Tambourines and Elephants

I ran my first test roll through a new-to-me Mamiya 645 yesterday, and stand-developed it (also a first for me).

Unfortunately, I loaded the film backwards! Never seen such a clear sheet of film! That backing paper sure does its job!

The film was Neopan Acros 100. I had been developing a lot of Ilford, and I usually don’t do a presoak. Not knowing that Acros has such a thick anti-halation layer, I was not planning to presoak, but at the last minute decided to do it. I only gave it 30 seconds, but the water came out dirty blue, and I thought, “Uh-oh, that looks bad.” So I quick-rinsed it one more time and went on with the show. (HC-110 G, which is 1:119, for an hour, with only thirty seconds of agitation at the start.)

I am here to tell you that the clear film that emerged also still has a slight blue haze throughout.

Lessons: 1) Presoak your Acros 5 minutes. 2) A Mamiya 645 film holder has to have emulsion-side out when it goes into the camera (Duh!).

The One, the great uniter, has a new ad running in Ohio that ends with the following image:

The ad itself is virtually without content.  Obama took GM through bankruptcy with government help, Romney thought it should have been done without the government.  ”Not one of us.”  Nice, O.

Watching the ad, I noticed that one of the speakers looks like a guy, not from GM, but a paper plant worker.  He appears in another ad by a PAC.  Perhaps another sign of collusion between the Obama campaign and the Obama PACs.

Anyway, compare the contentless negativity of the Obama ad with the following:

The Mainstream Media seem to be realizing that Romney just might win, and they better get their heads around it…. Maybe they better start trying to butter him up so as to co-opt him later?

Anyway, exhibit one is from CBS News:

I may be wrong about the next one, but even the New York Times seems to be softening this morning:

Romney as Manager

Although, there is a curious difference in the home page subhead (“Safe and Socratic”), and the story page subhead (“Unhurried and Socratic”).  Actually, to a large extent, the Times in this story seems to be pre-formulating their criticisms of a possible Romney administration:  safe, slow, plodding, procrastinating, not-up-to-the-crisis-a-day-pace-of-the-modern-presidencey.

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton did not mention al Qaeda, terrorism or terror in general as a cause of the attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.  Immediately after mentioning the ‘heavy assault’ on the consulate, she ventured into the tried and untrue territory of the anti-Mohammad video:

This has been a difficult week for the State Department and for our country. We’ve seen the heavy assault on our post in Benghazi that took the lives of those brave men. We’ve seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful internet video that we had nothing to do with. It is hard for the American people to make sense of that because it is senseless, and it is totally unacceptable.

The people of Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Tunisia did not trade the tyranny of a dictator for the tyranny of a mob. Reasonable people and responsible leaders in these countries need to do everything they can to restore security and hold accountable those behind these violent acts. And we will, under the President’s leadership, keep taking steps to protect our personnel around the world. http://translations.state.gov/st/english/texttrans/2012/09/20120914136067.html#ixzz29aEUeU7Q

This must be the part that mislead Reuthers into repeating the administration line that the Benghazi attacks were a peculiarly violent form of movie review.

The president did not mention al Qaeda, terrorism or terror in general at the ceremony for the American fallen from the Libya attack.  See the following links:

Text of President’s remarks

Mp3 of President’s remarks

Mp4 of President’s remarks

Here you can see that Reuthers reported the Obama administration line that the Libya attacks were due to a mob action, not terrorism:

I will try to get more of the actual text from Sec. Clinton and the president in later posts.

For many moons, the Obama administration has followed the monthly jobs report with a statement advising ‘folks’ “not to read too much into one monthly report.”

At some point, the sequence of bad reports itself becomes the context.

As we enter this election season, it should not be forgotten in how many ways our current President has failed to live up to his Promise.  Case in point is his lack of contact with the opposition party.  I mean, the man can’t even work with Olympia Snowe!

[h/t Contentions]

I am guessing that most Taco Bell fans have already tried a Doritos Taco.  Since I tried one a month ago, I get one every time I go there.

Here are the Doritos Taco and the normal crunchy taco side by side.