804 - Happy Xmas (War Is Over)



War? What war? Well, there is always a war, isn’t it? Wars do not just happen, they are made, and if we don’t make them, they are over. War is over, if you want it.

This is probably not my most inspired image, but it’s the best I could do, crouching on the balcony, peeping over snow that had freshly fallen while I was sleeping the afternoon away. You may know the lights in the background from elsewhere.

The Song of the Day is “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”, by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. I have it on the collection “Shaved Fish”, along with much of Lennon’s earlier solo work. Hear it on YouTube.


There are 7 comments

Cody Redmon   (2008-12-26)

Merry Christmas, Andreas! Just saw this link and it speaks to the theme of your post:

Christmas Truce, WWI

Best to you in the New Year!

💬 Reply 💬

Andreas   (2008-12-26)

Great story. Understandable, but still quite a wonder, given the machinery of war and the hierarchy of command.

On of the SciFi books that I read recently, Ursula K. LeGuin's "The Dispossessed", tells the story of a man crossing between two societies, a traditional, modeled after the US, living on a planet, and his own, an anarchistic society living on its inhabitable moon. When he comes down to the planet and is confronted with the structure of military, he does not understand for a long time.

Finally he says, that he had a problem with the fact that such a chain of command is the most inefficient way to organize human beings.

Only after he saw them suppressing a riot and mowing down women and children with machine guns, only then did he recognize that the goal is not efficiency in the sense of making people productive, the goal is to make people do things to other people that they normally wouldn't do at all, and for that the organization is perfectly effective.

Thanks and the best to you as well!

💬 Reply 💬

J. L. T.   (2008-12-26)

Wise words! Happy Xmas to you!

💬 Reply 💬

redskiesatnight.com   (2008-12-26)

Hi Andreas,

| This is probably not my most inspired image, but it's the best I could do ...

I really, really like this image!

Can you elaborate on your post-processing, if any?

Happy Holidays,
--Eric

💬 Reply 💬

Andreas   (2008-12-26)

In this particular image? Actually not much. I did a straight conversion in DxO, and in Photoshop I cropped to a square, added a slight vignette in the lower corners, some sharpening and the border. Matter of fact, the result does not look much different from the JPEG straight out of the camera 🙂

💬 Reply 💬

Juha Haataja   (2008-12-26)

Relaxing Christmas!

What also fits the Christmas theme is the short story "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by LeGuin. Do we need to have a scapegoat to be happy?

💬 Reply 💬

Thomas   (2008-12-27)

Andreas, merry Christmas to you, and enjoy your holidays!

It's been a while since I've been reading Ursula K. LeGuin, but I've always enjoyed her texts. Maybe it's time for a re-visit..

💬 Reply 💬