Cauliflower in the Sky

From Fireworks 2009

I meant to post my images of Independence Day 2009 within a day or so of the holiday itself, but a cursory inspection of my photos on Sunday turned up nothing but vague blurs, nothing worth posting at all. That's it, then, I thought. I'd failed to find a usable setting for fireworks shots on this particular camera.

Then on Tuesday night I was editing my photos for the EMPS entry that is to follow this one, and discovered that my bad fireworks shots were just the beginning of a much larger selection. On Saturday I had tried at least four different camera settings, not counting several failed attempts to set a one or two second delay to reduce camera shake and try to catch the fireworks after they burst instead of as they went up. It turned out that eventually I hit on something workable, especially if I braced myself against a handy tree. So here, several days late, is my 4th of July entry after all.

It was kind of an interesting evening for me. The dogs hadn't been out of the neighborhood in four or five days, so we headed over to Reid Park. The dog park there, Miko's Corner Playground, is about half a mile from Hi Corbett Field, where the Tucson Toros play. The ball club had fireworks scheduled for after the game that night, and by 8 PM Reid Park was beginning to fill up with people waiting to see the fireworks for free, just outside the ballpark proper. Some of these people had dogs, and Cayenne, Pepper and I did a fair amount of visiting during the gallivanting phase of our trip to the park. Other people - teens and young adults, one presumes - had brought fireworks of their own, firecrackers and perhaps cherry bombs, and at least two largish "fountain" type ground fireworks. I can't really tell you, based in the minimal research I just did, what everything I heard or saw is properly called. But all around me were little snap, crackle and pop-pop-pop reports from small groups of chattering young people, and all of it was illegal in Arizona, as are all consumer fireworks down to the most innocent sparkler. Nevertheless, fireworks aren't all that hard for Arizonans to get. They just need to drive east to Lordsburg, New Mexico or beyond, where fireworks stands are legal and easy to find.

Dogs, as I know very well, aren't fond of fireworks or other loud noises. Cayenne has a tendency to spend thunderstorms under my desk, and Pepper runs away from any sudden sound. But that night in the park, with my hanging on to their leashes, they handled the small explosions around us with only minor reactions. This is almost certainly because we managed to stay well away from such revels, so the noises were distant and not very loud. Even so, I was surprised and a little annoyed that so many people were openly flouting the law in Tucson's largest and most popular city park. Where were the cops while all this was going on? It wasn't until we were leaving that I realized what the answer must be. On the Fourth of July, there probably isn't a single neighborhood in all of Tucson that doesn't have at least a few people setting off illegal fireworks. Police can't be everywhere at once, all night long. I imagine they concentrate on cases where the fireworks are major explosives or injuries result. And of course they have all the usual law enforcement stuff to do as well, probably with extra drunk drivers as a holiday bonus.

Anyway, I wasn't about to wait around in Reid Park for another hour and a half for the Toros to win or lose their game, not with the dogs in tow and no possibility of watching the game itself. So we headed home. As I turned onto Wilmot, I saw fireworks up ahead to the south, and realized something I'd failed to notice in the 15 years or so that we've lived on Calle Mumble. The closest fireworks to our house, which for years I've been trying to photograph from our front yard or out in the street, with disappointing results, are set off at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, just a few blocks away. This is also where the Blue Angels and other planes come from to emerge over our street during stunt shows. I should not have been surprised that the base also had professional fireworks shows.

That being the case, there was an obvious place to go to see and photograph the fireworks properly: the same Safeway/Subway parking lot from which I've photographed so many of my "Safeway Sunsets." I drove town there, and was startled to see a few dozen cars parked near the Subway, their passengers lined up in little groups along the wall next to Wilmot Road. Some had lawn chairs set up, and there were even a few tailgaters.

It didn't seem like a good idea to leave the dogs in the car during a fireworks show, even if the fireworks were half a mile away; so I brought them with me. Holding onto their leashes and adjusting camera settings in the dark while Cayenne tugged her desire to leave was a little tricky, but eventually I going something worth sharing, even if I didn't know it yet. They're not my best fireworks shots by any means. Several of them have shapes that remind me of cauliflowers, or maybe broccoli, but white or red or blow rather than green. Odd. But they'll do for this year.

Karen

Weekend Assignment Results: Are We Independent?

Solo travel on the open road, April 2006

For last week's Weekend Assignment #223: Are You Independent? I asked how independent you are. The holiday weekend that inspired the question pretty much scuttled the responses, but we had one actual entry and two in-comments answers.

Julie said...

I work as a freelancer, which is about as independent as you can get. It's a good thing and a bad thing. The good is that I can set my own hours. While Chris was in school I had time to run down and watch him in a play or help inside the classroom. If he ever needed a breathing treatment I was close by. I also have asthma, so it's nice to be able to drop everything and go to the doctor if I need to without fear of retribution by my employer. (Yes, I worked at a place like that once.)

Mike said in comments...

Sorry I didn't get to it this week. The holiday threw off my whole schedule. I will say That I am not totally independent. I think being married, and having two kids, makes it nearly impossible to to whatever I want, whenever I want. But I wouldn't change anything either. I'll be back next week.

Sarah said in comments...

Me too. I mean, sorry about not getting to it this week. Lots of invasive factors in my life this week, like crazy work. I think this makes two IOUs on the weekend assignment now (I swear I'll get to them someday!).

I live by myself and support myself, and often travel by myself, so yeah, I'm independent. I'm fortunate to have parents nearby who are often happy to lend their help and/or advice, but I make sure I'm always able to pay my own bills, get out of my own scrapes, choose my own adventures, etc.

Thanks, you three! The new Weekend Assignment is imminent!

Karen

Defending the Constitution

Clouds over Tucson, July 3, 2008.

As I noted last night, the day that just ended was about celebrating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, that marvelous 1776 document that proclaims that all men have "certain unalienable rights" to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," and ends, "And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." It was mostly Thomas Jefferson's work, but John Adams and Benjamin Franklin also had a hand in it, along with two other guys I've never heard of. I had an eighth grade social studies teacher who made us memorize the beginning and end of it, along with he preamble to to the U.S. Constitution:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

I'm grateful to Miss...well, I forget her name, but it started with a Y, for exposing us to those two documents, especially considering that for the other semester that year, we had a teacher who displayed his NRA membership in his classroom and showed us 1950s Cold War propaganda films without irony or critical appraisal. I grew up revering the balance of power among the three branches of government, the separation of church and state, and the guarantees of the Bill of Rights. Five of the Constitution's 27 amendments have been added in my lifetime, including one that somehow slipped past me, about congressional pay raises. One high-profile proposed amendment, the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) for women's rights, somehow failed to get through, but that sort of thing is now rightly considered inherent in what's already there. I can't claim to be uniformly happy with every Supreme Court decision of the last decade or so, as George W Bush and friends have done their best to shift its membership to the right; but overall I believe the court has done a good job, and I strongly believe in the principles in the foundational document the Supreme Court seeks to interpret.

Last week I picked up the land line here at home and found myself interacting with a fully automated opinion poll. There was no human at the other end of the call, even to ask my cooperation, just a series of prerecorded questions. My answers were recorded as numbers - three for "somewhat unfavorable" on an early question, three again meaning "somewhat liberal" on a later one. It was pretty standard stuff at first - rating the performance of the current president and voting for the next one. It got a little odd when it asked where McCain and Obama each fell on the scale from "very liberal" to "very conservative," but I was not prepared for the question that followed:

"Do you believe that the Constitution of the United States should be scrapped? For yes, press one. For no, press two."

This was followed by a question asking whether the constitution should be left alone, tweaked a bit, or scrapped in other to start over. And I was wondering, who could possibly vote for that third option? That's clearly insane, or at least mega-ignorant. I was so shocked that I said to leave the Constitution alone, even though I know that from time to time it may need amending. Better to proclaim myself satisfied with the document as it now stands than to give some robo-poller and its compiler an opportunity to believe I might want an amendment banning same sex marriage, the burning of flags or habeas corpus for prisoners, or whatever harebrained assault on our rights to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" that some conservatives might favor this week.

Even the push for nutty amendments that won't pass anyway is preferable to the idea of junking the Constitution and starting over. Could anyone seriously advocate that, knowing that it's the entire basis for us even having a President, a Congress and a court system, let alone little things like freedom of speech and of the press, and the right to peaceably assemble? And even beyond the ridiculous impracticality of dismantling our entire system of government and starting over, can anyone have such a massive disregard for the core document on which the country is based, and still claim to be a patriot?

I Googled to see whether this opinion poll has been released to the press, but nothing turned up. It could have been a private poll, used to help McCain's people strategize or something. Doesn't matter. My opinion is my opinion, and I will tell it to any pollster, even an automated one with some undisclosed purpose.

But here's the thing. In a country where the Republican nominee for the presidency recently called the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the right to court access for Guantanamo prisoners "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country," perhaps I'm naive to think that no one, provoked over one decision or another, could be induced to speak out against the document that guarantees our most basic rights. I don't write about politics much, but even I am well aware of the current President's penchant for considering himself and his actions above the law, regardless of what the Constitution might say. In researching this rant, I came across numerous references to a report that while meeting with congressional Republicans in 2005 about renewing the Patriot Act, George W. Bush allegedly called the U.S. Constitution "just a goddammed piece of paper."

Well, I've got news for you, GWB, and anyone who might be tempted to scrap some or all of the Constitution because nobody has yet managed to pack the Supreme Court with no-nothing bozos capable of ignoring what the darn thing says. Next January, Bush, Cheney et al. will be out of office, but the Constitution will still be in place. With any luck at all, the next man who says,

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

will actually mean it.

Karen

Clouds over Pusch Ridge cause no more than shadows to the rock below.

Weekend Assignment #223: Are You Independent?

Thomas Jefferson and me back in the 70s, relaxing

Weekend Assignment #223: The U.S. Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4th, 1776, thus providing a written rationale for the severing ties with Great Britain, which the Congress had done two days earlier. All these years later, how independent are you? Of what? Is that a good thing?

Extra Credit: If you were to write some sort of Declaration today, what truths would you hold to be self-evident?

Maybe I'm being a little pedantic here, picking on the word "Independence." But after all, it's the name of the document, and the name of the holiday, even though we tend to call it "the Fourth of July." The Declaration served its purpose at the time, explaining what was going on and why, and inspiring people in their struggle. It was a very different world back then, and England, for all its historic, cultural and familial ties with the colonists, must have seemed very far away, and out of touch with their concerns.

Nowadays, I post on a forum that has at least as many British members as Americans. I watch British tv, sometimes the same day it's aired over there. A few hours ago I listened to BBC radio live online. I read blogs written in other countries, many thousands of miles away. I watch films made in Poland and New Zealand, and lots of other places. I pay a lot for gasoline and for food because of the complex interplay of financial markets across the world - and I know I'm lucky, because some people can no longer afford to buy the food they need, let alone gas. Of the three shirts I've worn most recently, one was made in Nicaragua, one in Hong Kong, one in Vietnam. The whole world is trying to work out what to do about global warming. Independent? We're more interdependent than ever!

After a Thai dinner for one, Sedona, AZ, 2006

But in other ways, I suppose I'm reasonably independent. Once I make up my mind about something, I can be fairly stubborn, and will usually follow through even if others disagree. I prefer to travel or go to movies with other people, but I'm perfectly capable of doing both on my own, and enjoying it. I love exploring, and not having to answer to someone else for my route or my priorities. I seek John's input on my choice of a car, camera, new glasses, etc., but he doesn't get veto power. I wouldn't care to "go it alone" at all times, with no one else to advise me or keep me company, and sometimes I may give others a little too much influence over my feelings and behavior. Overall, though, I'm independent enough to make my own decisions - and that's definitely a good thing.

Gee, it's taken me all night to write this, because I've been dithering about the focus of the question. For the extra credit, I declare that this Weekend Assignment is totally dependent on you folks to make it successful. So write something, huh? Post it to your journal or blog, along with a link back here, and leave me your link in the comments blow. (Ahem - one person forgot to do this last week!) I'll united the results in a declaration of our states of independence, next Thursday night!

Karen