(way) After the Gold Rush
“I reached my hand down and picked it up; it made my heart thump, for I was certain it was gold. The piece was about half the size and shape of a pea. Then I saw another.” – James Marshall
Apparently (on a January 24th in 1848) Marshall and his crew were supposed to be building a sawmill (for John Sutter) but kept discovering these pesky gold nuggets. Something I never knew from my comic book like grasp on the subject was that both Sutter and Marshall tried to cover the whole thing up.
They might have gotten away with it had wily Sam Brannan not first bought up all the pickaxes, shovels and pans in the sleepy city of San Francisco and then began to holler about gold while holding up a bottle of gold dust (and presumably fingering his handlebar mustache which was standard issue villain wear at the time I think). The rest, is history and if you are interested, you can learn much, much more from All About the Gold Rush.
The above photo by `Bobesh/Pete is titled Moonlight of Gold and shows the moon rising from the Tasman Sea, Central Coast, Australia. Like most of the photographers I feature here, he has tons more great photos for your viewing pleasure if you would only click.
The Apocalypse of the Spring Peepers
There was the barest breath of wind when I came near the beach at Nedow’s Bay on Lake Leelanau last Sunday, I heard the unmistakable sound of spring peepers. Frogs that you hear happily announcing the return of warmth every late April or May.
My mind filled with the vision of The Apocalypse of the Spring Peepers, that dark day when tens of thousands of tiny frogs out way too early, fooled by the warm winter, were brutally snuffed out by its icy return. As I walked to the shore, I realized that there was a paper thin film of ice on the surface of the water near shore and that breath of wind was causing the ice to move and sing.
It still sounded exactly like spring peepers. (Peeperpedia, The Sound of Peepers)
The above photo is mine, from the site where the Spring Peepers were very nearly tragically killed.
Lomography: n. the science of photographic happiness
A couple months ago I ran a feature on lomo on Michigan in Pictures. I was feeling inexplicably blue today and checked back on it. I felt better. More about Lomo & Lomography.
The photo is titled “Happy Max” and it’s pretty clear that Max is indeed happy. The photographer, Maya Newman, has a bright and beautiful (and big) collection of Lomo on Flickr and (or?) a ton on her LomoHome pages. She says that she loves her LC-A camera because every day it reminds her that we live in a beautiful world.
They’re just LINES … aren’t they?
According to the boringly titled Military Expands Intelligence Role in U.S. in the New York Times, the CIA and US Military are apparently using something called “noncompulsory national security letters” to request the financial records of Americans suspected of terrorism & espionage. Congress rejected attempts by both agencies to issue mandatory letters 5 years ago but banks and other institutions are complying with the requests.
Some national security experts and civil liberties advocates are troubled by the C.I.A. and military taking on domestic intelligence activities, particularly in light of recent disclosures that the Counterintelligence Field Activity office had maintained files on Iraq war protesters in the United States in violation of the military’s own guidelines. Some experts say the Pentagon has adopted an overly expansive view of its domestic role under the guise of “force protection,” or efforts to guard military installations.
“There’s a strong tradition of not using our military for domestic law enforcement,” said Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker, a former general counsel at both the National Security Agency and the C.I.A. who is the dean at the McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific. “They’re moving into territory where historically they have not been authorized or presumed to be operating.”
Similarly, John Radsan, an assistant general counsel at the C.I.A. from 2002 to 2004 and now a law professor at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, said, “The C.I.A. is not supposed to have any law enforcement powers, or internal security functions, so if they’ve been issuing their own national security letters, they better be able to explain how they don’t cross the line.”
If we are allowing the CIA and military to violate their charters now, how would those powers multiply following a terrorist incident? I am certainly not advocating the government turn a blind eye toward domestic terrorism or espionage. What I most certainly do advocate is using this thing called the FBI to investigate these cases. There are very good reasons that the CIA and military are supposed to be barred from such activities, not the least of which is guarding against waking up to the orders of Generalissimo Presidente…
About the photo: Me Da Miedo translates as “It Gives Me Fear”. The photo was taken by Venuz in Bogata, Columbia. 2 years of college Spanish aside, I can’t read the comments on the photo…
Is “Lying SOB” a Word That Works?
Now that I no longer listen to Rush as I drive, I am usually pretty calm as I listen to the radio. The other night, however, I tuned in to Terry Gross with Frank Luntz explaining Words That Work from Fresh Air and by the time I reached home, I was screaming at the radio.
For those unfamiliar with the state of the science of semantics, Frank Luntz is the guy who has changed the way politicians & pundits (Republicans and their imitators) use words. He wrote a book called Words that Work about those words that resonate with people, words and phrases that make them feel (or not feel) a certain way and that make them do (or not do) a certain thing. He has a company that delivers this “clarity & simplicity of language” to politicians in other nations and corporations. He uses a sophisticated array polling, focus groups and research to determine what messages are going to have a certain result.
Luntz gives the example of “death tax” and says that if you call it “estate tax”, about 50% of people want to get rid of it. If it’s “inheritance tax”, 60% want to see it gone. If it’s “death tax”, 70% are opposed. The difference between Dallas/Dynasty/Trump/Perot style estates and “we’re all going to die someday” is the reason. Terry points out that it is actually a tax on estates in excess of $2 million. Luntz goes after her saying “what triggers the tax?”, implying that it really is a tax on dying as opposed to being a tax on dying with a $2 million estate.
I can (more or less) let that slide as I am unclear how the State has a right to rifle the pockets of even the most well-heeled corpses, but the next one popped just about every blood vessel in my body. Terry moves on to Luntz’s recommendation to Republicans to talk about “exploration” versus “drilling” in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He says that “drilling” evokes dirty, messy oil wells while “exploration” sounds cleaner and more modern. Then he says that when he shows people photos of what the activity in ANWR looks like, 90% say it looks like exploration and argues that we should call it what it looks like. He actually says: “If 90% of Americans look at a photo and say ‘that’s exploration’, who am I to say it’s drilling?” Right. We should get rid of all these meddlesome “facts” and start going with people’s impressions of reality. From the GUT, people.
The photo above makes me think of pristine, unspoiled wilderness and was taken by Jim M. Goldstein. You can view a whole ton of photos and commentary from his two week camping trip in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge at his website.
January 6th has a big hole in it
Today is my dad’s birthday. As he died 18 years ago, I suppose I should say “was” but I don’t think I ever will. Every January 6th, I spend a large part of the day missing him for a lot of reasons. Golf isn’t any fun any more (and doubly un-fun since my father-in-law passed on), and I don’t get nearly the enjoyment from watching sports that I did when I could sit down, watch a game with him and learn what made Bob Feller such a hard pitcher to hit (devastating control) and what it was like to man up Dave Debuscherre (really, really hard because he never took a second off on either end). Plus there’s nobody to get me great seats out of seemingly thin air.
I tend to focus on sports when remembering him, but there are countless things – books, cribbage, cooking, ideas, hanging out, my kids’ lives – that would be richer were he a part of them.
My dad took the photo above. There are a some more he took right here.
