Doorways in Time

Back in the 1930s and '40s, before air-conditioning was commonplace, most houses in Miami Beach had screen doors -- beautiful Art Deco screen doors.

Though South Beach's historic district is supposed to be protected from changes that destroy its unique character, quite a few of the elegant old doors have disappeared during the last 15 years.

I think many rusty or broken ones were simply junked by owners who didn't recognize their value.


Others, however, remain; and some have even been restored.

Illustrated here are three old ones that remain in or near Miami Beach's now booming South Pointe area

When I first saw this neighborhood at the southern tip of Miami Beach, back in 1992, it was a slum; and many old cottages, small apartment buildings and little hotels were in ramshackle disrepair alongside a few that hip entrepreneurs had fixed up. Now the neighborhood has been revived with ultra high-end, high-rise condos ringing the waterfront; and some of the older buildings have been lost. Many still remain, though, along with their remarkable doors.


I made these pictures yesterday afternoon with a little Canon G9 that when I'm not shooting professionally with my big cameras, I carry with me everywhere.

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!

Nepal is Beautiful

Remember slides? I still have tens of thousands of 'em -- and every once in a while I digitize some of my favorites.

Here's one's from Nepal:



The woman in the crimson sari is performing a puja, or prayer rite, at the gilded, Hariti Devi pagoda temple on the outskirts of Kathmandu, at a stupendous Hindu-Buddhist temple complex named Swyambhunath, also called The Monkey Temple because of a troop of some 250, semi-wild, sacred, Rhesus monkeys who live amongst the forest and shrines on the hill, overlooking the entire valley.

Hariti is the Hindu goddess of smallpox and other epidemics; and people pray to the goddess for her protection. To Buddhists, she is Sitala, a mother goddess and protector of children.

It's interesting to scan the old slides, and see how even the best ones have less resolution and less detail than the digital images we shoot today.

Fourth of July Special