Interwar Postcard

I shot this on the day that Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama for President. Powell supervised one invasion of Iraq and helped gin up another. Obama, when he had real votes to cast, voted more funds – more and more – for Powell’s second Iraq misadventure.

The title is from Laurence Binyon’s poem, “The Fourth of August,” which conceived the First World War in the noblest of terms:

Now in thy splendour go before us.
Spirit of England, ardent-eyed,
Enkindle this dear earth that bore us
In the hour of peril purified.

The cares we hugged drop out of vision,
Our hearts with deeper thought dilate,
We step from days of sour division
Into the grandeur of our fate.

(more…)

   

Ranier from Maury (HDR), by and © monkeytime.

Last Thanksgiving, I visited the Seattle area, staying on Maury Island (Vashon Island) in the Puget Sound with friends whose house had the back-porch view of Mount Ranier seen in this image. I shot this at about 5:15 p.m. The foreground was in deep shadow, while the mountain was still in relatively bright sun. (more…)