Stardom Quest

Fashion / Music / PotD

Stardom Quest

March 31, 2016

Whenever I hear that I’m on the brink of stardom, I feel like I want to run into a cave. —Kate Bosworth

Many people are looking for the fast track to stardom, but could that track be a dead end.

As easy as it is for people of my advanced age to look at the current generations of 20-somethings and think them slackers, I have to admit that, in reality, millennials and the Gen-Y folks coming after them seem to have an impressive amount of drive. Stardom seems to be coming to many, and for most of those, it is coming quickly, outside what we might consider “normal channels. Makers of mobile apps can become millionaires literally overnight if their apps become even remotely popular. Appearance on a talent show such as The Voice or American Idol can create a career where none previously existed. The allure of stardom is strong.

The Twittersphere went apoplectic yesterday when model/reality star Emily Ratajkowski posted the following picture:

However sexual our bodies may be, we need to hve the freedom as women to choose whn & how we express our sexuality. pic.twitter.com/1KK0MtXRuv

— Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) March 30, 2016

Given Ms. Ratajkowski’s rather untraditional rise to stardom, hitching her wagon to that of another reality star of even bigger fame seems to make sense. Mind you, I’m not saying the message behind the tweets is in any way insincere, but this brand of do-it-yourself stardom requires constant maintenance; one has to create ways of constantly remaining in the public eye or one’s star begins to fade.

Retail fashion consultantAdheer Bahulkar wrote an article for WWD earlier this week which advocates a system wherein fast fashion gives rise to new, “fast” designers. The way he sees it, fast fashion outlets such as H&M and Forever 21 have a high demand for new clothes and by essentially turning young designers into brands themselves, the designers achieve a level of stardom much more quickly than they would through the normal path (which can take years).

The fast strategy of do-it-yourself stardom may be best embodied, though, by pop musician Lady Gaga. Looking at a music industry that was already overcrowded with less-than-spectacular talent, Gaga took the bizarre route with wild costuming and outlandish videos that forced people to stop and stare. After building an audience from sheer spectacle, she then dropped the facade and did an album with old-school crooner Tony Bennet, showing much to the surprise of many, that Gaga actually had the musical talent to justify her fame. Gaga turns 30 soon and already has the world by the tail.

As inviting as the fast track to stardom may seem, though, one might do well to question whether such an approach has any permanence. Too often, those who rise to the top quickly also fall into complete obscurity just as quickly. I can’t help but think of the line from the 1954 movie, On The Waterfront where a washed-up boxer confronts his reality:

You don’t understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let’s face it.

Consider self-made supermodel Kate Upton, who was a mainstay in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition from 2012-2014. She’s been completely absent from those pages the past two years, however, and unless she does something particularly outrageous, no one seems especially inclined to notice. Her stardom is not yet gone, but it has faded significantly.

Consider all those winners of American Idol, America’s Got Talent, The Voice, and even Project Runway. Where are they now? Only American Idol’s season 1 winner Kelly Clarkson has been able to keep hold of the fame given her in that fast track to stardom. The remainder still struggle to get noticed, with their reality show wins sometimes even working to their detriment.

Almost every field that yields celebrity is littered with names that were on everyone’s lips for a moment but are completely unknown to us now. Taking the fast-track to stardom is, more often than not, a roller coaster ride that often leaves one in a worse place than from where they started. At the very best, those who do manage to keep some level of shine find that they have to work even harder to keep from falling into complete obscurity.

Taking the fast track to stardom is tempting and there are so very many talented young people who seem poised to make that leap. Perhaps you are one of them. Just remember that, ultimately, no one makes a long-term career out of luck. Hard work has to happen if anyone is going to make the most of their skill and talent. Choose your path carefully. As arduous as it may seem, slow and steady still wins the race.

Art / Photography / PotD

But Is It Art?

March 30, 2016

Art is one thing that can go on mattering once it has stopped hurting. —Elizabeth Bowen

Are we making art every time we snap a shutter or put a brush to canvas? Probably not.

[Ed. note: the following article is from our archives. It was originally published February 7, 2008 and is presented here, for better or worse, unedited. My opinions may have changed on a point or two, but that is likely irrelevant to the overall thesis of the article.]

CAVEAT: The following article addresses a highly subjective topic for which there is little authoritative documentation. Opinions expressed herein are based on research, observation, and experience, but are ultimately just one person’s thoughts on the matters addressed. Readers are encouraged to explore the topic thoroughly through this and other sources, being reminded that all opinions, regardless of source, contain some measure of validity in their argument.

Henri Cartier-Bresson. Robert Mapplethorpe. Ansel Adams. Helmut Newton. Eve Arnold. Jock Sturgis. David LaChapelle. Petter Hegre. Dorothea Lange. All these names represent photographers whose work behind the camera is legendary and awe inspiring. Many of their works have been framed and hang on the walls of prestigious museums. Some have been sold at auction for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Yet, despite how wonderful these images may appear, no matter to what degree the skill and precision is appreciated, society still finds itself needing to ask the question: is it art? While it is understandable that the question would be asked during the 19th century when the medium was in its infancy, that photographers, buyers, and critics still feel the compulsion to add their opinion to the compendium of answers delivers a disturbing realization that we are no closer to definitive decision than we are eliminating cancer.

Many photographers regard the mere raising of the question in a most defensive manner. How dare anyone question the artistic nature of photography? Has the medium not proven itself over time? Does not its increasing acceptance by art dealers and museum curators promote photography’s artistic validation? Has not public and academic opinion of photography elevated it to hang within the hallowed halls of artistry?

Those in opposition remain just as adamant, however, that photography, by its very nature, can never be art, will never be art, and that to consider photography as art is to fail to grasp the very nature of art itself. Changes in methodology and technology only serve to further solidify their arguments. As an increasing number of people pick up cameras and point them at various objects, the argument for photography as art, in the opinion of its critics, only erodes.

From the very outset, one does well to accept that simply because one picks up a camera and takes a picture one does not automatically become an artist any more than does using a paint brush or a chisel. Not all photography is intended to be art, regardless of how it may be gathered and exhibited. The pictures of a child’s party on their fourth birthday, while endearing, are not art. Photographs of the winning score in a championship ballgame are memorable, but not art.
Images of the family pet chasing its own tail, while amusing, are not art.

Consider the following photograph, taken in the staging area of a New York City event back in 2005:

The picture is interesting in that it provides the viewer with the seldom-seen perspective of what happens before the “big show.” Spontaneous and un-posed, the image smacks with the sort of realism that makes for interesting conversation and endless speculation as to exactly what is going on. Without question, there is a story here just waiting to be told. Still, this photograph is, at best, editorial and, in the opinion of those more conservative, pornographic and exploitative.

Given that so many billions of “pedestrian and vernacular” photographs exist, one must immediately modify the question to consider whether perhaps some photographs can be art while others, such as the image above, are not. Applying such discrimination to the medium, however, may not make the argument in favor of photographic art any easier, for such magnified inspection inevitably brings to greater light what some might consider the artistic shortcomings of the field.

Arguments against photography as art are strong, despite the fact they fundamentally have not changed since the camera was invented. When questioned, most critics will point to the following matters:

Photography is mechanical. No matter what the photographer and/or their staff does to prepare, control and manipulate the set, the fact remains that it is the camera, a mechanical device, not the photographer, that captured the image. Challenging photography as an artistic medium, Ayn Rand wrote:
Photography is a mechanical means of producing whatever is put in front of the camera. When you speak of an “artistic” photograph, what you mean is that the photographer exercised [some] choice in his [selection and] arrangement of the material which his camera is to reproduce …. But the mere process of photographing, the mechanical part of it, is not art because no choice is involved: the camera operates the same way regardless of the nature of the material.[Fiction-Writing. Lecture 1]One might attempt to argue that through the manipulation of shutter speed, aperture, ISO and white balance photographers are exercising at least as much control as a sculptor. Still, it is the camera, not the photographer, making key decisions as to how to interpret color, light, texture and form. All the photographer does is set what are, by any argument, fairly wide parameters within which the camera does its work.Additionally, art historian Edgar Wind wrote:

What precludes photography … from becoming ‘entirely art,’ although it may have ‘something artistic about it’, is the crucial surrender of the pictorial act to an optical or chemical agency which, however carefully set up and controlled by the photographer, must remain automatic in its operation. [Art and Anarchy, pp. 138-140]

Modern advances in photography such as auto-focus and digital manipulation only serve to make the argument of automation stronger. Automatic features, software filters and digital processing submit even more of the act of photography to pre-determined outcome. Rather than the questionably fluid control of chemical processing, modern photographers use technology to apply techniques whose outcome was determined by a software engineer in Palo Alto. Can one truly say they are being artistic when so little actual control lies in their own hands? Photographers do well to lose sleep in answering the question.
Photography voids uniqueness. With most any other art medium, there is but one original, signed by the artist. There is evidence of the artist’s hand on the art. Photography defies that singleness, the concept that an image may be one-of-a-kind. Indeed, hundreds of thousands of prints can be generated from a single negative. Digital images can be shared electronically with millions of viewers simultaneously. While some might argue that this development brings art ‘within the reach of the masses,” the ability to mass produce images renders them pedestrian and commonplace. There is nothing “fine” about a work for which there are 150,000 exact copies.Walter Benjamin wrote in 1936:The technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition. By making many reproductions it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence. [Illuminations. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”]Benjamin’s argument, which he applied not only to photography but also to recorded music and film, echoes a consistent criticism from the art world that one can never look at a photograph and be sure of its origin nor how many other exact copies of the work are hanging elsewhere in the world. Essentially, photography defies the uniqueness that has long separated art from manufacturing.
This argument does not deny the skill or vision that may be present in a photograph, but equates photography to more utilitarian crafts such as furniture making or rug weaving. A finely produced chair may be quite beautiful in its design and construction, but that that it can be duplicated so as to fill a thousand different living rooms negates its ability to become art. Carpet designers in North Georgia may create intricate templates for astonishing rug patterns, but that one may walk from room to room to room and observe the exact same pattern on each floor and then have that pattern placed in one’s rompus room without disturbing the display denies any pretense of art.

Over the years, some photographers keenly aware of this shortcoming have attempted to compensate by destroying the negative after a single print is made. Indeed, such extreme measures may help to inflate the value of a piece, but with modern digital photography even that option is no longer present. With the technical ability to retrieve even deleted documents and images from a hard drive, multiple copies of an image may exist long before it is ever committed to print.
There is no selectivity to photography. Photography does not create, it merely captures. Photography is inherently tied to reality in all its detail and, increasingly, high-definition form. No matter what one may do to an image in processing, the fact consistently remains that, at some point, the base element had to actually exist long enough to be photographed. Photographers cannot simply select an image from their mind and transfer it to the camera. What one photographs must be real.This puts photographers at a disadvantage and, arguably, defies art. Painters and sculptors may create whole masterpieces from pure fiction and imagination. While they may use models and even photographs as reference, they are not bound to duplicate what is real, but can alter immediately any form or element they wish.With other forms of art, the viewer may ask of any element, “Why is that there?” and know that the answer relies in some fashion upon the artist’s choice of inclusion. Photography yields a very different answer, however, in that objects exist in a photograph because they existed in reality. While finely composited photographs such as those of David LaChapelle may seem to defy this argument, even those elements of composition must each some how, some where, actually exist before they can become part of his final image.

These are but three primary objections to photography as an art form that persist to present day. Other perhaps less enthusiastic objections are made in terms of the photograph’s relationship to history, the relationship of photography to randomness and its subjectivity to accident, and the argument that photography is ultimately a scientific process that needs neither human intervention nor creativity to exist.

Perhaps one of the most valid criticisms of photography comes in the writing of the late Susan Sontag, whose intimate relationship with celebrated photographer Annie Leibovitz post-dates much of what she wrote on the subject. In her 1978 book, On Photography, Sontag wrote:

Photography is acquisition in several forms. In its simplest form, we have in a photograph surrogate possession of a cherished person or thing, a possession which gives photographs some of the character of unique objects. Through photographs, we also have a consumer’s relation to events, both to events which are part of our experience, and to those which are not – a distinction between types of experience that such habit-forming consumership blurs. A third form of acquisition is that, through image-making and image-duplicating machines, we can require something as information (rather than experience). Indeed, the importance of photographic images as the medium through which more and more events enter our experience is, finally, only a by-product of their effectiveness in furnishing knowledge dissociated from and independent of experience. [On Photography. Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1978. p. 154]

To the extent that photography is just that – acquisition – one might make the argument that it can never be art, no matter what intention or inclination might be applied by either photographer or viewer. If all one is doing is to capture an event, a time, a place, a setting, then wherein lies the creativity, the originality, the imagination requisite in any art form? If a photograph can be duplicated by another photographer and the two set side-by-side as identical, how can the medium ever deliver the truly original work of art?

Photographers do not aid the argument regarding art when they themselves attempt to label as art those inferior images so poorly constructed that they would have best died on the camera, or so horribly mis-processed as to generate embarrassment. Novelty is not art. Perhaps the most frequent fatality to photographic art comes at the hands of the amateur digital shutter bug who is overly and unduly impressed by merely desaturating an image, creating a sloppy and ill-conceived form of an image that suffered miserably in color and is only slightly less offensive in black-and-white. Equally destructive is the image to which any number of Photoshop filters are mis-applied across the entire photograph rendering it obnoxiously obscene in its loathsome void of artistic merit. How can one possibly expect the medium of photography to be taken seriously within a well-established and entrenched art community when too many psuedo-photographers continue to pompously claim as art those images so void of even minute aesthetic interest as to cause the viewers eyes to bleed?

Photography cannot be taken seriously as an art medium so long as those who stand behind the camera approach the work in a cavalier, profit-minded, shoot-till-you-get-something attitude. Such a mindset reduces photography to a frivolous past time, an energy-consuming hobby for the busy body with not enough constructive tasks to perform. Photographs taken without consideration for genuinely artistic element have less value than the paint-by-numbers picture sold by a dirt-encrusted child at a flea market.

If photography is to be taken seriously as an art form, it must present to the public a level of aesthetic presence sufficient to overcome the criticism laid against it. While the imposition of strict rules or tests would be largely inappropriate and stifling to creativity, photography must adequately address four very basic and fundamental concerns before it may raise itself to the elevated status of art.

Form. More than merely a definition of genre, form speaks to the very construction and composition of a photograph. Simply pointing a camera at the horizon and calling it a landscape is not sufficient. Merely undressing a young woman and taking her picture against a black background does not create art. The flowers in one’s garden may be quite beautiful, but stepping outside and popping off a few quick shots does nothing more than create a record of the flowers’ growth.Form is about substance, composition, framing, and presentation of one’s subject. Thousands of people have taken pictures of the arid grounds across the Amercian West, but it is Ansel Adam’s careful attention to form that sets the standard for landscape art. Hundreds of images exist of migrant workers during the era of the Great Depression, but it is the form of Dorothea Lang’s “Destitute Pea Pickers in California. Mother of Seven Children. Age Thirty-Two. Nipomo, California” that brings the image to our attention and wonder how such things may be. Untold millions of pictures of nude women exist, but it is form that sets Helmut Newton’s work apart from the pornography that plagues our senses.Form requires that a photographer actually think before snapping the shutter. Art is not created by happenstance or accident, but through willful construction in studying and understanding the subject, giving due consideration to perspective, how the image will be viewed, the balance of light and shadow, the play of reflection and the tone of color. For photography to be more than just “acquisition” of what exists, the Form of the image must excite us, extend beyond the ordinary of what the eye may casually see and assist the viewer in seeing something more than the mere reality of an every-day world. Without form, all one has is a most vernacular snap shot.
Function. What is the purpose of a photograph? Whose agenda does the image serve? What message is intended, or inferred, by this picture? Function addresses the question as to why an image exists. Fashion photographs exist to sell clothes. Editorial photographs exist to portray news and events. Scientific photographs exist to document what is.Art, by contrast, must go further in its function. Insufficient to be simply aesthetically pleasing, artistic photography necessarily invokes symbolism, inference and ambiguity as tools for portraying a message or telling a story. Artistic function may certainly be all about the portrayal of beauty, but in doing so the photograph must excel in the manner through which it declares such beauty in original methods not ordinary to human experience.The artistic photograph must hold at its core that its purpose is to first be art. There is no room for blatant commercialization or profit-seeking. Pandering to the unwashed masses with images of depravity, violence and gore run counter to any artistic merit. Whatever the message, whatever the symbolism, the foundational function of art is that it be art first and foremost.
Quality. Artistic photography must stand out from the mundane, the ordinary, the contrived, and the plebeian. Here is where photography must challenge the criticism of being mechanical and void of selectiveness through the creation of images of sufficient quality as to make evident the hand and spirit of the photographer.Artistic photographs must deny any form of cheap digital trickery or painful attempts to cover a lack of talent and vision. Regardless of the processing methods that may be applied, the base image must be of superior photographic and artistic quality before any processing begins because there surely will not be sufficient improvements to quality applied after the fact. Attention to exposure, depth of field, noise levels, highlight and shadows and print quality are all paramount in creating an artistic image.The quality of an artistic image must be strong enough to allow the viewer to not notice its presence. A quality photograph allows the viewer to ponder, to think, to linger over an image without being distracted by a cumbersome shadow, a blown-out highlight, or disturbing noise. Neither does a quality photograph distract from itself with “hey, look what I can do” Photoshop antics. Th person viewing a work of art should never have reason to wonder how an image was achieved, but given the freedom to marvel in its glory and delight in its presence.
Value. What makes this photograph unique? What separates one image from all the hundreds of thousands taken from the same location under the same circumstances? What prevents another photographer of similar skill with similar equipment from taking exactly the same shot and achieving identical results?To call an image a work of art is to infer that there is something special about that image, that what exists on the paper is irreplaceable and deserving of careful attention so that it might be preserved. Art longs to be cherished, prized, and set apart from the contrived and mundane elements of life. Therefore, that an artistic photograph establish value is critical.To that end, photographers must first strive to be original and unique in their compositions, a task which is not getting any more simple. Each photographer must explore their own ideas and concepts and not allow themselves to be snagged into duplicating the work of others, or even themselves, simply because the concept is popular, even when it may be profitable.Photographers must also learn to jealously guard against the over- and mis-use of their photographs. Allowing too many copies to become circulated, or excusing the infringement of copyright not only devalues the works involved, but everything the photographer produces, and at a larger extent, lowers the public perception of photographic art as a whole. Art that is too readily available looses its value and dilutes its meaning beyond any hope of repair.

Given such high standards for any photograph to achieve status as an artistic image, one becomes aware of just how few photographs have deservedly earned the title of being an artistic photograph. Without question, truly artistic photography is an almost minuscule proportion of the pictures produced . The number of photographers whose work demonstrates true originality in form, depth of function, attentive quality and legitimate value is significantly smaller than those who dare to claim such a position.

Photographers who think they can foist onto the art buying public myriad black-and-white photographs of what lies between them and the horizon, or clever application of digital gimmicks are playing the role of fools. To those who truly know and understand all that art is and should be, photography is still a questionable medium whose place in the art world, though gaining some acceptance, is still highly suspect. The continued inundation of gross and inferior photographs diminishes the value of all photography and accentuates the criticisms leveled against it as an artistic medium.

There is a strong desire on the part of many in the art world to find artistic merit in photography, and one can legitimately argue that there are sufficient examples to place photography within the hallowed realms of fine art. Since 1993, major art auctions have sold major works of photographic art for hundreds of thousands of dollars. There is a willing and anxious market waiting for truly artistic photographs.

However, the burden is squarely on the shoulders of photographers to create works that rise above the noise of mediocrity and deliver images that are more than mere “acquisition” of a subject. Photographers must bring to their work a sense of purpose, a reason for being, and the ability to extend beyond what simply exists. Without such commitment and attentiveness to form, function, quality and value, photographs are nothing more than image recordings and photographers are merely machine operators and none are anywhere close to art.

Advertising / Fashion / PotD

Progressive Reflection

March 29, 2016

In a free society, government reflects the soul of its people. If people want change at the top, they will have to live in different ways. Our major social problems are not the cause of our decadence. They are a reflection of it. —Cal Thomas

Reflection not only shows us how far we’ve progressed but sometimes points a way toward how we should change in the future

Progressive reflection is a shortened version of my original title for this morning: We Don’t Do Things That Way Anymore. The whole premise comes from my desire last night to take a few shortcuts with this week’s posts by reconsidering articles I published back in 2008. The idea sounded good. I could fulfill my obligations here without severely impacting the time I spend with my youngest son. Sounds like a perfect plan.

The problem came when I started looking through those posts and discovered that many were based on technical photography information that simply no longer applies. There was an article on black and white conversion whose instruction seems totally inferior now given the advances and additional options that are available. Reading through an article on color correction, the points made were accurate for when they were written, but in the ensuing eight years, the technology both on the camera and in processing software rendered the recommendations there quite moot.

So much for shortcuts.

Reflection and photography go hand-in-hand. Our desire to look back and see how things were is a large part of what fuels our desire to take pictures now. We know nothing stays the same, so we want to capture these moments as they pass. I can’t begin to count the number of times a client surprises me with the type of pictures they want to take and their reasoning is that they want to be able to look back and remember how wonderful they looked at that particular point in their lives.

We can learn from reflection as well, though, and there are times when it can help us to see the way forward a bit more clearly. Memories not only help us remember how things were, they also help us see mistakes we might not have caught and may encourage us to not go down the same path again. They can also be encouraging with the realization that, perhaps, we’ve been through difficult challenges before and we can handle those we’re facing now equally well.

Specifically, I find reflection offers five specific possibilities for pushing us forward. Here they are:

Find what worked before and consider duplicating it. Fashion designers do this all the time, and it can work quite effectively. Consider, for example, what Karl Lagerfeld has done with the Chanel collection. From the moment he accepted the position as creative director for the storied label, Lagerfeld made his career there by looking back and either duplicating or modestly updating Coco’s most famous looks, specifically her suiting. For the most recent ready-to-wear presentation, he mimicked Coco’s 1960’s presentations at 31 rue Cambon, from decor to styling. You can read my review here if you’re interested. Lagerfeld’s only one of many designers that find the way forward in fashion comes from heavily duplicating what was done before.
Find what didn’t work before and avoid doing it again. We don’t always realize we’re about to repeat a mistake until we look back and see that we’ve been in a similar situation before. Advertising is a good example of that. Everyone remembers the blunder the Coca-Cola corporation made with New Coke; an error in marketing and advertising that instantly became iconic in so many ways. I can promise you that the New Coke debacle is brought up anytime anyone suggests making significant changes to a company’s core product and its cautionary tale almost certainly has helped avoid similar disasters.
Find what was wrong previously and fix it. Here is where reflection can lead to innovation. The automobile industry serves as our example in this regard. Manufacturers routinely study how their vehicles performed in real crashes; not just the ones performed in a test situation but specifically fatality accidents that involved real-world situations not duplicated in a test environment. As a result, vehicles are significantly safer now than they were even five years ago. So much so that Volvo has pledged that by 2020 no one will be killed or seriously injured in one of their vehicles. Volvo gets there by letting reflection push their innovation.
Remember what made you happy and let it inspire you. There are some great things in our past that can’t, and shouldn’t be duplicated. Yet, when we reflect on things that made us happy we can be inspired to do other things that are as fulfilling and enjoyable. A perfect example is exactly what I’m doing with my youngest son this week. I reflect back on many of the conversations I had with my father when I was 17, and while duplicating those topics would be wholly inappropriate, looking at how my father responded to challenges I set before him and questions I asked help me understand how I need to respond to my own son. I can only hope my words are as wise.
Appreciate the past and let it go. Too often the thing that keeps us from moving forward is our grip on how things were before. The words, “We’ve never done it that way before,” have killed many good ideas before they ever had a chance to germinate. I can’t help but think here of my paternal grandfather, a sharecropper in Arkansas from the early 1900s into the 1950s. He long had a habit of standing up on the buckboard as he drove his team and wagon into town. Finally, though, he realized he needed to put the team in the barn and get a car. He loved that team and buckboard but had to let go of his long-standing habits to move forward. Reflection allows us to appreciate the past, but it also encourages us to move on.

I enjoy looking back through the thousands of pictures we’ve taken over the years, but I often look at how they were processed and know that I would make very different decisions now from what I did originally. Reflection helps to move my skills forward by showing me the discrepancies and inconsistencies of my work in the past. At the same time, though, when I come across a creative piece that I really like, it encourages me to keep fueling that creativity in the future.

I may yet find one or two articles from those old archives that still works. I’ll be sure to label it as such if I do. Reflection is progressive, though, and it’s far more likely they’ll encourage me to write or shoot something new. I don’t have any problem with that at all, and I hope you don’t either.

pop culture / PotD

Spring Break Fake

March 28, 2016

I feel as though I lost every ounce of dignity on Spring Break. What’s worse is that I don’t regret any of it. —Someecards

Not everyone can afford to go someplace exotic for Spring Break, but there are ways to fake that

Ah, Spring Break. This is that time of year when I exercise just a bit of old man indignation because there was no Spring Break for anyone not in college until after I was out of college. I’m sure I have my own generation to blame for that. We had entirely too much fun back in the early 80s and decided we needed to keep the annual tradition going despite the fact we were supposed to be gainfully employed. We kept taking vacations in March and April and as our children hit school age we insisted on taking them with us. So now, even elementary schools let out for Spring Break.

More than anything, I’m jealous. I’ve not been on a real Spring Break trip since 1984. I’m always working through this time of year, so the very concept of taking a week off to go play on a beach just doesn’t work for me and the same is true for Kat. Even if we could take the time off, we likely wouldn’t be able to take some long road trip to Florida or North Carolina. Travel is expensive and we’re on a budget.

How much does Spring Break cost now? Travel site Orbitz lists the top Spring Break destinations along with the average hotel rates. $216 a night in Orlando. $335 a night for Cancun. Fort Meyers is $236 and Miami is $228. Add in food, travel costs, and copious amounts of alcohol and sunscreen and you’re looking at $2,500 or more for the week. Who the fuck can afford that when there are bills to pay?

However, do not be disheartened. Just because we may not be able to afford an exotic Spring Break vacation, we can, at least, pretend that we are one of the cool kids and fake our way through Spring Break. Just because we’re responsible with our finances doesn’t mean we can’t give the impression that we know how to have fun, too. Here are some tips for totally faking your Spring Break.

Find a really big sandbox and roll around in it until your clothes are all full of sand. Make sure you are wearing your shoes. That way, you can walk into work or Aldi’s complaining that you still have sand in everything as you pull sand from your pockets or brush it out of your purse.
Walk around with sunscreen on your face. A lot of sunscreen. While the UV index isn’t very high in Indiana this time of year, it is in Jamaica and you can’t be too careful with your skin. There’s even this article for how to reapply sunscreen over a face full of makeup. You may look silly, but your skin will be safe.
Carry travel brochures in your purse or iPad case. When co-workers see them, talk about how exhausting the trip was and say something about needing a vacation to recover from your vacation. Make sure you’ve Goggled the weather for the past week at your destination, though. There’s nothing as bad as talking about how much fun you were having on the beach when there were actually torrential rains and flooding.
Swap houses with a friend for the week so your neighbors will think you have someone house sitting for you. In a way, this is a fairly cool vacation on its own. You get to sleep in a different bed, eat food from someone else’s pantry, and rifle through their personal belongings. Sure, they’re doing the same thing at your house, but you hid all the sex toys before leaving, didn’t you?
Spend way too much time in a tanning bed. Now, we all know this is bad for you. Sunburns are bad for you. And most tanning salons monitor the number of visits you have in a week, so you will have to mix it up between two or three places. But you can’t pretend to go on an exotic Spring Break and come back with the same pasty skin as when you left. Go extreme. You only live once, right?
Don’t sleep for a couple of days. While Spring Break is supposed to be refreshing, if you come back actually feeling refreshed you didn’t do it right. So, what you’ll want to do is stock up on the energy drinks and binge watch all the combined episodes of every iteration of NCIS that is on Netflix. That should guarantee your eyes look just as tired and bloodshot as though you’d been partying with the best.
Wear a bikini under your clothes in place of a bra, because, you know, you just got into the habit while you were on the beach and this is just so much more comfortable.
Take pictures in your swimsuit and photoshop a beach into the background. There are plenty of stock photography websites where you can get pictures of beaches from around the world. For even more fun, talk some random strangers into taking the photos with you. Do it right and everyone will think you were the life of the party!
Talk constantly about the new “friend” you met on the “beach.” Give them a cool name and make sure they’re from a cool place. Develop a reasonable back story for them and a good reason why, even though they gave you the most wonderful nights of your life, you can never, ever see them again.
Spend the next two weeks “recovering.” Your boss and co-workers won’t expect anything less. In fact, if you recover too quickly, they’ll know you were faking the whole thing. Complain about jet lag and how something you ate totally disagreed with your body and, god, the sunburn!

Not everyone can afford to annually revisit the locations of some of our greatest heartbreaks and biggest regrets, and I’m not sure we really want to. Sometimes it is better to just hold on to the memories of our youth and not try to recreate those college days even though we’re over 40. Way over 40. We still have the memories of those nights in Mazatlan. Maybe that’s enough.

Art / Current Issues / Mythology / PotD

Deity In Our Own Image

March 27, 2016

When you accept a picture of the deity assigned to you by another people, you become the spiritual prisoners of that other people. —John Henrik Clarke

If we’re going to resurrect a deity, why not resurrect ourselves?

The morning is still quiet as I write. The only noise is that of the heater trying to balance the temperature between the West end of the house, which is always warm, and the East end of the house, which is always a bit cool. For the moment, everything is peaceful and I am enjoying that temporary situation as I know it won’t be long before the younger children are awake and anxiously chasing the myth of some rabbit. I could do without the myths associated with today, but in this momentary tranquility, my mind involuntarily yields to thoughts of deity and our roles not only in creating them, but maintaining them as well.

I realize that, for some, challenging the concept of deity encroaches upon sacred territory. People are protective of their gods because to challenge one’s deity is to put the source of one’s faith at risk. Yet, I would argue that if one does not understand their god how can they truly understand matters of worship or devotion to the faith in that god? Dissecting deity is a requirement if one ever expects to hold their faith not as a corporate purchase of a cosmic mythology but as a personal belief system that is foundational to their lives.

Therefore, the first question one must ask is this: Who created your deity? Many would hold that their god(s) were not created, but rather revealed their presence either through some event or in the presumed creation of nature. Yet, before we begin accepting as gospel the stories and legends of past millennia we must realize that the oral tradition in which they were handed down factors prominently in how one’s perception of god takes shape. Even if all the story tellers of old had witnessed the events of which they told, and few did, their representations of those events would still differ dramatically and it is in those differences that our perceptions begin to take shape. We then create an interpretation of our deity based less on the event and more on our interpretation of those story teller’s version of those events. We create our own gods.

Our belief systems are very personal, and so are our deities. Ask a million people who god is and a million different answers ensue. Millions are monotheistic, firmly convinced that a singular deity rules all. This works for us because we, too, view ourselves in some fashion as singular rulers of our own lives, attempting to control the chaotic cosmos of our immediate situation. We can relate to that god because he faces the same struggles we do, just on a larger scale. Still, millions of others view god as a concept, an energy, or a life force rather than an actual being. That concept works as well for those whose inherent view of this life is temporal and regenerative as part of a greater spiritual whole. While we may work within the greater framework of a religious structure, we still create a god that best fits our view of life.

The National Geographic Channel begins a new series tonight that I find timely. The Story of God with Morgan Freeman attempts to take an objective yet personal view of the deities we worship through the quest of one who has portrayed someone else’s version of god but has historically stated that he is not a “man of god,” but rather a “person of faith.” Even in choosing Morgan Freeman to lead this journey, the program’s producers are playing to one of the more common construction elements of deity with an actor whose voice is deep and authoritative. Morgan Freeman’s voice sounds like what we want god’s voice to sound like. Here’s the 30-second version of the trailer for tonight’s show:

Over the course of the series, the program takes a look at the larger umbrella of deity through personal stories. While I cannot imagine that such exploration uncovers anything we didn’t already know, what the stories ultimately show us is exactly what I have posited here from the beginning: our deities are of our own creation, even if we call them by the same name, even if we worship them corporately with thousands of others, our concepts of god are as personal and individual as each of us.

Where does that leave those who don’t believe in a god? I would argue that we all create gods of some form or fashion even if we choose to not refer to them by that name. We place our faith in something. Some construct deities of science and philosophy. Others hold the belief that there is nothing that exists outside one’s self, therefore making themselves the deity. Whatever rules one’s belief system becomes one’s deity.

I would not dare to challenge that anyone’s concept of god is wrong but I am abhorrent of those who would just as soon kill anyone who disagrees with their construct of a violent and wrathful god. That such views exist, again, emphasizes the sometimes severe degree to which we create deity in our own image, to justify our own views of life, and to act as an authoritative bully in manipulating the behavior of others.

Whether or not one is observing a celebration of today, I hope you might take some time and consider this deity you have constructed. Consider how it serves your faith and the ways in which your faith constructs your perception of god.

And may everyone find peace.

Music / PotD

A Little Bit Country

March 26, 2016

I write some country music. There’s a song called ‘I Hope You Dance.’ Incredible. I was going to write that poem; somebody beat me to it. —Maya Angelou

charles i. letbetter 0 a little bit country

Listening to country music means being in a certain emotional place and giving your ears fair warning.

Patsy Cline. Little Jimmy Dickens. Charlie Pride. Conway Twitty. Hank Williams, Sr.

I’m listening to some country music as we make final preparations for my youngest son to visit later today. We’re excited. This is the first time in eleven years that any of my boys have been able to come to Indianapolis. So, we’ve made sure that my schedule is clear, that there are chips and soft drinks readily available for snacking, and that the refrigerator is well stocked. We’re looking forward to a lot of fun. There’s just one thing I’ve not yet warned Kat about: he listens to country music.

I’ll admit, the country/rock fence isn’t one I mind straddling. I was born at a wonderful time for music, back when radio was alive with some truly great sounds. I cut my teeth on the Beatles, learned to ride my bike with Peter, Paul, and Mary coming through the kitchen window, and learned to drive with the Doobie Brothers blasting from the stereo in the car. When our parents were gone, or not exactly paying attention, my brother and I were playing KISS, AC/DC, The Rolling Stones, and Three Dog Night on the console stereo in the back room. The music with which we grew up was nothing short of fantastic, which is why many of those songs are still alive and those bands are touring, even though their members pop blood pressure meds and swig Geritol instead of the more nefarious contents of the past.

At the same time, though, we were raised on a good balance of classic country music. Some of my favorite memories are sitting at the tiny little breakfast table in Towanda, Kansas and listening to Hank Williams, Roy Acuff, and Flatt & Scruggs on KFDI, 1070 AM, out of Wichita. Mother would sing along as she was cooking bacon or gently frying eggs sunny side up. We might listen to Foreigner or Boston in the afternoon, but the mornings belonged to Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, and The Oak Ridge Boys.

So yeah, I can enjoy a touch of country music as long as I am mentally prepared for it. One has to be in a special emotional place to listen to country music. The sad ballads common to artist such as Bobby Goldsboro and George Jones can kill even the happiest buzz. If you’re too depressed, a bit of Bill Monroe might just make a person suicidal. One also has to warn their ears that they are about to be assaulted. If you are accustomed to hearing pure, clear, well-trained vocal tones, a bit of Ricky Skaggs or Ronnie Milsap might come as a bit of a shock. If one listens to country all the time, it’s no big deal, your ears are desensitized. For the rest of us though, the sound requires a moment of auditory adjustment no matter how much we like it.

Which brings us to my biggest concern for the week. While I don’t have any problem with any of the artists I’ve mentioned, and will make everyone in the room observe a moment of silence when Allison Krauss goes “Down To The River To Pray,” my dear son listens to contemporary country. This could be a problem. I prefer classic country. Blake Shelton is about the newest artist I can handle, and that’s pretty much only because I still remember that boy when he was playing county fairs in Oklahoma. I tried listening to Luke Bryan’s latest song a while ago and had to turn it off after four bars. What if he wants to listen to that Zac Brown Band or Dustin Lynch? I can deal with some Rascal Flatts, but I’m not so sure about Brantley Gilbert or Maddie & Tae.

I understand, music never stays the same. Our parents didn’t understand any of the music we listened to, which was probably a good thing. My parents could go to a different room when we were playing REO Speedwagon or Jefferson Starship. The house here is smaller, though. There’s no place to escape. I want my son to feel comfortable and at home, but if he asks to listen to Maren Morris I’m not sure how I’m going to respond (is that actually a clap track at the beginning of that song?).

Fortunately, there’s so much more to my son than his music choices. We’re going to have a great week with him and I’m sure you’ll see me mention my favorite G-man more than once this week. I’m looking forward to showing him around Indianapolis and having a good time. We’ll eat Long’s Donuts and drink coffee at Lino’s and I might even introduce him to Mug & Bun. I wouldn’t even mind if he were to meet an attractive and friendly female friend while he’s here.

The music, though … maybe we’ll just leave the radio on NPR this week.

Advertising / Art / Fashion / Photography / PotD

Pole Dancing For Everyone

March 25, 2016

Yeah, it turns out that guys don’t like deals on laser hair removal or pole dancing lessons. —Andrew Mason

Pole dancing as a communication tool may not be what you were expecting, but it works.

Communicating across different areas of interest and different social structures can be difficult. What gets the attention of one group may be completely ignored by another. It seems, though, that there is, at least, one medium capable of cutting across art, fitness, fashion, and advertising in ways that are universally effective: pole dancing. I’m guessing that’s not a topic that was covered in your communications class in college, but pole dancing has the ability to conquer one of the biggest challenges in communication: getting people’s attention. If you have a pole dancer in front of you, for whatever reason, you can’t help but watch. What other communications medium can dominate a room in such a way?

Sure, there’s a stigma that exists with pole dancing and always will as long as there are seedy little strip joints where the only thing safe is the coffee. That doesn’t change the fact that pole dancing itself is a skill that some have turned into an art form, requiring tremendous strength and muscle tone across the entire body. As provocative as it may appear, one doesn’t simply jump on a pole and start dancing. In fact, doing it wrong can result in serious injury.

One of my favorite figure models was a champion pole dancer. Having worked with the pole daily for several years, she had an incredible muscle tone and could control each major muscle group separately. Even relaxed, she presented a strong physical definition that is difficult to find outside the bodybuilding world. When she flexed, it was almost like the anatomy chart in your biology textbook had come alive. Every muscle group was identifiable in a manner that was exquisitely beautiful.

Pole dancing as exercise has been around for quite awhile now. Despite all the giggles and side glances that come whenever someone mentions that they’re taking a class, many women, and yes, some men, across all strata of society have found the pole to be an effective and enjoyable way of working their core. Both gymnast and swimmers have found the pole to be a good way to maintain their strength during the off-season while business executives find the dancing to be a welcome relief from the stress of the office. This part of pole dancing is well documented.

What has been a little more surprising, though, is some of the other places pole dancing has shown up recently, such as Alexander Wang’s spring/summer fashion show. While Wang stopped short of putting the dancers center stage during the runway presentation, their presence at the after party, held in the same building just steps off the catwalk, was all anyone talked about for weeks afterward. The typical conversation went something like this:

“Did you see Alexander Wang’s show?”

“Oh my god, yes! Those pole dancers were amazing! I can’t believe he did that!”

“I know! I can’t wait to buy everything from the collection!”

Using pole dancers to sell fashion may not seem like a natural course of action, and one might argue that their presence was more for shock and entertainment, but the fact remains that it was the pole dancers, not the runway presentation, that brought consumer-level attention to the collection (which should be hitting stores right about now).

Then, there’s the rather humorous case of this ad for MoneySupermarket, a financial services website in the UK:

The ad worked, not only in the company’s target market, which focuses specifically on financial services in the United Kingdom, but around the world. Moreover, it made a bit of a celebrity of pole dancer Kyle McIntosh who used the opportunity to speak out against body and fat shaming. Pole dancing and financial services may not seem to be natural partners, but the ad was effective in communicating the uniqueness of the brand and bringing global attention to the website.

With pole dancing seeing such success as a communications medium, perhaps we should be asking ourselves what other ways it can be put to good use. Can we imagine using pole dancing in the classroom? Certainly, biology and anatomy would seem to have logical connections, but what about physics? If you think defying gravity hanging upside down from a pole is easy, give it a try; just make sure your insurance is up to date first. I think other match and science-related subjects could be applied to pole dancing as well.

I will even go so far as saying pole dancing might be effective in the church. Think about it a moment. Many Christians are observing Good Friday today. A pole could easily be symbolic of a cross and a skilled dancer could create a very beautiful depiction of the whole Passion story. Use some imagination. It could work.

I think what we are slowly discovering is that pole dancing, because of the stigma of its background, is a unique way of capturing an audience. Taken out of the atmosphere with which it is generally associated, viewers are not sure what to expect from a pole dance, therefore, they give it significantly more attention than they would more traditional forms of communication. Those who experience communication that involves pole dancing are also more likely to retain the brand/product name over a six-month period, significantly longer than with print advertising.

As long as there are strip clubs, and I can’t imagine those going away anytime soon, pole dancing is going to have a bit of a PR issue. I think that can be used to its advantage, though, and pole dancing can be a very effective, entertaining, and low-tech means of communication.

Given its communications value, perhaps we should be giving pole dancing, and those who perform it, a little more respect. Even when they’re not wearing clothes.

Photography / PotD

DO NOT EDIT MY PHOTOS!

March 24, 2016

Those who want to be serious photographers, you’re really going to have to edit your work. You’re going to have to understand what you’re doing. You’re going to have to not just shoot, shoot, shoot. To stop and look at your work is the most important thing you can do. —Annie Leibovitz

Editing photos without permission is a problem of the digital age that is only getting worse.

Back when photography was a more analog process involving darkrooms and chemicals, how much editing could be done to a photo was a nightmare. Even things we now consider fairly simple, such as blemish removal, involved actual airbrushing which held the risk of ruining the photograph. Editing could also cost a lot more. When one went to a portrait studio for family photos and the like, one would first be shown unedited proofs and the photographer would then attempt to upsell the editing, such as fixing Jr’s acne problem or little Joey’s fly away hair. Photographers didn’t worry that a customer or client might edit photos for themselves because they didn’t have the tools.

With the advent of digital photography, however, all that changed. Everyone, or so it seems, has access to some form of low-end image editing software. While not everyone knows how to use that software, that hasn’t stopped them from going ahead and adding filters and effects to digital photos. When one decides to edit their own photos, that’s fine. I’ve no objections. Editing your own photos is a great way to learn. When one decides to edit someone else’s photo, though, that’s a whole different issue. In short: don’t do it. Ever. For any reason.

Instagram was not the first but certainly has been the most popular consumer-level program to provide for easy, and horrible, editing directly within the app. For all the advantages that Instagram delivers from an advertising perspective, it has also been responsible for the display of millions of wretched images that should have been deleted. Professional photographers have had to scold more than a few “models” who, when posting their professional pictures, decided to edit them with one of Instagram’s filters. If you are guilty of doing this, you should apologize to your photographer immediately.

The situation is getting worse, however, as technology is making it possible to add digital stickers to photographs. We’ve already seen a rudimentary version pop up on Facebook, but now, it appears Twitter may be about to unleash a whole new can of worms. An article surfaced this week claiming that the social media messaging system is testing a “stickers” feature that not only allows users to add stickers to photos, but allows them to see how other people have edited the same photo. Even worse? Twitter would “suggest photos that you can edit and post to participate in trending conversations and breaking news.”

For professional photographers, this is a potential nightmare. There is no word as to whether there are any copyright protections (probably not) or any recourse for a photographer whose photo is edited without permission. Once again, we are faced with the challenging misconception that once something is posted to social media or published on the Internet that it must be public domain. Nothing could be further from the truth. Copyrights still remain with the photographer, no matter where they are published or how they are used, unless the photographer specifically indicates otherwise. Going around slapping stickers on photographs is a form of editing and therefore, in most cases, illegal!

Photographers have been fighting people who want to edit their photos for years. We don’t like it. When you edit one of our photos, you are not only defacing our creative property, you are insulting our artistic vision. When you edit on of my pictures, you are telling me that I wasted my time, that your opinion is more important than mine, and that you have no regard for my work. Don’t expect me or any other photographer to respond positively to such situations.

Hopefully, to avoid the legal entanglement that would be inevitable, Twitter will limit this feature to public domain photos that pass at least some superficial form of scrutiny before being slapped with stupid stickers. I don’t understand the appeal of such a feature in the first place, but I’m chalking that up to the fact I’m a grumpy old man. I’ll just assume that people who use such a feature also still buy sticker books and hide them from their children. Photographs are not sticker books, though. Putting stickers on photos isn’t editing, it’s defacing and demonstrates a lack of respect for the image.

The fact that Twitter put this information out into the press indicates that, barring some severe backlash, the feature is almost certainly headed for public release within the next few months. If that should happen, when that happens, I hope you will be thoughtful. If you want to deface your own pictures, go right ahead. Deface one of mine, though, and my response will not be friendly.

Do not edit my photos without my express permission. Ever.

Current Issues / PotD

Shaking Feelings Of Impending Doom

March 23, 2016

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom. —Martin Luther King, Jr.

Between terrorists’ bombs and bad politics, feelings of impending doom are difficult to shake.

I hate to admit it, but yesterday’s bombings in Brussels hit me extra hard. I was sitting here yesterday morning, looking for a picture in the archives, when the news flash came across my screen. I wasn’t surprised. Police have been focusing on Belgium since the Paris attacks in November. At the moment, it seemed just another sad facet of the increasingly violent reality in which we live. Push forward. Keep going.

There was something different this time, though; something I have more difficulty explaining. Kat and I were having a rare quiet lunch at one of our favorite Mass Ave. restaurants and instead of enjoying the brief moment without children I couldn’t shake the feeling that something in the universe had changed that morning, and not for the better. There was an emotional shift toward that feeling of impending doom. This was before I heard of the Peruvian mother of three-year-old twins who died at the ticket counter. Neither had I seen the pictures and videos of broken glass and strewn bodies. Brussels, somehow, was different.

Be sure, security forces around the world are on heightened alert and I don’t expect they’ll be too friendly with anyone they see wearing only one glove as yesterday’s suspected bombers did. At almost exactly the same time, without knowledge of the Brussels attacks, the US military conducted an airstrike against an Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula training camp in Yemen. If we’re counting body bags, we killed more of them than they did us. Is this feeling of doom really necessary and warranted?

Politics isn’t helping. The US presidential primary race has done a very good job of demonstrating the Dilbert principle of the least qualified rising to the top. If Scott Adams were to illustrate the current nominees, he’d have nothing but a row of pointy-haired bosses lined up making excuses and blaming everyone else for all the world’s problems, making the most bizarre and nonsensical statements, each trying to outdo the other’s stupidity. Given that from this set of clowns we are destined to choose our next president, it is difficult to imagine the next four years going in a positive direction.

Top that with tensions in East Asia. Every time North Korea lobs another set of missiles into the Sea of Japan or China sends warships into portions of the South China Sea claimed by Japan, I get nervous. I have a son stationed on one of the bases in Okinawa. It doesn’t take a great military strategist to figure out that should tensions escalate into actual fighting, our first line of defense, and offense, is going to come from those bases. Marines have a history of being the first into a situation. That does not give me any comfort at the moment.

My dreams last night played off this feeling of impending doom. In my dreams, I was supposed to be on a multi-city European photography tour, but I missed my flight at one of the stops and was stuck in, of all places, Brussels. The dreams weren’t necessarily horrific in any way; they centered on the frustration of not being able to find anyone who could help me catch up with the group. But that challenge of not being able to find help when it was needed lasted all night long. I was rather relieved when my alarm went off.

So, how do we shake this feeling of impending doom? We all know that we can’t be productive with such negative emotions dominating our lives. Is this just common anxiety run amok? If so, Kat’s continual charge that I need to chill would seem to be appropriate. Oh, but did you know that physical issues such as cardiac arrhythmia and myocardial infarction can also cause one to have feelings of impending doom? Ah, and apparently too much Nutmeg can cause hallucinations and feelings of impending doom. Anything that interrupts the natural, steady heart rate can result in us feeling as though the entire world is about to end. I’ll be sure to take my blood pressure meds this morning.

Beyond all that, though, I think we have to take control of the information we receive and how we respond to those things we cannot control. I have a list of things that I think might help. Mind you, I’m not a medical or psychiatric professional, but a quick survey of materials didn’t give me much faith in the ability of professionals to address the situation, either. So, let’s go with this and see what happens.

Limit the amount of news intake. I’ll admit to being a news junkie and there are times when I can stayed glued to news feeds for hours. Now is not a good time to do that. I’m limiting myself to twice a day, no more than 30 minutes each time. Your limits may vary.
Spend time with people, live, in person. Now is not the time to be a social hermit. We see the worst in people when our only exposure to them is Facebook. Having real conversations with people helps restore our faith in humanity as a whole.
Give a pet a rub, unless your pet is a goldfish, in which case just watching is probably enough. Pets have a wonderful way of absorbing our anxieties, giving us a chance to relax a moment, get our breathing back on a normal pattern, and giving us a positive feeling.
Indulge in a comfort food. Singular. One. Mine will be chocolate. While this isn’t a good time to overeat, the pleasure of a comfort food releases happy little endorphins that boosts our moods and gives us a more hopeful feeling.
Go for a walk. Again, it’s that combination of removing yourself from those stressors, getting some exercise, and being out in nature. Precautions might be appropriate for those who have allergy issues this time of year, though. Sneezing and runny noses don’t help.
Smoke ’em if you’ve got ’em. I know, every health professional on the planet just screamed in anguish at that one. Let’s get real, though. If we’re all going to die (and we are), we want to feel in control of what takes us there. The pain of lung cancer is preferable to being a bombing victim because we’re the ones in control. Yes, it’s a bad habit and you really should stop. But a couple of puffs of a pipe or a good cigar can be therapeautic. And if you’re smoking green rather than brown, all the better.

if none of those work, then perhaps it’s time to consult a professional. I would recommend starting with your family doctor. Cardiac issues really do impact our emotional state and feelings of impending doom. We can shake this, though. If we don’t, we seal our own fate.

Good luck.

PotD / Social Commentary

The Art Of Being Chill

March 22, 2016

I don’t want to sound like a grumpy old man, but nothing winds me up more than people saying, ‘Chill out’ to me when I’m irritated! —Martin Freeman

Being chill comes easily for many people, but there are some who have turned it into an art form

Like many people my age, I have to deal with high blood pressure. Medically, there are a lot of reasons for having blood-pumping issues: our lifestyles being hectic, our diets being too high in sodium, and a general fear that we might die without having accomplished enough. There are plenty of things that would probably solve all but the worst of blood pressure problems without medication, but that would require we actually alter how we live rather dramatically. We’re not likely to do that, being the stubborn folk that we are, so the doctor gives us pills that try to force our blood pressure back down to a manageable level that won’t kill us quite so quickly.

The pills don’t always work, though. The doctor has increased the strength of my medication twice before and I’m still generating systolic and diastolic readings that are far too high to be safe. Kat keeps telling me I need to chill. She makes it sound so easy. She makes it look so easy. Just “chill.” She drinks coffee and relaxes. I drink coffee and feel the need to take a thousand new pictures. She sees something stupid in her news feed and ignores it. I see something stupid in my news feed and am ready to rip someone’s head off their shoulders. I am so very much not chill.

About a month ago, Forbes magazine published a story Finding Chill in Valparaíso, Chile. The article contains beautiful photos full of the color and culture of this relatively small Chilean city. The author talks about his hotel with hammocks on the roof, the delicious yet inexpensive food, and stray dogs that will walk you home at night (not kidding). Everything in the article sounds so wonderful that I was almost ready to pack my bags and go, until the author discloses that, while there, he tripped on a seawall and broke his leg in two places. That’s a risk I can’t take. Scratch Chile off my travel list.

It seems obvious that I need to go somewhere to chill. Indianapolis is definitely not a chill type of city. We get uptight about almost everything around here. With the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500 this year, the entire neighborhood around us is anything but chill. But with Valparaíso off the list, where should I go?

Back in 2010, Forbes also published a list of the most relaxed cities in America. The twin cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul topped the list. They won because they have short commute times, get plenty of exercise, and had good insurance. Note, this survey took place before the Affordable Care Act took affect so that last detail might have changed. Looking through the other cities on the list, Milwaukee, Portland, Seattle, Denver, San Jose, it seems to me that all those cities have experienced some significant change in the past six years. Political changes have ruined Wisconsin. Portland’s population of hipsters has exploded. Seattle has become one of the most expensive cities in the country. Denver won a Super Bowl. San Jose’s Silicon Valley has experienced a lot of employment upheaval while real estate prices soared. Not seeing a number of benefits there.

Music is supposed to help people chill, right? According to the British Academy of Sound Therapy, the song Weightless is the best choice to help people chill. In fact, the song is apparently so effective one some people that the scientists involved in the study recommend that one not drive while listening to the piece. The song, which was specifically composed for this study. starts at 60 beats per minute and gradually slows to 50. I tried listening. I made it about 30 seconds before wanting to shoot something. Weightless has no freaking melody! It’s just electronic noise with carefully constructed pulsing.

From what I can tell, if one is going to master the art of being chill, they need to successfully do the following:

Live somewhere inexpensive. Paying a lot of bills or not being able to afford food is stressful.
Exercise. Being able to get out and walk without getting killed seems to be a plus.
Have friendly neighbors. You know, the kind that don’t fire weapons indiscriminately in the middle of the night.
Consume fresh food that is easily accessible. Having stores within walking distance helps (hint, hint).
Enjoy live, non-sedentary entertainment. I’m not sure whether Netflix and chill counts or not.
Have something constructive to do that you enjoy and provides sufficient income. Stressful jobs are inherently chill killers.
Don’t over-commit your time. Saying “no” and not feeling guilty about staying home helps.
Avoid toxic people. That friend who is constantly inducing drama? Ditch ’em.
Sleep more. Not getting enough rest is one of the primary causes of stress.

Anyone who can successfully do those things can master the art of being chill.

I’m probably going to die.

Current Issues / PotD / Social Commentary

Recovering From The Weekend

March 21, 2016

It’s not that hard to imagine the natural world recovering it’s health in our absence: it’s more difficult, and more necessary, to imagine it recovering its health in our presence. —Alex Steffen

Needing to recover from a weekend aren’t that unusual, but the reasons this morning are quite sad.

There is, in the following words, no attempt to be funny. I’m well aware that the thought of recovering from the weekend typically involves stories of a more whimsical nature, often involving some level of drunkenness and subsequent shenanigans, but that’s just not possible. This wasn’t a fun weekend, and even now, since I started typing, we’re finding out more that is absolutely breaking our hearts. Here’s a synopsis of the things that got our attention this weekend, in no particular order.

Shortly after noon on Friday, a young mother with whom we are acquainted delivered a baby boy. He was not healthy. He was not bouncing. He was stillborn from his umbilical cord being wrapped around his neck. After a full nine months of waiting and excitement, her baby was gone.
Saturday evening, a young mother was killed when a semi plowed into the back of her car that was, for reasons likely to remain unknown, stopped in the right lane of the interstate. Her son, who is a very precious special needs little boy, attended the same daycare as Kat’s little ones and always came running to say hi when we picked them up.
Early Sunday morning, a 27-year-old police officer and a supervising sergeant were attempting to serve an arrest warrant for, of all things, drug paraphernalia at a trailer park near Kokomo. The situation went bad quickly and both officers were hit in a shootout that killed the suspect. The younger officer died from his injuries Sunday morning, leaving behind a wife and baby boy.
Over 150 firefighters responded to a three-alarm fire Sunday night at a truck stop on Indy’s west side. The fire started outside the Denny’s restaurant attached to the truck stop. Damages are estimated to be over $2 million.
A school bus carrying a high school basketball team and coaches from Northwest Indiana was sideswiped by a car on Saturday, resulting in it rolling off the highway. Miraculously, none of the boys were severely hurt, though there were, understandably, a number of cuts and severe bruises. One coach was airlifted to the hospital but is in good condition. What caused the driver of the car to swerve into the bus? Her drink spilled.
Shots were fired at a police cruiser on Indianapolis’ near Northside a little after 11:15 last night. No officers were hit, but the event underscores tensions in that neighborhood.
No fewer than three people were killed in additional traffic accidents over the weekend.

Yesterday was supposed to be the International Day of Happiness, but for a large number of people across Indiana, there was nothing to be happy about. The things I’ve listed here are just a fraction of events that occurred around the world. In Spain, a bus carrying exchange students crashed, killing 14. In Southern Russia, a FlyDubai flight crashed as it attempted to land at an airport, killing all 62 people on board. A suicide bomber killed four in a busy market in Istanbul. North Korea fired at least five short-range missiles into the Sea of Japan, raising international tensions.

So much tragedy in such a short period of time leaves our senses reeling. Anyone of those events was horribly traumatic for the families of those involved. Even for those of us who might not be directly effected, the number of events is disturbing.

Sunday was also the vernal equinox, the start of Spring, a time we typically associate with freshness and new beginning. We think of Spring as a time of renewal, a chance to start over, to break free of the dreariness of the winter. Yet, with all the tragedy of this weekend, feeling those positive vibes is difficult.

Recovering from all this takes a moment. Recovering from a single tragedy, even when we weren’t directly involved, is like waiting for a bruise to heal. With so many, so close in time, recovering feels a bit like trying to get over losing a prize fight. When one is empathetic with the world, as one should be, recovering requires acts of kindness to offset the cruelty and tragedy. Finding such kindness, especially on a Monday, can be difficult.

What bothers me more, though, are people who can shrug everything off without feeling anything at all. They are totally disconnected emotionally from the rest of the world. When bad things happen around them, they feel nothing. These people scare me, for those who do not share empathy with those around them are more likely to commit violent acts themselves, or tolerate acts of violence by others. When there is a lack of empathy among those who would be our world leaders, we are at risk of war.

Recovering from this weekend is going to take a moment. I would ask that you please be kind to those you encounter because you never know who has had tragedy in their life this weekend. We all can use a smile and maybe a hug where it’s appropriate. We need this week to get better quickly, but it will take all of us to make that happen.

Advertising / PotD

Spam Out Of Context

March 20, 2016

If variety is the spice of life, marriage is the big can of leftover Spam. —Johnny Carson

I understand why I get spam, but so little of it seems meant for me.

Every time I see or use the word Spam, I wonder how many people understand how the word originated. The processed meat, which my late grandfather ate with crackers on a daily basis, is composed of, now pay attention, Shoulder of Pork And Ham. See it? SPAM. Never mind that it was the trash pieces of those cuts, or that the congealed fat that gathered on the outside of a cut could be used as a substitute for bicycle grease, nor that one could consistently find large, inedible pieces of gristle back in the day. What actually gave the product its bad reputation was that is low price often made it the only meat-like product poor people could afford. The stigma was social more than anything else.

Ray Tomlinson, who invented the first email program on what would eventually become the Internet, passed away earlier this month and was appropriately mourned by tech geeks everywhere. His program that allowed for the digital communication of direct messages was exploited almost the instant it became public. For many of us, the first email we received was from a systems administrator explaining how email works. The second email we received was from a Nigerian prince who needed our assistance. In that instant, we started referring to the junk mail of the Internet as spam.

While I’ve not received a request from a Nigerian prince in several years now, I do still get plenty of spam. Microsoft co-founder and richest person in the world, Bill Gates, has famously said that he gets more spam than anyone, and I’ve no reason to doubt that is true because a) his name has a high recognition factor, b) his email address was, for many years, public knowledge, and c) he uses the Internet a lot. It is that last aspect, our Internet use, that sparks a great deal of the spam we now get. We leave a trail when we visit websites and marketers are able to follow that trail to see where our interests might be and then send us spam accordingly.

Even with all the data mining tools available, though, sometimes spam shows up that has no bearing on anything we might ever need, totally out of context. I get enough spam that I have to empty my spam folder on a daily basis. I pay a little attention to this because, occasionally, email I actually need gets caught in the spam folder and I might otherwise miss it. I never fail to be amused, though, by the spam that comes in so amazingly out of context.

For example, here are some examples from my morning spam:

Bra comfort. “Comfy, seamless, front-zip bras” the subject line teases. That’s nice. I know I’ve put on a little weight, but not only do I not wear a bra, Kat doesn’t either. We don’t shop for lingerie at all, so this popping up every day just makes me shake my head.
Private jet rentals. This has been a recent but frequent addition to my spam folder. I haven’t even flown commercially in over 11 years, so I’m not sure why anyone would mistakenly think that I need to use private aircraft and it’s absolutely laughable to think I could afford them.
Savory cherries. “How you can grow your own delectable cherries,” is the subject line. This one’s a little more curious because, while we do have a garden, cherries require something more in the orchard category and take years of growth before there’s anything to harvest. And who in their right mind mail-orders trees? You have to look at those things.
Yacht rentals. Same category as the private jet rentals. These people obviously don’t realize how little money I have.
Magical African Safaris. When this first showed up in my spam box I assumed they were talking about photo safaris. No, they’re not. The funniest thing about this spam, though, is that it is incomplete. Apparently the mass email program they’re using has a character limit the copywriter didn’t know about. The email actually ends mid-sentence.
Exotic Arabian Girls. Today, they’re Arabian. Tomorrow, they may be Russian and the day after that they’ll be Brazillian. Given my profession, I can see where my email might accidentally get mixed up into this group. But the joke’s on them: people pay me for pictures, not the other way around.

I could go on for pages. Understand, as long as the spam doesn’t contain viruses or trojans, and little does anymore (there are more effective ways to hack your computer), I can’t get upset with marketers who are just trying to get my attention. Be sure, someone out there is clicking on this stuff. The numbers ultimately work, even when there is zero chance of me actually using the product.

What pisses me off are the pieces that are frighteningly accurate in their targeting. Walk-in showers. Natural arthritis medications. Soft sole shoes. What really gets my goat is the wrinkle cream. Don’t remind me I’m getting old. Every morning I have to ask Kat for help getting out of bed is enough of a reminder that I’m not getting any younger. I don’t need your spam to remind me.

Oh, but look, I may have just qualified for a $50 Sam’s card! Too bad we’re only members at Costco.

Photography

Photography Improvement Time

March 19, 2016

Photography is the simplest thing in the world, but it is incredibly complicated to make it really work. —Martin Parr

charles i. letbetter - photography improvement

Improving your photography doesn’t have to cost thousands of dollars

Spring officially arrives this next week and along with that comes the annual spade full of photography workshops, seminars, and “master” classes all of which have one primary goal in mind: separating you from your money. I’m not saying the people holding those seminars don’t have any valuable insight or information, they very well may have just the words you need to transform your work. What I’m saying is that, in most cases, there is not enough value to match the price of admission. Many of the people I see holding workshops today are only doing so because they can’t make enough money as photographers to pay the bills. Are any of the workshops out there actually worth $200, $500, or even $2500? None that I’ve seen.

Every photographer should always be looking for ways to refine and improve their photography. Given that we live and work in a digital age, the honing of our skills changes every time a new software update is release. When Adobe pushed out an update to the RAW engine this week, I wasn’t expecting much other than the addition of new camera profiles. First time I opened an image, though, the entire interface had changed! There is always a need to continue learning, to keep up to date, and to improve our skills. But do you need a workshop for that? Absolutely not!

If YouTube is not already one of your most trusted sources of information, that needs to change. With thousands of photographers online and willing to share their experiences and information, there are myriad sources to help you hone your craft and become a better photographer. Photographer-oriented website PetaPixel published a list last week of 13 Photography Channels on YouTube You Should Follow. Actually, their current list is up to 23, which just goes to make my point: the Internet is loaded with more than enough free sources that paying for seminars should be limisted to the very few instances where you can get one-on-one, hands-on help with your photography.

Caveat #1: not every photography-oriented video is created equal. There is a lot of ego-driven bullshit here just as there is with live seminars. That’s why I’m not giving you links to whole channels. I’ve yet to find one that doesn’t have its share of time-wasting nonsense. Some discretion is necessary and in some cases, especially those involving software tutorials, video quality can make all the difference in the world.

Caveat #2: even with the best instruction available, it is up to you to adapt that instruction to your specific style of shooting. New Mexico doesn’t need 10,000 Ansel Adams clones running around in the desert. Make use of what you learn to develop your style more creatively and proficiently.

All that being said, here are five videos that stand out and may just be something that changes the way you take pictures. A couple of them are pretty long, so you may want to bookmark this page or save the video on YouTube if you have an account there. Creating your own playlist is a good way to keep track of useful videos you find so you can reference the information again later. However you choose to handle them, I sincerely hope they all help in some way. Becoming better photographers not only increases the value of your own work but increases the value of all photography.

Using Any Light Source

There’s no such thing as “bad” light, especially with today’s digital cameras that can shoot with practically no light at all. This is over an hour, though, so make sure you have time to get through the whole thing before you start.

50 Quick Photography Tricks

Many of these are common sense to those with sufficient experience, but others are things we just don’t think about and represent some bad or sloppy habits that are easy to fall into. The video isn’t too long. Take a look and see how many of these things you’re already doing.

Are You An Artist?

Want to start an argument among photographers? Ask them this question. There are many opinions as to whether photography can even be an art. Artist Roger Ballen gives you his answer and I find it quite instructive for anyone who wants an artistic edge to their work. The video is just over two minutes but the impact may alter everything you shoot the rest of yourlife.

Finding Photographic Style

Here’s another long one (two hours) from the manager of the B&H event space. This is like getting a whole seminar for free. He really gets deep into the various concepts and methods one can use to explore their own style and stimulate creativity. Block out the time so you don’t have any interuptions.

Creating Visual Stories.

This is an increibly important topic and photographic documentarian Dan Milnor provides some great insight into how to give storytelling abilities to your photographs. In just seven minutes, he can change the way you look at photographs.

That should keep you busy for a while. I strongly suggest that after every one of the videos you take your camera out and see how you can apply what you’ve learned to the pictures you take. Bookmark this page, bookmark the article on PetaPixel, and create a list of your favorite and most isueful videos. Visit them again and again, and search out more. There is plenty of information being shared. What’s left is for you to receive it.

PotD / Social Commentary

Saturday Morning Trailer Time

March 19, 2016

Every man has a right to a Saturday night bath. —Lyndon B. Johnson

Saturday morning is a perfect time to catch up on the trailers for movies we don’t have time to see

Who doesn’t remember the joy of Saturday morning when we were kids? Anyone born before, oh, let’s say 2000 or so, probably still remembers getting up on Saturday mornings and binge watching cartoons while consuming large amounts of processed sugar in whatever form we could convince our parents to buy. For my brother and me, it was cold cereal. For my kids, it was french toast sticks. We would sit there and watch one cartoon show after another, sad when the networks switched to sports around noon, sometimes 11:00.

Kids today don’t understand why Saturday mornings were once so very special; they have Netflix and Cartoon Network and can watch animated programs anytime they want until their eyeballs bleed. Gone are the days of Bugs Bunny and friends, Hannah-Barbera’s predictability, and Sid & Marty Kroft’s strange puppetry. No wonder this generation of kids is so messed up: they don’t know the fear of a coyote possibly dropping an anvil on their heads.

Saturday was also once movie night. While new movies have typically been released on Fridays for more than 60 years, it’s still Saturday night, date night, that traditionally was the biggest movie draw. Again, that has been usurped by Netflix, streaming, and sheer exhaustion. We know we’re adults when we sit home on Saturday nights hoping the phone doesn’t ring.

There are also cost and time factors to going to the movies and for me, personally, that tends to limit my activity more than anything. Saturdays are often typical work days for me. By the time I get done, assuming there’s such a thing as done, I couldn’t stay awake through one no matter how good it might be. I still love movies, though. So, I’ve taken to watching trailers on Saturday mornings, typically early before the kids are up and I have to be concerned about the content. Not that I’ll ever get to actually watch any of the movies whose trailers excite me. I suppose they’ll eventually make it to Netflix. And no, it’s not lost on me that we now wait for movies to be on streaming services much like we once waited for them to be shown on network television.

Anyway, rather than just sitting here and talking about it for another 500 words, why don’t I just share some of the trailers I’m watching this morning? If you get to actually see the movies in theaters, please let me know how they were. My Netflix cue is already pretty full, so any help keeping that manageable is appreciated. I should probably also state that the presence of a trailer here does not imply endorsement of the movie. Even bad movies can have good trailers.

Here’s what I’m watching this morning.

X-Men: Apocolypse

Put this in your religious mythology pipe and smoke it. Could deities actually be mutants? And if so, what happens when that mutant deity isn’t a nice person? Probably something like this:

Ben-Hur

For anyone who remembers the original with Charleston Heston, there’s no way this version isn’t going to be a disappointment. Even with Morgan Freeman in the cast, the look and feel of the movie just isn’t the same. I’m also wondering if this isn’t another case of us knowing too much about a period for us to be entertained by its barbarity. Still, if you like action, and I do, this may have potential.

The Legend of Tarzan

I doubt Edgar Rice Burroughs ever imagined that he was penning the underlying premise for a stream of movies that continues to morph with every generation. Tarzan has been movie fodder almost from the very beginning of cinema. So, here’s another take, perhaps a little more real and with a very different concept of romance. Can it match the book? Probably not, but all those CGI animals could make it interesting.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Oh my. If ever there were a movie destined to become an instant classic, this may be it. Ransom Rigg’s novel has been a children’s favorite for years and now it gets the full Tim Burton treatment with all the special effects and interesting camera angles he brings to a story. Granted, I’m not sure this is going to be appropriate for little ones, but for anyone who is old enough to actually read and understand the book, this may well be a visual delight.

The Man Who Knew Infinity

Some movies we watch to escape. Some movies we watch for the spectacle. Then, there are those rare movies that inspire us. This movie has that potential. With the power of actors Jeremy Irons, Dav Patel, and Stephen Fry, amazing things could happen in this movie. We need a movie like this to not just be good, but life-altering. Let’s hope it achieves that goal.

Things bog down when I put more than five videos on a page, so we’ll have to stop there for now. After all, it is Saturday. You have things to do. I have things to do. The fantasy world of cartoons and movies can’t last forever, can it?

Well, there is always Netflix …

Photography / PotD

Indianapolis St. Patrick’s Day Parade

March 18, 2016

Group conformity scares the pants off me because it’s so often a prelude to cruelty towards anyone who doesn’t want to – or can’t – join the Big Parade. —Bette Midler

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Yesterday’s Saint Patrick’s Day Parade in downtown Indianapolis might have been the biggest crowd turnout yet and, as promised, we have pictures. While temperatures were still a bit on the chilly side, it was not nearly as cold as last year, which may have encouraged a lot of people to abandon whatever they were doing and get out. Indianapolis throws a good parade and kids in town know it. They lined the curbs early holding bags and buckets with which to carry home all the candy. Parade participants can no longer throw candy from a float or even into crowds from the street. They have to actually hand the candy to someone. As a result, only those along the curb are likely to get anything. Indy kids know that and came prepared.

The St. Pat’s parade is a little different from other parades in that there are fewer (practically none) large colorful floats and more groups of people just walking down the street celebrating (sort of) their shared heritage. There are a lot of people of Irish descent in Indianapolis and they’re not the least bit shy about letting their Irish fly year round. As a result, when we take pictures at this parade we tend to focus on interesting people rather than large groups. Groups, especially large numbers of Catholic school kids looking as though they’d rather be in math class, don’t provide the story that individuals do. We try to zero in on smaller sets and individuals. When we do capture a group, it tends to be because there is something unique about them, like carrying folding chairs.

There were some notable differences in this year’s parade, at least from our perspective. Kat actually walked the entire parade route and got a good feel for the crowd while I stayed near the starting point and snapped pictures. Here are some of the things we noticed:

Babies. Since it wasn’t bone-chilling cold this year, there seemed to be tiny ones all over the place. We’re guessing it has something to do with that whole Catholic ban on contraception.
Not nearly as many dogs. There were Irish setters and other breeds in abundance last year, but we didn’t see nearly as many this year.
References to alcohol were missing, or we just didn’t see them. There was no one in a Guinness costume nor any entry by local distributors.
Fewer politicians in the parade. Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett was there, of course, on foot, getting up close and personal with everyone. Surprisingly, though, he was the only one. Neither of the gubernatorial candidates were present (that we saw) and none of the City Council or Congressional candidates were present in an official capacity as part of the parade. However …
An oversized effigy of Governor Pence circulated through the crowds. It wasn’t part of the actual parade and we never were in position to get a decent picture. The anti-governor sentiment was strong, though.
Not as many media outlets participated. We didn’t see WISH (channel 8) at all and WTHR (channel 13) focused their coverage more on events around town. There weren’t as many radio stations this year, either.
There was less candy being distributed this year. Last year, Kat had her purse full, which we hadn’t expected. This year, neither of us got as much as a dum-dum. Those kids along the curb were disappointed more than once as groups passed without handing out anything.
Middle school kids still find the parade boring. We’ve noticed this before. The poor kids walking in the parade look as though they’re about to have teeth extracted. Perhaps some of those Catholic schools should reconsider. Let the kindergartners walk the parade. That would be interesting.
Everyone loves to pretend they’re Irish.

Indy’s St. Patrick’s day parade isn’t the all-out spectacle of cities such as New York or Savannah, but it’s still fun and honors a culture and history that is still very present in the city. Here’s to parade and Irish and not waking up with a horrible hangover this morning!

pop culture / PotD

Pinch Me, I’m Not Wearing Green

March 17, 2016

All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green. —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Celebrating a culture is one thing, totally misappropriating it is quite another

I’m not always the most observant person in the world. I turned on Spotify last night and discovered they’d added a new playlist for me: Greatest St. Paddy’s Day Hits. Apparently, it’s been there a week and will go away after today. I’m still trying to figure out what is Irish about Tracy Chapman’s cover of Stand By Me or Ray Charles’ I’ve Got A Woman. I think the creators of the list might have been stretching a bit to come up with 12 hours worth of music on the theme. I’m thankful, though, they didn’t just include songs with the word green in the title. That would be a strange list.These are the type of things we encounter on St. Patrick’s Day each year. They turned Indianapolis’ downtown canal green yesterday (not that it needed much help) and I’m sure several other cities did something similar. .

These are the type of things we encounter on St. Patrick’s Day each year. They turned Indianapolis’ downtown canal green yesterday (not that it needed much help) and I’m sure several other cities did something similar. There will be orange, white, and green flags flying everywhere. Children will wear silly green mustaches. People will get drunk on really weak green beer and the truly desperate will wear “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” t-shirts. The party starts early and won’t end until the last redhead falls under the table.

I don’t have any problem with celebrating Irish tradition and culture; theirs is a very rich and very long history that can be reasonably dated to 4,000 BCE and even further than that if one wants to believe certain overly-patriotic Irish authors. I once attempted to read a very large book that supposedly contained the exhaustive history of Ireland in which the author claimed the Irish ancestors were responsible for everything from the creation of language to the invention of the wheel. Unfortunately, I never finished the book as I kept falling asleep on top of its pages. The book is demonstrative, though, of just how long and deep Irish culture is. There are plenty of reasons to celebrate.

Still, you might as well go ahead and pinch me now, I’m not wearing green. The reasons are simple: 1. I don’t have anything green. If you know me, you know my wardrobe is very monochrome, occupying only the black palette. 2. I’m not Irish. Not even a little bit. In the great melting pot that is our family bloodline, about a third is Cherokee/Choctaw and the rest is a mix of Dutch, German, French, and Russian. No Irish at all. 3. I’m not Catholic. Never have been. Never want to be. This may be the most important reason because orange is just as important an Irish color as is green, but which one wears totally depends on whether one is Protestant (orange) or Catholic (green) and both sides are equally strong. This is why there are three colors, not one, in the Irish flag.

The line between celebrating a culture and misappropriating it can sometimes be quite thin. There’s nothing wrong with today’s parades and parties. Irish people have contributed significantly to the American culture and way of life despite the fact they were treated quite horribly when they first arrived. Had a certain presidential candidate been alive 100 years ago, he likely would have been proposing a ban on Irish; many politicians of the time actually suggested such a thing. Fortunately, that ban never happened, but they were still treated horrifically until after WWII. Celebrating all that the Irish have done for American is totally appropriate.

Unfortunately, like many things we Americans do, we take it too far. The Irish are a wonderfully hospitable people but that doesn’t give us the right to completely misappropriate and misrepresent their culture, even for a day, just so we can make a buck or have an excuse to take the day off work and get drunk. Wearing green is totally insincere if one is neither Irish or Catholic. All the stuff about leprechauns and pots of gold, green beer, silly t-shirts, and dying everything green has less to do with celebrating a culture and more to do with trying to make a quick buck off a culture the greater majority of people don’t even begin to understand. Just because our Irish friends invite us to party with them doesn’t give us a right to completely take over the day and completely misrepresent who they are.

Who are the Irish? They’re hard-working, god-fearing people with a tenacity that has gotten them through famine, drought, and unwarranted hostility. They’ve had their way of life threatened, they’ve survived the natural hardships of living on a craggy rock of an island in the North Atlantic, and still they’ve managed to flourish with a form of art, music, dance, literature, and fashion that is all their own. They are distinctive from other European tribes of the region. They work hard, fight harder, and have a passion unmatchable. Those are all things worthy of being celebrated.

Yes, we’ll be celebrating St. Patrick’s Day today, but we’ll attempt to do so appropriately. We’ll go to the parade and take pictures (which we’ll post here tomorrow), we’ll enjoy the company of an Irish friend or two, and at some point, we’ll likely enjoy one of the best beers made. Just don’t look for me to be wearing any green; not this year, not ever. Celebrate, don’t misappropriate.

PotD / Social Commentary

A Doom And Gloom Kind Of Morning

March 16, 2016

When I woke up this morning my girlfriend asked me, ‘Did you sleep good?’ I said ‘No, I made a few mistakes.’ —Steven Wright

Looking at the news first thing in the morning can make the whole day difficult

The day hasn’t really even started yet and already I’m depressed. When I turned off my alarm this morning, the first thing I saw were last night’s primary election results. I didn’t want to see that. I didn’t need to see that. I made the mistake of leaving Facebook up all night, though, and politics are the hot trending topic of the moment. This is not a positive way to start the day. I’m depressed now and may have difficulty making it to my minimum word count, which I usually exceed three-fold or more. I’m worried.

I’m worried about things over which I have no control and the fact that I have no control is what worries me. More than ever, I get the feeling that it is the primaries that are the more important elections this year. By the time we get to the general election in November we’ll be once more faced with a decision of choosing the lesser of two evils. When in politics, the good guy never wins. Why? Because people are stupid and vote against their own best interest every time.

So, as I’m looking for something, anything, to cheer me, or, at least, jar me from this doom and gloom morning, I run across an article from Business Insider: “5 Countries Where It’s Relatively Easy For Americans To Become Expats.” My first thought was, “Geez, someone flunked the headline writing course.” My second thought was, “Better bookmark this; it might come in handy later.

I’ve never really been one of those people who threaten to move if my candidate doesn’t win. That tactic has never worked for anyone. No one cares if you leave the country. In fact, I rather expect that for most people making those threats, especially alleged celebrities, there would be a reasonably lengthy line of people more than willing to help them pack. If you’re just moving across town, you’re on your own, but leaving the country as a martyred political dissident? You’ll have to turn the help away. No one likes a bad sport, even in politics.

Still, regardless of how this year’s elections turn out, I’m finding it difficult to put a positive spin on any of the possible outcomes. Faced with a partisan Congress that has its collective head stuck up its collective ass too far to do anything, President Obama seems reluctant to do anything that can’t be achieved by executive order. The economy, while currently okay, shows signs of fracturing in China and Europe, which could doom us all through no fault of our own. North Korea seems to be itching to start another war. Middle Eastern terrorists are pissed that they’re not making headlines in American newspapers as often. These are all things that November’s elections can’t fix, despite all the claims those loudmouths are making. All they can do is make a bad situation worse, which is probably what will happen.

So, okay, maybe leaving the country isn’t such a bad idea. Canada and Mexico both top the list. They actually have rather relaxed immigration laws, especially when it comes to Americans. They are much more accepting of us than we are of them. We could probably learn a lesson or two from them, but we’re too stupid, collectively, to be paying attention to that. The problem with either of those countries is that, A) they’re likely to become flooded with immigration requests at the end of the year, forcing them to be a little picky about who they accept, and B) having a member of a drug cartel as a neighbor is a bit too similar to where we live now.

A little country by the name of Svalbard is on the list. Don’t worry, I had to look it up, too. It’s a tiny place just North of the Arctic Circle. I can see why they’d have a wide-open immigration policy. I’m rather surprised they have enough people to even have a country. I would be worried that a place where the population is so small that everyone has to hold a political office of some kind just to cover all the necessary bases. I don’t want to be a politician, nor do I care to freeze my ass off year-round. I’ll pass, thank you.

Sweden’s on the list, which doesn’t surprise me. Sweden’s a nice place with a lot of amenities that help you forget you’re being taxed out the wazoo. They have a huge expat population and are very good at helping newcomers feel welcome. The recent wave of Syrian immigrants has taken a toll, however, and they’re part of the European Union, which certainly looks to be on the verge of economic crisis. Moving to Sweden at this particular moment might prove to be a case of trading a bad situation for a worse one.

New Zealand is the fifth country on this list and it just might be the better option. They seem to be having a rather serious skills shortage, so if you know how to do something, pretty much anything, they’ll happily hand over a permanent work visa. Granted, their seasons are exactly the opposite of ours, which means one can likely spend Christmas on the beach, butI think we can probably adjust to that. It’s technically not illegal to be naked anywhere in New Zealand, either, which may be an issue for those of certain points of view. That doesn’t mean everyone walks around topless, mind you, just that you’re less likely to get into trouble on those stressful days where you forget to wear pants.

The biggest challenge I see to moving to New Zeland is the cost of shipping your stuff so very far away. This isn’t a mere 10-hour flight from JFK. It’s a minimum 12 hours from LAX, and from anywhere else, such as Indy, just plan on losing 24 hours. Shipping costs are expensive, so you’d have to buy all new furniture and stuff when you get there. Ya’ might want to start saving now.

I still don’t see leaving the country as the optimal choice if for no other reason than not really wanting the US to become a nation of complete imbeciles, which is what happens if all the smart people like you and I leave. I’m not ready to pack my bags and leave my extended family members stranded. I would like to think there are other options.

But then, I look at the morning headlines again and see nothing but doom and gloom. Maybe if ya’ll would start voting more intelligently we could have a better day. This morning is just getting started. Maybe a presidential candidate will slip and fall and make us all laugh. That would make for a good morning.

Current Issues / pop culture / PotD

Comic Book Gospel

March 15, 2016

It is only the savage, whether of the African bush or of the American gospel tent, who pretends to know the will and intent of God exactly and completely. —Henry Louis Mencken

Rarely does our modern society equate gospel with peace, but, more often, with violence and dishonesty

Imagine Tom Cruise blowing up in front of a Church of Scientology. For a certain portion of the population, the very idea of such a thing makes us downright giddy. Those are the people who are likely to be very excited about the new AMC series Preacher, which is set to debut May 22. The pilot was premiered at SXSW this past Sunday and crowds cheered when Cruise went boom. Such is the general public attitude toward many religions who seem to be making up their own gospel as they go. Watching those who use the gospel for their own gain explode sounds like a rather enjoyable pastime and Preacher provides just that in its first episode.

Don’t expect more traditional churches to be too happy about this series. Based on the Vertigo comic book by Seth Ennis and Steve Dillon, Preacher tells the story of Jesse Custer, who has some “special” powers, his ex-girlfriend Tulip, and Cassidy, a rough-hewn Irishman with a penchant for using his fists [In the comic, Cassidy is a vampire, but no word as to whether he maintains that characteristic in the TV version]. In the pilot, various ministers are “possessed” by a strange alien force that then explodes them from the inside out. This is not exactly what the church has in mind when they talk about being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Initial reaction from folks at SXSW was favorable, but one has to consider that the population there is one already attuned to a more alternative culture in which a comic book gospel is more real to them than the version being preached on the street corner. They tend to like anything that has explosions and defies traditional authority and challenges our concepts of how society works. SXSW tends to be the AMC network’s core demographic, so showing them something like Preacher is rather like offering a digitized communion.

What is more disconcerting for the church, or should be, is that such a negative attitude toward people in ministry has become almost commonplace. Comics like Preacher do not come from a single, twisted mind, but rather are reflective of a perspective based on the reality of priests abusing children, ministers having affairs with church secretaries, and televangelists fleecing the poor to make millions of dollars. If there is a tendency to see evil in those who wear a collar, it is because evil is the example that has been set by far too many who claim to preach the gospel.

Consider the following tweet that came across my feed yesterday:

Joel Osteen ……

If being a Minister is making you a millionaire chances are you’re doing it wrong. pic.twitter.com/l3JuiMUjd7

— Bring back FDR’s CCC (@rarey4) March 14, 2016

Now, I can’t speak to the accuracy of that image and the fact that no source is cited makes its voracity somewhat suspect. What’s important for this particular conversation is that we see so-called ministers like this, quite literally raking in millions of dollars, living high on the hog, while those who donate to their “church” can barely scrape together enough money for their own food. These “ministers” take advantage of a biblical mandate to financially support the work of God and exploit those who faithfully believe that some good is being done. Instead of the money going to help people in need, though, it’s going to the construction of lavish mansions, multi-million dollar television production facilities, private jets, designer clothes, and lifestyles that would make a presidential candidate blush. When we see the gospel so blatantly and obviously misappropriated, then yes, we’re going to cheer at the thought of such charlatans being blown to smithereens.

All of this sits in stark contrast to what I know is true for those whose faith and intentions are sincere. My late father, and those like him, never looked at the pulpit as a way of filling their own wallet. Quite to the contrary, they sacrificed financial stability, time with their families, and in many cases even their health in order to better the lives of the congregations and communities to which they legitimately felt called. They understood that wealth and privilege on earth is meaningless and preached a gospel of caring for others, selflessness, and charity.

After Poppa died, my brother and I were going through his papers, trying to decide what we needed to keep. We weren’t surprised to find he had kept meticulous financial records. He was never audited, but he was always ready, just in case. As we looked back through tax returns from the 1960s and 70s, we were shocked. We always knew we had been on the lower end of the economic scale, but we hadn’t realized how severely. 1974 was the first time Poppa could claim more than $10,000 in income. Throughout the 80s, his salary barely tipped over $20K. Only after many years of service, after my brother and I had both left home, did his salary finally top out at $36,000. There were never new cars. New clothes were only bought on sale, and for Poppa especially, new suits were an expenditure difficult to manage more than once ever three or four years. Even then, they were from the clearance rack at Sears.

Real ministers don’t look for the limelight. A local radio station once offered to broadcast Poppa’s Sunday morning sermons if he could have someone tape them at sufficient quality. Taping the sermons wasn’t an issue. We were already doing that for shut-ins and nursing home residents that couldn’t make it to the service. Still, Poppa turned down the offer. He was concerned that the publicity that would come with such a broadcast might dilute the message.

Preachers like my father are not what the general public sees, though. Instead, we are faced with a Church fighting to hide the criminal sexual molestation committed by their own priests. We’re faced with the images of weeping ministers confessing to affairs only because they were caught and had no other choice. We’re insulted with pleas from televangelists begging for donations so they can buy a $65 million private jet. The people who perpetuate such absolute heresy are guilty of preaching a comic book gospel that leaves us so disgusted we’re not the least bit upset when something bad happens to them.

I’m actually rather anxious to compare Preacher the television series to the comic book. In the comic book, one of the plot lines is that God has left heaven and can’t be found. I have a feeling that there are millions of people whose experience with religion is just like that: God is not in heaven and he’s not doing anything good. If the church wants to change that perception, they need to do away with this ridiculous gospel of affluence, be more proactive in addressing their own sins, and let us see the example of selfless sacrifice that I know exists.

The gospel I was taught was the gospel of peace and love. Maybe we should try that one out for a while.

Current Issues / PotD / science

Science, Psychology, and Bullies

March 14, 2016

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ but ‘That’s funny…’ —Isaac Asimov

Science depends on replication. Psychology depends on publication. Bullies mar both.

Creative people walk a fine line between brilliance and insanity. We know this, or at least, we think we do. Anecdotal observation tells us the premise is true even if there is no research to support the observation. Science, however, actually does confirm a link between creativity and mental illness. Maybe. That report was published in 2010, but the whole premise was later brought into question when additional studies failed to replicate the results. Arguments between researchers are ongoing, but trust me, we’re all nuts.

Science relies on research that can be duplicated. A scientific theory is just a nice idea until someone can not only prove their concept to a reasonable degree (100% certainty is often impossible), but someone else has to be able to copy that research and achieve the same results. Studies cannot be considered accurate if there is no corroboration. That’s just the way science works.

Well, that’s the way science is supposed to work.

The field of psychology has long had a PR problem and much of that problem revolves around the difficulty that exists in duplicating their research. It’s one thing when scientists are doing research on inert materials or with factors that are relatively absolute. Psychologists, however, have to do their research with humans, which means they’re working with a base set that, at its very core, cannot be duplicated exactly. Sometimes, they can’t even get close. Two different study groups in two different parts of the world may duplicate research methods exactly and still come up with wildly different results, not because the methodology was flawed, but because of basic differences in the humans studied. This makes finding necessary corroboration difficult, and significant when it happens.

So, let’s take a study done some 20 years ago. This study, which involves chocolate chip cookies and self-control, has been the basis for 83 similar studies and almost 200 additional experiments, all coming to the same general conclusion. So, one would think that this passes the scientific requirements for proven theory. Pretty much everyone in the field of psychology accepted this research as fact.

Then, last week an announcement was made that brings all that research into question. There is a paper set to publish next month that directly challenges all the findings from the past 20 years on this particular subject. Most importantly, for this conversation, it challenges how psychological research is performed and the common use of macro-analysis in assessing that research. What the paper seems to infer is that huge bodies of established psychological research are wrong because of errors in macro-analysis.

How does this affect you and me? Everything your therapist told you may be pure bunk. That doesn’t mean psychotherapy isn’t helpful; don’t go cancelling that appointment just yet. But people who rely on the accuracy of that information, which not only includes psychotherapists but aspects of law enforcement, retail planning, marketing, transportation, and everything else that relies on studies of human behaviour, now have more reason than ever to question the veracity of information being presented as fact.

While psychology is the field currently in the hot seat, you should know that questions concerning the accuracy of published research have been around for a while. A study from 2005 claims that most research findings are false. But then, an article for the American Psychological Association questioned whether there is a reproducibility crisis.

There are a crap ton of reasons these fallacies exists, but what they all ultimately come down to are money (no big surprise) and what Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert calls shameless bullies. There are millions of dollars in funding on the line, not to mention tenure, based on a researcher’s ability to publish their findings, and the greater number of scientific publications have shown a distinct bias for publishing papers that are positive and declare new findings that, at least on the surface, seem to move science forward. And while the scientific method requires that research be duplicated, there is considerable animosity between original researchers and those who would reproduce their work. Katie Palmer’s article in Wired last week, “Psychology Is In Crisis Over Whether It’s In Crisis,” had so much back and forth on the issue that my head was nearly spinning by the time I waded through everything. Folks with Ph. D.’s can be just as mean as street hoods, they merely use words that cut sharper than a switchblade.

How does one resolve an issue like this when the very methods that might solve the problems are part of the problem?

Dear science: we need you to get your act together and quickly. We’ve trusted you, put faith in your findings, confident that research that was duplicated was accurate. Now, we are beginning to question whether we know anything at all. Finding out our science is skewed is rather on par with finding out those deities we believed in probably don’t exist. Who and what are we supposed to believe? Who and what are we supposed to trust? Is anything real?

I can handle psychology being in flux for a while. After all, scientists are just as crazy as creatives. Just don’t tell me what we know about gravity is wrong; it’s Monday and I might come unglued.

Current Issues / PotD

History Repeats: 1968 in 2016

March 13, 2016

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. —Karl Marx

The violence seen at political rallies this week remind us of a time that was actually worse. As history repeats itself, are we in for a violent summer?

The scenario is all too familiar. A political event in Chicago. Police and Secret Service highly visible with instructions to keep protesters from interfering with the event. Protesters interfere anyway. Police react. People are hurt. Several are arrested.

But wait, we’re not talking about events of this past week. I’m referring to the 1968 Democratic National Convention. If you think this year’s political cycle is the craziest thing ever, then please allow me to give you a brief history lesson. While we are still relatively early in the year, and yes, history repeats far too often, things will have to get a lot worse for this election year to equal the chaos of 48 years ago.

1968 was, by any account, a watershed year. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been murdered on April 4, setting off unrest around the country. The war in Vietnam was not going in our favor, with the North Vietnamese having launched the Tet offensive at the first of the year. Pop artist Andy Warhol was shot April 3 (he recovered). Anti-draft protests were already common and continued to intensify. CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite aired a special, Who, What, When, Where, Why? directly contradicting official accounts of how things were going in Vietnam. President Johnson announced he would not run for re-election.

Political scheduling back then was more condensed than it is now. Candidates were still making up their mind whether to run as late as April and May, completely missing the early state primaries because they could get at-large delegates through backroom dealings. Care was taken to craft a strong anti-war platform to distance candidates from President Johnson’s policies that had dragged his popularity down to something in the neighborhood of 32%.

Then, California happened. Senator Robert Kennedy won the state’s primary rather handily; it looked like he could unite factions and take the nomination from Vice President Hubert Humphrey. He had been celebrating with supporters at a rally in San Fransisco and as he is leaving the stage, just after midnight on June 5, Kennedy is shot and killed by Sirhan Sirhan. The split in the party was now unreconcilable.

While the nation mourned, summer grew hot as Richard Nixon slugged it out with Nelson Rockefeller and Ronald Reagan for the Republican Nomination. On the Democratic ticket, Vice President Humphrey considered himself a shoe-in, but still faced strong competition from Senators George McGovern and Eugene McCarthy. In the middle of all that, Alabama Governor George Wallace was running an independent campaign that seemed to have all the Southern states sewn up.

By the time of the Democratic convention in Chicago, hard lines had already been drawn. Using a system, not unlike the super-delegates available today, Humphrey had already clinched the nomination, but several states threatened to change their votes. Abbie Hoffman had mobilized some 100,000 young people, ostensibly members of the Youth International Party (YIPPIES) with the specific goal of disrupting the convention. McGovern and McCarthy had their protesters as well, both inside and outside the convention center. Infamous Chicago Mayor Richard Daly, a supporter of Humphrey, responded to the threats by, among other things, calling out the National Guard and surrounding the convention center with fencing topped with barbed wire. Allegedly, troops and police had been given the order to “shoot to kill,” but that was never directly proven.

Wait, it gets worse. In the hot August heat, the air conditioning at the convention center kept going out. Taxi drivers went on strike. Telephone operators went on strike, and in 1968 that really was a big deal. Phone service could not be guaranteed. Television was limited to broadcasting from either inside the Conrad hotel or inside the convention hall, so they would have to use film, which had to be processed, to cover the riots outside.

The convention was a literal bloodbath, with both protesters and delegates running afoul of police and National Guardsmen. Lincoln Park, where many of the Yippies were camping, was bombed with tear gas which then contaminated the hotel rooms of delegates staying nearby. Free-for-alls erupted on the convention floor as delegates argued over platform planks. The worst day of rioting, August 25, came as delegates argued over the peace plank of the platform. As protestors attempted to march on the convention center, they clashed with police and Guardsmen resulting in hundreds of injuries, including reporters and doctors attempting to help. Nothing like it has been seen since. Chicago police recorded almost 600 arrests, including reporter Hal Bruno who is now political director for ABC news. Everyone widely considered the possibility that the United States was on the brink of collapse.

We didn’t collapse. We know how the election, and the war, turned out. In hindsight, we can see where the mistakes were made and wish things had turned out differently, but the point is that through such a dark and divided time in our history, we survived. If history repeats, we have that success on which to build.

As I watch the campaign rhetoric float across my social media accounts, I see concern in many voices that we are widely divided as a nation and many wonder if we can survive the deep differences of opinion. The scenes in Chicago and St. Louis are frighteningly familiar for those of us old enough to remember. The frustration of young people who feel the government has let them down is exactly what allowed Abbie Hoffman to mobilize so many thousands. Racial tensions are also every bit as high now as they were in 1968 and who would be surprised if we were to see Gloria Steinem leading a National Organization of Women (NOW) march on either Cleveland or Philadelphia. Seeing CBS news journalist Sopan Deb manhandled and arrested by Chicago police was chilling.

Yet, we’ve not hit that tipping point, and I hope we don’t. The death of Robert Kennedy played heavily into the subsequent violence in Chicago. Fortunately, violence this year has not reached the point of homicide. After 1968, Secret Service agents were assigned to leading candidates and we’ve already seen them at work. However, we must also remember the attempted assassination of George Wallace during the 1972 campaign, which the Secret Service was not able to stop.

We’re just now hitting mid-March. We’ve summer yet to go and climatology forecasts predict it could get hot. Perhaps it’s comforting to know that if history repeats itself we’ve survived such turmoil before. Let’s hope this isn’t that year. We don’t need another 1968. We don’t need another President Nixon.

Current Issues / PotD

Food Chain Disruptions

March 12, 2016

charles i. letbetter - food chain disruption

Food, in the end, in our own tradition, is something holy. It’s not about nutrients and calories. It’s about sharing. It’s about honesty. It’s about identity. —Louise Fresco

charles i. letbetter - food chain disruptions

When it comes to eating healthy, when has the rule ever not been one of moderation?

The little ones in our house have become food critics. They have taken to watching Food Channel re-runs on Netflix. Things such as Cupcake Wars and Worst Cook in America can keep them occupied for several seconds at a time, between bursts of body-slamming each other into the couch. On one hand, the shows have ignited their interest in food and cooking, especially in regard to cupcakes. On the other hand, however, it has made them much more picky about things that six- and seven-year-olds really shouldn’t notice, such as plating and food presentation.

Last night, as I served the little darlings a dinner of baked cod with a wheat cracker crust and steamed veggies, little man looked up from his plate and informed me, “I really think you could have crushed the crackers more; there are some pieces there that are really too large.”

He’s lucky I let him eat.

Knowing what to eat seems to become increasingly more difficult with every day. The Nestlé company issued yet another recall yesterday, this time for frozen pizza, Lean Cuisine, and various Stouffer’s Lasagna. The problem? Glass in the spinach. I’m still trying to figure out how glass gets in spinach in the first place, but then, I never have really understood how mass production of frozen food works, either. While frozen is, admittedly, a wonderful convenience on those nights when I’m exhausted, I would still rather order out for fresh pizza than settle for frozen. We just don’t consume that much of it because the taste isn’t there.

Putting healthy food on our plates doesn’t really seem like that big a challenge, in my opinion. We typically know our schedules in advance, we can look at the weather report and guess which days are going to be physically challenging for me, and we plan our menus accordingly. During the summer and early fall, we tilt heavily toward fresh veggies, especially things we grow in our own garden. During the winter and early Spring, before things have a chance to grow, we rely more on things I can put in the slow cooker of the morning and not have to worry about. Eating reasonably healthy isn’t difficult for us.

However, we are fortunate to not have a lot of restrictions on what we eat, either. None of us have serious food allergies or sensitivities, so I don’t have to worry about making substitutions for ingredients that are natural. Not everyone has that advantage. There are millions of people who are diabetic and have to avoid sugars, for example, and finding substitutes that work in various recipes can really be a huge challenge, especially when everything artificial seems to have issues.

The latest sweetener to run into problems is Splenda. A study published in the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health this week found “increased incidence (p < 0.01) of hematopoietic neoplasias in males” when sucralose, the primary ingredient in Splenda, was injected into rat feed on a regular basis. In other words, regular consumption of Splenda causes cancer. This study feeds into a long-standing claim against the sweetener that, until now, has had no basis. A 2015 article on Snopes lists such cancer claims as false. Splenda, which, by the way, is owned and manufactured by Indianapolis-based Heartland Food Products Group, was quick to dismiss the study, stating:

Sucralose has been extensively researched, with more than 110 studies conducted over a 20-year period. These studies include rigorous testing to specifically identify any potential for causing cancer. Worldwide regulatory authorities, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the European Food Safety Authority, Health Canada and the World Health Organization, have reviewed these studies and confirm that results show no link between sucralose and cancer. The U.S. National Cancer Institute also supports this conclusion.

I’m not one to decry “artificial” foods that are designed to help people with food-related diseases, such as diabetes and Crones, be able to enjoy relatively normal lives and eat the dishes they have traditionally enjoyed. Every food contains chemicals, folks. Most chemicals are naturally occurring and to the extent they can be extracted and used to help people, I’m all for that and can even encourage further experimentation and exploration. Natural foods can kill even more quickly than artificial ones if ingested by the wrong people.

What’s more likely to cause danger is the way we prepare our food, not the food itself. For example, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warns that over-cooking potatoes, whether fried or baked, can increase amounts of naturally-occurring acrylamide, which really does create a variety of health issues. Understand, this problem occurs even with organically grown potatoes. The chemical is there regardless of how the potato is grown or harvested. What makes the difference is the length of cooking time.

We have a choice. We can either live in fear of everything we might want to put in our mouths, or we can use some good old common sense when choosing and preparing our food. There is very little that is actually bad for you in reasonable doses. Yes, some of the chemicals that occur naturally in our food can also be used in plastics or household cleaners, but the proportions are so outrageously different as to not be comparable. One can die just as quickly from so-called “clean” food when it is prepared incorrectly or smothered in excessive fats and sugars. Eating an all-natural diet doesn’t help one bit if one is consuming 7,000 calories in a single meal. The rule of moderation still applies for the vast majority of healthy people.

If you’re having difficulty comprehending all this, or don’t know who to believe, maybe you just need to eat more chocolate. Chocolate makes you smarter. Run with that. We’ll all have a better day.

Current Issues / Mythology / PotD

Love And Loss (of rights and dignity)

March 10, 2016

We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others. —Will Rogers

Love is such a beautiful thing, so why is there still an effort to deny people the right to love?

I don’t watch reality television as a habit, so I wasn’t even aware that celebrity personal trainer Jillian Michaels has her own show until yesterday. Apparently she does, however, and having all that production ability available allowed her to create a touching video which she used to ask her partner of seven years, Heidi Rhodes, to marry her. I could be cynical and question whether the whole thing was done just for the television cameras, and certainly, since the show isn’t done live, the timing is ratings fodder, but why choose cynicism over love? The video, which you can watch here, is one of those that can only be the product of a long-term relationship full of ups and downs and tugs at the heartstrings of anyone with a romantic bone in their body. I find it wonderful that they’ve not only had such a great relationship, but that their rights to recognize that relationship through marriage have been affirmed across the whole country. This is progress.

Oh, wait, those rights may not actually extend to the entire United States. Because Puerto Rico is not a full-fledged state, there is a frightening chance that last year’s Supreme Court ruling regarding gay marriage doesn’t apply to the unincorporated state. The federal judge based his ruling on the concept that only fully incorporated states enjoy the full protection of the Constitution and that, by extension, the 14th amendment does not apply to Puerto Rico. This is significant not only in terms of LGBT rights, but the full realm of civil rights based on the 14th amendment. If the judge’s ruling that the 14th amendment doesn’t apply at all, then all the civil rights gained over the past 60 years would not apply either. Maybe this will be what pushes Puerto Rico toward statehood.

Even on the mainland, though, the fight to deny rights to LGBT peoples continues. Democratic senators in Missouri filibustered for 39 hours this week in an attempt to block a so-called religious freedom bill that would, in the name of preserving religious rights, denies rights to LGBT peoples. This is significant because the bill is part of a push in that state to create a constitutional amendment that is inherently restrictive in the name of religious freedom. The bill still has to pass the state legislature before going for a statewide vote, so the matter is far from over. Still, the fact that the denial of basic rights is still an issue is severely disturbing.

That religious freedom would be on the wrong side of human rights is hardly anything new. That Christianity, specifically, has to be coerced over time to accept even the most basic of human rights has been a well-documented fact in the US since the mid-19th century. Christianity has been pro-slavery, against women’s rights (including the right to vote), anti-semitic, anti-segregation, and anti-voting rights, and ultimately found themselves on the wrong side of each of those issues. The fact that the Ku Klux Klan, as hate-filled as they are, is based on what they consider core Christian values does not go without notice.

Yet, even among Christians, there is division when it comes to LGBT rights. I was severely disappointed when the Stockton Leadership Foundation, a non-profit religiously-motivated organization, decided to cancel Stockton, Arizona’s community Easter Sunrise Service rather than include a church comprised largely of LGBT members. How these people can celebrate Easter at all after such a disgusting display of anti-Christlike attitudes is beyond me. The Foundation had never planned on inviting the Valley Ministries congregation, but after that invitation was “accidentally” sent their attempts to disinvite and then further diminish any role of the small 70-member church were more like the actions of the ancient Sanhedrin rather than the teachings of the one crucified with their approval.

Spring is a time of renewal, of growth, and newness; a perfect time for love and engagement and all those cute emotional feels. The ancient pagans seem to have gotten it right, with celebrations that involved dancing and singing and naked frivolity. Doesn’t that seem so much better, to celebrate love, than to create loss by diminishing and removing someone’s rights and dignity? Perhaps, in the name of religious freedom, the answer is for all of us, Christian, Jew, Muslim, gay, straight, transgendered, bi, curious, questioning, Pagan or atheist, to dance naked around a bonfire together. Why? Because when we strip away all the titles and labels, we’re all just human, we’re all brothers and sisters, one species of being. Create love, not loss.

Art / Photography / PotD

Shattering Old Boxes

March 9, 2016

Some of the most wonderful people are the ones who don’t fit into boxes. —Tori Amos

charlesi i. letbetter - shattering old boxes

Looking at old things in new ways, looking at new things in old ways, both have the ability to shatter the old boxes that define how we think

I, personally, don’t use mobile apps like Timehop, but I’ve plenty of friends that do. Yesterday, one reposted a quote of mine that had particularly inspired them. At first, I was flattered, but then I felt the conviction of my own words. The quote was from five years ago. Here it is:

Boxes are good for capturing the status quo, for preserving things that might one day be worth putting in a museum if only for the purpose of reminding us how narrow our thinking was in the past. They give us a place to put the things with which we have become bored, those things that might have amused us yesterday but now seem cliché and stagnant. Boxes hide what deserves to be hidden because, like Sinatra sang, “regrets, I’ve had a few.”

Boxes have their purpose, but none of them involve crawling inside and keeping ourselves contained. Yet, that is exactly what we are inclined to do, and one of the reasons that I found this quote so convicting is that I have not stayed true to my own words. I let the opinions of others keep me in a box that I have no business occupying. If I am to thrive, if I am to be at my creative best, then I have to not only step out of those boxes, I have to completely destroy them, shatter their walls, decimate their covers, so that I can never return.

Boxes are restricting, and I have always disliked restrictions. I dislike anyone telling me that I can’t do something. I also dislike limitations, though more frequently than not there is little I can do about them. If I had my way, 3D or virtual reality imaging would be much more advanced than current technology allows. My mind wants to capture images with depth and be able to manipulate the aspects of that depth in a creative fashion. I want to explore what I dream, to create from my imagination. Limitations are probably the most difficult box from which to break free, but even attempting to throw off those limitations is better than letting them keep one tied down.

If we are in a box, any box, we cannot fulfill our potential because potential exceeds the bounds of any container. We all have the potential to be something far greater than our current selves can imagine and there’s absolutely no chance of finding out what that is if we fail to ever leave our box.

I am happy that the weather is warming up, that an early spring may be on the horizon. With the fall/winter fashion season ending today, I have more time to explore, to get out and walk, or take a bus, and spend time finding things that are new and different. A lot has changed around town during the winter and I’m anxious to get out and explore. Getting out of the house is getting out of a literal box.

Beyond such physical acts of exploration, though, breaking down the boxes in our minds may be even more challenging. We have this habit of compartmentalizing our thoughts, which serves an important purpose in helping us keep things organized so that we’re not overwhelmed. That compartmentalization fails us, though, when we begin to think that the boxes into which we have put things are the only places those things should be.

One of the best tools, for me, is radio. Radio works specifically because, unlike almost everything else around me, it is not inherently interactive. Yes, I choose the station and I choose when and where I want to listen, but once I’ve made those choices what comes next is out of my control and sometimes that’s a good thing. When I’m not in control, I am open to new ideas, new concepts, and new music that I might not have chosen in a fully interactive environment.

I especially find TED Radio effective at helping me shatter the walls of my boxes. If I could multitask at an endless level, I would have an eye and ear on TED talks all day long, but that’s not possible. TED radio, which is based on TED talks but not merely an audio rehash, is much more suited to my current needs. I can listen to TED radio while editing, or writing, or most anything else.

The Moth Radio Hour is also especially effective at getting my imagination going. Hearing other people tell stories, often stories of them breaking free of their own boxes in one form or another, sparks my imagination and gets me thinking in directions I’d not previously considered.

There are a lot of things we can do to help our mind break down some of the boxes that are holding us back. Ultimately, though, as with everything else, thinking is not enough, we must do something. So, here is my commitment to return to that habit of shattering boxes, taking and processing pictures in different ways, looking at situations and writing articles from a different perspective, and not giving a damn about convention or the status quo in the process. Some of you may not like what I do, but consider the possibility that even that is good. Maybe I’ll, at least, poke holes in some of your boxes in the process.

Current Issues / PotD

International Women’s Day

March 8, 2016

Whatever glory belongs to the race for a development unprecedented in history for the given length of time, a full share belongs to the womanhood of the race.—Mary Mcleod Bethune

International Women’s Day gives us the opportunity to not only celebrate women but to consider how we can improve their lives

Today is International Women’s Day. I know that because Facebook slapped me in the face with that notification first thing this morning before I’d even started making coffee. Across the Internet and around the world, today is full of speeches and celebrations for and about women, all of which are designed to be empowering, encouraging, and supportive. Despite all our improvements and advances in society, there is still no place on earth where women are truly treated as equals and given the full amount of respect they deserve.

Statistics time. Here’s what women are up against:

Hispanic/Latina women were paid only 54% of what men were, for the same work, in 2013
Globally, the United States ranks 60th in women’s political empowerment
In the United States alone, despite recent advances, 22 million women still don’t have paid sick leave
State legislatures continually introduce hundreds of bills limiting what women can do with their bodies, versus none for men
Roughly a third of the population in the US and Europe still mistakenly believe that women should be held partially responsible for violent acts against them, such as rape.
Women who work, with or without children, spend an average 15 additional hours doing chores around the house versus five hours for men
Internationally, twice as many girls as boys will never start school, ever
70% of illiterate adults, globally, are women
Women account for two-thirds of people living in extreme poverty
One in four women are victims of domestic violence
One of every six women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime
The United States still refuses to sign the International Bill of Rights for Women; they are the only major world power who had not done so

Women’s issues aren’t always about poverty, abuse, and access to opportunities, though. Within the past 24 hours, the following stories have littered the media

One well-known reality personality posted a nude picture of herself on social media; almost immediately, other women lashed out, criticizing the move
Tennis star Maria Sharapova admitted to failing a drug test after a drug she’s used since 2006 for legitimate health issues was banned this January; other female tennis stars were the first to criticize Sharapova
Style.com Arabia found possible evidence of one model attempting to trip another during Sunday’s Givenchy fashion show in Paris
A woman in Houston shut down traffic after completely disrobing and dancing on the top of a semi truck
Even for the one remaining female candidate remaining in the US presidential race, it is other women who continue to be most vocal in their opposition

To say that all these situations need to change is a platitude based in the ignorance of women’s ongoing struggle for even basic rights. None of these situations are new or unknown. They’ve been quite plainly documented for decades now. What stands before us today is not the sudden realization that something needs to be done, but rather the accusation that, in the face of knowing and seeing and understanding the inequalities women face, we have done practically nothing.

The United Nations Educations, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) released a survey on gender inequality earlier this year. The report is long, but one can read the document in full here. At the conclusion of the report, they offer the following recommendations:

Ensure full implementation of international conventions and declarations in the field of culture in line with other human rights instruments and in respect of gender equality and diversity in order to broaden the creative horizons of women and men, boys and girls, and to ensure equal access to and participation in cultural life.
Strengthen the evidence base through regular and systematic collection and dissemination by national statistical offices of sex-disaggregated data in all areas of the cultural sector: including employment, education, capacity-building, participation and consumption.
Develop and apply gender-responsive policies and strategies in culture that empower all members of society, taking into consideration the diversity of different groups and individuals, and the intersection of broader social factors and inequalities that may compound disadvantages.
Reinforce national institutional capacities to promote equal access for women and men to decision-making processes, financial resources and education in cultural fields.
Establish leadership and mentoring initiatives for female creators and heritage professionals and ensure gender balance at senior leadership levels in the cultural and creative sector.
Support international, national and local awareness-raising and advocacy campaigns that tackle gender stereotypes and discrimination in all aspects of cultural life.
Encourage and involve all members of society in strategies promoting gender equality in culture. This includes working in partnership with all groups and communities concerned to promote sustainable solutions for gender-equal access, participation in and contribution to culture.
Support interdisciplinary research on gender equality in heritage and the creative industries that involve groups and communities concerned, and consider the complexity and diversity of gender relations and the underlying power structures.

These are all reasonable recommendations. It seems to me that if we actually mean all the wonderful words that are being said about women at all the International Women’s Day observations, then we have to not merely encourage, but force our legislatures around the world to adopt these recommendations quickly. Obviously, that’s easier said than done with a US Congress that can’t seem to get its head out of its ass. International Women’s Day is meaningless, though, if all we do is talk. We have to put some popular force behind creating the changes we need or there’s no point in having International Women’s Day, Mother’s Day, or any other day celebrating women.

If we want there to be any real meaning to International Women’s Day, there must be action. Now.

PotD / Social Commentary

Strong, Beautiful Women

March 7, 2016

Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men. —Joseph Conrad

charles i. letbetter - strong, beautiful women

Our lives and our society would be nothing without the presence of strong, beautiful women

We are surrounded by strong, beautiful women. We see them every day. They are essential to our lives. In fact, contemporary society could not function without them. Even though they still lack full equality in a number of areas, that in no way diminishes the important roles they play in all our lives. Yesterday, however, brought three very strong, very beautiful women to mind and now that I have a few minutes I think it is appropriate to talk about them.

Former First Lady, Nancy Reagan passed away yesterday at age 94. Politically, Mrs. Reagan and I could not be any further apart, but that’s not what made her notable. She married and supported one of the most challenging men of the twentieth century through some of the most difficult circumstances imaginable. Her husband was shot, almost fatally, and she never left his side. When his mind began to deteriorate, she was there, a buffer between him and those who dearly wanted to paint him in a negative light. She stood strong on issues she supported. She fought breast cancer and won. She survived vicious attacks on her character. Through it all, she never stopped being elegant. She never stopped for a pity party. She never stopped being beautiful.

Yesterday would have been my late mother’s 83rd birthday. Mother was a staunch conservative whose Christian belief system dominated everything she said and did. She might have been short in physical stature, but her character was ten feet tall and there was no one on the planet who dared challenge her. I remember when former Oklahoma governor David Boren was running for re-election. The Governor was tall, large, and had the ability to present an imposing figure. Mother marched right up to him on a campaign stop, gave him a look that forced him to bend down to her eye level, and proceeded to grill him for ten minutes on the need for better education funding in the state. She backed down from no one and didn’t mind telling someone what they needed to hear. Being a pastor’s wife wasn’t easy, and neither was raising my brother and me. She managed on a budget that was impossibly small. Yet, never did she lose her sense of dignity and genteel gracefulness. She was always beautiful.

March 6 also marks three years that Kat and I have been together. I had a lot of respect for single moms before having met Kat, but she drove home the concept of women who could manage work, children, and every other challenge of life on her own. Strength? She is a United States Marine. Even though she hasn’t been active duty for a few years now, that strength and determination still show. She faces every challenge with the same grit and no-fail attitude as she would an obstacle course. She’s handling school and work and children, and most incredibly, me and still manages to find a smile, to be there for friends, and impress those who watch her in action. She keeps me going, remembers the lyrics to my favorite songs, picks me up off the floor when I fall, encourages me on the days I can hardly walk, and finds ways to make me smile when I am in full-fledged grumpy old man mode. She’s beautiful from every possible perspective but threaten her family and she won’t hesitate to leave one gasping for air.

There is no sense in which we give enough credit to the women in our lives. These are but three immediate examples of how brilliant, strong, inventive, creative, determined, and beautiful women are. I could add to the list infinitely and if you can’t as well you’re just not paying attention.

Mondays are rough for everyone, we all have challenges when it comes to adjusting from the weekend and getting into the routine of the week. Consider just how much more challenging it is for the women in your life. Not only are they having their own issues with Monday, their dealing with children’s issues, spousal/partner issues, and probably the issues of people at school and work, because it is women who most often end up resolving everyone’s issues, not just their own. Don’t you think it’s about time you said thank you?

And if it’s appropriate and possible, a kiss wouldn’t be a bad idea, either.

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All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green. —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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