The cave, I find, is always more interesting in the spring. Mostly, with more run-off from melting snow and ice on the mountains and heavier, more persistent rains, the cave is a lot wetter - the dripstone is dripping, the flowstone is flowing, the stream bed is streaming, the rimstone dams are damming, and the sound of dripping, trickling water is everywhere.

     

     

     
While I was in snapping some of teh wetness, I also did several portraits of the last of the bats (the hibernating bat population being another thing that makes the cave more interesting in the early spring - and late fall). There are only a few pipstrelles left - the little browns have finished hibernating and the last of them left the cave for the summer a few days ago. Here are a couple of them:
 

Tags: nature studies, photo/graphic, speleological
humour: impressed

We decided to take the scenic route to the nearest Chinese take-away after work on Sunday. It was kinda grey and drizzly, but we brought the camera along anyway. From the bitter countryside of Pennsylvania:


Spring House


Llamas


Furnace


Pump


Cow


Tree

Tags: nature studies, photo/graphic
humour: bitter

I did this a few months ago for another Worth1000 Photoshop competition ("Mate-a-Company") and just came across it again today. I thought it was somewhat appropriate for the time of year...

Tags: photo/graphic
humour: creative

After our weekly trip to Wegman's - possibly the best grocery store in the known universe - we decided to stop at KFC for some chicken product to go. I must confess that I have a weakness for KFC Famous Bowls (reconstituted mashed potatoes topped with hybrid corn, unidentified popcorn chicken parts, condensed gravy, and grated cheese food - mmnnn), probably a throwback to playing with my food as a child, and Sean picked up an overpriced bucket of battery chicken with overpriced sides, some of which are headed for the microwave as I type (there'll be no healthy eating here tonight).

As I was washing down a chicken leg with a bit of mango nectar (courtesy of Wegman's) on our way out of State College, Sean asked what I'd thought of the Obama rally. "Oh, yeah - I'd forgotten about that." After all, we'd since been to a craft shop for some balsa wood, had contended with a particularly dense parking garage attendant, had stopped to pick up a picture frame and some glue, filled the car with gas - and done the groceries - and picked up a Famous Bowl (half of which I'd devoured in the KFC parking lot before hitting the road home) - and I had quite forgotten that the day started out attempting to pick up a hunk of inspiration at the Penn State Obama rally.

Sen. Obama's current concert campaign tour is called "The Path to Change" or "The Road to Hope" or "The Fast Lane to Glory" or something, with Sen. Bob Casey (the most recent public figure to jump on the dreamwagon) as the support band introductory speaker. We were welcomed on campus by a relentlessly cheerful Obamette, grinning like a Moonie, inviting us to "Come on inside" - "inside" being the expansive Old Main lawn - which is kind of outside. But this was an Obama rally - reality was not expected to be the order of the day.

We were hoping to maybe catch a bit of the Obama magic for ourselves. Who knew, right? Maybe he'd be charismatic enough to transport a couple of cynical old socialists like Sean and I. No such luck. It was the same old stump speech that we've heard dozens of times from dozens of politicians, with a bit more shameless jingo than usual. And the enthusiastic mob was indistinguishable from the college crowds that thronged Howard Dean and Bill Clinton and George McGovern and Eugene McCarthy - and Adlai Stevenson and Al Smith, I shouldn't wonder. (And, hey - didn't only one of those guys get elected?) Here they are:


In case you can't read the banners ("No signs or banners are permitted", according to the Obamasite), they say - in one of those flashes of originality for which college students are renowned - "YES WE CAN", "FIRED UP AND READY TO GO - State College for CHANGE", and "OBAMAVILLE".

Yes, "OBAMAVILLE". Is that anything like Jonestown?

Our view was initially blocked somewhat by a flag so large they must have stolen it from a Perkins restaurant, but shortly after the Anointed One began speaking, it was lowered - onto the ground. A few young patriots planted their asses on it to enjoy the show.

Anyway, as it turns out, Barack Obama isn't even a good speaker - and a clearer view didn't help. Maybe he's just tired. Or maybe this emperor has always been as naked as a jaybird. I kept flashing back to demonstrations that took place at Penn State during the Vietnam War, some of the largest and loudest in the country. Now those were students who were fired up - and we're still waiting for the Age of Aquarius to dawn. Today's rally, by contrast, was all about conformity - applaud on cue, chant on cue, follow the leader in his stage managed promotional tour - and listen politely as he mentions his church connections over and over and over again. Forty years ago, he'd have been jeered from the stage.

Plus, there was not one whiff of cannabis in the air (we even waited till we were back in the car). What kind of progressives are these? Barack Obama was having way more fun when he was their age than this shower of church camp rejects. Ah, revolution.

Not long after he cautioned the crowd that the "road to change" was not his responsibility, but everyone's (in short, "if I don't accomplish anything in office, it's your fault"), we decided that household errands would be more inspiring. So I don't know if this rally ended with the traditional burning in effigy of Hillary Clinton or not.

I did note that, sometime after his first three mentions of Abraham Lincoln, but a little before the crowd started in with the mindless chanting, he told the gathering that he'd found his community service work frustrating because it was often difficult to see progress being made. Presumably this was why he decided to pursue public office. Then, of course, he spent his first term in the Illinois Senate running (unsuccessfully) for the US House of Representatives, his final term as an Illinois Senator running for the US Senate and - again due to frustration over the "glacial pace" of getting things done in Congress - his first three years as a US Senator running for the presidency.

Aside from the fact that there's nothing on this guy's resume apart from ambition, what are to we expect should President Obama decide that the White House is similarly frustrating and glacial? Does he intend to spend his next four years in office running for the Supreme Court? Or Secretary General of the UN? Or President of the World Bank Group?

There were police and and other security types in abundance - not that there was any need. Apart from a few discouraged banners, the biggest threat to public safety was an excess of toddlers. Still, it was nice to see so many authority figures getting a bit of exercise - and getting along so famously with Mr. Change. Here's another shot that I think kinda sums up my experience. I call it "Police - Flag - Mob". Oh - and "Charismatic Leader" is in there somewhere too. He's a bit of a dot to the right of the soon-to-be-desecrated flag.


Good luck.

Tags: foodstuffs, photo/graphic, politburo
humour: disappointed

I haven't commented on the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his untoward remarks on any number of issues as I don't quite buy the associative argument - and there's been nothing in anything Obama has said that indicates that he subscribes to any of Wright's more outrageous claims. In fact, it looks as though I agree with more of what Wright has been saying of late than Obama does (at least publicly). There's much that is valid in a lot of his criticism of American society and our government: our judicial and penal systems are racist, the US is responsible for drawing terrorist fire, our double standard in relation to Israel and Palestine is disgraceful.

I'm afraid I have to draw the line, though, when Wright starts crossing into Nation of Islam territory - and with comments like "Hillary ain't never been called a nigger." True enough - though both Clintons have been called "nigger-lovers" and Sen. Clinton has certainly been called a bitch and a cunt and every other derogatory term in existence for "woman". In fact, Rev. Wright himself has called her a bitch. I don't believe she's ever called Wright or Obama or anyone else a nigger.

But, damn - Obama had to have known how divisive Rev. Wright's sermons could get. Even if he had missed most of Wright's homilies over the past twenty years (and he is supposed to be a devout practicing Church of Christer, isn't he? at least when he's courting the Christian Right), they're available on DVD, for God's sake. If the Candidate of Judgment was totally unaware of his alleged mentor's beliefs, he couldn't get an aide to vet a couple of damned videos?

Anyway, it looks like this is one story that's not going to go away. In fact, the way this story is going so far, Obama's association with the Trinity United Church of Christ could well mark the end of his campaign. There are Wright stories being carried in more than a thousand US papers today - and a Kansas City Star editorial is speculating on whether or not Sen. McCaskill and Gov. Sebelius will have to withdraw their endorsements of Obama - or at least cease campaigning for him. Despite how much I may agree with some of Wright's sentiments, stuff like "No, no, no - not God bless America, God damn America!" just won't fly in the Heartland.

Sen. Obama would do well to distance himself as far as possible, as publicly as possible from the TUCC - as Wright himself predicted he might have to do last April. He should have done it then. He should do it now - in no uncertain terms. And in a bit more public a forum than Countdown to Obama's Victory with Keith Olberman and HuffPo.

Until he does, I've come up with a new poster for Obama's fairer-skinned supporters:


As should be obvious by now, I've never thought Obama had a hope of winning the national election - and this could cement it. It would be a pity, though, if his candidacy crumbled through guilt by association rather than on the candidate's own merit (or singular lack thereof). Ah, well, at least they're not blaming this controversy on the Clinton campaign.

Yet.

Tags: photo/graphic, politburo
humour: pensive

Okay, if your supporters are already being considered to be, at least in part, a personality cult, if the chanting mobs at your rallies already look like outtakes from Triumph of the Will, if your platform is already considered by many to consist more of slogans than substance, the last person you want designing your posters is someone like Shepard Fairey of Obey Giant:


I was working on a chop of this with "Workers of the World Unite" instead of "PROGRESS" or "HOPE" and maybe a hammer and sickle pin, but I figured, why gild the lily?

Tags: photo/graphic, politburo
humour: incredulous

Baphomet's Advocate over at America's Debate mentioned a week or so ago that Senator McCain bears a striking resemblance to Iron Maiden's occasional album cover mascot, Eddie the Head. And, sure enough, he does:


We heard - yet again - tonight, from both Barack Kumbayama and Nibbles McCain himself (during their triumphant victories as New Messiah and Next President, respectively) what a great American hero McCain is. We've been hearing for weeks - and it seems to go without question - that McCain is the one candidate who is "ready to be Commander in Chief on Day One" and that he has all this military expertise and so on.

Okay, he served and served more or less honorably, but - hello - he was CAPTURED. He was shot down and fucking captured. During our last illegal, unnecessary, cripplingly expensive, life-wasting war of aggression. In which he volunteered to spray the brains of Vietnamese civilians across the Southeast Asian landscape.

McCain started out as a sub-par flier and crashed an A-1 Skyraider into Corpus Christi Bay during a practice run in 1959. In 1962, he flew a plane into power lines in Spain and crashed again. So they made him a flight instructor at Naval Air Station Meridian in Mississippi. In 1965, he experienced a flameout over Norfolk, Virginia, and crashed another plane.

In 1967 - and this one wasn't his fault (unless one considers the very real possibility that the man is a freakin' jinx) - McCain was serving on the aircraft carrier Forrestal at Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin. The crew was preparing to launch an attack when a Zuni rocket from an F-4 Phantom was accidentally fired across the carrier's deck. The rocket struck McCain's A-4E Skyhawk, dislodged two bombs and ruptured the fuel tank. He escaped from the burning plane, but seconds later one of the bombs went off, killing 132 sailors, wounding another 62, and destroying twenty aircraft.

Less than three months later, while attempting to attack a thermal power plant in Hanoi, his plane was shot down by an anti-aircraft missile. McCain ejected from the plane and parachuted into Truc Bach Lake, where he nearly drowned. The rest, of course, is history: Presto! Instant Hero.

But, come on - this is supposed to be the guy with all this military expertise? Dude can't even keep a god-damned plane in the air. Sorry, but his distinguished military record does not exactly inspire confidence. And, heh, this is his biggest selling point?

We are in so much trouble...

Tags: photo/graphic, politburo, political rant
humour: seriously uncertain