v a l l e j o n o c t u r n o

What Americans Do On An Average Workday

Source: NPR

Dishonesty

Paul Krugman writes:

Paul Ryan’s speech Wednesday night may have accomplished one good thing: It finally may have dispelled the myth that he is a Serious, Honest Conservative. Indeed, Mr. Ryan’s brazen dishonesty left even his critics breathless.

Some of his fibs were trivial but telling, like his suggestion that President Obama is responsible for a closed auto plant in his hometown, even though the plant closed before Mr. Obama took office. Others were infuriating, like his sanctimonious declaration that “the truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves.” This from a man proposing savage cuts in Medicaid, which would cause tens of millions of vulnerable Americans to lose health coverage.

And Mr. Ryan — who has proposed $4.3 trillion in tax cuts over the next decade, versus only about $1.7 trillion in specific spending cuts — is still posing as a deficit hawk.

But Mr. Ryan’s big lie — and, yes, it deserves that designation — was his claim that “a Romney-Ryan administration will protect and strengthen Medicare.” Actually, it would kill the program.

Before I get there, let me just mention that Mr. Ryan has now gone all-in on the party line that the president’s plan to trim Medicare expenses by around $700 billion over the next decade — savings achieved by paying less to insurance companies and hospitals, not by reducing benefits — is a terrible, terrible thing. Yet, just a few days ago, Mr. Ryan was still touting his own budget plan, which included those very same savings.

But back to the big lie. The Republican Party is now firmly committed to replacing Medicare with what we might call Vouchercare. The government would no longer pay your major medical bills; instead, it would give you a voucher that could be applied to the purchase of private insurance. And, if the voucher proved insufficient to buy decent coverage, hey, that would be your problem.

Moreover, the vouchers almost certainly would be inadequate; their value would be set by a formula taking no account of likely increases in health care costs.

Why would anyone think that this was a good idea? The G.O.P. platform says that it “will empower millions of seniors to control their personal health care decisions.” Indeed. Because those of us too young for Medicare just feel so personally empowered, you know, when dealing with insurance companies.

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Thinking and photography

From The New Stateman, Ray Monk writes:

“Thinking in pictures,” Sigmund Freud once wrote, “stands nearer to unconscious processes than does thinking in words, and is unquestionably older than the latter both ontogenetically and phylogenetically.” There is, in other words, something primordial, something foundational, about thinking visually.

Such a view is anathema to many philoso- phers, a good many of whom believe that all thought is propositional, that to think is to use words. For some of the most distinguished philosophers in history, thinking and verbalis- ing were practically the same thing. Bertrand Russell sometimes to his great frustration, was hopeless at visualising and was more or less indifferent to the visual arts. His mental life seemed almost entirely made up of words rather than images. When his friend Rupert Crawshay-Williams once gave him an intelligence test that involved matching increasingly complicated geometrical shapes, Russell did extremely well up to a certain point and then exceptionally badly after that. “What happened?” Crawshay-Williams asked. “I hadn’t got any names for the shapes,” Russell replied.

In this, as in many other respects, Ludwig Wittgenstein was Russell’s opposite. For Wittgenstein, to think, to understand, was first and foremost to picture. In conversation with his friends, he several times referred to himself as a “disciple” or “follower” of Freud and many people since have been extremely puzzled what he might have meant by this. I think Freud’s remark quoted above might provide the key here, that it might have something to do with the emphasis one finds in Freud on the primordiality of “thinking in pictures”.

Like Freud, Wittgenstein took very seriously indeed the idea that our dreams present us with a series of images, the interpretation of which would reveal the thoughts we have relegated to the unconscious parts of our minds. “If Freud’s theory on the interpretation of dreams has anything in it,” Wittgenstein once wrote, “it shows how complicated is the way the human mind represents the facts in pictures. So complicated, so irregular is the way they are represented that we can barely call it representation any longer.”

It was fundamental to Wittgenstein’s think- ing – both in his early work Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and in his later work Philosophical Investigations – that not everything we can see and therefore not everything we can mentally grasp can be put into words. In the Tractatus, this appears as the distinction between what can be said and what has to be shown. “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent,” runs the famed last sentence of the book but, as Wittgenstein made clear in private conversation and correspondence, he believed those things about which we have to be silent to be the most important. (Compare this with the logical positivist Otto Neurath, who, echoing Wittgenstein, declared: “We must indeed be silent – but not about anything.”)

To grasp these important things, we need not to reason verbally, but rather to look more attentively at what lies before us. “Don’t think, look!” Wittgenstein urges in Philosophical Investigations. Philosophical confusion, he maintained, had its roots not in the relatively superficial thinking expressed by words but in that deeper territory studied by Freud, the pictorial thinking that lies in our unconscious and is expressed only involuntarily in, for example, our dreams, our doodles and in our “Freudian slips”. “A picture held us captive,” Wittgenstein says in the Investigations, and it is, he thinks, his job as a philosopher not to argue for or against the truth of this or that proposition but rather to delve deeper and substitute one picture for another. In other words, he conceived it as his task to make us, or at least to enable us, to see things differently.

The importance Wittgenstein attached to seeing was vividly portrayed – in an appropriately visual form – in the “Wittgenstein: Philosophy and Photography” exhibition at the London School of Economics earlier this summer and, before that, at the University of Cambridge. The exhibition brought together a range of fascinating photographs that included studio portraits of the Wittgenstein family (he had four brothers and three sisters) in their palatial homes in Vienna; pictures of Wittgenstein himself as, in turn, a baby, a navy-suited young boy, a student, a soldier and finally a professor; photographs of the modernist house he designed in Vienna for his sister Gretl; holiday snapshots that Wittgenstein took on a cheap camera he had bought in Woolworths; pages from his photo album containing tiny pictures of his friends and family members; and a series of (frankly rather weird) photographs that Wittgenstein took in a photo booth in which he changed his expression and the direction of his eyes after each shot so that the series might be put together in a flip-book that forms the nearest thing we have to moving images of the great philosopher.

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The presence of Human Spirit

Interview by Frank Horvat of Joseph Koudelka:

Frank Horvat : You ask if I have made good use of my vision. I believe I have used it too little. Photographers like Henri (Cartier-Bresson) always have a camera with them and are looking all the time. I don't know how to do that. Right now, for example, I am not looking, my mind is occupied by words.

Joseph Koudelka : What do you mean by "I am not looking"?

Frank Horvat : I am not looking with the idea to make a photograph.

Joseph Koudelka : How are you looking?

Frank Horvat : I am seeing only a few of things around me. Only those that I want to see.

Joseph Koudelka : But to see what you want to see, you have to look. And to choose..

Frank Horvat : It seems to me that, to see "photographically", I have to prepare myself in advance. Possibly for a long time. For instance it would be difficult for me, on my way out from here, to make photos of Paris. To see, I would have to go to another city, say to New York, live in a hotel room by myself and start walking through the streets, at first without a camera. And little by little I would begin to see. In the same way, I wouldn't know how to make a portrait of a woman, just off the hip. I would have to think about her, to imagine her. She would have to prepare herself or to be prepared with someone's help. And even then, when I would eventually be facing her, with my camera, I might not feel ready. It could take me two or three hours to understand her, little by little, through the viewfinder.

Joseph Koudelka : Perhaps because you want to understand. Me, I do not try to understand. For me, the most beautiful thing is to wake up, to go out, and to look. At everything. Without anyone telling me "You should look at this or that." I look at everything and I try to find what interests me, because when I set out, I don't yet know what will interest me. Sometimes I photograph things that others would find stupid, but with which I can play around. Henri as well says that before meeting a person, or seeing a country, he has to prepare himself. Not me, I try to react to what comes up. Afterwards, I may come back to it, perhaps every year, ten years in a row, and I will end by understanding.

Frank Horvat : You prepare yourself in your way. I imagine that when you find a subject that interests you, your photo is, in a way, already prepared within you. As if you had set up a place into which it fits.

Joseph Koudelka : What's "my photo"?

Frank Horvat : Your photos often are recognizable, which is to say that they have something in common. Maybe the space between the figures, and the tensions within that space.

Joseph Koudelka : That is the gist of my question. Your time, not only your eyes.

Frank Horvat : Look, I met you in person only about an hour ago, though I am familiar with your photos and I remember a few things that I have been told about you. If I had to express the idea that I have of you, in a single sentence, I would say "He lives out of a sleeping bag." That would sum up your way of using your time, which is different from mine, and probably more efficient. It's not that I am dissatisfied with my own life. But I know that too often I have done things that didn't really interest me, or that distracted me from what I thought was my real purpose, because I forced myself to respond to the ideas or the desires of others. I believe that if I was allowed to move back and to relive some hours of my life, the moments I would choose would be those when I was photographing for myself, in the streets of New York or in India. Or even some moments in the studio, when making portraits.

Joseph Koudelka : Personally, I have had the good fortune of always being able to do what I wanted, never working for others. Maybe it is a silly principle, but the idea that no one can buy me is important for me. I refuse assignments, even for projects that I have decided to do anyhow. It is somewhat the same with my books. When my first book, the one on the gypsies, was published, it was hard for me to accept the idea that I could no longer choose the people to whom I would show my photos, that any one could buy them.

Frank Horvat : What are your points of reference - I mean in literature, in painting, in music?

Joseph Koudelka : There are a few things that I like very much, but that I do not practice. I have always played music, and I would like to listen to it more than I do, but I don't have the opportunity, due to the lack of time and place. When I was a kid, I did a lot of reading, then a little less during my studies, and hardly any since I left Czechoslovakia - always for the same reason, because I do not have a place of my own. When I travel, I don't even know where I am going to sleep, I don't think of the place where I will lie down until the moment I roll out my sleeping bag. It's a rule that I've set for myself. Because I told myself that I must be able to sleep anywhere, since sleep is important. In the summer I often sleep outdoors. I stop working when there is no more light, and I start again in the early morning. I do not feel this to be a sacrifice, it would be a sacrifice to live otherwise. As for my points of reference, I don't know what they would be.

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Night Swimmer

Vallejo Nocturno 2012- In Nolita

Accountability

From The Carter Center:

“The killing of an American peace activist is unacceptable,” said former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. “The court’s decision confirms a climate of impunity, which facilitates Israeli human rights violations against Palestinian civilians in the Occupied Territory.”

Approximately 94 percent of Israeli military investigations of soldiers suspected of violent criminal activity against Palestinians and their property end without indictments, according to the Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din. 91 percent of investigations into crimes committed by Israeli civilians against Palestinians in the Occupied Territory also end without indictment. In this case, the district court judge ruled that the drivers of the bulldozer could not see her, despite eyewitness testimony to the contrary.

In response to the verdict, Rachel Corrie’s parents Cindy and Craig stated “We are deeply saddened and troubled by what we heard today in the court of Judge Oded Gershon. This was a bad day, not only for us, but for human rights, for humanity, the rule of law, and the country of Israel…Rachel was a human being who deserved accountability, and we as her family deserve that too.”

In contrast, the family of James Miller, an Emmy Award-winning British filmmaker killed by Israeli forces in Rafah two months after Corrie’s death, ultimately received over $2 million in damages from the Israeli government. The government of the United Kingdom had threatened to seek the extradition of the Israeli soldiers in question.

“I hope that the U.S. government will use all reasonable means to ensure that the rights of American citizens are protected overseas and that justice is done for the Corrie family,” said former President Carter.

People of conscience

From Gideon Levy of Haaretz:

The message from the Rachel Corrie verdict is clear: Israel doesn't want people of conscience at a time when it is doing mischief. They are risking their lives.

The spring of 2003 was an atrocious spring. An intifada was raging in the streets of Israel; explosives were going off next to the Gaza-Egyptian border, along the Philadelphi Route, and in Rafah, bulldozers mowed down hundreds of Palestinian homes, many of them belonging to innocent people. A few months earlier, a young American woman had arrived in Rafah from Olympia, Washington.

Rachel Corrie had met a youth of Palestinian origin at her school and through him was exposed to the suffering of his people. At the age of 23, she decided to take some action. She joined the International Solidarity Movement and left for Gaza. During her first few weeks she witnessed the acts of the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza, reported them to her family and friends, and decided to act as a human shield.

At that same time, two British citizens also arrived in Gaza - Tom Hurndall, another peace activist, and James Miller, an award-winning documentary filmmaker who came to make a film about what was happening in Gaza. He called it "Death in Gaza." Within a number of weeks, all three of them had been killed by the IDF.

Corrie was run over trying to save a house, with her own body, while a bulldozer tried to "expose" it. Miller was killed by a sniper when he came out of a house holding a white flag. After the first shot hit him, he still managed to shout out to the soldiers, "We are British journalists" - as can clearly be heard in the video filmed there in the dark; and then, in response, a second sniper shot was fired and killed him. Hurndall was killed while trying to serve as a human shield for a group of children that had entered an area where there was shoting. A British jury established that Miller had been murdered intentionally, but only the soldier who killed Hurndall was tried and sentenced to eight years' imprisonment, then released after six years. No one was tried for the killings of Corrie and Miller.

These three international activists were courageous people of conscience which any moral society would be proud of - shining examples of young people who are involved and care. While their friends spent their time at parties and doing nothing especially important, they came to the site of a humanitarian disaster. They did not endanger the soldiers of the IDF in any way but the army didn't want them there. They got in the way of the army, in their attempt to prevent war crimes with their own bodies and to document them with their cameras. For those very same reasons that the IDF did not want them there, they had to be there.

Two days ago, a Haifa court ruled that Corrie was responsible for her own death. That was a sad day for justice and for international law, and as her parents said; it should also be a sad day for Israel. It is the IDF's duty, we must recall, among other things, to defend civilians in an occupied area. Even if the driver of the bulldozer and the soldier sitting next to him did not see Corrie, and did not deliberately run over her, as the court found, the IDF did not do enough to prevent her being killed.

The spirit of the commander that could be sensed then (and now ) indicated that those volunteers must be chased away from the area. This ill wind also blew this week during the court ruling; its chill made its way to the solidarity movement and in this way indirectly sanctioned the killings.

Corrie has become an international icon. It's a shame there aren't more Israeli youngsters like her. Her organization is not pro-Israel - far from that - its members are often dogmatic but that is their prerogative. The least that can be expected from Israel after she was killed, intentionally or by accident, was to bring those involved to trial, at least for negligence, to apologize and to pay compensation. In the case of Miller, perhaps the most obvious case of intentional killing, Israel paid a huge sum in compensation but, as was said, no one was brought to trial.

This week, the judge in Haifa added his verdict to a long and embarrassing list of court rulings aimed at sanctioning almost every kind of improper act committed by the IDF. The message is clear: Israel doesn't want people of conscience at a time when it is doing mischief. They are risking their lives.

And the message to the soldiers is: It is permitted to kill them; nothing bad will happen to you. When the IDF acts in this way, it is perhaps possible to understand it, but when the judicial system sanctions this, it is depravity. Behold, Rachel, behold - your death was not in vain. It at least revealed , once again, that the Israeli judicial system is a partner to the foul deeds.

Hannah Nagle

Hannah Nagle

Interview with Nagle at t-squat:

What is the first photo you remember taking, or one that has left an everlasting impression from your childhood?

My Dad found what he thinks is the first photo I took (of my Mum and Dad) but it’s definitely nothing special (very dark and blurry!). We have really lovely family photographs so they’ve definitely left a lasting impression on me. They’re my favourite photographs, some of them are so beautiful.

What photograph or image is on your desktop background at the moment?

It’s a photograph taken by a stylist on a shoot I did for a designer called Kharise Francis. Every time me and Kharise do a shoot together we like to take a photograph of the team after we’ve finished. We joke about how when we make it big we can do a book with all of them in it. (See below)

As an artist, why have you chosen photography as your primary means of expression? What are the things you particularly like about photography as a medium?

One thing I love about it is that there’s so many elements and processes to taking a photograph and that the photographer has a choice of which processes they include and which they don’t. It’s incredibly versatile and I find other media limit me. As a person I find I can get bored of things easily but I’ve still got so much I want to do with photography that I can’t ever imagine getting bored of it.

Your works are visually abstract, multifaceted and layered with other media. What inspired this style and what do you enjoy about it?

Layering images is something that became part of my style without me even realising it. Abstracting images and merging them together is a way of seeing how far I can push an image. Instead of taking a large amount of photographs I prefer taking a smaller amount and trying to get as much out of them as possible. I’ll crop them, abstract them, take elements from a background and make that into an image or print the photographs off and manipulate them by hand.

The solarisation and double exposure comes into effect across your work, does your practice stem from traditional dark room photography processes or is it digitally manipulated and produced? 

I wish I could say it was from the traditional dark room techniques as I think that’s a far better way to learn photography as a beginner, but most of my work is digital. When I first began taking photographs seriously I was so against using Photoshop but now it’s something I really enjoy using. I’m hoping to start a photography degree in October where working with film is something I really want to perfect.

What kind of camera(s) do you work with at present?

I’m working with a Nikon D70 and a Canon A-1

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Shoji Ueda

Shoji Ueda (1913–2000)
Ohne Titel aus der Serie ›Brilliant Scenes‹
Chromogenic print

From funkejunge:

Shoji was born in 1913 in Tottori, Japan. In 1925 Shoji entered the Yonago prefectural junior high school, at the age of seventeen Ueda received a camera from his father and soon became very involved in photography. Two years later Shoji Ueda moved to Tokyo for studiing at the Oriental School of Photography. At the age of nineteen he moved back to Sakai/Tottori and opend his own photo studio. In the same year Ueda formed the photographic group “Chūgoku Shashinka Shūdan” with his friends Ryōsuke Ishizu, Kunio Masaoka and Akira Nomura.

In 1941 Shoji gave up photography for not becoming a military photographer but returned after the end of WW2. Most of the work for which the artist is known is a serial of photos Ueda mugged during his 350km trip from Igumi to Hagi. Shoji Ueda died of a heart attack on July 4th, 2000.

His way of taking photos is really fascinating for me. Although Ueda and René Magritte perhaps didn´t know each other, Ueda‘s photos remind me of some of Magritte‘s paintings. Additional to that, Shoji Ueda`s nude serials seems to be an add-on to Man Ray´s nude pictures. Shoji Ueda‘s work seems to be the continuation of the european surrealism. Interesting for me as a european is to have a look at and perhaps learn something about the japanese culture at the same time while perceiving his photos.

Also when his work seems to be unspectacular and very easy to copy, I think this easiness of capturing his view of life gives his work an impressive touch.

Vanessa Woods

Vanessa Woods