Robert, the iPhone 6s Plus and me

No visit to New York City would be complete for me without a visit to the Museum of Art and Design on Columbus Circle.  Not only do we see new and exciting exhibits each time, but lunch at Robert, on the 9th floor is always a treat, gastronomically and visually.

The view of Columbus Circle and Central Park is breathtaking and this time I tried to capture it with the iPhone 6s Plus and the olloclip supplementary fisheye and wide angle lenses.

But  first, let’s eat. Cocktails of course, my habitual Manhattan and this time Linda picked Autumn Spice (tasted good but I do not now what was in it).   Linda had salmon and I had a shrimp stew.  Then cheesecake (after all we are in New York) for desert.

Coctails

Shrimp

 Salmon

 Cheese

To set the scene I used the panoramic option on the iPhone to capture the entire restaurant (well almost, there are more tables around the corner).

But the visual main event is Columbus Circle.   I will let the photographs speak for themselves.
The fisheye produced some interesting effects and the wide angle worked on the verticals capturing the tall building that dominates the Circle.

New York through the lens of an iPone 6

Usually on my annual trip to New York City I illustrate thoughts and activities with my photos.  Since my last trip I purchased an iPhone 6s Plus and decided to make this trip a photographic odyssey experimenting with my new phone camera.   When cameras began appearing on smart phones, like most professional photographers I considered them simply a toy for amateurs to play with.  But now I must admit I am having a great deal of fun especially with features my DSLS don’t have,  So these blogs will probably be of more interest to my friends at the Island Arts Association Photograpers Group and the Coffee and Cameras.  However, if you’d like to see New York City through the lens of an iPhone 6, come along.

One of the more intriguing features is the instant panorama.  You take a single slow moving (left to right) shot and the camera make the panorama instantly.  No need to take several shots and stitche them together in the computer.

What's in a name, a lie by any other name...

Donald Trump called Ted Cruz the biggest liar he has ever seen.  Apparently Donald has not looked in the mirror lately.  Truth, especially on the Republican side, is in scarce supply. 

 

Much to the annoyance of my Conservative friends, I have an annoying habit of checking PolitiFact.  Recently I pointed out that Donald Trump has told so many “pants on fire” (the most blatant) lies PolitiFact could not single out one for the title 2015 Lie of the Year so they bestowed that dubious honor on the sum of all his lies.  Those Conservative friends, of course, huffed indignantly and blew it off with “Well PolitiFact is not always reliable.”  For Republicans, truth is arbitrary, optional and relative to what they want to believe.

We all know that every politicians lies to some extent.  Yes, even Hillary and Bernie have told some whoppers, but compared to the two Republican front runners, the Dems are rank amateurs.  You can go to PolitiFact.com and see for yourselves.

I find Cruz’s and Rubio’s lies much more problematical and dangerous than Trump’s.  Most of Trump’s lies are so bombastic and outlandish that they are swallowed only by the bottom of the far-right brainless barrel.  Things like, he saw thousands of Muslims cheering the fall of the Twin Towers, or unemployment is probably, 28, 29 as high as 35 “in fact I even heard recently 42 percent,” and his tweet that crime statistics show blacks kill 82 percent of white homicide victims.  These are blatantly intended to stir up fear, hatred, bigotry and racism, and, unfortunately, work very well in whipping up his white, male uneducated base.

But Cruz, and also Rubio, tell their lies so well, with such a straight face, feigning sincerity and authority, that they can deceive even some relatively rational, Republicans.  In other words, they make the lies sound plausible enough that more educated Republicans find them credible.  That’s the dangerous part, they are such skillful liars that Republicans do not question them.

For example, in their never-ending battle to kill Obamacare, Republicans will believe anything they’re told, like Cruz’s statement “Obamacare is the biggest job-killer in this country—millions of Americans have lost their jobs, have been forced into part-time work.” That is totally untrue, i.e. a “pants on fire” lie. But because he says it with such feigned authority, Republicans believe it because that’s what they want to hear.  And once the lie is told, it sticks in their minds and there is no way you can convince them it is not true.

Rubio told Meet the Press that Iran released the hostages two days after Reagan’s inauguration “because Iran perceived America was no longer under the command of someone weak (a not very veiled reference to Obama).”  Another “pants on fire” lie.  You can look it up.

Most recently, referring to appointing a replacement for Justice Scalia, Cruz stated at the Greenville, SC, debate and repeated on Meet the Press that “We have 80 years of precedent of not confirming Supreme Court justices in an election year.”   There is no “long tradition” of presidential passivity or Congressional obstruction.  It is simply rare for a justice to leave the court voluntarily or involuntarily--like Scalia--during an election year.  When it has happened, the president promptly nominated a replacement.

In this election year, Republicans are highly susceptible that old political truism, if you tell a big lie over and over again, people will believe it.

Iowa? So?

The good news is that that Iowa caucuses will be over in seven days.  The bad news is we will have to endure seven more days of Iowa hysteria.

Every four years we are subjected to the presidential elections circuses intended to name the two parties’ candidates.  The ritual begins with the Iowa caucuses when everyone in the United States is expected to agonize over polls and pundit commentary, breathlessly waiting to learn who Iowans will select as their nominees.

In the interest of political science you are invited to participate in a political survey to determine your Iowa tolerance quotient:

Question 1:  Do you have any idea why all the presidential candidates are groveling to Iowans and the news media are going nearly berserk about covering, analyzing and speculating on the Iowa caucuses?

Question 2: Do you really care who Iowans want to be the presidential candidates?

Question 3:  Do you know what a caucus is?

Question 4:  Do you know where Iowa is?

In the interest of full disclosure here are my answers.

Question 1:  No, I have no idea why I every four years presidential candidates ingratiate themselves to Iowans.  I get very tired of endless interviews with white, wholesome looking Iowans, mostly seniors, drinking coffee in local diners offering their assessments of presidential candidates and the candidates’ fervid, public declarations of how much they love Jesus Christ.  I do not know why a state that is 92 percent white, 3.4 percent black and 5.6 percent Hispanic and largely rural is somehow considered a representative cross section of all American.  We are told that the reason Iowa is so important is because it is first to declare a nominee, whatever significance that has.

Question 2:  No, I do not give a damn about who Iowa farmers think should be the presidential nominees.  I have nothing in common with them and they, in my opinion, do not represent the American public and are certainly not representative of me.  Of course Iowa television stations make a lot of money on political advertising during this period and over the years Iowa corn farmers have gotten huge Federal Government handouts to subsidize corn for ethanol.

Question 3:  No, I do not know what a caucus is and I don’t care.

Question 4: Yes, I do know where Iowa is.  I have been there and I found it probably the most boring, dull, uninteresting place in the entire universe unless you like driving through flat fields of corn and soybeans.

But this whole Iowa thing is just indicative of how ridiculous our American political system has become.  Last Sunday in the pursuit of political research I watched the three major network morning news programs where they interviewed the top candidates and then did panel discussions interpreting and analyzing what the candidates just said.  Then I watched the pre-game shows for the NFL playoffs. 

It was hard to tell where politics left off and the football began.  It has all—football and politics—become so much hoopla and show business, hyperbole and hysteria.  The caucuses and primaries are like the playoffs leading up to the Presidential Election.  You get play-by-play and commentary with announcers hyperventilating about how exciting all this is and attempting to generate suspense about the outcome.

There is one major difference between the NFL Super Bowl and presidential elections.  The playoff run up to the Super Bowl only lasts a couple months.  We have to endure the run up to the presidential election for well over a year.

Note: I don’t give a damn about New Hampshire either.

Warning:  This short story contains language that may be offensive to Republicans and N.R.A members.

The Legend of Bobby John

It was probably the finest moment in Bobby John Klinger’s life, that night when he strode into the Hog’s Neck BBQ and Bar and proudly displayed his concealed gun carry permit.

He walked slowly to the bar, enjoying the admiring gazes of his friends.  After a dramatic pause in the hushed silence of the room, he slapped the document on the bar and gently, almost reverently, placed his Glock 9mm on top of it.  His crowd of friends burst spontaneously into applause and shouted everybody was buying Bobby John’s beers that night.

Bobby John was a natural leader.  He founded the local group called Super American Patriots dedicated to all the things he fervently believed in.  In a rousing, inspiring, eloquent speech at the Hog’s Neck when he established the group he had said, “We gotta make sure them fuckin’ liberals don’t take our guns away.  We gotta show that black Muslim Obama we don’t want no Aye-rab Muslims comin’ into our wonderful country and we gotta get rid of them rapist Mexicans livin’ here illegally and taking my money to pay them lots of gov’ment benefits.”

  

When he declared “We gotta bomb the shit out of them fucking ISIS Muslims,” The crowd at the Hog’s Neck went ecstatic with cheers and a deafening ovation shook the room.  Yes, Bobby John was absolutely sure he and his pals represented the heart and soul of America and the best of American values. 

 

Bobby John firmly believed that every American man, woman and child should own a gun to protect him or herself.  There was absolutely no need in Bobby John’s mind to specify what you needed a gun to protect yourself from.  As long as you could scare people enough to think they needed a gun, that was good enough for him. 

But the real threat, according to Bobby John was that Americans had to arm in order to protect themselves from their own government.  “Just like the Constitution says,” Bobby John declared, “we gotta have a well-regulated militia--that’s us my friends--to keep the gov’ment from takin’ over our lives.”  The fact that the existing government spends billions of dollars to maintain and equip highly trained armed forces didn’t seem to make him think he might face overwhelming odds in case he wanted to rise up against the government.

But that didn’t matter because Bobby John knew absolutely that God was on his side.   Anybody who did not agree with him and the Super American Patriots would have to answer to God. 

 

Then came that fateful night in Wal-Mart.  Bobby John was there to buy himself a new pair of camouflage underwear, carrying, of course, his concealed Glock 9mm.   As he turned the corner of the underwear isle, he saw the man, a dark silhouette at the end of the isle wearing a ski mask and wielding an AK-47.   The man started firing his weapon off to the left.

Suddenly, all Bobby John’s dreams of being the heroic, concealed gun carrier who would valiantly save everyone from a mass shooting in a public place flashed through his mind.  Yes, he was destined to be the good guy with the gun who puts down the bad guy with the gun and to be hailed as a hero in his home town, to be praised on national television as an example of that courage, resourcefulness and exceptionalism that makes this country great.

Then something strange happened to Bobby John.  When the shooter turned his gun down the aisle towards him, he frantically began pulling at his Glock which seemed to be stuck in the holster.  Finally he ripped it free but his hand was shaking so wildly the only shot he managed to get off hit the light fixture in the ceiling sprinkling him with flakes of neon tubes.

Then, as the shooter pointed the AK-47 at him, he felt the flood of urine running down his legs and when he saw the flash from the shooter’s weapon the burst of feces exploded in his pants.

Bobby John never knew that the police arrived about 15 seconds later and dispatched the shooter immediately.    Unfortunately, four people were killed including Bobby John, and three injured, qualifying the event for the national news.

Two of Bobby John’s friends were in the store that night and saw his crumpled body on the Wal-Mart floor his Glock 9mm firmly in hand with just a trace of a smile on his face. One of his friends remarked, “Jesus, look at all that blood, piss and shit.”

What followed, however, was truly inspiring.  The city commission passed a resolution to erect a monument in the town square to Robert Johnathan Klinger declaring him the local hero who bravely stood up against an oppressive government that wanted to take away the people’s gun rights and who died in a dramatic, self-sacrificing armed confrontation against a fanatic Muslim terrorist.  Since the event was reported on national news, the N.R.A. immediately began running “The Bobby John Story” in tv ads claiming this fine, brave young man was a perfect example of why more law-abiding Americans should carry guns.

The fact that an investigation showed the Wal-Mart shooter was an angry, mentally-challenged white Evangelical Christian loner who bought the attack weapon at a gun show after he had lost his minimum-wage job at the local MacDonald’s was never mentioned.