Photography

Photography becomes an obsession for anyone who gets trapped in its web. You think you are in control because you can set the fstop and the shutter speed but you are wrong. Photography consumes you. If you are a dedicated photographer, you cannot walk down a path without looking for a photograph, even if you are without your camera. As a photographer I see things that other people miss but I am always looking for the picture. A photographer can be without his/her camera, but a photographer is always taking pictures, whether with his eyes or with a camera. Photography unlike many other arts is portable, it is hard taking an easel with you on a spur of the moment trip, but a camera can always be thrown in a bag and carried along. A musician has to plan when he takes his/her instrument, a photographer does not. And now with the digital revolution, you don't even have to worry about file, just throw a few compact flash cards in your camera bag and you are ready to take photographs.

In and Out

Rice for Powell, Gonzalez for Ashcroft, people leaving the CIA in droves, it seems that anybody who disagreed with Bushbaby and Cheney about the Iraqi War is being forced out. All we will have left is the idiots who got us into this mess in the first place. Not that replacing Ashcroft is a bad thing. You could replace Ashcroft with anybody, even a dead man, and you would come up a winner. And Powell has lost all credibility due to his lying stint for Bushbaby at the U.N. But a trend is starting here, anybody who disagrees with Dick is out. I shudder to think what they have in store for us in the next four years. Next stop, Iran, or maybe North Korea.

Another Day, Another Rant

When I try to analyze what went wrong with Kerry's campaign, I realized that I wasn't voting for Kerry, I was voting against Bush. Kerry really never gave people a reason for voting for him, just that he wasn't Bush. That was reason enough for me, but obviously not for a lot of other people. We Democrats obviously picked the wrong man, a man incapable of lighting the fire that was needed to defeat Bush. Now we have to face the reality of four more years of the most inept president in my lifetime, and I have lived 59 years. The Vietnam War terminated the career of Lyndon B. Johnson and the Iraq war will be Bush's legacy, his "gift" to America. I feel like I am a legal alien in the country where I was born, grew up, went to war for, and lived in for the last 59 years. We are dictated to by so-called evangelical christians, who are more concerned with gays getting married than about Americans being killed in Iraq, who are more concerned with abortion than making sure no American has to worry about getting sick with no health insurance, who are more concerned about a candidate's so called "moral values" than that our senior citizens who made this country what it is can't get a decent drug benefit program. Christ said do not kill, he didn't say anything about gays getting married. He said love thy neighbor as thyself, not pass laws regulating other people's lives. It amazes me that the same people who quote the Bible about gays and the Ten Commandments about terminating a pregnancy, seem to be more concerned about a zygote and a person's sexual preference than concerned about the loss of life in Iraq, both our soldiers and Iraqi.

10 Good Reasons to Hate Bush

1. He started an unnecessary war in Iraq.
2. He wants to privatize Social Security.
3. He wants to interfere in our private lives, depriving women the right to choose, depriving gays the right to form a union.
4. The deficit.
5. The refusal to consider Universal Health Care.
6. What he is doing and what he will do to the enviroment.
7. The fact that we invaded a nation with the 2nd largest oil reserve in the world and gas is $2.08 a gallon for regular.
8. No Child Left Behind law not being properly funded.
9. Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfiwitz, Condeleesa Rice, John Ashcroft, and the radical right wingers he is sure to nominate for the Supreme Court.
10. His belief that he has been chosen by God to lead this country into wars with countries like Iraq, Iran, North Korea.

If you think this country is divided now, wait four more years, as Bushbaby and the radical right push their agenda through Congress and into law. The country I grew up in, the country I went into the army and served in Vietnam, the country I believed in, is about to change for the worse, much worse. We use to be a country that cared for our less fortunate, that respected other countries, that wouldn't attack unless attacked, that religion was a private belief and we judged people by their character rather than what religious affiliation they were. This has changed the last four years, and will continue to change. 9/11 happened, but they have used 9/11 as an excuse to erode our liberties, to destroy our economy through deficits and war, to push religion down our throats, and to remake America into a country that is isolated from the world community, does not live up to its agreements (The Geneva Conventions, The Global Warming Accords, etc., etc.) and grows more and more unfriendly to anyone who has a different opinoin of how the world and America should be. If there is a God, I hope he helps us, because we are going to need all the help we can get.

The Day After

Well, it's over, and Kerry has lost. I find that hard to believe and depressing as hell. The economy in shambles, the Iraq war in even worse shape, the deficit bigger than Long Johnny Wadd's thing, hardly any allies to speak of, and Bushbaby gets reelected. Four more years of Bushbaby, Cheney, Rummy, Wolfie, Colin, Condeleesa, and the rest of the gang who can't get anything straight. Thankfully I am close to retirement age, so I will be able to hunker down in an over 55 community and pretend that his government doesn't exist.

The Last Day

Tomorrow is the election. Most polls call it dead even but I'm hoping that we have a massive turnout of first time voters to sweep Kerry in. Tim Russert said on the Today show that there is a possibility that neither side will get enough electoral votes and with the Republican Congress Bush would get the presidency again. He could become the only President to lose two elections and get 8 years in office. Let's get out there and vote!