tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57136963111724011122024-03-18T09:52:30.362-07:00Cristalen's BlogPhotography TodayCristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-25173181205270557402024-03-18T09:48:00.000-07:002024-03-18T09:51:58.543-07:00Old disagreements or successful, new relationships?.<p> Aneliese Bernard, a former senior State Department official dealing in African Affairs is quoted, by PBS, as saying that "We can’t deny that our deteriorating relationships in other parts of the world: the Gulf, Israel and others, all have an influential impact on our bilateral relations in countries in West Africa.” I agree, wholeheartedly with that assessment and fully expect to see some form of the Russian Wagner Group in Niger in the not too distant future.</p><p>The American public refuses to see what is happening across the entire foreign relations spectrum. We are losing our influence in country after country, and various foreign antagonists are ineffectively, repeat ineffectively, replacing us. I fully expect the deterioration in our international position to continue and metastasize as the world falls into more and more chaos. This trajectory, combined with our own internal confusion, is extraordinarily dangerous in a world full of nuclear weapons. We must not let details continue to confuse and blind us about the sea change that is going on in the world around us, and we can not take any solace from the fact that Russia, China and Iran are no more effective than are we. The enemy is chaos, not any particular individual international player.</p><p>Neither of our two presidential aspirants, nor anyone else that I know of, for that matter, sees the situation the same way that I do. Biden is the wishy-washy one, Trump the braggadocio, but neither has the foresight to see beyond gaining the right to sit in the White House and play with the knobs and dials of the American body politic. If I am forced to choose, I will choose Trump, but I do not expect him to do anything other than, at best, postpone the continuing deterioration of our position in the world. Political stability can not be attained by ignoring the lousy living conditions and aspirations of far too many humans all over the world, including those existing in the "shit hole" countries, and in those countries currently suffering an adversarial relationship with us.</p><p>I am as nationalistic as the next American citizen, but I am also a realist. The reason Putin, Xi and the Ayatollah are threatening war with us is because we can not find a way to live together on an increasingly small chunk of space matter. We are, today, trying to win old disagreements, when we should be focused on building successful, new relationships that fit conditions in today's world. None of it is because we have the wrong individual sitting at the Resolute Desk. The individuals that we select to lead us are selected because they reflect us. In order to change the way Washington looks at our problems, we have to change you and me. If we do not do that, the inevitable, repeat inevitable, outcome is, sooner or later, nuclear war. I believe that to be stupid beyond belief.</p>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-62409348464977975632024-03-17T14:03:00.000-07:002024-03-17T14:04:11.975-07:00Niger tells us that they don't want our military in their country any longer.<p>The Niger Junta has decided that the U.S. military presence in their country is "no longer justified." I am long out of touch with our strategy in West Africa, but it is my understanding that our airbase, just outside of Agadez, Niger, has been an important part of our grossly ineffective effort to stabilize West Africa. I presume that we operated strike as well as recon flights out of the base in some sort of "over-the-horizon" strategy against jihadist terror throughout the region. Up until the coup that brought the present military junta to power, France provided ground forces in country that I presume coordinated their equally ineffective anti-jihadist activities with us. </p><p>Because of lingering antipathy that originated long ago, during France's colonial control of West Africa, the French troops were thrown out of country immediately after the coup, but we managed to hang on for some time, because we were also providing significant economic aid to the corner stone of our West African strategy. I don't know what happened behind the scenes, but I suspect that we demanded that the former president be reinstated and the coup reversed. We have long made a very big deal about our belief that democratic Niger was the shining light in West Africa. Last December, we told the junta that we were willing to restore aid and security ties with Niger if it met "certain conditions." I think that we were just told to go screw ourselves.</p><p>I do not, repeat do not, underestimate the difficulty that we face in dealing with the challenges involved in eliminating the instability that exists, not only in West Africa, but throughout most of the world, to include our own ghettos, but I continue to believe that unless we do, we will destroy ourselves, one way or the other, but most probably in a nuclear holocaust. Were I sufficiently influential, I would mount a concerted effort to address root causes of political instability all over the planet even though all of our well-meaning efforts to do precisely this have failed in the past. Those efforts were defeated by base corruption, stupidity, and impatience, all of which we are very familiar with here at home. There is a very real possibility that large assemblages of humans are incapable of finding their way through this minefield, but I argue that we must try if we are to avoid nuclear obliteration.</p><p>As you can readily understand, I do not see either Biden or Trump to be at all interested in mounting the effort that I favor. Both men would tell me that the American people are not in the slightest interested in doing that. I completely agree, and I believe that is what is destroying our leadership outside of our non-existent borders - not the specific blunders of either politician. Inside those same non-existent borders the disease is rooted in base stupidity and intellectual cowardice. We are smart enough to understand, but are afraid to do so. We invent other problems to argue about, because the real ones are too horrifying to consider seriously. The age of the fetus, the price of gas, the number of potato chips in the bag, pronouns, and our precious feelings are safer things to argue about.</p><p>The reason that we do not produce the leadership that we need is that you and I are afraid to think about the problems that we need to address. They are too monumental for our puny minds to encompass and so we look for leadership that will address the problems that we are willing to think about. We can't vote for Trump because be brags about grabbing a woman by the pussy. We can't vote for Biden because he can't figure out where to stand when he reads his speech. We cloth our "debates" in high sounding clap trap that fools absolutely no one other than ourselves.</p><p><br /></p>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-5334498133977438362024-03-16T14:47:00.000-07:002024-03-16T15:02:15.974-07:00Haiti is a mess and it is different than America only in degree, not kind.<p> My guess is that if we knew enough about the situation, we would find American officials involved in the Haitian backstory. I doubt that they would have been in support of the gangs that are currently tearing the country apart, rather I would expect them to have been on the side of law and order and engaged in finding some way to prop up "the government." It does look as though we have been a principal supporter of the effort to get Kenyan police into the country to restore order in the street, and we are obviously in the forefront of "diplomatic efforts" to restore harmony in the government, but nowhere would I expect to find the kind of effort necessary to change the political trajectory in that unfortunate country, and the fundamental reason is that the American people don't give a damn, particularly since we have even bigger problems in Ukraine, Gaza, and soon in Taiwan. Who the hell has time to think about Haiti? Or Sudan? Or Burkina Faso? Or....? We have to settle on the proper age that it is suitable to snuff the fetus, get the price of gasoline down, put more potato chips in the bag, teach people how to use pronouns correctly, and, most important of all, get people to respect our feelings.</p><p>According to Google, 11.45 million people live in Haiti. Again according to Google, "on the UN's Human Development Index, Haiti ranked 170 out of 189 countries in 2020." That means that, in the entire world, there are 19 countries that are poorer than this close neighbor of ours. I know of no poor country or community in the entire world that is able to sustain a politically stable society, let alone properly care for its' citizens. Poverty results in political instability - always. Here in this country, just exactly for the same reason as in Haiti, and you and I refuse to face up to that fundamental fact.</p><p>OK, what do we do about it? The first thing we have to do is to restore order and that means using force to combat illegal activity. In Haiti that means putting the gangs down. In Chicago it means putting the gangs down. The next thing that we have to do in Haiti is make life worth living for the vast majority of people. In Chicago it means making life worth living for the vast majority of people. We actually know what needs to be done, but we refuse to do it for all manner of reasons, all of which boil down to the fact that we are not frightened enough to do the necessary, we have our own lives to live, and besides, it all costs way too much money. Always before in human history that was good enough. Eventually we would have a fight and then, after we had killed enough people, we would pick our lives back up, and get on with the effort to put more chips in the bag. Then Oppenheimer went and invented the atom bomb, Barack and Joe gave the Ayatollah permission to build theirs, and we decided that we could not address any of these issues until we decided whether we were boys or girls.</p><p>Remember to vote! We have a democracy to protect. That other guy has to be defeated even if the idiot that we are voting for is no better - remember he is different. We have another flip flop to get done. Our democracy depends on it and we are, after all, the leader of the Free World!</p>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-52820998135975293522024-03-15T12:44:00.000-07:002024-03-15T13:31:25.790-07:00There is no plan to evacuate American citizens from Haiti.<p> Last night, I heard a "news" snippet wherein an obviously defensive State Department spokesman told reporters that the United States had no plan to evacuate American citizens from Haiti, because American citizens have been warned for four years not to go to Haiti. My guess is that will become more of a political problem in this country than is the political and security deterioration in Haiti that is stimulating the evacuation discussion. The Biden Administration is, after all, the government that massively failed to successfully execute the evacuation of Afghanistan. I have actually directed a successful evacuation, and I agree that the Biden Administration is obviously grossly incompetent, but I do not believe that glaring fact is even close to the most important part of the situation in Haiti.</p><p>Haiti, like too much of South and Central America, is in the process of being taken over by organized criminal gangs. Democracy is failing to govern increasingly large parts of the globe for exactly the same fundamental reasons that organized and unorganized crime is becoming more important inside this country. The specifics in each instance are sufficiently dramatic that we tend to focus on the them, rather than the trend lines. Part of the reason that we do that is that we are afraid to think about the trend lines that are emerging and, when we do, we reject the actions necessary to deal with them. I argue that mistake is going to get us, you and me, killed.</p><p>Haiti is happening, to varying degrees, all over the globe, including here in this country. There is a difference in the degree of deterioration in civil order inside our cities as compared to Port-au-Prince today, but the difference is in degree, not in kind. Were we to compare cities governed by democratic authorities with cities governed by totalitarian authorities, we would see generally more order in the latter, than in the former. (BeiJing vs San Francisco.) Wealthy countries in Europe and North America are able to gloss over "urban blight," and throw money at it, while, here in this country, the governing class moves out of urban areas to suburban enclaves, the most elite of which actually have walls. There is not enough wealth and organization in poorer countries to accomplish this on a sufficiently large scale to mask the underlying problem - hence "Bar-B-Cue's" rise to power.</p><p>As Haiti goes down the drain, we increasingly worry about refugees flooding into this country and seek temporary solutions such as trying to hire Kenyan cops to restore order to the afflicted nation and arguing with each other about putting security forces on alert to stop foreigners from flooding into this country. As our government fails to take the necessary actions that would get our citizens out of Haiti, we will see private operations organized to deal with the challenge. These efforts will be dramatic enough to capture our attention instead of thinking about the fundamentals that made all of this happen. Eventually, we will see sufficient order restored by one, or the other power broker, that we can turn our attention away from this problem and focus it on another, somewhere else. </p><p>As we go forward, we will ignore the fact that we have failed to address the underlying issues. Why am I so certain of the outcome? Because we do it over and over again, absolutely everywhere in the world, including here inside our own country. Just as we physically flee urban blight here in this country, we intellectually flee it everywhere in the world. I contend that population growth is swamping humanity, intellectually as well as physically. I contend that the only, repeat only, solution is to honestly address the living conditions of everybody in this increasingly crowded world, not because it is the right thing to do morally, but because it is the only way that the human experiment can continue. Not to do so is to see Haiti, Ukraine, Gaza, Taiwan as being the proximate steps leading to nuclear oblivion.</p><p>In the last analysis, Make America Great Again is just as narrow minded as Open Borders and "leaders" are not the problem. You and I are, and we refuse to understand it because we are greedy cowards. Things are a mess, that much we well understand, but we choose to carefully select what we argue about. Pronouns, the age of the fetus, the price of gas, the number of chips in the bag, and our precious feelings being the current list, because we can get our feeble heads around them - not because they are the most dangerous problems facing us. I continue to see that situation as being the height of stupidity. I contend that you and I are just as stupid as the "leaders" that we elect. They are, in fact, our report card.</p><div><br /></div>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-24483840551944305722024-03-14T12:53:00.000-07:002024-03-16T15:40:39.647-07:00Why do I think differently than many of my peers?<p> A friend asked me why I was so opposed to socialism and still supported free enterprise and self-reliance. There are a multitude of reasons, but they come down to which system better protects individual freedom. There is, of course, a price that the individual pays for that freedom and a lot of people are obviously unwilling to accept the responsibility associated with it. I ask myself why I think the way that I do and others think differently and conclude that it all starts with family and is refined and reinforced by life experience. My fellow citizen in today's America has had a much different life experience and I suggest that accounts for my being out of step with my society. Given the way in which people are being conditioned today, I see little chance that my way of looking at life's challenges will prevail.</p><p>I was fortunate to have been born into a strong family, but I was not a good student in either grammar or high school, and I did poorly in my first two years in college. My Navy veteran father and John Wayne's movies obviously influenced me and I voluntarily gave up a college exemption from the draft and enlisted in the army during the height of the Korean War, because I saw it as my duty to country. Korea was a seminal moment in my life and, ironically, my two mediocre years of college almost certainly saved my life. The army mistakenly thought that I might be intelligent and refused to let me join the paratroops insisting instead that I learn how to speak Chinese. Had I been deployed to Korea at the time, the odds were high that I would not have lived through the experience and my assignment to military intelligence added a certain cachet to my developing resume. While in Korea, I woke up to the horror of war, turned down a commission in the army, and naively decided to devote myself to making peace in the world. I set out to become a diplomat, because soldiers fight wars and diplomats make peace. (My disillusion with that oversimplification came much later in life.)</p><p>For thirty years of my life I learned about, thought about, and tried to influence foreign populations in a wide variety of different stages of social and economic development. I learned how to speak varying degrees of several foreign languages, lived in underdeveloped countries, developed friendships with people who were very different than myself and dealt with varying types of conflict from village level combat in Viet Nam, through subversive activity at village level in Thailand, to the potentially nuclear struggle with the Soviet Union. Along the way, I played a small part in negotiating the reversion of Okinawa to Japanese control. I directed our counter-insurgency effort at village level, managed the lives of thousands of people living in refugee centers at home and abroad and, in all of it, I had an opportunity to see American and foreign leaders at all levels from village headmen to foreign monarchs and American presidents. I met dictators and democratically elected presidents. I do not claim intelligence, but I do claim experience, and I conclude that today's America is on the wrong domestic and international track. Very unfortunately, I also conclude that I can not do anything about it. My fellow citizens, conservative and liberal alike, know more about all of it than do I and they conclude that I "live in Lala Land." They are hell bent on destroying us and I can not find a way to wake them up.</p><p>I see a fundamental need for more self-reliance, individual responsibility, and realism on the part of all Americans from national leaders down to individual citizens. That view informs my political stance on the issues that are before us and accounts for the difference between my own and my fellow Americans' political views. I just plain do not have that much confidence in "government,"particularly one elected, and staffed, by people who have not been outside of their own backyard, intellectually and physically, and do not think things through.</p>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-90763313429398400172024-03-13T08:25:00.000-07:002024-03-17T14:14:21.025-07:00Social Media's Role in Our Lives.<p>President Biden is said to be using Tik Tok to support his presidential campaign and Donald Trump argues that Facebook is the enemy of the people. I think that Biden is being practical and Trump is correct. Having said that, I believe that the principal problem is not social media itself, but instead, a flaw in the human psyche, akin to its' appetite for drugs. Social media channels like Tik Tok and Facebook are but enablers as is crack and fentanyl. Humans are intellectually cowardly and lazy and drugs are mistakenly thought to be a solution.</p><p>I do not blame Biden for using Tik Tok to reach young Americans, just as I do not blame Trump for using Truth Social to reach his base. Both politicians are dealing with the world as it exists and would be remiss if they failed to do so. The people that I "blame" are you and me. Our use of narcotics, and that definitely includes both fentanyl and social media, is destroying us. Americans, in particular, are prone to seek escape from reality because we are ignorant, pampered, intellectual cowards, but the fundamentals are born into all humans.</p><p>As I look at social media, I ask myself what it is about it that is so addictive and I conclude that it is the algorithm that learns what we want to be served, provides that, and then adds in its message primarily by curating content. Control the algorithm and you control thought, or at least what passes for thought. I was alive when the internet was born and social media invented. I wrote code in the simplistic early days and could manipulate search engines like Alta Vista with "meta tags." My involvement faded rapidly as "code" became more obtuse, and I failed to see what was happening, because my interests were elsewhere.</p><p>In the early days of social media, I actually advised my clients not to waste time or money on it as its' content was infantile and nobody of substance would waste their time on it. One day, one of my clients informed me that she was losing one of her clients because a competitor of mine offered her a presence on Facebook. I remember saying that I would put her business on Facebook, even though it would do no real good. I did that and within an extraordinarily short period of time learned how wrong I had been. Cutting to the chase, I now consider social media to be a, if not the, principal way Americans communicate.</p><p>The social media guru's mantra is that your message must be short on words and long on imagery, because the human attention span is impossibly short and you are a click away from obscurity if you do not instantly grab your viewer's attention visually. My own experience in social media is a bit more nuanced that this, but I agree that it is the common perception and does indeed govern social media today. The amazing part of the whole thing is that you can tell so much about a person by looking at his or her social media presence, to include not only the content of the pages that they control, but also the content being served to those pages. I am tempted to make the argument that, in many cases, the algorithm knows the person better than the person does himself or herself.</p><p>All of that is history and it is bad enough, but we are now at the stage of the game where the algorithm is actually grooming the human. That is definitely Orwellian and, I argue, contrary to humanity's fundamental interests. Tik Tok is front and center for a lot of reasons related to it's effectiveness and it's Chinese ownership, but all of social media is doing the same things that Tik Tok does, the only difference being the intent of the people that develop and maintain the algorithm and their sophistication.</p><p>Most social media algorithms are controlled by liberal leaning individuals, but conservative and renegade individuals are awakening to the opportunities presented and nations are beginning to get into the act - China at the forefront, but Russia and Iran are not far behind, if less sophisticated. My own concern relates to the cumulative impact, rather than the partisan effect, of social media and its' algorithms. What is happening is that we are arguing about who controls the algorithm, not the fundamental change that is happening in the way in which we relate to one another.</p><p>It is important to note that I choose to write this blasphemy on a blog, not on a social media platform. The reason is that the social media algorithm will literally not permit me to spread this blasphemy on any of the channels that it controls. I fully expect the blog loophole to be closed at some point in the future. The underlying enemy of humanity being the computer.</p><p><br /></p>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-59648076488984576402024-03-12T11:35:00.000-07:002024-03-12T11:41:16.345-07:00The importance of societal unity.<p> The single most dangerous threat to our future is the deterioration of our societal unity. Without societal unity we can not resolve any of the specific political issues that are front and center. The America that I was born into was much different than the one that I live in today. There was friction between different groups, but we were trying to eliminate it. The American melting pot sought to eliminate ethnic differences and "dial two for Spanish" did not exist. Sink or swim, a newcomer to America had to adapt to the dominant mongrel culture. Today, we seek to elevate our ethnic differences and champion diversity. Diversity in every form possible to imagine, including gender. A Democrat sees every single issue and the political landscape differently than does his/her/its Republican neighbor because he, or she, or it, is a Democrat, not because of any real substantive difference. Republicans do precisely the same thing for the same inane "reason."</p><p>At the same time, we increasingly isolate ourselves from what is happening at ground level throughout the rest of the world. One of the things that worries me the most is that humans are perfecting weapon technology faster than our societal structures are capable of dealing with it. Always before, humans fell into conflict, killed, wounded and destroyed much, but eventually one side or the other prevailed. Because of "advances" in technology, each of the conflicts grew in intensity and reach, but all eventually ended with one side dominant. During my lifetime, the seminal conflict was Word War II and America emerged as the dominant leader of the entire world, but was increasingly challenged by the Soviet Union. I was a small part of the defeat of the Soviet challenge to our leadership and stupidly thought that the international threat to America had been eliminated and we could all get on with our "normal" lives. </p><p>Meanwhile the art of war has morphed away from industrial conflict, where airplanes, tanks and artillery dominated land battles between huge groups of humans, toward nuclear war, where huge numbers of nuclear tipped ballistic missiles will be fired from underground silos at urban centers half way around the world and cyber war will take out electrical grids and the cyber underpinnings of civilization in the enemy nation. Satellites have become more important than seaports and railroads. Meanwhile, we, here in America, have become complacent about what is going on in the rest of the world, focusing instead on our own precious navel. We worry about the danger to our democracy, while refusing to participate in it intelligently. Our tribal differences dominate what passes for thought throughout the nation and we worry about "issues" that we can understand - the age of the fetus, the proper use of pronouns, the price of gasoline, the number of chips in the bag, and our precious feelings. Crooks and charlatans "lead" us and we put up with it because we are too busy minding our own business. Our "understanding" of the world around us is derived from our television sets and our phones. We are purposely ignorant of the world that we live in and think that we can build a fence that will protect us from what is happening outside of our non-existent borders. We are stupid beyond belief and arrogant enough to honestly believe that we are not.</p>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-25840455355264793562024-03-11T10:08:00.000-07:002024-03-11T10:09:15.490-07:00Ukraine and the November Election<p> The Polish Foreign Minister, in a speech at the United Nations, said that NATO military personnel were already present in Ukraine. Comments out of Russia indicate that they knew it all along. This follows on French President Macron's suggestion that NATO troops should be deployed to Ukraine. President Biden has made it known that he continues to reject this possibility.</p><p>I have absolutely no way of knowing whether there are any NATO military personnel inside Ukraine today, but it is a discussion about very little of substance. NATO is already providing manpower and brains in every aspect of the fighting except manpower on the front lines, and Moscow knows it. Given today's communication capabilities it matters little where the intelligence or logistics officer sits. The reason troops on the ground is rising to new levels of interest now, is because Ukraine is running out of soldiers, and Moscow's strategy is one of attrition. </p><p>Back at the start of this stupidity, I argued that we should have told Moscow and Kiev to negotiate their way out of the looming conflict or we would force them to do so by cutting off aid to Ukraine and/or join in the defense of Ukraine with our own military, depending on which side was the recalcitrant. I continue to believe that policy would have resulted in a negotiated solution to the stupidity, but I do not believe that it is today anything other than a prelude to World War III. The problem being that Moscow has invested too much treasure and prestige in the effort and it believes that the Western World is tiring of the struggle and the cost of everything associated with it.</p><p>Today, Moscow sees an America divided at home and involved unsuccessfully in numerous foreign conflicts all over the globe - Gaza and Ukraine being the two most bothersome right now, but several others looming on the horizon, with Taiwan being in the forefront. An important part of Moscow's decision-making process revolves around Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Joe Biden gave Moscow Crimea and consciously refused to provide Kiev with the support necessary to change the situation for the better on the ground. Donald Trump is a more difficult potential leader to analyze. I am convinced that Putin is delighted with Biden and actually fears Trump, because he is unpredictable.</p><p>Because it has the potential to lead to nuclear war, I believe that Ukraine is one of the more important issues in our 2024 presidential election and I much prefer Trump to Biden as the decision-maker dealing with it, even though I do not like either of these two politicians personalities and I believe that Trump will make decisions vis-a-vis Ukraine that are contrary to our long term interests. If that is so, why do I support him over Biden? Because I am convinced that Biden's decisions are far more likely to lead to nuclear war - either with Moscow or Beijing, or, more probably Teheran. We have got to get past WWIII if we are to be able to go on and address the systemic problems that lead to these types of situations. </p>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-83620674660781794492024-03-10T11:39:00.000-07:002024-03-10T12:21:27.592-07:00Violence as a "solution" is proliferating dangerously.<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Mexican cartels are now using drones and improvised land mines in their fight with the Mexican Government and each other. New York City has deployed uniformed National Guard troops to keep order in its’ subways. Press reports about these and similar developments do not relate the events to each other. Our consideration of each is siloed as unrelated events in physical locations distant from one another. None are related to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza nor the civil war currently destroying Sudan, nor the gang takeover of Haiti, nor the village level war ongoing thoughout North Africa, nor the continuing war in Syria between a half dozen ethnic factions, nor the pushing and shoving in the South China Sea. I contend that all of these breakdowns of societal norms are related to one another and we should take note. Whether we like it or not, violence is on the rise throughout the world as an acceptable way to settle grievances and advance interests. Gun violence in Oakland is, at root, exactly the same as gun violence in Burkina Faso and both are inconsistent with the continued viability of the human experiment.</p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 29px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Violence has long been in the human tool box, but “technological advances” have provided angry people with new tools that kill people more effectively. I admit that I see advanced technology as being, on balance, a very bad thing for humans, but I also understand that the majority of my fellow humans see it differently. It makes little difference, because technology is here to stay, as is the potential for its use in “settling” disputes and controlling societies. Here in the United States, we argue about gun ownership, but refuse to address what I consider to be the root cause of all of this violence all around the entire world - inadequate human relationships. Humans have been stupidly killing each other since well before guns were invented. Violence is not the child of a gun. It is something that happens inside our head and technology provides ways to expand its impact on more and more fellow human beings. </p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 29px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">What to do about the problem? Technology is not going away, nor is it going to be limited to peaceful uses. The gun, the mine, the nuclear weapon are, however, the wrong targets for our attention. What we must effect, in our search for a better world, let alone continued existence, is the human mind. Because the task is so huge, I oversimplify to make my point - we must do two things. First, be so strong that no one can contest our policies, and second, we have to sincerely, repeat sincerely, seek to improve the lives of everyone on earth. There is a very real possibility that humans en masse can not do that, but it remains the challenge that faces us and I am arguing that we should try. It is inexcusable that even here in this country we have far too many people existing on the street. Physical and intellectual flight to the suburbs is not a viable longterm answer folks.</p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 29px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">At street level, we don’t need the National Guard searching purses. We desperately need a criminal court system combined with an effective police force that punishes subway criminals rather than civilian heroes. At the national level, we need a clearly dominant military and a group of old fashioned statesmen, allied with an honest, intelligent business community. At the community level, we need a populace that understands the challenge facing us. I believe that we are failing all though this hierarchy of challenge, but the most fundamental is the failure of Americans to even begin to understand the problem facing us, even though our continued existence is at stake. I remain convinced that we can do the necessary if we but wake up to the reality of the challenge facing us.</p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 29px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The age of the fetus, the proper use of pronouns, the price of gasoline, the number of chips in the bag, and our precious feelings are just plain not the problem folks. The growing relevance of nuclear holocaust is more proximate than you and I are willing to acknowledge and it is long past time to come together and address root problems rather than superficial niceties and uglities. Moscow is the easy problem. Beijing, a bit more difficult. Radical Islam, much harder. Population/resource balance, the hardest of all. We must quit defining our challenge so as to match our inadequate response. The number of potato chips in the bag is not as important as the fact that the bag has too long been empty in far too many places on this planet. A society that willingly accepts smash and grab in their cities understandably accepts smash and grab on the international scene. A society that accepts gun violence in its’ ghettos understandably accepts it in “shit hole countries.”</p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 29px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Quit cowering in the corner like a worthless little pile of fecal matter and stand the hell up. Your and my life depends on it.</p>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-22031949220420606522024-03-09T09:36:00.000-08:002024-03-09T09:38:41.287-08:00Humans are attracted to others that are like-minded.<p> <span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;">Humans are attracted to others that are like-minded.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;">Each of us are possessed by a range of emotion and belief that finds similarity and difference in the emotions and beliefs of others.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;">Our associations are governed by this range of similarities and differences.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;">The closer the variables are to our core, the stronger the attractiveness of the individual and the ideas espoused.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;">Because they are so fundamental, cultural similarities and differences play an outsized role.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;">The result is tribal organization - both acknowledged and unacknowledged.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;">The model for tribal organization is the family.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;">In today’s America, political parties have devolved into tribal organizations and self-identified members of each of our parties think and act as family members, wherein loyalty to family is a paramount consideration. </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;"> </span></p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">A relatively long list of “issues” emerges and tribal members adopt identical positions on each of them according to what tribal elders determine to be truth. Few are the individuals that “think for themselves,” and rarely are they influential among large numbers of people, particularly when they question tribal “truths.” The only force that can overcome this intellectual lethargy is fear. When the real world situation gets bad enough, rational thought begins to emerge, and depending on the degree and longevity of the threat, rational thought begins to take precedent over tribal lore. This process has characterized human history since we stood up on two legs, and humanity has managed to adapt and survive. The problem today, is that we have invented weaponry and delivery systems that can not only kill vast numbers of us, but can also poison the very land that we need to sustain human life.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“Thinning the herd” is a practical answer to over population as long as you are not among those that are “thinned,” and your plot of land is not part of that which is made radio-active. I suggest that you and I do not have any hope in hell that we will not be a principal target in the exchange of nuclear weapons and although that would be ironic, in that we invented the damned things, I do not find it to be an attractive prospect. I would prefer to find a way to convince others in this world to live and let live. I am convinced that, paradoxically, the key to doing that is possessing overwhelming military strength, the demonstrable will to use that strength, combined with an honest desire and effective programs to better the lives of all humans living on earth. </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 29px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My pessimism about the future derives from the failure of our tribes to adopt policies attuned to these objectives, because we are not yet scared enough to do it and we are running out of the time necessary to do it. Instead, we argue among ourselves about the age of the fetus, proper use of pronouns, the price of gasoline, the number of potato chips in the bag, and our precious feelings. Very nice people, physical and intellectual cowards all, steeped in facts and figures, but without the fundamental intelligence necessary to come together and save ourselves.</p>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-76763600273981420732024-03-09T09:22:00.000-08:002024-03-09T09:24:53.897-08:00European view of US defense policy.<p> Europe is rethinking its reliance on the United States as regards defense policy. I am way out of date on the subject and only have inadequate news snippets to go on, but world events would seem to make it inevitable that Europeans would increasingly doubt American resolve to fight and die in the defense of Europe. We turned tail and ran from Afghanistan just the other day and we did not even tell our European allies that were in Afghanistan with us that we were abandoning both our Afghan "allies" and them to the Taliban. Very comfortable American civilians, too busy to think about far off dirty hell holes, may not see much of importance in the matter, but I guarantee that you would if your ass was in the fox hole.</p><p><br /></p><p>And then there is the ongoing stupidity in Ukraine where Europeans clearly see America's policy as being to hide behind Ukrainian surrogates to deal with Russian aggression and, because that policy is getting to be "too expensive," and is going nowhere useful, America is seriously considering abandoning Ukraine. (The vast majority of Europeans will refuse to acknowledge the wisdom of using Ukraine as a lever to deal with US border policy.) Donald Trump is presumably delighted by the European angst that is evident, but sees the numbers being discussed in the European debate on defense spending as being inadequate. Were the world still engaged in the struggle against the Soviets, I would agree with him, but the world has changed and the out-dated Cold War strategy is no longer adequate to deal with the challenge. I over simplify, but NATO was a useful tool when future war was to be industrial in nature. It is not any longer. In the current world, industrial war with one or another major antagonist is but prelude to nuclear war, and we refuse to understand that simple fact of life and death.</p><p><br /></p><p>All of the hoopla in the newspapers is focused on inadequate supplies of artillery shells, but the real issue is that Ukraine and Russia are literally running out of soldiers. Think about who is being killed in both Russia and Ukraine - the casualties are robbing both countries of the very generation that would be necessary to build a different future. The whole mess staggers the imagination, if we but had some imagination, but we don't. We are willfully blind, very nice, stinking cowards, stuck in antiquated slogans and it is going to get you and me killed. We do not have the balls nor the wisdom necessary to step up to the plate and tell the rest of the world to stop with the killing. Not only that, we actually encourage far too much of it and then hide our heads in our hands when the going gets tough.</p><p><br /></p><p>If a deity did create us, he, she, or it has obviously decided to get rid of his, her or its' mistake. Kenya is the only country in the entire world that is worried about Haiti? I ask you, the American citizen that is a responsible citizen in a democracy what you think about our policy in Burkina Faso, or Myanmar, or Nicaragua? All I hear is prattle about soap operas, where in an orange haired playboy grabs a woman by the pussy, and says stupid things about other politicians that shower with their daughters and sniff little girls' hair. Geez, people wake the hell up! Go ahead and change the sign on the bathroom door, snuff the fetus, put more potato chips in the bag, and for heaven's sake don't stress anyone's feelings, but when you have finished correcting the mistakes of our ancestors, please devote a little of your time to keeping us, you and me, alive.</p><div><br /></div>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-9755954851506060482019-01-10T08:30:00.004-08:002019-01-10T08:30:59.499-08:00Withdrawal of US Military from Syria<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
My earlier guess that Presidents Trump and Erdogan had discussed Syria on the telephone appears to have been correct and, based on that conversation, President Trump later announced that the United States would pull all of its military out of Syria. Erdogan recently said as much and indicated that the call had been held in December of last year. Trump sent Bolton to Ankara to work out the details of the withdrawal. Before meeting with Erdogan, Bolton made several public statements to the effect that there was no time table for the withdrawal and that it was contiditional on Ankara’s commitment not to harm the Kurdish fighters that were allied with the USG in the fight against ISIS. Erdogan reiterated his belief that the YPG is a terrorist organization and refused to meet with Bolton saying that he would prefer to discuss the matter with Trump in another telephone call.</div>
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My earlier post on this subject outlines the basic situation between Kurd and Turk and explains why Erdogan is taking a hard line against the Kurds - particularly the YPG. I will not go over that ground again here. Instead, I am going to go out on a limb and try to understand what is motivating our President. I believe that his fundamental objective is to remove us from the mess in Syria. I take him at his word that he does not want to engage in nation building and believes that it is high time for others in the international community to step up and take a share of the responsibility for ensuring order in world affairs. I doubt that he wants to harm those that have helped us diminish ISIS, but he sees it as his duty to look out for American interests first. Syria costs too much in blood and treasure, so he is determined to get us out. He sees Erdogan’s eagerness to expand Turkish involvement in Syria as a useful way to accomplish his objective. </div>
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President Trump’s eagerness to get our troops out of Syria is generating a considerable backlash. I doubt that there are any supporters for this course of action among those who have been involved on the ground, nor do any of our allies in the region agree with it. On the other hand, Ankara, Teheran, Damascus and Moscow are, for a variety of different reasons, delighted. My guess continues to be that Erdogan and Trump will eventually work out acceptable wording for the joint public declaration that will permit Washington to pull our forces out. I am also skeptical that Ankara will abide by the spirit of that declaration. The expansion of Turkish presence inside Syria is designed to weaken the Kurdish subversive campaign inside Eastern Turkey and to block any additional migration of population out of Syria into Turkey. A secondary objective is to protect and preserve the anti-Assad groups that are currently holed up in Idlib Province. Although Ankara is opposed to ISIS, I doubt that their pursuit of ISIS remnants will be as effective as we would like. Down the road a very short distance, Ankara and Damascus will have problems with the manipulation of ethnicity that is accompanying Ankara’s occupation of Syrian land.</div>
Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-19954927773505980712019-01-07T18:41:00.002-08:002019-01-07T18:41:09.372-08:00Bird Photography<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
How long a telephoto lens does the average photographer need? In order to answer this kind of question, one obviously needs to know what an average photographer is. I suggest that there are no average photographers. There are a multitude of different kinds of photographers to include you and me. Each one of us is different and each one of us have different equipment needs. My own are simple, if expensive. I have used Canon still cameras for decades and see no reason to change. I am currently using the 5D, Mark IV. The lens that I currently use the most is a Sigma 24 - 70 mm, but I also own several other lenses to include a Canon 400 mm. For my purposes, the 400 mm is as long as I need, and I need it only for animal and bird photography. Given the high ISO that is currently available, I can hand hold the 400 mm in good daylight. Anything longer than 400 mm, I have to use a tripod and I find that to be a serious limitation because I do not do a lot of shooting from a fixed position and I enjoy capturing my subjects in motion.</div>
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My advice to anyone wanting to break into bird photography is to at least start out with the 400 mm and mount it on a decent camera body that gives you a strong image file to work with in Lightroom. Then learn how to best approach your subject. Stealth. Negative eye contact. Angle of approach. Speed of approach. Silence. Smoothness of movement. Knowledge of specie habits. Knowledge of terrain. Apparel. Etc, etc, etc… All worth as much or more than additional millimeters in your lens. If the birds that you are hunting live near you and you can visit them often you have the opportunity to learn their individual habits. That should eventually put you exactly where you need to be to get the picture that you seek. I have, for instance, the standard osprey carrying fish picture. I had watched that pair of birds for several weeks and knew exactly where their fishing grounds were and where their nest was. I knew that they were feeding young. So, each morning I went to the beach (Walk On) and waited for them to appear. Once I saw where they were fishing I moved to a point on high ground between them and their nest. They were excellent fishermen. I only had to wait a half hour or so before one of them was flying not very high over my head carrying a fish. I have the same picture done exactly the same way at the Mouth of the Rogue River in Oregon. My point being that knowledge of your subject is as important as hardware, if not more important.</div>
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Where you hunt birds is also important. Needless to say, you should be an expert on every single kind of bird in the immediate vicinity of your home, but the more birds there are the better your chances of a decent image for obvious reasons. We are fortunate here in California because there are a number of very important bird refuges located up and down the state and they are protected by some very knowledgeable people. Take a couple of days off. Drive to one of them and set up housekeeping in an inexpensive motel. Eat hamburgers. Meet the people that run the refuge. Pick their brains. Most of them enjoy telling you what they know and they know a lot. Spend your entire time - sunrise to sunset - driving endlessly around the refuge photographing what you see. Do not get out of the car. Birds are used to the car and fearful of the person separate from the vehicle. (The same is true in the game parks in Africa when you decide to go hunting lions and giraffes.) Learn how to shoot out of the open window on the passenger’s side as well as the driver’s side. Before you go home, figure out when the migrations effect the various refuges so that you can better plan your next visit. Here again, the people at the refuge can be extremely valuable.</div>
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One last suggestion. Join the local Christmas bird count (which frequently does not happen on Christmas). Get to know the birders in your community. They may be more interested in the birds for reasons other than photography, but they have the knowledge that you need about the species in your neighborhood and they are willing to share that knowledge with others that are interested in birds. If you are very lucky, the bird count, might actually provide a couple of very nice images. Certainly it will introduce you to some very interesting people. </div>
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P.S: The local count here is 1/12/19 Count day: Saturday January 12, 2018</div>
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(Note: SEVERE weather would move the count to Sunday, January 13) They are looking for volunteers to join in. Contact is Diane Hichwa. Email is dhichwa@earthlink.net.</div>
Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-26680025300654970632019-01-07T09:13:00.000-08:002019-01-07T09:13:08.408-08:00<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
I find it interesting that it is Bolton that appears to be tasked with ensuring that our withdrawal from Syria goes as smoothly as possible. It is a daunting task and I wish him well. In my opinion, Ankara is right to worry about the Syrian Kurds, particularly the YPG. No matter what anybody does or says, I am utterly convinced that they will continue to support their brothers and sisters inside Eastern Turkey and they will continue to work toward autonomy and eventual independence both inside Syria and inside Turkey. There is a very active, very serious Kurdish insurgency going on inside Turkey and communication between Syrian and Turkish Kurds is ongoing. I don’t know what the toll has been in human lives, but Aljazeera believes it to be in the neighborhood of 40,000. I understand Turkish President Erdogan’s concern and believe that from his perspective, he has little choice to do other than what he is doing in creating the buffer zone between a very well armed YPG and his country. I also understand his frustration with Washington as he has watched us train, arm and advise fighters that he believes will soon turn against him.</div>
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On the other side of the same coin, I sympathize with the Kurdish people’s desire for a country of their own and admire the effectiveness of their cooperation with us in our campaign against ISIS. They carried the ground war, suffered the major casualties, and were a critical element in achieving the degree of success that we have had in reducing the territory held by the rogue caliphate. I agree with their analysis that they were staunch allies in our time of need and we are now abandoning them. It makes little difference that both they and we saw ISIS as a major threat that had to be eliminated. Bolton is charged with the task of ensuring that Ankara does not take advantage of the situation to pursue its’ objective of destroying what it sees as allies of the Kurdish insurgency just across the border. Ironically, the hated Assad is being asked to play a positive role in ensuring this outcome. Syrian ground forces are already occupying positions between Turk and Kurd in the Manbij region. The Kurds were wise enough to keep a channel of communication open with Damascus all during the civil war and managed to keep Assad off of their backs even before the United States became involved in the situation. My guess is that we are currently encouraging a Kurdish rapprochement with the Assad regime. Because Assad hates Erdogan there is almost certainly room for Bolton to maneuver.</div>
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I do not know what will happen, but I believe that the odds are that Trump will continue with the withdrawal of US forces from Syria and that we will agree to provide the logistic support that Turkey will need to replace us. In the short term, I believe that the odds are that Ankara will resist any overt moves against the Kurds and the Kurds will avoid provoking the Turks unnecessarily. Should that not be the case it will almost certainly be because somebody on the ground made an error. Washington, Ankara, Damascus, Moscow and Teheran appear to all be on the same page at the present time and the Kurds are playing the only hand they have - Damascus. I would imagine that their internal debate is rather intense at the present time, but they have little support from Kurds elsewhere in the region with exception of those battling Ankara inside Turkey. Internal politics within the greater Kurdish community is badly divided between a multiplicity of factions that are seriously at each other’s throats.</div>
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From our point of view, leaving morality aside, the withdrawal of US forces from Syria opens the door a bit wider to Teheran to further strengthen its’ position vis-a-vis Israel. I presume that President Trump is counting on his attempt to strangle Teheran economically to be the principal defense of Israel, but I would not be surprised if we found out that Moscow was also urging Teheran to proceed slowly in pursuing this objective. Moscow’s immediate objective is to get Washington out of Syria. The destruction of Israel is not an important Russian objective. Although their motivations are very different, both Putin and Trump are in agreement on this point. I presume that Trump is telling all and sundry that if anyone tries to attack Israel, the United States will respond with massive force. I also presume that Jerusalem is most unhappy with the way things are developing inside Syria and in Washington. Jerusalem almost certainly sees the Syrian playing board shifting in Teheran’s favor and the economic boycott of Iran failing to achieve results fast enough to ensure Israel’s security. President Trump's uncertain political future also plays into the situation.</div>
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Although it is not the principal concern, the future of ISIS is also in question and that has potential implications for our own domestic political situation here inside the bubble. There is no question but that President Trump has defeated ISIS. There is also no question but that ISIS has not been destroyed. Estimates run into the tens of thousands of ISIS fighters still running around in the area and returning to their original homelands. I very much doubt that Ankara will pursue these fighters as vigorously as we would like. If the ISIS remnants are wise enough not to provoke Ankara, the Turkish military will not pursue them aggressively. They will return to the shadows to await reemergence at some future date when their stars realign. We should understand that President Erdogan is willing to work with an Islamist political spectrum that is much wider than our own. President Trump’s belief that the maintenance of a US military presence in Iraq will permit us to strike a resurgent ISIS is almost certainly an attempt to pacify his critics inside the beltway. No one is asking who the surrogate ground force would be in such an effort. Presumably not the Kurds.</div>
Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-35767110906510376192019-01-06T09:21:00.001-08:002019-01-06T09:21:18.656-08:00<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">A lot of my friends believe that I am unduly patient with our President. I disagree, probably, in part, at least, because i spent thirty years in government service. During that time, I had a variety of superior officers in my life. In each of those phases of my career, I tried my very best to help make our efforts successful. In some cases it required me to argue with my superiors. Some arguments I won and some I lost. I never saw any advantage in trying to destroy those with whom I disagreed. The better course of action was to help them find a better way forward. I see society’s responsibility vis-a-vis a duly elected president to be similar. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For one element of society to try to destroy a president is to set themselves against those that elected that president and that is guaranteed to destroy not just the president but the society as well. In my humble opinion, we, here in the United States, are doing precisely that. We are not arguing about policies, we are hating an individual without reference to policies. In my opinion, this president and his predecessors have gotten some things exactly right and some things very wrong. Were we to address those policies in a meaningful way, we would be strengthening our nation. By ignoring policies and concentrating on emotion we, not our particular president of the moment, are taking a wonderful country directly into a very deep cesspool. </span></div>
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Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-17370921574060693052019-01-05T18:28:00.000-08:002019-01-05T18:28:56.575-08:00<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
I continue to support the President of the United States, but I am increasingly concerned with the direction that our foreign policy appears to be headed. I understand the desire to rid ourselves of war. It is nasty, expensive and destructive. There is nothing, repeat nothing, that is favorable associated with it. It is understandable that a president would be frustrated with a situation such as we find in Afghanistan or Syria or Libya or any number of other places around the world where bad actors are engaged in pursuing evil policies while the rest of the world pretty much sits back and lets us deal with the vile fallout. Although he has not yet carried through with his stated desire to pull out and let others take responsibility for these various trouble spots, I presume that President Trump, as he has repeatedly promised, will, in the not too distant future, withdraw all US military out of Syria and most out of Afghanistan. </div>
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My belief is that no friendly power can or will step forward to fill the vacuum created by our withdrawal. We will be replaced by hostile powers pursuing highly dangerous policies that will eventually require an even greater effort on our part to right the situation - if it can be righted short of a nuclear exchange. It appears to me that, in Syria, the President is looking to President Erdogan of Turkey to fill-in behind us as we withdraw. The negotiations surrounding the extradition of Fethullah Gülen appear to be reenergized and there are rumors that we are considering providing logistic support for Turkish forces to establish their buffer zone against the Kurdish YPG inside Syria in return for which they are to take the lead in mopping up ISIS remnants. I presume that there is some sort of commitment by Damascus and Ankara that they will negotiate in good faith with the Kurds, but I doubt the sincerity of those commitments. I suspect that President Trump is using the Khashoggi affair to force Riyadh’s nominal acquiescence. I doubt that he has to say or do much vis-a-vis Moscow in as much as President Putin will be delighted to see us leave the region. I see no such plan involving a surrogate being considered for the Afghanistan pull out. There, I believe that the President appears to be content to let the Taliban take control of the country feeling that the Kabul leadership is incapable of running the country let alone winning the war. I believe that he sees Afghanistan as being inconsequential to American interests. I also presume that he has various assurances vis-a-vis Israel's future that reassure him. I doubt that Israel is equally reassured.</div>
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I also understand President Trump’s frustration with our European allies in NATO. They are, indeed, a frustrating bunch, but I believe that we are better off strengthening the alliance rather than tearing it down. I support the hard nosed demand for more financial support for the defense of Europe, but deplore the unnecessary and counter-productive negative chatter that surrounds those demands. I faulted President Regan for not talking to the European left and I fault President Trump for needlessly insulting them. The United States is indeed still the greatest power in the entire world - by a long shot - but it is not capable of standing alone. China and Russia are both dangerous potential antagonists and while we can not expect much effective help from others if we have to go to war with them, we sure as heck can use a lot of help prior to the out break of hostilities. With enough help and finesse we might even be able to avoid having to fight with either of them. </div>
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China and Russia are significant emerging threats, but even more important in the long run, however, is the future of Islam. That religion is in serious need of an effective and thorough reformation before any of its’ adherents get their hands on nuclear weapons. What we appear to be doing in the Middle East is taking us away from the reformation of Islam. In my opinion, Erdogan, a crypto Muslim Brotherhood advocate, is the wrong horse to bet on and the hobbling of the Saudi Crown Prince is equally unfortunate. Both Xi and Putin see Islam as a problem internally in China and Russia, but neither can be expected to follow policies that will support the reformation of Islam. Rather they will continue to try, unsuccessfully, to destroy it as a political force inside their own countries. Those policies will encourage greater radicalization of a religion that is followed by one seventh of the world population. Many of the most influential Islamist leaders in the world today are apocalyptic in their thinking. Nuclear obliteration of the Western life style might very easily fit into that thinking even if it results in mutual destruction. The Dulles policy of mutual destruction that we have successfully used against Moscow obviously will not work in that situation.</div>
Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-52581704723846952482018-12-27T13:47:00.001-08:002018-12-27T18:04:25.109-08:00<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">The departure of James Mattis from the Trump Administration is not a good thing, but neither is it the end of the world. The mindless rubbish being hurled around about this development by all who detest President Trump and all of those who worship The Donald is embarrassing in its’ absurd partisan blindness. I feel that I understand the Secretary of Defense’s motivation here and confess that I share the emotions and feelings that I believe guided his decision. The man spent much of himself in the battle against our enemies in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria and inevitably developed close relationships with many of the men and women that have been allied with us in those wars. The policy that appears to be unfolding in Washington does not bode well for their future and he understandably feels that he is unable to implement it. Being a principled American patriot, he chooses to step aside to permit the President to select someone else to implement his policy. I am pretty sure that it is the most difficult thing that James Mattis has ever had to do and the most distasteful for a very long list of reasons.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Having said that, I am extremely concerned about what I think, repeat think, is guiding our President in his policy toward the Middle East. Right now, subject to revision as more information becomes available, it looks to me that he may have made a deal on the telephone with President Erdogan of Turkey and President Putin of Russia regarding Syria. I presume that President Assad of Syria is on board as well, but I very much doubt that he likes it one little bit. If my suspicions are correct, Turkey will be permitted to establish a Kurdish free buffer zone inside Syrian territory along its’ eastern border in an effort to protect against future Syrian Kurdish support of the ethnic Kurdish discontent in Eastern Turkey. In order for Turkey to accomplish this, we appear to be willing to support them logistically. I presume that we have assurances from all concerned that they will not attempt to further degrade the Kurdish position in Syria. My guess is that we will also attempt to turn over the mopping up operations against ISIS remnants to the Turks as well. Assuming that occurs, and I repeat that it is all speculation at this point in time, we will abandon the Kurdish allies that were our ground force in the fight against ISIS and, overnight, start supporting one of their most ferocious, ancient, arch enemies - the Turk. Politics is dirty business and diplomacy is worse.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Stepping back from the emotions, or at least attempting to do so, I see possible short term advantage to the policy shift in that we can reduce the exposure of American military personnel to the hostilities in the region. We can also save a great deal of money. We can reduce friction with Russia and improve relations with our superficial NATO partner - Turkey. From President Trump’s point of view, domestically it might also look like he can garner support from those that have long held that we should not be as involved as we are currently in the Middle East. Rand Paul is elated by the thought. I am much more pessimistic - both domestically and internationally. I doubt that any Democrat will give Trump anything but grief no matter what he does and I see the probable result of this policy as being the increase of radical influence throughout the region. Hiding behind Erdogan in our fight against radicals is, in my mind, a risky, bet. Erdogan is a crypto proponent of Muslim Brotherhood philosophy and that is a very slippery intellectual slope. During his effort to unseat Assad in the Syrian civil war, Erdogan cooperated with virtually anyone who was opposed to Assad, including al Qaida and he continues to protect many Syrian radicals from the wrath of Moscow and Damascus, including al Qaida affiliates.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The reduction of forces in Afghanistan is a separate issue, but related in that it indicates that President Trump is uninterested in defeating the Taliban. He appears to be saying to Kabul what Nixon said to Saigon. America has been helping you long enough. Now it is up to you to determine your own future. I am not an expert in Afghani affairs, but my guess is that Kabul will be run by the Taliban in the relatively near future. Washington, under Trump, is indicting that it is tired of supporting ineffective governments. None of this, if, repeat if, it turns out to be true, is going to be encouraging in Jerusalem. Israel is mesmerized by the increasingly powerful base of operations that Teheran already has in Syria and has seen the 2,000 some American troops inside Syria as being something of a bulwark against Iranian use of Syria as a launching pad for the final destruction of Israel that Teheran continues to promise at every opportunity. My guess is that President Trump is confident enough in his ability to make a deal, that he is taking a number of world leaders verbal commitments to him as being sufficient to work through the possible pitfalls and he will be reassuring the Israelis that we will continue to ensure that no one actually attacks them fearing massive American retaliation. Jerusalem will, among other obvious things, be worried about what happens after Trump.</span></div>
Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-23296707936411630712018-12-03T14:38:00.000-08:002018-12-03T15:18:25.344-08:00<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There were no photographs in the lives of our ancient ancestors. People living before the camera obscura was invented had to scratch, paint or perhaps chisel images into some natural medium or another. Those images were more clearly subjective impressions than is most modern photography. Petroglyphs, cave paintings, works on wood and stone, all crude, all severely limited in their ability to communicate with others. In that age, people knew that the scratchings were not the whole story and generally judged the world by what they saw, heard, smelled and felt physically and emotionally. A person living in the Sahara knew nothing about the life of a person living in the Arctic and vice versa, but both understood their own world intimately. The worlds that those persons knew were bounded by what they saw, heard, felt and experienced. That is different today. Today, we “learn” about other places not only by seeing them first hand, but more commonly, through words, recordings and pictures. The experience is heightened by the introduction of video and movies. We sit in our living room, flick on the television or fire up the tablet and watch hours of video complete with sound. We feel as though we are there - wherever that particular there happens to be at that particular moment.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBv7lpsVBepFlEtL7njIoyPTuZXV-uOLRg2ONFQtBM-QLCaF4wRo7q2oMPBOQXqDDoopNwEtn_3_b-GjowIlVMf9QcPRFNonM6I3vxpdCn5iqhRy2S5OmkiuIJaJxXSKfh2vS0KYtiIZQn/s1600/girls.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBv7lpsVBepFlEtL7njIoyPTuZXV-uOLRg2ONFQtBM-QLCaF4wRo7q2oMPBOQXqDDoopNwEtn_3_b-GjowIlVMf9QcPRFNonM6I3vxpdCn5iqhRy2S5OmkiuIJaJxXSKfh2vS0KYtiIZQn/s320/girls.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Video and photographs are without doubt powerful, important, and useful but they do not convey everything that first hand experience does. Not only that, they can be edited to downplay or eliminate some selected subject matter while emphasizing other subjects. No matter how carefully one puts photojournalism together, it is always, by definition, a reflection of what is in the editor’s head. The same is true whether it is video or individual images captured by a still camera. A wedding photographer sees a story that a bride wants told and chooses to exclude the drunken relative seen pestering the groom while emphasizing the little flower girls arranging the bride's dress. </span>An advertising executive sees a flaw in the product and chooses to photograph it from a different angle. An architectural photographer waits for the exact time of day that the shadows strike correctly as seen from exactly the right direction. A war correspondent selectively chooses subject matter to reflect well on the side that he favors (and all war <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeh2DuDIxfdWWv2rMOxZvOFJgpoBYfhIKtl_BnkYht-8oCfQe2w4nWadoVwzdPeqyT66YJ5u3HevhGA6sO6J-Vz6SEsoBriHkX5jU856v-6gmH0KyXTNVRTK82NzBrEsovIJC9B3YXpv1e/s1600/tanker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1140" data-original-width="1600" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeh2DuDIxfdWWv2rMOxZvOFJgpoBYfhIKtl_BnkYht-8oCfQe2w4nWadoVwzdPeqyT66YJ5u3HevhGA6sO6J-Vz6SEsoBriHkX5jU856v-6gmH0KyXTNVRTK82NzBrEsovIJC9B3YXpv1e/s320/tanker.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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correspondents favor one side or the other no matter how altruistic their commentary). Etc, etc, etc… Photographers are story tellers and their photographs are but part of the story that is there to be told. Perhaps accurate, perhaps not, but rarely, if ever, complete. </div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I suggest that we are deluding ourselves as to exactly how smart we really are about what is going on around us. Some are talking about distinguishing between fake news and real news, but I make the argument that everything that we think that we know from books and pictures is, to some extent or another, fake - or, at the very least, nuanced and incomplete. How should a photographer deal with that situation? Should we care? Does it make any real difference?</span></div>
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Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-37205207409671597852018-12-01T18:19:00.003-08:002018-12-02T19:05:13.389-08:00Everybody is a Photographer<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Today, everybody is a photographer. The camera in our phones has revolutionized photography. It has also revolutionized the way in which we look at photography. When I was a child, my family subscribed to Life Magazine. I devoured the photography in that magnificent publication and came to love black & white images. National Geographic was also in our home and I was drawn to it as well, but for different reasons primarily having to do with a burgeoning love of travel. Eighty years ago there were far fewer images in our lives and they were smaller. Some of the most important were framed and hung on the wall. Billboards were out there when we traveled, of course, but they were novelties. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGOmqzOU1sRHnH3kh0bFfeBgmZUeneHUQ9sZPi9LVcojrRpLkcS3HZ4wN_we-WPa04_UDbqVQiNl25H2GecDAy3sifHvh9a3LLfbZsmLpxg2zgABEY37MmkkX83FwdNaVmWFDD3qcaZGJE/s1600/breakfast.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGOmqzOU1sRHnH3kh0bFfeBgmZUeneHUQ9sZPi9LVcojrRpLkcS3HZ4wN_we-WPa04_UDbqVQiNl25H2GecDAy3sifHvh9a3LLfbZsmLpxg2zgABEY37MmkkX83FwdNaVmWFDD3qcaZGJE/s320/breakfast.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Breakfast</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Today, we are constantly surrounded by images and many of the most interesting of them move. Technology has stimulated the revolution, of course, by giving us the internet, our phone and social media. Today, early in the morning, we photograph our breakfast and send it proudly to friends and family. Construction workers air drop images to one another as they discuss challenges at work. Satellites and drones record every inch of the world around us. Technicians photograph our innards during surgery. Not only do we record images of everything in our lives, increasingly we communicate through images as exemplified by Facebook and Instagram. We are on our phones and computers so much during the day that we track our screen time and ensure that we get enough steps in even if we have to do it at our standup desk. We talk less and photograph more. Memes and emojis fill in around the edges.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Technology is also improving the cameras that we use. Today’s better cameras capture an amazing amount of information about the scene at which they are pointed. Software has been developed that can manipulate that information to improve and or change the image as first recorded. Mountains can be moved, light can be added or taken away, images can be combined and altered. That software has gotten so capable that a photograph is no longer the proof of much of anything. It is but an image - make of it what you will. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwxNZEX_bY3Y0gyP5OBDwwA9GuOjvHmYv8xcAcjj8Vgg_M1nQRULyw1xFTNB9bZhuUZ_Lph_XZdobve-vrM5s8jHlTHOq_qvZjC5BmcybRSTurq-KBWrzSRA6AQxeafOwUd-xAJjPyb8Qj/s1600/gabb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="594" data-original-width="800" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwxNZEX_bY3Y0gyP5OBDwwA9GuOjvHmYv8xcAcjj8Vgg_M1nQRULyw1xFTNB9bZhuUZ_Lph_XZdobve-vrM5s8jHlTHOq_qvZjC5BmcybRSTurq-KBWrzSRA6AQxeafOwUd-xAJjPyb8Qj/s400/gabb.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A billboard in Oregon advertising the Gualala Arts Photography Club.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I am not a psychologist, but I suspect that all of this is impacting humanity in very fundamental ways. One of the aspects of this explosion in photography that interests me a great deal is how it impacts our perception of reality and what that means with regard to our relationship one with another.</span></div>
<br />Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0