I found an interesting review of a new photography bag on the outstanding Mission Mission blog. They’ve nicknamed the Timbuk2 Snoop Camera messenger bag the Bento Bag. I think it fits. Enjoy.
Technorati Tags: Photography,Equipment
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Good without god campaign brings out the haters
Fort Worth Transportation Authority Board Meeting from Zachary Moore on Vimeo.
What is so bad about the Good with God bus ads in Dallas/Fort Worth? I find the arguments and suggestions of the various pastors in this video dumbfounding. They don’t want competition in any form. They would rather silence us. Is it because our message is so positive?
Technorati Tags: Atheism,Good without God
Subscribe to our politics or else
A sure sign of a dangerous political movement is who they declare an enemy. We know the Tea Party names anyone who is pro-immigration their enemy. The same applies to those who support abortion rights and many other liberal social positions. Their enemy list is long. I am a member. A new enemy made the list recently and it has scary implications. Tea Party founder Judson Phillips recently declared the Methodist Church the enemy. He does not like their politics so he wants to see them put out of business.
When a political organization attacks another organization because of its politics and calls for its dissolution as a tactic in the war for minds, what they are really doing is marshaling their minions to attack Methodists as if there are a social wrong to be erased at any cost. Labeling Methodists as an enemy to the Tea Party’s vision of America is telling your minions that the gloves are off. Nothing good can come from this.
I don’t care what other people believe. I care about what other people do. Methodists do good things. The United Methodist church falls to the left, which means they oppose the lunacy of the Tea Party. A question to my atheist readers, would you stand with the United Methodist church if the issues comes to a head? I would.
Phillips wrote: " I have a DREAM. That is, no more United Methodist Church." Phillips explains that he was formerly a member of the church, but he left because it's "the first Church of Karl Marx," and "little more than the "religious" arm of socialism."Is the enemy of my enemy my friend? Not in this case. The Methodist church is not my enemy. My enemy is hate and intolerance. The Tea Party is all about hate and intolerance. Judson Phillips and his teabaggers are my enemy. They may be your enemy too.
When a political organization attacks another organization because of its politics and calls for its dissolution as a tactic in the war for minds, what they are really doing is marshaling their minions to attack Methodists as if there are a social wrong to be erased at any cost. Labeling Methodists as an enemy to the Tea Party’s vision of America is telling your minions that the gloves are off. Nothing good can come from this.
I don’t care what other people believe. I care about what other people do. Methodists do good things. The United Methodist church falls to the left, which means they oppose the lunacy of the Tea Party. A question to my atheist readers, would you stand with the United Methodist church if the issues comes to a head? I would.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Pastor David Hoschar indicted
Jebus! How many pastors were busted for child porn in the last couple of weeks? I’m losing track. The latest is Pastor David Hoschar of Kimball Baptist Church. He allegedly was caught in possession of child porn by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
Let’s check the church website. Wait… never mind. I don’t think they have one. It’s Interesting news really. The former pastor can allegedly trade child porn but can’t build a church website. No wonder he’s out of work.
Technorati Tags: Clergy Sexual Abuse,Baptists
The Big Picture Photography competition for 2010
The Telegraph runs an annual photography contest called The Big Picture. It’s full of armature content from around the world. The photos are a little less refined than you will find from a professional, but many are outstanding. I like the macaques (Simon Tupper), a lone van (John Harwood), and the Man walking down a street (Rachel Atwell). There are lots of photos to explore. Which ones do you like?
Technorati Tags: Photography
Pastor Gerald Howard convicted
Pastor Gerald Howard, a catholic priest who changed his name from Rev. Carmine Sita after convictions from sexually assaulting a 17-year-old boy and drug dealing back in the 1970s, changed his name to Rev. Gerald Howard and continued his abuse of children after his release from prison in the 1980s. It looks like his days are numbered though. He faces life in prison.
Rev. Gerald Howard, formerly known as Rev. Carmine Sita, was arrested in April at his Bloomfield home on a warrant from the Cooper County Prosecutor's Office in Missouri following his indictment on three counts of forcible sodomy, three counts of attempted forcible sodomy and two counts of kidnapping, officials said.
Yep – Catholic priests are our best and brightest. We should all look up to them because they work for god.
Technorati Tags: Clergy Sexual Abuse,Catholics
2010 National Geographic Photography Contest
Want some photographic inspiration? Check out the gallery for the 2010 National Geographic Photography Contest. Some of the photos do not seem real. Including this epic thunderstorm (Sean Heavey), these clouds (Nenad Seljic), and this surfer (Brian Bielmann).
It’s Monday. Surf a little.
Technorati Tags: Photography
Defrocked priest Oliver O’Grady arrested
Former priest Oliver O’Grady is already infamous for his conviction for the sexual abuse of children. One would think a prison term would influence his thinking. We know from studies that pedophiles rarely straighten out. Why do we think a stint in prison will help? Perhaps that is why he was recently arrested for the possession of child pornography in Dublin. There were thousands of images involved. O’Grady needs to spend the rest of his life behind bars. It won’t happen in Europe though. They are way too lenient in these types of cases.
Can you guess what a pedophile priest does when not in prison? Give up? Try this…
O’Grady has lived in various Irish cities since his deportation. He made news in April when it was discovered he’d been living in the Netherlands for about 18 months and going by the name “Brother Francis,” his middle name. He worked as a deacon in a small Rotterdam church, volunteered at a shelter for women and children, and worked at McDonald’s as a children’s party coordinator.
Can you feel the sleaze?
Technorati Tags: Catholics,Clergy Sexual Abuse
Don McCullin - a war photographer
I watch photography documentaries to learn about the working methods of other photographers. As a journalist and war zone photographer, Don McCullin has seen it all. His work in Biafra is chilling. I don’t think I can be a war zone photographer. My conflict is simple. When people hurt I feel compelled to put my camera down and help. I would be a bad war photographer, very bad.
I knew a man who survived the Biafra war (Nigerian civil war) and migrated to the states where he started a family. His entire family was killed in the war. There deaths were in revenge for his brother’s role as a leader in Biafra’s government. The stories he told me were almost beyond belief. Unfortunately, Don McCullin gave my friend’s stories life. I still remember them.
Technorati Tags: Photography,Art
Photography - The Cruel Radiance
Susie Linfield published, The Cruel Radiance on November 1, 2010. I could not put it down.
Since the early days of photography, critics have told us that photos of political violence—of torture, mutilation, and death—are exploitative, deceitful, even pornographic. To look at these images is voyeuristic; to turn away is a gesture of respect.
With The Cruel Radiance, Susie Linfield attacks those ideas head-on, arguing passionately that viewing such photographs—and learning to see the people in them—is an ethically and politically necessary act that connects us to our modern history of violence and probes our capacity for cruelty. Contending with critics from Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht to Susan Sontag and the postmoderns—and analyzing photographs from such events as the Holocaust, China’s Cultural Revolution, and recent terrorist acts—Linfield explores the complex connection between photojournalism and the rise of human rights ideals. In the book’s concluding section, she examines the indispensable work of Robert Capa, James Nachtwey, and Gilles Peress, and asks how photography has—and should—respond to the increasingly nihilistic trajectory of modern warfare.
It’s not for the faint of heart, but it is a great book on the history of photography.
Technorati Tags: Photography,Books
Herbert & Catherine Schaible convicted
The real travesty here is that the pastor who caused the death of 2-year-old Kent Schaible will never be brought to justice. Nelson A. Clark words are protected because he’s a pastor. Of course he’s a cult leader and nutball, but he’s a man of god too, so our politicians are afraid to go after him. It’s complete bullshit.
Herbert and Catherine Schaible were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment. They pray over their son instead of taking him to the hospital for a relatively minor medical treatment that would have saved his life.
The Schaibles grew up in the church and have never received medical care themselves, not counting the help of the 84-year-old lay midwife who attends home births, according to pastor Nelson A. Clark.
Clark, 69, knew the couple as children and described them as honors students who dropped out of the church school in ninth grade, a year shy of the school's 10th grade graduation. Catherine Schaible did so at age 16 to begin teaching younger students, he said.
Clark balks at suggestions the church is a cult or fringe religion.
I’ll call it a cult. It’s a faith healing cult and it kills children.
The Schaibles are going to prison for ten years. Their surviving children will be protected by the state.
Nelson A. Clark shows no remorse. In my opinion he is culpable in the death of a child and responsible for the parents going to prison.
"The legal community is trying to force our church group to put them in the hands of this flawed medical system, when they have chosen to put them in the hands of a perfect God, who does not make mistakes," Clark said Friday.
It’s not the legal community, it’s your own stupidity. How many more children will die?
Technorati Tags: Cults,Faith Healing
Photography Tip: Lens Hero
Shopping for a lens? Try Lens Hero. Step 1: Enter camera and budget. Step 2: Choose a lens type. Step three: Shop!
Technorati Tags: Photography
Monsignor Charles Kavanagh defrocked
Does defrocking hurt? No? Then why is Catholic priest Charles Kavanagh shown crying after he was defrocked by a Church tribunal? Buck up pedopriest, your new life as 73-year-old unemployed child molester awaits. What does a washed up priest who was cast away from his church like so much trash have to look forward too? A greeter at Wal-Mart maybe? How would that interview work?
“So, I see you used to be a Catholic priest, can you tell me why you are no longer working as a priest?”
“I was sacked for buggering children”, replies Kavanagh.
“Right, can you start Monday?”
If you can’t tell, I’m not really a fan of Wal-Mart either.
Technorati Tags: Clergy Sexual Abuse,Catholics
Some photographers have all the luck
Bryant Austin has a great job. He’s photographer with an affinity for whales. He creates epic life sized murals by putting together hundreds of photos taken from 6 feet away. How cool is that?
Bryant Austin now creates high-resolution, life-size photographs of whales. This must be accomplished by photographing inquisitive whales at a distance of no more than 6 feet, taking hundreds of photographs that are later pieced together to form the final image. The work is dangerous. The results are amazing. The impact is profound. Bryant hopes that his intimate portraits of endangered whales will change perceptions about the animals that will hopefully lead to the reduction or elimination of whaling.
I’ve got to see one of his murals.
Technorati Tags: Photography,Whales
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