In Memory of Isabel (and a long rant)

Hi All,

Isabel was the first cat I photographed and made into a phantogram. This image was improved from a previous image-of-the-week, and was one of two cats in my first kid's book Pop-Up 3D. I'm sad to say that she died this past week at the age of 16. I will miss seeing her at my friend Nick's house. This was shot using two Sony V3 cameras, a Lanc Shepherd to synchronize them, and metal frame sides for phantogram processing.

The rant:

Yesterday the NY Times published an article about how after the Comey firing, the FBI opened an investigation into whether Trump was and has been actively working for the Russians and against American intersts. A bright eight year old could connect the dots of all that administration has done before and after the presidential election, specifically but far from limited to:

Russia propping up Trump for many years with loans and cash to launder their money and buy his overpriced real estate

Pro-Russian platform changes at the Republican convention

Manafort's sharing the Trump campaign's polling data with Russians, who then expertly manipulated social media

Villianizing and removing from office a number of key players in the FBI and justice department

A Russians only meeting at the White House photographed, later publicized by Russia Today

Early attempts to remove sanctions against Russia

Ongoing attempts to denigrate and shut down the FBI and special counsel investigations

The recent attempt by Trump and his Treasury Sec Mnuchin to remove sanctions on Oleg Deripaska (one of the head guys on our election tampering)

Appointing an unqualified and toadying as Matthew Whitaker as acting Attorney General

Appointing (confirmation pending) William Barr as Attorney General, best known as the Prince of Pardons. When under GHW Bush he engineered blanked pardons, and ended investingation of everyone involved in the Iran-Contra scandal in the Reagen administration

On the I think we need to applaud Russia on their nerve and success of engineering the election of their guy Trump. On the other hand we should be at least a little concerned that our POTUS is bought and paid for by Putin.

Trump's creation and handling of our current, record breaking government shutdown is just starting to hurt millions of Americans in a number of obvious and subtle ways, and opens us up to catastrophic possibilities.

The only way out seems to be Democrats caving in on giving Trump his wall (not likely) or Republican senators actually standing up to the Trump administration, which out of fear they refuse to do.

We live in interesting times. The experiment that is America hangs in the balance.

Barry Rothstein

I send out a weekly email of these. If you'd like to be included, please go to the contact page and send me an email.

Previous Images of the Week