Day: February 2, 2016

Coin toss Caucus and the clown from 5th Avenue

Excitement has been building for….oh my God, about four years now? The primary season is upon us.. the groundhog says an early spring.  Donald Trump’s hair saw its shadow in Iowa. And despite Ted Cruz’s inability to score a kiss from his daughter, he won in a surprise victory. Trump down for the count? Probably not.. he surged late in Iowa and banked more on New Hampshire and South Carolina. And really, Iowa hasn’t picked a winner in more than 8 years (Santorum 12 and Huckabee 08) …

That is not stopping the media pile on. They propped him up for ratings for months.. and now they are going to try to take him down. New York papers first.

The stunning headline and photo from the NEW YORK DAILY NEWS is amazing.. it’s really not journalism, but it is showcasing a vibrant style that only the UK papers have made their own.

nydn

The paper also forfeited journalistic standards with the employment of this sentence:  The outspoken mogul suffered a “yuge” loss in the Hawkeye State’s caucuses Monday night, finishing a distant second to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and nearly falling into third place.

Yuge indeed.

There is reaction to the hit piece.

But what may be an even bigger and stranger story was captured by the Drudge Report today with its headline: AMERICA ON A COIN TOSS.

cointoss

There is apparently a rule in Iowa.. when a caucus is deadlocked, you toss a coin. In this election, Bernie Sanders and Hillary were tied in 6 — SIX — deadlocked voted.. Coins were tossed. Each time, all 6, Hillary Clinton won.

Karen Friar writes,

The race between the Democrat presidential hopefuls was so tight in the Iowa caucus Monday that in at least six precincts, the decision on awarding a county delegate came down to a coin toss. And Clinton won all six, media reports said. The situation came about in precincts where Sanders and Clinton were running neck-and-neck, but there were an odd number of delegates, so they couldn’t be evenly split between the two. That was the case in precincts in Ames, Newton, West Branch, Davenport and two in Des Moines, the Des Moines Register reported.

The media reports may all be focusing on the perceived DownFall of Trump (it will not happen, at least not yet) but the real story should be the nearly 50+% that Bernie Sanders acquired. And get this amazing stat that was reported by MSNBC, anchored by Brian Williams (he’s back and will live to tell the tall tale about it): Apparently exit polls showed a stunning near 90% of voters under the age of 30 went for Sanders. Stop and think about that number for a second.. 91% to be exact. A crotchety old white-haired Senator. And 90% of people younger are ditching Hillary and the 20th century to ride his wave.. THAT my friends is the real story.

Enough politics for now.

Back to the news.
As NOT reported by the fine journalists at the DAILY NEWS.

 

The 33-year-old photo, signed sealed and delivered

In May of 2015, I posted a photograph of my son Ayden in a store that was closing in my mall. In the article, I mentioned how similar the photo looked to one taken of me, when I was three years old, in Centralia Pennsylvania.  I have the photograph of myself.  I did not publish it due to copyright issues. It was from a book called SLOW BURN, a 1980s photodocumentary with pictures taken by Renée Jacobs.

For those who don’t know much about Centralia, an underground mine fire started decades ago. A series of bad missteps from officials and twists and turns of neighborly breakdowns occurred, and the town went from 2000 people to … just about zero. The town has also become a tourist attraction, it’s home to the famed graffiti highway, and the movie SILENT HILL was based on it. An upcoming project promises a television series based on the town.

 

THIRTY YEARS LATER.

I constantly peruse through historical documents, not only of life itself but of my own personal existence. I can be nostalgic when unneeded.. but I also believe a bit of self recollection helps maturity.

In that regard, I reached out to photographer Renée Jacobs. It’s funny. I was pictured in the book on page 13 standing next to a borehole in my back yard, and my parents were both quoted. I actually recall it .. Vaguely at best. But I recall the moment! I remember the exact time it was taken.  It was warm.. I recall the smells..  The picture is in black and white, but I have it in my mind in vivid color.. That is probably how most of your lives are too, you can think back and pinpoint a single action during your early toddler or childhood years. Just a brief moment in time, one captured with a feeling. My feeling at the time the picture was taken: Confusion and sadness. Friends were vanishing. Houses were too.. I loved watching demolition teams come in and destroy entire blocks of row homes.. it wasn’t until I grew up more that I realized they were destroying my hometown from top to bottom.

After my contact to Ms. Jacobs, I received something in the mail, and I could not be more ecstatic.

 

THANK YOU!

Renée Jacobs sent my an autographed print of page 13, featuring the young me with wide eyes and a future to come, along with a note.

image

The work on Jacobs’ website is stunning and beautiful. It may not be for the WORK atmosphere. A link to her page,  http://www.reneejacobs.com/,  comes perhaps with a bit of caution..

Renée Jacobs’ black and white fine art nude photography gives the viewer a luxurious peek into the ultra-sensual world of the feminine. Beyond sexy, her photographs are dreamy and secretive, daring and alluring. Her subjects give Renée their trust and the result is a collaborative journey which fulfills fantasies.

Jacobs’ work has been exhibited and celebrated around the world. She also received the prestigious International Photography Award for Fine Art Nude.  Her 2009 & 2010 photo calendars went to #1 on Amazon. She had work as a photojournalist. Just recently, an announcement came from Duke University: 

The Archive of Documentary Arts, a part of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University, is pleased to announce its recent acquisition of Renée Jacobs’ archive of her project Slow Burn: A Photodocument of Centralia, Pennslyvania. Slow Burn, first published in 1986 by University of Pennsylvania Press, chronicles Centralia’s demise from an underground coal mine fire and depicts a singular epic event in Pennsylvania history, representing the confluence of environmental, scientific, bureaucratic, and emotional tragedies

 

I love this part of her bio: “Her first book, Slow Burn: A Photodocument of Centralia, Pennsylvania was originally published in 1986 and re-issued in 2010 to favorable reviews in The New York Times Review of Books and photo-eye.  After a 15 year detour as a civil rights lawyer, Renée returned to photography. ”

A detour in life! One that takes you away from your passion and zeal..your Zest for life and creative spirit.

I am sure she was a fine attorney.
Looking at her photos, I am glad she returned back from the detour.

 

And Renée, I couldn’t be more appreciate and ecstatic over the personal note and photo.

Thank you.

Cauliflower in space

In case you have not heard, there has been cauliflower found in Mars. Well not really. But rest assured, before you listen to people are using this SMITHSONIAN article as ‘proof’ of aliens, there is some interesting scientific theory behind what the SPIRIT ROVER found in 2008. Or maybe proof that the movie THE MARTIAN was actually a documentary..

Nonetheless here is the news from the red planet. Arizona University scientists Jack Farmer and Steven Ruff say that we my be on to evidence of past ice on the planet. (Maybe ice now too, people?!) The cauliflowerish stuff looks a it like structures formed around geysers on the planet Earth. These deposits on Mars are called opaine silica, and they were noticed on the planet in the Gustev crater. Wonder what Martians called that crater. Wonder what Martians called their planet…? Nonetheless… The layers ok Ike heads of cauliflower coming out of the ground. In this case the very red Martian ground.

The prospects are enormous.. This could prove past life. IT could also turn lots of scientific data on its head. Trouble on that: It does get difficult to study such things so many millions of miles away..However it could make the hunt and excitement for life more exciting. Except to those who have already long ago decided that life on Mars did exist. Or does.

As evidence? The rodent on Mars. MUCH MORE conclusive that cauliflower.