Dream of the Dragon

June 13, 2010

Real Shenanigans

by Justin

I wonder if this thing will boil down to a bizarre fluke, underhanded politics, or straight up criminal manipulation.

This past Tuesday Alvin Greene, an unemployed Army veteran with no political background, won South Carolina’s Democrat nomination for the U.S. Senate. In this age of internet campaigning and the sudden celebrity possible through YouTube that kind of success isn’t all that outlandish. Mr. Greene doesn’t need the edge of sharing the name of a recently deceased long time Senator – these are strange days for traditional publicity building.

What’s remarkable, though, is that Alvin Greene produced not one advertisement, gave no speeches, and spent no more money than the $10,400 required to get your name on the ballot. The man’s nothing but a question mark and he won the Senate nomination. He has no cell phone and only checks his email two or three times a week at the local library in the 4000 strong town of Manning, S.C.  I can’t pin down, and it doesn’t seem like informed analysts can either, how he managed to wrangle 59% of the vote. Read the rest of this entry »

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June 10, 2010

When does poverty push back?

by Justin

Our government is far from perfect. In the past years we’ve seen flagrant obstructionism and the disproportionate weight of the wealthy elite tipping the scales of representation. We’ve also seen the fanaticism of willful ignorance on the far right create a hostile political environment and place the truth in the center of tea soaked crosshairs. To huge extent we’ve seen the great engines of bipartisanship and compromise that once existed buckle and break. People from all demographics, all economic echelons, all sorts of ideological backgrounds rail against the government for ignoring their needs and favoring the opposition. I get that. I participate in that same outrage. For all the frustration, I enjoy marveling at the koan-like nonsense of Sarah Palin and wondering how corporate greed can dedicate absolutely no thought to the plight of future generations. It’s luxurious, really.

Imagining, then, a government that in a single day can cut one’s life savings from $1560 to $30 with a radical currency revaluation throws things into a different perspective. The New York Times offered up an incredible piece drawing the disastrous policies of the North Korean government into focus. I’d been seduced by the sinking of a South Korean warship and what seemed to be a more and more likely military conflict. What struck me about that situation was that it seemed entirely plausible that the North would declare an end to the armistice and attack South Korea – totally plausible and totally insane. Read the rest of this entry »

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June 6, 2010

Ol’ Blue Eyes

by Justin

The Guardian ran a story about this photograph by Giacomo Brunelli a little while back. It’s unreal.

May have been blind.

It was about 10 in the morning when I took this photograph. The light was coming from behind me. There was a tree that protected the scene from direct sunlight, allowing me to take the picture with a beautiful diffused light. I didn’t use any kind of filter, nor did I have to do anything to the image the dark-room. I took eight or nine shots on black-and-white film, and I was just lucky the dog’s eyes were lit so well.

As it turns out, this wasn’t lightning in a bottle. His other work offers a similar unreality. Creepshow of wonder.

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