Photography and politics 2

Over the past few weeks, one of the things assigned to me was the photography for the South Carolina Gubernatorial election for one of the candidates. The fun thing has been designing and putting together all the online advertisements. Thus far there have been three completed and there's another under development.

All of the advertisements are supposed to give a man of the people image. The first video has a voter reading off a card. This was styled after Margaret Thatcher's election campaign video of 1978 just before she swept into power. The presentation is still valid today.

Direct video link

After that, there were two more videos, from which the style was taken from an old-school master of propaganda. Neither have sound on the basis that many people just turn the sound off on videos. Why waste sound as it's something that's just not getting heard.

Direct Video Link

Direct Video Link

Well, having shown the videos, I suppose I'd better show you his Twitter and Facebook pages. The Twitter is @GovSage. The Facebook is here for the account and here for the page. His campaign does need funding in order to produce more videos, attend conventions etc so his indigogo funding account is here.

The problem with Youtube

Think of online video and immediately the thought is of Youtube. Youtube has been around since time immemorial in technological terms. It's almost been around since technological dinosaurs such as IBM AS400s were popular.

Youtube has issues though - many, deep-rooted issues. The following video is a classic example of one of those issues. Uploading to Youtube has degraded the quality somewhat but that's not the major issue. The major issue is that the captions (which youtube calls "annotations") don't appear on mobile devices nor on some other devices. Given that most views of this blog are from people using mobile devices and hazarding a guess that most people these days use a mobile device rather than a laptop or a desktop, this is a problem that youtube needs to resolve. Try watching the video on a mobile device and a PC/Mac and see the difference!

Don't get me wrong - youtube is useful and highly entertaining. It's possible to watch both educational and entertaining things on youtube. It's just that the frilly niceties don't really work quite like they should or perhaps quite as the end user expects.

The above video was a quick video shot for the South Carolina Gubernatorial campaign of 2014. The budget was non-existent for the campaign so it has all been done with no glitz. Only time will tell whether this works or not. It's quite likely that only big money wins elections and thus it's possible to say that only the biggest wallet can buy a seat in office.

How to survive 3 days without modern technology

On Friday, driving to another city, there was a terrible thunderstorm. It looked for all the world that the car was heading straight into Armageddon. The hail on the roof sounded like the pounding of the hooves of the four horses of the Apocalypse. The sun was shining but the sky was as black as night though the photo below doesn't show it so, having defaulted to a mid grey.

Upon arrival at the destination, the weather was worse. So torrential was the rain that it was impossible to venture outside the vehicle. Even if it had been possible, it would not have been wise as lightning played around the area so it was just a case of waiting the storm out. Crash went the thunder and another bolt of lightning hit nearby - time after time. The lights of my destination dimmed and went out several times, such was the ferocity of the storm. Eventually after about 45 minutes imprisoned in the vehicle it was possible to emerge.

The rain and lightning had taken out all the electronics. The TVs were dead, the internet was dead. Indeed, only basic things like a conventional stove and electric lighting worked. Everything else was dead. Hundreds if not thousands of dollars of electronics had been destroyed. Were it not for the fact that there was electric lighting and electric cooking appliances, the place would have been time-warped back to the 15th century. As it was, it was time-warped back to the days of my youth for those were simple times with no television, no internet, no computers. Everything was done by hand. Calculations were performed with a pencil and paper.

It was not possible to do anything at my destination other than talk, play cards, eat and drink. There was no alcohol so drinks were nothing of which even the most devout religious guru would have disapproved. But what to do for the duration? Using the sole working mobile telephone for even the land based telephones had been annihilated, it was ascertained that the company responsible for the telephones, internet and television would only be available to fix them on Monday. It was now Friday. The prospect of a chasm without any form of connectivity to the internet yawned, bleakly and forebodingly with all the entertainment value of a root canal.

In actual fact, everybody had a great time. Instead of sitting individually in front of separate consoles, people talked and interacted. Things were done. There were no calls of "later - after this game". Talking, it was discovered that the good ladies of the house needed one of the shower stalls to be refitted in order to render the place ready to be rented out. First the narrow shower doors had to be removed in order to replace them with a more open curtain that would thus allow more generously proportioned people to enter. This was a task handed to me to which I set about with gusto. After a few false starts when nothing seemed to shift the screws that held the door frame to the walls, it was ascertained that they could simply be pulled away as the attachment was no more secure than a screw going through a hole drilled in a ceramic tile and embedded in plasterboard (sheet rock). Thus after a couple of hours taken trying to dismantle the unit nicely, all it took was a few minutes with an iron bar. 

 One thing leading to another, the floor of the shower needed to be concreted in order to support tiles. As there was already a liner in place - the original owner of the home had started to do the shower before shuffling off this mortal coil - it was just a case of laying concrete. Cue my friend's sister's boyfriend who donned his cape and leapt into action as Construction Man. Within hours, the cement was laid even including a further trip to the hardware store for a second bag by yours truly.

The cement having dried, the next day was the day to lay the final layer of tiles before the floor tiles. It just seemed a good idea to finish the walls before the floor in case the floor needed a further layer of cement. Thus, the tiles having been mounted with tile cement, it was time to conclude for the day. Sadly, the next day, the tile cement (which had to be applied thickly) was no sufficiently dry to allow the tiles to be supported solely by the cement. Thus, the majority still needed to be propped up. 

And so went the weekend. Was the internet really, truly missed by anybody? No - it was not. The television was not missed and nor was the telephone. The sole mobile phone which was an aged flip-phone of pre-historic vintage was the sole means of outside communication. Life was good and infinitely more productive.

This leads to the main question - how would you survive the absence of modern technology? What more would or could you do that you could not normally due to the technology addiction you don't realise you have? For us, there was life beyond the internet. Indeed, there is much talk of cancelling all of the three services and keeping just one small, solitary flip phone for emergencies. There is even more interesting talk. There is talk of retreating to the countryside to raise chickens given the state of the economy since people will always want food. There is even talk of one member of the group running for office as a write-in candidate for the Gubernatorial election in November. Watch this space very carefully for further updates.

McSouth Carolina - the McJob state.

As many of my regular readers will know, at one time I had a photography business. The biggest problem was lack of customers. Several times people tried to book me with a barter. Money was what was needed, not barter hence they got turned down. What on earth would I have done with a crate full of china save for putting it at the end of the rifle range and shooting it? It would not have put food on my table, paid my rent or anything else. It would have been working for nothing. It is debateable whether the china would even have been salable in an economy that has crashed.

The biggest problem in McSouth Carolina is the McEconomy where so many people that are classified as "working" are actually working McJobs, earning McWages and using food banks, EBT etc rather than working meaningful jobs that gain them a real income.

Look at the fellow packing your groceries for you in the grocery store. Is he there because that's the only job that he can do or is he there because that's the only job he can find?

In McSouth Carolina, the state is run by a McGovernor that seems to be the puppet of big business. The McGovernor continually crows about new jobs coming to the state but fails to acknowledge that these jobs are not a certainty. The McGovernor also fails to mention that many of the positions will be taken by people transferring in from another state.

The population of McSouth Carolina is 4,774,839 according to the last census. McSouth Carolina has traditionally been one of the poorest states of the union. This is partly due to its agricultural background and partly also due to the economic policies of the North after the disastrous civil war that McSouth Carolina started.

McSouth Carolina was included in the death spiral list on the basis of having more people on welfare than actually working. This is confirmed by Time magazine. A few days ago, the McGovernor was endorsed by small business for supporting small business. The reason for this is because the McGovernor promotes McJobs and McWages instead of trying to lift people out of poverty into real work for real wages.

Given a background where McSouth Carolina ranks out of the 50 states at number 42 for per capita income, anybody wanting to start a business here must have a death wish. To put it bluntly, McSouth Carolina is broke and it gets worse.

McSouth Carolina refuses to support the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) which means that the poor cannot afford to go to the doctor or to the dentist nor to the optician. This year I had a small tax refund due to my low income. Yes - I was working in a McJob. I was the Head Cashier in a bookstore since that was the only job I could find. My girlfriend hasn't been able to find a job for 4 years despite thousands of applications and has to live with her elderly mother as she cannot afford to buy her own food or pay rent or even buy fuel for her vehicle to get to job interviews. She needed glasses to see to drive to those rare job interviews. I used my tax refund to get her some glasses.

The store I was working in closed due to lack of income. The writing was on the wall the entire time I was there - fewer and fewer staff working. Less emphasis paid to getting the store tidy at the end of the day. The daily income was slowly dropping. I used to see the daily income. Being the Head Cashier, I had to count the takings at the end of the day. They were not impressive and hence the store closed. That left me out of work and in the same situation as my girlfriend.

Since that store closed, I have applied for every job I believe I can reasonably do. My attorney looked at me askance when he found I worked for a retail store saying that I could do a Hell of a lot better than that. Sure - if I can get an interview or a job. At the moment I'm not even getting responses from the McJobs on McWages. There is no doubt in my mind that McSouth Carolina is almost bankrupt and will soon hang up a sign on the entrance "closed for business".

My skills? Oh, I have a Bachelor's Degree and am a certified Medical Coder & Biller. It doesn't seem to matter though in McSouth Carolina.

Mindless moronicism in the workplace

Yet again, the voting season is upon us. Representatives and wannabes are all slithering out of their closets aiming to butter-up a tired and cynical population that has the memory of a retarded snail. The usual quotes "if voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal" (attributed to Emma Goldman) and "Don't vote - it only encourages them" (possibly Billy Connolly) are making the rounds. Millions of dollars are spent each year encouraging the population to vote for one tired hack politician over another tired hack politician. None of the politicians on offer are remotely worthwhile. Indeed one candidate advocated killing off a few of the more unsavory politicians.

For most of the time, politics can be thoroughly ignored. The politicians sit in their ivory castles, surrounded by armed guards who repel any voter that questions them or wishes to meet with them. Essentially once elected to the gravy train, politicians are largely unaccountable, uncontactable and off on popular paid-for junkets. All they have to do is to play nice around election time and they're back in office. People have incredibly short memories.

Recently a sign was seen beside a road stating that the electorate should vote for anybody except Lindsey Graham with absolutely no explanation. Meanwhile pro Lindsey Graham adverts seem to pop up daily online. This is beginning to be somewhat annoying.

What the public needs is a politician that is contactable, who will work on their behalf and who does not abuse the open wallet that the taxpayer gives them. As it is, the system is broken. There is little to no oversight of what politicians do with taxpayer's money. How many choose fine dining with expensive wines, expensive haute cuisine over something fairly standard that the rest of the population eats? This is where money is being wasted - wads of taxpayer's hard earned cash.

The election circus that starts two full years before an election is ridiculous. The actions of politicians are ridiculous. To have two camps Republicans and Democrats is utterly ridiculous. That should be swept away with the high school playground gangs. What is needed is representatives that will work for their electorate regardless. The two extremes of Republican and Democrat are abhorrent in a civilised society. One is extreme right wing and the other is extreme left wing. Middle-of-the-road may be bland but it leads to stable government where the elected actually work for the electorate.

South Carolina has had a series of very bad governors by way of example. The previous incumbent reportedly went off with taxpayers money on sex holidays to other countries. The current incumbent refuses to support the Affordable Care Act. Indeed some have wondered whether the current incumbent is in cahoots with Blue Shield Blue Cross because they don't want their gravy train upset by ACA. Some would go further and call it a cartel. Needless to say, without support for ACA, millions of low income individuals in South Carolina have to suffer ill health which reflects on their chances of employment. Many even die because of the lack of affordable healthcare. It is thus unsurprising that a Virginia Democrat has all but put a bounty on the head of the governor.

Indeed as an independent looking to join in the race to be the next representative, the obstacles to getting onto the ballot are tremendous. The system is now set up in such a protective way that only members of large parties or those with a lot of spare money can enter the race. Joe Soap from Nowheremuch would not now be able to stand for election. The founding fathers would weep if they saw the mess that the system has become.

So, with all this going on, politics always rears its ugly head in the workplace. As a cynic, politics doesn't bother me that much. People rabbiting on about it is more annoying than anything else. Coming from Britain where none of the politicians were worth the minor effort of visiting the polling booth, the same criticism can be levelled at US elections. There is nothing that is remotely redeeming about any of the proffered candidates. Thus, if Mike Dickerson were to slaughter not just the individuals stated but the whole lot, it would be unlikely that anybody would really care. Yet people seem to get all hot and bothered about their playground gangs.

How do you approach the mindless moronicism of politics in your workplace?