things to consider

Hebrew WIKI is racist, hypocritical and bias

i guess i should not read any hebrew at all.i dont event know where to begin to to try and comment on it. it all makes me want to puke.

the first law of thermodynamics

the struggle for power is everywhere, but none of us are part to this struggle. we are just waisting air.

Emergence

it has been snowing. this is more snow then i have ever seen. even though it probably snowed more when i lived in Providence and i helped jay dig out his truck, our empty lot next door was a great white expanse of knee deep snow. this is goos exercise, just the other day i was going to write a post about how i am feeling fat lately. my brother used to tell me that i eat too much bread, and since it was a large portion of my diet at the time and i was not fat i did not believe him and dismissed what he said (as i did and still do with anything else he directs at me) as being just his rant for not being able to eat as much bread as i do with out gaining wheight. but for a guy whose daily exercise was a walk form the cafeteria to his office i guess that was a point. i have not been eating more bread then usual lately but my experimentation in breadmaking did mean i was eating more of it in a shorter period of time. perhaps that made me feel as if i had gotetn fat all of a sudden from eating all that bread, or i was actually now getting fat. a recent visit of friends who are in the army reminded me that the last time i cut my hair was when i was in the army. my mother had recently written about samson and some how my being fat and long hair came together for some wierd reason. perhaps this is kind of like in the story of samson only the other way around and in order to get my power back i need to cut my hair.

after that i developed some film.

All good things...

all the pictures i dident take.

propulsion

every day i am reduced a little more. its not that i am being reduced in the holocaust kind of way in that i am getting smaller, in fact i am getting fatter with every passing day. but i am reduced in what i know, what i think and what i do. what i can do is becoming a lesser thing with every day that passes, maybe thats why i wish the days would last longer, as if perhaps until a day is actually over i am more then less.
in response to the fact that i am actually getting bigger and fatter, i have decided to reduce my self. i will reduce my consumption and participate in the world of material goods a little less.
thats why i have rearranged my desks 12 power outlets in to 3 switchable clusters that can be shut down when i am not using parts of it and that way not loose phantom electricity. 

virgin recycled material

more of the same again.

the 5 year itch

I took this picture about 5 years ago. i can remmeber almost everything about taking that photo. i remmeber exactly where on newburry street it was, and what the other kids were doing. out of the the three that were there i remained in contact with this girl in the photo. she is one of only a handfull of poeple i photographed and was able to stay in contact with. i hind sight that is what i was really interested in more then anything, to make friends and meet new popele. sure if the pictures came out good and had value that was good, and at that time i was able to make lots of sharp crisply defined photos and present them along ideas that were just as badly defined as my ideas in relation to my photos are today.
She was in boston today and dropped by with her boyfriend. she is in the army now. 5 years is a long time. we had some bears and talked. i am not sure why but along with other occurences of the same type i had my camera gear with me and thought about taking a picture but knowingly i just dident. i hate my self for not taking that picture that would have had so much value of time materialism, and essence over substance kind of thing, but still i dident. its just plain stupid. but perhaps this is part of somthing i have been feeling on and off for a long time, this kind of loss of connection to what i am actually doing.

Snow covers the world now. the snow, the photos i dident take and other things remind me of stuff that happened long ago and have no consequenses to my life in the NOW. they are all parts of things i cant seem to get over, convictions that have proven to be wrong and still i feel i am right in my errors.

Recycle

First Snow Boston 2010

Ikea Sune ver 2.0 (Herbert Marcuse was absolutely right and all i have left to do is be ashamed of my self)

we got these Ikea Sune chairs at a yard sale for 6$.

they were wobbly when we got them but it got worse after we actually used them.

the screws that connect the legs of the chairs are METRIC hex screws. they were probably made in taiwan with the rest of the chair, as the hex socket did not really fit any of the Allen wrenches i have both metric and american. the socket of the screws was getting chewed up pretty easily whenever i put pressure on them, and the drill bits went right through them. 

After two visits to home depo, where they regularly stock strange metric bolts and stuff (but no fasteners) they had just the cure for the wobble, 8 hex 10mm head 6mmX30mm 1mm thread bolts in individual  heavy duty nylon packaging for ease of use, advancement of the petroleum industry and betterment of american landscape and recycling programs. lucky for me i have a few metric sockets that fit my ratchet.

 the original ikea screws were eased out slowly, and replaced with the ikea allen key of all things, and after some persuading they all came out.

the new zync plated bolts went in with left over washers fromt he newly built shelve and the chairs now stand strong once more, perhaps forever. IKEA Sune chairs ver 2.0.

Abatment

So and so inches, and so many feet. what the fuck is an inch? what the hell is a foot? how many feet in an inch? on the things i love the most about america is the accuracy and precision craftsmanship. they have all kinds of accurate measurments, like 15/16 or 11/32, they also use fractions of inches to define precise sizes, one inch and 3/16. all very logical and easy to calculate. 

this shelf is fully suspended with no drilling, and only one pressure screw to keep it aloft. all DIY stuff, and i dont even have a hammer.

its my aggressive driving style that gets me there faster

Tertiary Confections

Hezbollah, Boston, Borders.

How far is kiryat shmona from marj ayyon? how far is downtown jerusalem from downtown ramallah?
in any case there is some mental distance between the poeple on either sides of the fence. Esther Hecht writes in her blog about connections between palestinians and israelis, in the past wild fires, and in relation to a desert monastery that is not in israel but the road that leads to is was paved by the israeli ministry  of tourism.
it takes an something as colosal as an uncontrolled deadly wild fire or something as esoteric as an ancient monetary to have the mere glimps of acknowledgment that there are poeple on both sides of the fence.
any old casual day to day life of the two sides never crosses paths in a formally or socially accepted way. the grocery shopping, food and for that matter any other cultural or commercial exchange one might find exists between two neighboring communities does not exists between israel and arabs. sure, yuppi telavivians eat hummus in Jaffa, and every israeli has been to east jerusalem for one reason or another.i doubt many poeple in the northern part of israel would casually walk around a village that is spitting distance across a fence, even if they could. that is a distance they cannot cross. the distance to the mental enemy is far greater then the actual physical distance.
its strange to find that this distance is immediately dissipated when the same poeple meet else where.
In boston, all of a sudden, ex patriot israelis are happy to shop at a local Lebanese run grocery shop and are happy to find and Egyptian flalfel joint (even if it is really bad). every time we buy a product of syria, we say to ourselves that it all proabably goes towards buying another katyusha. every just of olive oil we buy funds another volly. i am sure this is no different then anyone buying any israeli made product (since 16.5% of every sale of israeli products fuels its government and military, and in turn funds the occupation). i guess thats the real distance.a syrian made container of pickles will always be something from the other side, something i could only wish to be able to buy direct, and not have to be in america to do that.
on the other hand, who the fuck wants to live in israel? or syria for that matter...

actually this seemed profound to me just the other day and makes little sense just about now.

Numero Uno on Google.com - Edut mekomit 2010 !!! עדות מקומית מקום ראשון בגוגל

Unbelievable, My esoteric, uninteresting and mostly internetically unseen blog, is now the first and highest rated search result for the Israeli Local Testimony 2010 (Edut Mekomit) Photojournalism show.
The search refers to this post, a statistical analyses of the strange selections by the jury.
Perhaps this serous and well established show, would benefit  from having proof readers for their website.
For instance, that might prevent a double first place slot in the sports category, and a strange double last name  for photographer/videographer Jonathan Weitzman (Weitzman).
I would like to thank my friends and family that have brought me fourth, google.com for this honor, but most of all i would like to thank the local testimony photo 2010 show.

Local Testimony 2010 (Edut Mekomit) עדות מקומית (לוקל טסטימוני)

this years local testimony juried photo show, which is exhibited along side the world press photo is showing at the Haaretz museum in tel aviv. the show has been around since 2002 and is highly regarded in israel as a stage for photojournalism. almost all active photojournalists have been selected in this show at one point or another.

aside from crazy funny english captions (thanks to the obvious apparent use of google translate or any other israeli english language experts).

actually, alot of them sound just as silly in hebrew, there were also a few weird selections and other ok selections with weird placement choices.

Haaretz reports that out of the 8000 images entered by 400 photographers the shows jury selected 250 images representing 45 photographers. there is a great number thing to analyze here.

for full disclosure, i submitted about 30 images (of which none were selected). there is something strange about  the fact that only about half of the jurors are related to photography in any way (one is a full time veteran photojournalist, and one is a commercial portrait photographer who actually has a photo by her in the show, i dident say conflict of interest).

so lets look at the numbers again.

out of the 45 photographers one, Daniel Bar-ON has won 5 number one entries in different categories including photo of the year.

Yuval Tabol got in with 3 series, totaling 28 photos.

Oriel Sinai got in with 3 series as well, totaling 31 photos.

Tomer Yfrach got in 2 series totaling 19 photos, and also 2 photos in the single categories - total 21 photos.
Nikita Pavlov got in with 2 series totaling 16 photos.

if we put all this together we find that out of the 250 photos that were chosen for the show 101 represent 4 photographers. that means that almost HALF of the show belongs to less then 10% of the participating photographers. this comes from the 8000 photos submitted by 400 photographers.

i guess thats one of the less disturbing things about this show. the real question after viewing all of the photos in the show is how is it different from last years show and what does this years show have to say about the world?

funny that I, who despises these questions when they are directed at me be the one who stumbles upon them.

perhaps it is a perfect fit for what it is, much like this BBC example.

Rear ashelon + 3 years 5 months and one day

I posted THIS a while ago and it seems to be getting a ton of views. i wonder why.
in any case here a few statements about the now and then thing:
the city is Boston (was jeruslem), obviuosly this is the USA and that was NOT.
i have no roommates. this is a canon 5D not a 30D. this has Neopan 400 in it and its my film. i cant remmeber what was in the older one but i know it was not mine. there was a party going on outside the bathroom then, and there lots of unshaved overweight nerdy hebrew university economics and mathematics students all over the house. it was a million degrees and no ventilation. this time it was just me and smigel and a double digit below Zero outside.
i guess all the rest is the same.

Welcome (learning from the top hat carriers, "Next, is nothing")

welcome to the USA. welcome to where politics means every one has the same opinion with a choice of 2 parties that represent the same thing and same poeple. wlecome to where protest is something to do but not really believe in. welcome to where democracy means dollar signs and dollar signs mean race. welcome to where if you are poor your fucked and you take it quietly. welcome to where all the poor poeple have the same color. welcome to where students pay more money then they will ever make for an education that gives them absolutely nothing. welcome to where a chosen few, who dont really need tobe educated can do whatever they want. welcome to where a country in recsetion sells more new cars there anywhere else in the world. welcome to where everyone has a nice car, big tv, new gadget phones shopping power, but they don't really do anything and cant really afford what they (temporarily) own. welcome to where students will never protest about anything. welcome to where having an opinion other then the all powerful free enterprise expansionist liberal economy is worse then killing someone. welcome to where crossing the street on a red light is worse the killing someone. welcome to where libertarianism is often confused with neoliberalism. welcome to where poeple make separation between the private life and public life as if they were two separate entities. welcome to where all the options are open to you if you would just conform to the norm. welcome to where criticism is often confused with racism, and where racism is worse then Nazism. welcome to where racism is just fine when it is socially or economically justified. welcome to where moral judgment is passed by the morally challenged. welcome to where the economy is based on slavery but is called a free market. welcome to where regulation is bad world when it refers to the government but a good word when it refers to the protection of profit margins. welcome to where hypocrisy is the core base of language and a way of life. welcome to where fake is more real then reality. welcome to where poeple understand you as long as you say what they think you are saying.

welcome to where we could have had it all but had no choice about it.

Welcome to the United States of America.

in the back seat of the car

cycles are ending, and i find my self at the end and closing point of many circles. i am back near that place, where katrina rented a room from a crazy divorcing couple on the corner of pond street and centre. not far from Rachels house next to the gas station. not far from where i lived on goldsmith. all the same place only now i am here and no one else is. i had so many things to write about but i cant remmeber any of them now.

Life Cycle analysis (LCA101)

its strange. i find that the presence of the cats, in the house and near me makes me feel good. i feel that they are with me out of their own interest. their presence comforts me in a way and makes me feel less alone. for the rest of it i am happy that this semster is comming to an end. there is ofcourse the problem if the thesis, but considering i enjoyed writing a 10 page paper this week about something i know only a little about but had some interest in i am feeling not as bad. i am still experiencing extreme yawning as a response to the stress. i guess i am all done creating.

Green Card #2

Green Card

what does being in the place mean, as apposed to be being somwhere else?
i have a tendancy to get attached to places and feel that there is a good reason for staying where i am if it is what i want to do. but really what diffarence does it make if we are here or somwhere else? i feel that i am overwhekmed by mever ending consumer propogranda around me. buy buy buy every time of year is marked by its special buying graces. when i had a job and made some money it was not a problem. even though i could not pay my rent, health insurance or tuition with the money i made, i felt that if i want to buy somthing or do something i am doing it with my own money and need not think twice about how i spend it. now i have no job, no money and its not that i need to buy stuff, but i am thinking ahead in to the future and wondering weather or not this will always be the case? i am not a career person and i doubt i will ever be. my self employment scheme is a complete failure and i will not persue it much longer. ia msurrounded buy shit i dont need but cant get rid of. i cant keep a lid on these feelings of loss and useleness. really it is pointless i am not moving forward i am not moving anywhere at all for that matter.
all of a sudden my school seems to be a nice place to be in, even though nothing has changed and the things that bother me there are still all there. the peopel around me have managed to convince me that whatever it is that they are doing and what i am inviolved in is important to me and that i should play along with it.
but wait - its time for realization and disillusionment - nothing have changed. its still as pointless and silly as it was before and the discussion cannot save it. it needs to go to a whole other level for it to actually mean something, and even then i am not sure it will make a diffarence for me. like the world i am running out of resources to handle this stuff. i want to know what to, where to go. i want clear goals.