Le Blog Exuberance //

Burning Man live web cam and radio: dusty days on the playa

Dig the live Burning Man webcam and Burning Man radio. Below, some photos from the webcam. The dust has been really bad this year, apparently; the playa only got 2“ of rain over the winter, which wasn't enough to re-set the playa mud. As a result, there's a huge amount of loose dust this year, ready to be blown around by the wind.

Technorati Tags: BlackRockCity, burningman, burningman2007, WebCam

Burners Without Playas: Ocean Beach, S.F. Parallel Beach Burn

Saturday, Sept. 1, 2007: Ocean Beach San Francisco ~ Burners Without Playas Parallel Beach Burn

LET'S DO IT: an Ocean Beach San Francisco parallel burn, Saturday September 1, 9:00pm, for those of us who stayed behind. Get there early to watch the sunset!

I'm gonna bring my Stick Man down to the beach just north of Lincoln (take the N Judah - be green!). That's about where the BM fire pits are installed. See you out there!

The laws apply: www.nps.gov/goga/parkmgmt/fire_info.htm

Technorati Tags: Burn, burningman, OceanBeach, SanFrancisco

San Francisco's lunar eclipse, August 28, 2007: the view from the street

From San Francisco, the proud capital of the great state of Northern California, observations about the lunar eclipse of August 28, 2007:

3:45 a.m. on a Tuesday morning in San Francisco: no cars around, so I'm standing with my tripod in the middle of the street. I'm excited by the shot I'm seeing, next to this giant orange glowing orb at a petrol filling station, at the same time I'm psyched out and terrified to be standing in the middle of the street, dressed in black, at an ungodly hour. I could get hit by a car, mugged, smacked by a bicyclist.

A tall black pimp and his tweaking white trash crack whore walked by; when I heard their steps and looked up, the pimp said pleasantly, "Hey, what's up man," and I replied, "Lunar eclipse — check out the lunar eclipse!" He looked up in the direction I pointed, smiled  and said "Oh yeah, that's cool!" They sauntered on into the dawn.

A few minutes later a more sketched out looking black homeless man came walking by. I was on full alert; he stopped on the sidewalk to ask me for change, a weak plea he repeated three times.

A few cabs came by. A Mexican guy walked by. A couple of cars came by; each time I moved to the side then walked back into the middle of the street to line up the shot — the eclipse and the 76.

More good stuff:

• My photos of the lunar eclipse of 20 February 2008
• My lunar eclipse photos on Flickr »

Technorati Tags: eclipse, lunareclipse, MissionDistrict, moon, PotreroHill, Unocal76

The Bradbury Building, Los Angeles: an architectural treasure

The Bradbury Building [Wikipedia]  is a polished gem of historic architecture in downtown Los Angeles, built in 1893 and famous for its awe-inspiring light-filled central atrium with rich details. Best known for being used in the film Blade Runner, the building got run down over the years, until a major renovation in the early 1990s brought the edifice back to its former glory. The famous interior is a symphony of polished oak railings, doors and ceilings; ornate black cast iron balustrades and columns; yellow glazed and flat   bricks walls; creamily-colored floor tiles; and maroon and white marble stair steps. Check out these historic photos on the Library of Congress website.

Here are some photos I shot in June 2007 of this spectacular interior atrium.

Below: detail of the railing on the second floor's mezzanine.

 Below: looking across the central atrium.

Below: the floor in the central atrium.

Technorati Tags: architecture, BradburyBuilding, historic, LosAngeles

The terror threat is negligible; worry about something else

While Americans merrily slaughter themselves with overeating, lack of exercise, smoking, excess drinking, laziness and ignorance, they fail to notice just how completely wrong their government is about the so-called “terror threat.”

...If it is so easy to pull off an attack and if terrorists are so demonically competent, why have they not done it? Why have they not been sniping at people in shopping centers, collapsing tunnels, poisoning the food supply, cutting electrical lines, derailing trains, blowing up oil pipelines, causing massive traffic jams, or exploiting the countless other vulnerabilities that, according to security experts, could so easily be exploited?

One reasonable explanation is that almost no terrorists exist in the United States and few have the means or the inclination to strike from abroad.

Read all of John Mueller's article, “Is There Still a Terrorist Threat?: The Myth of the Omnipresent Enemy.”

Here's his book:


* * *

(photo by flickr user Tal Bright)

Bush and the whole damn military-industrial complex have been pumping up a very low-level threat in order to make themselves rich, plundering the public treasury for bogus “homeland security” projects and the Iraq War. It's called war profiteering and it's happening right now.

9/11 was an isolated incident, folks. Get over it. 

Down with the Republicans, the Neo-cons, and the Bush administration, and most of all, down with the war in Iraq.

And all of you who voted for George W. Bush — please, shut off your televisions and start reading some legitimate news. Pay attention! Get educated! Be peaceful, consume less, live simply, appreciate everything.

• Clusterfuck Nation by Jim Kunstler
• MoveOn.org
• Robert Fisk, The Independent
• National Public Radio
• The Nation
• The New Yorker
• New York Times
• Working For Change
• Common Dreams
• Media Matters
• Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
• California Peace Action
• Adbusters
• Arts & Letters Daily
• Salon
• Independent Media Center
• The Sierra Club
• The Guardian U.K.
• Know Your Place! Shut Your Face!
• Robert McChesney
• UNICEF U.S.A.