400 Tons!!!

Four hundred tons of radioactive contaminated water leak out of the Fukushima power plant into the ocean each and every day...

Honesty And Mass Murderers

On one hand you have those that kill innocents seemingly for the hell of it, sometimes even killing themselves in the process- then there are those who claim to be beyond such outright barbarism, kill anyway- then proclaim innocence. I'd say they're both small minded, murderous bastards- and very much deserving of each other. But one is definitely the bigger liar.

But... Stan! Over a dozen innocent people were just slaughtered in Paris- where's your so called compassion for them!? And over 2 thousand more in Nigeria- and don't forget the hundreds of thousands we're personally responsible for in Iraq for no good reason (making Sniper doesn't count), not to mention our ongoing drone collateral recruitment program... that never does gets mentioned. The point is, it's time we stop playing whack-a-mole throughout the world and start addressing this global problem as a human one, one that can not be addressed, let alone solved strictly by military means... Ours, or theirs.

And another thing's for damn sure- Houdini in all his greatness could not have pulled off what the US of A claims these three did one night (in their zeal to get back at us)...

McAfee Sucks- And Other Various Sundries...

Went to see Kill The Messenger (recommended) this Wed; got home at 8:30, turned computer on and... an ominous black screen appeared that I'd never (ever) seen before.

Stay calm, stay calm... stay... the fuck... calm...

PANIC!!!

 

Try my thoroughly, amateurishly pitiful this and that and- nothing, nothing, nothing... Call some numbers on the official Mozilla and McAfee sites which immediately hook me up with your friendly internet technical specialists (ie- Major Scumbag SCAMMERS). One tells me that my IP address is compromised, the other that some files are corrupted, one says he wants $400, the other wants $200. I tell both to go fuck themselves, knowing full well that the only one who's totally fucked is yours truly. And it's now 1 AM.

 

Come home from work following day- delete Mozilla, install Mozilla... same shit. Repeat- same shit. Screw Mozilla, I'll just use IE that came with the hard drive, thank you very much. Dead in the water. SHIT!!! Somewhere amidst the cussing I see that IE wants to install a security update. Why not- nothing else works. Install finally completes, and... IE is fully operational!!! I'm a happy man; lost a ton of bookmarks (actually, in a file I can't open), but least got my computer back for "free" (even if it does, or doesn't, have a freaking ticking time bomb inscribed with my name somewhere deep down under). Guess I now know why people buy freakin'... Macs.

9/22/14 NYC- Photo: © S. Banos

 

Terrorist Holds Congress Hostage!

This son of a bitch has been holding Congress hostage, and endangering the lives of Americans for his own enrichment for waaaay too long! Time to get his woefully sorry looking ass outta there!

More On Target Than Any Drone Strike...

                                       

UPDATE:  One of the things that Mr. Colbert reminds us of (for those outside the US who can't watch the above) is that Mr. Obama has cleverly labeled all males of military age that are killed in drone attacks as "enemy combatants" (just as anyone at Comicon is probably a virgin), thus greatly reducing the random "collateral damage" his attacks incur. As for the all the innocent women and children who are also blown to bits- well, errr, ummm... over to you, Mr. Haviv!

Facing Up To Facebook

All the childhood lectures about not giving in to peer pressure have been recently haunting me anew- and in a very big way. I work full time, I tutor on the side, I run one of the most successful photography blogs of all time, I take a picture here and there (okay, I kinda exaggerated one of those). And yet I'm not complete, not really, not even close, because I... don't do the Face.

I could double, triple, quadruple my hits, sell my photos to private collecters, exhibit in countless name galleries and be published in the glossiest publications- with thousands of fans and friends worldwide... if only I'd do the Face.

Maybe I could just ease into it gradually with a tattoo, a DSLR, the latest full featured photoshop (what # and letter are they up to?), Twitter, an ipod, an iphone, an ipad, piercings...

SHIT--- I HAVEN'T SEEN AVATAR!!!

Mitch Epstein- Granta

Mitch Epstein has a nice selection from his American Power series in Granta issue #107. He also has a small essay on what it was like photographing that subject in these recent times of increased "security" and paranoia- including the time he was stopped for carrying a missile launcher. Yup, you guessed it- a tripod...

Hear It And Weep...

Photo: Julian Cardona

I've posted on this before (on the prior incarnation of this blog), and there is now an absolute plethora of information available. That said- we are still no closer to ending this orchestrated mass killing which continues to this day. It is the sad and tragic story that is Ciudad Juarez, a story of extreme violence, corruption, and everyday murder fueled by rampant drugs and a global economy hell bent on squeezing out every last penny human life can possibly offer.

Visit it during the day for a few hours (as I did) and other than the usual poverty of a developing country, you may leave unaware that anything more's amiss. Walk its streets as a citizen, and the light of day will not protect you from the evil that both surrounds and terrorizes its very heart.