civilized ku # 100 ~ small town values

Electric "car" • click to embiggenOne of the advantages of living in a small village and/or an area dominated by small villages is that transportation vehicles like this one are a real viable option. There are no expressways and no congestion that are part of daily life or the driving experience. But, of course, since vehicles like this are not Big Oil friendly, our friends for change on the Right don't really talk about this as a "small town value".

My thanks to Paul Maxim, Clarence ... er, I mean Jimmi Nuffin, and the wife for speaking up on behalf of people, not statics and figures - those things that free-market absolutists like to hide behind because ... well ... figures and statistics don't go to bed hungry at night or live in substandard housing in neighborhoods that have been abandoned by the business class.

Despite what some might think, I am not an anti free-market zealot. The free market has been berry berry good to me and mine. BUT, while that system of economics can and does create prosperity and wealth for some, the manner in which that system is employed by many in this country causes it to create a lot of "losers" as opposed to "winners". What bothers me the most about this situation is that the free-market zealots adamantly refuse to deal with and/or recognize that fact as it applies to real people as opposed to economic "theory".

Instead, as was put forth by Reagan and his tinkle-down economics pals and adopted as a natural law of economics ever since - if you're a loser, it's your own damn fault. You deserve what you get (or don't get) because you obviously simply have not availed yourself of your opportunity to ... well ... become president or a high-roller CEO or a rock star, or even a hardworking well paid worker - oh wait, those jobs are all disappearing or being shipped overseas so that the American business class can remain "competitive" and "profitable".

So, Trevor, give us all a break from your insipid and pointless notions about how well the poor have it in the US of A as opposed to some third world country. The facts of real life, not statics or figures, in these here United States - the richest nation in the world - is that it is a national shame and disgrace that so many of us deal with so many forms of deprivation - food, healthcare, education, safety, and opportunity - on a daily basis.

Update on Thursday, September 11, 2008 at 09:59AM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: Mark M wrote: "...Clearly the choice is not between all government and no government that the polarizing pundits make it out to be."

My response: exactly right. Any moron who thinks that "our free market system would work better if our government would get out of the way" obviously doesn't stay informed about what's really going on today much less have any sense whatsoever of the early history of the unregulated free market system in this country.

step aside good people, it's the "assholes on parade"*

Uncle Sam and dying flowers • click
to embiggenAs sure as death, whenever one begins a discourse about politics, especially regarding economics, out come the free-market apologists praising the benefits of being poor in America. And, in yesterday's entry, Trevor stepped up to fill the bill:

I think the free-market debate should long ago have been put to bed (it creates the most prosperity for the most people, including those low on the income ladder). (my emphasis)

I am sure that those "low on the income ladder" would be surprised and pleased beyond measure to learn of their "prosperity" when:

• Nearly 47 million Americans, or 16 percent of the population, are without health insurance - The number of uninsured rose 2.2 million between 2005 and 2006 and has increased by almost 9 million people since 2000.
•The number of Americans living in poverty jumped to 35.9 million last year, up by 1.3 million, as the poverty rate among children jumped to its highest level in 10 years - an estimated 13 million children are living in households that are forced to skip meals or eat less due to economic constraints.
•Some 38 million people in America are considered "food insecure" -- they have trouble finding the money to keep food on the table. (all statistics from US Census Bureau data).

Low income prosperity? Hey Trevor, look up oxymoron in the dictionary.

Of course, maybe Trevor is one of those who believe that those the government deem as poor aren't really poor at all because they have a color tv and/or a car. All of which ranks right up there with Reagan's notion that the trouble with America is that the poor are stealing all the money.

Free markets? Andre wrote:

Free market? Did someone say free market? In the USA? That's a good one.
1- Markets are controlled by oligarchs: they are no longer free.
2-American agriculture is still heavily subsidized.
3- And when the market go bankrupts who pays? The industry or the goverment? Who's going to bail out Fanny May and Freddie Mack? The industry or the government? Who bailed out the Saving and Loans Institutions when it was near bankrupted? The industry or the government?

How about the absurd free-market tenet that the market always "gets it right"?

Representatives of the Big 3 automotive companies are petitioning the government for $50Billion in low interest loans because they have been financially staggered by the results of the high price of gasoline which has caused the public to stop buying the high-profit, bloated, gas-guzzling behemoths they are been churning out for years. After all, they were only following tried and true free-market principles - meeting demand and raking in record profits.

The fact that they totally ignored research and development of products to meet the demand for an automotive future that everyone knew was coming - expensive and increasingly scarce gasoline - in order to pad their wallets and those of investors seeking maximum short-term returns (consequences? what consequences?) means that they got it exactly wrong. The fact that Ford & GM had below investment grade ratings long before high gs prices appeared, means that they have been getting it exactly wrong for quite awhile. It means that they were financially staggered by their own greed and greed-induced ineptitude, not by high gas prices.

And then there's W. who proclaimed that, since many Americans are having to choose between food and gas, choosing food and driving less, thus driving down the demand for gas (and thus the price), the market was "working". Human suffering, despair, and disruption is relegated to being a "market mechanism". This from a man who made the bulk of his personal wealth from massive government subsidies and intervention.

And, don't ever, ever, ever forget that it was an unregulated and unrestrained free-market "working" in the mortgage / investment industry that allowed the free-market criminal-class to rake in billions for themselves and leave the industry and our economy in a mess.

Unfortunately, I think Aaron's quote from yesterday's entry was on the money:

Carlin should have run for president while he was alive.

"Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. F*ck Hope."

And oh yeh, lest I forget - Trevor, if you really believe that those "low on the income ladder" enjoy anything that even begins to approach prosperity, I am certain that you would be happy to trade places with them, right? Go live for a year in the their shoes and then come back and talk to us about prosperity.

* the title of a catchy song by Timbuk 3 - I particularly like the lyric, assholes get elected, 'cause assholes get to vote.

man & nature # 36 ~ not voting is an intensely political act

A spot of muted sunlight • click to embiggenI am basically apolitical in the sense that I agree with what Gore Vidal had to say about our democracy:

Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.

I am also apolitical because, speaking of presidential elections, and this year's event is a prime example, those elections are little more than (again, Gore Vidal) a quadrennial bacchanal of the cult of personality.

That said, in light of the current state of our republic, it is difficult to ignore the ridiculous political circus that is currently unfolding before us. And a wonderful 3-ring circus it is. In Ring One, we have the Obama Circus. In Ring Two, the McCain Circus. And, not to be overlooked, in Ring Three, we have the Media Circus.

All of these performers and clowns are working their butts off to keep the wishful thinking spectators in the bleachers entertained as they wait to see if their Presidential Personality Sweepstakes Ticket pays off.

This year's ubiquitous delusional theme, AKA - song and dance, is "Change" and both the Right and the Left are trying to sell their own particular version of it. However, both versions seem to revolve around the same vague promise of a return to the glory days of the Great American Dream / Promise / Pre-eminence. Unfortunately (for the spectators), none of the 3 Circus' are addressing the actual facts on the ground which pretty much preclude any "return" (we can't return to anything, we can only move forward) to "glory".

The essential fact on the ground in this American culture is elemental - we are no longer a nation with any sense of shared purpose. Thanks to a relentless campaign on the part of Corporate America, we are motley crew of self-servicing "individuals" working like industrious little beavers to build and pad our individual nests. Our only common goal is personal prosperity, wherein the ends justify the "free-marketplace" means.

What I don't understand about the "spectators" in this Circus is that they seem to be totally blind to the results of this paradigm - the inequity in the distribution of income and the distribution of wealth:

bq.... The wealthiest 1 percent of families owns roughly 34.3% of the nation's net worth, the top 10% of families owns over 71%, and the bottom 40% of the population owns way less than 1% - from, Survey of Consumer Finances, sponsored by the Federal Reserve Board.

The share of national income going to wages is at the lowest level ever recorded, while the piece of the pie gobbled up by corporate profits is at its highest point since 1960 ... despite several periods of healthy growth between 1973 and 2005, the average income of all but the top 10 percent of the income ladder -- nine out of ten American families -- fell by 11 percent when adjusted for inflation ... the top .01 percent ... has grabbed most of the gains, seeing an impressive 250 percent increase in income between 1973 and 2005 ...

But, then again, it's not that hard to understand:

The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along, paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return ... and ... The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity - much less dissent ~ both from Gore Vidal.

What's all this have to do with a photography blog? Well, in truth, not much but I did get sent down this path when I found this quote on a photography quote site:

We have got the fruit of creation now, and need not trouble ourselves with the core. Every conceivable object of Nature and Art will soon scale off its surface for us. Men will hunt all curious, beautiful, grand objects, as they hunt the cattle in South America, for their skins, and leave the carcasses as of little worth. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

man & nature # 35 ~ 2 mysteries

A sign of things to come • click to embiggenLuke wrote: The scroll bars on embiggened photos, which had been working nicely, have just today disappeared again. Which, in turn, caused Aaron to write: oh man... I would have waited until noon or something to tell him that. No Coffee yet, no tee time scheduled...things will be flying this morning in that office!

Yep and nope. Yep, the scroll bars which magically appeared have again magically disappeared. Thanks once again SquareSpace, especially for the fact that there has been absolutely no communication about what's going on from them since this latest on-again, off-again scroll bar fiasco started.

Nope, there is nothing flying around the office this AM. Instead, I have channeled my energies into figuring out a way around this nonsense. I mean, point in fact and to get to the heart of the matter, how big a deal is it to offer your subscribers the option to have control over scroll bars / resize on popups? They did it before (although they apparently didn't know they were doing it).

And that got me to thinking - what if used the old code that their software generated in V4? So, I uploaded today's pictures using the new V5 software, copied the image source info from it and pasted that info into the old code in the appropriate places, deleted the all the new/V5 code, and, holy crap, it worked - once again, I have complete control over popup window size, popup window scroll bars, and the popup resize handle.

It's a bit of a pain in the ass workaround, but it does seem to work and therefore worth the effort. I am now anxiously awaiting to see if SS magically f***s this up for me.

So, AS A TEST, today's popup window is deliberately sized smaller than the image so that scroll bars and the resize handle appear.

THIS SHOULD BE WORKING FOR EVERYONE ON EVERY BROWSER. PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF IT IS NOT WORKING.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming

Over the past few years, the Catskill Mountains / Park (a similar but much smaller version of the Adirondack Mountains / Park) in southern NY was overrun by some kind of gypsy moth catapillar(?) infestation. And I do mean overrun. Vast vista of denuded trees where everywhere evident. It was downright butt ugly.

I don't know if today's post is a picture of that kind of infestation or not but I did notice a fair amount of this kind of thing in my traverse of a stretch of the Adirondack Coast region. I hope this not a portent of what's to come.

decay # 23 ~ art disease

Tea kettle meltdown • click
to embiggenI have often wondered whether those who were first drawn to my blog by the name Landscapist, which implies landscape pictures, have been disappointed by the fact that over time my oeuvre of posted pictures has diversified to include some subjects - most notably my Decay & Disgust and Picture Windows works - that are pretty far afield from "picture(s) representing a view of natural inland scenery" (from the Merriam-Webster dictionary).

It's true that, for a 3 year period, I did concentrate almost exclusively on "pure" landscape picturing. But, the thing that I could/can not deny - my need to explore other facets of humankind's (to include my) relationship to the world around us - came back to haunt and drive me. I say "came back" because in my life in photography, especially in my professional career, I have always been rather diversified.

One of things that I am particularly pleased with are the 2 coffee table books that feature my pictures - 2 books that could not be more different in content and style. They are as different as Pumpkin Mousse with Cabernet Sauvignon Sun-Dried Cherry Sauce is from someone dying right in front of you in the ER.

2 entirely different exercises - Allegheny General ~ Portrait of an Urban Medical Center and The Duquesne Club Cookbook ~ Celebrating 125 Years • click to embiggen

As different as picturing in color with a tripod mounted medium format camera and controlled lighting is from picturing in BW with a handheld rotating lens panoramic camera and available light. As different as an ultra-controlled subject and one that is fluid and fast-paced.

What I am particularly happy about, aside from the work itself, is that 2 different organizations with 2 distinctly different pictures needs chose me to create the work. In the upper reaches of the pro photo world this highly irregular. Most pro shooters have one specific area of expertise - journalism, still life, fashion/people, location, studio, etc.

It should be noted that, when I started out in commercial photography, my intent was to be a studio-based still life shooter. I can't really tell you exactly how I morphed from that intent to becoming an accomplished shooter in several commercial disciplines other than to say that when you are first starting out any type of assignment that helps pay the bills is a good assignment.

In any event, I eventually became known to some agencies / clients as a studio product still life / food guy, to others as the fashion / people guy, and to still others as an annual report / corporate communications, location / reportage guy. What was interesting about this was that individual agencies / clients saw me as one kind of specialist or another but very rarely as a multi-discipline shooter.Very rare was the client (Kodak was one) that used me for anything other than one specific type of shooting.

In the later stages of my pro life, I actually had 3 different portfolios, each using an assumed name. The names were derivations of my real name (Mark Hobson): R.K. Hobs, who photographed on location in the British expeditionary tradition; Ma Son, who created studio illustrations in the tradition of exquisite Oriental detail; and, Ar Öbso, who specialized, in the Scandinavian tradition of contemporary design, in pictures of real people with real lives, doing real things.

It was all done a bit tongue-in-cheek of course, but nevertheless, on many occasions, art directors / clients, when seeing the portfolios for the first time, actually assumed that the works were, indeed, the product of different shooters.

I mention all of this because after coming across this quote, I realized, more than ever, how enjoyable the diversification in my picturing life made it so much more enjoyable and interesting:

Hardening of the categories causes art disease. ~ W. Eugene Smith

Do any of you ever feel as though you are suffering from hardening of the categories?

ku # 533 ~ the Adirondack mountains

A view of some High Peaks • click
to embiggenOne area that my ku has been a bit light on is the rugged high peaks interior of the Adirondacks. By "area" I mean both geographic and genre.

The primary reason for this has been my emphasis on water-based wilderness travels over mountain ventures. This preference is dictated in large part by my aversion to the crowds one encounters in the mountain backcountry during the Summer. On wilderness canoe trips, it is virtually unheard of to have to share a wilderness campsite. In fact, it is rare that wilderness waterway campsites are closer than 1/4 mile or more to each other. Most often the separation is measured in miles.

In the high peaks, shared / multi-party campsites are more often the rule. For me, wilderness is about isolation and solitude, not social interaction. Consequently, I have limited much of my high peaks backpacking activity to the Winter months. 30 years ago, when I started Winter backpacking, I and my hiking companion rarely encountered anyone during a 3-4 day trip into the mountain wilderness - the occasional NYSDEC Ranger being the exception.

Today, that is not the case, although once you get beyond the day-hike destinations, the crowds do thin out and an isolated campsite can be had. The chances of such are improved immeasurably by the fact that wilderness camping is allowed in many more places during the Winter than during the Summer.

Thar said, I'm going to encourage the wife to join me on a couple 3 day trips into the mountains this Autumn - after the leaves are on the ground and the leaf peepers have gone. There really is much to see, appreciate, and picture in the Adirondack high country.

man & nature # 34 ~ The Adirondack Coast pt. 2

A personal pleasure craft at one of the many marinas along Lake Champlain * NO click to embiggen

Another look at The Adirondack Coast - quaint B&Bs, strawberry festivals, lakeside dining, and captivating sunsets • click to embiggenAs many of you know, one of my "jobs" involves developing concepts and creating marketing and advertising materials. In my semi-retired state, I have limited my activities almost exclusively to tourism clients, the most notable being the Essex County / Lake Placid Convention & Visitors Bureau.

I have been servicing this client in one capacity or another for the past 8 years. During that time, a trend has become apparent in the industry - one that I strongly disagree with. That trend is a direct result of the web-based "information age". What has happened is that many tourism related marketing entities have been seduced by the web's ability to deliver "information" and that has lead directly to many of them confusing "information" with "story telling". Getting the message out (the ubiquitous, come to our wonderful place) has been relegated to getting the "information" out - a sometimes overwhelming amount of information that fails miserably at telling the story of a place.

In fact, too much information can often work against telling the story of a place - it can overwhelm and confuse, which ultimately destroys any notion of romance and desire. IMO, creating an irresistible feeling of romance / intrigue / uniqueness about a place is the prerequisite to instilling the desire to visit it.

What is strange about this trend is that many tourism marketing entities recognize without reservation, the value of PR (public relations) in the form of media articles - travel magazines, special interest publications, newsprint travel sections, radio / television features, etc., all of which are engaged in story telling. And, like Pavlov's dogs, the readers who encounter this story telling set the phones a-ringing and the websites a-clicking.

The conclusion is glaringly obvious - story telling works. The printed word (and pictures) is far from dead (as the web gurus would have you believe). The printed word and pictures can seduce and romance in a way that the web simply can't touch.

The web is a virtual, transient, and "cold" experience - turn the computer off and it's gone. Printed words / pictures have a tactile permanence and warmth - put it on the coffee table, take to the toilet, rip out a page and put it on the refrigerator door, take it to bed and fall asleep with visions of, in our case, majestic mountains and lakes or quaint early American lakeside villages, dancing in your head.

And, as an added bonus, unless you need to upgrade your eyewear prescription, everyone will see the printed / pictures exactly as was intended. There is no need to upgrade to the newest Flash, Firefox, Safari, Quicktime, etc., etc., etc., in order to view the content.

Now, I am not demeaning the web for what it does best - deliver information. What I am suggesting is that a balance needs to be arrived at that utilizes the best of what each medium can deliver - something that many have lost sight of in the "imformation age".

FYI; relative to the part of the above, it seems that those of you who are using less than the latest update of IE are missing part of the show here. Updating on home computers shouldn't be an issue. For those of you visiting from work-based computers, I guess you'll have to convince the System Administrator to get on the stick and get everyone up to date. Good luck.

and BTW, here's a tourism story about me. It's short and sweet and, for something so short, it is filled with inaccuracies - I rocket down the new combined track - bobsled, skeleton, luge - from the halfway point (10 stories, not 20). If I were to drop from the top (20 stories) and survived, I would be hitting speeds approaching 90 mph.

man & nature # 33 ~ The Adirondack Coast

above ~ top, looking at Lake Champlain from the road dropping into Essex, and, bottom, looking back at some of the Adirondack High Peaks from the same spot • NO click to embiggen

The Adirondack Coast ~ Lake Champlain • click to embiggen
Once again, it's another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody, albeit, in fact, it was Labor Day Monday. The wife was off to Philadelphia to deposit coma girl at school, so I decided to venture over to the Lake Champlain Region for a round of golf, dinner, and some picturing.

We live in a state park in a village that is somewhat of a geographic oddity. Approximately 25 miles to the SW of us is the heart of the Adirondack High Peaks - rugged wilderness with 46 peaks over 4000 ft. The same distance to the SE is the Lake Champlain Region (AKA, The Adirondack Coast) - a 130 mile long lake with gentle rolling farmland and quaint New England-style villages dotting the shoreline. The 2 areas could hardly be more different from each other. In fact, it's difficult to think of them as part of the same Adirondack Park.

Yesterday, after golf, I traversed a 20 mile section of the Adirondack Coast from Westport to Willsboro, stopping at a dockside restaurant in the village of Essex for dinner. The village of Essex in its entirety is registered on the National Register of Historic Places. It is home to one of the most unspoiled ensembles of Federal and Greek Revival village architecture in rural America. To say that Federal and Greek Revival architecture is different from the rustic, twiggy, bark, log, and camp architecture that dominates the rest of the Adirondack Park is a vast understatement.

FYI, the mountains across the lake are the Green Mountains of Vermont.

Update on Tuesday, September 2, 2008 at 11:08AM by gravitas et nugalis

FYI: it appears that scrollbars DO NOT appear on the popup windows if you are using the Explorer browser, at least that's the report from some Explorer users. I can't say if they are using the latest and greatest version of Explorer or, even if you are, that the scrollbars will appear.

I would appreciate any and all feedback on this issue. Are scrollbars appearing for you? If not, what browser are you using?

This is just another great example of the tower of babble that results from competing software - good for the developers who are looking for captive audience cash flow, bad for the users who looking for across the board functionality.

It also seems that once, you have a popup window open, opening another popup before closing the first one will cause the second one to be the same size as the first. No problem as long you have window resize capability. If not, close one window before opening a second one.