Friday Foto Flog, v. 3.034

Hi photo lovers.

I thought I’d do a throwback photo. This was from my first evening in Vienna in 2017, not long after the Spring Equinox. I walked to get some fast food after a long flight, and found a place at a park to sit down, chow down, and enjoy the scenery. Got some photos along the way. I may have shared some of them earlier. I found this park area to be quite tranquil. There were families playing. It was definitely brisk, but just enough above freezing to invite the first leaves, blades of grass, and flowers to emerge from their slumber. There’s always been something about northern latitudes with me. During my visit, locals would often apologize for the weather, once they realized I was simply there on business. I told them the truth – where I lived we were in the midst of a heatwave, and I found the Viennese weather to be refreshing. I don’t know if any of them believed me. It was the truth. I’ll take brisk (approximately 8 to 10 degrees Celsius) weather any day. Over the next few days, I’d get some chances to see Mozart’s final resting place, a walk of fame of sorts for Vienna’s great composers, monuments to those who suffered the Holocaust, a cathedral, some of Freud’s favorite haunts, etc. I felt truly blessed.

I am still using my same equipment, and am no professional. If you are an avid photographer, regardless of your skills and professional experience, you are in good company here. Booman Tribune was blessed with very talented photographers in the past. At Progress Pond, we seem to have a few talented photographers now, a few of whom seem to be lurking I suppose.

I have been using an LG v40 ThinQ for over two years. It seems to serve me well, for now, but I know that the lives of these devices are limited. Most of my family seems to be gravitating toward iPhones, so I suspect I may eventually have to succumb and go to the Dark Side of The Force. In a recessionary environment, my default is to avoid major purchases for as long as possible. So, unless something really goes wrong with my current phone, I’ll stick to the status quo for as long as possible. Keep in mind that my last Samsung kept going for over four years (the last year was a bit touch and go). Once I do have to make a new smart phone purchase, the camera feature is the one I consider most important. So any advice on such matters is always appreciated. Occasionally I get to use my old 35 mm, but one of my daughters seems to have commandeered it. So it goes.

This series of posts is in honor of a number of our ancestors. At one point, there were some seriously great photographers who graced Booman Tribune with their work. They are all now long gone. I am the one who carries the torch. I keep this going because I know that one day I too will be gone, and I really want the work that was started long ago to continue, rather than fade away with me. If I see that I am able to incite a few others to fill posts like these with photos, then I will be truly grateful. In the meantime, enjoy the photos, and I am sure between Booman and myself we can pass along quite a bit of knowledge about the photo flog series from its inception back during the Booman Tribune days.

Since this post usually runs only a day, I will likely keep it up for a while. Please share your work. I am convinced that us amateurs are extremely talented. You will get nothing but love and support here. I mean that. Also, when I say that you don’t have to be a photography pro, I mean that as well. I am an amateur. This is my hobby. This is my passion. I keep these posts going only because they are a passion. If they were not, I would have given up a long time ago. My preference is to never give up.

Biden Administration Shows Tough Love to Stupid Employees

The Interior Department chief of staff was demoted after planning an indoor party to celebrate the first Native American to head the agency.

This is completely humiliating:

The White House is removing the Interior Department’s chief of staff, Jennifer Van der Heide, who recently planned a 50-person indoor party at the agency that the White House ordered canceled, and is moving her to a senior counselor job at the agency, according to two Biden administration officials.

The White House’s Cabinet affairs office ordered that party, which was intended to celebrate Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s confirmation, to be called off amid fears it could become a superspreader event, as POLITICO first reported late last week.

You never want your name mentioned in this context in a national news organization’s article. What this incident shows, however, is that the Biden Administration isn’t fooling around. If you do something stupid that is contrary to their messaging and force them to clean up after your mess, they’re not going to let it slide. It’s a “tough-but-fair” way of policing the executive branch, and it’s wise to send a strong message right at the outset, within the first 100 days.

They didn’t go absolutely crazy and fire Ms. Van der Heide. After all, her sin was committed with good intentions. In normal times, a party would be appropriate to celebrate the first Native American to head the Interior Department. These are not normal times, however, and it was poor judgment to plan an indoor gathering of fifty people.

I feel badly for Van der Heide, but her example will be beneficial for the administration as a whole. It’s refreshing after watching the unchecked graft of the Trump administration.