Photography Thinks
I met Laura’s art at the SEABA office gallery during art hop. To visitors, the pictures are just some images to be liked or disliked. To her family and friends, they are her statements about life, creative outbursts that survive her; gifts that she will give in spirit. To me?
Continue reading “The Art of Laura K. Winterbottom and Lorin Duckman”
Like Kristof in the NYT News of the Week in Review this Sunday, I have to wonder, or rather rethink my views on the First Amendment. Let’s edit that. I have to rethink my views on a lot of things. My experiences from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and the first decade of the 21st Century have gotten so confusing that I don’t know what I really believe about a wide number of issues. Consider that a liberal rag, The New Republic, one which guided my ideology in my more formative years recognizes that Islam may be at odds with the Constitution. How about that, sports fans?
“Not worth a bucket of warm spit,” said John Nance Garner about the vice-presidency. Joe Biden could disagree, he of the Obama portfolio for the first-in-line. Would would aspire to such a job, unless you live in New York or Illinois. But don’t tell that to Chris Bray who wants to be the Lt. Gov. in VT. He wants the job and he wants to make it relevant and productive.
Fantastic Saturday in Burlington. Festival of Fools on Church St. and City Hall Park. He worked the crowd at the Farmer’s Market, most of whom looked like they don’t vote in VT. He says he has ideas for a new economy. I don’t know if more programs that deal with farms and woods, which he says are VT’s greatest asset, will create the jobs that people will find rewarding and remunerative. Hard to dismiss a guy who promotes ideas of Farmer to Farmer initiatives and food hubs that will bring more jobs to the economy and more local foods to market.
And, he listens.
Some people like parades. Some people don’t. The same thing could be said of circuses. I favor circuses over parades. Under the big top, the clowns clearly identify themselves.
NYT reported yesterday that according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “the number of inmates in county and city jails was more than 767,600 at the end of June 2009—a drop of nearly 18,000 inmates or 2.3 percent from a year earlier.” Credited for the decrease was a drop in the crime rate.
As much as I would like to laud the statistic having been and remaining a critic of the overuse of incarceration to maintain order, punish the mentally ill, maintain the racial superiority of the ruling classes, control public and private morals; and provide employment to otherwise unimaginative or poorly motivated individuals, a drop due to a realization that the State/Government confines too many people at great cost and for insufficient reasons, destroying lives, families, and communities would have been more heartening.
Meet Monsieur Pommes Frites Pommes de Terre Tete. I call him Frenchy. Here, armed with a martini and some champagne, he battles the lobsters which the Sharon and I will share for our celebratory anniverse dinner. He has fought the shelled creatures before, preparing them for boiling as a picador in the tercio de varas would prepare a bull, never losing a bout or overdoing his job. He leaves them worn out, but not so tired that they don’t fight back a little when the hit the water. His courage comes from a potatoes natural starchiness and chilled Chopin vodka, very dry, straight up.
But last night’s feast did not come without some prayer and hope for all who inhabitant the Gulf region affected by the oil catastrophe. I look at the pictures of the birds covered with oil, wondering where will they live. If it would make a difference, I would stand in the muck and wave a banner telling them to go back from whence they came. They cannot read of course and where would they go? I feel for the grass, plants, and insects, along with all the little sea creatures that feed us or each other. Nothing I can do for them, either. At least they have my thoughts.
How will anything living survive there? It won’t. And then what happens the next time a hurricane hits? What will the people do? Where will they go? They have already had one bout with the end of their lifestyle. Pretty Joblike, they must be.
Me. Feeling pretty powerless, I am, knowing those I thought were regulating the risk weren’t and those I thought could fix it can’t. VT could be next if VT Yankee fails. Have much the same feeling about who is in charge here, too, and whom they think will be responsible – Entergy, a LA corporation, I believe. Big oil, big energy, big banks, big insurance companies. Its them for them selves. Us? We be the cogs in their game. Maybe they will leave us some crumbs.
Enough. Had a reasonably terrific time at dinner, Sharon being the great date that she has always been. Watched my diet. Not too much butter on the lobster. Not too many tater tots. Some broccoli de rabe with garlic oil. Didn’t drink too much. Bollinger Special cuvee. Some wine from the club Sharon belongs to at a local store. Leonardo’s Vermont Ice with fresh fruit and generic chocolate cookies. We laughed until we cried about something; I cannot remember what. Listened to Monk and who knows who else. Would not have been anywhere else or wished for anything more, other than the safe future for all living things on the Gulf coastline.