The Unreasonable Man

..or epic fail? The Economist warns of “The growing threat of failure” in Afghanistan. The numbers do not lie: exponential increases in deaths over the last years. Most of the south is under Taliban control.

The Afghans kicked out every other invader over the past thousand years (yes, invaders. I don’t like the Taliban either, but our troops there invaded, so they are invaders). The Afghans kicked out the mighty Brits, even the ruthless Soviets. So why on earth do we think we’ll do better? We cannot even control small villages.

“The war of necessity”, Mr Obama calls this.

Necessity? To “stop terrorism”? All we are doing is to breed it. The hubris and lack of historical insight of our political leaders knows no bounds, it seems.

I guess we, the taxpayers, will be paying for decades, and young men and women will be coming back in caskets for decades, and the Afghans will continue to marry 12-year olds, to veil their women, and to do whatever they do with their sheep with their sheep, for millennia to come.

A quick repeat - Yves Klein Blue’s “Polka”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=AU&hl=en-GB&v=rQ6tKGFnemU

One of the catchiest tunes… it’s about drugs of course (yes, this “boring fortysomething” - and then some - understands the lyrics) - this is a great song in a great and long tradition from an Oz band that needs watching.

“Quick repeat”, because I have had no time for blogging here recently. Seven days a week work - really, seven, including evenings. I shot a wedding Saturday, a baptism Sunday, the fire chief of Oakville Monday, did two lots of teaching Tuesday… more teaching today and tomorrow, a party shoot Friday: non stop. And I am writing abook - a photography book but a special one -amazing how a 50-year old can work 80 hour weeks!

Canadian cell rates are the third highest in the world: see CBC article here.

“The total cost of ownership of high-end devices such as the iPhone has also been considerably higher because Canada is the only OECD country to require three-year contracts”.

Rogersatan and Bellzebub, I’ve said it for years.

….is explaining things in a simple manner. Like Einstein, in hois 1905 paper on the electrodynamics of moving bodies, linked here. That is the special relativity paper, and it is amazingly clear. A recent series of Berkeley “history of science” lectures that I listened to in the car last week clarified a few more things, making it even more interesting than it was before. Einstein had a great gift for putting things simply.

Three more photo training blog posts here:

http://www.michaelwillems.ca/Blog/Blog.html

If you are interested in enhancing your photography skills, click!

The BBC USA correspondent, who left the USA recently after seven years, compared the US (which, like me, he likes) to sometimes seeing like “merely an eating contest”. He also pointed out the “medieaval superstitions” the US suffers from.

One example of such superstitions here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8180116.stm

Sigh! What a waste of energy.