North of 49

It's funny how things come together. I have been blasted with a super hype gun beaming "The Hunger Games" into my brain to the point where I might actually recognize the young star of the film. I don't know her name but I'd be able to say "Aren't you the girl from the hunger games?". I'm not out to blast the film or the book. Both I'm sure are as well done as has been reported on every media info outlet in the world, it is a buzz. Yes I find buzzing an annoyance none the less the storyline is almost secondary to this post and while popularity is an issue Milla Jovovich as Joan of Arc in the 1999 film The Messenger the popularity of it in particular is not an issue. What intrigues me is the comparison of this story and the real life story of Joan of Arc. This is where things come together! I happened to be visiting my friend Diane, a wonderful French Canadian woman, on her TV was a movie called "The Messenger". At firs

I wonder what kind of calamity will be caused by the refusal of some in power to see and understand the affects caused by SMS technology! I didn't really get up to speed until I watched a few TEDx Talks. Sure I knew that the internet had possibilities but to think the net would be connected to a mobile phone sending and receiving  information in real time was too much to think about back in 93 or 94 when I got my first cell phone. I shouldn't have to keep up with these things after all we have lots of able bodies in the government to watch these trends and ignore them better than I can. The government of Canada is still not up to speed when it comes to the internet and personal communication and likely will never get into gear within my lifetime.  The lack of will to include crowd sourcing as a point of agenda within the major parties is short sighted but it is something to be avoided if you are opposed to an open democracy.  Could you imagine Stevie Harper going ove

So as I started in the post previous, competition for the right reason is fine but to make it solely a race for a buck is not in anyway positive for the human race. When will we all realize that money does not drive us?                        We create, we are curious and this is a positive it is discovery and progress when a person can follow through on a design, an idea, a question. In the current system a large part of that environment is created by what we call money and or connections.It would also seem that a monetary goal is set rather than one based purely on design. The reason for this is built right into the pure capitalist system a system which could call "if it aint broke don't fix it" as their credo. What money or wealth brings is not only that they might well be personally involved with people of inspiration and direction through out thier lives but also resources and time to act on those resources at their disposal. To see how competition can ruin some

A cynical take on the power of the net?  You bet a bit of wit  and  a mash up with Mr Wilder  as W. Wonka giving it that cynical tone, it wins. Of course it wins only by being clever not by being engaging. Who ever started this new campaign against this guy Has at least brought Africa to the attention, however short, of a young world wide audience. But this guy is small potatoes compared to the white sex slave traders in Eastern Europe or the child slaves taken through out Africa on a daily basis forced to work with no pay and the only way of saving the kid is to buy him or her back. Stopping there, just getting them out of the clutches of a fisherman or a Nut Job like Kony is rarely enough.  Particularly with child soldiers there is the profound  psychological damage to be dealt with but as important is  the need to take the  vulnerable  and give them some rudimentary skills that might keep them from having to accept the offer of a job that turns into a nightmare

Ah the summer of love! Of course I was born as the Hippies were integrating back into society disguised as work a day types who were raising kids and from a viral ascent the "hippy" hit it's apex and in a glorious shower of its own comet tail "the movement" came falling back to earth. It was for good reason, it became increasingly obvious that the ideals of the hippy could only be fully sustained by the grace of the establishment that they rebuffed and very cheap drugs such as LSD and marijuana. A strong minded person would see, after child number two was on the way, that kids preferred food to pot so Daddy was off to work and part of the system. I am not being cynical I'm just using a silly narrative. Truly I know people who lived the life of the hippy, I'm even old enough to say I had met the last of the true hobos down in a Calgary train yard and what I have seen is that the reformed or modified hippy would have a liberal attitude and a natural a

The thing to realize about this far northern clutch of dissimilar yet connected people is that change does come but it does take a good long time and that might be a result of it's global position or maybe it is caused by both the environment, which can go from bad to brutal to mind numbing in hours, and the cultural roots of the two main groups who settled the modern Fort McMurray, The MacAttack, Ft McMisery, Ft. McMuddy or simply The        Mac. This photo is probably from the late 70's early 80's. I now live about a block from the red towers. The two groups being the Native American and the Canadian Newfie,  I'm only kidding but you have to wonder if the laid back roots of these two cultures have given the town (city) the lag in development of the open downtown spaces or was it more just a practical reaction to the physical reality that when there is a flood Downtown lives up to its name it is clearly down under the water.  I have been here off and on from

I think the cable companies are set in the delivery system that they have in place but really should just go completely digital and menu driven rather than schedule driven. Wait a darn minute the companies have been mandated to be digital, Canada and the USA. So now what? They big cable firms and others in the industry who want illegal downloads to stop will probably have their way and the sites offering torrents will one by one at the least offer P2P view only or at worst simply shut it's site as happened a few days ago with BTJunkie. On one hand I understand the producers POV on the other I know this is a reaction by the industry to what they perceive as a drain on profit. I think if looked at from the sidelines we'd find that torrent and P2P sites have given back to the industry probably more than it has ever taken. This is more an accounting exercise rather than a moral argument and as is habit an accountant can be easily confused by interupting a calculation with the in