Best Feature of the Week

A "Migrant Mother" for the Mortgage Crisis

The origins of the Famous Photograph

Ethics in Photography: A Famous Example

Kevin Carter, in death as he was in life, will forever be associated with the classic example of the photojournalistic ethical dilemma.  The picture, taken at a Sudanese feeding camp in the early 1990's, ran in The New York Times and provoked a critical response.  Not just for the obvious poverty and chaos of the South African nation but also for the photographer himself.   Why hadn't he helped the child to the feeding center located a mile away?  Why did he continue to snap photographs despite the urgency apparent in the photos?

Although he chased off the vulture before parting, he was always blamed for taking advantage of the situation by profiting over the unknown fate of a dying girl.   

Durham Fireworks

Zips of red, blue and green fireworks exploded over the University of New Hampshire’s football stadium Friday night, as onlookers cheered and applauded.

Sandy Heald, a Rotary Club who helped organize the event, looked over the crowded arena of Fourth of July celebrants and smiled.

“Madbury, Barrington and other towns don’t have fireworks,” she said.

In a year with a slumping economy, many small New England towns didn’t have a Fourth of July fireworks celebration because they couldn’t raise the money.  Durham, New Hampshire however, had a spectacular 25-minute show with 14,000 shells.  The display, organized by the local Rotary Club was an annual event disguised as a fund-raiser, aimed to raise money to help fight Polio around the world.

Jon Belcher, President of the event, along with the Rotary Club planned to raise 30 thousand dollars this Fourth of July in order to meet their goal of eradicating Polio.

This year was a special occasion as the Rotary Club teamed up with the Bill Gates Foundation to help raise money to finance Polio vaccines in places like Pakistan and India. 

Eight years ago, Durham almost had to cancel their fireworks display because of lack of funds.  The Rotary Club however, took over and used a combination of advertising space, raffles, venders and donations to finance fireworks.  The display is just another way to benefit the community and help raise money for international aid.  As Belcher says, “We’re always being inventive to do more for service.” 

This year’s firework totaled eleven thousand dollars.  The event was held at University of New Hampshire’s football field amongst a crowd of local families and University of New Hampshire summer students.  People filled up the stadium but the most coveted spots seemed to be on the grass.

Before the display, volunteers handed out American flag stickers to donators.  Children’s tents with face painting, raffles and food carts dotted the landscape, all of which profited for charity.  Families sat on blankets watching the sky in anticipation while raffle prizes were called via loudspeaker.  Belcher seemed pleased.  “Good fireworks, good turnout” he said.

Steam Punk: an alternative to cyberpunk

Recently I came across this humor essay, which parodies the stepchild of Goth, the steam punk sub-culture, a kind of anime byproduct in which people imagine a world powered by steam and gears and futurist Victorian ethics. A re-imaging of the industrial revolution with time travel and way more of those Amelia Earhart face goggles.

They also convert ipods and computers into angry looking antiques. Angry cool, that is.

Uni-verse or multi-verse?

The world is perhaps 30 billion years old, give or take and stretched outward from an original molten core of energy.

Ever since that moment, the universe has been gradually expanding.

Kind of like a loaf of bread.

Universe bread, yum, yum.

Anyhow, the argument of universe vs. multiverse continues, while some saying it is hocus pocus and the other insisting that all arrangements of matter must exist out there somewhere and so the idea of multiverses are possible. Of course the article did go to to propose that monkeys attached to typewriters would eventually produce Shakespeare.

Could there be parallel multiverses that don't just appear in low budg. sci fi?

I watched a BBC program that explained all the mysticism along with string theory.

Insane? Check.

Awesome? Check.

Time Travel Goodness? Check, check, check.

My Article for The New Hampshire

Calling for a tougher alcohol policy - Commentary