Archive for July 23rd, 2014

Flames and smoke.

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2014

Smoke:

George Cole, the former mayor of the notoriously corrupt California city of Bell, was sentenced today. You may remember former Mayor Cole from such hits as “let’s have the city pay to send me to fat camp“, or his “no contest” plea earlier this year to corruption charges, or his conviction last year for misappropriation of funds.

So what did Cole get?

180 days of home confinement, five years of probation, and 1,000 hours of community service. And he has to pay $77,000 in restitution. That’s all.

Prosecutors had asked that Cole be sentenced to four years in state prison.


But he’s filled with shame and remorse. I’m going to politely suggest that’s not the only thing he’s full of, but this is a family blog…

Ah, but the flames. You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena!

Former Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon and his wife were convicted Wednesday of some but not all voter-fraud and perjury charges brought in a case that accused them of lying about where they lived so he would be qualified to run for his council seat.

I thought I had written about Alarcon and his wife previously, but a search doesn’t turn up anything.

Prosecutors said Alarcon lied when he swore that he lived in a home in Panorama City in L.A.’s 7th Council District so he could run in 2007 and 2009 to represent the district, which he did until last year. They said he actually lived in a bigger home outside the district in Sun Valley. The L.A. City Charter requires that candidates live in the districts they seek to represent.

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Law | Comments Closed

Noted.

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2014

The LA Weekly profiles Nick Ut, legendary AP photographer and Pulitzer Prize winner. He’s still working as an AP photographer in LA.

You may not recognize the name, but you’ll know the photo; it is one of the two most famous Vietnam War photos. I won’t embed it, but you can find all over the place, including here.

I’m not generally a big fan of the alternative papers, but this is a swell article. Some pull quotes:

Ut believes in skill, too. But on a deeper level, he trusts in luck and fate. Many photojournalists were killed in Vietnam — 135 total, according to Faas’ count. By Ut’s estimate, 90 percent of the AP photographers who covered the war got shot while there.

Pulled mostly so I can plug Requiem: By the Photographers Who Died in Vietnam and Indochina; haunt your local used bookstore for a copy.

…three months after he took Kim Phuc’s picture, he was hit in the leg by mortar fire. He was on his way to visit her. Her house, unfortunately, was located near an entrance to the infamous Cu Chi Tunnels, a network of supply routes used by the Viet Cong. After the mortar shell blew up, Ut noticed holes in his camera. Then his shirt. Then his thigh.

…

Young photographers today, who “shoot 15 frames a second,” exasperate him. “Too fast. Picture lousy. One frame. Show the best picture. That’s how I learned. Look for the picture first.”
Besides, “If you come back with 500 pictures from one assignment? Your boss will yell at you. Too many! Who wants to look at all those pictures?”

…

Today, the 35mm Leica M2 camera with which he shot Napalm Girl is in a museum — the Newseum, in Washington, D.C.

Gratuitous Leica for the win! (I do wish the Weekly had gone into more detail about what Ut uses today. But then again, this isn’t an article targeted at professional photographers.)

Posted in Books, Clippings, History, Media, Photography | Comments Closed