I love the Independence Day celebration at the capitol, and hope to partake next year as well. I have something a little different in mind photographically, so we’ll see how that turns out. Have a good weekend!
Point of order, though: I do appreciate all the salutations and greetings today, but rather than saying, “Happy 4th!” I would delight in hearing, “Happy Independence Day!” After all, that’s what today is about, regardless of where it happens to have landed on the calendar.
By the way, on this day which rings true the message of individual liberty in the heart of all red-blooded Americans, it caught my attention that people who are “fiercely nationalistic” or “reverent of individual liberty” are labeled as terrorists by a new study on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security (link opens as PDF in new window).
Well, USA and liberty, if lovin’ you is wrong…I don’t wanna be right. The report above tries to mask its claims against such people by qualifying them as accompanied by preparing to retaliate violently. That brings me back to one of Clint’s Rules of Reality (heretofore unpublished, lest be it labeled a “manifesto”:
This isn’t the first time people who oppose abortion, people who put stickers on the back of their trucks, people who attend Tea Party rallies (but not Occupy Wall Street), or people who support Ron Paul (among whom I am not one) have been branded as dangerous and possible terrorists…and it won’t be the last. I just wanted to inform you that if this day has brought to mind a swell of national pride and love of liberty, look out: you may have just become an enemy of the state…at least while Hope™ and Change™ are the bywords of the day.
As a boy growing up in the Rocky Mountains (if at all) I remember looking out over the city below one night and realizing exactly what Dickens describes; each light in the city represents a home, full of people, doing whatever they’re doing, feeling whatever they’re feeling, and so on. It was an epiphany upon which I dwelled some time ago as I stood atop U-Mary hill with my camera, taking a wide-angle photo of Bismarck-Mandan. In fond remembrance I decided to take another such photo tonight.
As I reached the top of the hill I realized that a storm was approaching. I’ve taken almost 80,000 photos in my lifetime, but never really chased lightning; however, in this case it was a target of opportunity. As luck would have it, I was in the right place at the right time as a few giant lightning bolts danced across the frame. I may have to try this more often!
(Yes, the post title is a hat tip to the song title by the band Live)
This one somehow found a way to perch on my boy’s Hot Wheels bike, and I think he really liked the feel of the tire on his toes. He spent a great deal of time there before flying off toward the wood pile in search of his mommy. She was hovering about but reluctant to swoop in with dinner since my two little guys and I were there watching, so we decided to head into the house for their bath time and let the robins have their dinner.
For me, photography is a storytelling tool. I thought it very interesting that this guy had utilized the very shallow water over a sandbar to set up shop, complete with a chair and a pair of rodholders, to enjoy a little fishing. While in the middle of the Big Muddy, and technically still in the water, he’d used the sandbar to find a nice parking spot out in the middle of it all. But there was more to the story:
When I went back to camp with my camera, I thought I’d made the bare minimum of one interesting photo. What I found was, although I only shot one setting, I had captured details which only made themselves apparent later when I had the opportunity to look at them full-size. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, my photo trip had been far more successful than I could have known simply looking through the viewfinder.
That got me thinking…if I was a developer and wanted to plat out a neighborhood, it’d be great to put together Adobe CS product names like Illustrator Avenue, Premiere Lane…or something double geeky like Flash Drive!
Of course, there are naming conventions for streets in Bismarck that would disallow that, but it’s still fun to think about.
Have a good weekend – get out and enjoy this wonderful world!
I watched intently as they gathered closer and closer, grooming feathers and rubbing bills, until they were packed in tightly enough for comfort. The vigilant mother kept an eye on me despite the distance, and slowly little duckling eyes began to close.
Once they settled and I’d taken a LOT of photos from a couple of different angles, it was time to let them have their nap in peace and move on to see more of the planned exhibits. It was cool to catch such an unexpected display within the zoo boundaries!
I didn’t get a chance to make one point: if Measure 2 had simply said, “State, county, and local governments may not levy, impose, or collect taxes on property” I would have voted an enthusiastic YES. That would have accomplished the job and allowed the legislature to react accordingly. That would give plenty of time for debate as to how to react and allow for the legislative process to work through any unexpected issues in the process.
Measure 2, however, nosed the issue into a constitutional corner. By prescribing what I call the “magic formula” method of the legislature to fund local government, the measure went too far…irreversibly so. In that case, if adjustments needed to be made, they could only be done by another constitutional measure. What a mess. It also worked retroactively, allowing no time for debate on specifics.
I spoke to a friend who was a huge proponent of Measure 2 from the beginning, and he told me that Measure 2 was simply “too long.” He’s the one that opened my eyes to the possibility above, that it should have simply done away with property taxes and stopped there. Instead, by codifying a solution for property tax replacement into constitutional law, it became a lesson in what I call “bad mechanics” and doomed itself to failure.
Anyway, you can check out the brief transcript of the Rush segment here. Not my most eloquent minute and a half, but at least I didn’t screw up my first nationwide radio appearance.
One artifact of note is the “glow” where the hills meet the darkening sky. I originally saw this in Photoshop and thought it was an artifact of processing, as I did lighten the foreground a little bit. I thought I had been heavy-handed in that processing; however, a close inspection of the original raw photos shows that the glow on the hills was actually there. Whether it was caused by the rays somehow or the breaking cloud cover behind the hills, I don’t know.
With that, the sky cleared briefly and I had to reboot my little photo trip in search of a different type of photo. A storm rolled through shortly thereafter, but I was caught out of position and didn’t manage to capture the ominous front as it approached. Instead I returned to the garage and set out to tinker on stuff for a while, but my cameras and I returned to sunset duty on Sunday – this time with two little boys attending – and I’ll post the results of that photo dash soon.