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from Photographers Blog:
Ashes to ashes; dust to dust
Gainesville, Florida
By Steve Johnson
“Ashes to ashes; dust to dust.”
Its origins come from Genesis 3:19 (King James Verison): “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
We celebrate death in so many different ways. From sky burials in Tibet, to hanging coffins in ancient China, how we honor the dead is varied and changing.
In the United States and Canada, vault burials have grown in popularity since the early 1900s. With more than 19,000 funeral homes and 8,000 embalmers in the U.S. alone according to the National Funeral Directors Association.
So when Reuters contacted me about a conservation cemetery, one of four in the country, I was intrigued with the very niche market.
from Full Focus:
Training child survivalists
Photographer Brian Blanco gained rare access to a group of survivalists in Florida led by Jim Foster, 57, a retired police officer. The North Florida Survival Group trains children and adults alike to handle weapons and survive in the wild. The group passionately supports the right of U.S. citizens to bear arms and its website states that it aims to teach "patriots to survive in order to protect and defend our Constitution against all enemy threats". Since the shooting at Sandy Hook, the group are getting increased interest from people looking to sign up. Foster says he now gets about one person signing up per day. Read Brian's personal account here.
from The Great Debate:
Romney’s big chance with Jewish voters
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney at the Monday foreign policy debate, should play to the Jewish TV audience like he was the star of a Borscht Belt revue.
Romney has a tempting assortment of issues he can tap to frame President Barack Obama as a leader whose policies are perilous for Israel. He can use the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iran, Egypt and even Syria to make a case that Obama’s policies are wrong for the Jewish state.
from Tales from the Trail:
Obama heads to Florida for re-election fundraising effort
President Barack Obama on Thursday will travel to Florida for a fundraiser at a hotel in Miami with hundreds of guests that could raise at least $1 million for the Democratic incumbent and Democrats’ re-election coffers, according to a major donor.
"People are enthusiastic about how the race is going -- the danger of a Romney administration is less likely -- but this election is far from over," said Kris Korge, a Florida businessman helping to organize the event.
from Tales from the Trail:
Not expecting a call from the president? Try the second line
A warning to those who are sometimes slow to pick up the phone: you may miss a call from the president.
President Barack Obama stopped by a local campaign office in Port St. Lucie, Florida, on Sunday to visit with supporters, and he placed a call to Barney Roberts, a volunteer in Jacksonville.
from Tales from the Trail:
Obama gets a surprising ‘lift’ in Florida pizza joint
President Barack Obama met his match in the fitness category at an impromptu campaign visit on Sunday.
Stopping by a pizza place -- the Big Apple Pizza & Pasta Italian Restaurant -- in Ft. Pierce, Florida, the president, a workout fanatic, was welcomed by the 6-foot-3, 260-pound, big-muscled owner, Scott Van Duzer.
from Photographers Blog:
Strip club visit (It’s a political assignment)
By Brian Blanco
"No Honey, really, it's a POLITICAL assignment related to the upcoming RNC." I could see a familiar smirk slide into place on my wife's face as I explained exactly where, and what, I'd be shooting later that evening.
As a photojournalist based in Tampa, Florida, one of the most important political battleground areas of, arguably, the most important political battleground state in national politics, my wife has become accustomed to being an "election-season widow" for long stretches at a time as I cover the myriad of predictable bus tours, stump speeches, rallies, and debates that crop up in my coverage area. Strip clubs however... well that was a first for both of us.
from Tales from the Trail:
A battleground is a battleground is a battleground – or is it?
It isn’t really surprising that there are widely varying theories for the best way to win the battleground states – those considered neither firmly Democratic nor Republican – in the Nov. 6 election. After all, if they were easy to win, they wouldn’t be battlegrounds.
But what is surprising is the extent of the disagreement over which should be defined as battlegrounds – or swing states, toss-ups or “purple” (as in something between Republican red and Democratic blue).
from Tales from the Trail:
What does Obama want for his birthday? Florida would be nice
President Barack Obama, whose birthday is Saturday, has at least one big idea for a birthday present – and it comes with 29 electoral votes.
A crowd of more than 2,000 people sang “Happy Birthday” to Obama during a campaign stop in Orlando, prompting Obama to joke that he ought to have brought a cake so that he could blow out the candles and make an electoral wish. “Winning Florida wouldn’t be a bad birthday present,” Obama said.
from Alison Frankel:
11th Circuit: Stock drop doesn’t prove losses were tied to fraud
It is the rare securities fraud class action that goes to trial. Typically, once shareholders have survived a motion to dismiss and won certification of a class, defendants pull out their wallets. Settlements may not come until summary judgment motions are decided and a mediator has entered the case, but they are a near certainty for class actions that get past the preliminaries. Only a vanishingly small number of securities fraud cases go to trial.
So every time an appeals court considers a trial verdict in a class action, it's news. On Monday, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a jury verdict against BankAtlantic cannot stand, but not because of the inconsistent verdict sheet responses that led U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro to grant the bank's post-trial motion for judgment as a matter of law. Instead, the 11th Circuit panel offered a tutorial on how shareholders should link their losses to the defendants' misstatements – and concluded that, in this case, plaintiffs' counsel at Labaton Sucharow and Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check failed to untangle losses due to the alleged fraud from losses attributable to Florida's collapsing real estate market.
