Tolstoy, Bush, and the Horsethief

The Tolstoy Syndrome is also know as Confirmation Bias: In psychology and cognitive science, confirmation bias is a tendency to search for or interpret new information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions and avoids information and interpretations which contradict prior beliefs. It is a type of cognitive bias and represents an error of inductive inference, or as a form of selection bias toward confirmation of the hypothesis under study or disconfirmation of an alternative hypothesis. Confirmation bias is of interest in the teaching of critical thinking, as the skill is misused if rigorous critical scrutiny is applied only to evidence challenging a preconceived idea but not to evidence supporting it.

source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

So what's this got to do with anything?

Well, every time I think I have heard something weird about President Bush some other wierder fact comes along. My daughter sent me this one.

Now it is his favorite painting.

George W. Bush is famous for his attachment to a painting which he acquired after becoming a “born-again Christian.” It’s by W.H.D. Koerner and is entitled A Charge to Keep. Bush was so taken by it, he took the painting’s name for his own official autobiography. And here’s what he says about it:
I thought I would share with you a recent bit of Texas history which epitomizes our mission. When you come into my office, please take a look at the beautiful painting of a horseman determinedly charging up what appears to be a steep and rough trail. This is us. What adds complete life to the painting for me is the message of Charles Wesley that we serve One greater than ourselves.

The only trouble is, that it is a lie. Another Bush lie to Bush.

Here is the whole story:

http://harpers.org/archive/2008/01/hbc-90002237

The sadness of this is almost overwhelming.

Pentance Candles at the Shrine of New Hope

These candles have been place upon Yoda's Shrine of New Hope
on behalf of all those misguided souls at the blog of the
http://eruditeredneck.blogspot.com/
Who have in their haste chose the Dukes of Hazard as a better
show that the Star Wars Movies.
Although this will not redeem them, it is hoped that Yoda will help
them see their way back to the source of the Force and keep them
from wandering further into the Dark Side of the Dukes.

Please click the picture for the full blessing of the Shrine!

Thanks to Junior The Bear for access to his shrine:

http://www.xanga.com/Juniorthebear/543049786/item.html

My Father Was Born 100 Years Ago

My father was born in March 1908 in Indiana. His parents and two brothers were on their way to somewhere from their old family home in southern Virginia. That some where turned out to be the new state of Oklahoma, where they settled on a 160 acres in the little town of Quannah Parker, Oklahoma next to the Kemp and Kell Railroad out of Wichita Falls Texas. After a few years their top soil had washed down into someone else's creek and the town burned down. So they bought some more land down on the flats by a rutted road that eventually turned into U.S. Highway 70.

Here is my Dad (middle kid) in his final year of school. It is the Cameron School in rural Tillman county (it burned down too).

It is his last year because his father decided that he needed to take one of his three older boys out of school to work the land. He decide my father didn't need go no further than the 8th grade so out he came and behind the mules he went until he was old enough to walk away on his own. One other brother, later, was taken out too, but two were left to finish high school. His Dad was a selfish old fart.

During the depression he left his Dads farm, married a girl down the road and went to work for his uncle building roads in Texas. He worked as a foreman on double shift 16 hours a day 6 days a week where he learn Spanish (sort of) and how to handle dynamite(which he said was easier than handling my mother).


He and his bride spent a couple of years living in a tent on construction sites until they had twin girls. Being lonely for home, and having two babies, my mother talked him into going back to work on her Dad's farm. That didn't last long.


Here is their young family about 1942. Dad looks a little wild eyed there. Living with four women might make a man have that look. Later they had me and my brother for a total of five children.

Dad was a share cropping farmer. He farmed other peoples land, with his own equipment, fuel, and seed. He kept 2/3rds of the gross they kept 1/3. After costs, that meant he got only half of the profit for his labor, time, expertise,and wear and tear on his machinery. In his whole life of working the land he never owned more than a small city lot of it.

He lived long enough to see my three children born. By then however he had 13 other grandchildren, and a passel of great grandchildren and a great-great grandchild or two.

Like all fathers he was the best man ever born and a christian saint who never did no wrong and never laid a hand on me, was fair and just to everyone he ever met, beloved by animals and children, and of course I've grown up just like him.

He was a special man, well I mean he was special to me. It is just, how could it be a hundred years since he was born? He died a quarter of a century ago. That doesn't seem right either. I mean, dang it, it seems like he just left. I don't look nothing like my Dad. My youngest son does however. Me, I look like my mother but somewhat fatter and in drag. About time to divest my home of mirrors I think.

Well, I just thought I would note this small event of a man's 100th birthday even if he weren't here for the cake. Happy Birthday Pop!

Kristen's Photographers and GSK's Pick as well

In a previous post I talked about photographers and photos that I put at the top of my best list.

Kristen mentioned two photographers that I have had an interest in as well. Here are my picks of what I like best by these two.

Rollingstone's photographer Annie Lieovitz's 'Poor Monkey's Lounge'

has made me want to open a franchise ever since I saw it.

Again this photo of my all time favorite writer and singer,

Emmylou Harris, is a favorite by Leiovitz.

Margarete Bourke White's self portrait on

one of the eagle heads projecting from the Chrysler

Building is my number one favorite by her.

GKS chose this one of the firefighter and the baby from the OKC bombing in 1995.

It won a Pulitzer prize for Charles H. Porter IV.

4000 Passed Away In Iraq Causing The President The Biggest Burden

RE: 4000 Killed in Iraq

Interview of the Vice President by Martha Raddatz, ABC News
ANKARA, Turkey
Q: Mr. Vice President, I want to start with the milestone today of 4,000 dead in Iraq, Americans, and just what effect you think that has on the country. Your thoughts on that?

A: VICE PRESIDENT: Well, it obviously brings home, I think for a lot of people, the cost that's involved in the global war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan. It places a special burden, obviously, on the families. We recognize, I think -- it's a reminder of the extent to which we're blessed with families who have sacrificed as they have. The President carries the biggest burden, obviously; he's the one who has to make the decision to commit young Americans. But we are fortunate to have the group of men and women, the all-volunteer force, who voluntarily put on the uniform and go in harm's way for the rest of us. You wish nobody ever lost their life, but unfortunately it's one of those things that go with living in the world we live in. Sometimes you have to commit military force, and when you do, there are casualties.

During a briefing with reporters Monday, White House press secretary Dana Perino said the president "definitely feels the loss.""He gets a report about every single soldier who passes away," she said. "And he always pauses a moment to think about them and to offer a prayer for their loved ones and their family and friends."

Did I hear:

1. The President carries the biggest burden, obviously; he's the one who has to make the decision to commit young Americans.

2. He gets a report about every single soldier who passes away,"

BIGGEST BURDEN---PASSES AWAY

Soldiers don't "Pass Away"! They are Killed in Action! Sacrifice for their country! Die in the line of duty! Seventy year olds "pass away" in their sleep, 24 year olds on the battle field don't pass away. IEDs do not make you "pass away", they make you "Go Away".

Oh, yes and the V.P says the families of those killed in Iraq bear a "special burden" but the President carries the "biggest burden"!

By the way, the phrase "passed away" does not appear on the official White House briefing transcript. It has passed away its own self.

My mind Boggles......

Yes We Can!

"OK, Harrington, it is your turn!."

"Now for God's sake, Harrington, don't let him convince You!"

Walk Into Paradise Garden

When I was 18, I decided that I would become a photographer.
Things, life, intervened.
The year was 1966. I had only been a serious photographer for a little over three years. I was in the military living in Northern Virgina and had daily access to Washington D.C.. One trip into the Capitol I discovered a photo exhibit at the Smithsonian. It was the 'The Family of Man', an exhibition by Edward Steichen for the Museum of Modern Art in N.Y.C. on loan to Smithsonian. I was blown away. I went back several times and spent hours of awe and envy. That was the greatest photographic learning experience of my life.

Up to this point 90% of my own photography had been in black and white. My two favorite pictures were by Dorothea Lang. At the top of my list was her "Migrant Mother" and second was her 'White Angel Bread Line, San Francisco'.

After seeing this exhibition, in which both of those prints were superbly displayed, my favorite photograph changed. Lang's masterpieces dropped down to number 2 and number 3. The were replaced by a photograph by Eugene Smith: 'Walk Into Paradise Garden'.


Walk into Paradise Garden

Smith had been a photographer in WWII. I had seen his work and liked it. But I had never run across this picture. Smith was taking pictures of Marines on Okinawa when he was seriously wounded by mortar fire. It took two years of operations and pain before he could function as a photographer again. The story was he was in a hammock in his backyard working with his cameras when he saw this scene of his children. This was his first photograph published after his war experience.

It was like Smith had crawled into my soul. A child was being led by a child from the dark though a tunnel into the light. A child leading a child towards....home. Smith's own title says that he saw the mystical memory himself.

There are hundreds of photographs and photographers, black and white, color, abstract, you name it, that I love. This one has never been pushed from my first place.




Migrant Mother




White Angel Bread Line

So, what photograph has grabbed you or haunted your mind? Share with me.



http://www.photo-seminars.com/Fame/eugesmith.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothea_Lange

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Family_of_Man