Field of Steve

A month ago Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain came to Seattle prior to the Feb. 9 caucuses. I’m told Ron Paul was here, too, but no one tipped me off. I went to the Clinton, Obama and McCain events and wrote about them for the Kitsap Sun. For the McCain visit I was invited to be part of a rolling press conference between Boeing (Isn’t that appropriate.) Field and the Westin Hotel downtown. There about 10 reporters present. I shot video of part of it and at the campaign stop. Our Web Editor edited it.

The Los Angeles Times is fortunate to have a photographer who either writes very well, or writes well enough to be well edited.

In Iraq he took the photo of the man who has become known as the Marlboro Marine, aka James Blake Miller. When Miller made it home, however, his life was less than what we’d hope for a hero.

Luis Sinco, the photographer, took on an unusual role for a journalist, because in many ways he felt responsible for launching Miller into the world of being famous.

“I have to ask you something, Blake,” I said. “If I’d gone down in Fallouja, would you have carried me out?”

“Damn straight,” he said, without hesitation.

“OK then,” I said. “I think you’re wounded pretty badly. I want to help you.”

He looked at me for a moment. “All right,” he said.

Such a role is unusual, because most people whose stories we tell already have stong support, or at least some around them. A couple whose son died of a heroin overdose had each other. A boy whose injury left him mostly paralyzed had his family. A couple dealing with her cancer had each other, and when she died he had an entire community to buoy him.

Somehow in the case of Sinto and Walker, they bonded because the photographer survived the same nightmare as the soldier. For most of us, we can sympathize, but not empathize. In fact, we often avoid telling stories that are too close to our own.

In a war, that’s often impossible.

A word for a male part that rhymes with totem appears in the book The Higher Power of Lucky and its appearance has caused a controversy among librarians and schools. I can think of other words or phrases I don’t want my kids to ever see in a book or hear in class.

1. Lockbox
2. Hannity
3. Class, please welcome Mr. Marilyn Manson.
4. President Schwarzenegger
5. My babysitter Paris
6. At the end of the day
7. Incontinence
8. My friend Madonna
9. Florida Marlins
10. Canada

Shortly after the election I wrote GOP Hubricide, in which I left some thoughts about how the Republicans did this to themselves. Within the post is this comment:

Republicans as the majority were worse. If I am jubilant today, it’s because Republicans not only lost, they got their butts kicked. Every party has to have its hat handed to it from time to time just to recognize who is in charge — voters.

Those sentences have bothered me ever since, especially the last one. I’m just now addressing the matter.

First off, I can’t say Republicans were more drunk with power than Democrats were when they were in charge. Memory can be selective, 1994 was more than a decade ago and I haven’t done the research to back up my statement. There are far more opportunities to know exactly what’s happening in Congress today than there were a dozen years ago, so it may be infinitely unfair to compare GOP 2006 with Demo 1994.

On the second issue, it’s not necessarily that I’m happy the GOP lost, it’s knowing that they still can lose. I had seriously begun to doubt whether it was possible. The fears for me were that either America had slid so far to one side, or that the cheating mechanism was so sophisticated that it could virtually guarantee a win eternally. As much as I think ultimately the blame for Gore’s loss in 2000 rests more on his shoulders than anyone else’s, I think there is ample evidence that Bush’s win in Florida in 2000 was an injustice.

Going into election night there was some doubt whether the House or Senate would shift sides. When it did, it proved that it can. That, to me, was the best news of the night.

I’ve become fascinated by a toy new to me called tag clouds. It’s where you take a speech and get rid of the common words and highlight the other words that appear frequently. For example, here’s what the Gettysburg Address looks like in a tag cloud:

Here’s the tag cloud from Eric D. Snider’s last 10 “Snide Remarks” columns:

Here’s the Saturday Night Live spoof debate between George W. Bush and Al Gore from October 7, 2000:

I’ve lacked time and/or commitment to blog. To my adoring fans, please forgive me. Work has been pretty consuming and leaving me little time at home during the darker hours, when I like to do this.

So, upon my return, I report that I did see “An Inconvenient Truth” this weekend. It’s a well made film. There have been numerous media accounts of the scientists agreeing with Al Gore that the debate is over on whether humans are the cause of the current rise. Then you have a group of scientists saying the report isn’t dire enough. And then again you have someone offering $10,000 to anyone who can debunk those scientists.

I can’t really add anything to the debate, assuming there should be one.

On Racism
Malcolm Gladwell has thoughts on the recent racial rants.

No Shooting Blanks
Finally, in Washington there are some people launching an initiative requiring married couples to procreate. They’re making a point, and it only costs $5 to file an application to start an initiative. Then you have to get something like 300,000 signatures, which a’int gonna happen here and no one pretends it will.

Oh yes, I’ll return.