So I planned to go on and on about how outraged I am after hearing the recent news of my friends and colleagues (Andy LaValley, Rob Hart, Michelle LaVaigne, Buzz Orr, Jeff Nichols… among others) who were just laid off off from my former employer, The Sun Times Media Group. . Yes, I was going to talk about how my former brilliant boss ( a behaviorist) gave me a definition of intelligence: “The ability to accurately discriminate on multiple, more complex levels.” ( in a very basic sense – you can tell a pop can from a car, to…a pop can from a milk carton, to… a Pepsi can from a Coke can) I wanted to go on about how many years it took me to learn how to properly use a camera and how my photojournalist mentors (Scott Olsen, Ted Warren, Rob Hart, JOe Cyganowski, Charles Cherney, Jon Langham, Andy LaValley and Frank Polich) gave me the gift of their knowledge in judging a great photo from a bad photo (not to mention choosing and properly editing a photo that was worthy of being selected). I was also going to ask the question, “What would our own Roger Ebert think of films such as ‘Casablanca’ or ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ if qualified cinematographers were not part of the film crew?” And I was also going to ask, “Does the constant play and gore of the Zapruder film and the written stories of the Kennedy assassination stay in your mind as his final moment and legacy – or does this?”
Well thank you Mr. Colbert for brilliantly doing all of that that for me.
You know I used to get up at the crack of dawn every day to roll and deliver The Chicago Tribune throughout my neighborhood as a teen and adolescent. Like choosing between the White Sox and the Cubs, we were a Chicago Tribune family, loyal to the core. I remember cursing those early mornings as I rolled each paper in the feezing cold, but I would often stop to look at the beautiful photos that graced its pages. That and the fact that it helped me pay the board for my horse kept me going. I thank the Sun Times for the opportunities it gave me, but after this slap in the face to my colleagues and the intelligence of its readers, perhaps I should have never crossed over.