Shoot Film Not Bullets

If the Treatise of Versalles was signed to bring an end WW1,  how in blue blazes did a Cuban Restaurant named Versalles on Calle Ocho become ground zero for a rumba beat in favor of going all out War On Cuba.

For casual readers, the backstory is the Cuban-American Saga of Disillusion that is stirred into each super-sweet coffee brewed at Versalles, disillusion woven into every idle conversations spoken in Little Havana and snapshot taken in Moral Gables. For the past 50 years in Miami the cuban political exile experience is edified in the Freedom Tower, our beacon of hope downtown. Recently beautified but still bewitched the Ellis Island of the swamp was also affectionately called Tyrone Power...

But the point of this post is to focus on the task of documenting the dynamics of conflict in past decades.  Not too long ago film was king and to get that shot a photographer had to focused on the technical craft and, of course the chemistry.  It was a messy Weegeean affair but worth the trouble as each contact sheet became the proof that only photography can deliver.  In the field of war photojournalism and cuban-american nostalgia, Jim Nickless is a celebrated guy.  

Jim Nickless gets five stars from me.  Not because he was embedded with the 'freedom fighters" of the infamous botched Bay of Pigs invasion but because he has kept a very professional and unbiased view of the Cuban Revolution.  To put it mildly Nickless today is seasoned to perfection.  The appointer chronicler of an impassioned cadre of ex-patriots,  Nickless could not go wrong having the only cameras on site at the remote jungles and training camps and beachheads of that tragic fateful honorable push to regain Cuba from the clutches of communistic castro.

The vintage photos speak for themselves, romantic in black and white, violent with the musk of bearded rebels and gunpowder.

Of great photographers and lucky ducks, I got a visit from Jim Nickless and 305 legend, Mark Diamond with ladyfriend for the 3-D Show at Swampspace Gallery.

Today the ratio of cameras to shutter-bugs is much changed from 1960. Practically everyone is a photographer a publisher and a critic.  Cameras have become so ubiquitous the only frontier left may be the outer reaches of the inner mind and its forbidden images.

Today military camps are the size of cities,  such as this fine spread somewhere in Afghanistan.

War correspondence is a circus of outrage as seen in the protests of FEMEN in eastern Europe.

Boys become warriors in the Middle East were guns sell like corn-dogs at a county fair here.

There is no place where there is no camera. But sadly there is no microphone for Pussy Riot in Moscow.

Politicos want us to think they know the One and Only Way Forward.

But for every conflict there is resolution if we take a clue from one principal of photographic truth.  Pictures lie.

Politicians give us the thumbs up and that's all very nice from behind bullet-proof glass.

But it's the ratt-tat-tat of machine guns and the glorification of war that I give a thumbs down to.

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Christen the Worship

When I buy a used car, the first thing I do is give it a name with the belief that it will last longer. And so goes the superstition with things inanimate, particularly sea-going vessels.
Knowing that, it is not surprising to read that a new warship of the carrier class has recently been christened in the name of the one and oldie poppy the elder #41.



Photo opportunities abound, with fresh cannon fodder.

No doubt our armed forces dominate land, air and sea. The newly launched 90,000 ton killing machine is ready for action. The USS George H. W. Bush is the latest in our proud fleet of warships. But "Horror Weirdo" are his middle names. For crying out loud, when are people going to wise up to the BFEE.

The review offered so far of George Bush's activities during the late 1950's and early 1960's is almost certainly incomplete in very important respects. There is good reason to believe that Bush was engaged in something more than just the oil business during those years. Starting about the time of the Bay of Pigs invasion in the spring of 1961, we have the first hints that Bush, in addition to working for Zapata Offshore, may also have been a participant in certain covert operations of the US intelligence community.



What the hell does Orwellian "Freedom at Work" mean?

Senior has a history of naming things with a codified cryptic maddening shamelessness.
Just look at the names of the assault ships used for the Bay of Pigs and tell me senior had nothing to do with the botched endeavor. It's clear that everything they have touched turned to mierda.

... In addition to these vessels, which were outfitted as transport ships, there were two somewhat better armed fire support ships, the Blagar and the Barbara. (In some sources Barbara J.) 8 The Barbara was originally an LCI (Landing Craft Infantry) of earlier vintage. Our attention is attracted at once to the Barbara and the Houston, in the first case because we have seen George Bush's habit of naming his combat aircraft after his wife, and, in the second case, because Bush was at this time a resident, booster, and Republican activist of Houston, Texas. But of course, the appearance of names like "Zapata," Barbara, and Houston can by itself only arouse suspicion, and proves nothing.



This clever slogan says everything you need to know about the Bush Legacy of "kill first, demonize nay-sayers, rob the treasury on the way out"

After the ignominious defeat of the Bay of Pigs invasion, there was great animosity against Kennedy among the survivors of Brigade 2506, some of whom eventually made their way back to Miami after being released from Castro's prisoner of war camps.

Senior covertly used the hapless freedom fighters to discredit Kennedy and effectively deliver the cuban exile vote to the republicans. 40 years later to this day my duped countrymen poop on democrats when they should direct their rage for the bay of pigs disaster flatly on poppy bush rump.

For the seriously detailed verifiable account of Senior's escapades through the ages from the nixon years, iran-contra etc. look no further than Robert Parry's Consortium News archives.



Like father like son #43.
Commander Cod-piece rallies the troops for photo-ops in the now shameful "Mission Accomplished" publicity stunt.



I christen this Dud Missile "The Junior Dubya Oblivion Spiral Pocket-Rocket"

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individually wrapped jesusingles

could not resist this image compliments of the otherwise very serious Ornicus blog.
... and this one is the logo for the original Bay of Pigs Brigade 2506. No hidden meaning here.