Techno Parade 2008 - La complicité

Techno Parade 2008 - La complicité, originally uploaded by badibouzouk.

Digging this photographer right now... his early stuff didn't impress me as much, but with this parade series, he seems to have really nailed down a method for creating tempo and toning.

Quote of the Day: Paul Newman on living

“We are such spendthrifts with our lives. The trick of living is to slip on and off the planet with the least fuss you can muster. I’m not running for sainthood. I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out.”
-Paul Newman, 1925-2008


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Farewell Paul Newman, 1925-2008, American hero

The Oregonian brings us the bad news:

"Fast Eddie Felson. Hud Bannon. Cool Hand Luke. Butch Cassidy. The guy in the race car. The guy on the salad dressing bottle. The blue-eyed dreamboat. The committed public citizen. The husband of a half-century. The father of six.

According to press releases from his his charitable organizations, Newman's Own Foundation and the Hole in the Wall Gang Camps, Paul Newman died Friday at age 83 at his long-time home in Westport, Connecticut, and with his passing, more has been lost than just a good and fine man."


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Spilling milk on the page

I logged onto the New York Times website this morning, and discovered this latest story about the China milk scare: "European regulators on Thursday ordered rigorous testing of imports containing at least 15 percent milk powder after concluding that food containing tainted milk powder from China may well be circulating in Europe and putting children at risk."

So naturally, I was curious to find out what China Daily had to say about the ongoing milk crisis. Here is what they had on the front page:

Nothing.

It did have links to nine pages about the spacewalk (an impressive achievement), a "China refutes charge of cultural genocide in Tibet" story, breaking news titled "woman's paper skin a walking notepad" and another story about a man who 'married' a deceased girlfriend... and then the regular features about Britney Spears and Jennifer Aniston's love life.

Reading the paper, I had a premonition: The writer of the Tibet story will not be winning any prose-writing awards. Unless one is offered for incomprehensibility. A typical excerpt (do not read this passage while operating a motor vehicle or caring for small children):

The white paper consists of six parts, "Foreword", "Learning, Use and Development of the Spoken and Written Tibetan Languages", "Inheritance, Protection and Promotion of the Tibetan Cultural Heritage", "Religious Beliefs and Native Customs Respected", "All-round Development of Modern Science, Education and the Media" and "Conclusion".

It is "citing facts to expose the lie about the 'cultural genocide' in Tibet fabricated by the 14th Dalai Lama and his cohorts", and "exposing the deceptive nature of the 'cultural autonomy of Tibet' they clamor for".

I don't know, maybe it made more sense in the Chinese.

The anonymous story writer goes on to quote the "white paper" eight times. If you want to know what the politically correct line is on Tibet, consult said white paper. We have other things to do here.

Back to milk. I did find a special feature section on the milk crisis buried inside the vast belly of China Daily. It led with a picture of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao (China's Johnny-on-the-spot, he was at the earthquake zone last May within hours, holding out his bullhorn), and followed with mugshots of two suspects on Sanlu, an article on breast milk, and various op/eds blasting Sanlu for their misdeeds (after any Chinese crisis, it's essential to establish a scapegoat that deflects all attention away from the Party "responsible for creating a transparent, accountable regulatory structure").

As the Times notes in this separate article:

"In recent days, Prime Minister Wen Jiabo has apologized for a scandal that has sickened 53,000 children and he has promised to reform the dairy industry. But a year ago, Mr. Wen made a similar pledge to overhaul safety regulations for food, drugs and other products. His government authorized $1.1 billion and dispatched 300,000 inspectors to examine food and drug producers, but failed to prevent China’s biggest dairy producers from selling baby formula laced with an industrial additive called melamine."

One can only imagine what the prime minister said as he held that child. Perhaps: Sorry Babe.




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Knol That You Mention It

I've begun experimenting at writing a few articles for Knol, the Google off-shoot that supposedly aspires to compete with Wikipedia.

Never heard of it? For critiques of Knol, read here and here and here. Oh yeah, here, too.

My take: These critiques are absolutely correct. But the website is also only a couple of months old so it may be a bit too early to write its obituary. Hopefully, they will upgrade it more often than they do other Google properties such as, well, Blogger. The Blogger interface is updated only slightly more often than the Milwaukee Brewers make it into the World Series. Why am I here? Adsense. Which has made 37 cents for me as of this date.


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Signal

Signal, originally uploaded by photog37.

Wondering what those hand signals mean? NBC went to the trouble of offering a detailed analysis here.

Techno Parade 2008 - Les amours chiennes

Techno Parade 2008 - Les amours chiennes, originally uploaded by badibouzouk.

Found on Flickr... I like it.

Torsos

Torsos, originally uploaded by photog37.

A remastering of a photo I took last spring... I think the edit captures the feel of the scene well.

Congress and the Bailout Plan: Business As Usual

TIME Magazine on the future of Treasury's proposed $700 billion loan bailout for Wall Street:

"Not everyone will go along. A bloc on the far right of the Republican party will say no because they are philosophically against it (and because they are from securely red districts or states); Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning, using his typically heightened rhetoric, went so far as to call the proposal 'un-American.' And a group on the left will oppose it because they see it as a bailout for Wall Street executives (and because they're from securely blue districts or states). But it seems clear that Paulson and Bernanke managed to hit the mark with their three pages. And even if dozens more are eventually added to sweeten the pot for important constituents with powerful lobbyists, the core of the project will remain the same. That's what members of Congress do, even if, as the GOP staffer says, 'Not a single goddamn one of them could explain what's in the thing.'"

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Shanghai Tourism Festival

Unicycle, originally uploaded by photog37.

A unicyclist rides down the street moments before the opening day parade begins for the 2008 Shanghai Tourism Festival.

PhotoShelter's demise as a stock agency

PDN Online has an interview with PhotoShelter's executives on the demise on their attempted stock photo rivalry with Getty. The comment section at the end of the article (or bottom of the page, if you don't want to read it to the end) is more illuminating than the article.

Personally, all I know is this:
1) Submitting photos using PhotoShelter's complicated keyword program used up an enormous amount of my time,

2) When I studied pricing samples, I came up with prices for one-time quarter-page editorial use by a small newspaper at $200 plus; I'm a photographer looking to make a profit, but what kind of local paper is going to pay a price like that? and

3) Like many PhotoShelter contributors, I never sold a single image through the agency.


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All that glitters isn't gold (some of it could be nuclear waste)

Read the small bits of China Daily and you're always sure to find entertaining, if occasionally a bit frightening, fare. The hodgepodge provides a feast for black comedians and news readers with a Kurt Vonnegut sensibility. In today's paper, we find out: "Shoppers accidentally buy nuclear waste."

The article goes as follows:

Three residents of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region's Aksu city mistakenly purchased and brought home nuclear waste.

In August 2006, the three men - one of whom is surnamed Liu, while the other two are surnamed Wang - purchased a glittering "treasure" for $2,000 in Kyrgyzstan. They brought it back to Xinjiang, hoping to make a fortune by selling it.

Because they knew nothing about the 274-kg stone, they sliced off a piece to bring to Beijing for expert analysis last January.

Last September, geologists at Tsinghua University concluded it was depleted uranium and called police.

Prosecutors in Aksu decided against arresting the men, because they obviously had no idea what they had purchased. The men have undergone medical examinations and appear to be in good health.

Needless to say, like in many China Daily articles, the reader is left with a few lingering questions...



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Nailao PR (奶酪球公关）

With the Olympics finished and the Paralympics well underway, you would think the era of cheeseball PR in the PRC might find some respite. No such luck. Shanghai TV is ALREADY broadcasting corny music videos celebrating World Expo 2010. Isn't this a little early folks? Maybe you should do something else, like cover the China Now music festival that is taking place outside right now.


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Sixteen Days in China: China's rocking evolution

Martin Atkins has released a new documentary, Sixteen Days, about China's growing music scene.
Coming on the heels of Beijing Bubbles, this shows that something wild and alive is happening here, though you have to dig in order to find it–outside of Beijing, many rock venues are tiny hole-in-the-wall places in out of the way locations on the outskirts of town. Wish I was in Beijing catching the Modern Sky and Midi Festivals this week!


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NBC: Internet Luddites

I understand that NBC has a vested economic interested in protecting its copyrighted material. Thus, it has been aggressively sending cease-and-desist orders to YouTube every time a Saturday Night clip is posted. But can anyone tell me why a television company with the resources of NBC has not yet figured out how to buffer video? In multiple efforts on a Firefox browser, I was unable to get any of their videos to load beyond the advertisement.


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Lost In Translation: Shanghai Tourism Festival

The Shanghai Tourism Festival homepage, as spiced up by Google Translate:

19-year-old Shanghai Tourism Festival, as a gang of juveniles into the adult ranks,意气风发, he has a young, dynamic, creative, but also has a mature, stable and the atmosphere. He walked in giant strides in the Shanghai, the world's rich programs bring more and more choice, he greeted guests in all directions, through the charming romantic city style, natural and simple pastoral scenery, mysterious and colorful folk characteristics, classical Inheritance boutique to the main line of friends at home and abroad, the hometown of fellow display this Heiner rivers are essential festival.


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Three Dancers

Three Dancers
Originally uploaded by photog37

Dancers perform a popular mod/traditional dance at the Shanghai Theatre Academy.

Photo link of the day: Mitch Alland, street photographer

Mitch Alland, a black-and-white street photographer in Thailand, provides some tips on his trade in The Online Photographer.


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The Aphrodisiac

by Arthur Sze

“Power is my aphrodisiac.”

Power enables him to

connect a candle-lit dinner

to the landing on the moon.

He sees a plot in the acid

content of American soil,

malice in the configuration

of palm-leaf shadows.

He is obsessed with

the appearance of democracy

in a terrorized nation.

If the price of oil

is an owl claw, a nuclear

reactor is a rattlesnake

fang. He has no use

for the song of an oriole,

bright yellow wings.

He refuses to consider

a woman in a wheelchair

touching the shadow of

a sparrow, a campesino

dreaming of spring.

He revels in the instant

before a grenade explodes.

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Metal at the Castle

Went down to the Castle to watch three heavy metal bands tonight. I hadn't seen a metal show in quite awhile. I found the experience cathartic.


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In today's weirdness category

Just logged into Yahoo! Mail and the news links were all to stories from August 22. I knew Yahoo! had hit a rough patch lately but geez. It all seems like ancient history now. Here were some of the big stories at that time:

Obama may announce running mate later today (AP)

Young evangelical backs out of convention prayer (AP)

Obama raps McCain for losing count of seven homes (AP)

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New blog: Choosing the President

With news of the presidential race dominating this blog, I have decided to set up a separate blog dedicated only to election news. You can find it here.


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Palin against legal abortion even for victims of rape or incest

While this has previously been reported in the press, you can actually see Palin stating her position on abortion for rape victims in this 2006 gubernatorial debate. The question is first posed to Palin about 13 minutes into the debate. She says she would support a constitutional amendment. Two minutes later, she is asked if her daughter were raped, would she support an abortion in that case. In both cases, she says she is absolutely against abortion. The only exception she is willing to make is when the life of the mother is at risk.

Twenty-six minutes into the debate, she says she would be against embryonic stem cell research.

In this debate, Palin also says she is against domestic partnership benefits for gays and lesbians.


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The Palin Family Theme Song

They’re fishy and gun-toting
Hilarious and aggra-voting
They’re just now gestating
The Palin Family.

Their house is a wax museum
Where anybody can see ‘em
Turn around and flee ‘em
The Palin Family.

(Dude)
(Cool)
(Con-ge-ni-ality)

So get your best go-go boots on
To see an elephant show you can poop on
It’s time to pay a call on them with
The Palin Family.


---------------------------------------

"Palin Family Theme Song" T-shirt




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Would you trust this woman as commander-in-chief?

Story.

Sarah Palin says her 17-year-old daughter is five-months pregnant

Seeking to rebut rumors flourishing across the Internet that her youngest son Trig was not her own child, but her daughter's, Sarah Palin announced today that her daughter Bristol is pregnant.

She said her daughter, Bristol, 17, who has been photographed sporting a ring on her wedding finger, is planning to marry the father. (Reuters).


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New Orleans mayor calls Gustav 'storm of the century,' issues mandatory evacuation

Hundreds of thousands of Gulf Coast residents are moving north by cars, buses and trains as Hurricane Gustav approaches, three years after the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina. Gustav is expected to make landfall by Monday.

This time around, the evacuation has been proceeding in a more organized fashion, according to news reports. The New York Times writes, "The buses arrived promptly at 8 a.m. — a sharp contrast to the disorganization of three years ago, when the only plan was to jam thousands of people without cars into the Superdome and let others fend for themselves."

Nevertheless, there are significant concerns about any people who may be left behind, not to mention the enormous property loss if Hurricane Gustav maintains intensity as it approaches the coast. Seven thousand members of the Louisiana National Guard have been mobilized. Weather analysts do not know for certain where the center of the story will hit or how strong a force it will carry. Residents of New Orleans are being advised to leave the city as soon as possible and not rely on any assistance from emergency services.


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Bush, Cheney to skip opening of Republican National Convention

"President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney will skip the Republican National Convention because of mounting concerns about Hurricane Gustav, the White House said Sunday." (AP).

[Contrary to the lede, the story goes on to say that the president may be able to speak later on in the convention, but there are no definite plans at this point.]


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