Lies, Damn Lies, and Network News
In the summer of 1980, I was a naive 19-year-old on a mission to backpack around the world. To achieve my goal, I had to pick up odd jobs and gigs along the way, since wiring money from home was a slow, expensive and laborious task.
I had gotten a job crewing on a sailing yacht from Amsterdam to Monaco for the season, which paid and fed well. I later found myself in Corfu, caddying for wealthy Greeks and crewing on the Bond film For Your Eyes Only. This gave me enough money to achieve one of my primary goals of visiting the pyramids at Giza.
While staying in Cairo, I frequented Shepheard’s Hotel, with one of the most famous bars in all of Africa. It was a combination of every stereotypical writer’s bar in every film noir ever — hot, dusty, smoky, and packed with foreign journalists and correspondents from around the world, drinking gin tonics and grousing about the latest assignment.
My hostel didn’t have fans, but Shepheard’s bar did, so I spent many afternoons escaping the clambake outside, reading and listening to tales of war and peace.
One afternoon, the correspondent from NBC Cairo was complaining about being sent to Johannesberg to cover the race riots. He looked at me, appraising my physical constitution, which was pretty buff back then. He called me over, slid a case out from under the table and asked me if I knew how to use a camera. I opened the case to find an Éclair NPR reflex self-blimped synch sound 16mm rig, with an Angénieux 12-120mm f/2.2 variable focal-length lens. It was beat up, but to my eyes looked like a stack of gold bars.
Looking through the viewfinder, I checked the front and back focus, then connected the cable from the battery belt and mounted the Sennheiser MKH 416 shotgun
Article from LewRockwell
LewRockwell.com is a libertarian website that publishes articles, essays, and blog posts advocating for minimal government, free markets, and individual liberty. The site was founded by Lew Rockwell, an American libertarian political commentator, activist, and former congressional staffer. The website often features content that is critical of mainstream politics, state intervention, and foreign policy, among other topics. It is a platform frequently used to disseminate Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that is popular among some libertarians.