Sansar Newsblog

I have started a new blog called the Sansar Newsblog, devoted to Linden Lab's new VR-capable virtual world Sansar.

At the End of the Day

Sunset from Getty Images

Welcome!

Well, I have finally taken the step to shut down my TypePad-hosted blog completely, having transferred most of the entries over to a Blogger-hosted blog here on Google+.  I kept the name, it's called As I Live a Few More Questions (based on a favourite Rilke quote of mine which you can see in the blog header.)

I'll be blogging any items here which I think don't belong on my G+ feed, and for those posts I'll have a link back to this blog from my Google+ feed.  

With my leaving Flickr and quitting TypePad I am finally Google-solidified! 

July 2011 blogposts

I know, I know....

...I haven't posted here in almost a full year now.  Mostly it's because I have been doing my posting elsewhere, to my facebook account, where I have most of my links to my friends and acquaintances and family members.  I'm still in the process of figuring out if I am going to keep this blog, and if so, what I intend to post to it.  Obviously longer-format material than what I can fit into a facebook post.

This week I also started up a Google+ account, and it's been déja-vu for me, the whole startup of a new social network reminds me so much of Orkut, and Tribe, and Friendster befor that, stuff that happened six years ago for me.  By now I'm an old hand at this sort of thing, but I still get a bit of a thrill as I make the cosil network connections.

September 2010 blogposts

I gave in to temptation...

I caved. I *CAVED*. There was a whole row of them at the campus bookstore, and I felt my will-power slipping away. I am now the proud owner of an Apple iPad (64GB, 3G+WiFi; if I'm gonna go to hell I may as well go express!). As far as I know my reputation as the first U of M librarian to buy the latest tech gadget has been upheld. I'll report back on my experiences, and I will also compare and contrast the iPad versus Amazon's Kindle as an ebook reader platform.

"You're a problem patron"

Check out the discussion in the chat box to the far right of this screen capture from my new Apple iPod this morning. I tell you this thing is like crack!

Oops!  The picture is a bit too small... here's the conversation:

• Librarian: What is your question?
• Ryan: Hi it's Ryan Schultz I am testing out chat ref from my new iPad
• Ryan: It works!
• Ryan: Call it a test
• Librarian: You're a problem patron
• Ryan: haHahAha Itrue I am
• Ryan: Byebye

It should come with a defibrillator."

June 2009 blogposts

Uh Oh.

So far, Manitoba has been (relatively) lucky compared to its neighbouring provinces, with only 11 confirmed cases of H1N1, more popularly known as swine flu.  Looks like our luck has run out, though, with a sudden increase in cases from 11 to 38.  From this morning's Winipeg Free Press, all highlighting is my own:

Swine flu surge hits reserve: Extra doctors, drugs sent to help H1N1 patients in St. Theresa Point

By: Jen Skerritt, Winnipeg Free Press, June 4th, 2009.

A spike in the number of Manitobans sick with H1N1 influenza has left Winnipeg hospitals facing a rush for intensive-care beds while extra doctors and drugs are being rushed to an isolated First Nation that seems particularly hard hit.

Dr. Elise Weiss, Manitoba's acting chief medical officer, confirmed Wednesday 27 new cases of H1N1 influenza have been reported across the province -- including three in the northern health region that includes St. Theresa Point First Nation.

Another 19 new cases were reported in Winnipeg, including at least one person hospitalized for severe flu symptoms.

To date, a total of 38 cases of H1N1, also known as swine flu, have been reported in Manitoba.

St. Theresa Point Chief David McDougall said 20 residents have recently been flown to Winnipeg hospitals suffering with flu symptoms, including 12 people who were medevaced in the last week.

Ten children have been hospitalized, along with two pregnant women in critical condition at St. Boniface General Hospital. One woman lost her baby as a result of the illness.

It's still unknown whether everyone who has fallen ill with a respiratory virus in the remote fly-in community is infected with swine flu, and health officials say there are still many tests that must be completed at Manitoba laboratories.

Meanwhile, McDougall said residents continue to wear masks and avoid public gatherings to prevent the spread of the disease. The province has sent three additional physicians and antiviral drugs from their pandemic stockpile to St. Theresa Point, located about 500 kilometres north of Winnipeg. At least six federal health officials arrived in the community on Wednesday to address the situation, which McDougall said included a presentation about influenza on the reserve's local TV station.

"We are taking these precautions," McDougall said. "We're doing the best we can."

The surge in new cases has put a strain on Winnipeg emergency rooms and intensive-care units, which have seen a big influx of patients reporting respiratory problems in the last week.

Winnipeg Regional Health Authority chief nursing officer Jan Currie said visits to city emergency rooms jumped to 1,000 visits a day this week -- up from the usual 800. She said hundreds of Winnipeggers are reporting flu-like symptoms at a time of year when influenza has usually fizzled out.

Staff have been asked to work overtime to handle the extra cases and every hospital is trying to move patients to personal-care homes to free up beds. Currie said the WRHA has purchased more ventilators and plans to put suspected H1N1 patients in emergency-room beds if they run out of intensive-care beds.

"Some of the staff are working overtime to staff the beds," Currie said. "We're very full and we want to be able to predict if we need more (beds) to manage it."

While public health officials have been bracing for additional cases since swine flu incited a worldwide pandemic scare in April, the latest cases have some communities worried they aren't ready for an outbreak.

Red Sucker Lake Chief Larry Knott is watching the outbreak of respiratory illness in St. Theresa Point closely, and said he worries his community won't be able to heed much of the preventative advice from public health practitioners. Handwashing is key to preventing the spread of influenza, but Knott said many residents don't have running water and must get fresh water in a pail from the lake.

First Nations leaders have warned crowded homes and impoverished conditions leave reserves inadequately equipped to deal with a widespread disease outbreak.

Red Sucker Lake is about 100 kilometres north of St. Theresa Point.

"If it hits us, I'm pretty sure it'll hit us pretty hard," Knott said.

In other words, even this small number of H1N1 cases, added to an existing workload, has "put a strain" on our healthcare system. Not a very good sign, especially as the number of swine flu cases is likely to rise as has been the case in other provinces.

And, reading between the lines, I get the sense that the outbreak in St. Theresa Point is a little more severe, perhaps?  The two pregnant women in critical care is especially worrisome; are pregnant women more at risk from this virus than other groups?

Questions, questions.  Hopefully soon we'll have answers.

"Africa" As You've Never Heard It

Prepare to have your mind blown by what a choir can do.  This is a cappella at its finest, folks.

May 2009 blogposts

Everybody Was Swine-Flu Fighting (Hee-YA!)

(sung to the tune of Kung Fu Fighting)

Everybody was Swine-Flu Fighting (hee-YA!)
A vi-rus were fast as lightning (hee-YA!)
In fact it was a little bit frightening
But they fought back that flu thing...

OK, so I won't be the next Weird Al Yankovic.  

It's hard to believe that it has been only one week -- seven days -- since the news about the swine flu outbreak in Mexico grabbed my attention.  I don't even remember now how I first learned about it, I think it was supper-hour news on TV.  

It didn't take long to jump right back into my obsessive following of any and all news related to swine flu, using all of my old flubie resources (a "flubie" is a term used by us obsessive potential flu pandemic trackers to refer to ourselves, another term is "prepper", as in preparing for self-quarantine in case of a severe flu wave).  Most of the old blogs and news sites and discussion forums from my bird flu panic days were stil up and operating, swifting changing topic to swine flu.  

In some ways, being so plugged in is not healthy.  We flubies tend to go overboard with the worst-case scenario coverage and how to prepare for it (3 months of pantry supplies to get you through a 12-week wave of pandemic influenza!  Drop everything and go shopping for rice and beans!!).  We also tend to alarm ourselves with stories posted from various new sources of varying quality and accuracy.  (Does anyone know how to translate from Bahasa Indonesian into English?!??  This article talks about 1,000 ill... or is that 100?  I think this word translates as "pandemic"!!)  Sometimes I swear we et ourselves worked into such a fever pitch that we expect the imminent extinction of the human race.

But the opposite tack is just as unhealthy.  Not giving some thought as to how YOU would get through a flu pandemic is just as foolhardy as going overboard on the subject.  Although it appears more and more likely that this H1N1 flu virus currently making the rounds is a mild version of the disease that does not spread very quickly among people, it must be said that the influenza virus can mutate regulary.  Each mutation could make the virus more or less transmissable, or make it more or less deadly.  My personal fear is that when this strain of H1N1 swine flu reaches Southeast Asia, it will mix with isolated cases of the much deadlier H5N1 bird flu virus and the resulting offspring will wreak havoc.

Deeep breath.  Deeeeep breath.  Calm.

You see?  SOmetimes I do wonder if ignorance is bliss on this subject.  Of course it's even worse now with the advent of Twitter.  I've found myself fervently following the #h1n1, #swineflu, and #pandemic Twitter tags, along with the latest solemn pronouncements from the CDC and WHO, and by mid-afternoon I'm a basket case again.

So I push it away and try to focus on my work, only to find myself coming back for another peek.  (Oooh...a probable case in Minnesota?  Where is that on Google Maps?  How close is it to me?)

AARGH!

August 2008 blogposts

I'm back and I'm mobile

Posting from my new toy. I sold my soul to Rogers for 3 years and now I have a shiny new iPhone, and I just installed the TypePad app.

I'm baaack...

Aaah Sunday...

Spent all morning on Second Life (cleaning? What's that??). Someone has set up their own Brokeback Island on SL, and we were making plans for a party which could accompdate both the European and North American BBM fans.

See? There are some people who are thinking of BBM on the grid after all. It's not just me :-)

Monday, Monday

I am not nearly as awake as I look in this photo. 

Coffee break

I still cannot quite believe that they put a Starbucks right next to the reference stack. I'm feeling quite tired today and the rainy weather is not helping my black mood. The good news is that the presentations I have to deliver Thu&Fri are complete; I just need to run through them a few times.

My day today...

...can be summed up in this one shot. TGIF!

January 2008 blogposts

Passing of an Era

I know, it's been a long time since I last posted to this blog.  I'm spending most of my online time split between connecting with friends on  Facebook and  exploring the explosively creative 3D space of Second Life, and in addition, I've not felt the pressing need to *blog* anything.  End of an era?  We'll see.  I'll keep this account for now.

Another end of an era:

"IST is examining the possibility of ending modem dial-up access to the University of Manitoba in 2009 on January 1. If this will cause a major problem for you or your users, please contact XY describing the nature of this problem."

Wow.  Changes are happening so fast that sometimes it makes my head spin.  I know that fewer and fewer people are using dial-up modems, but I didn't realize the decline was quite that precipitous. 

I can remember back to 1982/83, when I connected to the University to work on programming assignments using a TRS-80 Model III and a 300-baud acoustic coupler modem.  The lines of the text editor I was using, good old in-house MANTES, were 80 characters long, but the TRS-80 could only display 64 characters, so the lines would all break at character 65.  At the I'm sure I was among the first set of users to conect to the University via modem.  That was.... that was.... 25 years ago.

Holy shit!  A quarter century ago... argh.  How time flies indeed.

November 2007 blogposts

WindLight: A Whole New Level of Second Life Realism.

There's a beta Second Life client now available, which includes WindLight, which gives a whole new level of realism to the skies and seas of the virtual reality landscape.  Here's an example screen capture from the Titanic re-creation sim, taken by user Ewan Took (see image right)

Unfortunately, my humble PC is not up to the challenge of making WindLight work properly, so now I have a new incentive to upgrade to a newer, faster, more graphics-oriented computer.  *sigh*  Damn you Second Life, damn you I say!  *shakes fist*

September 2007 blogposts

I'm baaack...

...ya miss me?  ;-) 

Well, one thing I have discovered in my Internet "diet" (I won't say I was off the Internet completely, because I was checking my email and my facebook page every so often) is that, while you can certainly spend too much time on the Internet, it's also very difficult to live 100% without it nowadays.  As an example, I spent part of August writing fiction for the Brokeback Mountain fanfic community i am part of, and you would not believe how frustrating it is not to be able to quickly check some fact without the Internet handy.  For example, for one chapter I needed to understand exactly how one makes a Molotov cocktail, since one of my main characters has one thrown through her kitchen window (remember folks: conflict drives plot).

Anyways, to get the ball rolling, I wanted to highlight something that I found on my one of my favourite browse-through sites, metafilter.  A comment on a recent post about polygamous Mormons has put into writing something that I have often used in my arguments against those who want to deny same-sex marriage rights to queers because the Bible lays out the guidelines for a "traditional" marriage.  I have argued that there has NEVER been a "traditional" standard of marriage, that it has varied a lot in differnet cultures and eras, and this commenter backs my assertion up:

I'd like to point out - because I've not been given a chance to yet on metafilter - that whether you're a fundamentalist Mormon, a fundamentalist Baptist or a fundamentalist Presbyterian, there is simply no valid argument to be made for "traditional" marriage by drawing on scripture. None. Not in the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament. The Hebrew Bible is quite possibly the worst place to start - the language it was written in doesn't even contain a word for "wife." It has the designator "his" - as in, "his woman," even for "his first," or "his second" woman and so on. But there's no word for wife. Women are purely property - utterly in the same sense as "his oxen" or "his seventy two slaves and fourteen comely eunuchs." The New Testament is an even worse place to begin - if that's even possible - Paul sure as hell didn't want us getting married. ESPECIALLY (you can tell I'm using science) because the world was about to end - which is what most fundamentalists believe! He says, "Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife." He goes on - "Yet those who marry will experience distress in this life, and I would spare you that. I mean, brothers and sisters, the appointed time has grown short; from now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none, and those who mourn as thought they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions, and those who deal with the world as thought they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away."

He also states clearly that marriage is not a sin - but there are plenty of things that aren't considered sins in the Bible (drinking wine in moderation) that fundamentalists avoid.

This has always been something that bothered me.

Of course, I suppose I shouldn't look to the fundies for a bastion of clear scriptural interpretation.

So far that one comment has received an amazingly high number of "favorites" among metafilter readers; obviously it's struck a chord.

Please, Britney, Don't Gimme More

Tuned in just to watch the Britney Spears Big Comeback Opener for the MTV Video Music Awardws in Las Vegas.  Well, THAT was a disaster.  Looks like the blogosphere agrees.  The gossip blog TMZ.com weighs in.

What a lamentable performance!  She looked terrible, and she moved around the stage as if she were a zombie.  Every so often they would cut to an audience member.  I think I saw Kanye West with his mouth hanging open in shock.

Britney, your career is OVER, girl.  Pack it in and head to cosmetology school or something, 'cause if you can't even get excited about your big comback performance, you're toast.  A sampling of comments from the TMZ blogpost:

I wanted this to be good but it was the caboose on the train wreck of Britney.

I for one was sort of wanting to see her fall on her ass but I ended up feeling bad for her.

Of all nights that she should have NOT lip-synched this was it...what a disappointment. ... I would rather have watched her sitting on a chair singing a song live than watching her TRYING to move around the stage. My 80-year-old grandmother could have moved faster/better than that.

She phoned that one in.  Not good.

Where was the passion?  She knows that this was supposed to be her comeback performance and she looked like she didn't care. 

Except for a few (a VERY few) diehard Britney fans defending her, the overwhelming majority of people who watched this performance seemed to realize that Britney is not even close to being ready for a comeback, and some even felt pity for her.

Ah well, someone else will step in and take her place; there's no shortage of Britney-wannabes in the wings.

I will let Chris from CutewithChris.com have the last word:

July 2007 blogposts

Second Life is the Crystal Meth of the Internet (You Have Been Warned!!)

Time to post some more "snapshots" from my adventures in Second Life.  I'm spending way too much time online, to the detriment of my real life activities, I will admit.  Second Life is the crystal meth of the Internet; it's that addictive.  So I am warning all of you now, don't get into this unless you have some time to put towards it, because there is a steep learning curve, and (if you are part of that 10% of people who "get it") it will keep drawing you back in.

3 a.m. Observation

(Yes, it's 3:00 a.m. and I'm awake.  My sleeping has been totally fucked up since I've had to have my antidepressant meds adjusted, and it's extremely exhausting and frustrating.  I've been tinkering with various ways to feel less depressed for a while now.)

Anyways, the thought that came to me at 3:00 a.m.:

There's something deeply wrong with a society where, for far too many people, it is easier to get a Big Mac than a big hug.

ARGH! Call Extreme Makeover!!

I just found out this morning that my 25th high school reunion is coming up in 10 weeks.  Of course, I would have found out about it a lot sooner if I had bothered to check classmates.com every so often.  *sigh*  Figures, it's one of the few social networking websites I ignore....

I find it ironic that both me and my friend Lynne are on their Missing Grads list :-) guess I'd better get myself un-missing.....I seem to remember they had the same problem tracking me down at the 10th high school reunion. 

Of course, I'm going.  But I need an Extreme Makeover, pronto!  AAARGH!!!

June 2007 blogposts

Tuesday Morning Musical Interlude: How Many

The song "How Many" by Luba has been running through my head all day, and the lyrics go like this:

It has been raining
for so long
I have been praying
for a break in the storm
but in the thunder
I hear your name
and it takes me under
underneath all this pain
and I've got to get on with my life
but I don't know how
tell me...
how many rivers to cross
how many crosses to bear
how many miles till I get there

May 2007 blogposts

BBC: Child porn 'found in Second Life'

Second Life (SL) is being investigated by German police following allegations that some members are trading child pornography in the online world.  This involves not only actions by avatars (i.e. cartoon child porn), but also the exchange of RL (real life) child porn between avatars (accounts) on SL.  This news has already hit the U.K. and Australian papers, and will probably be picked up by the North American newsmedia very quickly.

Well, as one of hundreds of librarians who has eagerly explaining and demo'ing SL to colleagues as the Next Big Thing in virtual reference service, this is certainly going to torpedo any plans for our educational institutions to get on board.

I pity anyone who is trying to get a SL-based proposal for an educational/library project through an approval committee. And that sort of "there's no way we're even going to TOUCH this now" reaction will also play out in non-profits and corporations around the world. 

I very firmly believe that child abuse (virtual or real) needs to be rooted out of SL, and I also believe that the perpetrators should face severe legal consequences as well, including jailtime. 

But I can see that the seizure and amplification of this issue by the tabloids will negatively impact SL overall and, by implication, tar the people who visit SL as well.   It will be just as if everybody thinks you're gay only because you come from San Francisco. 

Ridiculous, but it will happen.

UPDATE 1:52 P.M.  The news has finally reached the CBC.

Vancouver Police Department now recruiting via Second Life

"The VPD has been prepping to become the first real police force to join the more than 6.7 million inhabitants who live, work, play and learn inside their computers -- an initiative aimed at finding real-life people with computer know-how to join the force."  (Yeah I know; it's not 6.7 million inhabitants, it's 6.7 million accounts, but many people have multiple accounts, and many accounts lie unused.  A truer figure would be about 1.5-2 million, I figure.)

(...yeah, yeah I know... I said I would be taking a break from the Internet. Perhaps I should amend that to say that I am taking a break from Second Life...which has been sucking up WAAAY too much of my time these past two months.  Of course, what do I then do?  Spend my time reading reports and articles ABOUT Second Life....*sigh*)

April 2007 blogposts

Two words.

In case any of you, the extremely small number of people who read this blog, wonder what black hole has sucked me away this past five weeks--

Well, I can sum it all up in two words:  Second.  Life.

More details on my past five weeks in three-dimensional virtual reality to come.  But, for now, enjoy some of my snapshots from Second Life...

March 2007 blogposts

If You're Going to Go to Hell, You May As Well Go Express...

Surfing the Web on my lunch hour, and came across this news story on an NBC affiliate in Philadelphia.  If Britney Spears' recent behaviour was a cry for help, then this guy's life is a 130-decibel horror movie scream for help:

I mean, you know someone's in serious trouble when the fact that he's a crystal meth dealer lands up in the secondary headline....

Where On (Google) Earth...?

Now where is this place? (pictured right)

Well, why not visit it on Google Maps yourself, zoom out a bit, until you discover it.  Google Maps now has a very few areas of the globe (downtown Las Vegas is one of them; Sydney, Australia is another), where you can zoom down to an amazing new level of close-up detail!  Here's further explanation and some more mind-bogglingly up-close shots. 

Where On (Google) Earth...? Part II

This is amazing!  The level of detail is so clear on this Sydney image that you can see the tennis ball:

Directions

It used to be that every five years or so I would spend a few days, pull out some paper, and answer the whole who-am-I and where-am-I-going and what-do-I-want-to-do-with-my-life question. But it's been a long time since I've done that.

However, something's nagging at me and telling me that it's time. In the past when I did this exercise, I found that I'm not very honest with myself; I told  myself that what other people wanted for me is what I wanted as well. Mix in some stupid pride and I used to land up with a list of ridiculously high goals.

This time, when I do this, I have to focus on what *I* think, what *I* want. And I'm afraid to ask the questions this time around, because I don't know the answers. I'm afraid that the answers I do get will mean making big changes in my life, like changing jobs or moving away to another city.

Beating Resistance

A serendipitous find on a subject I had just blogged about less than 24 hours earlier: resistance and fear of success. Merlin Mann, the blogger behind the personal productivity blog 43 Folders, writes:

Resistance can be thought of as anything that pulls us away from doing the work we know is most important to us. It takes many forms (including procrastination, fear, distraction, and negative self-talk), but the effect is often similar: we find or permit all kinds of barriers to keep us from becoming the person we want to be, or from completing the thing we really want to make. Whether that’s being a published author, a composer, a playwright, or a painter, our impulse to create constantly battles an impulse to do something else, or to do nothing — to not upset our weirdly comfy stasis.

This book [The War of Art by Steven Pressfield] came up twice in my recent interview with Jonathan Coulton; both in part one and today’s recently released part two. Jonathan strikes me as someone who has, so far, succeeded at talking down the resistance he’d faced, and now he’s doing what he’s great at, and, in his words, he’s working hard to become the kind of “true person” that he wants to be for his daughter.

I think it’s really important to underscore that beating resistance does not have to mean quitting your job or doing something equally dramatic; it just means that you identify and then choose to beat the crap out of whatever perceived obstacle keeps you from doing your work. You “go Pro” … making it all about the work, and not allowing yourself to trail off when it gets hard or when you have to fight in order to get your stuff done. Pretty inspiring stuff, as far as I’m concerned.

In this video clip of the interview, Merlin interviews singer/songwriter Jonathan Coulton, when the conversation drifts towards how resistance can block us from becoming (in Jonathan’s words) a “true person”.

Here’s a transcript of the part of the interview that really hooked me:

JC: …if I’m gonna be a true person, and an example of a true person to this child, then I should be true to myself, and do what it is that I’m interested in doing. And it just felt so much more honest since I’ve decided to that. So, yeah that seems suicidal…

MM: No, not really. I men, that’s the funny part about stuff like that…to refer to a book I referred to earlier, The War of Art, it’s not it’s my favourite book or something, it’s just a book I recently read…

JC: (smiling) Sure, sure…

MM: One thing that he said is really interesting ... he said that one reason we do things like procrastinate and we kind of, we find these barriers for ourselves, is that the closer we get to the thing that we kind of secretly realize in our head that we should be doing, the more reasons we find to not do it. Because it creates this kind of stasis that lets us sort of stay locked in.  And yeah, I mean, maybe it’s the craziest thing you ever did, or maybe it’s like you finally unlock the door to thing that’s gonna make you happy.

JC: Yeah, and I do feel like…when my daughter was born, that was the moment that sort of clarified my whole life.

Merlin Mann's websites: 43 Folders and The Merlin Show

Jonathan Coultons website: Jonathan Coulton

February 2007 blogposts

Watching the Grammys

Watching the Grammys tonight, really enjoyed the reunion of The Police, and the trio of John Legend, Corinne Bailey Rae, and John Mayer (image left).  Although I have to wonder at some of the choices for award presenters (Luke Wilson!?).  I just had a good laugh when The Dixie Chicks received the award for best country album.  Natalie Maines took the mike and said "In the immortal words of Simpson - haaaih heh". 

In other words, TAKE THAT, all you Dixie haters who turned on the band because of that comment about George Bush.  Not only did The Dixie Chicks win best album, the song "Not Ready To Make Nice" was awarded Best Song.  Revenge is sooo sweet.

Carrie Underwood for Best Artist?!?  Corinne Bailey Rae was ROBBED, I tells ya!  And Imogen Heap deserves a special award just for her hair :-)

Harper admits he wants to stack Canada's courts

This article is an excellent summary of conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper's mission to remake the courts in his more hard-right image (cloaking the entire process in a "law and order" disguise).  It's so good that I've decided to quote it completely, with bold text marking sections which I think are important to note.

And the Conservatives say "Well, the Liberals have been appointing their left-wing judges for years and years, now it's our turn."  HELLO?!?  What kind of kindergarten logic is that??  Have your mother and father never told you that TWO WRONGS DON'T MAKE A RIGHT?  So make the system stronger and MORE independent rather than try to bend it to fit your own particular brand of politics, you idiots. Of course, a more independent judiciary is exactly NOT what these non-progressive conservatives want. 

This issue is making me angrier by the second.  As said at the very end of this article by the retired Supreme Court justice, "judicial activists" = "judges making decisions you don't agree with".  Harper has no right to politicize the judicial appointment committees and tamper with Canada's tradition of the separation of the executive and the judiciary.

PM says he'll pick judges who are tough on crime: Ignatieff warns Harper comments raise concerns over separation of powers

CAMPBELL CLARK

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper said yesterday that he wants judges who will reflect his government's law-and-order agenda, stating matter-of-factly that he will pick judges who will crack down on crime.

The blunt statement in the House of Commons appeared to contradict his own Justice Minister, Rob Nicholson, who one day earlier insisted the government was not trying to change the judiciary.

"We want to make sure we are bringing forward laws to make sure that we crack down on crime, that we make our streets and communities safer. We want to make sure our selection of judges is in correspondence with those objectives," Mr. Harper said in the Commons yesterday.

Liberal deputy leader Michael Ignatieff argued the Prime Minister's response raises concerns about "the separation of powers between the executive and the judiciary."

"This indicates a Prime Minister that essentially wants to use the executive authority of his office to begin to reshape the judiciary, not just in terms of personnel, but in terms of basic philosophy," Mr. Ignatieff said.

"We have seen south of the border the negative consequences that ensue when judicial appointments are overly politicized according to an ideological litmus test. One of the things that Canada has got right has been by and large a competence standard, not an ideological standard."

However, Mr. Harper's admission that he will choose judges who reflect the government's crime agenda does not specifically address a far more controversial topic: whether he will seek to appoint judges with a far more restrictive view of the Charter of Rights, or who have conservative social views.

Many conservatives, including Mr. Harper, have long complained of judicial activists seeking to create social policy from the bench, and some prominent figures in his government have argued for appointing conservative judges to counter what they view as a liberal bias.

Mr. Harper's statements yesterday come as prominent members of the legal community, and now a former Supreme Court of Canada justice, raised fears of an increasing politicization of judicial appointments.

The Globe and Mail reported on Monday that the federal Justice Minister had filled the judicial advisory committees that vet applicants for the bench with conservative partisans, including a former politician, defeated candidates and former aides to Tory ministers.

That news comes just as the government has changed the rules so that Ottawa's representatives have a majority of votes on the committees, which were intended to take politics out of the appointment of judges.

Instead of three members, Ottawa now appoints a fourth drawn from the ranks of police. There are four other members chosen by provincial governments, law societies, the Canadian Bar Association and judges -- but Ottawa has removed the judge's vote, except in a tie.

The Globe found that at least 16 of the 33 non-police members chosen by Ottawa for 12 committees have Tory ties. And many of the non-partisans criticize judicial activism and argue that judges have been too lax on crime or tied the hands of police.

Mr. Harper insisted yesterday that the changes, including the addition of police officers to the committees, are an improvement.

And he repeated the allegations once levelled by the Liberals' former Quebec director, Benoit Corbeil -- who admitted to the Gomery inquiry on the sponsorship scandal that he took part in electoral-finance abuses -- that "for all intents and purposes, judgeships were available to those who gave the most money to the Liberal Party."

The Canadian Bar Association has already expressed concerns that judicial appointments may be politicized, and that the presence of police on the committees might create a perception they are seeking judges who will apply lax oversight to the extraordinary powers of police when asked to approve warrants, for example.

Yesterday, former Supreme Court justice Claire L'Heureux-Dubé waded in with criticism that the Conservative government's moves are a "pernicious" politicization.

"It is indeed worrisome that the independence of the judiciary could be compromised by judicial nominations committees' political and, more pernicious still, ideological choices," she wrote in an e-mail. "This is contrary to our tradition and the danger is that it would erode the confidence in our justice system not only in Canada but all over the world where our judiciary is held as a model precisely because of its total independence.

"Judicial activism, which seems to have motivated this quantum leap in the composition of the nominations committees, is a myth as has been proven many times and, more recently, by Justice [Stephen] Breyer of the Supreme Court of the United States. It is applied to judges whose decisions one does not agree with."

Everything the Harper government has done lately (with the exception of standing up to China on its human-rights abuses) just reeks of slime.

Here's the comments thread on the Globe & Mail story.

Fantasy And Reality

I actually feel a little sorry for Britney Spears.  Apparently she checked into rehab in Antigua, checked herself out after less than 24 hours, flew back to the U.S., shaved her head and got a couple of tattoos.  The linked report also states that Britney landed up at L.A.'s Cedars-Sinai hospital emergency room early Saturday morning, but was discharged.

What's magnifying the situation and making it worse, is that she's a celebrity and plays out her life (and her troubles) in front of the paparazzi's cameras.   That's why I highlighted that particular, poignant quote from the gossip coverage.  Fame is a double-edged sword. 

And I wonder how long Elizabeth Arden will continue to market Britney's Midnight Fantasy, especially when the fantasy has come apart at the seams.

Out On Stage

Now this article in New York Magazine (also available here) really hits the nail on the head, putting into print (or pixels) something I had been thinking about for a long time.

You see, I am one of those people who are profiled here: someone who lets it all* hang out online.  *well, OK, not all, but a lot.

But the one big difference between me and the people profiled is this: I'm a whole generation older than they are.  I'm 43, but online I have more in common with these 23 year olds than I do with my fellow fortysomethings. 

In fact, I've given up on trying to interest my cohort in social networking services like Flickr or Digg.  They could care less; most of them don't see any point in participating.  "Why would you want to share your photos with other people?", they ask.

And I see a few (not many, but a small percentage) of people in my generation (e.g. the Boomers and those born in the decade after the Baby Boom) participating in this grand experiment in self-disclosure.  But we are vastly, VASTLY, outnumbered by the crowd born after 1980, the teens and early-twentysomethings.  They have taken to heart one of the things that their elders still don't (or won't) see:  VERY LITTLE ABOUT YOUR LIFE IS PRIVATE ANYWAYS.

Let me explain.  Most of the facts of your life, if you think about it, are available to anyone who has the resources and connections to find them.  Whole businesses are devoted to the task of building and sharing databases filled with information about you: your credit history, your driving record, your shopping habits (Air Miles, Safeway card, etc.), what courses you flunked out of in college, pretty much everything.  That, uhh, "novelty" you picked up at that adult store?  There's a sales record.  That regular rendezvous you're carrying on, that you think your spouse doesn't know about?  Don't count on it staying a secret for very long.  How do you think private investigators stay in business?   

The big difference between the generations is how they respond to this lack of privacy.  Most fortysomethings are uncomfortable, even horrified, about it.  Many of them don't even want to think about it.  But the post-1980 crowd TREATS THAT LACK OF PRIVACY AS A GIVEN, and thinks: "Well, if I'm going to be public anyways, then I may as well enjoy my time on stage and grab a little spotlight."  In other words, the younger generation doesn't see our modern data-mining, lack-of-privacy culture as a problem, but as an opportunity.  Not something to be feared or escaped from (as if you could!), but something to be embraced, a way for them to say "Hey, this is me.  This is what I like and don't like, these are my friends, here are my photos and what I think about that new CD that just came out, and here's my dating profile on LavaLife, and..."

Like I said, most older people don't get it, shake their heads over it, are afraid of it even.  And I find myself in a weird situation of being from an older generation, but living in the mindset of a younger one. 

January 2007 blogposts

Cold Ground for a Summer Love

"For more than three months, she has come to Arlington National Cemetery to talk to Colin about the minutiae of her life, to kiss his narrow white headstone topped with a Star of David and to stretch out her slim body next to his as if they were lying together again.

Kira is no war widow. She is 19, and just barely, at that." 

(Sandhya Somashekhar, "Cold Ground for a Summer Love", Washington Post, Monday, January 1, 2007, page A01; base photograph at left by Sarah L. Voisin; photoshop by Ryan Schultz)

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A Year's Worth of Songs

My 500 Top Tracks of 2006

(Taken from my Last.fm statistics, Jan. 1 - Dec. 31, 2006)

1. Barbra Streisand – All I Ask Of You
2. Grey Eye Glances – Days to Dust
3. Grey Eye Glances – Angel
4. Grey Eye Glances – Snow
5. Rockapella – I`ll Hear Your Voice
6. Madrigaïa – Three Ways to Vacuum Your House: Part I
7. Corinne Bailey Rae – Put Your Records On
8. Frou Frou – Shh
9. Gnarls Barkley – Crazy
10. Amanda Marshall – Dark Horse
11. The Postal Service – Such Great Heights
12. Stealers Wheel – Stuck in the Middle With You
13. White Town – Your Woman
14. Kate Bush – Running Up That Hill
15. Gustavo Santaolalla – The Wings (Theme from Brokeback Mountain)
16. The Alan Parsons Project – Games People Play
17. Angélique Kidjo – Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
18. Dan Fogelberg – Longer
19. Supertramp – The Logical Song
20. Cowboy Junkies – `Cause Cheap Is How I Feel

See the rest of the list here, complete with 30-second samples.

Rievaulx Abbey

Rievaulx Abbey in North Yorkshire was founded in 1132 by twelve monks from Clairvaux Abbey as a mission centre.  The remote location was ideal for the Cistercians, whose desire was to follow a strict life of prayer and self-sufficiency with as little contact as possible with the outside world.

Someday I would love to wander around these ruins!

(click for a full-size image; taken by user JuanJ on Flickr; I just Photoshopped it a bit to cut down on the fluorescent green he used)

Donald Trump Sputters and Spouts

In the current war of words between Rosie O'Donnell and Donald Trump, The Donald's latest salvo is:

"If you talk to Rosie for a little while, she's crude, she's tough, she's arrogant, she's pushy, she's disgusting."

Uhh, Don, you're proving my point that often, that which most irritates you about other people, are qualities that you yourself have.  Let's do a quick run-through, shall we?  Hmmm... Crude, tough, arrogant, pushy, disgusting.  Check, check, check, check, checkeroo, Don.  Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

Oh, and just for the record, Mr. Trump?  Rosie may have her moments as a blowhard, but at least she's not pretending to be anything other that who she is.  You've become a walking caricature of yourself, as full of himself as Star Jones ever was, and if I see one more media picture of you with your over-Botoxed wife #3 pushing that gilded baby carriage around, I think I'm gonna throw something at my TV set.   

I'm with Barbara Walters on this one; I'm taking Rosie's side.  Replacing Star Jones with Rosie O'Donnell was the best move they ever could have made to revitalize The View.  

Web Wanderings: Superdickery

Yes, I know, it sounds like a cheesy porn site, but Superdickery started out as a collection of old comic book covers showing Superman being...well, being a dickhead:

Q: How'd this all start?

 

A: Back in November of 2004, a guy named Mike Miksch started a thread at a Transformers message board called The Allspark about insane comic book covers throughout the ages. Initially it was a laugh in at the expense of Lois Lane Comics, but before the responses had gotten past even the first page, Mike had posted a pair of pictures depicting Superman burning a father's day gift from Jimmy and laughing in Lois's face as she begged him to prevent her from being forced to marry Titanman, and inadvertently set the tone for the resulting 30+ pages of responses:

Superman is a dick.

Technically he said "Superman is such a dick," but the "such" was subsequently dropped from the mantra. And from there it spread across a fair number of blogs and other discussion board forums, which Mike didn't become aware of until his coworker came up to him and told him that he'd seen the thread and was surprised to see that Mike started it. From there it was imitated by I-Mockery when they did a write up about about stupid comic book covers focusing on Jimmy Olsen comics. That made the front page of Fark.com, where someone posted a link to the original thread on The Allspark, so it all came full circle.

At more than a quarter million views, that thread beats out the nearest competitor ten times over. Such is the appeal of Superman is a Dick.

(Source: Superdickery FAQ)

From there, the website has grown, and now there are galleries devoted to just about every aspect of American comic book art that you can make fun of.  I found myself laughing out loud at the funny/bad/warpedness of it all.  Here's an example from the "Weird Science" gallery at right. 

Superdickery

Hand Of God

Tonight I had the privilege of catching the broadcast TV premiere of Hand Of God, a documentary created by Joe Cultrera, the brother of a victim of child sexual abuse at the hands of Joseph E. Birmingham, a pedophile priest who was simply shuffled from parish to parish, instead of being removed from service or sent for treatment (if it is possible at all to cure a pedophile).  I can completely relate to Joe Cultrera's story of childhood abuse, and how that abuse can play itself out in your life and relationships for decades afterward.  Here's the PBS page on this documentary with other documentation.  People in a position of power to stop the abuse simply swept in under the rug in an attempt to spare the Catholic church from scandal.  It is in particular a very damning indictment of now-Bishop John B. McCormack, one of the "shufflers".

The thing that shocked me the most -- shocks me to my boots -- is that alleged pedophile enablers such as priests John B. McCormack and Bernard Law not only kept their positions in spite of evidence they covered up for abusive priests, but they still serve the church, and have even been promoted over time!  (John McCormack was made a bishop, while Bernard Law received a post at one of Rome's major basilicas.  Law's fancy Vatican bio conveniently omits the pedophile priest scandal and his resignation as Archbishop.)

What sort of message does this send to the world?  Protect the Church's ass at the expense of innocent children, and you get promoted?? 

Your Friday morning musical interlude: The Doors take a walk down Sesame Street and learn to spell the Macarena

The most bizarre thing about this Doors/Sesame Street/Macarena mashup is that IT WORKS.  It's actually a good, very listenable song!  The people who do these mashups continue to amaze me with their inventiveness.

The Doors take a walk down Sesame Street and learn to spell the Macarena (MP3 file, 7.7 MB)

Your Sunday Dose of Joy

I believe this is the new, third edition of his video.  Every time I see it, it leaves me with a wide grin.

All your questions answered here.  And yes, Matt's video has become so popular that he now has a corporate sponsor, Stride chewing gum, which paid for all his newest travels.  (Lucky dog.)

Why I Think Rod Bruinooge Is An Idiot

 Yesterday I received a piece of mail from my Member of Parliament, Ron Bruinooge  (for whom, I hasten to add, I did not vote in the most recent election).  What I read, and how it was written, made me very angry.   

Canada's ruling Conservative party has halted a pilot program to provide safe-tattoo supplies to prison inmates, the purpose of which was to reduce the transmission of diseases such as Hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS within the prison system.   

It has been suggested in the newsmedia that the cost of the program would be covered, if it stops the spread of Hep C or HIV to as few as five other inmates per institution (thereby saving the government from paying associated healthcare costs later on when inmates become ill).

So Rod Bruinooge, my Conservative member of parliament, says in his mailing (reproduced above, the item I'm holding in my hand in the foreground): "I was against free tattoos for convicts and am proud our government ended this Liberal program." So he's proud that his government short-sightedly cut this pilot project, even before it could even be properly evaluated by the government's own public health department?    

Dear Rod:

You are a political opportunist, pandering to the lowest common denominator using Fox-News-scare-bites devoid of any meaningful context.  If you were indeed serious about ensuring my tax dollars were spent wisely, you could do a cost-benefit analysis and share the results with us, rather than simplistically  paint the issue as an example of the previous Liberal government's misspending.  And you're NOT getting my vote next time around, for exactly this sort of nonsense.

For God's sake, give the public some credit for being smart enough to figure out issues for themselves, instead of feeding them this pablum, you idiot.

More on this issue:

The Canadian Medical Association Journal article displayed on-screen above (PDF from CMAJ website, Jan. 24, 2007).

Prison tattoo parlours get the axe (from CBC website, Dec. 4, 2006)

Give prison tattoo parlours a chance: activist (from the CBC website, Jan. 11, 2007)

Today's Anti War Protest in Washington D.C.

Anti War Protest Washington DC, originally uploaded by squinn4420.

Photos speak louder than words.

An antiwar protest summed up in one photo

PICT6038.JPG, originally uploaded by andycarvin.

Intervention?

If I'm addicted to Intervention, do I need an Intervention intervention?  At least I'm not the only one:

I’m an addiction addict.  And, yeah…I can totally stop on my own, but now is just not the right time, okay?

The one addict from Intervention that haunts me is Kelly F. from Episode 10 (image left), a beautiful blond man hell-bent on alcoholic self-destruction.  He agrees to go to rehab only because it means he can get his dog back, the only creature he appears to care about.  But the first thing he does after leaving rehab is buy beer.  A drunk panhandler who lives on the street, he eventually loses his beloved dog.  About a year after the episode aired, viewers of the TV show cross paths with Kelly F:

My wife and I were vacationing in Las Vegas on 11/12/2006 when we were sitting at a traffic light in our convertible and were approached by yet another beggar. This particular beggar however my wife instantly recognized from an Intervention episode. Neither of us could remember his name at the time but we both remembered that he was a skater from California with a beer addiction who so dearly loved his dog Odie. Although I recognized him myself once my wife said, “hey, weren’t you on A&E”, I am very sad to say that he looks nothing like he did on the show. He looks at least 10 years older and had a large abscess on his right lower jaw, and although I am not a doctor, I would be very surprised if he lasts another year.

This sort of story just tears my heart out.  Totally engaged, I sit there on the couch and talk to the TV set: "How can you be so stupid?"  "Omigod, she's chugging another beer!"  "With that attitude, she is so not gonna make it through rehab."

I know, I know, some may laugh at other people's predicaments, and others may judge the TV series to be exploitative of addicts, but there is a very strong, real sense of caring about these people and what happens to them that I find, um, well.... addictive.

Oh God.  Why do I have this feeling that one day soon, I'm going to open a door in a hotel room and come face to face with Jeff VanVonderen??

P.S. So do Intervention interventionists need Intervention interventions if they become workaholics?   And if I keep having Intervention interventions, does that mean I need an Intervention-intervention intervention???  AAARGH!!!!

Bridezilla Meltdown: And you thought YOU were having a bad hair day....

This video starts off with three bridesmaids sipping champagne and making last minute adjustments to their outfits, waiting for the bride to show up from her hair appointment and put her wedding dress on.  I won't spoil the rest, but trust me on this: If you ever thought that YOU were having a really bad day, you ain't got NOTHING on this bride!  This is one of the funniest things I've ever seen on YouTube, and the fact that it showed up there at all, probably means that she's not speaking to at least one of her bridesmaids anymore!

UPDATE FEBRUARY 2nd: Turns out this was a hoax.

(Source: I found this via Lainey's Entertainment Update, a great Hollywood gossip blog)