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MayorMeanBeans

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MayorMeanBeans last won the day on July 29 2009

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  1. For those who are interested, great article about smugglers from Spin Boldak: http://harpers.org/archive/2009/12/the-master-of-spin-boldak/?single=1 "I was learning, however, that Boldak is a special sort of border town. The big business there is cars—right-hand-drive cars, to be precise, used cars bought mainly in Japan and shipped in duty-free via Dubai. Afghanistan is a left-hand-drive country, but the vehicles are intended for Pakistan. They are sent overland from Karachi in sealed containers, unpacked in Spin Boldak, and sent right back across the border, with forged papers and baksheesh given to various officials along the way. This may seem like a strange journey, but it’s a simple matter of comparative advantage. Under the Afghan Transit Trade agreement, which dates to 1965, Pakistan allows Afghanistan-bound goods to traverse its territory duty-free. Afghanistan is a free port with minimal duties, whereas in Pakistan taxes and customs can double or even triple a vehicle’s cost. This price differential, combined with widespread corruption and inefficient law enforcement in both countries, has created an enormous market for smuggling. In fact, the smuggling of goods may be the biggest economic sector in Afghanistan, larger even than the opium trade, according to World Bank reports. As a result, places like Spin Boldak have become markets for all sorts of goods to be smuggled back into Pakistan. Each day, new shipping containers arrived, and Samiullah and I would often go to watch them being cracked open and unloaded. The haul was not just vehicles. It was all the cast-off crud of the First World, anything conceivably worth being shipped here: used microwave ovens, guitars, DVD players, bicycles, car stereos, TV sets, Beta camcorders, keyboards, propane stoves, motorized wheelchairs, generators, winches, children’s toys, clothing. I watched one bent, beturbaned old man hauling a tangled bundle of PlayStation controllers slung over his shoulder like a bushel of thatching."
  2. Sup everybody, I been lurking for far too long - mainly cuz I haven't really been photoing that much. Here's some random shit: I got some projects on deck this year for the photo so I hope I'll be posting a lot more. Got a magazine coming out, I'll post a vid of it soon - good work everybody - edit: hit me up on instagram @skhallisey thats where a good chunk of my energy's been
  3. I post a lot of Instagram pictures I took with my camera, probably two thirds of my photos are of that. But they are photos that I've never really shown people, I have hundreds and hundreds of photos I have no real use for, and its fun to have an outlet for them. I'm pretty sure none of the photos I have on my website have ever mixed in with Instagram, though both are pretty unorganized. I also like the day in pics nature of it too, I have a lot of people I follow who do that and seem to have pretty awesome day to days. But I think most people immediately recognize that I'm not posting what I'm doing at that exact moment. If that were the case I'd be posting pictures of my desk, my office, my computer.
  4. i work in an office near times sq so everyone thought it was osama's ghost. i work on the 16th floor and had to do everything i could to stop people from pushing my 8-month pregnant coworker down the stairs while we were walking out to the street to find out it wasn't qaddafi following through. people were hysterical as fuck
  5. Alexa Meade paints people and then photographs them. These aren't a case of someone painting over a photograph, its like putting make-up on.
  6. Some of these may have been posted before. Bruce Davidson.
  7. I think it was waffles that was talking about how he likes to photograph emotions. me too. just did some spring cleaning of photos taken this past spring/summer my grandmother at my sister's high school graduation. shes 93. sharp as can be, telling me my sister and my twin brother how proud my grandfather would be of us if he were alive today (he died when my dad was 7; she never remarried). Friends since forever. Shit used to be tough, now dudes own southern ribs restaurants and marry colombian dimes. New Hamphire mountains. not a care in the world. dudes change but the jokes don't..... and the girls love it and no matter how hard things get, people keep answering phones and the world keeps turning.
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