The US Navy has published a set of photos related to the “Operation Tomodachi” disaster relief mission in quake- and tsunami-stricken Japan. Some of these are quite striking and, yet again, illustrate the level of the immense disaster in Japan.
(h/t Boing Boing)
I’m really looking forward to doing some shooting with this as soon as I get time (and as soon as all pictures won’t have snow in the background). I’d like to try and shoot some sort of music gig or show. Maybe I’ll try and shoot the upcoming Wits events if possible.
I had the chance to shoot some photos on the set of a short film the other day, and thought I’d share.
I also used the photos in an audio slideshow for work. Ignore that fact that I accidentally used the same photo twice, didn’t notice until just now for some reason. Plan on fixing that.
Oh, and we had our first viral feature at MPR this past week. It’s been linked at many of the heavyweight political blogs, including HuffingtonPost, DailyKos, Wonkette and Andrew Sullivan. Also got linked by Comedy Central, Kottke.org, WSJ.com and many others. Got to give props to my colleague Than, who put most of the clever presentation together.
We had a good week.
All photos by me. Captions and proper titles to be added later.
Off topic post, but I figured I’d share some photos of my old dog. I had to say my final farewell to the fella since I am moving to Minneapolis and he is staying in Florida with his mom. I’m going to miss the little guy, even though I rarely see him.
A new dog is on the horizon as soon I can know that I have the time for it. According to my book, over a third of the Twin Cities population are dog owners.
OK, back to our regularly scheduled journalism drivel.
See, what’s again turning a non-story into a story just clogs the news-o-sphere. Hey, I’m no Cheney fan either, but common sense would dictate that if there were something malicious or incriminating reflected in his sunglasses they wouldn’t go and post it on the Whitehouse.gov Web site.
You don’t Spock to tell you that. Come on people, let’s get back to the important stories, like Britney Spears and who just got booted from American Idol.
*Sigh*
By now everyone has seen that the Library of Congress release a ton of photos into the public domain via Flickr. In order to tag and caption them they are using crowdsourcing techniques from Flickr users and the rest of the web. It’s an awesome project and I could spend hours poring over the photos. Here are a few of my initial favorites:
Wolcott, Marion Post,, 1910-, photographer.
Mountaineers and farmers trading mules and horses on “Jockey St.,” near the Court House, Campton, Wolfe County, Ky.
1940 Sept.
[Man in bill cap and dungaree coat, possibly a farmer]
[between 1941 and 1942]
Palmer, Alfred T.,, photographer.
Good man, good gun: a private of the armored forces does some practice shooting with a 30-calibre Browning machine gun, Fort Knox, Ky. The gun is mounted on a pedestal for anti-aircraft work.
1942 June.
Bain News Service, publisher.
Trainer Hayes; Warnes; Allen; Sec’y Calver; Spenceley; Parks; Erksine; Murray Trainer
[between 1910 and 1915]
Bain News Service, publisher.
Capt. Felix of Army Aero. Corps.
[between 1910 and 1915]
Like I said, I could look at these all day.
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| KFC outside of the Grand Mosque in Mecca during the annual hajj pilgrimage. |
Why don’t the marketing and corporate sales teams of major corporations work for the State Department or for the Bush administration? They are apparently better at exporting our ways of life than our government is. Not that I condone the encroaching corporate behemoth that threatens to swallow the world whole and destroy all notion of culture and uniqueness. However if we can force KFC (and McDonald’s and Wal-Mart)on the Middle East, why can’t we bring some semblance of peace there as well?
Oh right, because the ‘War in Iraq’ is not about peace, it’s about money, oil and legacy. Sorry, forgot.
Yeah, it doesn’t get more brutal than that. The hand belongs to a veterinarian that was tending to the crocodile. I guess he doesn’t like getting poked and prodded by the doctor either.
Via Crooks & Liars:
...gut wrenching story of Lance Corporal James Blake Miller– better known as the Marlboro Marine–who is now jobless, divorced and near suicidal since being discharged from the military after being diagnosed with PTSD. With little aid from his government, Miller received help from an unlikely source — Luis Sinco, the LA Times photographer who snapped the famous picture of him during the battle of Fallujah in 2004.
You can read the full LA Times story here.
The gist of the story is that Lance Corporal James Blake Miller was “Saving Private Ryan’ed” after this photo shot by Luis Sinco “connected” with the American people. Not wanting to hear of a soldier getting killed, no doubt in order to avoid the realities of this war with America, he was sent home. Miller even received care packages and cigars from President George W. Bush.
After a violent episode caused by PTSD, he was medically discharged with a “personality disorder” on Nov. 10, 2005 — exactly one year after his picture made worldwide news. He was given a superficial award from the National Mental Health Association, yet oddly no military mental health treatment.
He has since become divorced and suicidal with few places left to turn.
Is this how we support our troops? By turning scared, scarred and traumatized young men and women loose on a world that has no idea what they’ve gone through. You know why we need news and movies that show the horrors of war and the atrocities that happen in the name of peace? So that when these men and women come home and tell their loved ones that they are fine, their loved ones will have reason to question that and get them help.
