Yesterday Kristy and I were having a really interesting discussion with one of her coworkers and that coworker’s partner about campus shootings and the appropriate response to them. My contention was that campus violence is simply a manifestation of our national inability to respond to mental illness in a mature fashion, and that the correct responses were to increase the availability of mental health treatment and to, most importantly, combat the stigma attached to mental illness that keeps so many people from seeking the treatment that they need. Perhaps the vehemence of my argument would surprise people who are not aware that I have an iron in this fire…

I was thinking about the stigma and silence surrounding mental illness, and decided that while I can’t do much individually about the stigma, I can at least break my own personal silence on the topic and hope that in some way it will do some good. So, because I don’t know how to do things halfway, I’m going to use my blog to “come out” as someone who is mentally ill. I have been in treatment for some time now for what I would vaguely describe as a major depressive disorder. This problem has been a daily fact for most of my conscious life; this is my second stint in psychotherapy, and the first one that shows any sign of sticking. In the time between round one and round two, I spent the better part of a decade self-diagnosing as anything from bipolar to borderline personality disorder to seasonal affective disorder, all because I was too intimidated by the prospect of therapy to actually get help.

But putting a label on a set of symptoms is not treatment, and many problems are simply impossible to sort out on your own, without the aid of an objective voice.  In my new treatment, I have not even asked for a clinical description of my set of symptoms.  The only lay use for a label is to help pigeonhole a person’s unique, unsharable, unreproducible, indescribable psychic distress, a game that I’m no longer interested in.

While the events that finally led me to re-enter therapy late last year are of a personal nature that I won’t discuss, suffice it to say that therapy has so dramatically changed my inner life that I had to write this post.  And that I had to use it to make this point: if you are wavering, wondering if feeling sad almost every minute of every day is just normal (it isn’t), doubting if your problems are “bad enough” or “matter enough” (they are and they do, if you ever think so–it isn’t a contest), afraid to go into therapy because of what people will say or think when they find out, please please do yourself and the world a favor and go anyways.  And if you need someone to talk to about it, please email me.

I’m in therapy and it’s ok.  I have a mental illness, and it’s not great, but it’s not my fault and it doesn’t make me less of a person.  And now I’m taking a very deep breath, counting to ten, and pressing “publish”…

…in which I pick up the title theme from my last post to wish Kristy and I a happy first anniversary. As Kristy says at her place, it’s been an interesting year, but we’re both still here and happier than ever.  Here’s to many many more. *mwah*!

We have fun things planned, as she says, and we had a great weekend, thanks in part to Kristy surprising me with Cubs tickets for us.  Thank you!  Tonight we get to find out how year-old unfrozen cake tastes

Aside from the game, some tasty sukiyaki tonight, and a new purse I bought Kristy that should arrive this week, we’ve booked a vacation in the beautiful Dominican Republic at the beginning of next month, and are finally replacing a 9-year old TV in our living room.  Huzzah!

Anyways, I have a lot of practice remembering our anniversary, because we’ve been celebrating it together for seven years (for varying reasons).  Those seven years have been some of the best of my life.  I love you Kristy!

Five years ago now, George W. Bush launched an elective, “preemptive” war of aggression against the sovereign nation of Iraq. It’s not necessary to paint Saddam Hussein as some sort of false saint to note that this is a war crime, and one need not be a leftist to point out that Sen. McCain and Sen. Clinton are both tarred with their support of that decision. In a similar period of time, the United States and its allies fought the Axis powers to a complete standstill; but thanks to the ineptitude of this administration, we are still mired in Iraq and figure to be for some time. Five years is too many, and thousands of Chicagoans took to the streets (as they have every anniversary of this invasion) to protest. This year, I was one of them.


The protest convened in Federal Plaza, which filled up quickly as the start time of 6:00pm passed. There were people of all ages, races, and ethnic backgrounds. Many young parents came with their children, a wonderful experience for both, I imagine. We assembled peaceably and listened to speakers while waiting for the rest of our brethren to arrive. During this time, some of the more outspoken protesters donned the familiar orange jumpsuit of the hapless souls that disappear into the CIA’s own Gulag Archipelago of classified detention facilities. Kristy noted what a dramatic suggestion the Federal building behind them provided.


After some minutes had passed and the crowd fully assembled, we began to march. Our route took us through the heart of the loop, up Clark to Wacker, then through the Magnificent Mile up Michigan to Oak St. The temperature being relatively comfortable, the majority of the crowd seemed to have little difficulty with the mile-and-a-half route. Chicago’s finest saw to it that we did not interrupt the important consumption-related program activities of tourists and yuppies on Mag Mile, lining our route ominously, sometimes in riot gear.


At right, what the Chicago Police Department thinks of your right to freedom of assembly. At far right, what I think of their presence–it can be hard to separate my resentment at the powers that put them there from the officers individually.


Our permitted route ended at Washington Square Park, near Oak St. and Dearborn. Although the crowd became rowdy, huge numbers of police showed up and were able to successfully disperse us, though not without some histrionics. Although I can admit to a side of me that was spoiling for a fight, ultimately I agree with some of the more veteran protesters that thought this behavior was unfortunate.


One thing that was unfortunate: Kristy was laid low by a cold and could not join me. Still I’m very glad she encouraged me to go. Not only was it a remarkable experience, but it also felt really good to step away from the sideline a little bit. I’ve been blogging about politics for nearly as long as our troops have been killing Iraqis, but, aside from voting and internet demagoguery, this is my first foray into activism. What an important cause to be able to support.

More images in my Flickr account or at my gallery.

One of the most remarkable discoveries I’ve made in the past few months is the proper usage of my circular polarizer. I had one on my wishlist for a long time because I’d heard near-miraculous descriptions of its capabilities: deeper, bluer skies, more vivid colors, and, even more supernatural, the ability to kill reflections. The first two are easy to realize. Point your camera at the sky, or something bright. Hooray, aren’t you glad you have a polarizer? But using a polarizer to cancel reflections was something I only began to understand recently. Consider the two pictures below, both properly exposed, identically white-balanced, and taken on the same stretch of the Chicago River (during the St. Patrick’s Day dyeing) less than thirty seconds apart:

The difference is that the second one (on the bottom right) was taken with my polarizer properly aligned. Let’s examine the results in a little more detail.

1. The polarizer greatly reduces the amount of reflected light passing through the lens. This causes areas of the water where I was getting a lot of glare from the clouds to become “darker”
2. Because there is less reflected light, I can keep the shutter open longer (or aperature smaller, your choice) resulting in areas of the water that don’t reflect light getting more exposure
3. This is especially evident in areas like the edge of a reflection. Note how much lower the contrast is in the image on the right, and the resulting difference in saturation.
4. However, the orientation of the polarizer has little-to-no effect on the color rendition of other areas of the image.

This is pretty cool stuff. But what did I do differently? The key is to understand how a polarizer works. In all cases, it reduces the light coming through the lens by about two stops, which means that you need to be careful about deciding to use it indoors. But the way it accomplishes this is by only letting certain kinds of light through. There is a great deal of physics here, but the essential idea is that rays of light (or photons, depending on how you prefer to think about it) can be polarized in two different ways, and those ways are at right angles to each other. Circular polarizers are actually two pieces, the first of which screws onto your lens, and the second of which rotates freely. By rotating the polarizer, you change the polarization of light that it lets pass.  Light reflecting from water or from glass apparently tends to end up polarized mostly the same way, so what you’re trying to do is align your polarizer so that it filters out light with that polarization, while letting normal light pass through.  So:

1. Try to be at least 45 degrees away from a right angle with the surface that is reflecting at you.  This is important and was the major obstacle in my early efforts to understand polarizing.
2. Focus first.  This lets you see more easily the effect you are having, but is even more important for lenses (like my zoom) whose front element rotates as it focuses–this would completely throw you off if you had set the polarization first
3. Look for areas of highlights that you want to cut
4. Slowly rotate the polarizer, watching the highlights.  You are hoping to see them fade in comparison to the rest of the picture.
5. Don’t give up too soon–before assuming that your polarizer can’t help you, make sure to take the time to rotate it through a full 180 degrees.

That’s about all I have time to write, but I think it’s a good introduction.  Any questions or corrections in the comments, I will try to answer.

for a new reason to be ashamed of the state I grew up in:

Over 20% of white voters in Ohio say that race was an important factor in voting and they went 3-to-1 for Clinton. That’s the margin of difference.

Fucking pathetic.

The good news is that it looks like Hillary will make up less than 10 of Obama’s 157 delegate lead on the night, no thanks to the Buckeye state.

Update: It actually looks like things are going to tighten up a bit, if CNN can be believed (they probably can’t, but are gesturing in the direction of the truth).  Apparently Obama is going to see his lead cut to about 90.

Hillary’s comeback does not much affect me, because there is nothing that could ever make me vote for another Clinton, including her nomination as the Democratic candidate.  Lots of political parties aren’t running a former Walmart board member as their nominee.

I just got done listening to the forthcoming album from A Silver Mt. Zion (their ever-expanding moniker is now “Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band,” but the original is easier to remember). 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons is an amazing album, one I hope to have more to say about after a few more listens. I found it as emotionally affecting as my previous favorite, 2003’s This Is Our Punk Rock…, but also their most coherent political statement to date. 13 Blues continues SMZ’s evolution from the GY!BE archetype, eschewing more traditional rise-fall dynamics and lush strings for a jagged, well, blues-y and rocked-out feel.  There are actual riffs here! And choruses! And although it appears (from scattered rantings across the internet) that they may have alienated some of their fans with the new approach, it feels like an important step.

Again, I’ll have more to say after a couple of subsequent listens (and maybe a few more consultations with Punk Rock and Horses in the Sky).  The title of this post comes from the enormously powerful “Blindblindblind,” the album closer, which reminds me more than a little of “Goodbye Desolaterailyard.”  Though everybody, indeed, gets “a little lost, sometimes,” it’s thrilling to hear a band seeming to find their voice.

Crossposted from my photoblog, because it’s too cool to risk someone missing.

I complain a lot about the winters here, but at least to go with all the chill there is a fair amount of snow. I remember, while growing up west of Cleveland, watching the weather report, bitterly jealous about the many inches of lake effect snow being dropped on the east-side ‘burbs and the school closings that accompanied them. Although I can only look backwards now, and can only try to recall what those child’s eyes saw, it seems like there were only a few times each winter when any snow to speak of fell. Chicago has more than enough snowfall to make up for it, and grumpy as I can be about it, it turns the mid-day loop into a fairyland. Today I went home over lunch to take care of the dogs; although I didn’t bring a camera, here is a shot I took last week that approximates the scene pretty well:

Today we had fat flakes swirling around, sometimes even up the faces of buildings. As I rode the train past the Washington/Wells brown line stop, I saw a guy loading a QBert arcade machine into a building in the middle of a snow devil. I never saw anything like that in Toledo.

I started a photoblog.

or Why I Just Voted for John Edwards.

Yes, I know that John Edwards officially withdrew his candidacy last week. And yes, I did vote a straight slate of Obama’s electors after my symbolic Edwards vote. I like him a lot better than the bought-and-paid for HRC, but there are lots of things about both of the remaining candidates that don’t appeal to me. I voted for Edwards because…

Change Matters

Hillary seems to me like more of the same, and I don’t think that Obama’s conciliatory kumbaya is going to make things happen. Edwards understands that we need to stand up to conservatives, not suck up to them.

Class Matters

And the only candidate talking about class in America right now is John Edwards.

Iraq Matters

Not only does Hillary support the slowest withdrawal of any candidate, she has yet to admit that her vote on AUMF was a mistake.

Reproductive Rights Matter

When Obama had a chance to vote “no” on a bill banning dilation and extraction (the so-called “partial-birth abortion,” he merely voted present. A woman’s sovereignty over her own body is not a chit to be spent in political maneuvering.

Competence Matters

Both of the front-runners voted to confirm Condoleeza Rice for Secretary of State, 3 years after her tenure as NSA was marred by the September 11 attacks. This is neither explicable nor excusable.

What will your vote tell people about what matters to you?