Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Photos: Waldo Canyon Fire near Garden of the Gods | Denver Post Photos, Video





I finally found who shot these incredibly disturbing photos that have been pasted all over the national news today.  Sometimes being a photojournalist is hard. To watch what is really happening in your viewfinder.

As you go through these shots you will see a sequence of the same houses before and during the inferno.  I wonder if it is better to have a tornado slam my house to pieces in seconds or watch in agony as the slow march of a fire inevitably eats my house.  It is like deciding whether to be shot or die of cancer.  Please shoot me.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Order out of Chaos

If you enjoy trying to bring order out of chaos you will always have something joyful to do... So why does it seem so exasperating?  Exactly!

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Is it Food?

Recent articles about how and where iPads, iPhones and a majority of other computer components are made and the working conditions gave me a creepy reminder of another shiny apple in human history.
New York Times

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Oops, Wrong Hat




Bullwinkle: Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.
Rocky: Again?
Bullwinkle: Presto!
Lion: ROAR!!!
Bullwinkle: Oops, wrong hat.

Why Is This One Of The Most Profound Analogies Ever?

As you know my lot in life is to observe and comment on life’s absurdities. Mostly I find them simply humorous.  But sometimes they are so profound in their simplicity or obviousness that they are deeply sobering.

As a child I simply laughed at Rocky & Bullwinkle.  Now as an inquiring adult I find some of the humor and insight of Jay Ward to be on par with the parables of the Bible. Before you think of me a heretic, let me draw an analogy to explain myself.

God (Jesus) used stories and verbal illustrations to teach the principles of life to us because He knew that the lessons learned best are the ones we “get” for ourselves.  God knows that to spoon-feed us knowledge is as wasted as trying to get an infant to eat strained peas.  The best way to get us to eat what is good for us is to make it taste like honey.

Jay Ward used Rocky & Bullwinkle as honey to make the peas of life taste better.  That is the only comparison I am making between God and Bullwinkle.  See how it all tastes better now? 

Back to the most profound analogy of Bullwinkle trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat only to pull out a lion and exclaim, “Oops, wrong hat”.  Do you get it?  If so, what do you get?

I won’t try to spoon-feed you the universal truth I finally gleaned out of this innocuous cartoon. Jesus knew that the best way to answer a question was with another question.  But He didn’t leave anyone hanging without a clue either.  Most of the time Jesus answered a question by referring to a question or answer His Father revealed to His ancestors of the Old Testament.  Jesus left it up to the questioner to go back and dig up the answer for themselves then come back and share what they personally learned with the group. Since I am not Jesus I won’t try to refer you to any passage of relevance (to me) in God’s Word.  He will guide you to your own.  That is the beauty of the Bible, it is like a multifaceted jewel that when turned into the light refracts a different color to each person turning it.  But, the colors are all still part of the same spectrum of light/truth.

Please let me know what you get out of this life analogy (if anything) and share it with the rest of us.  I got it one way, you may get it another. But the truth of the analogy is so simply universal I bet we all get a version of the same lesson in our own individual color.

By sharing what we get we educate each other by provoking reveal-ation and discussion of the same. I can’t wait to share with you the profound lesson I learned when I stuck my hand into this hat.

NJOYLIF, Rob


Saturday, January 14, 2012

Fatty News - Junk In, Junk Out

Fatty News - Junk in Junk Out

The Information Diet

A Case For Conscious Consumption

"Our bodies are wired to love salt, fat and sugar. ... Our minds are really wired to be affirmed and be told that we're right. ... Who wants to hear the truth when they can hear that they're right? 

Who wants to be informed when they can be affirmed? What we do is we tell our media that that's what we want to hear, and our media responds to that by telling us what it is that we want, and sometimes that isn't what's best for us."

...Just as food companies learned that if they want to sell a lot of cheap calories, they should pack them with salt, fat, and sugar — the stuff that people crave — media companies learned that affirmation sells a lot better than information. Who wants to hear the truth when they can hear that they're right!

...You cannot simply flood the market with broccoli and hope that people stop eating french fries.

http://www.npr.org/books/titles/145103496/the-information-diet-a-case-for-conscious-consumption#excerpt