Done

Closing the blog on that note.

Words

Martin Streek

Contrary to what it may seem...I've never blogged under the influence before,

but tonight is an exception.


I'm under the influence of the memory of working, albeit indirectly, with Martin Streek.

I was never a club goer in Downtown T.O. but nevertheless I worked with Martin for 5 years at
CFNY, more commonly known as 102.1 The Edge.

cause everyone has a little edge in them.

And Martin, certainly had the edge in him.

He was heard by thousands every week, and energized those around him.

Martin. You were a good soul in a corporate world.

You gave far more, to so many people, than you could ever receive, or know.

And likely gave, because you knew the need to give.

But were not adequately appreciated for all that all you always gave.

And you gave in spades.

What kills is...

seeing what looks like a lack of vision, of your own creative capability, of your future,

of life itself,

and all it's endless possibilities,

and all that newness yet to be discovered, seen, known, and felt.

In that kind of moment,

in these kind of days,

at this kind of time,

might have been enough,

to make you feel you what you clearly felt,

was the only answer.


I say felt, because it is a sensitive soul who feels these things so profoundly.


You are not alone despite all you may have felt.


These are the times that tries men's souls.


Your loss is greater than you individually.

Though as an individual - you were lovely, and a serious loss.

Your loss is for everyone who remains.


The key is to find that new way.

That is always the purpose of life.

Despite or in spite of it all.

Especially when one cannot see their way through, or in it,

at the time they most cannot - that's when it is most key.


Martin, you were the consummate professional to have worked with.

You were a generous soul.

You were a charming soul.

You were a warm, and loving, and inclusive soul.

You were a deep soul who felt greatly, loved greatly, and knew far more than was ever articulated.

Your influence will be missed. Your energy will be missed.

You will be missed.

But you will be remembered by those who knew you, and who remain.

I guess that's how we live on.

Love to you...



Be at peace.

Sport of Kings and Queens-with-Plates to give away, and Leopards oh my!

Man's exploitative use of the horse has been ongoing, in every culture on earth, since 4500 BC.

Ah yes...Exploitative Man (which came immediately after prehistoric man), millennia and horse....
Where would any of us be without the trusty steed to have gallantly brought us to the wincing days of the V8 Mustang GT?

If we look back, it was somewhere in all that evolving of going from nomadic to an agriculturally inclined people...and all that sitting cross legged waiting around for the crops to take root and grow, man found he suddenly had some extra recreational time on his hands....add to that manure mix, annoying neighbours!

Notice how the term never came to be "yeabours"...no? Ever wonder why? Cause they make us whinny, and snort, and scoff, and shake our heads, and neigh at them as soon as we round the corner of our purposely built blocking buildings.

So it wasn't long before aggravated-cultural-neighbour-man-challenged-neighbour, to see who indeed had the stronger steed, who's horse was the most loyal to it's owner and would go the extra mile, or die trying, not to let it's master down.....with the horse knowing full well he'd probably get a thrashing once back in the barn, if it didn't out perform & outrun a comet in front of everyone, when reputations and high stakes are riding on it most.

Thus the horse race of testosterone stetsonhood was likely born.

Don't quote me, I may be having a Farley Mowat moment with my historical info.

But I bet you $20 on a 2-1 I'm not far off.

To gallop through the years at breakneck speed...

Genghis Khan [aka: Temüjin], Alexander-the-debateable-great, Joan of Arc, everyone who ever competed in all those Greek and Roman smash 'em crash em up chariot races, the Knights who say Ni...no wait, they only had coconuts for horses, but there were those who came back from those pillaging crusades with shiny sleek new preowned Arabian horses, which made their dowdy old frumpy lumpy saggy back droopy eyed English horses (who looked that way cause they knew damn well how depressing 364 days of unrelenting rain was) look a bit portly and peely wally, which reminds me...there was also John Wayne.

So, there it is.

Everyone who was anyone rode into history on horseback.

Like the guy who was on Eye Of The Leopard today at the 150th Queen's Plate at Woodbine Race track Toronto.

That horse ought to be eating off the fine china from Queen Elizabeth's very own dining room hutch and sitting at her table, for being at the top of his game today.

All the Kings horses and all the concerted efforts, from prehistoric man right up to today's exploitative man can sit back and simply chew in their feed bag knowing that's one more natural damn-hard-day in the life of a horse done.

Congratulations to Eye of the Leopard for devastating my Milwaukee Appeal choice into a state of on-the-track-ennui which resulted in third place race for him...poor wee colt will get a thrashing tonight even if it's only a tongue lashing thrashing - but not by me!!!!

I just hope these gorgeous animals are treated far better than royalty is. Every single day of the year, throughout their entire lives.

They are utterly regal, elegant and stunning. And humbling to watch go full out.
Nothing like raw natural thunderous power to stir the senses.

The appeal is real.

My only appeal would be that they, along with every animal species that have somehow managed to exist with exploitative man, is appreciated, loved, respected and taken care of.

We hardly deserve the beauty that exists.

But what a sight when we see it !

Horses Without Carriages

Did you know that June 6, 2009 is the Global Day to End the use of Carriage Horses?

Well now you do.

"Horses Without Carriages International" will hold a Global Day. In addition to Toronto, many other cities will be participating, including Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, Montreal, Belgrade, Rome, Vienna, Tel Aviv.

The goal to secure a win for animals everywhere, by animal lovers everywhere.

In New York City Alec Baldwin, Pink, Rosie O'Donnel, Rhue McClanahan, and Betty White will be up in hooves and have agreed to join in, to speak up for the horses, who would also be up in hooves, but are slaving away in the tourist trade.

It is for we tourists horses labour...and put at jeopardy everyday.

For more information, and some awful images of the carnage the carriage trade causes, please go to:

http://horseswithoutcarriages.org/

Some facts about New York City's Horse-Drawn Carriage Trade.....

• There are (5) major stables that are involved in the horse carriage industry. They are all on the far west side of Manhattan from 37th St. to 52nd St around 11th and 12th Avenue.
  
• 1. Bryne Stable - 547 West 37 Street
• 2. Westside Livery - 538 West 38 Street
• 3. Shamrock Stable - 522 West 45 Street
• 4. Chateau Farms - 608 West 48 Street
• 5. Clinton Park - 618 West 52 Street

• To get to work, horse carriages generally travel up 10th Avenue to the Central Park area, which begins at 59th St., and return to the stables by 9th Avenue. There are two hospitals in this area – St. Vincent’s Midtown and Roosevelt Hospital. The entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel is at 37-38th St.; there are several entrances to the West Side Highway in this area.

• There are no restrictions as to when horse carriages can travel to and from the park. Unlike Local Law 89, which expired in 1993, carriages may travel during rush hour.

• There are 68 carriage horse medallions or licenses -- one per cab.

• There are over 200 horses – according to an October 2005 list from the Department of Health.

• There are approximately 350 carriage drivers in the industry – according to the NY Post – January 2006

• In 1982 there were 141 carriage drivers. In 1993, there were 296 … Peggy Parker testimony before City Council committee – 11/29/93

• Most of the stables house horses on different levels, accessed by steep ramps.

• Most of the stables do not have adequate fire protection and are not required to have sprinkler systems.

• Most of the stables have stalls too small for a horse to turn around comfortably or to lie down.

• The average working life for a NYC carriage horse is 4 years – compared to 14-15 years for a NYC police horse – according to research by the Carriage Horse Action Committee.

• According to current legislation - Horses may not be worked when the temperature is 90 degrees or more, nor when it is 18 or below. There is no consideration for humidity index or wind chill factor.

• The law requires the ASPCA Humane Law Enforcement Officers to order the drivers to return to their stables when the above temperatures are reached. The drivers do not have to return on their own volition since it is the ASPCA officers who have access to the thermometer.

• “Manhattan asphalt [street] temperatures reach - well over 200 degrees – hot enough to melt asphalt.” NYTimes 7/29/89 – quote by then Commissioner of Department of Transportation.

• When the sum of ambient temperature (Fahrenheit) and relative humidity exceeds 150 (especially if humidity contributes more than half the sum) the evaporative cooling mechanism by sweating is severely compromised. (published in Equine Exercise Physiology - 9/22/82

• According to current legislation - Each horse can work up to nine hours in any 24 hour period. A horse can be worked every day according to the law.

Horses are kept standing for extended periods of time on hot asphalt without shade. There is no shade on Central Park South on the hack line. Boredom is just one of the feelings these horses experience.

In An Instant

Everything can change in an instant.

Everyone knows this.

But when such an instant happens

even if you just happen to witness an instant happen to someone you don't even know

it stops you in your tracks. Today I was stopped in my tracks.

And your heart goes out.

Because we will all have instances. Moments you can do nothing about, but are on the road of,

but you don't know it, nor can you alter the course of it.

An instant was all it took.

I just so happened to cast my eyes to my driver side door mirror
and saw the whole instant happen.

Then I heard my instant fear confirmed.

Then it got worse.

Which made me pull the car over and run back knowing I can't do anything, but I was just as stopped
as the poor innocent guy lying face down, not moving in the middle of the road.

Everything was moving along as normal as ever. Everyone going about their Thursday, pre-long weekend business
in the warm 5:30 pm sunshine.

The guy on the motorcycle who had just passed me was humming along perfectly, I don't know why I even cast my eyes down to my driver side mirror, but there he was simply continuing on

then I saw the full side length of a black car suddenly in front of him

but because of the distance I couldn't tell if the car was 5 feet in front of him, or 25 feet in front of him, or if the car had just jutted out of a street without looking, or if it was parked and just did a u-turn to go in the opposite direction.

But we all heard the guy on the motorcycle hit the brakes.

Then hit the car.

He, and bike parts, and glass, and everything was air bound.

Then he landed sprawled face down on the road.

Then the bike landed on him.

Gas leaked everywhere.

Everyone.

All of us who were going about our business stopped as instantly as he did.

Everything just stopped.

That instant was felt and shared and attended to by everyone there.

How could one not?

Poor guy.

It wasn't his fault.

It was particularly bad.

Motorcycle accidents generally are bad.

But this was genuinely bad.

I know this happens everyday, but there was just something about that instant.

I hope he will be okay.

But some instances are indefinite.

The Butterfly Effect

The "butterfly effect", and term, is the work of Edward Lorenz,
and is based in Chaos Theory and sensitive dependence on initial conditions,
first described in the literature by Jacques Hadamard in 1890.

The idea that one butterfly could eventually have a far-reaching ripple effect on subsequent historic events seems first to have appeared in a 1952 short story by Ray Bradbury about time travel, but it was Lorenz
who made the term popular in 1961.

Lorenz was using a numerical computer model to rerun a weather prediction, when, he shortcut on a number in the sequence, and entered .506 instead of entering the full .506127 number the computer would hold.

The result was a completely different weather scenario.

Which caused quite a flap.

Lorenz published his findings in a 1963 paper for the New York Academy of Sciences and he noted;
"One meteorologist remarked that if the theory were correct, one flap of a seagull's wings could change the course of weather forever.". In later speeches and papers by Lorenz used the more poetic butterfly.

According to the actual theory, if history could be "changed" at all (so that one is not invoking something like the Novikov self- consistency principle which would ensure a fixed self-consistent timeline), the mere presence of the time travelers in the past would be enough to change short-term events and would also have an unpredictable
impact on the distant future.

Therefore, if one could travel into the past, they could never return to the same version of reality he or she had come from and could have therefore not been able to travel back in time in the first place, which would create a phenomenon referred to as a time paradox.

Chaos theory describes the behavior of certain dynamic systems – systems whose states evolve with time – that may exhibit dynamics that are highly sensitive to initial conditions

Chaotic behavior is also observed in natural systems, such as the weather...politics and the economy.

This may be explained by a chaos-theoretical analysis of a mathematical model of such a system, embodying the laws of physics that are relevant for the natural system.Turbulence in the tip vortex from an airplane wing shows the critical point beyond which a system creates turbulence which is important for Chaos theory, analyzed by Soviet physicist Lev Landau who developed the Landau-Hopf theory of turbulence.

The Chaordic Age, as coined by Dee Hock, refers to a system that blends characteristics of chaos and order.

The mix of chaos and order is described as a harmonious coexistence displaying characteristics of both, with neither chaos nor order behaving predominately. Some maintain that nature, and the universe, is largely organized in such a Chaordic manner; particularly, living organisms and the evolutionary process by which they arose are often described as chaordic in nature.

oh the chaordic turbulence we unwittingly incur.

Here's Looking at you Earth Day

Responding to a huge oil spill off the Californian coast in 1969, Gaylord Nelson, a United States Senator from Wisconsin, called for an environmental teach-in, or Earth Day, to be held on April 22, 1970.

Over 20 million people participated that year. Earth Day is now observed each year by more than 500 million people and national governments in 175 countries.

oh the irony given that, in September 1969 at a conference in Seattle, Washington, U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson spoke of the great concern about overpopulation and about a movement towards "Zero Population Growth."

Nelson viewed the stabilization of the nation's population as an important aspect of environmentalism and later said: "The bigger the population gets, the more serious the problems become...We have to address the population issue".

Earth Day 2007 was one of the largest Earth Days to date, with an estimated billion people participating in the activities in thousands of places like Kiev, Ukraine; Caracas, Venezuela; Tuvalu; Manila, Philippines; Togo; Madrid, Spain; London; and New York.

More than a half billion people participate in Earth Day Network campaigns every year.

Senator Nelson chose the date as the one that could maximize participation on college campuses for what he conceived as an environmental teach-in. He determined that the week of April 19-25 was the best bet. It did not fall during exams or spring breaks, did not conflict with religious holidays such as Easter or Passover, and was late enough in spring to have decent weather. More students were likely to be in class, and there would be less competition with other events mid-week, so he chose Wednesday, April 22.

Asked whether he had purposely chosen Lenin's 100th birthday, Nelson explained that with only 365 days a year and 3.7 billion people in the world, every day was the birthday of ten million living people.

“On any given day, a lot of both good and bad people were born,” he said. “A person many consider the world’s first environmentalist, Saint Francis of Assisi, was born on April 22.“

April 22 is also the birthday of Julius Sterling Morton, the founder of Arbor Day, a national tree-planting holiday started in 1872. Arbor Day became a legal holiday in Nebraska in 1885, to be permanently observed on April 22, to coincide with the best tree planting weather."

Butterflies are notable for their unusual life cycle with a larval caterpillar stage, an inactive pupal stage, and a spectacular metamorphosis into a familiar and colourful winged adult form.

Butterflies migrate over long distances. Particularly famous are the migration of the Monarch butterfly from Mexico to North America, a distance of about 4,000 to 4,800 kilometres (2500-3000 miles).

Other well known migratory species include the Painted Lady and several of the Danaine butterflies. Spectacular and large scale migrations associated with the Monsoons are seen in peninsular India.

Butterflies are seen as the personification of a person's soul. And symbolize immortality.

One Japanese superstition says that if a butterfly enters your guest room and perches behind the bamboo screen, the person whom you most love is coming to see you.

The Russian word for "butterfly", бабочка (bábochka), also means "bow tie".

In some old cultures, butterflies also symbolize rebirth into a new life after being inside a cocoon for a period of time.

The Earth, and every living thing upon it, would benefit if we all morphed meta-lly, like the butterfly, and lived with a light footprint, so as to strengthen the fragile and retain that which has taken literally eons to evolve and be, and marvel at how everything has come to be.

So get out there and hug the earth with your eyes and heart.

Wooden Post

So as not to splinter too far from the previous post...

On Kizhi Island, in Lake Onega, in Karelia, Russia is a work of wooden wonder, art & architecture.

With it's twenty-two Aspen wood spires, The Church of the Transfiguration was built in 1714,
and was only added to UNESCO's Heritage List in 1990.

The wooden church is a testament to man and Nature's capability, complexity, adaptability, beauty, harmony of form and function.

It defies every can't ever uttered.

It inspires, as only nature can.
Is there a better built environment to and for worship than with Nature's elements itself?

It stands as a symbol, without using a single nail.

The nature of wood, being wood, it has a penchant to disintegrate, so it has been a continual struggle for people to learn the ancient artisan's ways and replace the decaying wood before the structure [and people's] integrity is lost to time.

The most stunning image of this church I've seen was taken by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, in his book: Earth From Above. 366 Days. Sadly, it is neither of these photos, but I highly recommend Yann's photography. His are some of the most beautiful images, and locations to behold. Seek it. Find it.

If only to remind yourselves....to let your imagination soar, and look at the beauty that is all around.

Wooden Church & Easter Pysanky

I noticed a gorgeous wooden church from the road today, so took a detour to have a better look and learn more.

It was St. Elias Toronto Ukrainian Catholic Church a waaaaaay out on rural Heritage Road.

And, it turned out they were selling pysanky Saturday 12pm - 3pm!

In Eastern Europe

Elijah was described as ascending into heaven in a fiery chariot, the Christian missionaries who converted Slavic tribes likely found him an ideal analogy for Perun, the supreme Slavic god of storms, thunder and lightning bolts. In many Slavic countries Elijah is known as Elijah the Thunderer (Ilija Gromovnik), who drives the heavens in a chariot and administers rain and snow.

And, in Eastern-European folklore, Elijah is portrayed in his "Thunderer" persona:

It was said; Jesus, the prophet Elijah, and St. George were going through Georgia. When they became tired and hungry and wanted to eat. They saw a Georgian shepherd and decided to ask him to feed them. First, Elijah went up to the shepherd and asked him for a sheep. After the shepherd asked his identity, Elijah said that he was the one who sent him rain to get him a good profit from farming. The shepherd became angry at him and told him that he was the one who also sent thunderstorms, which destroyed the farms of poor widows. (After Elijah, Jesus and St. George made attempts to get help and eventually succeeded).

As in many ancient cultures, Ukrainians worshipped a sun god (Dazhboh). The sun was important - it warmed the earth and thus was a source of all life.

Eggs decorated with nature symbols became an integral part of spring rituals, serving as benevolent talismans.

A pysanka Ukrainian: писанка, plural: pysanky) is a Ukrainian Easter egg, decorated using a wax-resist (batik) method.

The word comes from the verb pysaty, "to write", as the designs are not painted on, but written with beeswax.

Pysanky were thought to protect households from evil spirits, catastrophe, lightning and fires.

The Hutsuls––Ukrainians who live in the Carpathian Mountains of western Ukraine––believe that the fate of the world depends upon the pysanka. As long as the egg decorating custom continues, the world will exist. If, for any reason, this custom is abandoned, evil––in the shape of a horrible serpent who is forever chained to a cliff–– will overrun the world. Each year the serpent sends out his minions to see how many pysanky have been created. If the number is low the serpent's chains are loosened and he is free to wander the earth causing havoc and destruction. If, on the other hand, the number of pysanky has increased, the chains are tightened and good triumphs over evil for yet another year.

Many other eastern Europeans, including the Belarusians (пісанка), Bulgarians (писано яйце, pisano yaytse), Serbs (pisanica), Czechs (kraslice), Lithuanians (margutis), Poles (pisanka), Romanians (ouă vopsite or incondeiate), Slovaks (kraslica), and Slovenes (pisanica or pirh) decorate eggs for Easter.

Happy Easter

Traditional & Modern Ukrainian Pysanky

All a Twitter

The streets of Chişinău Moldova were quiet Wednesday morning.

Protesters had left the scene of the rioting on Tuesday night, and police retook control of parliament.

But opposition leaders said protests would continue.

Vlad Filat, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, called the demonstrations
"a spontaneous action by protesting young people".

He said the opposition had tried to prevent excesses, like the attacks on parliament, but said:
"We are not scared of arrests or intimidation. The people do not want to live like this and want
to live free and without fear."

Word of the demonstrations was spread by text message, via the internet, and on social networking tools.

"We sent messages on Twitter but didn't expect 15,000 people to join in. At the most we expected 1,000," Oleg Brega, of the activist group Hyde Park told the Associated Press news agency.


In Moldova's general election on April 5, 2009 the Communist Party won 50% of the votes, followed by the Liberal Party with 13% of the votes and the Liberal Democratic Party with 12%. The opposition leaders have protested against the outcome calling it fraudulent and demanded a repeated election.

A report by OSCE said Sunday's vote was "generally free and fair".

However, one member of the OSCE observation team questioned that conclusion: Baroness Emma Nicholson said that she and a number of other team members feel that there had been some manipulation, but they were unable to find any proof.

But opposition leaders organized a protest demonstration on April 6 and 7, 2009, with thousands of young protesters in Chişinău, accusing the Communist government of electoral fraud.

The demonstration spun out of control and turned into a riot when a crowd attacked the parliament building and broke into the presidential offices, looting and setting them on fire.

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC OF MOLODVA
Adopted on the 29 th of July 1994

“The State of the Republic of Moldova
(1) The Republic of Moldova is a sovereign, independent, unitary and indivisible state.
(2) The form of government of the State is the republic.
(3) Governed by the rule of law, the Republic of Moldova is a democratic State…”

After 188 years of ink...

The Guardian Switches to Twitter (2009)

The Guardian announced it would become "the first newspaper in the world to be published exclusively via Twitter, the sensationally popular social networking service that has transformed online communication," thus rendering its printing presses obsolete. It also revealed an ongoing project to rewrite its entire news archive in the form of "tweets" (Twitter's text messages that are limited to 140 characters each).

Twitter switch for Guardian, after 188 years of ink

• Newspaper to be available only on messaging service
• Experts say any story can be told in 140 characters

Consolidating its position at the cutting edge of new media technology, the Guardian today announces that it will become the first newspaper in the world to be published exclusively via Twitter, the sensationally popular social networking service that has transformed online communication.

The move, described as "epochal" by media commentators, will see all Guardian content tailored to fit the format of Twitter's brief text messages, known as "tweets", which are limited to 140 characters each. Boosted by the involvement of celebrity "twitterers", such as Madonna, Britney Spears and Stephen Fry, Twitter's profile has surged in recent months, attracting more than 5m users who send, read and reply to tweets via the web or their mobile phones.

As a Twitter-only publication, the Guardian will be able to harness the unprecedented newsgathering power of the service, demonstrated recently when a passenger on a plane that crashed outside Denver was able to send real-time updates on the story as it developed, as did those witnessing an emergency landing on New York's Hudson River. It has also radically democratised news publishing, enabling anyone with an internet connection to tell the world when they are feeling sad, or thinking about having a cup of tea.

"[Celebrated Guardian editor] CP Scott would have warmly endorsed this - his well-known observation 'Comment is free but facts are sacred' is only 36 characters long," a spokesman said in a tweet that was itself only 135 characters long.

A mammoth project is also under way to rewrite the whole of the newspaper's archive, stretching back to 1821, in the form of tweets. Major stories already completed include "1832 Reform Act gives voting rights to one in five adult males yay!!!"; "OMG Hitler invades Poland, allies declare war see tinyurl.com/b5x6e for more"; and "JFK assassin8d @ Dallas, def. heard second gunshot from grassy knoll WTF?"

Sceptics have expressed concerns that 140 characters may be insufficient to capture the full breadth of meaningful human activity, but social media experts say the spread of Twitter encourages brevity, and that it ought to be possible to convey the gist of any message in a tweet.

For example, Martin Luther King's legendary 1963 speech on the steps of the Lincoln memorial appears in the Guardian's Twitterised archive as "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by", eliminating the waffle and bluster of the original.

At a time of unprecedented challenge for all print media, many publications have rushed to embrace social networking technologies. Most now offer Twitter feeds of major breaking news headlines, while the Daily Mail recently pioneered an iPhone application providing users with a one-click facility for reporting suspicious behaviour by migrants or gays. "In the new media environment, readers want short and punchy coverage, while the interactive possibilities of Twitter promise to transform the online media guru Jeff Jarvis said in a tweet yesterday, before reaching his 140-character limit, which includes spaces. According to subsequent reports, he is thinking about going to the theatre tonight, but it is raining :(.

A unique collaboration between The Guardian and Twitter will also see the launch of Gutter, an experimental service designed to filter noteworthy liberal opinion from the cacophony of Twitter updates. Gutter members will be able to use the service to comment on liberal blogs around the web via a new tool, specially developed with the blogging platform WordPress, entitled GutterPress.

Currently, 17.8% of all Twitter traffic in the United Kingdom consists of status updates from Stephen Fry, whose reliably jolly tone, whether trapped in a lift or eating a scrumptious tart, has won him thousands of fans. A further 11% is made up of his 363,000 followers replying "@stephenfry LOL!", "@stephenfry EXACTLY the same thing happened to me", and "@stephenfry Meanwhile, I am making myself an omelette! Delicious!"

According to unconfirmed rumours, Jim Buckmaster, the chief executive of Craigslist, will next month announce plans for a new system of telepathy-based social networking that is expected to render Twitter obsolete within weeks.

April Fool.

The Power At Your Fingertips

There is an electrical election tomorrow, Saturday March 28th, and the ballot box is right in your home, and right at your fingertips.

1,429 cities and towns in over 80 countries will flip the switch this year, and cast their votes.

Stand tall along side some of the most recognizable monuments across the globe like the Sydney Opera House, The Golden Gate Bridge, New York's Empire State Building, and Toronto's CN Tower who will all be participating.

Earth Hour started in Sydney, Australia in 2007 when 2.2 million people agreed to turn off their lights for one hour.

Earth Hour apparently spread at the speed of light last year and went global with approximately 50 million people turning off their lights around the world.

Earth hour's goal this year is to see, by way of not seeing, 1 Billion people make their silent statements from the comfort of their intimately cosy homes.

For the first time in history, our silent personal action will be counted as a vote.

And the number of 'voters' (even if your not 18, here's your opportunity to vote, so flick those switches off)
will be presented to the UN Global Climate Change Conference being held in Copenhagen this December.

This very conference will determine official international government actions to address climate change and global warming

which will replace the Kyoto Protocol.

If you've ever wanted to "do" anything about that which you always felt was way beyond anything you could do to effect any change....don't tell me flicking every light switch off, that is in your house, is beyond your capacity.

If so, then the world really is in trouble, and so are you, should we call someone to help you? Contact us by morse code using your light switch....oh wait, I see the problem there...ah well...I guess it's lights out for you.

I think I would rather be left in the dark than learn how extensive our complacency really is.

But I will certainly wait to be enlightened about how many people stopped and thought, and cared enough to give a damn about this gorgeous, this singularly unique, this wondrously enchanting planet we have the privilege of living on.

Plus, we need to practise for when no one can afford fuel or energy, heat or light....we need to get over our fear of the dark, and let go of our electric security blanket, at least as long as a rinse cycle would take.

One hour, a year at a time.

We can do it.

We have to!

Evidently Governments around the world won't take active measures of doing anything vital UNTIL a lot of us make a silent and peaceful statement, so let's not let conveniently unconscionable forgetfulness and laziness be the death of democracy, along with every living species, and ourselves, and our children's-children's life, livelihood and future.

Cut and paste this and have a listen, and stop and think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd1BsNvEXqo

or hit www.earthhour.org


What is more important, than the earth that enables us to do it?

Stop The Silence Canada

Canada's freedom of speech is currently hanging in the Harper-built-gallows as we speak....

so to speak.

ahhh....to be able to speak soto

...freely.

Dundee born, George Galloway, 5 time elected Liberal MP from Scotland, who was, yes yes yes, admittedly expelled from Parliament in 2003 for articulating his views on the illegal war that was about to be embarked upon by Bush and Blair as those two were hopping and skipping merrily, headlong, arm-and-arm together into an illegal and insane war and occupation of undeniable, blatant and ridiculous proportions.

George Galloway is anti-war. ....and not an angel, but this is about nothing other than

freedom of speech. (and the Scots have a thing about freedom)

But, being Scottish, and a wee bitty over the top, he takes staunch stands on silly little things like the insanity that was the war in Iraq and Afghanistan...and generally feels compelled to champion any underdogs causes, he speaks to & for those who are set up to lose their lives and livelihoods, he's for the humanity that tends to get caught in the unfair cross hairs of otherwise unbalanced powers, and renown International....

....bullies.

Harper is anti-freedom of speech.

But, being an eyelash fluttering admirer of George Bush....and being such a fuddy duddy wanna-be bully himself, Harper and his boy wonder, Jason Kenney Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, have been 'advised' by a very defensive Jewish Defence League, to not let George Galloway step foot in Canada because he has allegedly financially helped Arab under dogs who have been on the receiving end of Israeli offensives.

Why is no one questioning how such offensives are even afforded and funded?

It's like a kid with a shiny new knife crying because someone might have tossed his already beaten up, bleeding worrying victim a rock. Can't ever have a fight when both sides are actually armed now can we?

That is so not fair.

Thus, Harper and boy wonder are holding potential truths hostage, thereby sending Canada digressing so far back into the dark ages, we can't see our ground-scraping-knuckles in front of our half opened eyes, let alone say or type out a few words on the subject.

By not letting George Galloway the anti-war MP (who currently serves on dissertation committees at the University of Toronto and the University of Ottawa) into our once, strong-and-free-country, to honour his scheduled four-city Canadian tour of speaking engagements that were to begin in Toronto March 30, March 31 in Mississauga,
April 1 in Montreal, and in Ottawa on April 2, freedom of speech, and the expression of ideas and the prevention of open discussion is more of an affront than what the guy might actually say. But now we'll never know that will we?

Tell you what...what's say we let the guy speak and hear first-knuckle-scraping-hand what he has to say, and see if and how and where he offends, and then address the matter, openly, diplomatically, and publicly.

Let the man commit a mistake first (if he's even going to) it's what we let our criminals do everyday, why should he get special treatment?

This freedom of thought prevention thing has a bit of a serious connotation to it don't you think?

No oh wait...you're not supposed to be doing that. Thinking is dangerous, and evidently liable!

But if you're feeling particularly dangerous ask yourself this....

Since when is anti war something to be smothered, suffocated and silenced in Canada?

Since when does the views and opinions of one group, outweigh all other opinion from even being heard?

And just when exactly did Canada get the brain by-pass surgery?!?!

What happened to critical thinking and open debates? Freedom? hellooo...it's in the dictionary, must freedom only exist there?

How on earrrrrrth is this suffocating blanket of silence GOOD for anyone, or any country anywhere, I ask you?

How insecure must a person / un-primed minister / group BE to be so a-feared of anyone saying anything
they don't wanna hear? Are they so flimsy and cannot survive without pulverizing that which they cannot win in an intelligent debate?


...or are these questions not allowed to be debated or discussed publicly lest a blanket gets thrown over our heads and we get whisked away never to be heard or seen again?

Hoodwinking. How archaic can you get?!

Dark ages indeed.

It's times like these, the argument for evolution really has a hard time standing upright doesn't it?

Equality Twice A Year

March 20th 11:44 am is the precise moment,
the earth's equinox occurs.

Where day and night are equal to one another...
and there is equality whether people want it or not.

When Spring arrives and we crash to our knees
for having survived yet another winter

...or is it just me who feels this way?

Some facts

* World Storytelling Day is a global celebration of the art of oral storytelling,
celebrated every year on the spring equinox in the northern hemisphere,
the first day of autumn equinox in the southern.

* World Citizen Day occurs on the March equinox.

* Earth Day was initially celebrated on March 21, 1970,
on the equinox day. But was likely thought to be too pagan.
So it is now celebrated in various countries on April 22.

People in the Americas and Asia are accustomed to expecting the equinoxes to occur on March 21,
which did, in fact, occur quite frequently in the 20th century and will occur occasionally in the 21st century,
but due to some high precision clock that tracks these things (which is at least four hours in advance of any clock
in the Americas and as much as twelve hours behind Asian clocks), there will be no spring equinox later than March 20 in the Americas in the 21st century.

sproing!

Read All About It !

That sequence of silence this month was performance art on my part....

My silence was a representation of the-quiet-silencing-that-is-slowly-creeping-over-the-world-like-a-thick-fog.

As newspapers run their last editions, and as television media companies cauterize their costs which, more often than not, are found in the way of eliminating employees and shedding their assets like a snake skin....leaving husks, reducing reporters and leaving what few journalists left, with less forums in which to articulate the silent strep throat scream that is spreading faster than-said-virus in every city, country and industry around the world.

The poetic injustice of only being able to print and report THAT they are having to shut down their century old institutions, but nothing of the aftermath, the human fallout, the implications, ramifications, result or consequences closing and boarding up physical and proverbial doors have, IS the ignorance and darkness we'll be left sitting in as more cities lose their local news papers, radio and tv stations, until there are fewer windows to let in the light of day and clarity of integral reporting and information, which the eyes, ears and minds of millions will forever need (if they are sentient). That being, objective, insightful, independent, well researched, intelligent critical thinking and information they can trust and rely on.

not stuff like you find in blogs like this for gawds sake...but the real McCoy.

Imagine what life would be like if we didn't have independent, unembedded information that miraculously made its way to our eyes, ears and mind?

We'd be dumber than a stump by twelve noon.

But we'd never know it.

It's that not-knowing how much we were never-informed-of that will be the death of us.

That's like not knowing our history....the worlds history....or science....biology....physics.....
the environment...evolution....cosmology....philosophy....ethics and morality....

Don't ask me HOW it's like these things, only THAT it is as fundamentally essential as all of these things....

...such knowledge is vital to our well rounded personal comprehension and collective growth.

Last month, Colorado's Rocky Mountain News published their final issue, 55 days before it could turn 150 years old leaving the city with one last remaining paper, The Denver Post.




In other news - In 1863 The Settle Post Intelligencer printed it's first newspaper issue, and on March 16th 2009 printed its last newsprint edition.

It now only exists online existentially.

France, despite that French penchant for striking every 2 minutes, have suavely stepped up to the print industry's current situation, by saying the government has a duty, a responsibility to ensure there is future in the print industry in a speech to industry leaders, President Nicolas Sarkozy said it was legitimate for the state to consider the print media's economic situation."It is indeed its responsibility ... to make sure an independent, free and pluralistic press exists,"he said.

In measures that took effect last month, the state increased its annual support for newspaper and magazine deliveries to euro 70 million ($90 million) from euro 8 million last year, and spend euro 20 million more a year for its advertisements in print publications. The state will also defer some fees the publications face.
The initiative is designed to help the sector over three years "to modernize and invest in the print media sector in exchange for important structural reforms," he said. The measures he announced recently came from recommendations that were printed in a three-month study into the industry's health that was released in Jan. 2009. The study also recommends that newspapers restructure their finances and that journalists be better trained for multiple forms of media, including online.

"None of the proposed measures ... will be useful in the end if the profession doesn't meet its challenges," he said. "The industry has a future to reinvent...."

What-Fi-Sees is - every person, industry and country will find it is time to reinvent, re-envision & re-present themselves.

In a word: evolve

...that tricky little thing that has plagued people for eons heaped upon eons
but there it is, as has it always been, it's our only way forward...cause there ain't no goin back!

I look forward to reading about it when it happens.

Iraq's National Museum Reopens

Iraq reopened it's National Museum today after being ransacked
by a US led invasion in 2003 under the command of George W Bush.




50,000 artifacts of antiquity disappeared in one of the worlds worst,
and concerted cases of erasing 7000 years of human history.

And it was done in 48 hours of unparalleled 'looting'.

Only 15,000 artifacts have been returned.

Archaeologically rich topsoil of Mesopotamia was used to fill sandbags as well.

~~~~~~~~

For everyone and everything that has survived dark times....

It falls to us to prevent tyrants from destroying our human history.

History is everyone's story. Every heritage is woven into our human history.

At what point will we evolve to the point of preventing history from repeating itself?

More Scat

1 year ago I began leaving, some little and some lengthy, deposits for passerby's to stare at, as they strolled and scrolled around the web.

I recall promising to be regular...but have experienced some....lulls.

I find it strange to see that one year ago blogging seemed to help me get through the winter, whereas silence - peace and quiet is what has been required to get through this winter.

But it is my hope that I continue to leave the odd and unexpected steaming little meadow muffin for you.

Space Scat

Had to share this image and info from the BBC today.

So....an American and a Russian satellite collided over Siberia sending space debris everywhere.

But as the BBC also pointed out, there are approximately 17,000 man-made objects above 10cm in size that orbit Earth - and the number is constantly increasing. This in turn raises the risk of collisions between objects.

Nevertheless, experts say the incident was extremely unusual. The vastness of space means the probability of two spacecraft colliding is very low indeed.

But there are still major capability gaps in current systems set up for this task.

Intact satellites share Earth's orbit with everything from spent rocket stages, spacecraft wreckage to stuff as small as paint flakes and dust.

And that's just in the first 51 years of flinging things into space.

Sweet lord what a messy, self serving species we evidently are.

GUNG HAY FAT CHOY!

Welcome to the year of the Ox.....
(... is it just me that see a BIG hug and little kiss when I see the word Ox? ; )

Eitherway, whats say we just welcome the year we may hug and kiss an Ox how does that sound?

The Chinese Lunar New Year marks the end of winter and the possibility of there being a spring despite all bitter cold temperatures these day!

And what better way to ring in the Chinese New Year than with a solar eclipse that could be seen in
parts of the African continent, a wee bit of India, South East Asia, and a wee bit of Australia.

The first Lunar eclipse of the year will occur on February 9th. The eastern parts of Canada and the United States, will miss the eclipse because it begins after moonset. But people in the western parts of Canada and the USA will have the best views with moonset occurring sometime after the mid-eclipse. To catch the entire eclipse, one must be in places such as Alaska, Australia, eastern Asia, Hawaii or New Zealand.

But I get ahead of myself....

Have a prosperous and healthy New Year everyone!

Caledonia's Bard

The world's poet.

'k, if not the world's poet, then he was the Bruce Springsteen or the Bob Seger of the working mans rhyme and life, the Bob Marley of melody, love and music, the Bob Dylan of civil disobedience, humanitarian, libertarian, equalitarian and freewill living.

Robert Burns was born 250 years ago on January 25th 1759 in a wee Ayrshire single room cottage that housed hens, livestock, a dirt floor, and thatched roof.

The cottage stands to this day, though it is better maintained than it would've been in his own day.

He was dirt poor in material life, but rich beyond riches internally, despite serious strife.

Burns wrote and spoke of and for the working man, and wrote using the everyday truncated vernacular of the country chouchter (the hard working farmer) [pronounced chooook'ter], and spoke of every universal plight, sight, feeling, sensation, lament, love, life or fright....but he did so in a truly unique and remarkable way - it was from one of the most unfathomably deep hearts to have beat in a human body.

His passion for life, his love, his humanity, his compassion, his love of laughter and joy for everything that simply is or was, was a different ken [knowing] altogether. One that isn't long for this life, but lives on for centuries for having honoured his innate love and talent, however impractical, in a pragmatic world that is fixed on collecting rent money, and working people to premature deaths, as was his own fathers fate who died at 24yrs of age.

Robert Burns died when he was 37 without a shilling to his name - literally.
Nevertheless, he was recognized as the Bard throughout Caledonia, and beyond.
He was granted the largest funeral in the history of Scotland at that time.

So, although he died utterly penniless, he was loved and respected by countless people.

Scotland itself is flinging open the doors throughout 2009 and inviting all ex-pats to return to honour Burns' life
on his 250ieth anniversary.

So says I....

raise yer snifter glass and wee dram,
and say Slange Va to the man.

tho' you be gone, yer words live oan
and will move emb'dy
wi'' heart enough to read them.

Slange va! Robert Burns

Cheers wee man, cheers.

Painting of Tam O' Shanter
by: Alexander Grant - my grandfather