Morning Lineup - August 31

Here it is, the end of the month already. I don’t know about you, but for me this month has just sailed by. I don’t know why.

Something else that has just sailed by is the transition from “sneaked it in” to “acceptable” for tiny video cameras clipped onto firefighters. Only a few months ago, fire/ambulance departments were sending out orders prohibiting members from operating personal videos at emergency incidents. They were usually framed with the standard worries about increasing liabilities from exposing actions that weren’t quite according to rule. But I suspect they were more worried about making the fire chief look foolish if his crews blundered their way through an incident. One tiny town in Maine even shut down their entire fire dept. temporarily over an innocent video (HERE).

Well, it’s come full circle now. A Boise fire lieutenant had a miniature camera clipped onto his helmet at that brush fire that burned 19 houses last week (HERE) and the fire department has released that video to the press where several tv stations have even been running it. Channel 2 was one of them and you can view it HERE.

That’s right, helmet cams have gone from disciplinary action to official press release literally overnight. Amazing.

But still we need to check this equipment out every morning. So get started on it while I go make another pot of coffee. Then we’ll polish off that big Sunday breakfast.

This week’s photo art is definitely looking ahead: