Just got back from 4 days in Algonquin Provincial Park. We stayed on North Tea and Manitou lakes, in really very lovely campsites. 1 day was kind of miserably cold for a few hours, but otherwise it was awesome. Alex, her brother Geof, his wife Veronica, our friend Brad, and I all went. 2 canoes and 1 kayak (I got the latter; insert squeal of excitement). It was way rad. :) I don’t have most of the pics, since my camera had some bad batteries… and bad backup batteries. But I have a few, and here are three:

border wall under construction - Hidalgo, TX

Flickr has a weakness: it allows photographers to title their own photos. This is often a bad thing. Let me demonstrate:

Exhibit 1: a lovely photo. Simply great. It’s got a wonderful balance of color, some excellent use of depth of field, and really nice composition. Title: “Enchantment.” Now I’m forced to experience intrusive images from bad fantasy novels when I see the picture. Not even good fantasy; bad fantasy.

Here’s another one. Not as stunning as the first, but still, interesting point of view, nice visual lines, etc. And then a title that wrenches my mind toward bad 1990s Lifetime Network movies: “Follow Your Own Path.” Plus, in the description the artist says s/he “literally kissed the sun” in that spot. No, you did not. Back to my original point, the title is not good.

This one I really like, too. Great plant shot. While you’re enjoying the juicy green, look at the title. LOOK AT IT! Now wash your eyes out at the hazmat station for a minimum of five minutes. Follow workplace standards for contamination with caustic substances.

It goes on and on. Titles like “Freedom,” “Faerie-House,” “True Enigma” (these are invariably self-portraits), “Indescribably Luscious,” “Ultimate Escape,” etc. etc. etc. (got tired of sifting through the bad titles). And I’m not even talking about the pictures people take of their pets and children. No, these are good pictures, art-wise (IMHO), that have horrendous titles. I breathe sighs of relief when I see titles like “Jan 27, 2008″ or “IMG_2452″ or the ever-appropriate “untitled.”

People should maybe think of hiring someone else to do their titles. Also, Flickr should let me browse title-optional. Yes, I crave no-title browsing. Because this hurts my brain.

Watching Bill O’Reilly (why do I do this to myself? I do not know) “interview” two alleged experts on interrogation has been a frustrating, fascinating few minutes. He’s asking, of course, about torture, waterboarding, etc. One is an eggheaded intellectual, while the other is more of a pragmatic policy man. The intellectual was clearly chosen because he was predicted to oppose the use of torture in interrogations, while the other guy was supposed to support it. But neither of them would unconditionally sign on to the idea of using torture to get intelligence about terror. Bill went around and around, making his question more and more general and gotcha-esque, trying to extract some commitment from these two (or at least one of them) that waterboarding et al. would be the best national security choice in some undefined scary situation. He gives up in exasperation when neither of them will take his bait (probably guaranteeing an out-of-context sound byte later on).

Once again, and more forcefully, I’m struck with the sense that party politics in America is a game of cliques. The in-groups come first, with the dogma, policies, and even values and beliefs, coming afterward. The entertainers (masquerading as newspeople) like O’Reilly, Limbaugh, Maddow, and Olbermann understand this, and feed their audiences a steady diet of self-confirming sugar water. But it’s the clique first. The ideals serve the cliques.

How else to explain the supposedly “Christian” right’s insistence on supporting any war waged by a fellow conservative? Or demanding that concealed handguns be allowed on Texas university campuses¹? Or supposedly-fiscally-responsible party members calling for increasing expansion of prisons, the military, and police forces at taxpayer expense? Or the antagonism to environmentalism in any form not sponsored by hunters and fishermen? How else to account for the “progressive” left’s protection of endangered species, sometimes at land- and business-owners’ expense, while insisting on the right of choice in even late-term, convenience-motivated abortion situations? And what about the mainstream left’s emerging opposition to nontraditional environmentalism and feminism? The illuminating factor is group loyalty and identity.

The most telling points are the flip-flops whenever the regimes change in Washington. For eight years, conservatives lambasted anyone protesting any of Bush/Cheney’s policies as antipatriotic, while the liberals crowed about the patriotism of dissent. Now that Obama’s in charge, we have John Stewart et al. ridiculing the Tea Party folks² while the right-wingers remind us that our Founding Fathers were protesters. This pattern holds with the expansion of executive power, as well (Obama has decided it’s not so bad, while the Republicans have discovered a taste for restraint). We are true to our school, before all else. And if the ideology fits within that, great. If not, we’ll twist it around until it does. This explains, I think, a huge amount of what goes on in U.S. government.

And now, a picture of some flowers:

1. but notably not in any legislative buildings [↩]
2. you will note my amazing restraint in not calling them Teabaggers [↩]

I’ll get to the cool pictures of night life on South Congress Avenue in Austin down at the end of this post. But first, as is my wont, I shall set the stage. I’m a member of the local union (Pan American United Faculty, currently a subsidiary of Texas Faculty Association, which is in some way a child organization of the NEA). Me. In a union. My right-wing upbringing instilled in me a loathing for unions (for reasons I’m still not completely clear on); but now I consider my $40 per month a good investment, because I keep learning freaky insane things about faculty being harassed or fired for bizarre or nonexistent reasons.

Odd that the public seems to think tenure is such a sweet deal, like it guarantees us profs a job for life. Certainly not in Texas. It just guarantees that there has to be “due process” before they summarily fire your sorry butt. In other words, it gives you a level of job security (at most American institutions) similar to (or less than) contracted workers in the private sector. You still get reviewed regularly, and if your performance is too low, you’re out. And for those of us who are not tenured, well, my job terms (I don’t have an actual contract) say I can be fired at any time, for any reason (or no reason), and I have no legal recourse. Continue reading →

Here in South Texas, stuff blows around a lot. Few trees and certainly no hills to stop it. Lots of wind. So my teeny back “yard” gets its share of trash. This delicious document was in the take sometime last month. Is it not precious? I defy you to malign its preciousness.

(sorry about the quality; it’s a faded, blurry document; I’ve done what I can to make it legible)

No, not that kind of flash testing, you pervert.

AAA! MY NOSE! AAA! MY FACE!

it's a radiation vibe she's grooving on

I have a new(ish) flash for my camera, and have figuratively pounced upon my long-suffering wife as a subject for testing its functions and performance. They were only goofy test shots, but a few of them turned out OK. Naturally, the “mistake” (overexposed – top) was lots of fun. A few more, under the cut.
Continue reading →

slight obsession with square composition

Fence in Edinburg. I guess there was a sign or sumthin.

...at least that's what I *think* they are...

what, am I an astrophotographer?

I know it’s not a turkey. It’s a great-tailed grackle. I don’t have any pictures of turkeys, even though wild ones apparently live in theseabouts. Since it’s a holiday, today I shall do no work. Probably. I did bring home a huge stack of tests that need grading, but I may just ignore them. In honor of turkey day, I have shamelessly ripped off the following from www.shoeboxblog.com :

Where Would We Be Without The Pilgrims?
An Essay by Dan

Jammed into England like sardines with bad teeth.

The End

Does he realize how poignant he is?

Another photo from the fun little carnival a couple of weeks ago. I now have one of those moody patriotic pictures. Actually, I probably have a few more somewhere. Despite my deep cynicism and fundamental insistence that patriotism isn’t (or should not be) exactly the animal it’s made out to be by certain groups here in the US… I am deeply patriotic, and sometimes get choked up over patriotic symbolism. I don’t consider that to be a bad thing.

After the cut: The Avenue of Poignant and Symbolic Flags with a Menacing Symbol of Capitalist Amusement Lurking at its Obscure Terminus!

Continue reading →

This is the only hurricane, to my knowledge, that has threatened South Texas this year. Threatened… with puking! Another photo from the little carnival last week, in case you hadn’t guessed. Under the cut: a pic (not quite as cool, IMO) where you can clearly see the terrifying title of this ride. Continue reading →

iz not best bed evar... is ok

Alex made me miss my cats today, so I’m posting a picture of Nyc (or Euphrates or whatever), who was briefly my cat, and who believed he owned my entire house, as you can see.

swirly swirly swirly swirly... PUKE!

It’s a cheesy pic; there are a thousand like it. But I wanted to take it anyway. Below, you see the beast at rest.

Exclusive: Centipedebot Devours McAllen

Femme fatale up to no good

Sadly, I will not be going to church with Alex for… let’s see… about six or seven more weeks. Sigh. To assuage my sadness, please indulge my recounting of three fun things from church today.

1. A South American man we know told us about how confusing it was, as a child, to spend half his day in a Catholic school and the other half in a school run by communists. I can only imagine.
2. While the Primary children were on the stand (yes, today was that day), Alex leaned over and whispered, “I am a child of God… and so can you!” Okay, I thought it was funny.
3. One of the children said, very loudly into the microphone, something about the Holy Goats. Boy does that have implications for my religious worldview ;)