Essence of Christmas

Before we left for break, Mr. O'Connor asked us to count the number of times objects were mentioned during the winter break. I followed this advice, not counting, but rather noticing things about the gifts we opened. This Christmas I did not ask for anything extravagant. My favorite gift was a pair of pants I had been wanting. But the best gift our family received was from my mom. She scoured the Internet trying to find a very specific type of antique beer glasses. We used to have two that were my grandmothers. Over the years, one had broken, and we were unable to find another like it. My mom's gift was four identical glasses she had ordered from an obscure resale website. This gift was not the latest and greatest. It was not hundreds of dollars. But it was still the best gift under the tree.

The one problem I have with Christmas consumerism, especially in the north shore, is the giving of money. This year I received a nice check from my parents. So did my sister, boyfriend, and several of my friends. Now I can understand receiving money from a distant relative who doesn't really know you that well, because they don't know what you like. But what really bugs me is getting money from your parents. On paper it seems like a great idea. Parents have plenty of it, and kids can never get enough. But what is it teaching kids? I know I may seem hypocritical seeing as I did not turn down the money I was given, but it seems too easy. Money is a cop-out gift. It takes away the giving spirit of Christmas. I would much rather have received a well thought out gift, instead of a check my mom wrote Christmas morning. But in the grand scheme of things, I do not agree with Mr. O'Connor's point of view. Christmas is not just a time of objects and money, but a time of family and loving.

Public Service Announcement

Watch this video. This video was a public service announcement in the UK, where most guns have already been banned. But, as already said in Bolos and O'Connor's blog, the second amendment of the Bill of Rights states that:

“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

Although the commas are an interesting topic, I want to blog about the pressing issue of guns in the hands of the mentally ill. Currently there is an act in place to prevent the mentally ill from obtaining guns. It is the Gun Control Act of 1968. The specific part of this act is line 6.

"Under the GCA, firearms possession by certain categories individuals is prohibited:

6. Anyone who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to a mental institution"

But this act is not being followed. This morning I read an article titled Hole In Gun Control Law Lets Mentally Ill Through. It talks about a woman, Lisa Duy, who was diagnosed with "paranoid schizophrenia and, only a year before...had been committed to a mental hospital by a judge after threatening to kill an F.B.I. agent." She had also been hearing voices in her head telling her to kill. Now the store that sold her the gun had done a background check before selling her a Smith & Wesson 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol. The search showed no felonies and no history of mental illness.

RESULTS

"Less than two hours after leaving Doug's, on Jan. 14, 1999, Ms. Duy...walked into the studios of television station KSL...and began firing her new weapon. She shot more than four dozen times in all, killing a young mother and wounding the building manager."

WHY

"...laws in most states guard the privacy of the mentally ill, and to protect them from stigma these statutes generally bar law-enforcement agencies from access to mental health records.
As a result, gun background checks of people with psychiatric problems typically fail to turn up their mental health history, a loophole that has contributed to the wave of school and workplace shootings of the last decade. In the 100 cases reviewed by The Times, the vast majority of them from the last 10 years, half the killers were people with a history of serious mental health problems, and at least eight had been involuntarily committed."

MY THOUGHTS

The facts I have presented are clear. States are 'protecting' the mentally ill, and endangering the entire population. The mother of Lisa Duy said in the article, "I don't understand how Lisa could buy a gun." If the states keep their laws, they are overriding this government act. I think that if this issue was actually taken seriously by the government, they would step up and take further actions. This act of 1968 was a good idea. But it's not being taken seriously. I think we should make it a bill and put it through Congress. If the Congress looks at these facts, they can see how logical the Gun Control Act of 1698 is. Other provisions in it include that no one under 18 can buy a gun. States abide by this part of the act, why shouldn't they abide by the whole thing?

I'm Tired of Using Technology

In class yesterday, we talked about technology and how its advances effect us. What I was not able to share in class was that technology is a huge center of controversy in my photo 3/4 class. Photo 3/4 is an advanced class, and most of my classmates are very familiar with all types of processes. For example: 35 mm, medium format, and now photoshop. With digital cameras becoming the craze, photoshop is becoming more and more prevalent. In my class, about one third of the people use photoshop regularly, and two or three of my peers use it exclusively. My teacher, used to the old fashioned ways of photography, keeps pushing us back into the darkroom. He assigns homework that can only be done with black and white film and a regular SLR camera.

Most serious photographers either consider photoshop a heavenly sent gift that revolutionizes photography as we knew it, or a poisonous monster that's destroying tradition. It cannot be denied that photoshop revolutionizes photography. It has hundreds of features that would take hours and a lot of dedication to complete in the darkroom. With a click of a mouse, you can change an entire picture. Look at the picture I included above. The first picture is the actual model. But in the photoshopped version, her ribs are erased, her arm filled out, her hair polished, her breasts augmented and her face filled out and complexion softened. This picture probably took an hour or two to transform. This is not only skews the perception the viewers of the ad will receive, but this sends the wrong message to girls. No person is externally perfect. People who made this ad know this, but by making her flawless with photoshop, they are skewing this perception. In the past when professional photographers shot models they would use lighting and angles that flattered the model. Today, there is no need to do this because you can just edit things out that you don't like.

Another fault of photoshop would be how it is making darkrooms obsolete. My photo teacher, who also happens to be the department chair, is feeling pressure from administrators. A darkroom is very expensive to maintain, and photoshop is not. My teacher refuses to fully embrace this new technology. He does accept it somewhat and we do have 8 macs, each fully equipped with photoshop, and four color and black and white printers. My teacher, along with 85% of schools in the nation, have made a commitment to keep their darkrooms for another 20 years. But after that, who knows?

Now for the good side of photoshop. It's efficiency cannot be beaten. Most changes I would normally make in the darkroom are very time consuming. Hand dipping every print in all the chemicals takes about five minutes every time you do it. With photoshop you can preview your changes and finalize them with the click of a mouse. A good quality print from the darkroom, on average, takes me two periods to complete. With photoshop, I can make about two decent prints in one period. The time saved is unbeatable. Also, generally speaking, you can make a better print. Every detail can be perfected with photoshop, well some aspects of the darkroom procedure are somewhat unpredictable.

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My personal opinion of photoshop is that it is a great advance in photographic technology. I use it regularly and I love the work I can produce with it. I can change so many variables to make my picture however I want it. But I think photoshop should not be used exclusively. The darkroom and photoshop should be used together to create a perfect print. A common way to do this is to make a print in the darkroom and scan it into the computer. I'm not saying you should always do this, but a combination of the two can create amazing results. There is no way I would be successful with photoshop if I did not first learn the basics in the darkroom. There are rudimentary skills you need to learn in the darkroom, and not just on a computer. So for the future, keep the darkrooms and photoshop.

Sicko

This weekend I rented the movie Sicko and watched it with my parents. I'm sure everyone has heard of it, but just in case, here is an overview. Michael Moore, a very controversial documentarist, researches America's healthcare system. He travels the globe in search of countries with better healthcare systems, and tries to persuade the viewers that universal healthcare is the best option for America. I know Michael Moore can be manipulative sometimes, but after watching this movie, I agree that America should switch to universal healthcare.

People are afraid to lose or leave their jobs because they would lose health insurance. "THE GREATEST source of insecurity for many Americans is the soaring cost of
healthcare. Leaving jobs can mean losing health insurance, and even when
insurance is offered, many workers turn it down because they can't afford their
growing share of the premiums." Boston Globe January 29, 2007

Also we are not helping sick people. Insurance companies benefit from not giving people medicine. From the movie, in England, doctors get paid more the healthier their patients are. This system is the opposite we have in America. "Insurance is not the same thing as healthcare - not by a long shot. Private insurers maximize profits mainly by limiting benefits or by not covering people with health problems. The United States is the only advanced country in the world with a healthcare system based on avoiding sick people." Boston Globe January 29, 2007

Insurance companies are currently abusing their power to a point of insanity. People are denied proven life saving procedures because the company does not want to pay."We hear from the mother of an 18-month-old baby who, denied emergency room access, died of a seizure. We see the widow of a man who, denied coverage for a medical procedure, died of kidney cancer. The parents of a deaf child are told that insurance will only pay for a cochlear implant in one ear, since a double implant is deemed 'experimental.'" Christian Science Monitor June 29, 2007

The government is able to handle universal healthcare. They already handle Medicare, which for the most part works very smoothly. "Medicare is not perfect, but its problems are readily fixed. It is far more efficient than private insurance, with overhead of less than 4 percent, and since it is administered by a single public agency, controlling costs would be possible. Unlike private insurers, it cannot select whom to cover or deny care to those who need it most." Boston Globe January 29, 2007

If we look at ourselves logically, and we look at our conscience, we can see that something has to be done. We are a huge world power, yet our healthcare ranks just above Slovenia's! We need to step up and stop letting huge corporations decide who gets to live and gets to die. 18,000 Americans a year die because they have no health insurance. These barbaric numbers can be changed if we just follow in the footsteps of other countries like France, Norway, England, Canada and even Cuba.

Proud of You

When I was almost finished with my perilous times paper, and I was talking a break to eat, something came to my mind. I knew my boyfriend would say he was proud of me when I finished. Normally this thought would have just passed through my head, but it stuck. It stuck because my boyfriend is two years older than me. And when I think of someone saying I'm proud of you, I think of an elder saying it to a youngster. For example, a parent congratulating a kid on a good grade. Or a big brother or sister being proud of a younger sibling's accomplishments. But then I realized it was reasonable for two equals to say they are proud of each other. I say I am proud of my friends or younger people I know all the time. I do say I am proud of my mom sometimes, but it is usually sarcastic, like after she told me she did a load of darks. If I were to say I were proud of Mr. Bolos or Mr. O'Connor, I think they would find it insulting, if not at the very least odd. There are of course the exceptions, like if someone quit smoking or lost 100 pounds, but those are rare. If someone younger than me told me they were proud of me, I would say thank-you politely, but not take it seriously. I think that's because I do not value their opinion as much as an elder's.

According to dictionary.com, the word 'proud' carries no age dennotation:

...having, proceeding from, or showing a high opinion of one's own dignity, importance, or superiority.

This word goes back to the connotation vs. dennotation discussion we had earlier in the year. When I talked to my boyfriend after I finished my paper, and as I predicted he did say he was proud of me, we talked about my theory. He said he considered me an equal even though he is older. He believes that if a younger person says he is proud of you, it shows respect and that the younger person looks up to him. But would you take a younger persons congratulations seriously? Would you feel insulted?