Via Prashant Mullick

“Knives that will draw blood hours later string into picture.

In bunches at the end of chains, they will be used to lash backs and remind Muslims of the massacre of the prophet Muhammed's grandson, Imam Hussain.

Other dagger-like knives will be held in the hand to cut vertically into the forehead.

Here, they're put on display, for sale. Imamwada Road, deep in the heart of Bombay's traditional Muslim stronghold, is lined with thousands of knives, and buyers, every year.”

I know I am in good company when I see quotes from Pablo Neruda, Matsuo Basho and Wynton Marsalis sprinkled across a photographer's web site. Pinaki Chakravarthy has been at it for a long time. His images from the flower market are my favorite as he has let the ambient light dictate the colors in the frame.

But the one above arrested my attention for the most obvious reason of all – curiosity. What were they and how were they to be used? In my opinion, an image devoid of people in its frame can still make it a portrait. This one speaks of a community. This image of knives slung across a wire in pregnant anticipation of skins, blood and passion is terrific. I would love to see more of these kinds of images in this young photographer's portfolio.

Where do you stand? Where do they stand? Take a tour of the issues that may make or break your decision this election year. You know where I stand. Do I need to spell it out?

I have extolled the virtues of having a designer design your web site. If you are interested in other ways of branding, perhaps a logo, there are artists (not
necessarily starving) would be happy to come up with something that is all you! For example, the logo on the upper left corner of this page is by Arindam Mukherjee. I was curious to know who had inspired him.

“Of late, I miss R.K. Laxman's cartoons on the Times of India's web site. Laxman retired from TOI recently after tickling India's funny bone with his sharp cartoons for decades. The baton now seems to have been passed to Ajit Ninan; my pick for India's best and funniest. Ninan, whom I admire and got the chance to work with at India Today, uses form, color and lines to his maximum advantage. My early days as a cartoonist has gone emulating Ninan's style. Here, I tried to do a Ninan with Kerry and Flip-flops.”

In the spirit of journalistic fairness Arindam promises me that he is working on an illustration depicting W. If you enjoy Arindam's work, please consider hiring him on. I think he is fantastic!

Via Harikrishna Katragadda

“Here's the deal: It's not their damn business,” he said.

The U.S. Secret Service is at it again asking journalists about their race. This is getting kind of annoying.

A telling sentence in Eun-Kyung Kim's article suggests a shift in the way credentials for journalists are being handled now: “Credentials for the 2000 presidential debates were handled by the Senate Press Gallery. Applications did not ask for race information.”

My question is – why is race so important? Well, the article also states rather glibly that the infomation is necessary for the FBI database to cross-check “identifiers.” Are you satisfied with the official response?