"SO MAMA, DON'T TAKE MY KODACHROME AWAY" WAS THE REFRAIN PAUL SIMON MADE FAMOUS in his 1973 Top 40 popdisk hit "Kodachrome."

Now you have to wonder what his reaction will be to the news that Eastman Kodak Company, which introduced Kodachrome film in 1936, has announced that it has ended, for all purposes and intents, production of Kodachrome, citing declining demand, increased acceptance of digital photography and the fact of only one laboratory (in Russell, Kansas, know--hometown of GOP thorn-in-the-side Bob Dole and News of the Weird columnist Chuck Shepherd) still processing Kodachrome in the known world.

(The which is a rather complex such: According to an AP item I was reading on the end of Kodachrome, such is essentially monochrome film when it arrives @ the processors', eventually revealing the three primary colours [red, yellow and blue] in as many separate steps during its processing.)

In any event, Ektachrome, another Kodak photographic film, has become the preferred colour film of choice among those still insisting on film photography in recent years, and will likely remain in production for the time being; with Kodachrome, however, the last remaining stocks will be all that's left, with the last roll likely to be sold sometime this fall.

Meanwhile, for those among you interested in digital photography, you can check out what Amazon.com has in store, with Your Correspondent benefiting in the end (as well as Some Good Causes):

So goodbye, Kodachrome. Photography will never forget you, even if it's mostly digital photography we're getting accustomed to.

*************

MEANWHILE, YOUR CORRESPONDENT STILL HAS TO ASK SUCH AMONG THE ZEALOT AND TRUE BELIEVER TYPES where they get the idea that:

• There is an interconnexion between the defence of Traditional Morality and that of free-market capitalism with American characteristics;
• Sustained prosperity requires the maintenance of racist and white-supremacist policies and beliefs; and
• Only White Male Low-Church Christians are entitled "as of a natural right" to control the "morally superior" free-enterprise system.