Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Consistently wrong since 2002

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

A Senator Walker would also be an insult to reason, rationality, and decency.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

All your base are belong to Tunch.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

People are complicated. Love is not.

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45Comments

  1. 1.

    flukebucket

    Serious question. Are right wing blogs as into pets and pet blogging as the left wing blogs are?

  3. 3.

    James Gary

    a classic Life photo essay: grainy, high-contrast, dramatic black-and-white photos taken during a long stay (23 days!) with a compelling subject.

    BO-RING! What’s trending on Twitter? Aren’t there rumors of some kind of new smartphone to post about?

    :P

  6. 6.

    chopper

    i had a strange dream last night. almost eraserhead-like. a big huntsman spider with mittens on each leg fighting a newt on a slippery surface of fecal-stained frothy lube.

    i need to avoid politics for a week or so.

  8. 8.

    BO_Bill

    Flukebucket; The answer is no. Pets are a tool of anarcho-totalitarian left wing blogs used to teach us that just as White People are to be compassionate to dogs and cats, they are to be compassionate to human beings existing on the far side of the bell curve distribution of merit.

    These pet images are a vehicle of tyranny and an enemy of Free Men of Nature.

    Hope this helps.

  9. 9.

    Montysano

    For anyone who is into classic photography, Shorpy is a wonderful site. With each photo,you have the option to click to a high res, high quality scan that really allows you to study the photo. There are excellent galleries for Dorothea Lange and Frances Benjamin Johnston, IMHO two of the most important photographers artists of the 20th century. This masterpiece by Lange is about as good as it gets.

  10. 10.

    Punchy

    @flukebucket: No. Caring for pets, who do not work, do not provide income, and live off the wealth distribution of their owner(s), is socialism. Also, Hilter owned a dog, so all dog owners are N*zis.

  11. 11.

    cat

    Its sad, but the 60 years of progress hasn’t helped towns that the profiled Doctor helped. They still are as poor and underserved as ever. You could redo this same photo essay today and it would be almost exactly the same.

  12. 12.

    Comrade Mary

    That’s a gorgeous sequence of photos, and when I saw the final image of the doctor in his scrubs, I realized that I’d seen that image many times before.

    A little Googling brought me to a British photographer’s web site and his analysis of the political agenda behind the feature, courtesy of “an excellent and detailed study of this photo essay, a book called W. Eugene Smith and the Photographic Essay by Glenn G. Willumsun” (now out of print).

    In fact, the editorial construction of the story is on two levels. The surface level, the most obvious, is a human interest story that works on the emotions. The readers are given a privileged insight into the life of a sympathetic and important member of a community. Life researched the location – it needed to be attractive – and the doctor, who was chosen partly for his looks. But there was another level, reflecting policy, and this is also a story about the modernisation of medicine at a local level. Thompson explained, “Art Director Charles Tudor and I laid out this story. Gene and I argued a bit about using the exhausted doctor with his cigarette and a cup of coffee as a full-page picture to end the essay, but I prevailed. I never heard a complaint thereafter. Dr. Ceriani became famous.” This last shot also was set up, and the out-takes show what an awkward position he is holding, with his feet splayed out uncomfortably, in order for Smith to get this precise angle. …
    __
    Behind what was on the face of it a straightforward profile of a young doctor’s life – essentially a likable human-interest feature – Life magazine had a political point to make. There was certainly an agenda, and because the editors used the images and layout to further it, it was partly hidden. This is one of the most interesting features of Country Doctor, and makes it a more subtle piece of photojournalism than most modern ones, as we’ll see in The Layout below. At national level there was a conflict brewing between President Truman’s administration and the American Medical Association. Health care was an important political issue, but while the government saw the problem as being too few doctors, the A.M.A. saw it as poor distribution of doctors. The government position meant compulsory federal health insurance in order to pay the wages of more doctors, but to many Americans this sounded like ‘socialized medicine’ and in a way left-wing politically. Life magazine sided with the A.M.A., and the agenda for this story was to show that people like Dr Ceriani and his community were perfectly capable of managing local health care independently….
    __
    The editors at Life had plenty of material to choose from, because Smith, as usual, had spent much more time than anticipated and had got himself, again as usual, deeply involved with his subject, whom he came to admire . There were over 2,000 negatives. This isn’t to say there were 2,000 different images, because there were often situations in which there was enough time for Smith to move around the subject trying for a better angle or a more telling moment. These were groups of pictures from which only one was intended to be chosen

    The entire article goes into the layout choices in great detail, analyzing how Life shaped the narrative from those 2000 shots.

  13. 13.

    Lynn Dee

    Amazing photos. He wasn’t living “the life.” He was just living life, wasn’t he? Thank you.

  16. 16.

    Wag

    A spectacular photo essay. Having grown up in Colorado, I know Kremmling and Grand County well. Its still common to see horseback riders riding down the streets. Thanks for sharing this.

  17. 17.

    Schlemizel

    a hundred years ago or so I took a career exploration seminar. One of the exercises was to write a paragraph based on a photo (it was evaluated based on the types of words you used). One of the photos in the set was that last one of the dr. in his scrubs after what was obviously a very long day. It is really nice to learn the back story on the picture.

    Certainly a very interesting subject and really interesting to compare then & now.

  18. 18.

    Montysano

    @Comrade Mary: Thanks for that link. For some reason, I can’t get the Life link to load on either Firefox or IE. I can see the thumbnails but that’s all. I’ll try it tonight on my Mac.

    Here’s a favorite of mine from Frances B. Johnston. Her ability to shoot in bright, overhead sun and still return a full delicate palate of tones is simply amazing.

  19. 19.

    pseudonymous in nc

    It’s remarkable how the grain and exposure combine to make those photos feel like stills from a movie of that period.

    Comrade Mary’s link is fantastic, and in combination with cat’s point at #10 — it may have succeeded in its narrative stress on self-sufficiency, but what it’s left in large parts of rural America is healthcare provision that hasn’t much changed in 60-odd years.

  22. 22.

    CA Doc

    Probably only 10-20% of family physicians do anything close to the variety of services shown in that essay, but that legacy is very dear to our hearts, and probably every family doc has done something (house calls, or improvising in an emergency) that connects us with our more heroic forefathers. Our challenge as a specialty has been to not let the pendulum swing too far towards the cushy shift work mentality that permeates medicine, but retain that deep personal connection with our community and patients.

  23. 23.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Montysano: It’s “palette.” Palate and palette are two different words with different meanings. Sorry, a pet peeve of mine, as I see them confused with each other more and more lately.

    But you had so much more control and so much greater tonal range with large-format sheet film, as you point out.

  24. 24.

    Benjamin Franklin

    Marcy has a great piece up today on Pakistan and how they emulate our regard for the Rule of Law.

    Make sure you read Brandeis’ dissent…

    http://www.emptywheel.net/2012/01/10/in-constitutional-showdown-pakistan-supreme-court-cites-quaint-olmstead-v-us-on-rule-of-law/

    President Asif Ali Zardari’s government has steadfastly refused to implement the probes, citing immunity. Ironically, the Supreme Court cited the 1928 case Olmstead v. United States, in which the US Supreme Court upheld the use of illegal wiretaps in the prosecution of a bootlegger

  26. 26.

    Just Words

    Apropos of nothing, does anyone know why Digby always spells “weekend” as “week-end?” Love her, but that bugs me.

  28. 28.

    Benjamin Franklin

    @liberal:

    Remember the ‘Bush bulge’? You know, that telltale indication George had an earpiece during debates and pressers?

    That’s the newest Romulan rumor.

  29. 29.

    The Moar You Know

    Mistermix, that’s a fine photo essay (one of the best I’ve ever seen) but you missed this one.

    Now I know why women vote GOP.

  30. 30.

    Montysano

    @Gin & Tonic:

    It’s “palette.” Palate and palette are two different words

    I knew that, can’t believe I made that mistake.

    Johnston and Lange are two of my main influences. For years, I’ve tried to shoot in open sunlight with my medium format camera, but try as I may, my results are always disappointing.

  31. 31.

    geg6

    Southern Beale @20:

    And one of the lead local news stories is how Troy Polamalu is is getting all kinds of shit on Twitter for criticizing PA fracking. This, after Youngstown, Oh (about a 45 minute drive from Pittsburgh) had two earthquakes over the holidays that have been decisively laid at the feet of fracking.

    This is why we can’t have nice things.

  32. 32.

    Schlemizel

    @The Moar You Know:
    OMG! My mother would be shocked! If she had ever been a Republican this would have been the end of it.

    If this story came out today the ladies of the modern GOP would be horrified – except about the smoking, that is still encouraged.

  34. 34.

    Mnemosyne

    @Montysano:

    Johnston and Lange are two of my main influences. For years, I’ve tried to shoot in open sunlight with my medium format camera, but try as I may, my results are always disappointing.

    Photographers who still work with film will tell you that at least three-quarters of the work is in the darkroom, not in taking the actual picture. Johnston and Lange got those effects by manipulating the way they developed the image, not just in the field.

    I worked for the student newspaper when I was in college and I remember we had one guy in the photo department who was not considered to be a very good photographer, but one day he was unable to develop his own film and one of the other guys had to do it, and it turned out that he was actually pretty good at setting up the shot and using the available light. It’s just that he was a really crappy developer.

  37. 37.

    Montysano

    @Mnemosyne:

    Johnston and Lange got those effects by manipulating the way they developed the image, not just in the field.

    I just did some initial experiments with “stand” development, i.e. using a very dilute developer for a long period of time, with little agitation. So far, I’m very encouraged; it seems to lower the contrast and extend the tonal range.

  39. 39.

    Montysano

    @Benjamin Franklin:

    Try adding a jigger of sodium-sulfite to full strength developer

    Yeah, I’ve read about that. Maybe I’ll order some sodium sulfite with my next chemical order.

  40. 40.

    J.W. Hamner

    I guess I’ve worked in hospitals too long when my first thought was “Wait, I wonder if these pictures constitute ‘protected health information’?”

  41. 41.

    vtr

    If you’re not familiar with Gene Smith’s work, please see Minamata, about industrial mercury poisoning in Japan in the 60s and 70s.

  42. 42.

    Comrade Mary

    @Yutsano: Niiiice. That little video really is going viral, isn’t it?

    Oh, and that bookstore ins on Queen W., near Trinity Bellwoods Park, the source of the famous white squirrels slowly making they way across Toronto. We also have some piebald squirrels.

    (Yes, this thread has gone from black and white to colour to black and white.)

  44. 44.

    Triassic Sands

    @Mnemosyne:

    In black and white photography real control is possible with sheet film. The problem with 35mm and most medium format is that the film is roll film. That means (without an incredible amount of effort) that the entire roll will be given the same development. The problem is that individual exposures need individual development. There are medium format sheet film cameras (2-1/4 x 2-1/4 up to 2-1/4 x 3-1/4), but more commonly 4×5 cameras are the vehicle for real negative control, and the cameras are still small enough to be flexible. As the negative grows in size, the grain diminishes, but ease of use does too. Cameras with negatives larger than 8″x10″ exist, but they are extraordinarily difficult to work with and the cost of materials is prohibitive.

    Ansel Adams once made a foolish comment about neatness and darkrooms — he said something to the effect of if you saw a persons darkroom, you could tell what their photographs would look like. A neat darkroom — good photos. A messy darkroom — messy photos. W. Eugene Smith (the photographer of the Country Doctor) was one of the finest photo-journalists ever and his prints were often beautiful. However, if I showed you photos of four landfills and Smith’s darkroom, you’d be hard pressed to ID the darkroom. His was the messiest darkroom I’ve ever seen. Not so his photographs.

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