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Carl E. Feather's
Blog
January 1, 2010 -- What a year 2009 was Whew, made it through 2009. Thanks to the diversity of my business, I was able to survive what's been a very tough year for photographers and writers. My new Web site reflects the evolution of the business during the past 18 months, as the friend with a DSLR and the shoot-and-burn photographers capture the wedding photography market in northeast Ohio. One of the bright spots for my business in 2009 was the release of the "Covered Bridge County" DVD. Sales of the DVD have been very encouraging, and more DVD multi-media projects are planned for 2010 as I focus on the Living Images portion of my business. At my job, staff writer for the Star Beacon, 2009 brought the death of Currents, the daily features page I wrote and photographed in the Star Beacon for nearly 20 years. I was due to die. The emphasis on adding more and more feature content to the daily and Sunday pages of the newspaper had made it extremely difficult to find a fresh feature story worthy of print and full-page treatment six days a week. And we had only person ask "what happened to Currents" after the plug was pulled, so it was time. I've come full circle, back where I started 20 years ago, as a beat reporter. At least I have a job, and the company has tried to maintain as many positions as possible by implementing furloughs rather than slashing positions. Still, what the bottom line never shows is the sacrifice going on in the trenches, the 12-, 14-hour days marked down as 8 hours. The lost Saturdays that will never be recaptured. The cost of buying photo equipment from one's salary because there's no budget for such things at work. And the physical wear-and-tear on our aging bodies from all the stress. As I've aged, I've tried to be more compassionate about the labor and sacrifice that goes into every service and product. We are so disconnected from what we buy and consume. Everything is manufactured, even grown, in a big box, out of sight. It just shows up in another big box, we look at the price, decide if it has value, and take it home. There are hours of sacrifice behind most every thing we buy. In the case of sweat-shop products and factory farm meat, there is real pain, injustice and suffering in those products, as well. Unfortunately, in the past 18 months, we've seen Wall Street put a premium on its value -- Too Big to Fail -- and cheapen the labors of those who are small enough to be insigificant. Two years ago I wrote a series "Reality Check." It was to be a wake-up about the direction the economy in Ashtabula County had taken. It was scoffed at by the economic development people of the county, who insisted all is fine and they've done a remarkable job in attracting investment to the county. Now the county general fund is $3 million dollars short of what it will cost to run government in 2010. The $17.6 million the county expects to receive is a reflection of the greater state of the economy here. It reflects the state of wages just as the many dollar stores, cheap restaurants, flea markets and very busy Wal-Mart parking lot reflect the same. For too many years, the focus of economic development here has been jobs for the sake of jobs, with no regard to the cost of those jobs to government, the housing market and retail. And so here we are. Enough rambling on such things. No point in raising the blood pressure on the first day of the year. God bless. Comment on these ramblings to: carl.feather@feathermultimedia.com |
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