Chinese New Year can get boring, and reading is much more satisfying than conversing. 

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall – Head photo editors from AFP, AP and Reuters and their pick of the photographs they feel best represents the Bush administration. I like this and this.

From Seeing Eye to Eye:

While The Civil Contract of Photography’s value has been damaged as a result of such bitter tendentiousness, its argument remains breathtakingly inspirational: “The citizen of photography”—for instance, that vicious photo rapist the AP photographer—“enjoys the right to see because she has a responsibility toward what she sees.” It has always been my pride to feel responsible as I raise the lens to my eye in situations of misery and urgency; it has been my duty to feel, refine, and transmit that misery and urgency when it expresses itself to me in the archives of others. But although I believe in the Golden Rule, without reading this book I would most likely never have formalized what my photography ought to strive for: “When a photograph turns into a grievance, whoever articulates it becomes its civic subject.”

From here: “More powerful than the march of mighty armies is an idea whose time has come.” – so true.

So this is kinda my way of bookmarking. I can’t believe the CNY holidays are almost over. And yet, my plan to clean up my room remains strangely unfulfilled. Spring cleaning is almost certainly irrelevant to people who live in the non-seasonal tropics. Why bicker with dust? Why fight against the all-so-natural descent into chaos? I want new Billy bookcases though, and that isn’t going to happen unless I throw my old ones out. And that won’t happen unless I throw a lot of stuff out. And that won’t happen until I buy a pack of trash bags and put things into them. There should be a ‘Clear All’ function I can write. 

function resetRoom(whose:Name) { 
var thisRoom:Room = this[whose];
for (var i=0;i<clearThese.length;i++) {
thisRubbish = thisRoom[clearThese[i]];
if (thisRubbish.useful ==1) {
thisRubbish.arrange(); 
}
else {
thisRubbish.remove();
} 
}

Real life is hard, but I feel much better after visiting here and here.