Money, Meet Mouth
Guess how much it cost to scare the daylights out of New Yorkers by buzzing Manhattan with Air Force One -- for a photograph that could have been created by an art trainee on Photoshop for, oh, $25 an hour?
Roger Runningen and Tony Capaccio write on Bloomberg.com that, per a review President Obama ordered (was forced to order, I think they mean), that shot cost taxpayers $328,835 -- not including time and productivity lost from the evacuated workplaces and pain and suffering of people who lived through 9/11 and/or lost loved ones.
Can we please have that money back? And for a little entertainment, how about a scoop of that stupid-spending ridicule we've been promised? As Veronique de Rugy and Eileen Norcross write at the WSJ:
President Barack Obama has promised a full accounting online of where his $787 stimulus package is spent and to expose to public ridicule anyone caught wasting taxpayer money. At a White House news conference in March, the president put it this way: "If we see money being misspent, we're going to put a stop to it, and we will call it out and we will publicize it."
Subtext: Except when we're the ones spending the money, which we'll do with abandon.
I'm in the midwest, but have traveled various places around the country. I still see a bunch of items that came out of the Great Depression that are still serviceable and in use. It was the government dollars that funded the New Deal programs that created much of the infrastructure improvements.
I can't see any of the pork that is in the stimulus act coming even close to doing the same thing.
To paraphrase someone I saw here: "I had low expectations and Obama can't even hit those."
We are so screwed.
Jim P. at April 29, 2009 1:46 PM
One more time: the plane must fly to meet airworthiness tests and check preventive maintenance results.
It's more American schizophrenia: we want others to respect our President, and we want him to ride on a bus.
Standing up.
Radwaste at April 29, 2009 3:13 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2009/04/29/money_meet_mout.html#comment-1645572">comment from RadwasteOne more time: the plane must fly to meet airworthiness tests and check preventive maintenance results.
Sure, but take a few hops around Andrews Air Force Base; don't buzz lower Manhattan.
The cost here was in addition to any maintenance they're doing. This was a photo op. Maintenance, we expect. Photo ops, when we're so far in debt they'll be asking everybody for their gold teeth in a few years to stave off our Chinese creditors...well, sit some design dude down in his chair and give him the latest copy of Photoshop and tell him to have at it.
Jeez, I felt a little guilty spending $4 at the thrift store on a pair of pants and a sweater. This is because I am forced to live within my means. Somebody had better start forcing the government to do accordingly. Like, maybe us voters. I'll vote for a fiscal conservative in a flash -- should one ever be seriously in the running. Oh, and P.S. George W. Bush was anything but.
Amy Alkon
at April 29, 2009 3:31 PM
for a photograph that could have been created by an art trainee on Photoshop for, oh, $25 an hour?
Probably not. Getting the lighting angles for plane and skyline even remotely the same is decidedly non-trivial.
Unless, that is, they are both photographed at the same time and place.
Hey Skipper at April 29, 2009 3:58 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2009/04/29/money_meet_mout.html#comment-1645589">comment from Hey SkipperIt would maybe cost a few hundred dollars. I don't know what Photoshoppers make. But, certainly not what it did cost. Is it nice to have the real deal, the photo of the actual plane flying over Manhattan? Sure is! It would also be nice for me to go to the designer resale store this afternoon and see if they have any cool slinky dresses for me. Instead, I'm home at the computer working on my next book. And I don't have a ginormous level of debt, just a little fear about making ends meet.
Amy Alkon
at April 29, 2009 4:35 PM
I don't know what Photoshoppers make. But, certainly not what it did cost. Is it nice to have the real deal, the photo of the actual plane flying over Manhattan? Sure is!
I think I focused on brevity at the expense of clarity.
One of the best ways to find out if something has been Fauxtoshopped is to see if the light source is uniform throughout the photo.
In general, it is very difficult to get this right even for subjects occupying the same plane (e.g., everything is on the ground).
To get it right enough so as to not be obviously fake even to the casual observer when one set of objects is on the ground and another is airborne is really hard, particularly if you relying on stock footage.
Now, if I wished to recreate the proper light source angle for the airplane to be consistent with the skyline, I could do it.
But I would have to fly the airplanes, at a cost of, well, a couple hundred thou.
Hey Skipper at April 29, 2009 7:13 PM
But, certainly not what it did cost. Is it nice to have the real deal, the photo of the actual plane flying over Manhattan?
Why didn't they just wait until AF-1 (or the plane) had a non-photo-op (i.e., legitimate) reason for flying to Manhattan and take the photos then?
Conan the Grammarian at April 30, 2009 12:00 PM
This admittedly partisan article speculates that high-level donors and political connections may have been on the flight.
It also gives a less-than-flattering background on Luis Caldera, the fall-on-your-sword guy in this matter.
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/04/29/flyover-launcher
Conan the Grammarian at April 30, 2009 12:25 PM
... that shot cost taxpayers $328,835
Actually, the shot didn't cost the taxpayers a dime.
Each aircraft belongs to a base, which has a Flight Hour Program for that plane: that is, a specific number of flight hours to be flown during the fiscal year. There is no way this photo opp was going to cause any supplemental to the FHP for those planes.
Therefore, while the cost of the flight time may have been $328K, that money was going to get spent in any event.
Why didn't they just wait until AF-1 (or the plane) had a non-photo-op (i.e., legitimate) reason for flying to Manhattan and take the photos then?
Two reasons -- it could be a long wait until AF1 has a reason to land in New York.
Second, when it lands there, the arrival into JFK does not provide any decent skyline shots.
The river arrival into La Guardia does, but AF1 doesn't land there.
Hey Skipper at April 30, 2009 10:05 PM
Thank you, Skipper.
Radwaste at May 1, 2009 7:28 AM
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