“Based on the known record, history is more likely a complex process in which each event is to a larger, smaller, or infinitesimal extent the result of everything that has happened before combined with a healthy dose of randomness. As such, it carries forward and perpetuates, at least for a time, not only human growth and human achievements but also our weaknesses, fallacies, inconsistencies, and failures. That is why it comes back to haunt us so often. One can only ask whether the post-Cold War world would be any different if Communism was smashed to dust and eradicated the way Nazism was. In the event, to the vast relief of people in the West and East alike, it imploded peacefully. But perhaps in doing so, it was also allowed to scatter tiny bits of its tyrannical self, its messianic arrogance, its ignorance of human nature, and its fundamental immorality to the ends of the earth. It is gone but not dead. In any case, democracies seem to have been much more aware of their fundamental values and the price of liberty when the totalitarian threat was still around.”
This place is (unfortunately) being neglected lately. You’ll find a few recent articles over on my photography site, which I’m slowly working on beefing up (from a Flash portfolio site to a richer, more powerful WordPress site.) Hoping to pretty it up – and work out the kinks – in the coming weeks, when I’m not too busy dealing with frivolous legal threats from celebrities and their blustery lawyers.
The story that follows is long and a bit convoluted, but it’s necessary to understand the situation and my reasoning behind releasing the images herein.
On August 29, I decided to go shoot some breaking-news images of the Station Fire, a massive wildfire conflagration which continues to burn as I write this in early October. I spent a significant amount of that day inside the forest shooting. The forest was closed to the public and I was admitted as media – told I was “on my own” which was just fine with me. Late in the afternoon, as I was making my way back out, I came across a rather eerie looking scene at a turnout a few miles from the forest boundary. It just looked and felt weird – the fire hoses sitting there in a box (apparently staging by the firefighters), the gnarly blackened trees, etc. So I pulled in and took a couple photos of the site.
I’m thrilled to be back in Amsterdam – one of my favorite cities – (check the Amsterdam archives to hear me fawn over her in ‘06 like a lovesick schoolboy). A couple days here on my own (doing a little work, actually) prior to D’s arrival as she wraps up her African safari. The plan is some time in Paris, then back here for Picnic ‘09, then to Ghent, then back here again… we’re gonna have fun.
The Hollywood sign shot has been everywhere. It’s been really exciting. Thank you to all of you who saw it in your papers (Fargo! Tulsa! Edmonton! DC! London! Holy Moly!) and wrote to me. I feel really lucky this past week.
I was at the newsstand today to check the fresh Newsweek, because they finally ran the story on the John Hancock Tower for which they had licensed a couple of my shots. My shots didn’t make the final cut, so that was a disappointment.
But, knowing that TIME had featured my Hollywood sign shot in their weekly gallery online, I figured – just in case – I’d peek at their print edition. I dropped Newsweek, picked up its shelf-neighbor, TIME – and there was my baby, jumpin’ off the page! I was psyched.
[Apologize for the quality of the scan; the paper is so thin that it is hard to scan it well.]
I spent much of the afternoon and evening yesterday up in Angeles National Forest photographing the fires and general devastation up there. You can see some of the photos in my Station Fire photo album. The Associated Press has licensed a couple of them – and I’m pretty psyched about that. Let me know if you see them anywhere. (And, in the “dubious honor” department, my smoky Hollywood Sign image is on the front page of the Drudge Report as I write.)
Once past the police checkpoints, it got very eerie. The roads were debris-strewn and entire neighborhoods abandoned. I explored the neighborhoods briefly but decided to save that for evening.
Once up into the forest, I was prepared for the flames and the smoke – but not the sound. It was perhaps the oddest sound I’d ever heard. Not just the roaring-freight-train sound you’d expect a mountainside of fire to sound like – but a strange, squealy-popping sound – almost like a cackling scream. There were lines of fire everywhere. It was really touch-and-go and “intense” is understating it.
It was a humbling experience; I hope to write more later – but for now, check the images.
“As perplexing as the current legal environment is for medical marijuana patients, one thing is quite clear: despite administration statements, little has changed with regard to federal enforcement of marijuana laws, even in states where it has been decriminalized.”
The study of microexpressions has long been fascinating to me. If you’re really paying attention, you can learn a great deal about a person in fleeting, unguarded moments. I think this is true about language as well. In written and spoken conversation, passing remarks – let’s call them “microprose” – can often give a far more realistic depiction of what’s really going on than what is presented as the main course. This is, of course, because they are less thought out – and thus less guarded – than the rest of it.
When Arrington posted his rant back in December about how TechCrunch was no longer going to honor embargoes, I stayed out of that fray. I did that for many reasons: mostly because I think they have every right to refuse to honor embargoes, partially because I didn’t really care enough, and also because the issue was already getting a lot more treatment than it deserved. But at the time, one little piece of it stood out to me:
“We’ll happily agree to whatever you ask of us, and then we’ll just do whatever we feel like right after that.”
I remember being troubled by that. It’s one thing to say you won’t honor embargoes and NDAs. It’s quite another to say you will agree to them and then break them. The former describes someone doing what they feel is best for their business in an increasingly competitive space; the latter describes someone running a serious ethical deficit.
Last night the news broke that Arrington is in receipt of several hundred confidential Twitter documents forwarded to him by a hacker who broke into some of the company’s email accounts. I won’t get into it all here; it’s being covered ad nauseam by the usual suspects. Last night, Arrington publicly feigned moral contemplation about an “ethical line” he didn’t want to cross, then closed the same article with “more posts coming soon.” Bring me the vomit bag.
I would conservatively estimate that the feedback loop of mutual-Web2.0-masturbation that goes on with Arrington and the toadys immediately around him might evacuate 40% of the oxygen from the social media ecosphere. And that’s fine; jerk each other off all you want – it’s America. But when you decide to participate on the buy side of a market for the fruits of criminal labor, I object – and I hope your readers do, too.
I am going to a fundraiser for the Marijuana Policy Project tomorrow night at the Playboy Mansion. It should be interesting. In thinking tonight about the more serious issues surrounding marijuana prohibition, it occurred to me that there’s one rather proactive medical recommendation that (I assume) anyone ought to qualify for. Here’s my attempt at a first draft:
“I, Doctor Whomever X. Wherever, have thoroughly evaluated and assessed Patient Doe. In light of this assessment, and my solemn duty to protect the privacy, dignity, and best interests of my patients, I hereby affirm that, in my best professional judgment, my patient’s physical and psychological health are best served by her never spending a single day in prison.”
“So, here’s a summary. The father of the best web email program on the planet believes that a real-time streaming interface for simplified aggregation of conversation and content from all around the web is going to join the handful of tools we use regularly, like email, IM and blogging.”
I’m thrilled to be back in Amsterdam – one of my favorite cities – (check the ![Briefing: The Moment [Time]](http://www.zigzaglens.com/pix/TIME-Briefing-The-Moment-LA-09142009.jpg "Briefing: The Moment [Time]")
The Hollywood sign shot
