Fabrizio Costantini Photography

i’m going to be participating in michigan’s slideluck potshow this thursday at the Michigan Theater in downtown ann arbor.

“Slideluck Potshow is a slideshow potluck to which members of the arts, photography,
and media communities bring food, drinks and a maximum of 5 minutes worth of slides.
The evening begins with a couple hours of dining on the home-cooked delights of participants,
while drinking full-bodied red wines and mingling. There is no entrance fee or guest list;
one’s admission is a nice bottle of wine, some lemongrass shrimp salad, squash soup with
bacon and pineapple, or a braised lamb shank with rosemary risotto.
Slideluck Potshow is a forum for exposing editors, curators and artists to new work, while infusing
the arts community with a non-commercial vitality and refreshing exchange. Photojournalists,
painters, video and installation artists, and fashion photographers will all show their work alongside one
another in a spirited and relaxed atmosphere. Presenters will range from the very accomplished and
distinguished to the up and coming, but regardless of status, none is allotted more than 5 minutes for their
slideshow. Participants are encouraged to take creative risks and to not just show their portfolios.”

caption: REPUBLICAN DEBATE - DEARBORN, MI - OCT 10, 2007: Rudolph “Rudy” Giuliani, 2008 U.S. presidential candidate, speaks at a debate for Republican candidates in Dearborn, Michigan, U.S., on Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2007, which was sponsored by the Wall Street Journal, CNBC and MSNBC. Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson, in his first candidate debate, and the party’s other top contenders said the country benefits from free trade as long as agreements protect national security and U.S. manufacturers. Photographer: Fabrizio Costantini/Bloomberg News

in Toledo, Ohio - December 2005, Jeffrey Sauger, a talented photojournalist and friend was arrested while covering a Nazi rally. recently, on september 29th, 2007 he was found guilty of criminal trespass.

although i can’t attest to the chain of events in which brought on his arrest, i can say that Jeffrey Sauger is a professional photojournalist who practices his craft ethically. he establishes a channel of communication between these actual worldly events and helps deliver it to the rest of us. his practices are tested, uninfluenced, unbiased, and professional. his arrest is a shame. the irony in this case is that the nazi demonstrators, were exercising their first amendment right, and the journalist was arrested while exercising his. in all of this, the biggest loss in this matter (aside from Jeffrey’s) are the pictures that were censored that day by whatever “crowd control” was being exercised that day by toledo police

for the whole story and coverage click here

while recently overseas, i often found the topic of conversation shifting towards 9/11 and it’s impact. maybe because i’m american or because the talk of travel and the new inconveniences within are an easily identifiable issue across boarders but on no occasion, was i the instigator of the topic. all and all, i was flummoxed by the candidness and casualness towards it and the inclusion of conspiracy theories which crudely followed. it was kind of infuriating and i found myself biting my tongue often just absorbing what they had to say. the frankness that these ‘outsiders’ displayed while blurting out radical claims of either a jewish conspiracy or even how the bush administration was the orchestrator of the tragedy as a justification to a war in iraq, would leave a salty taste in you mouth. i found myself fumbling for the right words but now, (in my timely rebuttal) my thoughts shift towards a recent article by Douglas Rushkoff in arthur magazine (acclaimed author of the CONSPIRACIES OF DUNCES) here’s an excerpt…

“Yes, I believe that 9-11 theorizing debilitates the counterculture. It robs us of some potentially creative thinkers. It replaces truly important questions with trivial ones. It marginalizes more constructive investigation of American participation in the development of Al Qaeda as well as its subsequent aggravation. And perhaps worst of all, it is precisely the sort of activity that government disinformation specialists would want us to be involved with.

9-11 theorists are unwittingly performing as the unpaid minions of the administration’s propaganda wing. (At least most of them are unpaid; no doubt, some of the loudest are working as contractors for the same agencies whose activities they pretend to deconstruct.) That’s why, instead of nodding along with their long-winded, preposterous yarns under the false belief that any critique is better than no critique, we—the informed, intelligent, and reasonable members of the war resistance—must instead disassociate ourselves from this drivel. In other words, we must draw the line between the kind of analysis done by Greg Palast and that done by Pilots for Truth. If we don’t apply discipline to our thinking, we risk falling into the trap that even some of our best intellectuals have—like Harper’s editor Lewis Lapham, who on reading a bit too much 9-11 conspiracy, has concluded that it all has some merit.

I’m all for supposing. It’s how the best science fiction gets written, the best science gets speculated, the best innovations get developed, and the wildest thoughts get hatched. But forensics is a different beast. As any detective will tell you, the most straightforward solution is usually the right one…”

It’s really nice to do something about Ford that isn’t bad news. here’s a slide show about the 1932 Ford V-8 De Luxe Roadster in today’s Times.

i got so excited when i read this headline in the BBC this morning. unfortunately, they were talking about hijacked pc’s which are preyed upon and then set up to do the ill will of spammers and the likes. so… continue your preparedness for the zombie uprising. looks like we’re alone in the fight against them.