You Know You're in Orange County When...

[FYI, I'm in Southern California this week and I'll be working from our Irvine office several days]

This is nothing new for me, but I can't help but make a mental list every time I'm down here. Keep in mind that I grew up in SoCal so I have special fun making light of this. Without further ado...a mix of good, bad, and funny things from my first 24 hours back....

You Know You're in Orange County When...
- You see more BMW 6 series coupes than Toyota Corolla's
- The corner mini mall with lunch eateries has lunchtime valet parking
- Otherwise normal looking men walk around with "Man Purses"
- The adults look like they belong on a daytime soap, the kids look like they belong on MTV. Take that for both the good and the bad :)
- Besides the guys behind the counter, I'm the only non-white person in Quiznos
- Besides my wife, I haven't seen another Indian person all day
- Going with the flow of non-rush hour traffic, my speedometer says 80 instead of 50. Yay!

Web 2.0 - Do you GET it?

You may have already seen this video. As of this posting, 1.2 million other people have already seen it.



Just a great visual representation of the potential Web 2.0. I'm not totally sold on the utility of video for most purposes, but in this case, a 4 min 31 sec video goes MUCH farther in explaining this than most text ever could. Obviously a much better use of video than stupid human tricks.

Abhishwarya

That's the cheesy celeb couple nickname for Abhishek Bachchan & Aishwarya Rai. And if you've followed either of those links, you'll notice that people are gaga over their recent engagement. If you haven't bothered to follow the links here's the summary: Abhishek is the Prodigal Son of Bollywood, son of Amitabh Bachchan, who is the hands-down fave Bollywood actor of all time. Aishwarya is apparently TMBWITW (The Most Beautiful Woman in the World) who is at or near the top of the heap of Bollywood actresses.

I was just emailing with a friend yesterday on this topic and an interesting sub-text to this engagement. Before the official engagement, Indian news was filled with daily updates of their rumored pairing. Whereas US celeb news is filled with grainy photos of the couple running around on the beach or shopping together, the Indian news was filled with photos of the couple and the Bachchan family (or their cars) entering or leaving temple.

Huh?!

Temple?

That's right, the most telling news to confirm that these two were together was that they were going to temple for specific prayers. And the newscaster informed us that the prayers were specifically for Aishwarya.

Why?

Well, she's a working girl. No not a prostitute. But she works. For a living. And the Bachchan family apparently wasn't very happy with this situation and needed to address the situation before marriage so that the gods (and their forefather and all of India apparently) would be pleased.

So here's the interesting thing...Aish is obviously strong woman. She's gotten pretty far in her young life. Sure, she's a really bad actress and immensely annoying in interviews, especially in English, but heck, she started off as a wannabe model and is now a top actress earning millions. That's nothing to sneeze at.

But it is apparently something to spit at if you're a traditionally minded, conservative Indian. And that sort of surprised me. Even one of my cousins who I consider to be pretty liberal (she's divorced, remarried, and living in Bombay) had bad things to say about Aish and her working status.

What gives?

It could just be that people are tired of her. Or that they're jealous.

But after thinking about it some more I saw a true dichtomy (as with everything related to India, there's a dichtomy going on). In this case, it's basically two ways of thought on Aish's status and her actions. And I realized this situation is really an easy way of determining how liberated & emancipated an Indian is. Just ask what they're most annoyed about in this situation:

A) The fact that Aish would put herself through this religious nonsense just to marry Abhishek.

B) The fact that Aish is a working girl who doesn't plan to quit acting once she's married.

If you answered A, you're truly liberated and can't stand the thought of subjugating your very soul. Even though Aish talked the talk, she clearly can't walk the talk. Fuck her and this was her last chance. She's just another traditional Indian girl.

If you answered B, you're truly traditional and it just makes sense that Aish would agree to these religious things since it'll lead to a happier life. Hopefully she eventually realizes that her continued acting will look bad on the Bachchan family and she'll quit the biz. The interesting backstory to this is that when Amitabh got married to Jaya Badhuri, she quit acting, presumably to be a good housewife (and look on as her husband had a years-long affair with Rekha)

My friend? She's clearly in the A camp. This was Aish's last chance and she blew it.

Me? Well, I'm just a narrator, telling the story :) And I found it really interesting that the reaction to a single coupling could tell you all you need to know about an Indian...

On the iPod, DRM, and His Steve-ness

[This post started off as a comment on my friend's blog, but it got so long, I just decided to make it a post here rather than a long-ass comment over there]

I too have wondered about Jobs' DRM thoughts; mainly why he wrote it other than to seem like he's leading the charge for a DRM-less world, rather than the biggest purveyor of DRMed content (music, video, games). In a way, it's good that Jobs states the obvious since it seems like if anyone can make this happen, it would be him. The record companies have clearly been blind and/or wrong since digital music began. They've dug themselves a hole which is hard to get out of.

Here's an interesting point to note: 90%+ of music sold is DRM-free. Just about every CD we buy has no form of DRM. And CDs continue to be sold left and right. Of course that model is on its way out, but I think it's silly of any exec to pretend that the music biz would collapse without DRM. In fact, it's quite healthy. Even when people can easily download pirated music.

Spin Mag has a short piece on what record companies should do to keep the industry going. Some of them are obvious like letting us decide which player & software app to use and not worry about interchangeability (I still worry about this simply because I've got 3 different computers where I might want to play one of my purchased iTunes songs!) Unfortunately, the piece isn't online, but it's just such obvious stuff.

On that note, it's just idiotic for Jobs to pretend like he's onto something here and that he's trying to convince the record companies of this. We've known this for a long time and nobody should feign ignorance here.

On the note about people buying more iPods vs perhaps buying phone/player combos, I can't help but think of the walkman. Sony revolutionized the usage of music. The iPod and other high capacity MP3 players evolved this by allowing up to carry most (or all) of our collections in our pocket. But what happened with the walkman? Why didn't people keep buying them left and right?

Well, partially, I'm sure because walkmans seeemed to work FOREVER. I had one for 5+ yrs!. But more importantly, the newness just wore off and people realized that they really didn't need a walkman every moment of their lives. They were happy enough with little radios to use while at the gym or [ARGH!] a moment of silence!

Similarly, I think people are beginning to realize that they don't really need every song at every moment of every day. What's more important is having something conveniently avaiable. So when the old iPod dies, rather than immediately replacing it with another iPod, a lot of people are more logical with their choice and buy something that works, but doesn't necessarily have the panache or storage of an iPod. Sure, it's nice to have the coolness, but if $250 can be spent to get BOTH a phone and a player, why not? It may not be perfect, but it works.

Of course, this all comes from someone who has had a quite capable PDA phone that can play music but still went out and bought his first iPod a few months ago. :)

Rehab Party

Rehab used to be a serious thing where the person was in seriously bad shape and really just needed to get away and concentrate on healing their addiction. The person would be gone for months and you'd even forget that the person went into rehab since they've been there for so long.

But now? Well, it's the in thing.

You heard about Lindsay Lohan go into rehab after she finally admitted that she had an alcohol problem. Then there was the Miss America who got exposed with some photos of her partying and after about a week she entered rehab. Well, both of these woman seemingly healed themselves in a matter a days! Heck, Miss America is already going interviews about it.

Doesn't getting over an addiction or a serious problem actually take more than a week or two? Nowadays these people check themselves in and are better all of sudden and can't help talking about how much they've changed. Heck, the mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, just said he's going to go into alcohol rehab. Is he gonna be done with that by the end of the week?

So here's the possible explanations for this quick turnaround rehab deal:
1) These highly stressed out people are really teetering on the edge and all it takes is a quick sanity check to get them back on track. Checking into rehab gives them a few moments to think things through and the healing is fast and furious just like they say.

2) The relaxing environment and the assistance of trained professionals puts these people back on track and once the pros recognize a certain level has been reached, they check them out of rehab. The rest is up to the individual to completely heal. When these celebs get out, the healing they're talking about is still underway, but they're so happy with the progress they've made that they can't help but gush about it.

3) It's just the in thing to do. A nice way to have a couple of weeks of vacation. These people never really get anything out of rehab, but they're in the public eye so they've gotta talk about the healing they've gone through. In reality, they're still druggies or hard partying alcoholics.

You know which one I think it is.....since when do celebs buck the trend? They're all sheep. They'll smear shit on their torsos if some fitness guru convinces a few of them that it'll keep them tones and "centered"

I call bullshit on this rehab phenomenom. Let's not allow these idiots to pretend like they're doing any healing. They'll say what they want to say, but in the end, they're still doing what they want to do. Whether that's snorting lines of coke, cheating on their wives, or just partying like rockstars, don't for a second believe that a week in a rehab spa makes them the next Gandhi.

Deja Vu

Okay, we lots of love to harp on Bush and his seeming love for war. The jokes about invading Iran began even before we got into Iraq. Remember those "he just got one letter wrong" jokes about why Bush went into Iraq instead of Iran?

Anyways, comments about action against Iran used to be pretty hush hush and very speculative in the mainstream. Now, however, it's a daily topic. In fact, the admin doesn't shy away from saying that actions will be taken against any Iranian supported terrorist activities inside Iraq. Bush said that just the other day during his NPR interview.

Of course this is all eerily similar. Crooks and Liars even has a post about it with video comparisons.

Now, I wouldn't be surprised if we start bombing or even invading Iran before Bush is out of office. I'm scared about that possibility, but I certainly wouldn't be surprised.

But I've been thinking about this from the angle of the admin saving its ass. Beginning in late 2006, we keep hearing from the admin about how Iraq and Maliki need to stand up since it's their responsibility to get things back on track and stop the violence. No doubt, it's, in the end, their responsibility since it's their country. But nary a word is said about the details of the US's involvement in cleaning up the mess. We're obviously involved up to our eyeballs, but the way the admin makes it sound is that we're just tagging along.

My guess is that these conjectures are made because if things go wrong (which they likely will before they go right), the admin can say it's not our fault. It's the the Iraqis fault. Why? Well, because it's their responsibility! And we tried to help them! So if things aren't working out, well, heck we did our best, but they blew it!

As usual, the admin will twist situations around to suit their purposes.

So why am I alluding to this in reference to Iran? Because I get the feeling that th admin is setting up the pieces to add a "blame Iran" corollary to the "blame Iraq" thesis. So assuming Iraq isn't the safe haven of Arab democracy that Bush claimed he wanted to create, it's all the fault of the Iraqis themselves along with the Iranian thugs. None of it is the fault of the admin, since well, they were just trying to help the whole time. They can't help it if the crazy Arabs keeping spitting in the batter before it's baked.

Look, we may not invade Iran, but it's just a matter of time before there are a couple of airstrikes inside Iranian borders. And we're already getting the hint of the "blame Iran" strategy.

We want a strategy for getting out of Iraq. Apparently, the admin already has a strategy for covering their sorry asses.

To the Phones!

I think this might be my week of complaining. I spent way too many words talking about cell phone etiquette when in line. Now I'm annoyed by the fact that telemarketers are already all over my new phone number!

This phone line has only been around for 10 days and I'm already getting 4-6 calls a day. Glory be the invention of caller ID since I can tell how many random calls I get while I'm away (I wonder if the dogs get annoyed by all the calls when they're home alone). What I don't understand is that Comcast says they keep all numbers private. How is possible for the Chronicle, the local Police Department, and every telemarketer around already have my number?

When I got the line I figured I would add it to the Do Not Call database but I wasn't in any rush since I figured it would take some time (and me sharing the number) for telemarketers to find out I got a phone line. Lo and behold, just 2 days after the line was installed, I got the first call! One business day! That's all it took!

Niceities

Okay, so maybe I'll sound like a rube who should get with the times. Afterall, everyone's busy so we gotta do as much as possible in as little time as possible. It's called multi-tasking right?!

But there's one thing that I really try to avoid whenever possible: Talking on the cell phone while being assisted by someone.

You know the story. You're in a checkout line and your phone rings. So you answer it and in the meantime you've gotten to the front of the line and need to checkout. What do you do? Here's the options which I think most people likely consider:

1. Give a smile to the checker and act like you feel guilty that you're on the phone, but you remain on the phone. You may talk to the checker if absolutely needed, but your focus is on the other end of the phone line, not the other side of the check-out counter.
   
2. Give a smile to the checker, tell the person on the phone to hold on a second and finish your business with the checker. The whole time the phone is still on and you resume your conversation as soon as you're done with the checker.
3. When you get to the front of the line, tell the person on the phone that you'll have to call them back and hang up.
4. You get out of line while you finish up your conversation and get back in line when you're done.
   
5. You don't take the call, finish up with the check-out, then check your voicemail and/or call the person back.

I'm sure that you can guess which option I usually take? Number 3. I used to take option 1 or 2, but at some point I realized that I was being inconsiderate to both the checker and the person on the phone with either of those options. Now, if I was being totally considerate of the entire situation, I'd just let the call go through to VM and call the person back. I only do that if I'm about to start my checkout, but normally, I'll pick up the phone and tell the person I have to hang up when it comes time.

What's my main reason for doing this? Honestly, the first thing I think of when I see someone take option 1 is that they're treating the checker like a servant. Yes, obviously, the checker is there to serve you the customer. But do you have to treat him or her like a man-servant?

I just saw this in the cafeteria this afternoon. What drove me to finally blog about this is the attitude the customer had with the checker. Not only did she continue with her phone conversation, but when the checker asked her what she had (a salad and chicken), she looks dismayed at having to tell the checker a second time. And in between telling the checker what to ring up, she's apologizing to the person on the phone for asking him/her to repeat what was just said.

Seeing that just makes me feel bad for the checker. She's doing her job and you can barely give her the 30 seconds it takes to complete a transaction? I personally feel guilty if I do this to someone and rather than make a stupid face to the checker, make the checker dislike me, and still feel bad about it, I just slow down and give each person the time and respect they deserve.

I've expanded this to regular situations when I'm with a friend. I'll usually not answer my phone unless I know it's going to be short or if the person has called me a couple of times. Even then, I still try to tell the person I'm with that I need to take the call and why I need to take it. It's the least I can do.

Snap! Crackle! Click! India Wedding Photos

The excuse for us to go to India was a relative's wedding. And being a wedding photographer, I obviously took photos during the events. It was actually more difficult getting shots that are different than I usually take during a wedding gig. While I'm always trying to be creative on any job, I usually take some stuff which is standard across the board since the clients are looking for certain things at a minimum. So I tried to stay away from those typical shots this time. And since I wasn't a lead photographer I had the chance to roam around and not capture every little thing. Even then, I kept thinking about all the different shots I could get of the ceremony details. So I had to stop myself from falling into that "rut".

What I tried to do is thinking about the wedding from the perspective of a guest, which I rarely do. Even when I attend a friend's wedding here, I'm always looking over at the photographer or videographer. I annoy myself sometimes with not being able to take my mind off that stuff...I'm sure I annoy my wife much more offten :)

Anyways, so I tried to stay in the crowd as much as possible and stayed away from taking photos of the bride, groom, and their parents. And here's a few of the shots I took....click through to see more about each on Flickr.

Mandap Mandwo...with a little zoom action. No Photoshop!

Trying to get the feel of the rush through in an image. Touch is such low light.

More baraati rush.

Onlookers

Captured Photographers. Notice the second guy talking on his phone even when events are going on.

There are more in Flickr so head over there to see the rest.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

After every trip to India I get questions such as "so are things really different in India?" It's a basic question that I'm sure every person gets when they return. The obvious answer is "Yes" since India's a developing country. And there's usually an undercurrent of woe when talking about how fast India is developing like "Man, I can't be-LIEVE that people are doing XYZ there now!"

[On a quick side note, if you think about visitng ANY place after 5 years, you're bound to see changes varying from subtle to significant. Heck, in the last 5 years, even Milpitas has changed a boatload!]

So usually, when answering this question I focus on the visual changes to the country either in terms of buildings and fashion or things that you find on TV. This time however, the biggest change I noticed was much more subtle.

And that is the the onslaught of credit cards and loans. First off, I'll say that I'm a happy consumer who greatly appreciates credit cards and home loans. But while I'm a heavy user of credit cards, I NEVER rollover a balance on my credit card from month-to-month. Also, even though we have a HUGE mortgage to pay off, before wading up to our knees in loan debt, we carefully thought about our long term plan for housing since carrying this size loan is not a fun thing to do permanently.

That being said, my description about the coming of a credit-based lifestyle in India does indeed have an undercurrent of woe. The main reason for that is the likelihood that many middle-class people are going to get caught in the web of too much credit card debt. Not to say that Indians don't have a good financial sense, but until very recently, India really ran on current accounts. Basically, whether payment was made with cash, check, or some sort of draft, the money being exchanged by lay people has heretofore been real money that already belongs to them.

That obviously isn't the case with credit cards and loans. And that's what scares me. The easy availability of credit cards is a real problem here in the US where such things have been very common for at least 25 years. I've known a few people who just couldn't control themselves with a credit card in hand. Even if they may know that the money is not actually their's, they get this feeling that regardless of how much they spend, they'll figure out a way to pay it off eventually. It's this capitalist can-do attitude that can be great most of the time, but can also get you in trouble if you can't follow through.

And trust me, Indians are masters of can-do. And with easy access to credit, my gut feel is that people will get a few credit cards and buy the nice clothes they really want. They'll get a car loan so they can quickly have their own car. And when they acquire this debt, the feeling will be that even if they can't pay it off now, they'll l be making more money in the future so they'll be able to pay it off in the near future once they're earning more from the higher paying job they're going to get in six months.

There's obviously a big chance these people will get caught in a downward spiral. I haven't heard many anecdotes about people actually getting caught up in this, but I've seen the signs from various companies looking to offer credit to anyone who wants it. It could be the Citibank hawkers outside the Bombay airport offering a credit card to anyone who can show them a boarding pass (as in, hey if you can afford a plane ticket, you can afford a mountain of debt!). It could be the car ad with a big starred section offering up credit to people who need it.

And so that's the biggest change in India I've been mentioning to people. The development of a credit based economy is certainly good and will help the Indian economy grow by leaps and bounds. I just hope that the users of this credit don't forget that it's just credit, not cash in their pocket.

Snap! Crackle! Click! A few shots from Mumbai/Bombay

I'm a bit lacking on words right now, so I'll just mention a few photos I took while in Mumbai...click on each photo to go to the Flickr page for more description and to leave comments




The Taj Hotel in Mumbai on a sunny day. I wish I had my wide angle lens. Given that it was my first day in India, I really regretted not bringing it and thought that I'd really miss it. But in the end, I rarely thought about lens selection the entire trip since I had a good all round lens on me.

Silver Plaza shopping for jewelry. Mind blowing how efficient they are here with showing you the exact selection you're thinking about. It's almost like they're reading your mind. December is NRI (Non-Resident Indian) season since Indians from all over the world take their vacations at that time of year and so many are doing wedding shopping.


Dark magazine stand on the streets of Santa Cruz (Mumbai). In reality it wasn't this dark and creepy (the sun was just setting), but I love what's possible when you can control your camera well. The only photoshopping I've done to this is cropping and adding a bit of brightness to the light bulb.

Snap! Crackle! Click! Let the image parade begin...

Rather than work through all of my photos and then post a final gallery, I've decided to post photos little by little. I've already edited about 1/2-2/3 of the photos I took while in India so I'm going to pick out specific ones...either just because I love the photos or because there's a story to tell.

For all these photos, I'm posting them up at Flickr so click on the image to go there and leave comments if you want. Also, since I'm posting more photos to Flickr than I'm actually including in my blog, check over there to see a broader selection.

And with that...let's begin with some village children...



As I mentioned on Flickr, there's just something about this girl that catches my eye. She's obviously a very pretty girl, as are so many of these village children. But her attitude was really what made me think twice after I took the photos. And while this isn't my favorite photo from my trip, I knew I'd want to post it first just because it left an impression.

And what else left and impression?


"Want Pen!"

I'm not sure why pens are such valued items in India, but ever since I was little, my cousins over there would always want my pens. While we've all grown up, these kids are still having a blast hamming it up and asking me for any pens. In fact, I took extra pens with me to India since I just knew there would be an occasion to hand them out.

So enjoy, and come back soon.

HFL = High Flood Level

Well, Happy New Year!

After a long vacation related hiatus, I'm back. Before I left for India I wasn't sure I would want to blog while on vacation, but I figured I would probably find something to write about. And while I certainly had things to relate, I really had no desire to do so. And so a month and a half passes by like *that!*

Anyways, I start off the new year with photos. And the first photo is the simplest of them all:



My hometown in India is in Surat, Gujarat (well, it's technically Bardoli which is 30km away, but let's not nitpick since I was actually born in Surat and the majority of my relatives live there too). Over the years, Surat has had its share of problems, like riots, the plague, and flooding. Last August Surat saw the flood to end all floods. Days and days of water up to 30 feet deep.


And yet, you can't tell anything of the sort happened just 5 months ago. Except for these crude markers all over the city. They're marks of history and resilience. This specific marker was about 15 feet off the ground, but they range from just 2 feet off the ground all the way up to 30 feet. And where ever you go, the City has painted reminders of what happened in early August. What's more is that people are proud of what they've overcome. So much so that even if they re-paint the outside of their buildings to erase the marks of rain, flooding, and wear and tear, they still leave an untouched box around the marker to ensure everyone remembers just how high the water came.

It's still a bit difficult to pin down exactly what happened to cause such severe flooding, but the basics are clear. Torrential monsoon rains were much heavier last summer than usual. The Ukai dam upriver from Surat was way over it's normal limits. Dam workers waited and waited to release water from the dam. And when they finally released the water, they did so in fell swoop, rather than staggering the release over time. The water reached Surat six hours later and didn't subside for at least 8 days.

Here's an editorial about how the floods could have been avoided:
http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/portal/2006/10/600

This person has compiled a good set of photos from that time:
http://news.webshots.com/album/555111753wseoID

So this man-made disaster really got the best of people for while. The funny thing is that even though people were stranded without power or fresh water, they still managed to drink whiskey from rooftops every day.

Immediately after the floods, we had heard stories of mud and filth throughout the entire city of 4 million people. But arriving in town just 3 months after things dried up, I was surprised at how little seemed affected. Sure, there are still junked cars in specific areas, but life seems amazingly back to normal. The loom industry which Surat is so famous for is still running like mad. I would have figured that many looms would have been destroyed by so much water and mud, but going through the streets, you can still hear them running 24 hours a day. I heard many stories from friends & relatives about what they did during the floods. Thankfully, none of them lost anything besides some ruined property, but there were some 200 accounted deaths and likely many more uncounted deaths of those swept straight into the nearby Indian Ocean.

From the stories I had heard prior to leaving for India, I wasn't sure what to expect. Certainly some devasation would still be visible...but not a single sign except for these painted markers? Amazing. I hope to see the same reminders when I return to Surat in the future.

And so a simple photo to represent something amazing and to start 2007.

Many more photos to comes.

Abuse of Power?

I put a question mark in the title since I'm still not sure what to make of this.

If you have the wherewithal, watch this video:



If you haven't heard of it yet, it's video of a UCLA student getting tasered at Powell Library after refusing to show ID afterhours. I usually don't pay too much attention to stories about excessive force, but in this case, it's UCLA...I've walked around Powell and I can, more than usual, place myself in the shoes of each person there.

So back to me not knowing what to make of this. From this video, it's hard to argue that the UCPD over-reacted and were wrong in expecting the guy to get up after being tasered. What I can't understand is how it got to this situation. Like most security guards, UCPD is usually pretty cool. By the name, you can guess that they are actual cops and much more than just security guards, but on campus, they're far from menacing and are usually there to help out. So I'm just perplexed as to how it turned from a request to show ID, to the video you see.

Madness.

The only judgement I'm going to pass right now is that the UCPD was idiots for thinking this guy could physically get up on command after being tasered. If he was being non-cooperative before or after the tasering, they should have just picked his ass up and carried him into their cruiser. End of story.

I'll guess that the guy was probably being somewhat beligerant/non-cooperative when asked to show ID. Obviously nothing he could have done in a library situation should ever lead to something like this, but I've gotta assume there was something amiss about the situation which required mutliple UCPD to show up.

I'll also guess that the UCPD guys were in over their heads and were scared of causing an even bigger situation what with the dozens of students hovering over them. Apparently one of them threatened a student who was asking for a badge number, etc. That had to have been in the heat of the moment.

Thank god they didn't go midevil on any other students. That would have spiralled into something insane.

Thank god the other students didn't cause a physical ruckus. That would have mean serious harm to all involved.

I can't imagine how tense it must be on campus right now. I don't think too much about my UCLA days any more, but watching this, having walked those same steps, forces me to really think about the excessive use of force and what could have lead to this.

I'll be watching this story closely.

UPDATE: So it looks like the student who was tasered will be filing a civil suit against UCPD. Not surprising as well he should do that considering what nonsense the cops put him through. Not sure of how the legal system works on this, but at first blush, I would assume that a potential criminal proceeding should occur first, then the civil portion comes next. Anyways, what I find fishy about this is the lawyer he hired has said that Tabatabainejad refused to show ID because he thought he was being racially profiled and picked out for looking Middle Eastern.

That seems like playing the race card and it really annoys me. Having been at UCLA for 5 years, I would honestly call out BS on that. Why? Because it's such a diverse campus. Because you see just as many Persians on campus as other races. If that sounds racist, sorry...but it's fact. I find it difficult to believe that a CSO would decide to pick on this guy because he looks Middle Eastern. If that's the case, I wouldn't be surprised if he had 10 other Middle Eastern people to pick from. Sounds like the lawyer is just trying to get some leverage here.

And the other interesting thing the lawyer said is that when the cop didn't take his hands off Tabatabainejad he went limp. Now, there's certainly nothing wrong with that and in fact it's a perfect example of non-violent protest. But it just seems kind of dumb to bait cops like that. I mean, if you've got a cause or purpose, then yeah, go limp, but in this situation it just contributes to an ever-more tense spiral. Just seems ill-advised. The idea behind non-violent protest is, at some level, to make the opposing party think about their actions and potentially change them. The UCPD obviously weren't having any of that at midnight in a library and took alarming actions...but seriously just leave well enough alone and walk away.

Filed Under:

• UCLA
• Taser
• Force
• Police

Heart wrenching

It's been quite a while since I posted. The world has seemingly changed what with the election results and all. A lot remains to play out so I'll reserve comments on that for a bit.

The world has also changed for me because I finally bought an iPod. Yeah, I finally jumped on the bandwagon. I'm sure I'll be listening to a lot of music on it (indeed I've got 15GB of music it on it already), but I've mainly been using it for podcasts.

I had already been using iTunes to listen to podcasts while at the computer, but having the iPod now lets me listen to news and lots of other stuff while I'm at the gym or in the car. Any MP3 player would let me do this, of course, but it's a lot simpler with the iPod since I can simply subscribe to them via iTunes.

Anyways, this isn't a post about my new iPod or about podcasts in general. It's about an NPR audio portrait which I just listened to on the drive home. Titled, "'The Ground We Lived On': A Father's Last Days", it's the story of a father's last days battling lung cancer recorded by a loving daughter. I encourage you to spend 10 minutes and hear this loving remembrance.

I've been lucky in that I've never had to deal with loss. Of course, family members have passed away, but I haven't lost someone who I've had an everyday connection with. In the remembrance of her father, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, demonstrated the power of words and capturing moments in time.

I must say that something about these types of stories really get to me. When I hear of a loss, I seem to internalize it and can't help but put myself in the shoes of the person experiencing the loss. I can't help but imagine what I would do if put into the same situation. Empathy I guess...

Oddly enough, I do the same in positions of joy. When I'm photographing a wedding, I find myself smiling so often from behind the camera. It usually happens when I see the couple smiling at each other or really letting loose after the ceremony is complete. I think about that when I take photos and when I'm doing post-production of photos or watching the video footage of the events. Ya, it's kind of odd to have a dumb smile on my face while staring at my computer screen, but that's me.

I've actually been thinking about how best to remember an upcoming trip to India. Of course, I'll be taking my camera equipment, but I've been wondering how I can record my thoughts. I'll certainly be writing, but I've been thinking about recording audio as well. Maybe it's too much NPR, PRI, and BBC I've been listening to, but the power that these recordings hold me for really makes me want to capture the moment not just visually, but through sound as well.

We'll see how it goes.

Anyone got an iPod voice recorder I can borrow for 5 weeks?

Filed Under:

• Audio
• Portrait