January 2012

January 19, 2012January 19, 2012

Bells of St. Mary’s Saved

After running the other church bell stories, Shy Reader sent me these two clips from The Missourian. I would provide a link to them, but they don’t show up when I search for them.

Click on the images to make them larger.

Missourian jump page

Here’s the rest of the story.

What was that strike thing all about?

I’m sure some of you were wondering what that strike thing was all about yesterday. Thousands of websites, some as large as Wikipedia, others as small as my two blogs, went dark for 24 hours to protest two bills that are making their way through Congress. They are ostensibly to stop Internet piracy, but have the potential of crippling the Internet as we know it today.

I’ve experienced the chilling effect of what’s already on the books. I posted a video of a night lightning with a public domain audio of Beethoven’s Fifth playing in the background.

YouTube sent me a notice that they had removed the audio because of copyright concerns. It took 24 hours to get it back up after I provided evidence that the performance was in the public domain. Guilty until proven innocent.

Under the new laws, my whole site could have been taken down and I could have been subject to fines and jail had I been found to have been using copyrighted material. I have a video on my bike blog where I’m passing a slower rider. You can hear my MP3 player in the background. Conceivably, that could be a violation of the law.

If you don’t think they’ll fool with “the little guy,” consider this: we didn’t invade Russia nor China; we went after Granada.

January 17, 2012

This Site Is On Strike for 24 Hours

Here is more information

January 16, 2012

Knights of Columbus Hall

This photo of men was taken in the Knights of Columbus Hall on April 2, 1967, if the note on the negative sleeve is to be believed. I searched for it in The Missourian, but didn’t see it. Either it didn’t run or I shot it as a freelance job.

Some of the men look familiar, but the only one I can identify for sure is the man in the back row, on the left. That’s Ray Seyer, Wife Lila’s uncle. You’ll be hearing more about him soon. Lila went back to Cape for his 90th birthday party Saturday.

These are men who wear serious, built-to-last wingtip shoes. I wonder if they were made in the Cape Shoe Factory? Click on any photo to make it larger.

The KC Hall

The Knights of Columbus Hall that overlooks the Mississippi River is one of those buildings that I would recognize at a glance, but haven’t had many occasions to visit. My most vivid memory is abandoning my date – probably Lila – in my car in the parking lot one night while I dashed off to shoot a fire in a neighboring building.

Casino vs. Bingo?

Will the Bingo players keep coming or will the Casino dry up that income for local charities and groups?

A family photo

The last time I was inside the KC Hall was after Lila’s mother’s funeral. The family gathered there to reminisce and to snack on food friends had brought. Inevitably, cameras came out and the picture-taking started. This sequence shows Son Adam with his Uncle John Perry. The family resemblance is plain.

January 16, 2012January 16, 2012

Martin Luther King Day

In the spring of 1968, I was photo editor of The Ohio University Post and a photography major. One of my classes – it might have been Magazine and Newspaper Photography – had us form up into teams. We had to pick a geographical area, then document what happened in that area for a week. Classmate Lyntha Scott Eiler was on The Athena, the university yearbook. The publications worked out of the student union building on the Main Green and, since we practically lived there anyway, we picked that as our geographical area. We recruited two more team members and set to work.

The first part of the project was boringly routine: college students playing around with dogs, sunning themselves on the War Memorial, just light-hearted stuff.

A gunshot changed everything

The mood of the campus changed in a heartbeat with a gunshot in Memphis, Tenn. Dr. Martin Luther King was dead.

Memorial service changed to sit-in

My team was lucky enough that our area was where a National Day of Mourning service was going to be held. When it broke up, the crowd moved a block north to the major intersection in town at Court and Union Streets to conduct a sit-in. This wasn’t unusual. That was the traditional spot for the annual Rites of Spring riot and anti-war protests. Cops and students would do a choreographed chicken dance, then everybody would break up and go home. Few arrests were made and teargas wasn’t used until after Kent State.

We could have had a riot

This time, though, a redneck Athens police captain decided he was going to literally throw the demonstrators off of his streets. He didn’t realize how raw emotions were. It was as close to sparking a race riot as Athens has ever come. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and the students were allowed to block the street for a “reasonable” amount of time.

I’ve been afraid for years that we had to turn in our film as part of the project, but I ran across it last week. I’m going to save the bulk of the photos for the anniversary of the National Day of Mourning to give me a chance to track down some of the students so they can tell me what they remember of that day.

I don’t recall what grade we got on the project, but I’m pleased with what I’ve seen so far.