Daily Archives: November 9, 2011
09
Nov 11
Herman… bad timing buddy…
Mr. Cain, it’s probably not a good time to say anything that sounds the least bit sexist… just saying.
09
Nov 11
Oops…
ROCHESTER, Mich. — It’s rare that a politician evokes pity, but in 55 seconds during Wednesday night’s presidential debate, Rick Perry managed it.
The Texas governor promised to eliminate three federal government agencies, and then searched his memory — for what seemed like an eternity — to name a third…
Buh-Bye Rick…
09
Nov 11
Robert Frank: Born This Day in 1924
Robert Frank – Photographer
Robert Frank, Photographer
November 9, 1924 – Still Shooting
“When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice.” – Robert Frank
Robert Frank is an 87 year old iconic American Photographer. Frank was born in Zurich. He is an important figure in American photography and his most notable work is the 1958 photographic book titled The Americans.
Frank was born in 1924 which allowed him to capture post war images which earned him modern-day comparisons to Tocqueville as his images were fresh and skeptical perspective of American society. He would later use film and video, and experimented with that medium.
Frank attitude to his fame is indifferent, fittingly, as his works chronically not celebrities but the marginal American on the street. It was his skepticism with secular religion of wholesomeness and cheer that gave him a unique visual.
A quote from photographer Elliott Erwitt about Robert Frank and his black and white photography:
Quality doesn’t mean deep blacks and whatever tonal range. That’s not quality, that’s a kind of quality. The pictures of Robert Frank might strike someone as being sloppy – the tone range isn’t right and things like that – but they’re far superior to the pictures of Ansel Adams with regard to quality, because the quality of Ansel Adams, if I may say so, is essentially the quality of a postcard. But the quality of Robert Frank is a quality that has something to do with what he’s doing, what his mind is. It’s not balancing out the sky to the sand and so forth. It’s got to do with intention.
The Americans showed a different America than the wholesome, nonconfrontational photo essays offered in some popular magazines. Frank’s subjects weren’t necessarily living the American dream of the 1950s: They were factory workers in Detroit, transvestites in New York, black passengers on a segregated trolley in New Orleans. Frank didn’t even get much support from the art world, he recalls.
“The Museum of Modern Art wouldn’t even sell the book,” Frank says. “But the younger people caught on.”
“Robert Frank…he sucked a sad poem right out of America onto film, taking rank among the tragic poets of the world.” – Jack Kerouac, Beat Generation poet and novelist
“I’d never seen anything like it, Robert Frank came out here and he just showed that you could see the USA until you spit blood.” – Ed Ruscha, photographer
Parade – Hoboken, New Jersey
Trolley – New Orleans
Woman In A Car – Butte, Montana
Rodeo – New York City
Funeral – Dt Helena, South Carolina
I Am A Man Protest – February, 1968 – Memphis, Tennessee
Charleston, South Carolina
Shoe Shine
09
Nov 11
Old people getting richer, young people getting poorer
The age-based wealth gap is big and growing, thanks to younger Americans’ debts
By Alex Pareene (A young writer at Salon)
Have you noticed how most of the Tea Party people were sort of old, while most of the Occupy Wall Street people are fairly young? Here’s an interesting factoid, from the USA Today: Old people are much, much richer than young people. According to the Pew Research Center, Americans 65 and older are 47 times richer than those 35 and younger.
It makes sense that old people would have more money than young people, because they have been working and saving longer. But this wealth gap is massive by historical standards. In 1984, old people were a mere 10 times richer than young people. Not only have old people gotten richer since then, but the median net worth of households headed by young people has declined considerably.
Households headed by adults ages 35 and younger had a median net worth of $3,662 in 2009. That marks a 68% decline in wealth, compared to that same age group 25 years earlier.
Over the same time frame, households headed by adults ages 65 years and older, have seen just the opposite. Their wealth rose 42%, to a median of $170,494.
It gets worse, for young people: “37% of the young households held zero or negative net worth in 2009, up from 19% in 1984.”
Boy, so what are all these old people complaining about, so much? (Immigrants, mostly.)
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09
Nov 11
Ancient Libyan Cities Found
Satellite image of area of desert with archaeological interpretation of features: fortifications are outlined in black, areas of dwellings are in red and oasis gardens are in green. (Credit: Copyright 2011 Google, image copyright 2011 DigitalGlobe)
Castles in the Desert: Satellites Reveal Lost Cities of Libya
ScienceDaily (Nov. 7, 2011) — Satellite imagery has uncovered new evidence of a lost civilisation of the Sahara in Libya’s south-western desert wastes that will help re-write the history of the country. The fall of Gaddafi has opened the way for archaeologists to explore the country’s pre-Islamic heritage, so long ignored under his regime.
Using satellites and air-photographs to identify the remains in one of the most inhospitable parts of the desert, a British team has discovered more than 100 fortified farms and villages with castle-like structures and several towns, most dating between AD 1-500.
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