Updates

I'm working on a GX9 article, and it looks like it's going to be a while. For your diversion and amusement in the meantime, a few updates:

• Regarding the sale (or whatever it is) of Olympus, DPReview has published an interesting article covering dire predictions for the Japanese camera industry as a whole from Nikkei Asian Review Deputy Editor Masamichi Hoshi. Meanwhile, elsewhere on the same website, Canon is characterized as believing that "sooner or later the market will settle down and consist solely of users that are particular about imaging." Meanwhile, is it just me, or do a hefty number of recent DPReview posts seem to be about Olympus products?

• Regarding our post about to destruction of Central Camera in Chicago, which I feel a tiny bit sheepish for emphasizing in these pages, it bears mentioning that most Americans probably don't have a very balanced view of what's really been going on in the extensive fallout following the killing of George Floyd. Right-sympathizing media were beating the drum about widespread rioting, emphasizing the tearing down of statues including those of Founders, whereas left-sympathizing media reported mainly peaceful demonstrations with occasional isolated outbreaks of opportunistic looting and vandalism, and the pulling down and/or graffiti'ing of, for the most part, Confederate statues. Thus, many Americans might have somewhat different impressions of what actually went on, usually accompanied with different sets of feelings about it. I tend to see/read/hear The New York Times, The Washington Post (I subscribe to both), Politico, The Atlantic (ditto), CNN, MSNBC, NPR, The Guardian, and The New Yorker (ditto again), so you can diagram approximately where I fall on the AllSides Media Bias Chart. Anyway, here's a story about the return of Central Camera, courtesy of Ken Tanaka and several other readers. No clue where the Tribune falls on the spectrum.

• As an update my various dieting posts, I had to run an encouraging errand a few mornings ago. I drove up to the Windmill, a local craft fair and farmer's market that's only open on Saturdays, to search out the nice blonde German lady who is...into leather. That is, she has a booth where she sells leather goods. I bought a new real-leather belt from her for $42 last summer. I wanted to get her to put some more holes in! I had gotten down to the last hole—on the skinny side, I mean—and my pants were still falling down. Plus, the end of the belt was flapping around because it's too long now. She punched three new holes and chopped four inches off the end of the belt and now it fits fine again. I'd better not gain that weight back again, or I'm going to be out $42.

Back to work I git.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Yoram: "Bravo Mike for your diet results and keeping healthy life ! As a skinny guy (sorry, it's genetics) I really understand about that end-belt-flapping issue  :-)  ."

Dan Khong: "The Media Bias Chart is helpful especially for folks living outside the USA. We are mostly quite blurry about such matters.

"Now at least we know where the news are leaning towards, can tell apart the right hand from the left, and the rear cap from the front cap. Just sayin'."

Mike replies: Except that the Media Bias Chart is only relative to the spectrum in the US. The "Left" US media outlets are not very lefty compared to Europe. Bill Clinton would have had to run as a conservative in probably half the countries in Europe, and France would scoff at the idea that the NYT is leftist in any sense. Case in point: I'm a "leftist" in the US, and I would come nowhere near qualifying as such in any country except one in which the Center is over on the left side! I'm a dyed-in-the-wool middle-o'-the-road Centrist in any sensible context.

So keep the context in mind.

Robert Roaldi: "I remember an old cold war era joke. A town in Siberia wrote to the Kremlin complaining about hard times. The Kremlin replied, 'Tighten belts,' to which the town replied, 'Send belts.'"

Comments

[David B Graham]

The Right was beating and the Left was reporting. Jeez , Mike.

[I went a far mile to make my biases clear to you even in this short item. Not transparent enough for you? --Mike]

[John McMillin]

Olympus has been making a lot of news lately, with the sale and this new body and some lenses. Probably making the best of a bad situation, but they have news to report.

But how about that Panasonic GX9 you tried? It seemed like a lot of windup, but no pitch. I'm calling a balk on you unless you give us the rest of the story.

[You didn't read the first sentence of this post? --Mike]

[K4kafka]

Wow, a real-leather belt...I am impressed !

[I sense you are being sarcastic. --Mike]

[JH]

Most people seem to assume that the protesters were doing the looting. Here in Santa Monica, protesters were marching peacefully near the waterfront, watched by the cops, while stores like REI, Patagonia and RoadRunner were being looted 3 blocks away. The cops stayed with the protesters while the looting was going on.

"By 2 p.m., a group of looters began breaking into stores as protesters continued to peacefully demonstrate on Ocean and in several other areas downtown."
"Some Santa Monica residents also criticized the way SMPD handled the situation, saying that the department could have directed officers away from protesters and tried to stop people from looting instead."
Santa Monica Daily Press https://www.smdp.com/santa-monica-plans-monday-morning-cleanup-following-looting/192357

Video showed carloads of looters in a traffic jam jumping out, looting and hopping back in the cars with the stolen goods.

Sure didn't look like the protesters were doing the looting. Sure didn't look like to cops were doing their job either.

[R.Edelman]

Mike, don’t feel even a tiny bit sheepish about mentioning the damage that was done to Central Camera. I live in Oakland, California. The vandalism, break-ins and thefts from businesses was huge in our area. We just purchased a car from a dealer that had its windows broken, and cars damaged, even driven into walls. A surgery center in San Leandro was broken into by people looking for drugs, as was a nearby physician’s office. Small businesses were vandalized and looted, and some were put out of business. I am not aware of any apologies by interested parties for what happened. Indeed, some trivialized what happened, without regard to the owners and employees of those businesses, most of whom are sympathetic to racial and economic inequalities. The people who wanted to peacefully protest should have done so exclusively during daylight hours. I am far from being a right-wing conservative. However, that there are malicious and destructive people and, yes, thieves out there, is unfortunately very much a reality.

[Thomas Mc Cann]

I lost 3 1/2 stone last year. Threw out all my oversize clothes. Bought new belts. And then the corona virus hit and I've been cocooned ever since and replaced almost all of the weight loss. Had to buy new trousers recently as the old new ones don't fit.In the past I gave up smoking and alcohol, neither were easy, but just starting a new diet I find near impossible

[Kenneth Tanaka]

May I join others in congratulating you on your loosening waistbands?! Personally, I'm envious. I've gained eight stubborn pounds since the COVID-19 pandemic began. I long ago abandoned belts with holes in favor or d-ring belts or fancier flexible belts. I just feel uncomfortable! Ugh. But hopefully my opportunities for more exercise will re-open soon...if everyone else around here would just behave themselves!

Speaking of behavior, I can say with complete confidence that the looting and destructive behavior that destroyed Central Camera were NOT acts of protest, per se. They were acts of opportunism and anarchy. This is not a matter of opinion, as any close observer could confirm. Many of the stores on State Street, one block west of Central's street, such as Macy's, were also looted. The genuine protests took place mostly north of that location, for those familiar with downtown Chicago, closer to the Chicago River and in front of Trump Tower.

I can't express how broken my heart felt seeing the aftermath of that looting in "my" neighborhood. Even now, I can barely look at some of the images I captured of those scenes.

[Richard Parkin]

Just a plug for The Guardian which, like this blog, is free to read entirely without subscription ;-). I ‘subscribe’, partly for that reason, to both.

I also subscribe to New York Times, which is very reasonably priced at present and has a lot of free to read stuff. European edition of Politico too.

[hugh crawford]

The bulk of the Democratic Party and almost all of the “liberal” media in the United States would be center right in the rest of the world.

[Michael J Lew]

Where does reality fit on the media bias chart? The general perception about that from down under (Australia) is that reality has a distinct left wing bias.

[Steve Rosenblum]

Well, Don may rebuild Central Camera but I don’t think he will be able to rebuild “Central Camera”. That place was an eclectic collection of photographic paraphernalia, both old and new, stacked from floor to ceiling in multiple aisles on multiple floors, only one of which was frequented by customers. I am quite sure that for a a large percentage of the inventory they had no idea what they had. A couple of years ago when I got back into developing film I bought an old Jobo rotary processor and was in search of certain parts and accessories that were long out of production. I found an EBay ad for some of the items being sold by Central Camera and called to ask them about it. It seems they had a kid working for them with not enough to do so they sent him down into the basement where there boxes and boxes of stuff they had long lost track of. While rummaging around down there he found several cases of “New/Old” Jobo stock so they threw on eBay where I was thrilled to find it. The guy I spoke with told me that stuff was only the tip of the iceberg. They had more than a century of stuff down there, upstairs, and who knows where else? Try recreating that (or listing it for an insurance company)!