More Pinhole Images

Ghoulish

Ghoulish
Originally uploaded by sputnik102

Hey, daddy-o! I don't wanna go down to the basement...
There's something down there....

Compassionate or Whiny

I'm saddened that today's rhetoric is so shallow and divisive. The conservative machinery, in particular, have so polarized the debate that there is no debate. It's all black and white, right or wrong. Simple. And many people have fallen into this because it's easy and requires no thinking. According to many on the right, everyone on public assistance of any kind is a freeloader, too lazy to work, scamming the system. (What about all the people drawing unemployment due to lay-offs recently, through no fault of their own? What about the people who, due to physical or mental impairment, are unable to work?) I'm struck by a noticeable lack of general compassion in many people today. Until these people are struck directly with tragedy in their own lives--lay-off, disability, etc.--they are content to spout the rhetoric they hear on Fox news. Many people profess deep religious faith, but don't go so far as to actually do as their faith instructs in regards to the less fortunate. We all need to spend a little more time thinking of others, of the problems facing us as a nation, as a world.

Footloose

Footloose
Originally uploaded by sputnik102

Shot with a Nikon F, Nikkor 24mm lens, on Ilford HP5plus.

Last Shots from Fed-2

The shutter crapped out on my Fed-2 camera on the last roll I shot. I'll probably send it off for repair, since it was dirt cheap. Here's a shot of Amee at Vandalia and a shot of my cat from that last roll.

Oily

I had a friend last night express anger and frustration about the oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, along with fear as to the consequences of all this oil and chemicals. I understand the sentiments, but I had read a bit more about it, and while it is the largest spill in US history, there have been far larger spills in the past.
I looked up an article from Live Science; this article ran down the ten biggest spills in history. So far, this current spill hasn't reached the top ten. The number 2 spill was in the Gulf of Mexico in 1979, and that one leaked 454,000 TONS of oil. (The current spill has reached nearly 50,000 tons.) And the number one spill was deliberate. During the invasion of Iraq, the pipes were opened by the Iraqis and somewhere near 1,500,000 tons were dumped into the Persian Gulf.
I'm aware that cleanup efforts are going to take years, probably decades, and people and wildlife are going to suffer. Unfortunately, there's no quick fix for any of this.