Monday, November 30, 2009

Mike Huckabee's 'Willie Horton problem'



"If [Mike] Huckabee were a liberal and a Democrat, he would be a punching bag for right wing blowhards an example of clueless, soft-on-crime politicians at their worst. Fox News would be stalking him, as they have others responsible for letting criminals out early." -New York Times blogger Timothy Egan
...

What's that flushing sound?

That's the sound of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's chances of being elected president in 2012 going down the toilet.

We're learning today that Huckabee, while governor of Arkansas in 2000, commuted the 95-year sentence of Maurice Clemmons, the man suspected of shooting and killing four police officers near Seattle on Sunday.

But in typical Republican fashion, Huckabee is blaming everyone but himself.

In a statement posted on his website, he says that "Should [Clemmons] be found to be responsible for this horrible tragedy, it will be the result of a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington State."

Huckabee never mentions that is he who helped Clemmons go free.

And while governor of Arkansas, Huckabee sprang more than one violent felon from jail.

Here he is in 2007 trying to obfuscate the issue regarding his involvement in the release from prison in 1999 of a rapist.

So I'm guessing right now Huckabee might be starting to get a sense of how Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis felt in 1988 when the Republicans smeared Dukakis after they dug up info on the weekend furlough of a Massachusetts felon named Willie Horton.

The Republican attack on Dukakis was engineered in part by a media consultant named Roger Ailes who now runs the Fox News Channel, and where - irony of all ironies - Huckabee now has a weekend program!


Saturday, November 28, 2009

First pics of Tiger Woods' hot girlfriend


We've never been much interested in golf here at Random Pixels.

But that could change. Quickly.

As of last count there are about a jillion stories on the web about Tiger's....ummmm...."car crash."

And we're now learning that there is a woman involved in this story.

A very "hot" woman.

The National Enquirer has a WORLD EXCLUSIVE!! on their website that EXPOSES THE WOMAN AT CENTER OF TIGER WOODS CHEATING SCANDAL!!

Her name is Rachel Uchitel and she's being alternately described as a "9/11 widow" or a "New York City party girl" depending on what website you visit.

Her name is already fast becoming one of Google's hottest search terms.

But you didn't come here to read that stuff!

You came to see the hot pics of Rachel Uchitel. Right?

Well just click here.

You're welcome.

Final thought: We're pretty sure that the American public really doesn't need another story with a "sleaze quotient" that this one's sure to generate; but we're solidly behind anything that will deprive Sarah Palin of one more minute of airtime.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Late night ballad...Tuesday edition

John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, "My One and Only Love."

El niño milagro

A photograph I shot of Elián González and his great
uncle Delfín González, shortly after Elián's arrival in Miami.



Pick up any newspaper on the day after Thanksgiving and you're almost certain to find a story chronicling the start of the holiday shopping season.

Ten years ago this week, on Friday, Nov. 26, 1999, the Miami Herald's front page carried the obligatory "holiday shopping" story.

And there was a story on the start of the criminal trial connected to the 1996 Valujet crash and one about the Miami Dolphins' humiliating 20-0 loss on Thanksgiving Day to the Dallas Cowboys.

There was also a story about three Cuban migrants found clinging to inner tubes in the Atlantic Ocean on Thanksgiving day.

The three were the only survivors of a group of 14 migrants whose 17-foot aluminum boat broke apart and sank after leaving Cuba.

One of them was a five-year-old Cuban boy named Elián González.

The Herald's 1600 word story on page one that Friday mentioned Elián just once.
"Rescued off Fort Lauderdale, the boy, Elián González, was listed in stable condition."
But in the days and months following his rescue, the saga of "el niño milagro" - the miracle child - would dominate the Herald's news pages.

Speculation about his future would fill hundreds - perhaps thousands - of hours on TV and radio station news programs and talk shows.

Elián's story captivated not just South Florida, but the nation and the world.

An angelic young boy fleeing a country ruled by a ruthless dictator is plucked from the ocean on Thanksgiving day and delivered to grateful Miami relatives who want him to live in freedom.

"God wanted him here for freedom and he's here and he will get it." Marisleysis Gonzalez, Elián's cousin was quoted as saying.

But a few days later, Elián's sweet story of freedom turned sour when his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, and the Cuban government demanded the return of the boy.

And soon, Elián's plight would divide Miamians like no other story before it as it morphed into one of the more bizarre events ever connected with the Miami-Cuban diaspora.

...

Given custody of Elián, his Miami relatives wasted no time in showering the boy with all that capitalism had to offer: Happy Meals from McDonald's, a Nintendo game, gold jewelry, designer clothes, sunglasses, a puppy, and of course, a pre-Christmas trip to Disney World. They also enrolled him in a private school.

Two months after his arrival in the US, he landed on the cover of Time magazine.




Before he was returned to Cuba, he would be on Time's cover two more times.

On January 5, 2000, U.S. officials told Elián's Miami relatives that the boy belonged with his father in Cuba. That edict touched off a 3-month tug-of-war between various federal government agencies and the Miami family.

In the meantime, the street in front of the relative's home at 2319 N.W. Second St. turned into a staging ground for local, national and international media.

And soon they would be joined by hundreds of supporters who kept a 24 hour vigil vowing to block any attempts by the government to seize the boy.

The jousting between the Miami family and Janet Reno's justice department would continue until the early morning hours of April 22, when immigration officials arrived and snatched the frightened boy from the house in a raid that took just a little over two minutes.

The effects of the Elián saga would continue to touch some, even after his return to Cuba.

In the 2000 presidential election, angry Cuban exiles abandoned Al Gore and voted 80 per cent for George W. Bush, which helped to deliver his 537-vote margin of victory in Florida despite his defeat in the national popular vote.

In 2001 the Miami Herald would win a Pulitzer Prize for its "coverage of the pre-dawn raid by federal agents that took the boy."

Photographer Alan Diaz would also win a Pulitzer for his amazing pictures of the actual seizure of Elián.


Photographer Alan Diaz at the home of Elián Gonzalez



Monday, November 23, 2009

For Sale: Rare and out of print photo books

Selling many rare and out of print photography books including:

Tulsa. by Larry Clark. Lustrum Press, 1971. Orginal limited edition paperback in very good condition...This is not the Grove Press reprint! Rare-book dealers sell copies of this book for more than a thousand dollars. -$600.00


Andre Kertesz, Diary of Light, Diary of Light, 1912-1985. Photographs by André Kertész. Foreword by Cornell Capa. Essay by Hal Hinson. Edited by Susan Harder with Hiroji Kubota. Aperture, New York, 1987. 206 pp. First English edition limited to 3000 copies. Clothbound with photo-illustrated dust jacket. Folio. 152 black-and-white tritone reproductions. Includes detailed chronology. Dust jacket is scuffed; but cloth cover and book are bright, fine, and very clean copy. A truly magnificent book. -$550.00 (a copy of this book sold for $950 five years ago.)




Bullock, Wynn Bullock, 1971, Scrimshaw Press. 1st Edition. VG cond. with clear mylar dust jacket -$200.00


Ansel Adams-Yosemite and the Range of Light, New York Graphic Society, Little Brown TIME/LIFE books Date of Publication: 1981 Binding: Hard Cover, Signed by Author ,Ansel Adams, SIGNED special edition with signature of photographer on Bookplate with date 1981 Carmel, California -$250.00


Edward Weston, Fifty Years, by Ben Maddow, New York , Aperture, 1st, 1973, Book: Very Good, no DJ, 284 pages, beautifully reproduced plates of the photographer's work. Large format -$150.00


Naked City, by Weegee, Essential Books, 1945. Original printing, hardcover, no DJ. Very good cond. tight binding, clean pages. A classic! Rare. -$150.00


SOLD! Hurrell - Hollywood Photographs 1928-1990. By Hurrell, George, hardcover 1st US edition 1992 St. Martin's Press. ISBN: 0312082207. 200pgs, 140 duotone photographs. Large hardback/Dust Jacket FINE/FINE -$150.00


Conversations with the Dead - Danny Lyon - 1970 - 1st edition - Holt Rinehart Winston paperback. Cover starting to separate. Otherwise Good clean pages, unmarked, no tears. Oversize paperback. Good, clean copy of scarce title. -$125.00


Self Portrait USA by David Douglas Duncan, Abrams 1969, hardcover. Turquoise cloth binding with political symbols on frontboard in gold. Title on spine in gold. Photo illustrated endpapers and text pages are crisp and clean. Double page photo illustrated title page. The 1968 Republican convention in Miami and Democratic convention in Chicago are covered by a legedary phototojournalist. A classic example of political photo reportage. Over 325 fantastic photographs. Nice tight binding. -$125.00


Mrs. David Bailey, by David Bailey (photographer) Rizzoli 1980. Black and white photographic tribute by a legendary fashion photographer to his model wife. DJ. Good tight binding. $40.00


Helmut Newton, Work, Taschen, 2001, hardcover. Like new. $65.00


Helmut Newton, Portraits, Pantheon, 1987, 1st American edition hardcover in excellent condition, dust jacket clean and intact. -$80.00


  • Email me for more info!
  • Wednesday, November 18, 2009

    Wednesday night "blues break"

    Two versions of Fats Domino's "Blue Monday"



    Was it murder or suicide?

    As layoffs and downsizing continue to take a toll on newspapers and related media, one question keeps cropping up again and again: "Did Google kill newspapers?"

    Ken Auletta, author of "Googled: The End of the World As We Know It," tells CNN's Campbell Brown, "this is a story much more of suicide than it is of murder." (@2:56 on video)

    Monday, November 16, 2009

    Quotable

    Bob Schieffer, CBS News chief Washington correspondent and host of "Face the Nation" on Sarah Palin's new book:
    "She came under this intense criticism all during the campaign and now she's giving her version of why she didn't succeed as a candidate.

    "It's kind of like a baseball player going into a slump and blaming the manager or blaming the bat boy or blaming the fans or something. You know, it makes for provocative reading, I think she'll sell a lot of books, but I don't think it's going to help re-establish her as a political candidate.

    "My guess is she's not ever going to run for anything and I think if she did, I don't think she would get very far."

    Saturday, November 14, 2009

    Thursday, November 12, 2009

    A sneak peek at Sarah Palin's new book



    This just in!

    Sarah Palin's new book has chapters!

    Five of them!

    In a nod to her constituents, Sarah Palin restrained herself from writing a lengthy book. Or one that might be considered cerebral.

    Time Magazine's Mark Halperin reports that there are just five chapters in Sarah Palin's new book, "Going Rogue."

    "But they are very, very long," says Halperin.

    Expect to hear much more about Palin's book starting next Monday. That's when Oprah's interview with Palin will air.

    I'm wondering if Oprah - or anyone in the media - will eventually get around to addressing the supreme irony of a woman allegedly "writing" a book, who, a little more than a year ago couldn't even come up with the name of a single newspaper or magazine that she reads regularly.

    Friday, November 06, 2009

    Friday night ballad

    Recorded by Frank Sinatra on March 25, 1959 for the Capitol album "No One Cares."

    Half a century old and it's still better then the crap they put out today!

    Better late than never!

    "When U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at the Port of Los Angeles opened a shipping container bound for the Netherlands, they discovered a 1965 Volkswagen bus stolen in Washington state 35 years ago."
    [...]
    "It looks like it's brand new," said Mike Maleta, an investigator with the California Highway Patrol.

    Tuesday, November 03, 2009

    Some people just don't get it

    Stumbled upon this show over the weekend.

    The show features a lot of 19 year-old college boys, - who, after consuming about three beers - think they're smarter and tougher than everyone else.

    And the kid in this video reminded me of a certain South Florida blogger who always wants to blame his misfortunes on someone else.

    Pay attention to the cop who tells the kid, "I'm not doing this to you, you did this to yourself."

    video via TruTV

    Monday, November 02, 2009

    Halloween on Lincoln Road


    Miami New Times has posted a slide show of pictures I shot of the Halloween Freak-travaganza on Lincoln Road Saturday night.

    Enjoy!

    Hockey match breaks out in Washington Post newsroom!

    Former Miami-based Washington Post reporter Manuel Roig-Franzia

    So this reporter calls the editor a "sword swallower" and that's when things started to go downhill!

    Okay, so he used another word that means "sword swallower."
    ...

    Want to know how tense things are getting at newspapers?

    They're now throwing punches!
    "Washington Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli found himself in the middle of an altercation Friday evening between [former Miami-based Washington Post] reporter Manuel Roig-Franzia and editor Henry Allen, but will not say whether the two have been reprimanded by the paper.
    [...]
    "Roig-Franzia, also working a story with Hesse that ran Saturday, told Allen not to be such a “c—sucker."

    "Allen swung twice, with one punch hitting Roig-Franzi, according to sources. Next, staffers on the 4th floor —including Brauchli, who’s office is temporarily across from the Style section — jumped in to break up the altercation."
    More here and here.