Bad bag

Boy it's a great day today. Not too warm here in the mountains but with an abundance of sunshine and a pleasing lack of bugs of the blood sucking kind.
This week was again more relaxed partly due to our glorious Fête Nationale which fell on the 24th and is a mandatory holiday here in Quebec.

I don't go to the supermarket that often. My wife handles the grocery shopping mainly because we've decided that it's not my domain. I can find my way around a hardware store but supermarkets are boring to me. I couldn't care less about a yogurt going on sale but it somehow excites my wife. Recently, the mega supermarket chains have started a trend that really pisses me off. They've decided to not give anymore plastic bags to their customers at the check out counter to apparently save the environment. Actually, if you want one to put your groceries in, they'll sell you one for five cents. More idiotic corporate PR bullshit... Throwing the ball in the consumer's yard to make him feel like he's actively doing his part to rid the world of this terrible bane we call the plastic bag. This makes as much an impact on the environment than a pimple would on Oprah's ass. ( By the way Tim Wilson has an excellent song about overexposed celebrities at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-5d5IfdYK4).

Meanwhile in these oversized markets, everything is either wrapped in plastic, or comes in plastic and by the facial expression I get from the store employees, I suspect their faces are also made of plastic. You have boxes with plastic inside, boxes with plastic outside, eggs now come in plastic, cheese is often wrapped in plastic (some of it might even be plastic) and the vast majority of containers for water, juices, spices, you name it, are now plastic made. Am I missing anything here..? It goes as far as putting plastic in plastic. Garbage bags come in a plastic bag. It would make more sense to me if they used one of the bags to package the others.I made good use of those grocery bags, mainly disposing of my doggies poop in a responsible manner. And why couldn't they have adopted degradable plastic bags..? They are abundant nowadays but I suspect that they cost just a little more to produce. This trend as also contaminated our government run liquor board, the S.A.Q. and it's outlets. They used to put your purchases, wine, beer or spirits in paper or plastic bags. But they don't do that anymore. They want you to buy a nifty designer like reusable bag, which they sell on the premises, so you think you're saving a tree, a tire or something. More fuckin' hypocrisy bullshit from a corporate minded government. Why...? Well because they don't have a bottle consignment policy for any of their products including beer. You're expected to clean them out and put them in your little recycling blue bin so that the glass will maybe find it's way to a mash up facility and then be resold to you in another fashion or product along the way. Recycling glass is much more energy consuming and wasteful than a proper
consignment policy.

I'm not against recycling but I am against the propagandist illusion maintained by our governments and big corporations that we are individually saving the planet by tossing a few bottles and some plastic containers in a separate containment unit each week. It takes much more than that I'm afraid. Michael Moore whom I equate to a social shock jock, wrote a great piece on the subject on his blog at
http://greenyes.grrn.org/2003/04/msg00052.html if you care to read it.

So the next time you bring your conscience saving reusable bag to go grocery shopping,take a good look at all the wasteful plastic wrappings and containers. If you're doing your part, why shouldn't they..?

Footnote: The green you see in the picture is not of rolling hills of grass. I stumbled upon this site of broken glass by chance one day in an industrial part of town. The white paper mixed in seems like labels which is odd. I couldn't find out anything there because I was immediately escorted to the entrance by an angry foreman who didn't appreciate the fact that I was taking pictures of this top secret installation.

Have some mesc..!

Thank God for an uneventful week after the porcupine incident. We've started to go walking in the woods with the dogs again now that the prickly little beasts have departed to higher grounds.During the week I often peruse the net for news and other tidbits of interest. I came upon this headline by accident while going about my daily routine.
People not smart enough to understand universe: scientist.
This comes from an interview with Lord Martin Rees the president of the Royal Society of Astronomy in England. Surely anyone who's ever seen a live parliamentary debate or the Doctor Phil Show will agree without question. Lord Rees states that the idea of multiple parallel universes, human consciousness and the very idea of reality may be simply beyond our understanding.'' Just as a fish may be barely aware of he medium in which it lives and swims, so the microstructure of empty space could be far too complex for unaided human brains." The idea of parallel universes or dimensions is not new. If you've ever heard of the string theory it's worth looking into. I won't dwell on this but you can get a brief intro on it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtdE662eY_M
This immediately made me think of Aldous Huxley who wrote '' Each person is at each moment capable of remembering all that has ever happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. The function of the brain and nervous system is to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused by this mass of largely useless and irrelevant knowledge, by shutting out most of what we should otherwise perceive or remember at any moment, and leaving only that very small and special selection which is likely to be practically useful." According to such a theory, each one of us is potentially Mind at Large''. This is most probably identical to the One Mind philosophy in Zen Buddhism. He concludes ''But in so far as we are animals, our business is at all costs to survive. To make biological survival possible, Mind at Large has to be funneled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system. What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the surface of this Particular planet''.He also believed that this so called reduction valve could be dilated by the use of drugs, especially mescaline the main active ingredient in peyote. Aboriginal peoples in south america have been using the drug in rituals for thousands of years to alter their state of consciousness and get closer to the gods which could be interpreted as transcending their unilateral dimension. We have somehow forgotten how these so called primitives had a much better understanding of the universe and it's fragile equilibrium. Even when we send our high tech toys to explore the space frontier, in effect, we're still playing in our own backyard. Some people resort to meditation or yoga with the same objective in mind, supraconsciousness . Others have used drugs to accelerate the process of understanding the universe and our place in the whole scheme of things. Unsatisfied with the unilateral vision of the world they lived in, Timothy Leary, Terence McKenna, Hunter S.Thompson, Beaudelaire and a horde of other creative individuals embarked on psychedelic journeys to ascend to a different plane of thought and consciousness. I don't advocate the use of drugs for kids, since they are most often used as a means of recreation and escape and getting totally fucked up during spring break. But I think our world leaders would do well to have a mescaline party when they meet . They would quickly realize the mess they continue to unilaterally perpetuate and hopefully they would immerse themselves in a larger vision of what could be a better world for future generations. Plus, it would make for funnier and more interesting G8 summits.Of course they would have to be under strict surveillance just in case Angela Merkel decided to run naked through the gardens singing I am the walrus since the whole drug fueled get together would be televised. Great entertainment and maybe for once, some genuine and original ideas would take shape.

Gee..! 20

Wow...! My first real 2 day weekend since Easter. Although work is not as hectic as it was, nevertheless this past week hasn't been a walk in the park. I'm still recuperating from this flue like bug and the doggies had an unlikely encounter with porcupines in the woods. Both needed to go to the vet for a careful extraction of the quills left behind by the frightened mammals. I wish I had a photo of the four legged pin cushions but I was at work when it happened.
The big news this week is that the G 20 World Tour Extravaganza is coming to the fair city of Toronto in a couple of weeks. Our glorious leader Stephen Harper and his acolytes have spared no expense it seems to impress this elite club of number crunching over sized wallet managers who will be the opening act for the G8 summit in Huntsville. Not unlike the little brother who invites his elder siblings to a backyard barbecue to show how good he's doing.
Of course security runs high on the agenda ever since the Seattle summit. An estimated 933 million that could easily surpass 1 billion. As Mr. Rogers would put it...'' Can you spell r-e-c-e-s-s-i-o-n '' Mr.Harper. This elite club of global monetary policy makers will again decide what's good for the rest of the countries of the world underhandedly favoring big corporation interests over the good of the people they are claiming to represent.
In light of this, I came up with a few recommendations of my own that would no doubt help their tarnished image in these troubled economic times.

1- Fly economy. Instead of whizzing here on a private jet, save a few bucks. There are some great deals from major airlines available from any local travel agent. Get a window or aisle seat though. You wouldn't want to sitbetween an obese tourist and a mother with a teething 18 month old baby.

2- Lodging can be a problem. Those five star suites can be a burden on the old pocket book. I know the Y in Toronto is close and offers clean linen. Or if you prefer cozier accommodations, there's no shortage of Bed and Breakfasts with private bathrooms and as the name implies, a hearty breakfast is included.

3- Limos are nice but you'll get bogged down in traffic. Use public transportation. It will get you to the convention center in no time and you'll be able to rub shoulders, backsides, elbows and other parts of your body with the little people.

4- Forget the caviar and wine that hasn't seen the light of day since 1787. A ham and cheese sandwich washed down with a light beer will do the job. Or, if you're more vegetarian minded, a nice Greek salad with mineral water will get you through the day.But watch out for black olives with pits.

5- Buy lots of souvenirs. It would only be fitting that after spending this much money to host this glorified boys club that you would put back a little into our regional economy. We have an interesting assortment of Canadian items such as original Inuit carvings made in China and paraphernalia adorned with images of the famed Royal Canadian Mounted Police, courtesy of Disney.

6- Scrap the whole summit. Use Skype and video-conference from the comfort of your palace like ivory towers. I'm sure there's no shortage of worthy causes that would benefit from such a cash flow from the moneys saved. Just give it to us instead of managing it yourselves. After all, you're responsible for this economic mess in the first place...aren't you.

Footnote: The picture I chose comes from the work of Dorothea Lange. Lange and other photographers were hired by the Farm Security Administration (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/fahome.html) to document the plight of farmers and the harshness of rural living conditions during the Great Depression. Let's just hope that with globalization and the ever increasing number of independent farmers going bankrupt, history does not repeat itself.

And then there were three

It's been a rough week work wise but I finally found some time to sit down and write.
As most of you know, I've been into computers for quite some time. I got my first computer about 25 years ago. The idea behind that at the time was to lessen my
accounting and billing load for the studio. A friend set me up with an old 286 MHz with a VGA screen that lit up with orange text on a black background just like a pumpkin on Halloween night. It was strictly a DOS command line interface, type and hope as compared to plug and play. I also had added a matrix dot printer that was so loud it prevented me from holding a conversation on the phone while printing. The damned thing could have punched a hole in the wall if the carriage had been positioned with that purpose in mind. I soon graduated to Windows 3.0 after a while, my first graphic desktop. Of course the icons were as big as golf balls but it got the job done and viruses were virtually inexistent in those days....having no internet helped. A few years later on I purchased my first Mac from my downstairs landlord who set me up me a fast internet connection, in effect bypassing the agony and wait of a dial-up connection. What a difference...! What was a tool now had become also my favorite plaything. Emails, the Internet and Adobe Photoshop occupied most of my time on the box. Why am I rehashing all of this...? Mainly because computing has come a long way.
Still, some basic practices remain the same or have worsened with time. I was a big fan of Apple computers and loathed PCs for years until I found out that the real culprit was Microsoft and their flawed operating system. Enter the third player...Linux. For those who have no clue, Linux is a free operating system for PC computers developed by Linus Torvalds using the same unix base that Apple uses for their operating system, Mac OS X. The only difference is it's free ...like in I don't have to fork out one dinero. And all the applications are free as well. Over 15000 0f them. It will run on older machines giving them a new lease on life. Very good if you believe in recycling to save our dying planet. What's the catch you ask..? Why aren't more people using it..? Well the truth is that Linux got a bad rap to begin with and has suffered from it from the longest time. People will still tell you it's for nerds but in fact, Linux has made such strides in user friendliness that Microsoft is a little worried these days about the competition. Actually, I suspect most of the bad press Linux got came from MS. I stumbled upon Linux about eight years ago and luckily, while on a forum asking questions, I was fortunate enough to meet my good friend Jimmy from Maine who became my main reference for Linux. So here's what I can tell you from years of experience trying out and using Linux on a day to day basis....

Is Linux perfect? No.no operating system is. But usually most problems sit between the keyboard and the chair.I have found that most peripherals like scanners, cameras, MP3 players and printers are detected from the get go without any type of intervention or installation. The same goes for networks. Plus, software installation and removal is a breeze.

Is it hard to learn to use? No. I installed it for my wife's 78 year old uncle and he uses it regularly. Basically, you have the same applications or clones you would use on a Windows system from browsing the web, playing music and writing.

What's the main advantage of using Linux? Linux is community driven by very
passionate people who are constantly making improvements, most of which are under the hood, so that it is maintained properly and up to date. You can also taylor it to your needs in look, feel, and software. And, as I've mentioned before, it's free and will run several months 24/7 before a reboot is necessary.

Is Linux for everyone? No. If you're comfortable with Windows's viruses, error messages, Word crashes, price gouging for software and general annoyances, then by all means ..stay with Windows. You deserve each other.

Can I try it? Of course. One of the major advantages of Linux is that with many distros (Linux distributions or operating systems) you have the option to try it '' live''. Meaning that it will run from the CD or DVD after reboot, without affecting your regular operating system. Thus your system will return to it's previous operating system after ejecting and rebooting without any side effects..

How many Linux distributions are there? A hell of a lot. This has been a brewing controversy in the Linux community for a while. With just about a hundred different Linux operating systems out there, it's hard for the newbie (newcomer) to find is or her way around. Rule of thumb: If you want plug&play, stick with the majors. Any Debian based distro like Ubuntu or my favorite, Linux Mint, will do the the job, and then some.

Who uses Linux? You'd be surprised, A lot of government agencies from Brazil to France have implanted it for their workstations. And, there is an ever growing army of users out there, who once they've adopted it, would rather fight than switch back.


At home right now we have three computers, two very old and one fairly new, running Linux and my old Mac is on OS X. I have yet to find a suitable Linux that will run on my aging Apple computer, but I'm still avidly looking. Computers were about freedom but some companies decided to lock you into a stranglehold. Now at least, you have a choice.....


Footnote: Pic #1 is of my wife's laptop running Linux Mint , the Gnome desktop. Pic # 2 shows my IBM with Linux Mint , running the Fluxbox desktop. I prefer a more minimal and uncluttered zen looking desktop.
This week a ruling came from the Superior Court of Quebec against the RRQ ( a gvt agency) which failed to consider Linux and Open Source software as a serious contender in a recent tender for the renewal of their software needs. You can read it here in French...
http://www.radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/Economie/2010/06/03/007-proces-logiciel-libre.shtml

Oil Vey..!

Boy am I glad this week is over. Barring my usual crazy work schedule, I was mauled by a flue virus that rendered my brain useless and turned my sinuses into a mucus production factory. So the news this week appeared worse than ever as I was experiencing flue induced cold sweats....
This out of control oil well in the Gulf of Mexico really got my dander up and resurfaced some terrible memories like bloated floating cadavers in the spring.
When I was 19 and in California on a quest to find the hippie way of life, I experienced first hand the effects of minor oil spills on wildlife. By pure coincidence whilst hitchhiking in Berkeley, I was befriended by an oriental of the same age with very long hair named Donald who played the steel guitar and drove a fake wood panel station wagon always accompanied by his faithful black lab, raspberry. A typical Californian...(lol) Through some friends, Donald found us a place to stay that turned out to be a bird hospital in Berkeley, The Bird Rescue Center. Housed on top of a donated two story warehouse were recuperating birds, mostly water fowl, in huge water basins, rescued from offshore spills. The poor frightened oil soaked birds had to be sedated first and their plumage was gently cleaned in the hope they would survive this ordeal. Some of them did not overcome the shock and it was the saddest thing and a real eye opener to see them slowly die of unnatural causes.
The disaster also brought back memories of one of the darkest moments in environmental fights. Ken Saro Wiwa attracted international attention to the plight of the Ogoni people in Nigeria.
Shell Oil, with the complicity of the military government run by general Sani Abacha, had been unscrupulously exploiting the Niger Delta's rich oil reserves for 37 years decimating the environment and the livelihood of the poor Ogoni people. I saw images of this devastation and it made me sick to my stomach at the time. Saro Wiwa, a poet, was unjustly convicted of treason and was hung with eight of his comrades in November 1995 by the military regime.
You can read the communique from Green Peace here...http://archive.greenpeace.org/comms/ken/murder.html
It didn't happen in anyone's backyard so no big fuss was made about this and that too made me sick to my stomach as well.
Call it the domino effect, the butterfly effect ,who gives a shit.Today, I feel the whole planet is our backyard. So much is riding on how this thing will play out. Already, some people are questioning the whole idea of offshore drilling in light of BP's inability to cap the runaway well. Maybe some good will come out of it. And how did BP they get a license to operate such a platform without having submitted a worse case scenario plan..? Apparently inspectors from the Minerals Management Service accepted meals and tickets to sporting events such as the Chick-fil-a-Peach Bowl game.
Personally, I would cap the hole with debris made of arrogant oil execs, corrupt agency regulators, Hummer owners and the ubiquitous Sarah Palin with her '' Drill baby, drill '' campaign slogan. Polluting a body of water of that size because of willful negligence, should be considered a crime against humanity and as such, should be punishable by at the very least, severe prison sentences to send a loud and clear message. What do you say Mr. Obama..? Are you pissed enough to show you've got the cojones to do the right thing..? We'll see...

Footnote: The picture of three ominous looking silos on the waterfront I took one morning reminded me of the fragility between industrialization and nature and how we always seem to be a stone's throw away from disaster.
Apparently this is not the first time BP finds itself in a row.
http://www.alternet.org/story/147045/why_isn't_bp_under_criminal_investigation?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=alternet

Nut job

No...this title does not pertain to cosmetic surgery in the nether region. So take your mind out of the gutter...pronto. I'll be attacking that subject in another blog down the road...(lol). This is about one of my all time favorite characters. There are a few that I grew fond of and have admired over the years...
Buckminster Fuller, Timothy Leary, Jim Morrisson, Aldous Huxley, Hunter S.Thompson, Jacques Languirand... just to name a few.
What interested me in these people is the fact that they always managed to push the envelope, even in the face of adversity. Not as rich as Bill Gates or as famous as Michael Jackson, they did however leave an indelible mark on society and myself.
One such oddball is Ogle Winston Link. I'll dispense with his bio (you can find the info on the web) but it is important to note that he opened his photography studio after the war in 1946. Winston, during his career, went literally out of his way to immortalize the great steam locomotives of days gone by.
He had adopted this mission and took it very seriously. So seriously in fact that he is credited as being a pioneer of night photography. Funny because his initials are O.W.L. Anyone of us, including professionals who have ever tried great night shots will concur that it's not an easy task...even with today's much improved equipment.
So old Ogle here engineered his own lighting system to capture the metal beasts as they roared into the depth of the night, spitting clouds of white smoke.
Working with slower than molasses film, a camera that was as user friendly as plastic wrapping for CDs and one shot flash bulbs, his images are not only valuable historic recordings of an era but also an ode to steam locomotion.
I was never an aficionado of rail machines like my childhood friend Marc who most probably still has, at the ripe age 56, a complete Lionel train set stashed somewhere. Or my other friend Michel who owns and meticulously maintains, with Q-tips, a train set that takes up a fifth of his apartment, complete and ready to roll. But when I saw Link's images for the first time, I was speechless and quite overwhelmed with the
forcefulness that his pictures reflected, So, if you're so inclined or just curious, you can check out his work at... http://www.linkmuseum.org/ It's well worth the visit.
And if you're into a more direct train experience, you can check out www.orfordexpress.com
They offer site seeing in the Eastern Townships with culinary delights aboard their Lounge car.

Footnote:The picture is of O.W.Link and his assistant with the equipment.
I'm sorry if the blog is shorter this week. My work week made it a tad difficult to find the time to write and publish before my self imposed deadline.

Thanks for the memories

At family reunions, my mother used to proudly comment the family photo album in all it's nostalgic glory. But since the photographic digital age was thrust upon us like a starving vampire on an hemophiliac, we rarely see it anymore. The newest pictures are strewn across the computer landscape and rarely do we huddle next to a laptop to reminisce. What the fuck happened...? Black and white prints were for ever and conveyed more of a feeling than just the pixelized information of a person or a scene.
I still have excellent quality slides that were taken when I was knee high. Of course, I can't show them to anyone, projectors and screens having gone the way of the Dodo thanks to the digital revolution.
In all honesty there are some aspects of digital photography I really enjoy. Apart from the obvious low cost, there is also the availability of the images. Not having to shlep around to get film developed and printed is a big plus. On the other hand, I do miss the days of going to the photolab to pick up my work and talking shop. Somehow however I don't feel the same attachment to digital images as I did to film and prints. We are now literally flooded with images, left and right. They, the big digital camera makers, have made it so simple for the average Joe to capture an ok image, that it often lacks substance and depth. Shoot, shoot,shoot and you might get a good one out of the bunch. I read a quote from a National Geographic photographer who said...'' Film let's me be in the moment where as with the digital camera I'm always reviewing my shots'' . This happens to me all the time with digital....

Accordingly, few people have their images printed, let alone print their own. Maybe it's because they were so easily taken that they don't feel they're worth it..?
Most images stay on the computer until they're emailed or shared in Picassa or other and that's it. Do they back them up on a dvd or external drive? I suspect that '' I'll get around to it one of these days'' is the law of average for most consumers. A lot of pros and a few friends I know are meticulous about safe storage but their livelihood depends on it.
How many hard drives have crashed taking with them precious moments that were digitally captured. I for one have lost two huge hard drives in the last five years but luckily, most of my images were backed up.
Even backups on CDs or DVDs are an illusion of longevity. The U.N. in Geneva stores all documents on negative film for posterity having concluded that the digital mediums present a long term risk.
And what about the equipment....It use to be you would own one... possibly two cameras in your lifetime. And often enough they were passed on to siblings. Today, you're extremely fortunate if you're digital, battery hogging camera doesn't kick the bucket after 3 years or didn't become obsolete as soon as you left the store. With film, hit or miss, when your images or prints came back from processing, there was always some element of surprise, sometimes emotion and true, a lot of times grief if the images didn't turn out.... No more waiting or fuck ups....the image is already captured before you can even completely savor the moment. That is if all your settings are correct, it's not too cold or too hot, your batteries have enough of a charge, your flash card is not filled to the brim and there isn't an electric power station nearby dispensing an electro magnetic field to reek havoc with your camera's internal components.
I dread the day when we'll all be alzheimerishly looking for pictures of family and friends on a crash prone computer with outdated software to relive precious moments that would spur us in our final quest to crystallize who we were.

Thanks Kodak, Canon and Nikon for making the best memories of our lives erasable and irretrievable.

Footnote: This is my favorite family photo. It shows my great grandfather, his wife and their siblings sitting for a family portrait. I recuperated it by chance but doubt that this kind of happy hazard will occur in the future.