Hostess Twinkies go Bye-Bye… for now. But why? Who’s to blame?

Who’s to Blame for the Hostess Bankruptcy: Wall Street, Unions, or Carbs?

By Jordan Weissmann

Try all of the above.

There are two important things to realize about this rather sad situation. First: Twinkie, Wonder, and all the other high-calorie marvels of culinary science Hostess sells aren’t going to disappear from shelves for good. One of its competitors will likely swoop in, buy them up, and restart production. So you can stop bidding on $100 boxes of Sno Balls on eBay.

Hostess Brands, the maker of Twinkie and Wonder Bread, is getting ready to bake its last corn-syrupy snack cake. After failing to win major contract concessions from one of its key labor unions, the beleaguered 82-year-old company has asked a federal bankruptcy court for permission to start liquidating its assets — or, in real person speak, begin the process of selling off pieces of the company to the highest bidder while laying off most of its 18,500 workers. (Reuters)

Second: This is not a simple story that anybody should try to slot neatly into their political talking points. It’s not just about Wall Street preying on Main Street, or big bad labor unions sucking a wholesome American company dry. It’s about an entire galaxy of bad decisions that will cost many people their jobs and money.

As David Kaplan chronicled at length for Fortune earlier this year, the roots of this debacle go back to when Hostess entered its first bankruptcy in 2004. Not unlike the situation automakers would find themselves in a few years later, the company was collapsing under the weight of flagging sales, overly generous union contracts replete with ridiculous work rules, and gobs of debt. But unlike the automakers, the five years Hostess spent trying to fix itself in Chapter 11 didn’t fix its fundamental problems.

Instead, they set the stage for its eventual demise. A private equity company, Ripplewood Holdings, paid about $130 million dollars to take Hostess private, and the company’s two major unions, the Teamsters and the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, sacrificed about $110 million in annual wages and benefits. But

New fans find that film ain’t dead yet!

It may be on life support, but it’s still hanging on.

The odd thing about it is, that anyone can take a crappy picture, and most do. Lens flares, inaccurate color balance and other “quirky” things about these inferior quality cameras for some reason, endear them to their users.

Go figure.

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Just When You Got Digital Technology, Film Is Back

May 30, 2012, By JENNA WORTHAM

When is the last time you took a photo with an old-school camera — the kind that doesn’t have a wireless connection, needs to be loaded with finicky rolls of film and is too bulky to slide into a back pocket?

A panoramic image captured by one of Lomography’s cameras, the Spinner 360. (Lomography)

Unless you are a professional photographer or an artist, it has probably been a while. Most people have abandoned film cameras for digital models or, more recently, smartphones outfitted with lens accessories and apps like Instagram that make photo-sharing extremely simple.

But film photography is having another moment in the sun, thanks to some hip, quirky companies like Lomography and the Impossible Project, which are resurrecting this seemingly archaic art for