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Entries in documentary photography (91)

Thursday
Dec192013

Dig

Dig yourself a ditch, six
feet deep, and bury everything that you've ever
said, everything that you've never
meant, and everything that has
burned you and left you with nothing
but ash.
 - Shinji Moon  Read more…

Sunday
Dec152013

heart sutra

Everything changes, everything passes,
 
Things appearing, things disappearing,
 
But when all is over—everything having appeared and disappeared,
 
Being and extinction both transcended— 
 
Still the basic emptiness and silence abides,
 
And that is blissful Peace.

 

Thursday
Dec122013

kids speak truth

After a year and a half in a Wild West town,
Pounding Stick dragged his sorry angry alcoholic brilliant ass to Hanoi. 
Down a dusty road. Out of a dusty little town.
Past the Plain of Scars.
Past men and women de-mining, defining soil.
Harvesting ordinance.
To be recycled as garden planters, fences, restaurant fixtures, bracelets,
Spoons and impossible fragments explaining how the world works.
Going to get a life teaching spoiled rich kids, said Pounding Stick. $30 an hour.
He needed travel money for South America. 
A long way from England.
A long way from anywhere but here turning Earth.
Life is good.
Short, said a H'mong student.
It was the rainy season.
Tears ran down the street.
Yes, said another. He evaporated his limited patience here.
Yes, he did, said another kid. He absolved the dilemma of his loss. 
He projected his shadow, fear, and ignorance on us, said one.
It'd be nice if we had a more gentle teacher.
Accept loss forever, said a quiet kid. Happiness is small.
A small mansion.
A small fortune.
A small ____.
Smaller and smaller. Poof.

 

Thursday
Nov282013

operating Instructions For Plants

not hanford nuclear plants
mind you

filled with radio
active frequency shifts 
seeping, bleeding 
55 million barrels of

uranium
plutonium fool fuels

into down through

130 feet to Columbia River 
water table
transparent tables
where drowning skeletons devour 
questions 

old fears sifting
healthy dust, no.

these plants evolved in northwest 

Podocarpus, ‘maki’ loves some direct sun
needs to be in east winter window.

Ficus nerifolia, ‘willow leaf ficus’ bonsai
east window
watching for summer sunburn
likes dry air, misting is helpful.

Asparagus plumosus, ‘plumosa fern’
needs south window
during darker months
don’t water when soil still feels wet.

Dracaena compact will tolerate lower light
trim back to encourage branching.

 

Sunday
Nov242013

writing, sex and censorship #301

A Chinese computer science professor received a 3.5 year sentence for "crowd licentiousness."  This is vague government wordage. It covers crowds. It covers licenses. It means a crowd gets together and applies for a license. In this case with broad overtones they applied for a license to swap identities.

He led informal swinger clubs for partner swapping. He pleaded innocent. "I had nothing to do with the North Korean submarine attack in an apartment with eighteen people. I was only the middleman. I was formatting my hard drive and downloading data."

He was charged under Criminal Law 301. 

A Chinese academic said...“I feel that the thought process of the Chinese authorities is always to try to manage and control the population, the people. Beyond prosecuting criminal activities, they feel they have to control or manage people to their standards.” read more...

Turkey also has an infamous Article 301 law. This law makes it illegal to insult Turkey, Turkish ethnicity or Turkish government institutions.

Turkey's imprisoned 49 journalists, Iran 45 and China 32 as of December 2012.

Writers Orhan Pamuk, Noam Chomsky, Elif Safak, among others have been charged under this article. All the cases were either dropped or acquitted.

A spoiled young girl in Ankara was recently arrested and charged under Article 301 for insulting her mother's cooking.

"I hate Turkish food. Too many tomatoes. I don't want black olives. I don't want fresh salad. I don't want fresh seafood from the Marmara Sea. I want Italian pizza with extra cheese please squeeze." 

Her mother said, "Eat what I give you. Hurry up. I'm late for my wife swapping seminal seminary with binary logic."

It was thrown out for lack of evidence.

Number 301 is very popular. The number of words mating and swapping with other words is increasing. Words remove an article of clothing like a, an, the.

Burma
 

China

China

Turkey