Month: September 2010

by Conor Friedersdorf

A reader writes:

I don't really have a job, per se, I have a career, as a freelance photographer. Everybody in commercial photography is going backwards, even Annie Liebovitz, who was formerly in the category of a wealthy photographer but isn't so much anymore.

The main thing my clients don't understand is the overhead of running photography business. Digital has replaced film in the commercial photography world, but professional digital cameras and lenses are very expensive. It's hard to explain why I need to charge so much for a day's work when $400 pocket camera's are up to 12 Megapixels and I have a 10 figure investment in big, professional cameras with similar "resolution" cameras, and a collection of expensive lenses that cost $1500 plus. I also have to continually re-invest in faster computers, new displays, new software, data storage, etc. It's a deluge of expenses that just never stops.

But their personal "digital" experience informs them that shooting digitally is essentially free because there isn't any film or processing costs from their perspective, so it usually goes right over their heads. No, I can't produce a print-quality catalog with a digicam with a built in flash, I'm sorry, but give it a try yourself and let me know how it goes.

I am also continually investing money into buying and maintaining very expensive lighting and grip equipment, marketing, and continually spending my non-shooting days preparing detailed, legally binding bids that almost always get rejected for being too high, not matter how much I keep chipping away at my profit margin to get the job.

Basically, trying to explain to potential clients why I need $1500 plus expenses to shoot for a day is falling on increasingly deaf ears. They simply don't realize the overhead behind what they perceive as an exorbitant rate for what they see as one day's work. Especially when young, inexperienced photographers, with equipment bought by daddy's money, are eager to shoot the same job for half that, or less.

There are also usage fees to consider – fewer and fewer people don't realize that they do not own the images, which used to be a significant income source to offset all the other expenses. Now they just want a "buyout" license to use them however they see fit. Which makes it even more difficult to keep shoot fees low, because as a proprietor, I have to make a profit to feed my family. But they just don't know any better.

At this point we're battling 2 generations of people who think that anything that can be downloaded should be free…

The hardest hit are photojournalists, in my opinion. The last time I checked, most newspapers and news magazines have slashed their salaried people, who weren't exactly getting rich anyway, and hiring "stringers" for a couple of hundred dollars per day, including expenses. Which is a crime since PJ's do the most relevant work, and often produce the most beautiful work, but get almost nothing for their efforts. As a writer yourself, I'm sure you can appreciate that.

Essentially, it's yet another race to the bottom. Do more, charge less, and still produce fabulous work. We try, but with few exceptions, the bottom has already been hit. A lot of great photographers are leaving the business to pursue new careers in other fields. And you can see that any time by just picking up an increasingly thin magazine, or look at low rez images on web sites produced by healthy companies. Our skills, investments, and vision are simply less valuable to them now, and it
shows.

by Zoe Pollock

"Sovereign Joy" by Rodney Jones, from the Atlantic Monthly in 2005:

On the John Deere he felt inaugurated,
freshly minted, risen to eminence.
He could hit the left foot brake, square-
pirouette at the floodgate, and follow
the creekbank back to the barn. He knew
where liveth and when goeth and how
lift harrow and turn governor down.
He had studied paradise—this came close,
making a vow always to live right
and perfect corners he'd cheat by littles
until he went in an oval, round
and round, not seeing everything, but happy,
breaking ground, a farm boy with the Beatles
in his head, a young Baptist dancing.

Audio of the author reading the poem can be found here.

(Image by Flickr user esivesind)

by Zoe Pollock

Vaughan Bell reports on visions of a psychedelic future, by imbibing a muddy brown brew known as yagé:

In a hut, in a forest, in the mountains of Colombia, I am puking into a bucket. I close my eyes and every time my body convulses I see ripples in a lattice of multi-coloured hexagons that flows out to the edges of the universe.

Bell's spirit quest was in response to an article in September’s Nature Reviews Neuroscience, which tries to assess the growing research on the potential of hallucinogens to treat depression and anxiety. Mo at Neurophilosophy adds more:

The criminalization of LSD in 1970 was evidently a knee-jerk reaction by governments to the sensationalist media reports about the dangers of the drug that occurred without proper debate. A similar situation arose earlier this year, when the British government banned mephedrone. Examination of the reasons why the early LSD trials were brought to an end so abruptly could therefore provide valuable lessons about how controversial drugs could be effectively incorporated into modern medicine.

by Conor Friedersdorf

Nick Gillespie reflects on the folks at the Glenn Beck rally:

For much of the new century, and certainly for all of the past three years, there has been nothing but uncertainty in the economy and a good degree of uncertainty in the political arena. The people we talked to felt something like cogs in a machine whose shape and size they didn't even understand. They were not rabid xenophobes or racists or even haters in general, but they were pissed off that their individual actions did not seem to mean much. They were not conspiracists (few if any brought up Obama as a Muslim or a foreign national, for instance), but they felt cheated and frustrated that their individual lives seemed to be controlled by larger forces and institutions over which they had little or no control. And to the extent that they talked about government, the focus was generally upon government spending that they assumed threatened to destroy the future, for them and their kids or grandkids.

One cause of this feeling is the steady trend toward giving greater power to the federal government at the expense of states and localities. Tell me that my city has done something I don't like, and I can go speak to the person who cast the deciding vote face to face. In less than a month I can attend a public meeting where I make my case to elected officials and fellow citizens. If that doesn't help, and it's an issue I care enough about, I can back a challenger during the next election, or run for office myself. All these remedies are realistically available to every single citizen. And even the citizen who loses on an issue, having exhausted every remedy, doesn't feel powerless. They feel as though they made their case in the democratic process and lost.

Our states are big enough that it's much harder to impact the process at that level, compared to something that is decided at the local level. But if California does something that upsets me enough, I can initiate a campaign for a ballot initiative, or run for the state assembly… or I can move elsewhere: Oregon has some nice Pacific coastline, and New Mexico offers lots of sunshine and decent avocados. 

Federal legislation is a different beast.

One cannot remain in the country without being subject to it. Getting an audience with one's senator is unlikely, and even one's congressperson is often away or else busy with other business. Reversing legislation at the federal level is exceedingly difficult, one cannot speak before the relevant body or even attend its sessions with any ease, its rules are complicated and opaque, and trying to influence it, a single citizen hasn't a chance (unless he or she can afford a good lobbyist).

Now take an issue where the country is evenly divided. If it is handled at the federal level, half the populace is unhappy. Handling it at the local level affords a chance for a lot higher percentage of people to live under the rule they prefer. It is vitally important and entirely proper that the federal government protect the constitutional rights of every citizen, and carry out its enumerated functions. Beyond that, however, there are good reasons to decide things at as local a level as is practical, and one of them is the fact that local control empowers Americans to shape the institutions under which they live.

by Zoe Pollock

The glory days of New York's gossip scene may be coming to an end thanks to internet competition, but the eternal allure of the biz remains as strong as ever:

"The thing about gossip is, if you know it, you're in the know, and most people want to sit next to you," says Paula Froelich, the fiery, 10-year veteran of Page Six… "For the people who stick their nose up at it, I laugh my ass off. Complete governments have changed because of gossip. Everyone wants to sit next to someone who knows something."

by Zoe Pollock

Marcia Coyle reports that "for the first time in more than 30 years, the U.S. military has allowed an enlisted Sikh soldier to maintain his religiously-mandated turban, beard and hair while serving in the Army." James Joyner reacts:

The ultimate objection, really, is cultural.  As Nick Tankersley puts it, “Turbans and beards? Not in my military.” I was part of that culture long enough to share that visceral reaction.  But my rationality allows me to see it for what it is and understand that it makes no sense to deny highly qualified individuals the right to serve in uniform while practicing their faith without more serious conflicts than the uniform regs.  And, goodness knows, we need more soldiers with South Asian language proficiency.

The Army wants everyone to look the same — hence the uniforms — and conform to an image.   Men in beards, long hair, and turbans don’t fit that image.    Then again, neither do women.   Yet, while they wear essentially the same uniforms, they’re allowed to wear their hair at a reasonable length — far shorter than the tight taper mandated for male soldiers.  And, frankly, long hair looks  funny under a beret.  Somehow, we’ve managed to adapt.

(Image: AP)

by Conor Friedersdorf

We'll begin here:

I'm an engineer. Specifically, an aerospace engineer by education and a software engineer by vocation. There's a lot that the media gets right about my profession. (We have Scott Adams to thank for that.) There are still a few things that usually go overlooked. One thing in particular stands out to me: engineering is often portrayed as a boring, lifeless job. No magic.

Not true! It's one of the best things about it. I love the alchemy that takes the stuff of daydreams and spins it into hard, tangible reality. What we have dreamed, we have done. Uncounted generations dreamed of soaring with the birds. Tonight, you can go outside and watch airplanes drift lazily across the sky in exactly the same way that a hundred tons of aluminum shouldn't. And when you look up at the Moon tonight, remember that we've left six flags and a dozen sets of footprints up there. They'll outlast the Pyramids. It isn't the same kind of magic as pure fantasy, it requires structure and discipline, but the magic is there.

Engineer number two:

BP’s oil spill is a sterling example of how people only see good that engineers do. We all watched and waited as engineers for BP tried solution after solution to block the leaking oil. We all marveled that the technology (designed by engineers) could drill a relief well that would reach a 12 inch hole from five miles away. We all marveled at the temporary cap that finally worked: over a hundred thousand pounds of steel and concrete precisely placed thousands of feet below the ocean surface.

But where is the backlash against us? Where is the engineer getting flayed alive because the blowoff preventer failed? America blames the bureaucrats when disaster strikes, but thanks the engineers who “avert the crisis.” When the reality of this mess, and every other, is that advances in technology that allowed deep sea drilling, floating oil refineries, advanced prospecting, and a cadre of other capabilities required for the Deep Horizons rig to be where it was, doing what it was, all were available because we engineers had carefully and cleverly developed new technologies that allow humans to rape the Earth to a greater and greater degree.

What I am trying to get at is this: all too often engineers are the “I was just doing my job” pronouncers after disasters occur that they could have prevented with a little ethics. Imagine if civil engineers had taken a stand and done something after the May 1995 flood had shut down New Orleans and revealed the problems with the city’s drainage pumping system. Katrina could probably have been averted. Imagine if engineers (and their cousins, the surveyors) refused to build larger and larger highway systems in cities and demanded mass transit be built instead? Imagine if mechanical engineers refused to design coal power plants until more wind farms were built.  How many times does the Mississippi River have to flood before the Army Corps of Engineers realizes that a deep, narrow channel is a terrible idea? But these things do not happen. Engineers are seemingly content to work at their frenetic pace and let someone else decide what projects are ethical.

While engineers can happily take credit for directly or indirectly developing most of the world’s modern wonders…we as a group need to realize that we have a moral obligation to humanity just like politicians…and the means to enact change perhaps better than they.

Engineer number three:

Every client wants their job done to the highest quality, quickly, and cheaply.  However, you can only achieve two of those three elements in any given project.  Pick the two that are most important to you.

Engineer number four:

I'm a mechanical engineer — what people don't get about my job is that it actually takes very little technical skill.  I spent four years learning theory, critical thinking, problem solving, and research methodology, only to enter a field in which every piece of information one needs is in a table or chart somewhere.  If you can use email, attend meetings, do Google searches, and write complete sentences, you can be an engineer too!

by Conor Friedersdorf

The Guardian reports:

We know this. At around 120,000 feet, on the fringes of space, the air is so thin that a falling human body would travel fast enough to exceed the speed of sound. A skydiver, properly equipped with pressurised suit and a supply of oxygen to protect against the hostile elements, could feasibly jump from that height and, about 30 seconds later, punch through the sound barrier – becoming the first person ever to go "supersonic" without the aid of an aircraft or space shuttle.

Here our knowledge ends. Experts admit cluelessness. Our skydiver could render a mighty "krakoom!" across the high skies or history could be made in utter silence. Immense forces could knock the intrepid skydiver out cold, could peel the skin back from his body or simply cause a little wobble in the midriff, like a playful hug. Nobody is quite sure – but one of two men will soon find out.

(Hat tip: Graeme Wood)

by Conor Friedersdorf

This song is making the rounds. 

Insofar as it's a couple of guys with guitars trying to add their voices to the national conversation I applaud their initiative, though I'd prefer if Americans cut out this nonsense where showing oneself to have been insulted is a propaganda tactic. Implicitly signaling to celebrities that their most inane political analysis matters is a foolhardy move.

Especially unfortunate is invoking a celebrity who says the Tea Party Movement doesn't know history, and proceeding to sing those lyrics. The colonists were rebelling against a European monarch more than "a bunch of politicians." The Founding Fathers, cast as country boys in the song, were actually drawn largely from a colonial elite whose members didn't push their own plows. As delegates to the Continental Congress they were also politicians to a man. And the government they established emphatically interposed elected or appointed elites between the levers of power and regular people.

Later in the song, there's a line about how "the same blood is running through our veins" today as in 1776, but actually the many waves of immigration separating us from the Founding mean that the national blood lines, irrelevant though they may be, are quite different. As different are the manifold problems that the United States faces today: the songwriters might recall, for example, that the Constitution was written to strengthen the federal government at a time when our young nation was vulnerable to invasion due to our small, underfunded citizen military, whereas now our federal government is too big, powerful, and intrusive, and our lavishly funded professional military is easily the most powerful on earth.

Aside from being totally ahistorical, the song is very catchy, and I'm sure it'll be an effective propaganda tool.That's enough for a lot of people who know better to embrace it. The irony is that one could write completely true lyrics that made the case against an overweening federal government, invoking everything from drug laws to the health care bill to No Child Left Behind, and it would be even more powerful for being correct. But that would require more thought than lazily relying on a convenient narrative, and when political allies applaud one another regardless, where's the incentive to do better? Thank goodness the actual Founders came so much closer to sound arguments and accurate grievances in their declarations. Obviously that generation produced its share of nonsensical propaganda too, but the most consequential writing passed down is so much more than that.

by Conor Friedersdorf

A reader writes:

I am a rocket scientist.  The one thing people always fail to understand about my job is that rocket science is, in fact, quite simple.  The laws of physics that govern the behavior of rockets have been known for centuries, and are really not that complicated.  So, next time you consider using the phrase "it ain't rocket science", please consider substituting "it ain't brain surgery" instead.  I've never met a brain surgeon, but I imagine that that job really is as complicated as it sounds.