For the rest of us, though, there remain several weeks of summer where we might still find even more monumental events. If so, I do hope they are happy ones.

Not everyone gets happy summer memories. Another friend’s father died today, rather unexpectedly. I don’t have to wonder how he’ll remember this summer. The obituary page is never empty and for every name listed there is someone whose summer has been devastated. So it is with every summer. Some win. Some lose. Some are fortunate if they come out even. Kat’s little ones might remember this as the summer of their first garden. Some will remember this as the summer of the great floods, while others remember the severe droughts, dramatic water rationing, and life-threatening heat. Everyone’s experience is different and everyone’s memory unique, even when it’s faulty.

So, perhaps it best that we end this week of summertime joys with a moment of reflection, looking back on all that has happened this week and pondering what might yet come down the road. If you are lucky, perhaps you can do that pondering while sitting on the end of a springboard, dangling your feet in a pool. Maybe you can have the moment of reflection while sitting in the shade of a great tree or snuggling with a pet. Whatever your situation, take a moment to turn off the intake valve and rest. There’s still a whole lot of summer left to enjoy.[/one_half_last]

Photography / PotD / Social Commentary

The Thing of Nightmares

June 19, 2015

My Own Nightmare (2009)

“The 50-50-90 rule: anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there’s a 90% probability you’ll get it wrong.” ― Andy Rooney

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]A lot of people have trouble sleeping for a number of different reasons; for some medical, others emotional, and for some it is totally because they just watched the wrong movie before going to bed. It happens. Nightmares. We hated them as children because they were so wild and ferocious and creative. As adults, though, what we often hate about them is the fact they are too damn real. Nightmares for adults seldom involve exotic monsters drawn from an over-active imagination but, instead, come from real life, involving people we actually know and love, in situations we seem unable to stop.

I rarely have nightmares anymore. I don’t watch movies before going to bed. I’m careful to time my medicine. I pull my adventurous imagination back a couple of notches. And then, I don’t sleep that long. I’m blaming that on getting older. Typically, I can go a couple of hours before my body thinks we need to wake up and check the house for mysterious noises. But then, there are weeks like this one where it has rained every night, causing already problematic arthritis to go into hyperdrive, making it impossible to find a comfortable sleeping position for more than 15 minutes or so. The dark circles under my eyes are almost as black as my wardrobe. When one doesn’t sleep, one doesn’t have nightmares. A small consolation.

Then, there are the nine families in Charleston, South Carolina who are living a nightmare. Wednesday night was prayer meeting night. I remember what that was like. Every Wednesday, usually around 6:30 or 7:00 PM, the church doors would open and 15-20 people, on a good night, would trickle into the small sanctuary. We’d sing a song, Poppa would read a few verses of scripture, then would come the prayer requests. Every possible concern of the community would be raised, both personal and public. After about 30 minutes, they’d start praying, pray for another 30 minutes, then go home. Except, for these nine people, they didn’t go home. They were shot dead, right where they prayed, by someone who had sat through the whole service. A living nightmare in every possible sense.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Today’s photo was meant to be part of a composite where a beautiful young woman was awakened by a more frightening version of herself. The concept required shooting the model twice, once reclining in various states of slumber, and then again as the nightmarish self. Care to guess which this one is? Unfortunately, we only got one finished image from the set. I totally messed up the shoot, failing to mark my tripod settings correctly and thereby throwing off the perspective. Trying to composite the two pieces consumed days as I tried to correct the perspective and make something work. When I say there’s one finished image, it’s only because I eventually gave up and called it done. You won’t find it on display.

When I opened this file and took another look, though, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the makeup work of Kelly Oswalt. Sara Williams is such a lovely little wisp of a thing in real life and Kelly did an amazing job of creating something a little more terrifying. Even without the accompanying “beauty” piece, this makes for an interesting and striking image. I also had to giggle a bit looking at this, as Sara is now eight-months-plus pregnant, about to deliver her first child any day now. Perhaps Sara can threaten the child when she gets older with something like, “This is what happens to mommy when you don’t take a nap.” Of course, then the baby would have nightmares, and that just doesn’t help anyone, does it?

I wish we lived in a world where all our nightmares were those derived from imagination. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. As long as there is hate there will be nightmares like that of Wednesday night. Such events do not happen in truly civilized societies. In fact, the United States is the only first world country where mass shootings such as this are an issue. Our nightmare has repeated itself far too many times and we fail to even bother looking for a reasonable solution for fear it might keep one person from carrying a gun or somehow diminish the shooter’s rights, despite the fact he’s trampling the rights of others to live peacefully.[/one_half_last]

We can’t put a stop to all nightmares, but we can reduce them. We have no choice. Now is the time to seriously put a clamp on gun violence. This is one nightmare we must end.

Photography / PotD / Social Commentary

Look First In A Mirror

June 18, 2015

Twins (2009)

“As long as the world is turning and spinning, we’re gonna be dizzy and we’re gonna make mistakes.” ― Mel Brooks

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]You are an idiot. That’s okay. Don’t feel bad. So am I. In fact, applying the scale by which I measure myself, there are only about three people in the world that I would not put under that heading and since I don’t actually know any of those people personally it is quite possible that they are idiots, too. Here’s the problem: there is no measurable definition for what an idiot actually is (the APA discarded its use of the term years ago), which leaves the term open to mean just about anything I might want it to mean. The only aspect for certain is that it infers an insult directed toward one’s lack of intelligence. But how much intelligence must one have to not be an idiot? And is intelligence itself even enough of a monitor?

My father had what seems to be a pretty workable rule: judge others by what you see in the mirror. His intent was that we should be very much aware of our own faults and shortcomings before daring to judge anyone else’s. That sounds like a pretty good maxim and is probably applicable in a lot of cases. Yet, when we don’t like what we see in the mirror we are less likely to accept what we see in others, perpetuating a cycle of loathing that ultimately leads to destruction in one form or another. Without a reasonably healthy sense of self-esteem one’s base value system is likely to be askew.

Others would attempt to follow the direction of, “judge not, lest you be judged.” Zero judgement. I think there’s a gym that tries to apply that reasoning, hoping that people who are intimidated by the muscle-bound will use their facility to become more healthy. Yet, just as with any other gym, most people pay for the membership and never actually go. A certain amount of judgement is absolutely necessary. Are you healthy? Will you fit in those jeans without having to grease your thighs? Can you be trusted to handle the scissors without hurting yourself? Going through life without making any judgements at all can be quite dangerous.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]I look at today’s picture and can’t believe it wasn’t part of the set originally processed. Simply the different expressions on the girls’ faces tells a story of what it’s like to have a twin. How the hell did I miss this one? Obviously, I’m an idiot. What hurts even worse, though, is that I dropped the ball with these girls in helping them do more. Sure, I had my reasons at the time, but have since kicked myself repeatedly for not at least remembering their names. Yes, you read that correctly. Again, I’m an idiot. I have their names on a release, somewhere, but the motivation to actually go through the stacks of papers shoved in a box in storage has yet to hit me.

Judgements we make today don’t always hold up to future scrutiny. Sure, we can justify our decisions at the moment, but is our thought process in the heat of some emotion as objective as it perhaps should be? Rarely do we take the time to let something just sit, making no decision at all, until we can approach the matter rationally. Yes, some situations are more urgent than others, but isn’t one sign of intelligence the ability to know not only what decision to make, but when to make that decision? While waiting six years to process this image is extreme, might there have been a benefit to waiting a month or so before deciding to shelve it completely?

Maybe looking in the mirror a bit more often is a good idea. Taking a check of reality and one’s relation to it might be an activity in which we should all engage a little frequently. Not only might that give us a better grasp of the immediate tasks before us, but perhaps it would help prevent whatever it is that leads one to walk into a church and kill nine people.

Or maybe we’re all just idiots. Your call.[/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

Anonymously Yours

June 17, 2015

Properly Accessorized (2011)

“I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice; had I abided by it I might have been saved from some of my most valuable mistakes.” ― Edna St. Vincent Millay

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]How bad is it that we are still a good 18 months or so away from the 2016 presidential election and already I’m tired of the whole thing? With so many candidates having already announced their campaigns, each additional name added to the roster feels more like adding to the list of extras at the end of a bad movie no one really wanted to watch in the first place. Sure, eventually we’ll have to vote for a couple of these clowns, but at this point there’s too much noise, too much grandstanding, and too much absurdity to take any of them seriously.

I wonder what would happen if we forced candidates to run anonymously through the primaries, unable to present a name, a photograph, or even appear on Sunday morning talk shows in person. How would it change the process, and the number willing to run, if they were initially assigned a number and were forced to run strictly on the merits of their platform, with no personality involved? Would we be more careful about who we choose as our president? Certainly, we would want to reveal the names of the candidates at the party primaries, but in the circus leading up to that point what benefits might there be in ignoring names altogether and having everyone run anonymously, with no indication of race, heritage, gender, sexuality, or religious beliefs? I cannot help but think the process would be much better served.

Personality and ego are a detriment when one is considering who should hold public office, but yet those are the two aspects voters get heaped upon them the most often. In a crowded field such as what we are already experiencing in this cycle, we are forced to endure a constant battle of who can say the most socially provocative thing in an effort to get even 15 seconds of time on a newscast, or perhaps a small storm of controversy on social media. When over half the field of contestants is more well known for their ridiculous statements and social media gaffes than their actual platforms, we have a serious problem.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Sadly, one of the most frequent areas of unacceptable stump speech involves slut shaming and victim blaming on the part of candidates. We saw it too often in the 2012 election, and already the habit is rearing its ugly head in this one. Candidates mistakenly believe that by pandering to the very lowest and most ignorant form of voter that they can appeal to an under-educated and socially inept base to push them forward in the election. What they fail to realize is that the rest of the civilized world would really like to put those two issues to rest. There is never such a thing as “asking for it,” especially in regard to rape, and what a woman does or does not wear is not indicative of her sexual proclivity.

Such inappropriate attitudes toward sex and violence are one of the reasons we have had to stop giving names, even pseudonyms, to models who appear nude. We have had too many instances where technology allowed a model to be stalked after her name came up in some random Google search. With the increase in facial recognition software, I worry that, without any change in public attitude, we may be forced to limit figure art to anonymous forms such as today’s picture. Yes, today’s picture is quite lovely, but I’m always saddened by the fact I’m forced to crop out the model’s beautiful and expressive face because she rightly fears both social and professional backlash.

Anonymity can work both for us and against us. When it prevents ego and personality from obscuring fact and reality, anonymity is a good thing. When it allows shaming and inappropriate blaming to continue, though, anonymity is something that should perhaps be stripped away. I would dearly love to never have to crop another photo or avoid giving credit to another model to prevent putting them in any form of danger.

Maybe I should just run for president. Anonymously, of course.[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD / Social Commentary

Waste Not

June 16, 2015

Leave A Tender Moment (2010)

“I make mistakes like the next man. In fact, being–forgive me–rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I hate waste. I don’t hate trash, mind you. There are things which, once expired, definitely require disposal. Waste, though, the deliberate misuse or ruination of something still usable, angers me. I hate wasting time, because there’s no guarantee that there is any more of it coming. I hate wasting of resources, especially those purchased with someone else’s funds under the expectation they would be managed efficiently. I loathe large, opulent displays of wealth wasted in the face of massive poverty.

As much as anything, I hate wasted food. I had to throw away a package of bagels today because moisture had gotten into the package and caused them to mold. Five perfectly good bagels gone because care wasn’t taken in preserving them properly. Those emotions crop up a lot and I’ll blame my mother in part for the constant reminder that there are always starving children somewhere. But then, my own brushes with poverty and hunger are an even more recent reminder of just how valuable a single bagel is to someone who hasn’t eaten all day.

The words “waste not, want not” are etched into my brain so strongly that almost any level of waste I observe stirs a negative emotion. Seeing massive amounts of food in a restaurant dumpster makes me momentarily swear off dining out. Observing whole rivers of polluted water makes me curse industrialization. Seeing the Coke lot the day after a race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway makes me detest racing fans everywhere. Even this past weekend I was severely dismayed to look at the street after the Pride Parade and see it not merely cluttered but severely trashed with smashed candy and other litter.

We sadly live in a world where waste of every kind is far too common, far too excessive, and leaves far too large a footprint. Getting anyone to care is almost impossible.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Waste in photography fares no better and is one of the reasons for focusing on missed imagery this week. There are some shoots where the amount of genuinely strong imagery we capture exceeds the limits of reasonable display. I prefer to keep presentations between seven and ten images, since that is pretty much the sweet spot for the average person’s attention span. If we have a really strong set, I might go up to twenty. Beyond that, though, people stop looking. Their eyes glaze over as though you’ve just brought them a fourth serving of parmesan chicken, to which their bodies groaned in despair. No matter how strong the images are, beyond a certain point they’re just waste.

Perhaps the worst, though, is seeing wasted talent. Now, I have to be very careful here. I know there are some people whose talents are multiple and for reasons of sanity they are forced to choose; focusing on one or two while letting others lie dormant. I have sympathy for those people. What bothers me is someone who can clearly do well, either in front or behind a camera, and yet lets someone who fails to understand the artistry of either talk them into doing something far less creative, far more temporary, and far less fulfilling. I come into contact with those people sometimes multiple times a day and when I see them not doing what they could clearly do so well I want to cry.

Today’s picture is one from a set of gems that could easily fill a very large wall. I won’t attempt to over-analyze why this particular combination worked; the models didn’t have an especially intimate relationship, in fact they giggled through the first several minutes of shooting. Everything just clicked and the number of frames worth saving far exceeds what should be displayed in a single exhibition. So, today’s #POTD is an example in preventing waste.

Still, I must ask you to consider: what are you wasting?[/one_half_last]

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Social Commentary

But what we can do, as flawed as we are, is still see God in other people, and do our best to help them find their own grace. That’s what I strive to do, that’s what I pray to do every day.—Barack Obama

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Am I grumpy? I might be. But I think maybe sometimes it’s misinterpreted.—Harrison Ford

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Dear sisters and brothers, we realize the importance of light when we see darkness.—Malala Yousafzai

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Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.—Buddha

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In the face of patriarchy, it is a brave act indeed for both men and women to embrace, rather than shame or attempt to eradicate, the feminine.—Alanis Morissette

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Men are liars. We’ll lie about lying if we have to. I’m an algebra liar. I figure two good lies make a positive.—Tim Allen

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I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose.—Charlie Chaplin

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The paradox of education is precisely this – that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.—James A. Baldwin

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Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.—Helen Keller

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That means that every human being – without distinction of sex, age, race, skin color, language, religion, political view, or national or social origin – possesses an inalienable and untouchable dignity.—Hans Kung

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Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.—Golda Meir

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Without pain, there would be no suffering, without suffering we would never learn from our mistakes. To make it right, pain and suffering is the key to all windows, without it, there is no way of life.—Angelina Jolie

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You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.—Mahatma Gandhi

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You gotta love livin’, baby, ’cause dyin’ is a pain in the ass. —Frank Sinatra

Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this week’s photographs are strictly those of the author: charles i. letbetter, and do not necessarily reflect the attitudes or opinions of the models involved in the pictures. If you don’t like what you see, don’t blame the model. Thank you.

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It is possible to become discouraged about the injustice we see everywhere. But God did not promise us that the world would be humane and just. He gives us the gift of life and allows us to choose the way we will use our limited time on earth. It is an awesome opportunity.—Cesar Chavez

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A photographer is like a cod, which produces a million eggs in order that one may reach maturity. ― George Bernard Shaw

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All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt. ― Susan Sontag

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“No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore to us the belief in our own guidance.” ― Henry Miller

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“I will not be “famous,” “great.” I will go on adventuring, changing, opening my mind and my eyes, refusing to be stamped and stereotyped. The thing is to free one’s self: to let it find its dimensions, not be impeded.” ― Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary

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“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

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“The 50-50-90 rule: anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there’s a 90% probability you’ll get it wrong.” ― Andy Rooney

We can’t put a stop to all nightmares, but we can reduce them. We have no choice. Now is the time to seriously put a clamp on gun violence. This is one nightmare we must end.

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“As long as the world is turning and spinning, we’re gonna be dizzy and we’re gonna make mistakes.” ― Mel Brooks

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“I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice; had I abided by it I might have been saved from some of my most valuable mistakes.” ― Edna St. Vincent Millay

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“I make mistakes like the next man. In fact, being–forgive me–rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

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