Month: April 2017

Polaroid of the Day


I no longer need or want the new and the shiny.

Pinhole taken with PX 600 Impossible Project Film, Natural light, 10 second exposure, 0.5mm aperture. PInhole Polaroid, Detail, april 5, 2017.jpg

I like fixing things, and if something is still usable, although damaged, I’ll hang on to it if I like it. (That’s kind of how I–and hope that those near to me–feel about myself at this point in my life. All of these items are broken, some partially repaired. The mug on the left was a father’s day gift from my daughter, with a crayon drawing of herself. I dropped it shortly after getting it, but I couldn’t bear to throw it out.IMG_0300 The Bialetti Moka is probably 6 years old. I’ve changed the gasket a couple of times. but there’s no way to replace the handle that I melted off by ignoring the fact that it was over a flame too long. I’ve done this to more than one moka. More than two. In fact, by the time I melted this one off I said the hell with new ones and I just wrap a coffee-stained towel around it to pour it into my mug. That’s just as well, too, because the Bialettis tend to drip down the front.IMG_0313 Next is a mug that states “Will Work for Slivovitz”, with a broken handle, IMG_0310and next to that is a mug that says, “It’s a Katy Thing” with the same problem. But they function. IMG_0304Next to it, a big mug (I like big mugs because you can use them for oatmeal and soup as well!) with this great logo IMG_0301and a broken handle, and in the foregound, an Army Strong mug that has been pieced together with cyanoacrylate (super glue). It still has a handle! None of the repaired mugs has ever come undone due to the heat of the liquid in it. IMG_0303

0

Regarding Syria: The US Is at a Crossroads. . .


This photo provided on Tuesday April 4, 2017, by the Syrian anti-government activist group Edlib Media Center, that is consistent with independent AP reporting, shows a man carrying a child following a suspected chemical attack, at a makeshift hospital in the town of Khan Sheikhoun, northern Idlib province, Syria. The suspected chemical attack killed dozens of people on Tuesday, Syrian opposition activists said, describing the attack as among the worst in the country’s six-year civil war. (Edlib Media Center, via AP)

and we don’t have much time.

With hindsight, we screwed up in Rwanda. Nearly a million people were killed with machetes in what was a genocide that outsiders could have prevented.

On the other hand, we screwed up in Iraq, overturning a brutal dictator, but in the end making things worse (the karma due Dick Cheney falling instead on others who didn’t deserve it). Libya, where we “led from behind,” isn’t going so well.

The Assad regime in Syria is murdering its citizens. Should we stop it? Can we stop it? If we decide that we are able and willing to stop this slaughter, how will we do it? What will we do when things don’t go as planned, because we can be assured that they will not go as planned? We can’t count on our current Commander-in-Chief for moral leadership. Drumpf just received Egypt’s dictator, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and praised him in spite of el-Sisi’s dismal human rights record. (Also, it’s worth noting that if Drumpf had been in the Armed Services he would have been court-martialed for his adultery–which he boasted about–if not more. It’s doubtful with his foreign ties to dubious regimes and characters that he would have even received the low-level security clearance required to be an officer.)

And who will pay for this? The Iraq war was paid for on the credit card, and Afghanistan continues to fester, although on the whole most Americans ignore it except when they piously say “I support the troops” or stand oh-so-reverentially at a sporting event. A war requires a tax. That’s worth repeating.

A War Requires a Tax. 

A large one, and it needs to be progressive, with war profiteers and the underrepresented (in the military) wealthy bearing a larger part of the cost.

More importantly: How many American lives are you willing to pay for this?

We’re not even having the discussion. Time is running out. I want to help Syrian civilians, but to do so means occupying Syria for, I imagine, at least a decade. Will this make things worse? Will our allies help us?

Put Gorsuch on the back burner (where he deserves to be). If we are who we say we are, we should be debating this in Congress all day, every day.

3

Polaroid of the Day, and The Story of My Writing Career, zikhrono livrakha


How to open a cat’s mouth

This is one from the archives, it never made it into a journal. I’m guessing I took this picture (in truth, someone else must have taken it, because those are my hands–I think) when I was still doing some veterinary journalism, and that it was for an article.

Opening a cat's mouth

Writing used to be a great gig. I would write a number of articles per year. I’d do research, interviews, and then an editor would go over them with a fine tooth comb. Sources would be checked. Interviews would be transcribed. I would rewrite them to the editors’ specs, and then we’d go over the final product. For all of this work, I’d get paid enough to make it worth my while, and in my best year freelancing made up about a third of my income.

Then came the internet.

0

Who reads this shit anyway? Oh? if that’s the case, then why bother to write it?


One of the saddest images in the world is that of the person who has thrown a party, yet no one has come. In fact, this fear is so great, so strong, so devastating, that even the #socalledpresident, the man commanding the world’s most powerful military,  a man who truly believes that he is the pinnacle of human evolution, lives in such dread of it and its implications that he’s willing to drop everything else and obsess about it in front of the entire world. I guess the only thing sadder would be if he tried to throw a party every day, and the same Groundhog Day Fiesta Flop kept recurring.

But that’s not why we’re here today.

The editorial staff of the Meta-Bug was in crisis the other day. We were looking at our numbers for March, and while some of us were rejoicing over our biggest month ever, others were saying, Hey, look, bozos, you had a total of 900 views. One month, 900 views, which means even fewer visitors. And half of those were probably family. So big deal. If someone’s kid had his whole high school look at one single post on one single day (suggested post: kitten videos combined with pictures of a young Sophia Loren), that would have beaten the entire number for March by a more than double. To look at it another way, there were just 29 views per day in our busiest month ever. More people in just Framingham look at their Kleenex each to see if they have a sinus infection, and probably found analyzing their nasal discharge more interesting than reading our constant complaints about the country going to hell in a handbasket, occasionally interspersed  with new and astounding revelations that divorce takes a toll.

We thought about this. We agonized about this. We pondered: Is all this writing and rewriting worth doing? Does the effort make any difference? Then, we all retired to the backyard to cry,  while pretending to rake the leaves that we were too distracted to deal with last fall.   Our answer: Of course it makes no difference!

But using logic here at the Meta-Bug is hardly our standing operating procedure. Nor, for that matter, is wise allocation of the limited amount of time we have on this earth.  It appears that we do what we will, and let the buffalo chips fall where they may.  (Generally, right next to the bowl of extra-picante bile salsa we are eating. Yum!)

Well, damn the torpedoes. We have decided to carry on. People practice their instruments for years and never get on stage. They have fun doing the practicing, and do not worry about people pointing to their accordion lessons and say, Aha! Evidence of a Crazed and Diseased Mind! And that’s the reason we wrote this post in the first place, right?

Happy Monday! We hope the weather, wherever you are,  is suitable for turning grapes into raisins!

 

12

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started