First we lost the IBM Selectric typewriter. Now we've lost Kodachrome. That's right gang, the Eastman Kodak Company, maker of all that film with ISO numbers you never understood, has decided to suspend the production of slide film. I guess we can't be too surprised. Between camera phones and digital cameras, the only people shooting "chromes" are the 27 folks that still have working projectors. (Admit it. Somewhere in your attic/basement you have a projector with a burned-out bulb.)
Naturally, there will be purists who will bemoan the loss of "real" photography. This would be the same gang that swears vinyl recordings are preferable to CDs and cork is better for wine than screw tops (it isn't). If the subject is "photography as art", I leave the discussion to those with a more discerning eye than mine. If we are taking about pictures of the family reunion, you just can't beat digital. How else can you take and store hundreds of pictures of people you hope never to see again? Instead of boxes and albums of old, forgotten photos of old, forgotten people, we now have memory cards and computer files filled with the same junk. Think of how many more memories we can ignore thanks to technology. Those hundreds of treasured pictures of relatives we never liked and girlfriends who made our lives a living hell can forever be stored in the digital obscurity they so richly deserve.
The ability to store our photographic memories on little bits of plastic has liberated shelf and closet space for the storage of more significant treasures... like the last issue of The New York Times, or the CD containing the confession speeches of every politician caught with his hand up someone else's skirt. (Except for Jim McGreevey, Mark Foley and Larry Craig. Their mea culpa's involved zippers.) The possibilities are endless. Just don't go looking for a typewriter to type labels.
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The Supreme Court has recently concluded its term for this year. Although most of the media attention focused on Ricci v. De Stefano, the case involving those New Haven Firefighters and the test for lieutenant, some attention should have been paid to the almost unprecedented voting of the court's more conservative members. During this court session, during which more than 75 cases were decided, Justice Clarence Thomas voted differently than Justice Antonin Scalia not once but twice! This is an event which visits the High Court with the frequency of Haley's Comet. Thomas votes in lock step with Scalia so often that it's been suggested that Scalia be given two votes and Thomas be allowed to return to Georgia. In one of the cases, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. One v. Holder, Judge Thomas actually stood alone, as in 8 to 1.
Justice Thomas, who has not asked a question from the bench during oral argument since 2006 (court records indicate that the question was "Counselor, can you tell me where you bought that great looking tie?"), has been a firm opponent of all laws related to equal rights. Having availed himself of one or two opportunities made possible by the Equal Rights Act, Judge Thomas has spent the last 19 years attempting to ensure that those opportunities will not exist for others. His "get a job, boy" attitude is particularly odd in that his primary claim to fame, prior to the Court, was as head of the U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (where he met Anita Hill).
Justice Thomas' recent independent streak is not likely to last. Regardless of how conservative and radical his recent decisions have been, he has been and will remain,in the minority. Praise Jesus.
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In a press release straight out of Oz, The Roman Catholic Church has concluded "scientifically" that the bones thought to be the remains of St. Paul are... the remains of St.Paul. In a delightful example of ecclesiastical obfuscation, the Church states, "...this seems to confirm the unanimous and uncontested tradition that they (the bones Catholics have been paying to visit for hundreds of years), are the mortal remains of the Apostle Paul."
Holy Orders, Batman! What exactly is an "uncontested tradition"? Once upon a time the Church had many uncontested traditions. The Earth is flat. The Sun revolves around the Earth. These were uncontested traditions postulated for a very long time. Scientists received lengthy prison sentences for disputing these uncontested traditions.
Anyway, what the Pope learned through "scientific testing" was that the remains, buried under the altar of St. Paul's Outside the Walls Church in Rome, can be carbon-dated to the time of St. Paul. Period. Without DNA from St. Paul himself, all of the evidence is circumstantial. What the archaeologists determined was that none of the evidence contradicts what the Church has believed since the bones were interred. Having recently concluded that the Shroud of Turin is a hoax, I suspect that Rome was somewhat relieved to discover that the revered relic of St. Paul wasn't some stone mason who fell into the cement in 1827. Thank heaven for small miracles.
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