Leica these days (a little rant)

[Keith]

I saw a couple of jokes earlier and though they lightened the thread markedly ... so here's another.

A skeleton walks into a bar and orders a beer and also asks the bartender for a mop ....

 

[flip]

I saw a couple of jokes earlier and though they lightened the thread markedly ... so here's another.

A skeleton walks into a bar and orders a beer and also asks the bartender for a mop ....

Hah. Thought $2 a pint was a deal, but he got boned.

 

[jaapv]

I'd happily spend however many thousands of dollars they're charging for the new M. I'm fully committed to rangefinders, and they make great cameras, but pattern noise that rivals the Canon 40D from how many years ago? I strongly hope they pull their heads out of their asses and actually offer a modern professional grade camera, that's professional across the board, very soon.

Pattern noise?😕 I've yet to see that on my 240...

 

[Bille]

I'm an aspiring professional photographer and while I LOVE using my Leica M6 the future is digital. (...) but why do they have to be so expensive? (...) Maybe it's good that I can't try one out because if I love it then I wouldn't be able to afford to keep it. Even if I could, ideally I would have two bodies and that's pretty much impossible with Leica prices.

An M9 is about the same as an EOS 1DX or Nikon D4.

What´s missing is an affordable entry level M for non-professionals.

 

[Godfrey]

And, for example, a very good friend of mine (I was best man at his wedding) is a builder. Physically exhausting work. How much 'choice' has he about working more?

As much as anyone else does. There's always a price.

G

 

[Roger Hicks]

As much as anyone else does. There's always a price.

G

Dear Godfrey,

Would you care to explain how anyone can work beyond the limits of physical endurance? At least for long? How often do you, yourself, work beyond the limits of physical endurance?

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

When you've been plastering ceilings for hours, holding a hawk in one hand and a trowel in the other, and you are shaking with exhaustion, and you are in constant pain from a back injury where some idiot ran into you a traffic lights a few years ago, and you're sixty next birthday, it's quite easy to see where your physical limits are.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

He's been a builder since he was 15. He's very good at it. He enjoys it. But there ARE PHYSICAL LIMITS. Forgive me for using the typographical equivalent of shouting, but what on earth do you suggest he should do? He can work; he wants to work; but suggesting disability insurance is reducing his choices, not increasing them.

He is currently rearranging his life so he can continue to work as a builder, but less strenuously and on the sort of thing at which he is best: in his region, he is a 'go to' builder for historical restorations, including those funded by historical associations and the like. Do you want him to throw all that knowledge and skill away? Again, what on earth do you suggest he should do?

I really cannot help wondering about the 'very tough mental limits' of someone who is apparently unable to imagine another person's life. I also wonder how many people on this forum have good friends who do hard physical work because that's all that's available.

You (and others) might care to read the book Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class

Cheers,

R.

 

[zauhar]

Roger, everyone today is expected to be 'nimble', able to adapt to all changing circumstances, to change careers, to move to find work - until they finally drop dead.

Everyone except the people at the top, of course. They just have to keep wearing a tie.

Randy

 

[Mcary]

H

He is currently rearranging his life so he can continue to work as a builder, but less strenuously and on the sort of thing at which he is best: in his region, he is a 'go to' builder for historical restorations, including those funded by historical associations and the like. Do you want him to throw all that knowledge and skill away? Again, what on earth do you suggest he should do?


Cheers,

R.

Don't know if its an option or maybe he's already doing it but it seems to me that he should be teaching/passing the knowledge and skills he's gained over his life to next generation and for which he should be well compensated.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Roger, everyone today is expected to be 'nimble', able to adapt to all changing circumstances, to change careers, to move to find work - until they finally drop dead.

Everyone except the people at the top, of course. They just have to keep wearing a tie.

Randy

Dear Randy,

Quite.

In most of the world, "builder" covers a wide range from someone who owns the company; through skilled craftsmen (which is what John is; he owns the company in which he is the principal worker, and he also hires labourers); to labourers. Another good friend of mine is a carpenter.

The blinding arrogance and sheer ignorance of those who have drunk the "entrepreneur" Kool-Aid never ceases to astonish me. No wonder we have the "occupy" movements and protests against the "one per cent".

I take it that you have read Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class. For those who haven't, it's an incisive indictment of those who casually dismiss people who actually work for a living, at physically demanding or even menial jobs, as work-shy welfare dependents, or simply as unimportant.

Cheers,

R.

 

[zauhar]

Dear Randy,

Quite.

In most of the world, "builder" covers a wide range from someone who owns the company; through skilled craftsmen (which is what John is; he owns the company in which he is the principal worker, and he also hires labourers); to labourers. Another good friend of mine is a carpenter.

The blinding arrogance and sheer ignorance of those who have drunk the "entrepreneur" Kool-Aid never ceases to astonish me. No wonder we have the "occupy" movements and protests against the "one per cent".

I take it that you have read Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class. For those who haven't, it's an incisive indictment of those who casually dismiss people who actually work for a living, at physically demanding or even menial jobs, as work-shy welfare dependents, or simply as unimportant.

Cheers,

R.

Dear Roger, haven't read that book yet, but will look for it.

The other day, I was ranting to someone and described an "entrepreneur" this way : "An entrepreneur is a guy who gets the idea to build a jet pack. He hires a team of skilled scientists and engineers and machinists. They work for months, overcome all the obstacles, and actually make it work. Then the entrepreneur calls in the press to announce 'his invention'."

Randy

 

[Roger Hicks]

Don't know if its an option or maybe he's already doing it but it seems to me that he should be teaching/passing the knowledge and skills he's gained over his life to next generation and for which he should be well compensated.

The key word is "should". But cushy jobs in polytechnics (in American, "Junior Colleges") rarely happen to ex-Hell's Angels who left school at 15 and have worked hard and stayed out of trouble for the last 45 years or so. Yes, it can happen. Another friend is a time-served electrician (meaning he can train apprentices), and that's what he does. Including teaching at Dartmoor Prison -- Google it). Another friend, a master printer, taught in a Poly. But it's rare. Increasingly nowadays, the witless bourgeoisie demands FORMAL qualifications.

I can't help feeling that it's as well that John never starts fights any more -- for decades, he's preferred to walk away whenever possible. In his younger days, the casual insults and sheer incomprehension offered here by some would have had them counting their teeth. Or possibly fingers, or even arms.

Cheers,

R.

 

[clayne]

But it's rare. Increasingly nowadays, the witless bourgeoisie demands FORMAL qualifications.

That's part of their "entry cost." It's a game, the entire thing - where the goal is to promote class separation and hoard the valuables.

 

[Godfrey]

The key word is "should". But cushy jobs in polytechnics (in American, "Junior Colleges") rarely happen to ex-Hell's Angels who left school at 15 and have worked hard and stayed out of trouble for the last 45 years or so. Yes, it can happen. Another friend is a time-served electrician (meaning he can train apprentices), and that's what he does. Including teaching at Dartmoor Prison -- Google it). Another friend, a master printer, taught in a Poly. But it's rare. Increasingly nowadays, the witless bourgeoisie demands FORMAL qualifications.

I can't help feeling that it's as well that John never starts fights any more -- for decades, he's preferred to walk away whenever possible. In his younger days, the casual insults and sheer incomprehension offered here by some would have had them counting their teeth. Or possibly fingers, or even arms.

Cheers,

R.

Ach.
Never ceases to amaze me how you can turn a simple idea into your next soapbox political rant, Roger.

If you're in a painful, dead end job, you can choose to change what you do or how much you do it. Or you can accept what you do and live with the consequences.

Is your friend looking to buy a Leica?

G

 

[Roger Hicks]

I am bowing out of this thread, but as one who has done his fair share of backbreaking construction labor when young, one thing is clear. Everyone loves the worker, but no one wants to pay the worker.

Highlight: no question. Nor should there be equal pay for equal time. Anyone who does an honest job, making something people want to buy, freely accepts that some people are more skilled than others. I think it was the singer Billy Bragg who said (again from memory, to the workers at a light bulb factory in the DDR), "The reason I do this is that I've worked at jobs like yours, in a factory, and frankly, this is a bloody sight easier." They related VERY easily to that, and were not in the least bit perturbed at his earning money for a job they recognized that they couldn't do.

No, many of "the rest of us" are not willing to put a single penny in the pockets of Gap, or from any of the other parasites who sell trash to the financially overprivileged. We may however (or we may not) be willing to buy an alarmingly expensive tool from Leica because it best fits the way we see and want to work.

Yes, many of us can imagine what it is like to live on almost nothing -- possibly because we have friends who do/did it.Sri Ram is a brilliant writer in English. But he earns his living (or earned it when I knew him in Darjeeling in the early 1990s) as an itinerant engraver. The $10 a day I paid him was 3x his normal daily income. He thought I overpaid him. I thought I underpaid him -- but it was what I could afford.

More than one of our friends -- good friends, friends you eat and drink with -- have lived in a single room without running water, let alone sanitation, in the Himalayas. How many of the people you have known have been penniless refugees?

For most of my life, I have suffered from depression, sometimes suicidal. Well, near-suicidal. After all, I'm still alive. But the old trick of counting your blessings is a good start to countering depression. The complacency of the overprivileged, and their snivelling that they "can't afford" things that would mean their cutting back on pointless luxuries and overpriced rubbish, tends to make me very angry indeed.

You will no doubt understand that this is a very long way from a personal attack. We have corresponded with one another too often, for too long, for it to be that. But for the same reasons you will understand that it is a topic very close to my heart.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Ach.
Never ceases to amaze me how you can turn a simple idea into your next soapbox political rant, Roger.

If you're in a painful, dead end job, you can choose to change what you do or how much you do it. Or you can accept what you do and live with the consequences.

Is your friend looking to buy a Leica?

G

Ach.

Never ceases to amaze me how you can turn a simple idea into your next soapbox political rant, Godfrey.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Godfrey]

Never ceases to amaze me how you can turn a simple idea into your next soapbox political rant, Godfrey.

Cheers,

R.

Couldn't think of anything else to say?
My gosh, it's so rare to see you speechless. 🙂

Just FYI: I worked a couple of such jobs when I was younger. I decided they weren't the way I wanted to live, so I stopped and did other things.

Now, back to the usual ranting please.

G

 

[Roger Hicks]

Couldn't think of anything else to say?
My gosh, it's so rare to see you speechless. 🙂

Just FYI: I worked a couple of such jobs when I was younger. I decided they weren't the way I wanted to live, so I stopped and did other things.

Now, back to the usual ranting please.

G

Dear Godfrey,

You phrased it so perfectly that I could not improve upon your summary. How is that what I say is a "soapbox political rant" while your complacent reflections on your own superiority are the voice of sweet reason?

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

That's part of their "entry cost." It's a game, the entire thing - where the goal is to promote class separation and hoard the valuables.

Watch out: Godfrey will accuse you of a "soapbox political rant".

A friend of mine used to work for one of those companies that writes term papers for intellectually challenged but financially overprivileged students. As he put it, "The dirty little secret is that a degree is a passport to the middle class, and it doesn't matter how you get it. The universities are the unindicted co-conspirators."

Or to quote Marx, "Every class acts in its own class interest." This is a commonplace to those who are widely read, but some admit it and some don't. Then there are those who don't realize it. Of course Leica photographers (those who actually take pictures with their cameras) act in their own class interest, namely, keeping Leicas in production. Equally obviously, those who regard Leicas as desirable status symbols act in their own class interest, namely, keeping Leicas in production. As the old saying goes, politics make strange bedfellows.

Then there are those who regard Leicas as undesirable status symbols: "Leica owners will be first up against the wall when the Revolution comes." But why do they imagine that Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky was so eager to make a copy of this wicked, evil capitalist camera?

Cheers,

R.