Jai Pakistan . . . Jai Democracy!

Snuffing out the Constitution, muzzling the press, arresting liberal lawyers, firing the Supreme Court, outlawing public gatherings of more than three people, beating up protesters, suspending elections -- all in the name of protecting the nation from terrorism . . .

Meanwhile -- even as the Pakistani police, army and spy agencies imprison the moderate, secular, cosmopolitan, and democratically-oriented professional people and human rights activists -- the fanatical jihadis, the Taliban and Al Qaeda all grow stronger in the rough mountains of the Northwest Frontier Province. Now the extremists have even become powerful in the splendid resort valley of Swat, not to mention in the major cities like Karachi and Lahore.

Crushing Pakistan's democratic elements under the boot of the army will only strengthen the terrorists.

A growing democracy with economic opportunity, education and equality before the law is the best antidote to Islamo-fascism, but Musharraf is going in a tragic direction. It's horrible to see democracy being strangled in its crib. Even worse is to see anti-democratic encroachments on our own Constitution and Bill of Rights here in the United States, all supposedly for the same reason: to fight terrorism.

But here, too, our unfettered American democracy with its Bill of Rights, guaranteeing freedom of speech and assembley, due process, and right of privacy from government spying -- our profound civil liberties as conceived by the Founding Fathers remain the world's best defense against tyrants of any stripe, foreign or domestic.

We must stand for democracy here and abroad. This is an historic moment of enormous consequence. We must stand for democracy with all our hearts. This is what those patriotic songs they taught you in school and the Pledge of Allegiance are about: freedom and justice for all, the land of the free and the home of the brave, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

I made the above image more than 20 years ago in Lahore, Pakistan, the artistic capital of the Punjab -- the land of the five rivers -- at the monumental Moghul fort there; these mosaics are more than 350 years old.

Jai Pakistan -- Long live Pakistan! Jai Democracy -- Long live Democracy!

Sleepless in Miami

Saturday night Miami Beach was more interesting than usual with art installations and live performances all over town nearly until dawn -- part of what was billed as a $400,000 "Sleepless Night" of culture.

Hookers were still click-clacking in their heels on Collins Avenue; and clueless teenagers, hip-hoppers and twenty somethings were still lining up to get into overpriced clubs on Washington guarded by hulking bouncers in suits -- a far cry from the glorious times of yesteryear (some 15 years ago) when the clubs were still cool, the crowds hipper, and achingly beautiful women in drop-dead gowns or drag queens in wings -- door goddeses they were called -- guarded the doors, deciding who'd get in.

Anyhow, the lure of the neon got to me, so I took some fast lenses (a 50mm f1.4; a 28 f1.8; and a 135mm f2) plus a 17- megapixel Canon 1Ds Mk3, and walked about for couple hours.

I shot architecture more than people -- though there were some cute kissing couples in Plaza de España, where Dana Keith's great Miami Beach Cinematheque put on an outdoor showing of the 1929 Surrealist classic Un Chien Andalou accompanied by a live performance of a flamenco troupe.

Even so, it was the architecture, the approximately 70-year-old Art Deco architecture, that drew me the most; and I photographed it handheld, mostly with the 28mm wide-angle, and then made the perspective more rectalinear in Photoshop, adjusting away distortion and making the lines more true.

The Sigma lens, the 28, is big and heavy, and I didn't think it would be very sharp wide open -- but it was, and yet had a creamy quality, abetted by some High Dynamic Range post-processing I dd in Photoshop.

I hadn't shot with my fast lenses for a long time -- I've been using f2.8 and f4 zooms and tilt-shift lenses mostly. But this was a return to my roots: I used to do photojournalism with a fast 50, a 28, and a 135; I love those focal lenghts.