responsibility

Libya and the concept of Responsibility to Protect, championed by Canada, have been quite prominent in our news. I'm not going to wade into the pros and cons of this specific conflict, neither am I getting into the R2P concept itself, but it has gotten me thinking about the idea of responsibility in general.

Seems to me that one of the reasons there is so much controversy about what's happening in Libya (and what is or isn't happening in the neighbourhood) is because we've lost sight of the meaning of responsibility. Abdication (it's not my fault) and litigation (it's your fault) have replaced the understanding and acceptance of the consequences of our actions. So some pseudo-christian pastor in Florida can burn a religious text without thinking or caring how it might negatively, if inadvertently, affect other people (such as getting them killed).

Humans have large brains for a reason, in order to reason...let's use them a little more.

So, you ask, what about the photographs? I'm having a hard time coming up with some connection to any pix in my repertoire so I'll let you make your own connections. Come for the pix get the rant for free, come for the rant get the pix for free (sounds like a Knopfler/Dire Straits line...).

 

 

 

 

train

...is it?

red:action

Red phonebooths again. At least in the abstract. I've talked about my penchant for red phonebooths before, and their metaphysical attraction. The visual attraction is a little more universal, that is it tends to inform anything which imposes itself upon my visual cortex, anything I see.

The redness acts as punctuation in the grammar of landscape, or just plain scape if you like...landscape being anywhere your eyes land. It's an exclamation point which focusses my attention on the design aspect of a particular window into my physical environment, the lay of that particular land. The image is there somewhere, I just have to find the right frame. And red is not the only culprit. I'm thinking that the primary colours hold the most power, but I suspect the more attractive aspect is the brilliance. Shine on you crazy diamond.

I like boats as well as red phonebooths, and there's often lots of colour to play with in the harbour. So, colour it is this time.

red phonebooths

With the advent of wireless communication and ensuing prevalence of cell phones in the world, I suspect the phonebooth is on the road to oblivion. I love the image of the red phonebooth. Not only do they appeal to me visually, but they also seem to me to be heavily laden with story. History and culture nestle deep in the crackled paint of their exterior, lives lived and shared over thin copper wires. In rural Scotland one can find them on the most unlikely of street corners.

I got thinking about all this after reading a post on Armin Grewe's www.islayblog.com that indicated Google Streetview had come to the Scottish island of Islay, and that one of the views he found interesting was along the road featuring the red phonebooth near Carnduncan. I thought it would be fun to show a few of the photographs I've taken of these icons, including this one near Carnduncan...

...on Skye, near Carbost, just down the road from the Talisker distillery.

...on Barra, one of the southernmost of the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.