In the Shadow of Lincoln

I’ve always had things that I read or discover in passing that pique my interest and push me into reading extensively about a subject. Among my more recent interests in this vein has been Abraham Lincoln. My interest first came when I read the book Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin shortly after it was released. It was a fascinating book - one that changed my view of this incredible man and his presidency. I subsequently read both of the books by William Lee Miller about Lincoln (Lincoln’s Virtues: An Ethical Biography, and President Lincoln: The Duty of a Statesman) and these in turn prompted me to read the two-volume set of Lincoln’s collected writings. I really wanted to “watch” the man develop as both a thinker and a writer. Part of me hoped (and still does) that some of his writing style will rub off on me, as I find his style very eloquent and succinct - something rare in any day and age, especially ours. His legacies as a president, a man, and a writer cast very long shadows over Americans in almost any walk of life.

Preservation and Access

Despite what you might think, or learn in library school, librarianship is a profession of paradoxes and challenges. Many times librarians and other individuals outside the profession talk at length about new technologies and trends that present librarians with challenges externally. However, there are challenges inherent in the job we do as librarians, and one in particular is balancing the mutually exclusive demands of preservation and access.

Why I Love the 903

At the outset I feel obligated to tell you that this should be my last post about cameras for a while. I plan on resuming my usual rambling next week, but I feel as though after my last post about cameras, I left the door open to talking about my newest camera - my 903SWC. I’ve run several rolls through this camera now, and have the results back (see the slideshow below!) to confirm my suspicions about the camera, as well as having used it enough to see if it’s “for me.”

A Leg Up on Information

The digital communications technology that was once imagined as a universe of transparent and perpetual illumination, in which cancerous falsehoods would perish beneath a saturation bombardment of irradiating data, has instead generated a much murkier and verification-free habitat where a google-generated search will deliver an electronic page on which links to lies and lunacy appear in identical format as those to truths and sanity. But why should we ever have assumed that technology and reason would be mutually self-reinforcing? The quickest visit to say, a site called Stormfront will persuade you that the demonic is in fact the best customer of the electronic. pp. 86-87

Schama, Simon. 2010. Scribble, scribble, scribble: writings on politics, ice cream, Churchill, and my mother. New York: Ecco.

Simon Schama’s most recent book had many thought-provoking quotes in it - and this one in particular got me to thinking about the information that we share and consume online.

Cameras: A Litany

Last week’s post loosely traced my development as a man and my use of the square frame as a photographer. I intentionally edited out any real mention of specific cameras, as I thought it might be interesting to do a second post about my development and my choice of camera. Before I start, I want to share with you that I have mixed feelings about this post. I think it’s interesting, but as I have gotten older, what a photographer uses as a camera has mattered less and less to me. I love talking cameras with people, but the camera that a photographer uses is no indicator as to whether or not they are good at photographing. I remember on Monhegan that a woman had an M9 that she was reading the manual for when she wasn’t taking photos. At least she is learning, I suppose - but I feel that that is a nice illustration to my point - the camera does not make a photographer. And now I am going to put that out of mind and begin my narrative.