Desperation added to desire can be a combustible mix. It might result in success, but it often results in catastrophe. People driven to desperate measures simply don’t give up, and that is so evident in the decades long struggle to control illegal immigration from Mexico to California. There are those who have spent more…
Another Arizona? South Carolina police will now employ their “reasonable suspicion” to determine if a person is in their state illegally. Unless a person is observed climbing a border fence or otherwise illegally entering the country, how the hell can anyone have a “reasonable suspicion” the person is in South Carolina (or Arizona, or…
I’m humbled that for the second time in my career a museum has included my images in a permanent gallery. The Oakland Museum of California, an innovative museum that houses the largest and most comprehensive collection from famed documentary photographer Dorothea Lange, is set to officially open their renovated California History gallery after over a…
Lord have mercy on my soul, because I’m about to say something that I might really regret: Ahem, cough, cough, aahhhemmmm……Is this thing on? Okay, here we go…..Folks, I agree with Rick Perry! There, I said it. Felt like I was spittin’ up a Penn Station rat, but I got it out. Now, what on…
The Los Angeles Times published a editorial today that effectively pointed out the hypocrisy of states taking a tough stance on immigration by enacting laws to deter undocumented migrants from living in the state. States that rely heavily on agriculture, like Georgia, Alabama, Florida and California, also rely heavily on the immigrant workforce to harvest…
Anniversaries, funerals, and memorial services have always given me mixed feelings. I completely understand the need for a nation to gather on a historic day to reflect on lives cut short by hate, but on the purely personal level, memorializing is not something I relish. It has something to do with asking to feel the…
Below is what I wrote for the Aurora Photos News Blog. The phone rang, jarring my wife and I from our sleep. Dawn was just creeping under our bedroom shade, but the feeling of dread had already enveloped the room before I grabbed the handset. I had no idea why the phone was ringing, but…
Rather good timing for this refresher from the ACLU. Many of my students at Cal State University, Northridge and UCLA ask questions about where they can legally take photographs. My standard response is that if you are photographing from a public location and shooting images easily seen from such a location, then you’re good. One…
No doubt that this is a week of remembrances. Time and again in life we encounter markers that are placed in time that function as transitions. “Before the earthquake,” or “after Katrina” or, in this case, “after 9/11.” Sadly, most of us knew almost immediately that 9/11 would serve as a marker on the scale…
