FRIDAY FIVE

1. How do you feel about teeter-totters?
I
must say I never think of teeter-totters unless I’m at the park and see
one. I don’t actually have a very good feeling about them. Too
unpredictable and too hard to sit on one end as an adult with a small
child at the other end. Kind of like an ostrich doing knee bends.
2. What is something you otter get done this weekend?
Mow my lawn – unbelievable how fast it starts to grow instantly at the
first sign of spring. The plot is to get my 15-year-old grandson over
here on Sunday and start him on a regimen of doing my yardwork all
summer this year. This will give me a good chance to spend time and see
what’s going on in his mysterious teenage brain.
3. Who’s someone who seemed normal when you first met but got odder and odder as you got to know him or her? Why that would be me – I’ve become so odd as I’ve gotten to know myself that I think I might just excommunicate myself.
4. Thinking of your mother: What’s something that always awed her?
My mother was ecstatic when feminism came along. She was already in
mid-life, but then she began to keep records of all the jobs she did
around the house and what she should be paid for them. She never did
get paid, but she pointed it out a lot. She admired all political
activists but especially of the “we are women hear us roar” variety.
5. What is your favorite small, furry, non-domesticated animal?
Probably the cub size of just about anything – once they get bigger
they bite bigger and acquire rabies and other delights. A mole dug its
way straight through my front yard last month, leaving large piles of
dirt in a defiant row. I’m told they never come above ground but eat
worms as they go along. They probably rank at the bottom of my small
furry favorite list.

SATURDAY PHOTO
(See others here)

Protest
Tim Page

Tim
Page is 63 now and lives in Brisbane, Australia where he’s an Adjunct
Professor of Photojournalism at Griffith University, but during the
Vietnam War he became famous for his war photography. Born in Britain,
he left at 18 in 1962 to drive across Europe, Pakistan, India, Burma,
Thailand and Laos. In Laos he began work as a press photographer and
landed on the Saigon bureau of UPI. During the war in Vietnam and
Cambodia, he was wounded in action three times. At 25 he was badly
wounded by a
big piece of shrapnel to his head and spent a year recovering in the
U.S. There he got involved in the peace movement and was a caregiver
for amputees including Ron Kovic. In the ’70′s he worked for Rolling
Stone, and during that time he learned of the capture of his best
friend, Sean Flynn (son of actor Errol Flynn) who was also a war
photographer (click here.)
He searched for Flynn until 1990 when his apparent grave was found in
Cambodia. All of this led him to found the Indochina Media Memorial
Foundation and the book Requiem with photographs taken by all the
photographers and journalists killed during those wars. He doesn’t
cover wars anymore, but sadly others do. Some things never change. For
more about him click here.