A New Project

Praktica was never known as the cream of the crop when it came to 35mm SLR Cameras, but this one is VERY special.
This is the camera that replaced my dads Kodak Retina, a camera that my dad would curse and scream about and claim that he didn't care if he got it from my grandpa, and how worthless it was, little did he realize that Retina is a GEM, and a highly valued part of photography collectibles, but I digress, This battle worn, tired and damaged Praktica bore witness to countless family vacations, it has hiked on the Appalachian Trail, trekked through the Badlands of South Dakota, waded the Marshes of the Barrier Islands of South Carolina, driven the entire length of the Blue Ridge Mountains, shot twisters in the plain states, and the sapphire blue waters of Lake Superior and the head waters of the Mississippi river.
This old camera had shot graduations, weddings, births, a hand full of crime scenes, one horrific shoot out scene, it has captured the images of many loved ones, both friends and family who are no longer with us. And more importantly it is a link between a father and a son whose passion for photography is a skill that was learned by watching, listening and being shown step by step.

During the days when my dads health was failing, and he was feeling weaker, while climbing rocks to take a picture of God only knows what on the West Prong of the Pigeon River on the Chimney Rock Trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, he lost his footing on what he loudly cursed as a "bastard of a snot rock" he fell and broke his camera, cracking the upper body and damaging the aperture selection wheel, he never got it fixed, as a few months later he got in the foot pursuit and fight at White Castles, where he felt he was having a heart attack, and the course of treatment for that led to the discovery of a small shaded area in his chest on an xray, and since then his camera has been silently sitting in a closet, waiting for the promise to be repaired.

Years and years and years later it has come to me, with a request that it take its place on my monument to borderline OCD with cameras, ranging from the late 19th century film plate cameras, through the first "daylight cartridge camera" in a new sized format of 35mm, which allowed the user to change film in broad daylight and take up to 24 shots in glorious black and white, (remember the Retina mentioned............), to the forerunners of what today are called SLR cameras (single lens reflex).

This Camera deserves more than to shield a shelf from collecting dust under its footprint, and it deserve more than bringing it down every now again and shooting a shot or two out of it as a novelty to say "look, this 80 year old camera takes just as good of shots as this Nikon D-slr"

This Camera deserves to be lovingly and completely restored, polished and fixed and brought back to the glorious photos I know it is capable of. Simple to operate for a full manual SLR, ergonomic in its design, with the perfect blend between rock steady mechanical operations aided with electronic guides, a relic of a now gone "country" the German Democratic Republic or Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR), so with a little luck, some patience and a little elbow grease, the old mans baby will be working again in short order, and I would love to exact revenge on that bastard of a snot rock and take its portrait with my old mans camera that the snot rock tried to destroy........

The Ties That Bind Can Also Strangle

George Rogers Clark

“Every day of our lives we are on the verge of making those slight changes that would make all the difference.”
~ Mignon McLaughlin

There is no arguing the fact that our fair city is in a state of crisis. Crisis in the form of economics, infrastructure, politics and operations. Of that the vast majority of us can agree on.

The question is often asked “how did we get to this point?” or “Whose to blame?”. Some of us consistently point fingers and shake them blazingly in the face of our elected officials. Some of us blame other Joe Citizens who dare to express their concern or opinions. And others still feel it is prudent to keep slapping the surface of shit creek with the only paddles we have left by constantly attacking and belittling those who have valid points.

We can easily blame Colonial John Paul who purchased the land that is now New Albany from George Rogers Clark, who in turn let Joel, Abner, and Nathaniel establish the city of New Albany on this particular geographic location, or we can blame Mayor Alexander Burnett Sr. whose turn at wheel had seen the Indiana State Fair ground turned into Camp Noble, a civil war mustering grounds for Federal Troops. Or we can blame Mayor William Hart for being at the Helm when the last Steam Boat, the Robert E. Lee, was built in New Albany, sending the city into economic turmoil for a period. ( but the same railroads that some of curse is the one thing that saved this city from certain economic doom), or who can we blame for the city losing the American Plate Glass Company and its 2,000 jobs in 1893? Or what about blaming Jacob G. Hauswald for the devastating flood, which to this date is still the worst disaster ever to befall this city.

New Albany, Circa 1876

We place blame everywhere, and on everyone we can. The uncooperative business owners who bring blight and corruption to our neighborhoods, the shady slumlord who skirts his/her legal, moral, and ethical responsibilities to make a few bucks off of the backs of those who it has been said, “has no choice but to rent a place like that”.

We attack our Police and our Police Chiefs for not doing enough to deter crime, and yet other factions attack the same men and women for spending money to do their jobs.
Same with the Fire Department personnel. Blame and complain, blame and complain.
George Carlin put this best when he said: “Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?"

When we feel that we have begun to run out of figure heads to blame and complain about, we start on one another. What group are you aligned with? What Blog do you read? Who are your friends? Who are you related to?

The Reno Brothers Gang, Famous for the first peacetime train robberies, and for being killed by Lynch mobs in New Albany, the members of the Lynch mobs were never Identified or Charged with a Crime, the lynching creating an international incident, and international newpaper coverage. Yet today, factions in this city seem to think that sections of sidewalks being fixed is worthy of international protest.



Folks there is plenty of blame to go around, and there is plenty of situations going on that is worthy of placing blame somewhere, but in the end exactly where will that get you? It hasn’t worked in the last 30 years, and I doubt this game plan will start working anytime soon.

The ugly, undeniable truth is it is really easy to find who is to blame for all of these problems that are plaguing our city, and it doesn’t fall on the shoulders of the Mayor, nor does it fall on the shoulders of the City Council, the Code Enforcement Officer, or even the Police Chief, it doesn’t fall on the shoulders of the department heads of the building commission, street department, sewage department or private contractors who deal with our trash.

Steamers Robert E. Lee and the Natchez in the race from New Orleans to St. Louis, lithograph by Currier and Ives

If you want to find the people to blame, we need not look any further than our own mirrors. For generations now we, the citizens of this city, have sat back and complained and looked for people to blame, and each election that rolls around, we get wrapped up in the promises made, “elect me and it will be peaches and cream, and sunny days on easy street”, then we wait for the peaches and get the pits, and no one specified that it wasn’t going to be sour cream as we roast under the scorching sun on pothole riddled, cracked and broken Easy Street surrounded by run down rentals and mounts of yard debris.

Yes, its an ugly truth, and as the opening quote said: “Every day of our lives we are on the verge of making those slight changes that would make all the difference.”, and that’s the problem, we are always on the verge, but never quite cross the line to making a difference.

Little victories have been accomplished, but the British kept winning victories during the revolution, and we all know how that turned out for them, which leads us right back to George Rogers Clark selling what is now New Albany to Col. John Paul.

The point of this is simple, New Albany has a lot of history, some good, some horrid. And yet the city has survived. We ALL have a lot to offer this city, unique skills, and talents, but above all else we all share one thing that is more powerful than any “crooked” politician, or ineffective council member, we each have a vote, and if we each use that tool wisely we can change the landscape of this community.

Though it has become readily apparent that my opinions do not mean a damn thing to CFA, I would suggest that we come together as a community, leave the politicians out of it (Sorry John Gonder, I know you are one of the good guys), and we work TOGETHER to come up with plan to bring about change.

On its trip through New Albany's neighborhoods north of downtown around 3:30pm, widespread death and destruction resulted across a 90-block area. Many homes were destroyed and blown away and 54 people lost their lives. Several children were killed as the storm destroyed a school on the northwest side of town. Damage in New Albany, in current dollars, amounted to nearly $19 million.

Profiles of Political Suicide

Not to long ago, it seemed that a person could become involved in this community with out being subjugated to personal political attacks. It would seem to the misfortune of the entire community that this is no longer the case.

After having my fill of a "community activism" following the defeat of the toxic waste dump that was attempted to be placed in the Hoosier Panel lot, and the retirement of King Larry the Grand Poo bah of the council, I had dined at that buffet table for long enough and had my fill.

Spending the extra time that created with my pursuit of amateur nature photography, I found a niche I found rather comfortable, and even managed to get some things published.

Recently, with the cities intent to do business with CCE again, I found myself being drawn back in, and before I knew it, I was waist deep in waste. Police issues, political health care issues, budgetary issues, and so on.

Incredibly, those who would attack people from behind a mask of anonymity caught my scent and soon began the sucker punches.

More incredibly, is the fact that we ALL want the same things, we ALL want changes to our stagnant city. We want progress, we want balance between expenditures and services, and we all want transparency in Government operations.

Yet consistently this becomes a battle between citizens, and while we fight, the political landscape never changes, the bombs we drop only seem to hit the community advocates with the shrapnel.

Aristotle said "Man by nature is a political animal", and I guess that holds true over 2300 years later. Some of us are drawn into the web of politics light bugs to a street lamp. And unfortunately some of us are bats that swoop down from out of the night to scatter and destroy.

It is an unfortunate landscape when we as Country, and society have become to associate political activism with bulls eyes painted on the backs of the advocates where their personal lives, and every aspect of their character as free game for attacks, and as long as we continue to travel down that road, change will become more and more elusive. It is no big secret that I am not a very religious person, but in this instance the saying of casting the first stone comes to mind.

What damage is being done locally when the example that is being set is that anyone who is even remotely interested in community activism is subjugated to non-stop criticism on every level. Who their family is, where they come from, if they misspell a word, what hours they run their business, what business they operate, or what they have done in the spirit of giving to their community in the past. Who will fill the shoes of those whose intentions are truly that of positive change and progress? Will the void be filled with a new generation of those who feel that insults, immaturity and cowardly hiding behind fake names and organizations take over the chores of tending to the garden that we pick our elected officials from?

I kind of see it like this, Abraham Lincoln said "The ballot is stronger than the bullet.", and we all know how that turned out for him! Have we lost the ability to effectively and fairly conduct ourselves and chosen the bullet?

Regardless, through other political endeavours, I have found myself the steward of millions of dollars of funds, all of which are earmarked to the betterment of care for the medically indigent of our local communities. The capital investments that are to come with these funds will bring our local clinics not only up to par in state of the art treatment and management of our patients, but in most cases we will surpass many of the for profit, insurance driven private practices.
Electronic Medical records, digital dental xray technology, the ability to instantly communicate lab results, and diagnostics with hospitals, specialists, and the government to help speed along disability determinations, and acquiring temporary medicaid to those who need it.

Some of the capital funds will also being going to improvements of the facilities themselves. Creating a comfortable and inviting atmosphere for our clients who for so long have been a victim of the Hollywood stigma of what a clinic should look like.

After all, some of our patients we are seeing now, 4 months ago were riding high on the horse, with 6 figure incomes, and now lucky to be bringing in $20k per year.

So I leave the community advocacy in the competent hands of the guys who have been doing this for much longer than I have. Keep your chins up guys, and don't let the anon hordes get you down.

Me and this disgusting taco burger

Me and this disgusting taco burger
Originally uploaded by dsnhaus

An elusive photo of the Taco Tico Taco Burger by dsnhaus from flickr.

Its a chain, but OH MY GOD!!

TACO TICO

Remember the Taco Tico Taco Burger?!! I do and my stomach regrets it.

What was for 20 years a pit stop in Corbin, Kentucky on the way to Knoxville and points south east, is coming back to New Albany.

Looks like they are moving in to the abandoned KFC on Charlestown road (you know the one that YUM! brands abandoned to build a new one a little over a mile away on the same road).

I had seen a company car out there a week ago, and an email sent to corporate confirmed that they plan to be open by September.

Okay, Okay, there are circles who do not like chains, and generally I am one of those people, but this goes back to the days of the Ohio River front taking an hour or more to drive from West 10th street to East 6th, Big hair and Glamour Rock. LA ROSITA MEXICAN GRILL.

Even though it is another "mexican fare" restaurant, I hardly think it rises to the level of competition to cause any concern to La Rosita, or even Taco Smell for that fact.

However in the world of gut rotting fast food fare, it rates up there with White Castles, or the hard to find Crystal Burgers Crystal pups...

And the Story Continues

WORK AT NEW ALBANY SITE INVESTIGATED

Not too far back in the past, I got a bit of a sucker punch from a fellow "blogger" and local community activist for daring to say something about the SEJ neighborhood area receiving so much attention when our area of town had been largely ignored regarding a fight we had been fighting for nearly a decade now.
When I commented on that sucker punch by saying "nice jab", the person said something along the lines as " it wasn't as much of a jab as it was a counter punch". Since then there have been references made in posting about how certain people think its unfair that any part of the city get help as long as pet peeves are not attended to.

It would appear now that the pet peeve of mine, and about 150 other families has garnered the attention of Federal Agencies.

Story after story is pouring out regarding the illegal and immoral actions of CCE, inc and its owners. Council members are speaking out, the Mayor has reversed his position on supporting the move to 111 south saying in essence not in my backyard.

The more the stories come out, the more I am left to wonder, why is it such a big deal that some things have occurred on 111 south, and the media, and politician are all up in arms vowing to fight this to their last breath, yet the same violations are occurring every single day over on Silver Street, and there is no uproar in city hall?

Reports of the City still awarding this business contracts, and the land being owned by a certain real estate icon, whose business practices are questionable at best.

Folks its always the same names, time and time again....

And What of the Current Situation?

Stories have been floating around in the local media regarding CCE inc. and its continual and flagrant violations of zoning and environmental laws.

stories linked below:
http://www.newsandtribune.com/floydcounty/local_story_188135850.html

http://www.newsandtribune.com/archivesearch/local_story_185214400.html
A search of the tribune

Coffey has rallied the troops to protest the potential move.
IDEM has cited the company for messing with a flood plane before he had permits
The mayor in his own words said “I don’t want him building behind my house,”

Hundreds of households have been fighting this company for years, generally with little or no help from the city, and our council Representative have been virtually absent through out all of it.

Once the intentions we made that the company planned on moving elsewhere in the city, all hell breaks loose. basically saying, keep that shit hole where its at, but don't you DARE let that business or that man anywhere near OUR part of town.

Meanwhile, it is still business as usual out at CCE, mountains of waste tires and shredded tires piled high, against city ordinances, as well as against IDEM permits. No word on the "lawsuit" against the company from the city.
Waste tires are still showing up in alleyways through the neighborhood, and CCE has started its old tactics of pulling themselves from the agendas when opposition is ready, and they will sneak it in when interest in them dies down. (this is a game they have been playing with us for years)

So now that the Mayor KNOWS what a shitty, irresponsible "neighbor" this company is, Will he move to have them shut down and fined for every single day that the property is in violation of Light industrial zoning laws?
The last three Administrations made promises that were never kept, should we expect More and better from this one?

Good days at the nature preserve