How Much Power do Voters Really Have?

I read an article in the New York Times today that made me question the legitimacy of our political system even on a local level. You can find the article here. The article says that Mayor Rahm Emanuel used his political power to get Peter Coffey elected as ward committeeman in Chicago's 47th ward.

Alderman Ameya Pawar did not support the mayor's choice for ward committeeman saying that "it would have been nice to let the voters decide who would have been the best committeeman." Isn't the whole point of an election to let the voters decide who to elect? The article is titled Neophyte Runs Into Realities of Politics but why is this a reality of politics? Does it have to be a reality of politics? This seems to be another example of the shady politics that have gone on in Illinois. After reading this article, the Blagojevich scandal starts to make more sense. If these politicians can get away with things like choosing who the next candidate is going to be, why can't they take it a little farther by making people pay to play?

Hanukkah Harry Saves Christmas!

In the spirit of the holidays, I thought I'd share this video that was shown to me a couple of years back. The video is an SNL skit called Hanukkah Harry. I think that it really exemplifies the spirit of working together, helping out the less fortunate, and also forgiveness.

World Wide Terror Networks

Yesterday I saw an article in The New York Times that gave me a glimpse of the power that some of the major terror groups now have because they are now going international. The article is called "Beirut Bank Seen as a Hub of Hezbollah's Financing" and it reports on a bank that has been found to be laundering money for an international cocaine ring connected to the terrorist group Hezbollah.

Working on an international level has allowed Hezbollah to become Lebanon's major military and political power. Hezbollah is using the Lebanese Canadian Bank as a hub to move large sums of money into the legitimate financial system even though there are sanctions in place to try to cut off Hezbollah's economic lifeblood.

According to the article, some senior bank managers had assisted some account holders in washing drug money by mixing it with the proceeds of used cars bought in the United States and then sold in Africa. It is scary to think that even with all of the anti-terrorist measures that the U.S has taken, terrorist operations still go on in the U.S.

The most terrifying thing however, is that the scheme was only discovered by accident when the banks untainted assets were being sold, "with American blessings", to the French banking giant Societe Generale. If auditors had not been called in to scrub the banks books, this scheme would be going on today and no one would have any idea.

Improving Your Focus

Today I came across a new camera called the LYTRO camera. Basically it allows you to take a picture and then choose what you focus on later. The LYTRO website shows some of the amazing reviews that the camera has recieved. Popular Science said that "digital cameras have consistently and dramatically improved... but those changes have been incremental compared with the leap taken in Lytro's light-field camera." Popular Science even gave the LYTRO camera the 2011 innovation of the year. 

All of this high praise made me think that this was photography's liberator of the people. Helping normal people to create more professional looking pictures. This was until I looked around a little more and found a blog post by Chase Jarvis, a professional photographer, who said in his blog that LYTRO's technology combined with other technologies that are being developed could truly lead to something amazing.

The part that I found interesting was when Jarvis backtracked a little, saying that the LYTRO technology could create amazing pictures "Unless… your pictures have no focus." He says in order to make your pictures stand out from the crowd, you need to focus on subject, content, meaning, and artistic vision. This LYTRO is a photographic tool. It does not manufacture amazing pictures for you.  Below is a video by another pro photographer Jared Polin. In this video, he points out some flaws of the camera. Just like Chase Jarvis, he talks about how people take photos with bad composition but overlook it because they can choose what to focus on. 

cropped with SnipSnip

It's interesting that the professionals just view the camera as another trend and that it won't improve the quality of images people take, but on the other hand non-professionals are singing the cameras praises and saying that it improves their photography. After seeing the video, I have to side with the professionals. Just because new soccer cleats come out that are 50% lighter doesn't mean that wearing them will make you a better player. Pros are pros for a reason. Instead of trying to find a shortcut to the professional level, you have to find a way to separate yourself from the rest because if the camera had the possibility of turning you into a professional, you have to think everyone would have one.