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Mirit Ben Nun: Shortness of breath
'Shortness of breath' is not only a sign of physical weakness, it is a metaphor for a mental state of strong desire that knows no repletion; more and more, an unbearable glut, without repose. Mirit Ben Nun's type of work on the other hand requires an abundance of patience. This is a Sisyphean work (requiring hard labor) of marking lines and dots, filling every empty millimeter with brilliant blots. Therefore we are facing a paradox or a logical conflict. A patient and effortful work that stems from an urgent need to cover and fill, to adorn and coat. Her craft of layering reaches a state of a continuous ceremonial ritual.
This ritual digests every object into itself - useful or discarded -- available and ordinary or rare and exceptional -- they submit and devote to the overlay work. Mirit BN gathers scrap off the streets -- cardboard rolls of fabric, assortments of wooden boards and pieces, plates and planks -- and constructs a new link, her own syntax, which she alone is fully responsible for. The new combination -- a type of a sculptural construction -- goes through a process of patching by the act of painting.
In fact Mirit regards her three dimensional objects as a platform for painting, with a uniform continuity, even if it has obstacles, mounds and valleys. These objects beg her to paint, to lay down colors, to set in motion an intricate weave of abstract patterns that at times finds itself wandering the contours of human images and sometimes -- not. In those cases what is left is the monotonous activity of running the patterns, inch by inch, till their absolute coverage, till a short and passing instant of respite and than on again to a new onset.
Next to this assembly of garbage and it's recycling into 'painted sculptures' Mirit offers a surprising reunion between her illustrated objects and so called cheap African sculpture; popular artifacts or articles that are classified in the standard culture as 'primitive'.
This combination emphasizes the difference between her individualistic performance and the collective creation which is translated into cultural clichés. The wood carved image creates a moment of peace within the crowded bustle; an introverted image, without repetitiveness and reverberation. This meeting of strangers testifies that Mirit' work could not be labeled under the ´outsiders art´ category. She is a one woman school who is compelled to do the art work she picked out to perform. Therefore she isn't creating ´an image´ such as the carved wooden statues, but she produces breathless ´emotional jam' whose highest values are color, motion, beauty and plenitude. May it never lack, neither diluted, nor dull for even an instant
Tali Tamir
August 2010
Mirit Ben Nun: Shortness of breath
'Shortness of breath' is not only a sign of physical weakness, it is a metaphor for a mental state of strong desire that knows no repletion; more and more, an unbearable glut, without repose. Mirit Ben Nun's type of work on the other hand requires an abundance of patience. This is a Sisyphean work (requiring hard labor) of marking lines and dots, filling every empty millimeter with brilliant blots. Therefore we are facing a paradox or a logical conflict. A patient and effortful work that stems from an urgent need to cover and fill, to adorn and coat. Her craft of layering reaches a state of a continuous ceremonial ritual.
This ritual digests every object into itself - useful or discarded -- available and ordinary or rare and exceptional -- they submit and devote to the overlay work. Mirit BN gathers scrap off the streets -- cardboard rolls of fabric, assortments of wooden boards and pieces, plates and planks -- and constructs a new link, her own syntax, which she alone is fully responsible for. The new combination -- a type of a sculptural construction -- goes through a process of patching by the act of painting.
In fact Mirit regards her three dimensional objects as a platform for painting, with a uniform continuity, even if it has obstacles, mounds and valleys. These objects beg her to paint, to lay down colors, to set in motion an intricate weave of abstract patterns that at times finds itself wandering the contours of human images and sometimes -- not. In those cases what is left is the monotonous activity of running the patterns, inch by inch, till their absolute coverage, till a short and passing instant of respite and than on again to a new onset.
Next to this assembly of garbage and it's recycling into 'painted sculptures' Mirit offers a surprising reunion between her illustrated objects and so called cheap African sculpture; popular artifacts or articles that are classified in the standard culture as 'primitive'.
This combination emphasizes the difference between her individualistic performance and the collective creation which is translated into cultural clichés. The wood carved image creates a moment of peace within the crowded bustle; an introverted image, without repetitiveness and reverberation. This meeting of strangers testifies that Mirit' work could not be labeled under the ´outsiders art´ category. She is a one woman school who is compelled to do the art work she picked out to perform. Therefore she isn't creating ´an image´ such as the carved wooden statues, but she produces breathless ´emotional jam' whose highest values are color, motion, beauty and plenitude. May it never lack, neither diluted, nor dull for even an instant
Tali Tamir
August 2010
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Hi, I am 27 years old. My problem is of weakness, I am getting tired or fatigued, having body pain daily specially at waist. Please advise me for same.
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108/87, KHOTALA SHOPPING CENTRE, MANGAL BAZAR SLAB,HAFSAN ALI, NEAR TEEN BATTI, BHIWANDI, DIST.THANE, MAHARASHTRA,INDIA - 421 302.
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a weakness for late night coffee
and the inevitable insomnia to follow.
the moet & cheesecake were equally yummy, too. mmm!
in bed at last at 5am, after a long chat with j & hw.
h's birthday drinks
Ichon
Just because something is over does not mean that we can't look back on a time fondly. It's not a weakness to finish something and not hate a person.
Strength is not moving on and forgetting about and resenting a person. Strength is coming to terms with an end knowing that the world keeps turning whether we like it or not.
That's what makes us who we are.
Everyone you've ever loved and lost in any capacity has shaped you in one way or another.
We grow from pain and heartache and everything else that is thrown at us in life.
I love these photos that in my eyes are so raw with feelings of the greatest time in my 23 years of life. Why wouldn't I share them when to me, they contain such beauty?
As I've grown in my photography I've come to learn that I live and love through the photographs that I take. It's both a blessing and a curse. My only regret is that I didn't share these particular photos earlier when maybe they mattered more.
These photos were made in March 2015 between my home in Blackburn, Manchester and Bangor, Wales.
It was a whirlwind few days. Stressful. And without her, I'm not sure I could have done it.
And I don't say that lightly as I'm used to being alone and having to cope by myself.
I wanted to shoot this natural beauty on black and white film with my old Olympus OM10. The idea being that I wanted to have some tangible, physical memories. Not just something floating around in the digital ether as is most always the case these days.
When you shoot on film you don't just take as many photos as you can and hope at least one of them looks good. You put your faith in every click of those 26 shots that whatever it is that you're looking at is in focus and that the shutter speed is set right and you've got the right aperture for the ISO of the film.
You think about every. Last. Shot.
Every one counts.
When it came to developing the film it was her birthday and I was shaking. One wrong move and the photos would be gone, lost forever.
I thought I'd almost messed up after I accidentally exposed the film whilst pouring out the stop-bath. Thankfully not.
Digital is a godsend in this world of ever-greater immediacy.
However, there's nothing quite like shooting film.
Website - scottdavidjackson.co.uk/
Facebook - www.facebook.com/scottdavidjacksoncreative/
YouTube - www.youtube.com/user/scojacked/videos
Twitter - twitter.com/scojacks
Pinterest - uk.pinterest.com/Scojacks/
Instagram - scojacks
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General Debility & Weakness | Medicines For Health Disorders - Unani medicines, herbal products, health supplements,
Hi, I am 27 years old. My problem is of weakness, I am getting tired or fatigued, having body pain daily specially at waist. Please advise me for same.
Buy online Naturo Power is Remedies for General Weakness treatment available from Unani Dawakhana bhiwandi www.younani.com.
Information about Weakness, Causes of Weakness, Signs & Symptoms of Weakness, Unani treatment and Unani medicines.
Ignorance of these problems can also cause severe weakness in sex power, general health problems and seminal weakness.
Natural cure for Joint,Skin and abdominal problems,premature ejaculation
Package for General Weakness
Herbal treatment for Sexual Weakness,Obesity,Hairloss
Sexual Weakness - Herbal / Unani medicines
What is the treatment of general body weakness
Unani Treatment For Sexual Weakness and Sexual
Natural UnaniTreatment for Masturbation Effects, Sexual Weakness, Night
Home Remedy for Sexual Weakness
For over 3 generations we havae been catering to the needs of people and have been trusted for our renowned products. With such immense trust and goodwill, the need was felt to diversify into other areas of health care.We have introduced unani products, all manufactured with pure natural ingredients of the highest quality, manufactured with modern processes. Subjected to stringent quality controls tests to give our customer complete Satisfaction.
All our products and ideas are innovative, as we believe in Customer Satisfaction.
Thus was born an idea called TAZEEN.
108/87, KHOTALA SHOPPING CENTRE, MANGAL BAZAR SLAB,HAFSAN ALI, NEAR TEEN BATTI, BHIWANDI, DIST.THANE, MAHARASHTRA,INDIA - 421 302.
Mobile : +91 9921922904
Email : unanidawakhana1@gmail.com
Email : order@younani.com
website : www.younani.com
OPINION
Guardian.co.uk | The Observer
November 2, 2008
'The election of Obama would, at a stroke, refresh our country's spirit'
It has been an epic campaign for the American Presidency and one which has been scrutinised at close quarters by the US's finest writers on the New Yorker magazine - the country's leading journal of politics and culture. Here, in their leader column ahead of the election, the editors of the magazine offer a brilliant analysis of the choice facing America, deconstruct the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates and finish with a powerful endorsement of Barack Obama as the man best suited to answer the grave challenges facing the next President
Never in living memory has an election been more critical than the one fast approaching - that's the quadrennial cliché, as expected as the balloons and the bombast. And yet when has it ever felt so urgently true? When have so many Americans had so clear a sense that a presidency has - at the levels of competence, vision and integrity - undermined the country and its ideals?
The incumbent administration has distinguished itself for the ages. The presidency of George W Bush is the worst since Reconstruction, so there is no mystery about why the Republican party - which has held dominion over the executive branch of the federal government for the past eight years and the legislative branch for most of that time - has little desire to defend its record, domestic or foreign. The only speaker at the convention in St Paul who uttered more than a sentence or two in support of the President was his wife, Laura. Meanwhile, the nominee, John McCain, played the part of a vaudeville illusionist, asking to be regarded as an apostle of change after years of embracing the essentials of the Bush agenda with ever-increasing ardour.
The Republican disaster begins at home. Even before taking into account whatever fantastically expensive plan eventually emerges to help rescue the financial system from Wall Street's long-running pyramid schemes, the economic and fiscal picture is bleak. During the Bush administration, the national debt, now approaching $10 trillion, has nearly doubled. Next year's federal budget is projected to run a $500bn deficit, a precipitous fall from the $700bn surplus that was projected when Bill Clinton left office. Private-sector job creation has been a sixth of what it was under President Clinton. Five million people have fallen into poverty. The number of Americans without health insurance has grown by seven million, while average premiums have nearly doubled. Meanwhile, the principal domestic achievement of the Bush administration has been to shift the relative burden of taxation from the rich to the rest. For the top 1 per cent of us, the Bush tax cuts are worth, on average, about a thousand dollars a week; for the bottom fifth, about a dollar and a half. The unfairness will only increase if the painful, yet necessary, effort to rescue the credit markets ends up preventing the rescue of our healthcare system, our environment and our physical, educational and industrial infrastructure.
At the same time, 150,000 American troops are in Iraq and 33,000 are in Afghanistan. There is still disagreement about the wisdom of overthrowing Saddam Hussein and his horrific regime, but there is no longer the slightest doubt that the Bush administration manipulated, bullied and lied the American public into this war and then mismanaged its prosecution in nearly every aspect. The direct costs, besides an expenditure of more than $600bn, have included the loss of more than 4,000 Americans, the wounding of 30,000, the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis and the displacement of four and a half million men, women and children. Only now, after American forces have been fighting for a year longer than they did in the Second World War, is there a glimmer of hope that the conflict in Iraq has entered a stage of fragile stability.
The indirect costs, both of the war in particular and of the administration's unilateralist approach to foreign policy in general, have also been immense. The torture of prisoners, authorised at the highest level, has been an ethical and a public diplomacy catastrophe. At a moment when the global environment, the global economy and global stability all demand a transition to new sources of energy, the United States has been a global retrograde, wasteful in its consumption and heedless in its policy. Strategically and morally, the Bush administration has squandered the American capacity to counter the example and the swagger of its rivals. China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and other illiberal states have concluded, each in its own way, that democratic principles and human rights need not be components of a stable, prosperous future. At recent meetings of the United Nations, emboldened despots like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran came to town sneering at our predicament and hailing the 'end of the American era'.
The election of 2008 is the first in more than half a century in which no incumbent President or Vice-President is on the ballot. There is, however, an incumbent party and that party has been lucky enough to find itself, apparently against the wishes of its 'base', with a nominee who evidently disliked George W Bush before it became fashionable to do so. In South Carolina, in 2000, Bush crushed John McCain with a sub rosa primary campaign of such viciousness that McCain lashed out memorably against Bush's Christian Right allies. So profound was McCain's anger that in 2004 he flirted with the possibility of joining the Democratic ticket under John Kerry. Bush, who took office as a 'compassionate conservative', governed immediately as a rightist ideologue. During that first term, McCain bolstered his reputation, sometimes deserved, as a 'maverick' willing to work with Democrats on such issues as normalising relations with Vietnam, campaign finance reform and immigration reform. He co-sponsored, with John Edwards and Edward Kennedy, a patients' bill of rights. In 2001 and 2003 he voted against the Bush tax cuts. With John Kerry, he co-sponsored a bill raising auto fuel efficiency standards and, with Joseph Lieberman, a cap-and-trade regime on carbon emissions. He was one of a minority of Republicans opposed to unlimited drilling for oil and gas off America's shores.
Since the 2004 election, however, McCain has moved remorselessly rightwards in his quest for the Republican nomination. He paid obeisance to Jerry Falwell and preachers of his ilk. He abandoned immigration reform, eventually coming out against his own bill. Most shockingly, McCain, who had repeatedly denounced torture under all circumstances, voted in February against a ban on the very techniques of 'enhanced interrogation' that he himself once endured in Vietnam - as long as the torturers were civilians employed by the CIA.
On almost every issue, McCain and the Democratic party's nominee, Barack Obama, speak the generalised language of 'reform', but only Obama has provided a convincing, rational and fully developed vision. McCain has abandoned his opposition to the Bush-era tax cuts and has taken up the demagogic call - in the midst of recession and Wall Street calamity, with looming crises in social security, Medicare and Medicaid - for more tax cuts. Bush's expire in 2011. If McCain, as he has proposed, cuts taxes for corporations and estates, the benefits once more would go disproportionately to the wealthy.
In Washington the craze for pure market triumphalism is over. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson arrived in town (via Goldman Sachs) a Republican, but it seems that he will leave a Democrat. In other words, he has come to see that the abuses that led to the current financial crisis - not least, excessive speculation on borrowed capital - can be fixed only with government regulation and oversight. McCain, who has never evinced much interest in, or knowledge of, economic questions, has had little of substance to say about the crisis. His most notable gesture of concern - a melodramatic call to suspend his campaign and postpone the first presidential debate until the government bail-out plan was ready - soon revealed itself as an empty diversionary tactic.
By contrast, Obama has made a serious study of the mechanics and the history of this economic disaster and of the possibilities of stimulating a recovery. Last March, in New York, in a speech notable for its depth, balance and foresight, he said: 'A complete disdain for pay-as-you-go budgeting, coupled with a generally scornful attitude towards oversight and enforcement, allowed far too many to put short-term gain ahead of long-term consequences.' Obama is committed to reforms that value not only the restoration of stability but also the protection of the vast majority of the population, which did not partake of the fruits of the binge years. He has called for greater and more programmatic regulation of the financial system; the creation of a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank, which would help reverse the decay of our roads, bridges and mass-transit systems and create millions of jobs; and a major investment in the green-energy sector.
On energy and global warming, Obama offers a set of forceful proposals. He supports a cap-and-trade programme to reduce America's carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 - an enormously ambitious goal, but one that many climate scientists say must be met if atmospheric carbon dioxide is to be kept below disastrous levels. Large emitters, such as utilities, would acquire carbon allowances and those which emit less carbon dioxide than their allotment could sell the resulting credits to those which emit more; over time, the available allowances would decline. Significantly, Obama wants to auction off the allowances; this would provide $15bn a year for developing alternative energy sources and creating job-training programmes in green technologies. He also wants to raise federal fuel-economy standards and to require that 10 per cent of America's electricity be generated from renewable sources by 2012. Taken together, his proposals represent the most coherent and far-sighted strategy ever offered by a presidential candidate for reducing the nation's reliance on fossil fuels.
There was once reason to hope that McCain and Obama would have a sensible debate about energy and climate policy. McCain was one of the first Republicans in the Senate to support federal limits on carbon dioxide and he has touted his own support for a less ambitious cap-and-trade programme as evidence of his independence from the White House. But, as polls showed Americans growing jittery about gasoline prices, McCain apparently found it expedient in this area, too, to shift course. He took a dubious idea - lifting the federal moratorium on offshore oil drilling - and placed it at the centre of his campaign. Opening up America's coastal waters to drilling would have no impact on gasoline prices in the short term and, even over the long term, the effect, according to a recent analysis by the Department of Energy, would be 'insignificant'. Such inconvenient facts, however, are waved away by a campaign that finally found its voice with the slogan 'Drill, baby, drill!'
The contrast between the candidates is even sharper with respect to the third branch of government. A tense equipoise currently prevails among the justices of the Supreme Court, where four hardcore conservatives face off against four moderate liberals. Anthony M Kennedy is the swing vote, determining the outcome of case after case.
McCain cites Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, two reliable conservatives, as models for his own prospective appointments. If he means what he says, and if he replaces even one moderate on the current Supreme Court, then Roe v Wade will be reversed and states will again be allowed to impose absolute bans on abortion. McCain's views have hardened on this issue. In 1999 he said he opposed overturning Roe; by 2006 he was saying that its demise 'wouldn't bother me any'; by 2008 he no longer supported adding rape and incest as exceptions to his party's platform opposing abortion.
But scrapping Roe - which, after all, would leave states as free to permit abortion as to criminalise it - would be just the beginning. Given the ideological agenda that the existing conservative bloc has pursued, it's safe to predict that affirmative action of all kinds would likely be outlawed by a McCain court. Efforts to expand executive power, which in recent years certain justices have nobly tried to resist, would be likely to increase. Barriers between church and state would fall; executions would soar; legal checks on corporate power would wither - all with just one new conservative nominee on the court. And the next President is likely to make three appointments.
Obama, who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, voted against confirming not only Roberts and Alito but also several unqualified lower-court nominees. As an Illinois state senator, he won the support of prosecutors and police organisations for new protections against convicting the innocent in capital cases. While McCain voted to continue to deny habeas corpus rights to detainees, perpetuating the Bush administration's regime of state-sponsored extra-legal detention, Obama took the opposite side, pushing to restore the right of all US-held prisoners to a hearing. The judicial future would be safe in his care.
In the shorthand of political commentary, the Iraq war seems to leave McCain and Obama roughly even. Opposing it before the invasion, Obama had the prescience to warn of a costly and indefinite occupation and rising anti-American radicalism around the world; supporting it, McCain foresaw none of this. More recently, in early 2007, McCain risked his presidential prospects on the proposition that five additional combat brigades could salvage a war that by then appeared hopeless. Obama, along with most of the country, had decided that it was time to cut American losses. Neither candidate's calculations on Iraq have been as cheaply political as McCain's repeated assertion that Obama values his career over his country; both men based their positions, right or wrong, on judgment and principle.
President Bush's successor will inherit two wars and the realities of limited resources, flagging popular will and the dwindling possibilities of what can be achieved by American power. McCain's views on these subjects range from the simplistic to the unknown. In Iraq, he seeks 'victory' - a word that General David Petraeus refuses to use, and one that fundamentally misrepresents the messy, open-ended nature of the conflict. As for Afghanistan, on the rare occasions when McCain mentions it he implies that the surge can be transferred directly from Iraq, which suggests that his grasp of counterinsurgency is not as firm as he insisted it was during the first presidential debate. McCain always displays more faith in force than interest in its strategic consequences. Unlike Obama, McCain has no political strategy for either war, only the dubious hope that greater security will allow things to work out. Obama has long warned of deterioration along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and has a considered grasp of its vital importance. His strategy for both Afghanistan and Iraq shows an understanding of the role that internal politics, economics, corruption and regional diplomacy play in wars where there is no battlefield victory.
Unimaginably painful personal experience taught McCain that war is above all a test of honour: maintain the will to fight on, be prepared to risk everything and you will prevail. Asked during the first debate to outline 'the lessons of Iraq', McCain said: 'I think the lessons of Iraq are very clear: that you cannot have a failed strategy that will then cause you to nearly lose a conflict.' A soldier's answer - but a statesman must have a broader view of war and peace. The years ahead will demand not only determination but also diplomacy, flexibility, patience, judiciousness and intellectual engagement. These are no more McCain's strong suit than the current President's. Obama, for his part, seems to know that more will be required than will power and force to extract some advantage from the wreckage of the Bush years.
Obama is also better suited for the task of renewing the bedrock foundations of American influence. An American restoration in foreign affairs will require a commitment not only to international co-operation but also to international institutions that can address global warming, the dislocations of what will likely be a deepening global economic crisis, disease epidemics, nuclear proliferation, terrorism and other, more traditional security challenges. Many of the Cold War-era vehicles for engagement and negotiation - the United Nations, the World Bank, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty regime, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation - are moribund, tattered, or outdated. Obama has the generational outlook that will be required to revive or reinvent these compacts. He would be the first postwar American President unencumbered by the legacies of either Munich or Vietnam.
The next President must also restore American moral credibility. Closing Guantánamo, banning all torture and ending the Iraq war as responsibly as possible will provide a start, but only that. The modern presidency is as much a vehicle for communication as for decision-making and the relevant audiences are global. Obama has inspired many Americans in part because he holds up a mirror to their own idealism. His election would do no less - and likely more - overseas.
What most distinguishes the candidates, however, is character - and here, contrary to conventional wisdom, Obama is clearly the stronger of the two. Not long ago, Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, said: 'This election is not about issues. This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.' The view that this election is about personalities leaves out policy, complexity and accountability. Even so, there's some truth in what Davis said - but it hardly points to the conclusion that he intended.
Echoing Obama, McCain has made 'change' one of his campaign mantras. But the change he has provided has been in himself and it is not just a matter of altering his positions. A willingness to pander and even lie has come to define his presidential campaign and its televised advertisements. A contemptuous duplicity, a meanness, has entered his talk on the stump - so much so that it seems obvious that, in the drive for victory, he is willing to replicate some of the same underhanded methods that defeated him eight years ago in South Carolina.
Perhaps nothing revealed McCain's cynicism more than his choice of Sarah Palin, the former mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, who had been governor of that state for 21 months, as the Republican nominee for Vice-President. In the interviews she has given since her nomination, she has had difficulty uttering coherent unscripted responses about the most basic issues of the day. We are watching a candidate for Vice-President cram for her ongoing exam in elementary domestic and foreign policy. This is funny as a Tina Fey routine on Saturday Night Live, but as a vision of the political future it's deeply unsettling. Palin has no business being the back-up to a President of any age, much less to one who is 72 and in imperfect health. In choosing her, McCain committed an act of breathtaking heedlessness and irresponsibility. Obama's choice, Joe Biden, is not without imperfections. His tongue sometimes runs in advance of his mind, providing his own fodder for late-night comedians, but there is no comparison with Palin. His deep experience in foreign affairs, the judiciary and social policy makes him an assuring and complementary partner for Obama.
The longer the campaign goes on, the more the issues of personality and character have reflected badly on McCain. Unless appearances are very deceptive, he is impulsive, impatient, self-dramatising, erratic and a compulsive risk-taker. These qualities may have contributed to his usefulness as a 'maverick' senator. But in a President they would be a menace.
By contrast, Obama's transformative message is accompanied by a sense of pragmatic calm. A tropism for unity is an essential part of his character and of his campaign. It is part of what allowed him to overcome a Democratic opponent who entered the race with tremendous advantages. It is what helped him forge a political career relying both on the liberals of Hyde Park and on the political regulars of downtown Chicago. His policy preferences are distinctly liberal, but he is determined to speak to a broad range of Americans who do not necessarily share his every value or opinion. For some who oppose him, his equanimity even under the ugliest attack seems like hauteur; for some who support him, his reluctance to counterattack in the same vein seems like self-defeating detachment.
Yet it is Obama's temperament - and not McCain's - that seems appropriate for the office both men seek and for the volatile and dangerous era in which we live. Those who dismiss his centredness as self-centredness or his composure as indifference are as wrong as those who mistook Eisenhower's stolidity for denseness or Lincoln's humour for lack of seriousness.
Nowadays almost every politician who thinks about running for President arranges to become an author. Obama's books are different: he wrote them. The Audacity of Hope (2006) is a set of policy disquisitions loosely structured around an account of his freshman year in the United States Senate.
Though a campaign manifesto of sorts, it is superior to that genre's usual blowsy pastiche of ghostwritten speeches. But it is Obama's first book, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995), that offers an unprecedented glimpse into the mind and heart of a potential President. Obama began writing it in his early thirties, before he was a candidate for anything. Not since Theodore Roosevelt has an American politician this close to the pinnacle of power produced such a sustained, highly personal work of literary merit before being definitively swept up by the tides of political ambition.
A presidential election is not the awarding of a Pulitzer prize: we elect a politician and, we hope, a statesman, not an author. But Obama's first book is valuable in the way that it reveals his fundamental attitudes of mind and spirit. Dreams from My Father is an illuminating memoir not only in the substance of Obama's own peculiarly American story but also in the qualities he brings to the telling: a formidable intelligence, emotional empathy, self-reflection, balance and a remarkable ability to see life and the world through the eyes of people very different from himself. In common with nearly all other senators and governors of his generation, Obama does not count military service as part of his biography. But his life has been full of tests - personal, spiritual, racial, political - that bear on his preparation for great responsibility.
It is perfectly legitimate to call attention, as McCain has done, to Obama's lack of conventional national and international policy-making experience. We, too, wish he had more of it. But office-holding is not the only kind of experience relevant to the task of leading a wildly variegated nation. Obama's immersion in diverse human environments (Hawaii's racial rainbow, Chicago's racial cauldron, countercultural New York, middle-class Kansas, predominantly Muslim Indonesia), his years of organising among the poor, his taste of corporate law and his grounding in public-interest and constitutional law - these, too, are experiences. And his books show that he has wrung from them every drop of insight and breadth of perspective they contained.
The exhaustingly, sometimes infuriatingly, long campaign of 2008 (and 2007) has had at least one virtue: it has demonstrated that Obama's intelligence and steady temperament are not just figments of the writer's craft. He has made mistakes, to be sure. (His failure to accept McCain's imaginative proposal for a series of unmediated joint appearances was among them.) But, on the whole, his campaign has been marked by patience, planning, discipline, organisation, technological proficiency and strategic astuteness. Obama has often looked two or three moves ahead, relatively impervious to the permanent hysteria of the hourly news cycle and the cable news shouters. And when crisis has struck, as it did when the divisive antics of his ex-pastor threatened to bring down his campaign, he has proved equal to the moment, rescuing himself with a speech that not only drew the poison but also demonstrated a profound respect for the electorate.
Although his opponents have tried to attack him as a man of 'mere' words, Obama has returned eloquence to its essential place in American politics. The choice between experience and eloquence is a false one - something that Lincoln, out of office after a single term in Congress, proved in his own campaign of political and national renewal. Obama's 'mere' speeches on everything from the economy and foreign affairs to race have been at the centre of his campaign and its success; if he wins, his eloquence will be central to his ability to govern.
We cannot expect one man to heal every wound, to solve every major crisis of policy. So much of the presidency, as they say, is a matter of waking up in the morning and trying to drink from a fire hydrant. In the quiet of the Oval Office, the noise of immediate demands can be deafening. And yet Obama has precisely the temperament to shut out the noise when necessary and concentrate on the essential.
The election of Obama - a man of mixed ethnicity, at once comfortable in the world and utterly representative of 21st-century America - would, at a stroke, reverse our country's image abroad and refresh its spirit at home. His ascendance to the presidency would be a symbolic culmination of the civil- and voting - rights acts of the 1960s and the century-long struggles for equality that preceded them. It could not help but say something encouraging, even exhilarating, about the country, about its dedication to tolerance and inclusiveness, about its fidelity, after all, to the values it proclaims in its textbooks. At a moment of economic calamity, international perplexity, political failure and battered morale, America needs both uplift and realism, both change and steadiness. It needs a leader temperamentally, intellectually and emotionally attuned to the complexities of our troubled globe. That leader's name is Barack Obama.
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/02/elections-obama-mcca...
Im not the sort of person who falls in and quickly out of love
but to you i gave my affection right from the start,
I have a lover who loves me,
How could i break such a heart?
Yet still you get my attention...
Why do u come here when you know i've got troubles enough?
Why do you call me when you know i cant answer the phone?
You make me lie when i dont want to
And make someone else some kind of ongoing fool,
You make me stay when i should not,
Are you so strong or is all the weakness in ME?!
Buying Crocs - 'my one weakness' as Dorcas Lane used to say in Larkrise to Candleford (and she said it of many and varied things!). Still, that's what pocket money is for :-)
Toddlers was fun this morning, and a special delight to have one of our previous attenders return (along with his little sister, who is a current attender), as there was a staff training day at his school. Also lovely that it happened to be his 5th birthday!
I spent the afternoon catching up with photos and admin, and making a start on the next edition of the CHEQS Magazine.
I have an crippling weakness for almost anything vintage. My desk is covered with all my vintage treasures.
(I also have a weakness for free flowers! All these were clipped between my house and my office)
We all have our weaknesses. For me, its (among a few others) the Harrier. Mind you, I could make one of many kits ...
For Paul, he tells me it is the A-10 Warthog. This is truly a great aircraft.
Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II is one of the USAF great success stories. In need of close air support that was safer than the redoubtable A-1 Skyraider, the Warthog came on line and flew into history.
With over 716 made, it covered itself in glory, protecting its pilots with a titanium armour bathtub an proving its worth (like on the Highway of Death in Kuwait.)
Making the kits can be fairly easy, as the A-10 has some pretty unimposing cammo schemes. Paul has done a fine job here.
With all good things, especially military ones, the Warthog's time is coming to an end. It will be replaced by that money sink hole, Lockheed Martin's F-35 Lightning II. Critics call this a "giant leap backwards." After some debate, starting in 2014 the A-10 will be phased out over 5 years. As a result, the USAF will have no tacair capable of operating from short or rough airfields.
Makes perfect sense ... these guys are as smart as the Canadian military.
One weakness of the EOS M with the 22mm lens is the spotty AF performance. Although probably not visible in this photo, the furthest objects were slightly out of focus despite focusing on a rectangle in which the objects were at least 1/2 the distance of those objects and several hundred feet away at f/8. I'm able to get a more precise focus with the EF/S adapter and manual focus using live view.
Mirit Ben Nun: Shortness of breath
'Shortness of breath' is not only a sign of physical weakness, it is a metaphor for a mental state of strong desire that knows no repletion; more and more, an unbearable glut, without repose. Mirit Ben Nun's type of work on the other hand requires an abundance of patience. This is a Sisyphean work (requiring hard labor) of marking lines and dots, filling every empty millimeter with brilliant blots. Therefore we are facing a paradox or a logical conflict. A patient and effortful work that stems from an urgent need to cover and fill, to adorn and coat. Her craft of layering reaches a state of a continuous ceremonial ritual.
This ritual digests every object into itself - useful or discarded -- available and ordinary or rare and exceptional -- they submit and devote to the overlay work. Mirit BN gathers scrap off the streets -- cardboard rolls of fabric, assortments of wooden boards and pieces, plates and planks -- and constructs a new link, her own syntax, which she alone is fully responsible for. The new combination -- a type of a sculptural construction -- goes through a process of patching by the act of painting.
In fact Mirit regards her three dimensional objects as a platform for painting, with a uniform continuity, even if it has obstacles, mounds and valleys. These objects beg her to paint, to lay down colors, to set in motion an intricate weave of abstract patterns that at times finds itself wandering the contours of human images and sometimes -- not. In those cases what is left is the monotonous activity of running the patterns, inch by inch, till their absolute coverage, till a short and passing instant of respite and than on again to a new onset.
Next to this assembly of garbage and it's recycling into 'painted sculptures' Mirit offers a surprising reunion between her illustrated objects and so called cheap African sculpture; popular artifacts or articles that are classified in the standard culture as 'primitive'.
This combination emphasizes the difference between her individualistic performance and the collective creation which is translated into cultural clichés. The wood carved image creates a moment of peace within the crowded bustle; an introverted image, without repetitiveness and reverberation. This meeting of strangers testifies that Mirit' work could not be labeled under the ´outsiders art´ category. She is a one woman school who is compelled to do the art work she picked out to perform. Therefore she isn't creating ´an image´ such as the carved wooden statues, but she produces breathless ´emotional jam' whose highest values are color, motion, beauty and plenitude. May it never lack, neither diluted, nor dull for even an instant
Tali Tamir
August 2010
In July I came up with a radical concept for SL that would address a major weakness in SL regarding LMs - LandMarks. I created a JIRA for it and presented it to LL on August 3rd 2012. They seem quite interested. The initial response from Merchants and those that have read about my VLM's concept have been majorly supportive. In fact a major SL blogger posted an excellent article on it this weekend.
I now need the support from fellow SL Residents.
I created a poster / info kit about it that anyone can come to my store and buy a copy for $0L and put at their store, mall, club, venue, art gallery.
maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lafew/220/182/80
Below is a copy of what is in the notecard about VLMs :
--------------
Supprt for VIRTUAL LANDMARKS (VLMs) for SecondLife
====================================
WHAT ARE VLMs ?
============
Virtual Landmarks or commonly called VLMs are part of a new proposed service enhancement of the age old LMs (Landmarks) in SecondLife that we all know and love using but what has had a very large limitations.
Currently LMs on SL have a major design weakness / limitation in that once they are created and handed out by the 100s or 1000's by Store / Mall / Club / Venue / Hunt Owners and Organizers, they cannot be changed !!
This is a huge weakness for so many in SL since if one of these owners or organizers decided or must move the original LandMark they gave out to they customers or members, the old LMs instantly become useless and as a completely new one is need to be resent to everyone. It also means that store owners need to go back into all their products and vendors and LM givers and change all the old outdated LMs.
With the proposed VLM service, all this is a thing of the past. Creators of VLMs can manage the VLM and automatically modify / update a master entry for all the VLMs they hand out. Within seconds all the 1000's of VLMs that they handed out will be updated.
There are many other features and benefits to VLMs that have been documented in the official SL JIRA developed by Toysoldier Thor as well as great blogs and discussions threads on VLMS.
WHERE DO I GET MORE DETAILS OR ADD MY THOUGHTS ABOUT VLMs ?
===============================================
Following are links to very well documented threads and blogs on the topic:
Nalates' Things & Stuff Blog site - excellent full description of VLMs
>> blog.nalates.net/2012/08/04/virtual-landmarks/
Toysoldier Thor's ToyTalks blog site - the original blog posting that proposed VLMs
>> toytalks.weebly.com/1/post/2012/07/vlms-virtual-landmarks...
SecondLife Forum Threads on the Commerce & Server forums
>> community.secondlife.com/t5/Merchants/Virtual-LandMarks-M...
>> community.secondlife.com/t5/Second-Life-Server/New-Featur...
HOW DO I SHOW MY SUPPORT ON VLMs & VOTE ?
================================
LL's has been formally presented the concept of VLMs on August 3rd, 2012 at a Server User Group meeting. The presentation was based on the formal SecondLife JIRA entry that was created on the proposed new concept. A JIRA is a SecondLife Support System issue/record that LL staff will officially recognize. The JIRA system has the ability for SL residents to voice their support for a JIRA by being able to login (using your SL ID and Password) and VOTING & WATCHING the issue. For LL it is very important that you click on WATCH !
Following is the URL to the JIRA that you can VOTE & WATCH: :
>> jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-8082
Also, in order to show LL that SL Residents are serious about wanting this feature, it is very important that you promote the idea of VLMs without the sphere of your friends and using what ever means to communicate to the community. If you can BLOG, TWEET, put a Support Poster up at your store/mall/club/venue, talk to your User Groups, etc.... this will help show to LL that VLMs need to be a priority in SL,
Thank you for your Support !
Toysoldier Thor
Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolutions.
-Kahlil Gibran
A little known fact about me, I have expensive taste in shoes. If I'm deciding between a pair, I always pick the most expensive pair. (Dammit!) I do love shoes though, like most women--or men-- and these are a huge favorite in my tiny collection. Yes, I really don't buy a lot anymore since I like to wear flipflops almost everywhere now if I can help it. But I do love a good looking pair of shoes.
These are Fluevog's Malibran and if money were not object, I would have this in EVERY COLOR. They are so comfy even for heels and look great dressed up or down.
PS. I also knit these socks. Probably the best fitted socks I've knit to date.
(Today's 365 inspired by Ysolda's shoe shot).
Mirit Ben Nun: Shortness of breath
'Shortness of breath' is not only a sign of physical weakness, it is a metaphor for a mental state of strong desire that knows no repletion; more and more, an unbearable glut, without repose. Mirit Ben Nun's type of work on the other hand requires an abundance of patience. This is a Sisyphean work (requiring hard labor) of marking lines and dots, filling every empty millimeter with brilliant blots. Therefore we are facing a paradox or a logical conflict. A patient and effortful work that stems from an urgent need to cover and fill, to adorn and coat. Her craft of layering reaches a state of a continuous ceremonial ritual.
This ritual digests every object into itself - useful or discarded -- available and ordinary or rare and exceptional -- they submit and devote to the overlay work. Mirit BN gathers scrap off the streets -- cardboard rolls of fabric, assortments of wooden boards and pieces, plates and planks -- and constructs a new link, her own syntax, which she alone is fully responsible for. The new combination -- a type of a sculptural construction -- goes through a process of patching by the act of painting.
In fact Mirit regards her three dimensional objects as a platform for painting, with a uniform continuity, even if it has obstacles, mounds and valleys. These objects beg her to paint, to lay down colors, to set in motion an intricate weave of abstract patterns that at times finds itself wandering the contours of human images and sometimes -- not. In those cases what is left is the monotonous activity of running the patterns, inch by inch, till their absolute coverage, till a short and passing instant of respite and than on again to a new onset.
Next to this assembly of garbage and it's recycling into 'painted sculptures' Mirit offers a surprising reunion between her illustrated objects and so called cheap African sculpture; popular artifacts or articles that are classified in the standard culture as 'primitive'.
This combination emphasizes the difference between her individualistic performance and the collective creation which is translated into cultural clichés. The wood carved image creates a moment of peace within the crowded bustle; an introverted image, without repetitiveness and reverberation. This meeting of strangers testifies that Mirit' work could not be labeled under the ´outsiders art´ category. She is a one woman school who is compelled to do the art work she picked out to perform. Therefore she isn't creating ´an image´ such as the carved wooden statues, but she produces breathless ´emotional jam' whose highest values are color, motion, beauty and plenitude. May it never lack, neither diluted, nor dull for even an instant
Tali Tamir
August 2010
The replica fort at Old Fort Harrod State Park was closed when I got there, so I couldn't go inside, but I did find a weakness in the defenses that let me poke my camera through the wall and get this picture. You wouldn't think that wooden stockade would be enough to defend a bunch of scared settler types from a hundred angry Shawnee people with guns, but walls like this held up well in places like Boonesborough.
"Say, Clint," you might be saying if you know anything at all about Kentucky history. "You mentioned Boonesborough up there, but you didn't say anything in that last picture about Daniel Boone. Isn't he supposed to be a thing?"
Well, friends, the fun thing about Kentucky history is that Daniel Boone gets a lot of history's press when it comes to early settlement, but Boone wasn't really the settling kind of guy. Sure, his wanderings kicked off the land rush that would eventually result in Kentucky's mad dash to statehood, but Boone wasn't the guy to turn to when you wanted to build a civilization. Civilization was what Boone was trying to escape, and he was really annoyed that it just kept chasing him down wherever he went.
Here's where Harrodsburg and Boone fit together. Daniel Boone was born in Pennsylvania in 1734, and he spent the next 30-someodd years roaming around Virginia and North Carolina. He was always wandering off into the woods, though, trying to find someplace where people weren't so that he could hunt all the deer and periodically get kidnapped by indigenous people. In 1769, his wandering took him through a relatively easy pass in the Appalachians that came to be known as the Cumberland Gap, and he found himself in a beautiful, untouched land of meadows. Eventually, that land would be called Kentucky.
As goes with all these settlement stories, "untouched" isn't really an accurate adjective. People had been living and roaming around Kentucky for 10,000 years at this point, but Boone happened to duck through the Gap in the middle of a unique set of decades. Eastern Kentucky had traditionally been home to the Cherokee and the Shawnee people, but over the previous hundred-someodd years, the Iroquois had come down from New York and tried grabbing all the territory for themselves. They were probably doing this as a response to white colonial encroachment on their own territory. The Iroquois push had proven successful, and the Cherokee were pushed south into Tennessee while the Shawnee were mostly forced north of the Ohio River into future Indiana and Illinois. But then things went badly for the Iroquois back in the New York homeland, so they never really did anything with Kentucky, and the place was left empty for a while. The Shawnee were using it as a winter hunting ground when Boone showed up.
Boone, meanwhile, was at the forefront of a colonial surge just itching to cross the mountains from Virginia. English folks had been heading west almost from the moment the first settlers landed at Jamestown in 1607, but the Appalachians were a daunting barrier to settler types, so they'd hesitated in expanding beyond the foothills. But eastern Virginia was getting crowded by about 1770 -- that's a big reason Virginians were so eager to join the Massachusetts revolt against King George III -- and a few adventurous types started poking their noses through the mountain gaps. Once everybody heard about Daniel Boone's 1769 adventure, the dam broke, and the setters started trickling in.
In 1774, at roughly the same time James Harrod and his Pennsylvania buddies were hopping in their boats on the Monongahela, a North Carolina judge and real estate schemer named Richard Henderson came up with a plan to claim an enormous patch of western Virginia west of the Appalachians and south of the Ohio for himself, which he would then turn around and sell. He had no legal basis for this claim, but then neither did anybody else (at least as far as colonial law was concerned), and a lot of wealth in those days came from bluffing people into thinking you had it. So Henderson invented a land speculation firm he called the Transylvania Company and told everybody that Kentucky was Transylvania Company property, and he tried to make it legit by hiring Daniel Boone to build a road and a fort. And so in early 1775, Boone blazed the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap and built the fort on the Kentucky River south of future Lexington that came to be known as Fort Boonesborough. (Just like at Harrodsburg, today there's a state park built around a replica fort at Boonesborough's site to show you a little of what that might have looked like.)
And so, after having left Kentucky alone for the previous 167 years of English Colonial settlement, the white folks started coming into Kentucky all at once. James Harrod finished his Harrodsburg fort just ahead of Boone by a matter of weeks. A few other groups came into Kentucky at roughly the same time and established similar forts. In May of 1775, Richard Henderson called for a convention of representatives from all the little settlements to meet at Boonesborough and establish something resembling a government. James Harrod made the trip from Harrodsburg with several of his associates, and a guy named Benjamin Logan came up with a few friends from a little outpost at a place called St. Asaph's (also known as Logan's Station, now called Stanford), and they all convened a little congress beneath a Boonesborough elm tree. And that was the start of Kentucky government.
It wasn't the end of it, though, because Richard Henderson didn't have the political sense it took to pull off his speculation scheme, and he ticked off everybody back in Virginia or North Carolina who might have given him legitimacy. I mean, seriously, the dude told Thomas Frickin' Jefferson to take a hike. The Transylvania Company fell apart over the next few years when the new United States Congress declined to recognize Henderson's claim, and Henderson slunk back to North Carolina. (He was eventually given a claim along the Ohio in western Kentucky, where Henderson County exists today.) Meanwhile, Boone, who'd been promised all sorts of land by Henderson and about half a dozen other people, wound up with nothing. He spent the next decade working as a surveyor, but he was really bad at that and wound up falling deeply into debt. Eventually, he got mad enough at the civilization rising around him -- the civilization he had helped usher in -- that he ran off to Missouri and tried the whole thing again.
My weakness is starting things and not finishing them. Partly this is due to the humid weather but partly my own love of starting new things. The minifee and the girl at the bottom are now away but all the others still lurk in boxes of spooky parts.
The Creature Walks Among Us, 1956
youtu.be/cfLKIq8XZ0M?t=2s Full Feature
This is the third "Creature" movie. Universal left their options open at the end of second with the exact same ambiguous ending. While sequels to sequels tend to be poor fare, gill-man fans tend to regard Creature Walks Among Us (CWAU) as being as good as the first.
CWAU shares many B-movie weaknesses. It follows formula plot elements that were hallmarks of the first movie, but it also ventures into some new material. This new ground gives CWAU some muscle of its own. The first movie had a tiny bit of science blather about evolution. The second movie didn't bother. The third, however, tried to re-inject some science into the fiction.
Synopsis
A rich scientist mounts an expedition to find the gill-man who has escaped into the Florida swamps. A local fisherman reports being attacked by a man-like "diablo" so they investigate. Using an underwater radar device (not sonar), they track him down to a narrow bayou. Here he attacks their small boat, but is set on fire by spilled gasoline. Badly burned, the gill-man collapses. The scientists take him back aboard their 100' yacht and head for San Francisco. They've bandaged him up (head to toe) and are monitoring his vital signs. During the trip the complex soap opera develops. Dr. Barton (Jeff Morrow) is the rich, but jealous husband. Mrs. Barton (Liegh Snowden) is the blonde babe no longer in love and resentful of her husbands attempts to control her. Dr. Morgan (Rex Reason) is the concerned friend. Jed Grant is the buff playboy helper. Innuendo and misunderstandings keep the pot simmering.
Along the way, the doctors find that gill-man's gills are too badly burned to supply his body with oxygen. An x-ray reveals that he has lungs but that they're collapsed and closed off. They operate to open them. He can breathe air now. They also comment about how the burns have cause the fish-like layer to fall away, and a more human-like layer of skin to develop. Gillman awakens and interrupts Jed forcing himself on Marcia. He then dives into the sea, but must be rescued before he drowns.
Back in San Francisco, Gill is taken to Dr. Barton's estate and put into an electrified pen with some other animals. He looks somewhat longingly to the water's edge, but is docile. When a mountain lion gets into the pen and kills a sheep, Gill kills the big cat. When Dr. Barton pistol-whips Jed and puts the body in Gill's cage (to frame him for the murder), Gill goes nuts, tears up the house looking for Dr. Barton, finally killing him. Gill then wanders off the estate. With everyone in funeral attire, there's a mild suggestion that Dr. Morgan will come to call on the widow Barton when a respectful time has passed. The movie closes with Gill walking down the beach towards the sea. The End.
Once you've gotten into the gill-man saga, the plot of CWAU takes it to a new level which is more thoughtful than simply another monster movie. It's also fun to see the team of Jeff Morrow and Rex Reason again -- two good actors -- who starred in This Island Earth ('54).
The original movie had two gill-man suits -- a smaller one for the underwater shots, and a larger one for the above-water shots. The second movie, Revenge, made two new gill-man suits along the same lines. For the third movie, they didn't put too much into a new gill-man suit. They created a new gill-man head and hands, but dressed him the crude sailcloth shirt and pants so as to not have to make more. For the pre-changed gill-man, they used footage from the first two movies. The only scenes which needed a new gill-man suit was where he attacked the small boat and was burned. These scenes are so quick and dark, that the lower quality Gill-Man III is not apparent.
Arthur Ross, who co-wrote the original opted for a more thoughtful script. Are we what we are because of our genes, or because of our environment? Dr. Barton is excited that the gill-man is becoming more human. The fire burned away his "old self", releasing the new. "Change the metabolism and man will change." Dr. Morgan disagrees. Science can't create a new species. They may have altered gillman's skin, but inside he's the same. As though mankind would not be fit for space travel until he evolved into something better. This is a natural sort of thought for scientism which denies there being any divine element to man. How else to define man? Our human physiology is all we have. This is reminiscent of the premise underlying The Island of Dr. Moreau. Give animals human shape, human features, and they'll become people.
The Nurture part comes where the scientists theorize that the Gill-man as a "new" man will behave good or bad, depending on how he's treated. The assumption of the Tabula Rasa.
A notion floated in the dialogue is that ordinary humans are "built" for the earth and not suitable to space. The scientists pontificate about how the aquatic gill-man was "built" for life in the water. Man, therefore, was "built" for terrestrial life. That build would not work in space, they say. "We all stand at a crossroads between the jungle and the stars." If gill-man could become a new creature, maybe man could too. Since the changed gill-man could not really become human, the inference is that man can't become this Nietzchean over-man either.
Some aspects of CWAU have spiritual parallels. The before-creature is the old "animal" nature -- rash, violent, lustful. The after-creature is the new "human" self. He's no longer lustful or rash. He's violent only as defense. At the end, he's violent but driven by a sense of justice. There's also a parallel to the biblical "fall of man" described in the Book of Genesis, in that the before creature was innocent. He needed no clothes. After the change, he needed clothing. There's also a parallel to New Testament verses which talk of the old man having to die (metaphorically) before the new man could emerge. This adds some twist to the movie's title. Our own struggles with our animal side with our divine. Dr. Barton and Jed Grant are examples of those who gives in to their animal side. Dr. Morgan and even Marcia Barton are examples of people who maintained morality.
Old Home -- Dr. Barton's estate was one of Universal's stock houses. Used in many movies, such as Tarantula
Bottom line? CWAU will appeal to gill-man fans. Since it's not simply a re-remake of the first two "Creature" films, it has some appeal to others too. It's a bit lighter on the action but more cerebral. It's worth a watch.
Better than REVENGE, but nowhere near the glorious heights of the first film (which is really the only CREATURE that you absolutely must see).
I have a weakness for cow snouts. Everytime I see one, I hope I can stroke her warm, gently, dry (!) snout.
The Allgäu Alp cows are friendly and photogenic (used to tourism). This one pushes herself to the fore. She´s a model and I love her.
A birthday present for Andrea, who said this was her favorite quote after starting to read Anna Karenina this summer.
Capital A drawn from this lettering, lowercase font found here (#24), top border found here, bottom border replicated out of a cross in this pattern.
276/365
"Show your weakness
Let your tears fall when you're
feeling blue
Show your weakness
I'll be on your side
even when you lose
I know what
it's like to build a wall
I know
what it's like to be alone
I know
what it's like to need someone."
~ Show Your Weakness~Amber Rubarth"
1. This is almost sooc, meaning I didnt bring it into ps to fix the greusome bruise on my arm, so ignore it, if you can see it (i fell down the stairs)
2. I love black and white pictures.
3. Tomorrow I will not be in my house from 7:30am-10:30pm. I dont know if I will get a picture done.
4. I actually took a really lame picture, which i will put in comments for ya, but then decided you guys deserved more. and....
5. Its Slider Sunday!! So I did some sliding on the basic windows gallery thing :)
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A good thing continues
Some six months ago, I posted almost 100 images and a few thoughts I felt were missing from the many existing RX1 reviews. The outpouring of support and interest in that article was very gratifying. When I published, I had used the camera for six full months, enough time to come to a view of its strengths and weaknesses and to produce a small portfolio of good images, but not enough time to see the full picture (pun intended). In the following six months, I have used the camera at least as frequently as in the first six and have produced another small set of good images. It should be noted that my usage of the RX1 in the last six (and especially in the last 3) months has involved less travel and more time with the family and around the house; I will share relatively few of these images but will spend some time sharing my impressions of its functionality for family snapshots as I am sure there is some interest. And let it be said here: one of the primary motivations to purchase the camera was to take more photos with the family, and after one full year I can confidently say: money well spent.
The A7/r game-changer?
In the past six months, Sony have announced and released two full-frame, interchangeable lens cameras that clearly take design cues from the RX1: the A7 and the A7r. These cameras are innovative and highly capable and, as such, are in the midst of taking the photography world by storm. I think they are compelling enough cameras that I wonder whether Sony is wasting its energy continuing to develop further A-mount cameras. Sony deserve credit for a bold strategy—many companies would have been content to allow the success of the the RX1 (and RX1R) generate further sales before pushing further into the white space left unexplored by camera makers with less ambition.This is not the place to detail the relative advantages and disadvantages of the RX1 versus the A7/r except to make the following point. I currently use a Nikon D800 and an RX1: were I to sell both and purchase the A7r + 35mm f/2.8 I would in many ways lose nothing by way of imaging capability or lens compatibility but would pocket the surplus $1250-1750. Indeed this loyal Nikon owner thought long and hard about doing so, which speaks to the strategic importance of these cameras for a company trying to make inroads into a highly concentrated market.Ultimately, I opted to hang onto the two cameras I have (although this decision is one that I revisit time and time again) and continue to use them as I have for the past year. Let me give you a quick flavor of why.
The RX1 is smaller and more discrete
This is a small a point, but my gut reaction to the A7/r was: much smaller than the D800, not as small as the RX1. The EVF atop the A7/r and the larger profile of interchangeable mount lenses means that I would not be able to slip the A7/r into a pocket the way I can the RX1. Further, by virtue of using the EVF and its loud mechanical shutter, the A7/r just isn’t as stealthy as the RX1. Finally, f/2 beats the pants off of f/2.8 at the same or smaller size.At this point, some of you may be saying, “Future Sony releases will allow you to get a body without an EVF and get an f/2 lens that has a slimmer profile, etc, etc.” And that’s just the point: to oversimplify things, the reason I am keeping my RX1 is that Sony currently offers something close to an A7 body without a built-in EVF and with a slimmer profile 35mm f/2.
The D800 has important functional advantages
On the other side of the spectrum, the AF speed of the A7/r just isn’t going to match the D800, especially when the former is equipped with a Nikon lens and F-mount adapter. EVFs cannot yet match the experience of looking through the prism and the lens (I expect they will match soon, but aren’t there yet). What’s more, I have made such an investment in Nikon glass that I can’t yet justify purchasing an adapter for a Sony mount or selling them all for Sony’s offerings (many of which aren’t to market yet).Now, all of these are minor points and I think all of them disappear with an A8r, but they add up to something major: I have two cameras very well suited to two different types of shooting, and I ask myself if I gain or lose by getting something in between—something that wasn’t quite a pocket shooter and something that was quite a DSLR? You can imagine, however, that if I were coming to the market without a D800 and an RX1, that my decision would be far different: dollar for dollar, the A7/r would be a no-brainer.During the moments when I consider selling to grab an A7r, I keep coming back to a thought I had a month or so before the RX1 was announced. At that time I was considering something like the NEX cameras with a ZM 21mm f/2.8 and I said in my head, “I wish someone would make a carry-around camera with a full frame sensor and a fixed 35mm f/2.8 or f/2.” Now you understand how attractive the RX1 is to me and what a ridiculously high bar exists for another camera system to reach.
Okay, so what is different from the last review?
For one, I had an issue with the camera’s AF motor failing to engage and giving me an E61:00 error. I had to send it out to Sony for repairs (via extended warranty and service plan). I detailed my experience with Sony Service here [insert link] and I write to you as a very satisfied customer. That is to say, I have 3 years left on a 4 year + accidental damage warranty and I feel confident enough in that coverage to say that I will have this beauty in working order for at least another 3 years.For two, I’ve spent significantly less time thinking of this camera as a DSLR replacement and have instead started to develop a very different way of shooting with it. The activation barrier to taking a shot with my D800 is quite high. Beyond having to bring a large camera wherever you go and have it in hand, a proper camera takes two hands and full attention to produce an image. I shoot slowly and methodically and often from a tripod with the D800. In contrast, I can pull the RX1 out, pop off the lens cap, line up and take a shot with one hand (often with a toddler in the other). This fosters a totally different type of photography.
My “be-there” camera
The have-everywhere camera that gives DSLR type controls to one-handed shooting lets me pursue images that happen very quickly or images that might not normally meet the standards of “drag-the-DSLR-out-of-the-bag.” Many of those images you’ll see on this post. A full year of shooting and I can say this with great confidence: the RX1 is a terrific mash-up of point-and-shoot and DSLR not just in image quality and features, but primarily in the product it helps me create. To take this thinking a bit further: I find myself even processing images from the RX1 differently than I would from my DSLR. So much so that I have strongly considered starting a tumblr and posting JPEGs directly from the RX1 via my phone or an iPad rather than running the bulk of them through Lightroom, onto Flickr and then on the blog (really this is just a matter of time, stay tuned, and those readers who have experience with tumblr, cloud image storage and editing, etc, etc, please contact me, I want to pick your brain).Put simply, I capture more spontaneous and beautiful “moments” than I might have otherwise. Photography is very much an exercise in “f/8 and be there,” and the RX1 is my go-to “be there” camera.
The family camera
I mentioned earlier that I justified the purchase of the RX1 partly as a camera to be used to document the family moments into which a DSLR doesn’t neatly fit. Over the past year I’ve collected thousands and thousands of family images with the RX1. The cold hard truth is that many of those photos could be better if I’d taken a full DSLR kit with me to the park or the beach or the grocery store each time. The RX1 is a difficult camera to use on a toddler (or any moving subject for that matter); autofocus isn’t as fast as a professional DSLR, it’s difficult to perfectly compose via an LCD (especially in bright sunlight), but despite these shortcomings, it’s been an incredibly useful family camera. There are simply so many beautiful moments where I had the RX1 over my shoulder, ready to go that whatever difficulties exist relative to a DSLR, those pale in comparison to the power of it’s convenience. The best camera is the one in your hand.
Where to go from here.
So what is the value of these RX1 going forward, especially in a world of the A7/r and it’s yet-to-be-born siblings without an EVF and a pancake lens? Frankly, at its current price (which is quite fair when you consider the value of the the body and the lens) I see precious little room for an independent offering versus a mirrorless, interchangeable lens system with the same image quality in a package just as small. That doesn’t mean Sony won’t make an RX2 or an RX1 Mark II (have a look at it’s other product lines to see how many SKUs are maintained despite low demand). Instead, I see the RX1 as a bridge that needed to exist for engineers, managers, and the market to make it to the A7/r and it’s descendants.A Facebook friend recently paid me a great compliment; he said something like, “Justin, via your blog, you’ve sold a ton of RX1 cameras.” Indeed, despite my efforts not to be a salesman, I think he’s right: I have and would continue to recommend this camera.The true value of the RX1 going forward is for those of us who have the thing on our shoulders; and yes, if you have an investment in and a love for a DSLR system, there’s still tremendous value in getting one, slinging it over your shoulder, and heading out into the wide, bright world; A7/r or no, this is just an unbelievably capable camera.
Mirit Ben Nun: Shortness of breath
'Shortness of breath' is not only a sign of physical weakness, it is a metaphor for a mental state of strong desire that knows no repletion; more and more, an unbearable glut, without repose. Mirit Ben Nun's type of work on the other hand requires an abundance of patience. This is a Sisyphean work (requiring hard labor) of marking lines and dots, filling every empty millimeter with brilliant blots. Therefore we are facing a paradox or a logical conflict. A patient and effortful work that stems from an urgent need to cover and fill, to adorn and coat. Her craft of layering reaches a state of a continuous ceremonial ritual.
This ritual digests every object into itself - useful or discarded -- available and ordinary or rare and exceptional -- they submit and devote to the overlay work. Mirit BN gathers scrap off the streets -- cardboard rolls of fabric, assortments of wooden boards and pieces, plates and planks -- and constructs a new link, her own syntax, which she alone is fully responsible for. The new combination -- a type of a sculptural construction -- goes through a process of patching by the act of painting.
In fact Mirit regards her three dimensional objects as a platform for painting, with a uniform continuity, even if it has obstacles, mounds and valleys. These objects beg her to paint, to lay down colors, to set in motion an intricate weave of abstract patterns that at times finds itself wandering the contours of human images and sometimes -- not. In those cases what is left is the monotonous activity of running the patterns, inch by inch, till their absolute coverage, till a short and passing instant of respite and than on again to a new onset.
Next to this assembly of garbage and it's recycling into 'painted sculptures' Mirit offers a surprising reunion between her illustrated objects and so called cheap African sculpture; popular artifacts or articles that are classified in the standard culture as 'primitive'.
This combination emphasizes the difference between her individualistic performance and the collective creation which is translated into cultural clichés. The wood carved image creates a moment of peace within the crowded bustle; an introverted image, without repetitiveness and reverberation. This meeting of strangers testifies that Mirit' work could not be labeled under the ´outsiders art´ category. She is a one woman school who is compelled to do the art work she picked out to perform. Therefore she isn't creating ´an image´ such as the carved wooden statues, but she produces breathless ´emotional jam' whose highest values are color, motion, beauty and plenitude. May it never lack, neither diluted, nor dull for even an instant
Tali Tamir
August 2010
Self identification allows a person to understand their prejudices and strengths. I suggest that the red shirted male and red dressed female have a conservative orientation and the blue shirted male and blue dressed female have a liberal orientation. The gray people don't know their strengths or weaknesses.
That self knowledge would help us not to ingrain our prejudices in futile conflicts. For example, if a person knows they are more conservative they know that they must restrain their inclination to attack those that have strengths or weaknesses in the liberal vein. That could mean being less critical of new ideas. It could mean being less critical of more free ideas of personal behavior. Another common and more serious problem is overreacting to violations of legislated law or other traditional doctrines.
I also like the current descriptions of state voting records where the the color choices match this painting--blue states for Democrat/liberal and red states for Republican/conservative. I also have read with interest the descriptions from psychology which would be --my blue color stands for right brain orientation/liberal and -- my red for left brain orientation/conservative. Art and creativity supposedly come from the right side of the brain and logic and science from the left.
To see a closer view see: flickr.com/photos/21702692@N05/2101820241/
I have a slight weakness for a fine single malt. I usually try to make a 1 litre bottle like this one last me for at least a year.
So as well as the whiskey being strong, I have to be strong to achieve the expected longevity of the bottle.
In this pic I am the small colour smudge reflected in the curved base of the bottle.
#57 Strong for 116 pictures in 2016
"a moment of weakness"
- camilla engman
12x16 in acrylic on board
please check the other wonderful artwork pieces from the "sour chandelier" ^-^
junc gallery, los angeles
2006 feb 25
© woolloomooloo / woolloomooloosky. all rights reserved.
A good thing continues
Some six months ago, I posted almost 100 images and a few thoughts I felt were missing from the many existing RX1 reviews. The outpouring of support and interest in that article was very gratifying. When I published, I had used the camera for six full months, enough time to come to a view of its strengths and weaknesses and to produce a small portfolio of good images, but not enough time to see the full picture (pun intended). In the following six months, I have used the camera at least as frequently as in the first six and have produced another small set of good images. It should be noted that my usage of the RX1 in the last six (and especially in the last 3) months has involved less travel and more time with the family and around the house; I will share relatively few of these images but will spend some time sharing my impressions of its functionality for family snapshots as I am sure there is some interest. And let it be said here: one of the primary motivations to purchase the camera was to take more photos with the family, and after one full year I can confidently say: money well spent.
The A7/r game-changer?
In the past six months, Sony have announced and released two full-frame, interchangeable lens cameras that clearly take design cues from the RX1: the A7 and the A7r. These cameras are innovative and highly capable and, as such, are in the midst of taking the photography world by storm. I think they are compelling enough cameras that I wonder whether Sony is wasting its energy continuing to develop further A-mount cameras. Sony deserve credit for a bold strategy—many companies would have been content to allow the success of the the RX1 (and RX1R) generate further sales before pushing further into the white space left unexplored by camera makers with less ambition.This is not the place to detail the relative advantages and disadvantages of the RX1 versus the A7/r except to make the following point. I currently use a Nikon D800 and an RX1: were I to sell both and purchase the A7r + 35mm f/2.8 I would in many ways lose nothing by way of imaging capability or lens compatibility but would pocket the surplus $1250-1750. Indeed this loyal Nikon owner thought long and hard about doing so, which speaks to the strategic importance of these cameras for a company trying to make inroads into a highly concentrated market.Ultimately, I opted to hang onto the two cameras I have (although this decision is one that I revisit time and time again) and continue to use them as I have for the past year. Let me give you a quick flavor of why.
The RX1 is smaller and more discrete
This is a small a point, but my gut reaction to the A7/r was: much smaller than the D800, not as small as the RX1. The EVF atop the A7/r and the larger profile of interchangeable mount lenses means that I would not be able to slip the A7/r into a pocket the way I can the RX1. Further, by virtue of using the EVF and its loud mechanical shutter, the A7/r just isn’t as stealthy as the RX1. Finally, f/2 beats the pants off of f/2.8 at the same or smaller size.At this point, some of you may be saying, “Future Sony releases will allow you to get a body without an EVF and get an f/2 lens that has a slimmer profile, etc, etc.” And that’s just the point: to oversimplify things, the reason I am keeping my RX1 is that Sony currently offers something close to an A7 body without a built-in EVF and with a slimmer profile 35mm f/2.
The D800 has important functional advantages
On the other side of the spectrum, the AF speed of the A7/r just isn’t going to match the D800, especially when the former is equipped with a Nikon lens and F-mount adapter. EVFs cannot yet match the experience of looking through the prism and the lens (I expect they will match soon, but aren’t there yet). What’s more, I have made such an investment in Nikon glass that I can’t yet justify purchasing an adapter for a Sony mount or selling them all for Sony’s offerings (many of which aren’t to market yet).Now, all of these are minor points and I think all of them disappear with an A8r, but they add up to something major: I have two cameras very well suited to two different types of shooting, and I ask myself if I gain or lose by getting something in between—something that wasn’t quite a pocket shooter and something that was quite a DSLR? You can imagine, however, that if I were coming to the market without a D800 and an RX1, that my decision would be far different: dollar for dollar, the A7/r would be a no-brainer.During the moments when I consider selling to grab an A7r, I keep coming back to a thought I had a month or so before the RX1 was announced. At that time I was considering something like the NEX cameras with a ZM 21mm f/2.8 and I said in my head, “I wish someone would make a carry-around camera with a full frame sensor and a fixed 35mm f/2.8 or f/2.” Now you understand how attractive the RX1 is to me and what a ridiculously high bar exists for another camera system to reach.
Okay, so what is different from the last review?
For one, I had an issue with the camera’s AF motor failing to engage and giving me an E61:00 error. I had to send it out to Sony for repairs (via extended warranty and service plan). I detailed my experience with Sony Service here [insert link] and I write to you as a very satisfied customer. That is to say, I have 3 years left on a 4 year + accidental damage warranty and I feel confident enough in that coverage to say that I will have this beauty in working order for at least another 3 years.For two, I’ve spent significantly less time thinking of this camera as a DSLR replacement and have instead started to develop a very different way of shooting with it. The activation barrier to taking a shot with my D800 is quite high. Beyond having to bring a large camera wherever you go and have it in hand, a proper camera takes two hands and full attention to produce an image. I shoot slowly and methodically and often from a tripod with the D800. In contrast, I can pull the RX1 out, pop off the lens cap, line up and take a shot with one hand (often with a toddler in the other). This fosters a totally different type of photography.
My “be-there” camera
The have-everywhere camera that gives DSLR type controls to one-handed shooting lets me pursue images that happen very quickly or images that might not normally meet the standards of “drag-the-DSLR-out-of-the-bag.” Many of those images you’ll see on this post. A full year of shooting and I can say this with great confidence: the RX1 is a terrific mash-up of point-and-shoot and DSLR not just in image quality and features, but primarily in the product it helps me create. To take this thinking a bit further: I find myself even processing images from the RX1 differently than I would from my DSLR. So much so that I have strongly considered starting a tumblr and posting JPEGs directly from the RX1 via my phone or an iPad rather than running the bulk of them through Lightroom, onto Flickr and then on the blog (really this is just a matter of time, stay tuned, and those readers who have experience with tumblr, cloud image storage and editing, etc, etc, please contact me, I want to pick your brain).Put simply, I capture more spontaneous and beautiful “moments” than I might have otherwise. Photography is very much an exercise in “f/8 and be there,” and the RX1 is my go-to “be there” camera.
The family camera
I mentioned earlier that I justified the purchase of the RX1 partly as a camera to be used to document the family moments into which a DSLR doesn’t neatly fit. Over the past year I’ve collected thousands and thousands of family images with the RX1. The cold hard truth is that many of those photos could be better if I’d taken a full DSLR kit with me to the park or the beach or the grocery store each time. The RX1 is a difficult camera to use on a toddler (or any moving subject for that matter); autofocus isn’t as fast as a professional DSLR, it’s difficult to perfectly compose via an LCD (especially in bright sunlight), but despite these shortcomings, it’s been an incredibly useful family camera. There are simply so many beautiful moments where I had the RX1 over my shoulder, ready to go that whatever difficulties exist relative to a DSLR, those pale in comparison to the power of it’s convenience. The best camera is the one in your hand.
Where to go from here.
So what is the value of these RX1 going forward, especially in a world of the A7/r and it’s yet-to-be-born siblings without an EVF and a pancake lens? Frankly, at its current price (which is quite fair when you consider the value of the the body and the lens) I see precious little room for an independent offering versus a mirrorless, interchangeable lens system with the same image quality in a package just as small. That doesn’t mean Sony won’t make an RX2 or an RX1 Mark II (have a look at it’s other product lines to see how many SKUs are maintained despite low demand). Instead, I see the RX1 as a bridge that needed to exist for engineers, managers, and the market to make it to the A7/r and it’s descendants.A Facebook friend recently paid me a great compliment; he said something like, “Justin, via your blog, you’ve sold a ton of RX1 cameras.” Indeed, despite my efforts not to be a salesman, I think he’s right: I have and would continue to recommend this camera.The true value of the RX1 going forward is for those of us who have the thing on our shoulders; and yes, if you have an investment in and a love for a DSLR system, there’s still tremendous value in getting one, slinging it over your shoulder, and heading out into the wide, bright world; A7/r or no, this is just an unbelievably capable camera.
A good thing continues
Some six months ago, I posted almost 100 images and a few thoughts I felt were missing from the many existing RX1 reviews. The outpouring of support and interest in that article was very gratifying. When I published, I had used the camera for six full months, enough time to come to a view of its strengths and weaknesses and to produce a small portfolio of good images, but not enough time to see the full picture (pun intended). In the following six months, I have used the camera at least as frequently as in the first six and have produced another small set of good images. It should be noted that my usage of the RX1 in the last six (and especially in the last 3) months has involved less travel and more time with the family and around the house; I will share relatively few of these images but will spend some time sharing my impressions of its functionality for family snapshots as I am sure there is some interest. And let it be said here: one of the primary motivations to purchase the camera was to take more photos with the family, and after one full year I can confidently say: money well spent.
The A7/r game-changer?
In the past six months, Sony have announced and released two full-frame, interchangeable lens cameras that clearly take design cues from the RX1: the A7 and the A7r. These cameras are innovative and highly capable and, as such, are in the midst of taking the photography world by storm. I think they are compelling enough cameras that I wonder whether Sony is wasting its energy continuing to develop further A-mount cameras. Sony deserve credit for a bold strategy—many companies would have been content to allow the success of the the RX1 (and RX1R) generate further sales before pushing further into the white space left unexplored by camera makers with less ambition.This is not the place to detail the relative advantages and disadvantages of the RX1 versus the A7/r except to make the following point. I currently use a Nikon D800 and an RX1: were I to sell both and purchase the A7r + 35mm f/2.8 I would in many ways lose nothing by way of imaging capability or lens compatibility but would pocket the surplus $1250-1750. Indeed this loyal Nikon owner thought long and hard about doing so, which speaks to the strategic importance of these cameras for a company trying to make inroads into a highly concentrated market.Ultimately, I opted to hang onto the two cameras I have (although this decision is one that I revisit time and time again) and continue to use them as I have for the past year. Let me give you a quick flavor of why.
The RX1 is smaller and more discrete
This is a small a point, but my gut reaction to the A7/r was: much smaller than the D800, not as small as the RX1. The EVF atop the A7/r and the larger profile of interchangeable mount lenses means that I would not be able to slip the A7/r into a pocket the way I can the RX1. Further, by virtue of using the EVF and its loud mechanical shutter, the A7/r just isn’t as stealthy as the RX1. Finally, f/2 beats the pants off of f/2.8 at the same or smaller size.At this point, some of you may be saying, “Future Sony releases will allow you to get a body without an EVF and get an f/2 lens that has a slimmer profile, etc, etc.” And that’s just the point: to oversimplify things, the reason I am keeping my RX1 is that Sony currently offers something close to an A7 body without a built-in EVF and with a slimmer profile 35mm f/2.
The D800 has important functional advantages
On the other side of the spectrum, the AF speed of the A7/r just isn’t going to match the D800, especially when the former is equipped with a Nikon lens and F-mount adapter. EVFs cannot yet match the experience of looking through the prism and the lens (I expect they will match soon, but aren’t there yet). What’s more, I have made such an investment in Nikon glass that I can’t yet justify purchasing an adapter for a Sony mount or selling them all for Sony’s offerings (many of which aren’t to market yet).Now, all of these are minor points and I think all of them disappear with an A8r, but they add up to something major: I have two cameras very well suited to two different types of shooting, and I ask myself if I gain or lose by getting something in between—something that wasn’t quite a pocket shooter and something that was quite a DSLR? You can imagine, however, that if I were coming to the market without a D800 and an RX1, that my decision would be far different: dollar for dollar, the A7/r would be a no-brainer.During the moments when I consider selling to grab an A7r, I keep coming back to a thought I had a month or so before the RX1 was announced. At that time I was considering something like the NEX cameras with a ZM 21mm f/2.8 and I said in my head, “I wish someone would make a carry-around camera with a full frame sensor and a fixed 35mm f/2.8 or f/2.” Now you understand how attractive the RX1 is to me and what a ridiculously high bar exists for another camera system to reach.
Okay, so what is different from the last review?
For one, I had an issue with the camera’s AF motor failing to engage and giving me an E61:00 error. I had to send it out to Sony for repairs (via extended warranty and service plan). I detailed my experience with Sony Service here [insert link] and I write to you as a very satisfied customer. That is to say, I have 3 years left on a 4 year + accidental damage warranty and I feel confident enough in that coverage to say that I will have this beauty in working order for at least another 3 years.For two, I’ve spent significantly less time thinking of this camera as a DSLR replacement and have instead started to develop a very different way of shooting with it. The activation barrier to taking a shot with my D800 is quite high. Beyond having to bring a large camera wherever you go and have it in hand, a proper camera takes two hands and full attention to produce an image. I shoot slowly and methodically and often from a tripod with the D800. In contrast, I can pull the RX1 out, pop off the lens cap, line up and take a shot with one hand (often with a toddler in the other). This fosters a totally different type of photography.
My “be-there” camera
The have-everywhere camera that gives DSLR type controls to one-handed shooting lets me pursue images that happen very quickly or images that might not normally meet the standards of “drag-the-DSLR-out-of-the-bag.” Many of those images you’ll see on this post. A full year of shooting and I can say this with great confidence: the RX1 is a terrific mash-up of point-and-shoot and DSLR not just in image quality and features, but primarily in the product it helps me create. To take this thinking a bit further: I find myself even processing images from the RX1 differently than I would from my DSLR. So much so that I have strongly considered starting a tumblr and posting JPEGs directly from the RX1 via my phone or an iPad rather than running the bulk of them through Lightroom, onto Flickr and then on the blog (really this is just a matter of time, stay tuned, and those readers who have experience with tumblr, cloud image storage and editing, etc, etc, please contact me, I want to pick your brain).Put simply, I capture more spontaneous and beautiful “moments” than I might have otherwise. Photography is very much an exercise in “f/8 and be there,” and the RX1 is my go-to “be there” camera.
The family camera
I mentioned earlier that I justified the purchase of the RX1 partly as a camera to be used to document the family moments into which a DSLR doesn’t neatly fit. Over the past year I’ve collected thousands and thousands of family images with the RX1. The cold hard truth is that many of those photos could be better if I’d taken a full DSLR kit with me to the park or the beach or the grocery store each time. The RX1 is a difficult camera to use on a toddler (or any moving subject for that matter); autofocus isn’t as fast as a professional DSLR, it’s difficult to perfectly compose via an LCD (especially in bright sunlight), but despite these shortcomings, it’s been an incredibly useful family camera. There are simply so many beautiful moments where I had the RX1 over my shoulder, ready to go that whatever difficulties exist relative to a DSLR, those pale in comparison to the power of it’s convenience. The best camera is the one in your hand.
Where to go from here.
So what is the value of these RX1 going forward, especially in a world of the A7/r and it’s yet-to-be-born siblings without an EVF and a pancake lens? Frankly, at its current price (which is quite fair when you consider the value of the the body and the lens) I see precious little room for an independent offering versus a mirrorless, interchangeable lens system with the same image quality in a package just as small. That doesn’t mean Sony won’t make an RX2 or an RX1 Mark II (have a look at it’s other product lines to see how many SKUs are maintained despite low demand). Instead, I see the RX1 as a bridge that needed to exist for engineers, managers, and the market to make it to the A7/r and it’s descendants.A Facebook friend recently paid me a great compliment; he said something like, “Justin, via your blog, you’ve sold a ton of RX1 cameras.” Indeed, despite my efforts not to be a salesman, I think he’s right: I have and would continue to recommend this camera.The true value of the RX1 going forward is for those of us who have the thing on our shoulders; and yes, if you have an investment in and a love for a DSLR system, there’s still tremendous value in getting one, slinging it over your shoulder, and heading out into the wide, bright world; A7/r or no, this is just an unbelievably capable camera.
I have a weakness for eye shadow... And I really really like the eyecolors at Bare Escentuals... This is the newest collection I purchased... It's called The Women of B.E. Collection... There are 20 colors and they all have girl names... Your name might be among them... There's Autumn, Lisa, Melodie, Susan, Margo, Michelle, Tina, Kathleen, Laura, Sandra, Tara, Victoria, Casey, Catherine, Karen, Leigh Ann, Gigi, Joeli, Terri and Rebecca...
.... In Memory Of Robert D. Elliot, Ob. (Obit - he died) March 20, 1844, aged 18 years 7 mo. .... It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power - 1 Corinthians 15:43 .... In Memory of John Elliot, Born in England 1796 Died Dec 12, 1883 .... Harriet Pontifex Elliot, wife of the above - Born in England 1794, Died in Toronto, Mar 26, 1885
We all have one. My friend Andy's just happens to be bananas and cats. You hear that super-villains? BANANAS and CATS.
The weakness of Camouflage is motion. I can see these fish with my naked eye when they move, but as photo-stills they're nearly invisible even to me.. I see 3
Tea and fried bread is my foible and I think, I can't survive without it. No matter whether it is morning, afternoon, evening or midnight, I prefer tea to take.
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Mirit Ben Nun: Shortness of breath
'Shortness of breath' is not only a sign of physical weakness, it is a metaphor for a mental state of strong desire that knows no repletion; more and more, an unbearable glut, without repose. Mirit Ben Nun's type of work on the other hand requires an abundance of patience. This is a Sisyphean work (requiring hard labor) of marking lines and dots, filling every empty millimeter with brilliant blots. Therefore we are facing a paradox or a logical conflict. A patient and effortful work that stems from an urgent need to cover and fill, to adorn and coat. Her craft of layering reaches a state of a continuous ceremonial ritual.
This ritual digests every object into itself - useful or discarded -- available and ordinary or rare and exceptional -- they submit and devote to the overlay work. Mirit BN gathers scrap off the streets -- cardboard rolls of fabric, assortments of wooden boards and pieces, plates and planks -- and constructs a new link, her own syntax, which she alone is fully responsible for. The new combination -- a type of a sculptural construction -- goes through a process of patching by the act of painting.
In fact Mirit regards her three dimensional objects as a platform for painting, with a uniform continuity, even if it has obstacles, mounds and valleys. These objects beg her to paint, to lay down colors, to set in motion an intricate weave of abstract patterns that at times finds itself wandering the contours of human images and sometimes -- not. In those cases what is left is the monotonous activity of running the patterns, inch by inch, till their absolute coverage, till a short and passing instant of respite and than on again to a new onset.
Next to this assembly of garbage and it's recycling into 'painted sculptures' Mirit offers a surprising reunion between her illustrated objects and so called cheap African sculpture; popular artifacts or articles that are classified in the standard culture as 'primitive'.
This combination emphasizes the difference between her individualistic performance and the collective creation which is translated into cultural clichés. The wood carved image creates a moment of peace within the crowded bustle; an introverted image, without repetitiveness and reverberation. This meeting of strangers testifies that Mirit' work could not be labeled under the ´outsiders art´ category. She is a one woman school who is compelled to do the art work she picked out to perform. Therefore she isn't creating ´an image´ such as the carved wooden statues, but she produces breathless ´emotional jam' whose highest values are color, motion, beauty and plenitude. May it never lack, neither diluted, nor dull for even an instant
Tali Tamir
August 2010
Focus on Eldercare's response to COVID-19
At the purpose when the noxious impacts of COVID-19 showed first in Wuhan, the entire city and therefore the entire of Hubei Province ground to a halt. The lockdown of Wuhan brought remarkable torment and threatening difficulties for several individual occupants therein first focus. Presently, COVID-19 represents those equivalent difficulties for individuals and social welfare frameworks all-inclusive. Especially, it tests our aggregate endeavors to believe one another, particularly the foremost defenseless among us.
As a populace, individuals quite 70 will generally have more fragile insusceptible frameworks and progressively fundamental conditions that obstruct their capacity to battle the infection. They're likewise sure to dwell on bunch day to day environments, nearby people. Floods of COVID-19 passings in nursing homes — first within the Seattle territory, at that time on the brink of Sacramento and now during the country — have underscored this inauspicious reality. Up until now, Californians quite 65 have made up, at any rate, a fourth of the state's affirmed instances of COVID-19.
Be that because it may, guidelines, especially for helping living offices, are unsafely failing to satisfy the expectations in protecting California's older folks from this infection. Luck, Gov. Gavin Newsom's plan on Aging activity, as of now ongoing, presents an opportunity to forcefully address this peril and find how to secure an enormous number of more seasoned Americans.
Helped living focuses are an aid to the Eldercare business and therefore the enormous corporate proprietors that currently command the market. Simultaneously, in any case, an absence of guideline and oversight of staffing levels and capabilities — particularly prerequisites for on-location doctors and much prepared clinical experts — has left the business defenseless against misuse and unfortunate results. One glaring issue that has got to be tended to: helped living focuses are directed by the state Department of Social Services rather than the Department of Public Health.
In any case, it helped to measure maybe a piece of social welfare and clinical consideration conveyance framework, not only a direction for living. Propelled a year ago, Newsom's plan on Aging has framed a warning advisory group, is holding open gatherings and within the fall is planned to offer a 10-year plan which will address issues from lodging and vagrancy to crisis readiness to manhandle and disrespect. The venture has made a "Value Committee" to urge a contribution from a progressively differing gathering of residents and associations, including agents of the crippled network, Native Americans and other ethnic minorities.
Considering the spreading coronavirus general wellbeing emerging, it's basic that the representative's plan on Aging takes on an expansive and genuine open arrangement job. We weren't bothered with elevated level clichés for tending to the wants of the old. We'd like solid arrangements, solid guidelines with implementation teeth and a guarantee to continued oversight.
The Age of COVID-19
Older people who get themselves out of the blue alone without authority over their conditions are at specific hazards for an assortment of serious, even hazardous, physical and psychological well-being conditions, including a subjective decrease. Limitations on the opportunity of development ought to be proportionate and not founded solely on age.
COVID-19, as different irresistible melodies, represents a higher hazard to populaces that live in nearness. This hazard is especially intense in nursing or matured consideration offices, where the infection can spread quickly and has just brought about numerous passings. About 1.5 million older people individuals live in the nursing homes in the US, barring helped living offices and different settings making nearness.
Twenty-three individuals kicked the bucket in a flare-up at an office in Washington State in February and March, and the US Centers for Disease Control detailed 400 additional cases in offices as of April 1. On March 31, wellbeing experts in the Grand East district of France detailed 570 passings of older people in nursing homes.
Older people often end up in nursing homes due to governments' inability to offer adequate social types of assistance for individuals to live freely in the network, approaches that have put millions at included danger of getting the infection as a result of their organization. Governments ought to guarantee the progression of network-based administrations with the goal that individuals don't wind up in organizations without different alternatives.
Expound now on the roles played via care laborers in continuing the lives of the old during that emergency, and who, however dreadful themselves, by and by remain day in and outing inside the bounds of their wards to offer fundamental consideration.
Care supervisor Chang, the woman in charge of the consideration laborers among whom I led my hands-on work, coordinated the change of her ward into a self-sufficient fixed of a unit of care. The passage to her floor is carefully monitored; just fundamental conveyances are permitted, for instance, nourishment and clothing. Since nobody can enter or leave the structure, the flask for the older was transformed into a dozing region for care laborers. Despite the very fact that a lot of consideration laborers have their circle of relatives to require care of, they put that piece of their life under the control of others. Care specialist Lin, whose spouse died at the start of the pandemic, did not have the chance to completely grieve his passing due to incessant understaffing at Sunlight. She came back to figure following the burial service, despite realizing that she not, at now expected to figure at Sunlight to hide her significant other's clinical costs. Lin's arrival says much regarding her promise to her calling, to her colleagues, and to the old she had come to understand so well. My examination with care laborers recommends that it's an enthusiastic association and an awareness of other's expectations that propels them to remain the end of the day in care work. This is often borne out immediately.
Carefully add China is often seen as being grimy and unfortunate, thanks to an excellent extension to its nearby hook up with the realistic consideration required by slight, skilled bodies. Chinese consideration laborers are for the foremost part provincial to urban transients or urban specialists laid far away from previous state-claimed processing plants. In any case, direct consideration is intricate. In any case, its unpredictability goes unrecognized, or maybe disregarded by institutional powers that organize benefits and generalize the old as bodies to chip away at, to the disregard of their social-passionate necessities. As is valid with Sunlight, things which might typically undermine the keenness of care laborers, for instance, the absence of institutional acknowledgment for his or her enthusiastic work, are required to be postponed. Care specialists are currently centered around a shared objective: ensuring the gift assistance of the older. COVID-19 propels care laborers to consider what kind of care is required and the way to offer that care. It fills in as a channel through which the elemental beliefs of care are observed. Care is about common human weakness and our intrinsic association. Care laborers at Sunlight, in their aggregate every minute of everyday endeavors to secure the older, typify this ethic through their consideration. May the respectful regard, they hold of the older in their consideration redound on them and everyone consideration laborers overall who are fighting this pandemic on the bleeding edge!
Like the consideration laborers at Sunlight, the laborers in numerous nations are regarded human life so that we cannot be embarrassed to return clean with the leading edge about ourselves. Salute the spearheading staff who salutes our purposeful endeavors to handle the pandemic in numerous settings around the globe, within the daylight, yet additionally to ensure that veterans are appropriately treated, took care of and washed.
We all hope and pray that the coronavirus will soon be controlled and subdued. And that when the crisis is behind us, that we continue the important work of protecting the elderly and other vulnerable segments of our citizenry.
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How Can I Contribute in Times of COVID-19?
Write your testimony about the concequences from the time of Corona virus (COVID-19). Here is a great knowledge base about the effects of the Corona virus. Thank you for your story! article-directory.org/article/717/40/Emergency-Situations...