25 October 2006
25th October Vegas Demo Pics Link
Went down to City Hall in down-town Vegas to-day to shoot a anti-police brutality towards the homeless rally that was being held there.
This was prompted by the shooting on Friday last of a homeless man, who, truth be told, was throwing rocks at a Las Vegas City Marshal and a Nevada State Trooper, when the incident happened.
The latter officer did the shooting, and is currently on paid adminstrative leave, pending a hearing into the matter.
Nonetheless, considering the City of Las Vegas' policies and actions towards the homeless in recent months(just see some of the previous posts on that topic on this blog for some cursory info on those), one has to wonder, at the very least, if somethin' ain't very, very wrong with the way that the City and its armed employees often inter-act with homeless people, not to mention so-called ordinary citizens, here in the Valley.
Anyhoo, enough blather. The pics can be found here at http://lasvegas.staughton.indypgh.org/news/2006/10/5611.php.
Stop by and have a look, if ya feel like it.
This was prompted by the shooting on Friday last of a homeless man, who, truth be told, was throwing rocks at a Las Vegas City Marshal and a Nevada State Trooper, when the incident happened.
The latter officer did the shooting, and is currently on paid adminstrative leave, pending a hearing into the matter.
Nonetheless, considering the City of Las Vegas' policies and actions towards the homeless in recent months(just see some of the previous posts on that topic on this blog for some cursory info on those), one has to wonder, at the very least, if somethin' ain't very, very wrong with the way that the City and its armed employees often inter-act with homeless people, not to mention so-called ordinary citizens, here in the Valley.
Anyhoo, enough blather. The pics can be found here at http://lasvegas.staughton.indypgh.org/news/2006/10/5611.php.
Stop by and have a look, if ya feel like it.
24 October 2006
Quiet Time
Shot and edited this on Saturday last, same day as the Jack Shirai pics.
Had got the BBI Tyr Anasazi figure in the mail a few days ago, and wanted him to make his debut in a pic as soon as possible.
Among the ideas I had were for a cafe comedy scene, and one or two others that I've forgotten about at the moment.
No matter.
The idea for this pic, which is in the "Cafe Stories" set of photos, came about on the spur of the moment, and depicts a young cafe habitue looking out the establishment's window.
Is he waiting for someone to show up, is there simply no one that he either knows well enough or at all, with whom to converse, or is he just having a bit of a think????
Well, I leave that up to you to decide, but, I can tell you from my own cafe days' experience, that there are times when one or more of these factors merit one moving away from the group a bit, and having a look out the window and a bit of a think.
The day following this shoot, I shot and edited three more pic sets, none of which will be seen here, as two of 'em were a birthday gift for a friend that were based on material done by the Firesign Theater(not gonna get sued for copyright violation if I can help it), and the other was for an Internet project that a friend of mine and I are working on, so no giving away anything from that until after the project's done.
Sorry, Folks. Sometimes, life just works that way.
Hope you like these little pics of a little moment, though.
Had got the BBI Tyr Anasazi figure in the mail a few days ago, and wanted him to make his debut in a pic as soon as possible.
Among the ideas I had were for a cafe comedy scene, and one or two others that I've forgotten about at the moment.
No matter.
The idea for this pic, which is in the "Cafe Stories" set of photos, came about on the spur of the moment, and depicts a young cafe habitue looking out the establishment's window.
Is he waiting for someone to show up, is there simply no one that he either knows well enough or at all, with whom to converse, or is he just having a bit of a think????
Well, I leave that up to you to decide, but, I can tell you from my own cafe days' experience, that there are times when one or more of these factors merit one moving away from the group a bit, and having a look out the window and a bit of a think.
The day following this shoot, I shot and edited three more pic sets, none of which will be seen here, as two of 'em were a birthday gift for a friend that were based on material done by the Firesign Theater(not gonna get sued for copyright violation if I can help it), and the other was for an Internet project that a friend of mine and I are working on, so no giving away anything from that until after the project's done.
Sorry, Folks. Sometimes, life just works that way.
Hope you like these little pics of a little moment, though.
21 October 2006
Sextet Of New Spanish Civil War Pics
Shot and edited these this afternoon.
Their subject?????
The only Japanese-American, and, indeed, only Asian-American member, as far as I know, of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion that fought on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War, Jack Shirai.
Read about Shirai in a couple of books on the ALB, and so, what little about him I present here is based entirely on those accounts.
He came from California and sailed across to Le Havre, France, along with the rest of the first contingent of Lincoln Battalion members in January, 1937, stayed a few weeks in Paris before being smuggled out with his comrades across the Franco-Spanish border in late January or early February of '37(ain't sure which), and eventually ended up with his battalion at the International Brigades HQ near Albacete, Andulusia, Spain by mid-February of that same year.
Shirai was employed as a cook for the Lincolns, and it was while he was working in that capacity that he was killed by Nationalist shrapnel during the Battle of Jarama, the Lincoln's first engagement into which it'd been thrown despite being inadequately armed and trained, in March, 1937.
The Lincolns, from what little I know of 'em, contained a fairly high proportion of Jewish-American members, who were naturally outraged and frightened by the rise of Nazi Germany and the persecution of German Jews, African-Americans, many of whom had wanted a crack at Mussolini and the Italian Fascists during the latter's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935-36, but hadn't been able to cross the Big Water to get there in time, and a number of Americans from various immigrant backgrounds, like Steve Nelson, the battalion's second commissar(political officer), who, in spite of his WASPy-sounding name, was of Yugoslav background, who'd been radicalised by the Great Depression and other events surrounding it.
But, Shirai, as I wrote above, was the only Japanese-American and Asian-American to join and fight with the Lincolns during their existence.
Why and how he decided to join up, I've no idea, alas, though, my best available guesses, and they might very well be wrong, would be a combination of the break-down of American capitalism in the first years of the Depression, and as a reaction to the nasty and prevalent anti-Japanese and anti-Asian racism in the America, and especially in California and the American West as a whole, that was around in the early and mid-20th Century.
The deportations of the Japanese-American community that occured in 1941-42 were only the culmination of a long line of anti-Japanese and anti-Asian rhetoric and practises found in the Western US from the 1870s onwards, and Shirai, like many Japanese-Americans his age, would have been well aware of it, in one way or another, by the time he joined the Lincolns.
Either way, this photo set's a tribute to a very young man, as were so many of the Lincolns, who went away to a country not his own to fight for a better world as he saw it, and who didn't return alive.
May he, and they all, rest in peace.
Their subject?????
The only Japanese-American, and, indeed, only Asian-American member, as far as I know, of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion that fought on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War, Jack Shirai.
Read about Shirai in a couple of books on the ALB, and so, what little about him I present here is based entirely on those accounts.
He came from California and sailed across to Le Havre, France, along with the rest of the first contingent of Lincoln Battalion members in January, 1937, stayed a few weeks in Paris before being smuggled out with his comrades across the Franco-Spanish border in late January or early February of '37(ain't sure which), and eventually ended up with his battalion at the International Brigades HQ near Albacete, Andulusia, Spain by mid-February of that same year.
Shirai was employed as a cook for the Lincolns, and it was while he was working in that capacity that he was killed by Nationalist shrapnel during the Battle of Jarama, the Lincoln's first engagement into which it'd been thrown despite being inadequately armed and trained, in March, 1937.
The Lincolns, from what little I know of 'em, contained a fairly high proportion of Jewish-American members, who were naturally outraged and frightened by the rise of Nazi Germany and the persecution of German Jews, African-Americans, many of whom had wanted a crack at Mussolini and the Italian Fascists during the latter's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935-36, but hadn't been able to cross the Big Water to get there in time, and a number of Americans from various immigrant backgrounds, like Steve Nelson, the battalion's second commissar(political officer), who, in spite of his WASPy-sounding name, was of Yugoslav background, who'd been radicalised by the Great Depression and other events surrounding it.
But, Shirai, as I wrote above, was the only Japanese-American and Asian-American to join and fight with the Lincolns during their existence.
Why and how he decided to join up, I've no idea, alas, though, my best available guesses, and they might very well be wrong, would be a combination of the break-down of American capitalism in the first years of the Depression, and as a reaction to the nasty and prevalent anti-Japanese and anti-Asian racism in the America, and especially in California and the American West as a whole, that was around in the early and mid-20th Century.
The deportations of the Japanese-American community that occured in 1941-42 were only the culmination of a long line of anti-Japanese and anti-Asian rhetoric and practises found in the Western US from the 1870s onwards, and Shirai, like many Japanese-Americans his age, would have been well aware of it, in one way or another, by the time he joined the Lincolns.
Either way, this photo set's a tribute to a very young man, as were so many of the Lincolns, who went away to a country not his own to fight for a better world as he saw it, and who didn't return alive.
May he, and they all, rest in peace.
18 October 2006
Hong Kong Movie Pics(Well, Kinda)!!!!
Shot and edited these last night, 'tho' had the idea in my head, and the figures more or less set up, for a few months prior to the actual shoot, so, was glad to finally get this done.
The pics depict a quartet of Hong Kong film industry workers(circa 1965), a director and producer, respectively, and two screenwriters having a late night meeting about the screenplay for their latest flick.
From the looks of it, it seems that the producer and director are having a few heated words, probably over the flick's budget, but maybe over creative matters, too.
As for the writers, well, one of the saddest parts of workin' in the film industry world-wide is that the writers are very often the very LAST people consulted about anything to do with a film.
So, what they say don't mean bupkis most of the time.
Anyhow, hope, as always, that you like the pics, or that they at least don't send you runnin' out into traffic, screamin' bloody blue murder in horror at their sheer awfulness.
The pics depict a quartet of Hong Kong film industry workers(circa 1965), a director and producer, respectively, and two screenwriters having a late night meeting about the screenplay for their latest flick.
From the looks of it, it seems that the producer and director are having a few heated words, probably over the flick's budget, but maybe over creative matters, too.
As for the writers, well, one of the saddest parts of workin' in the film industry world-wide is that the writers are very often the very LAST people consulted about anything to do with a film.
So, what they say don't mean bupkis most of the time.
Anyhow, hope, as always, that you like the pics, or that they at least don't send you runnin' out into traffic, screamin' bloody blue murder in horror at their sheer awfulness.
17 October 2006
Attended a very small anti-Iraq War rally on the Federal Courthouse here yesterday morning, and took some snaps of the various signs wielded by the six demonstrators, including Yours Truly, there.
The link to where these snaps, plus a rather brief and blandly-worded commentary on the rally's events, can be found at http://lasvegas.staughton.indypgh.org/news/2006/10/5592.php.
Please check 'em out if you will.
The link to where these snaps, plus a rather brief and blandly-worded commentary on the rally's events, can be found at http://lasvegas.staughton.indypgh.org/news/2006/10/5592.php.
Please check 'em out if you will.
13 October 2006
More Mixed-Theme Pics(Sort Of)
Shot and edited these to-day, with the first set of pics below, "Auto Repair Shop, Las Vegas, 2006", being an attempt of mine to present a kind of image of African-Americans that isn't that often seen, a positive or at least neutral image of working-class African-Americans.
Yeah, we've come a long ways since the days when African-Americans were portrayed as servants or ne'er -do-wells, and the range of African-American portrayals has broadened somewhat since the 1970s.
However, for all the African-American gangstas, cops, lawyers, doctors and business-people one see portrayed in most media outlets, there's rather a dearth of portrayals of working-class and poor African-Americans that don't involve crime, drug addiction and the like.
Ain't sayin' that these things don't happen in working-class and poor African-American communities.
They do, but so do a lotta positive or at least neutral events as well.
So, this is kinda my tiny contribution at remeding that imbalance.
By the way, the same could be said for European-Americans, Asian-Americans, Latinos, Pacific Islanders and Native Americans, of working-class and poor origins, too.
Working-class and poor people's lives in general tend to be given rather short shrift by the mainstream media, unless they involve something sensational. That's why the former, whenever possible, can't afford to wait 'round for the MSM to discover their lives and issues, and that's why I thank God for the Internet, 'cos it at least allows some working-class and poor people to show how they see the world.
The second set, "Female Black Panther Militant, Oakland, 1967" is a kinda bittersweet tribute/portrait of a female member of that group, and, in a way, of the Black Panther Party itself.
It started out in Oakland, California in 1966-67, with the idea of preventing the kinds of police brutality and intimidation of Oakland's African-American community then going on.
The movement spread very rapidly nationwide, especially after tv news footage of a shotgun-wielding demonstration held by the BPP at the Capital Building in Sacramento, California in 1967, in which both male and female BPP members, dressed in roughly the same kind of outfit as shown here, carrying (un-loaded)shotguns appeared, made speeches, and proceeded for the next few years to galvanise many in the African-American community, and scare the shit out of many in the European-American community.
Eventually, the BPP, despite its vigourous early start, was worn down to a nubbin by a combination of FBI, state and local police harassment, and, in the case of Fred Hampton in Chicago in 1968, out-right murder of BPP leaders, factional in-fighting, and drug abuse, especially true in Huey Newton's case, and the flight into exile of some of its most prominent leaders, like Eldridge Cleaver and Huey Newton, and, although the BPP was still around in 1981, it had pretty much shot its bolt.
There may have been other factors, like the end of the Viet-Nam War, which took the wind out of the sails of a lot of radical causes in the States, and especially outta the New Left's sails, and a kind of longing for escape from politics and causes, especially radical ones, by many Americans of various backgrounds in general, that contributed to the BPP's decline and dissolution.
However, from the extremely little I know about the BPP, it would seem that the first-named causes were the ones that got the Panthers in the end.
However, the Panthers' verbal and visual rhetorical style lived on, and still does to-day, long after the BPP closed up shop in the early '80s, and can be seen and heard in the way that many rappers and hip-hop artists present themselves and their views of politics in their work.
The American Left in general still reflects a strong dose of Panther influence in much of its rhetoric and militancy even to-day, as well.
In pop culture, the BPP's style, as well as the prominence of some of its female members, as well as figures like Angela Davis, set much of the tone for many of the various blaxploitation movies made by Hollywood(often with European-American producers, directors and writers at the helm)in the early and mid-'70s, and especially in the kinds of roles given to Pam Grier in those films.
Finally, in 1992, a New Black Panther Party was formed again, and is still in operation.
However, the NBPP's views are much more similar to those of the Nation of Islam than the original BPP, which tended to mix African-American nationalism with bits of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideologies, and wasn't about racial separatism, as are the NBPP and NOI.
The Black Panthers were a pretty heady mix of those influences, and probably more that I don't know about.
It's a pity that, between the FBI/state and local police harassment-murders of its leaders, the factional disputes, and exile of its most prominent leaders, the Panthers succumbed, as, perhaps, it might have been a means for the African-American community to express its grievances and a non-separatist form of African-American nationalism to win the power to determine its own affairs.
But, since events went the way they did, we will never know if that could have happened or not.
Hope you like the pics.
Be seeing you.
Yeah, we've come a long ways since the days when African-Americans were portrayed as servants or ne'er -do-wells, and the range of African-American portrayals has broadened somewhat since the 1970s.
However, for all the African-American gangstas, cops, lawyers, doctors and business-people one see portrayed in most media outlets, there's rather a dearth of portrayals of working-class and poor African-Americans that don't involve crime, drug addiction and the like.
Ain't sayin' that these things don't happen in working-class and poor African-American communities.
They do, but so do a lotta positive or at least neutral events as well.
So, this is kinda my tiny contribution at remeding that imbalance.
By the way, the same could be said for European-Americans, Asian-Americans, Latinos, Pacific Islanders and Native Americans, of working-class and poor origins, too.
Working-class and poor people's lives in general tend to be given rather short shrift by the mainstream media, unless they involve something sensational. That's why the former, whenever possible, can't afford to wait 'round for the MSM to discover their lives and issues, and that's why I thank God for the Internet, 'cos it at least allows some working-class and poor people to show how they see the world.
The second set, "Female Black Panther Militant, Oakland, 1967" is a kinda bittersweet tribute/portrait of a female member of that group, and, in a way, of the Black Panther Party itself.
It started out in Oakland, California in 1966-67, with the idea of preventing the kinds of police brutality and intimidation of Oakland's African-American community then going on.
The movement spread very rapidly nationwide, especially after tv news footage of a shotgun-wielding demonstration held by the BPP at the Capital Building in Sacramento, California in 1967, in which both male and female BPP members, dressed in roughly the same kind of outfit as shown here, carrying (un-loaded)shotguns appeared, made speeches, and proceeded for the next few years to galvanise many in the African-American community, and scare the shit out of many in the European-American community.
Eventually, the BPP, despite its vigourous early start, was worn down to a nubbin by a combination of FBI, state and local police harassment, and, in the case of Fred Hampton in Chicago in 1968, out-right murder of BPP leaders, factional in-fighting, and drug abuse, especially true in Huey Newton's case, and the flight into exile of some of its most prominent leaders, like Eldridge Cleaver and Huey Newton, and, although the BPP was still around in 1981, it had pretty much shot its bolt.
There may have been other factors, like the end of the Viet-Nam War, which took the wind out of the sails of a lot of radical causes in the States, and especially outta the New Left's sails, and a kind of longing for escape from politics and causes, especially radical ones, by many Americans of various backgrounds in general, that contributed to the BPP's decline and dissolution.
However, from the extremely little I know about the BPP, it would seem that the first-named causes were the ones that got the Panthers in the end.
However, the Panthers' verbal and visual rhetorical style lived on, and still does to-day, long after the BPP closed up shop in the early '80s, and can be seen and heard in the way that many rappers and hip-hop artists present themselves and their views of politics in their work.
The American Left in general still reflects a strong dose of Panther influence in much of its rhetoric and militancy even to-day, as well.
In pop culture, the BPP's style, as well as the prominence of some of its female members, as well as figures like Angela Davis, set much of the tone for many of the various blaxploitation movies made by Hollywood(often with European-American producers, directors and writers at the helm)in the early and mid-'70s, and especially in the kinds of roles given to Pam Grier in those films.
Finally, in 1992, a New Black Panther Party was formed again, and is still in operation.
However, the NBPP's views are much more similar to those of the Nation of Islam than the original BPP, which tended to mix African-American nationalism with bits of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideologies, and wasn't about racial separatism, as are the NBPP and NOI.
The Black Panthers were a pretty heady mix of those influences, and probably more that I don't know about.
It's a pity that, between the FBI/state and local police harassment-murders of its leaders, the factional disputes, and exile of its most prominent leaders, the Panthers succumbed, as, perhaps, it might have been a means for the African-American community to express its grievances and a non-separatist form of African-American nationalism to win the power to determine its own affairs.
But, since events went the way they did, we will never know if that could have happened or not.
Hope you like the pics.
Be seeing you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)