With so many books out there in the world there must be a balance between the good writers and the bad writers, right? Wrong. Most of the bad writers are unpublished and continue to be unpublished, granted even a good writer has a point in their life where they are unpublished. Once a writer gets a book published, they are more likely to get a second book published, if only because they had a first novel published and that opens doors. So published authors tend to be better writers, all the editors weeding out the hopeless ones. But, does that mean all the authors with three or more books under their belt are all good writers? Maybe. Certainly, not all writers are the same calibre, but they must be good, because people are buying their books and publishers are getting them printed, right? Nope. Some people will read anything.
Take me for example I have purchased nine novels, two three book trilogies and three stand alone stories, from K J Parker and I have read seven of them. And he is a good writer and a good story teller but the books are terrible. Apparently I will read anything. He writes in a style that is guaranteed never to be mimicked in Hollywood. His story endings are unconventional and the conclusions are not what I want to read about all the time.
The first series I read was a story about a soldier who woke up in a ditch on a battlefield with no memory, he was also the only one alive. No memory, but pure instinct flowed through his veins and he was a very good killer. The first book he travels the land trying to make a living and find out who he is, but everyone is afraid of him or treat him with great reverence, but refuse to help him or tell him who he is, so the mystery continues. The second book he finds his childhood memories and tries to continue his life, but every time he starts something it all goes horribly wrong. It is as if he is a dark version of king Midas, everything he touches dies. In the last book he tries to discover what he did in his adult years and his curse continues to track him down as if he is a plague carrier. He tries to be good, but every action leads to more misfortune. When he finally discovers he he really is, empires have fallen, his families lay slain and everyone hates him.
The second series revolves around an old cavalry man who is trying to save a city from destruction from a hoard of barbarians. The series follows a similar plot line, different except every step forward involves a step backwards. Sometimes a hundred steps backwards. This series is actually about a magic spell that goes horribly wrong by being horribly nonspecific and the people trying to fix it after it was said. Again everyone dies. Would it kill him to write a good ending?
I mean that. The novels are well researched, the writer even made a couple siege engines to see how they worked and the details about constructing swords, bows and armour are incredible. The plots unfold magically, but the endings suck fresh raw sewage.
Most recently I read, The Company. Six boys head off to military college and then to war and come back heroes. Well five come back. Okay, four come back and then the last one comes back years later to reunite them in a chance to retire in happiness. The venture is simple head off to a deserted military post and start a farm. Every chapter begins with a little bit of history about the war and the people involved. The story unfolds very well. By the end of the first few chapters, hero worship of the characters, is the sort of emotion that I feel. The company was a special unit called a Linebreaker. It is explained early on. Soldiers wear armour, it protects them from getting hurt, bur the weapon of choice in this land is a pike. A pike is eighteen feet long (6m), the blade is about a foot long and it looks like a long spear. The formation that is used is like a Greek Phalanx. There are six rows of men, each has a pike, each manholes his pike straight out creating and overlapping spear wall six pikes deep. The men are in close formation, shoulder to shoulder back to front with the each person. As two armies come together, each first rank dies as they are each speared with six pikes and it gets very bloody indeed. Linebreakers are soldiers who are tasked with running ahead of this formation and trying to disrupt the enemy formation. They do this by ducking under the line of pikes, pushing the pikes aside, cutting the pike heads off as the approach or by simply jumping over them, all in a bid to kill and disrupt the enemy formation; to break holes through their lines that can be exploited. That it is said is the easy part. The hard part is getting away from your own troops as the exploit the hole that you are standing in, six rows of pikes aimed at your back rushing forward. They said that a good Linebreaker lives on average a couple battles, A Company, lasted through seven years of war. Bad things happen to them they survive, then hidden secrets conspire to tear them apart.
Just once I would like a happy ending.
Maybe I should read the other two books, perhaps there is one in one of them …
Sunday, 29 April 2012
Nebulous nebulas
Nebulas are cool. There are really three types, in my mind. My three types are planetary nebulas, stellar nebulas and stellar dust. Historically they were different. People used to call any blob in the sky a nebula and this worked well until telescopes got better and people could see what they actually were. Fifty or sixty years ago, people only knew about one galaxy; the one we live in and there was nothing else. Then telescopes got better and the fuzzy Andromeda Nebula resolved into a huge galaxy. Other nebulas became other galaxies, but some nebulas remained, but were reclassified as planetary or stellar depending on their cause.
Planetary Nebulas are the deaths of stars. When a star dies, it throws off its outer gas layer and the stellar remains at the core of the gas illuminates or ionizes the departing gasses. Violent deaths illuminate more of the gas and the nebula appears to be brighter.
Stellar nebula are the birth places of stars. The space dust, mostly gas, clumps together and gravitationally attracts more gas until the region becomes dense enough to start fusion reactions and stars are born. While it is conceiveable for only one star to be born, usually a whole cluster of stars are created. When the stars are born they create a breeze in space, the particles they energize or the light coming from the star, this pushes the gas and dust away from the new star and when the cloud starts to break up from this wind, we can start to see the nebula. The light from the new stars ionizes the particles and they start to reflect and emit light. They glow.
Hydrogen gas when ionized, emits red light, oxygen emits green. What happens is the atoms in the outer shell become energized and they temporarily move to a higher energy state. Once in the higher state the atom becomes unstable and the electron moves back to the lower energy state and emits the light back into the environment.
Stellar dust, galactic dust, is just the gas that has not been used in star formation. It was once in a nebula or it is part of the leftover matter that was created in the big bang but has not become anything yet. One day it will, but not just yet.
Planetary Nebulas are the deaths of stars. When a star dies, it throws off its outer gas layer and the stellar remains at the core of the gas illuminates or ionizes the departing gasses. Violent deaths illuminate more of the gas and the nebula appears to be brighter.
Stellar nebula are the birth places of stars. The space dust, mostly gas, clumps together and gravitationally attracts more gas until the region becomes dense enough to start fusion reactions and stars are born. While it is conceiveable for only one star to be born, usually a whole cluster of stars are created. When the stars are born they create a breeze in space, the particles they energize or the light coming from the star, this pushes the gas and dust away from the new star and when the cloud starts to break up from this wind, we can start to see the nebula. The light from the new stars ionizes the particles and they start to reflect and emit light. They glow.
Hydrogen gas when ionized, emits red light, oxygen emits green. What happens is the atoms in the outer shell become energized and they temporarily move to a higher energy state. Once in the higher state the atom becomes unstable and the electron moves back to the lower energy state and emits the light back into the environment.
Stellar dust, galactic dust, is just the gas that has not been used in star formation. It was once in a nebula or it is part of the leftover matter that was created in the big bang but has not become anything yet. One day it will, but not just yet.
The China Study
The following is an excerpt from Dr. Campbell's new book "Whole", which is set to be released by BenBella Books at the beginning of 2013.
When we live in a system, we absorb a system and think in a system.
--James W. Douglass, "JFK and The Unthinkable"
"When I began my research career in nutritional science, I was naïve to a fault. My childhood environment of hay fields and milking barns did not prepare me for the dark side of science: the greed, the small-mindedness, and the outright dishonesty and cynicism of some of its practitioners. And the shocking examples of how public officials closed their eyes to important findings when they got in the way of their reelection.
I entered the academy eager to participate in my idealized version of scientific inquiry. I couldn't imagine anything better: learning new things, choosing which questions to research, then sharing and debating ideas with students and colleagues. I loved the transparency and integrity of the scientific method - how personal opinions and biases faded away before the majesty of real evidence. How a well-conceived experiment was like setting the table beautifully and inviting Truth to dinner. How honest questioning could banish ignorance and create a better world.
What I discovered is that science was and is and can be just like that - as long as the researcher is careful not to pursue politically incorrect ideas outside the boundaries of "normal" science. You can wonder and ask and research anything you like, until you cross the line defined by prejudice and reinforced by the moneyed interests that fund almost all science.
Normal science? That's a strange phrase, isn't it? What's normal? I'll go into this concept in detail starting in the next chapter, when I talk about scientific paradigms (what I call "mental prisons"). For now, let's just say that a paradigm is simply a collection of ideas that constitutes an agreed-upon story, or narrative, about how the world is. This narrative defines what we are allowed to think, and think about, and is important as much for what it forbids as for what it describes. Normal science means anything that falls safely within those boundaries. "Normal" doesn't mean "good" or "better" in any way, just a concept that doesn't rock the boat of general agreement.
For much of my career I've found myself bumping up against the invisible boundaries of that paradigm. In the last few decades I finally decided to blast through it altogether. That's how I know so much about those boundaries: you have to cross the line to find out where it is."
Among the important things that good rationalists must employ when looking at the world, are science literacy (including a working knowledge of statistics) and a healthy degree of skepticism. Skepticism at its root is asking questions. Among the most important questions should always be “Where is the money?” I use that one a lot and it means who paid you to do the research and what are you selling. Another question is "Show us your data,” and this means raw data, but could mean, “What are you leaving out?” Omissions and lies basically, but also skewing data to your own agenda. Like when former Doctor Andrew Wakefield added a few already Autistic diagnosed children at the end of his tiny study which concluded that vaccinations cause Autism. As such I would invite you to read this:
http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/07/07/the-china-study-fact-or-fallac/
Read it. I read it. I also read a brief synopsis of the China Study from a believer. The critic had no axe to grind and looked at Campbell's own data and was favorably inclined toward the conclusions and her independent study of the raw data, also backed up some of the findings.
For those who do not want to spend the hour or so to read the short 9000 word synopsis of her research, I will paraphrase.
1. He picked data that supported his conclusion, he added data that strengthened his claim but did not actually add to its validity.
2. He used people's lack of understanding of statistics to pull the wool over people's eyes; he used non significant numbers to show validation, when they mean almost nothing.
3. He excluded data that detracted from his claim.
4. He ignored previous studies, that HE had completed, because they did not agree with his current claims.
5. He generalized the data from one product to include a category of foods. Specifically he used one dairy food, a type of milk product, to represent all dairy foods, when data for other dairy foods showed opposite results. Casein or milk protein was found to be mildly carcinogenic, but to apply it to all dairy products, indeed to all animal products is disingenuous at best, academically dishonest at worst.
6. In the bid to make his claims valid, Dr. Campbell, ignores other important facts about the cancers he is claiming are caused by eating meat, like the association of schistosomiasis infection, industrial work hazards, increased hepatitis B infection, and other non-nutritional factors with these diseases. When he makes a claim for the benefit of diet, he also fails to list other possible reasons, such as the latitude vs. cancer occurrence. Latitude? How is that important, more sunshine means more vitamin D, lower latitudes are warmer so people spend more time in the sun. Lower latitudes people eat fish more often too. There are many studies showing that vitamins D and omega3 fatty acids in fish reduce cancer.
Scientific journals are of two varieties, peer reviewed and non. In peer reviewed, other people in similar pursuits pick at a researchers findings finding faults allowing the original researcher to tidy up their claims and not to overstate unproven facts. That is why universities require all papers to be peer reviewed and why students are encouraged strongly to base their papers in only peer reviewed journals. A good way to circumvent this process is to publish a book and get Oprah to read it and recommend it. I have no idea if Oprah actually recommended this book by-the-way.
Please tell me what you think. And note, I have been a vegetarian (ovo-lacto) for nearly 20 years and vegetarian (ovo-lacto-pisco) for exactly 21 years and do not plan on changing this based on one or two studies. Although I understand that an omnivorous diet is the more healthy way to go, low starch with vegetables, raw over cooked, and fish.
When we live in a system, we absorb a system and think in a system.
--James W. Douglass, "JFK and The Unthinkable"
"When I began my research career in nutritional science, I was naïve to a fault. My childhood environment of hay fields and milking barns did not prepare me for the dark side of science: the greed, the small-mindedness, and the outright dishonesty and cynicism of some of its practitioners. And the shocking examples of how public officials closed their eyes to important findings when they got in the way of their reelection.
I entered the academy eager to participate in my idealized version of scientific inquiry. I couldn't imagine anything better: learning new things, choosing which questions to research, then sharing and debating ideas with students and colleagues. I loved the transparency and integrity of the scientific method - how personal opinions and biases faded away before the majesty of real evidence. How a well-conceived experiment was like setting the table beautifully and inviting Truth to dinner. How honest questioning could banish ignorance and create a better world.
What I discovered is that science was and is and can be just like that - as long as the researcher is careful not to pursue politically incorrect ideas outside the boundaries of "normal" science. You can wonder and ask and research anything you like, until you cross the line defined by prejudice and reinforced by the moneyed interests that fund almost all science.
Normal science? That's a strange phrase, isn't it? What's normal? I'll go into this concept in detail starting in the next chapter, when I talk about scientific paradigms (what I call "mental prisons"). For now, let's just say that a paradigm is simply a collection of ideas that constitutes an agreed-upon story, or narrative, about how the world is. This narrative defines what we are allowed to think, and think about, and is important as much for what it forbids as for what it describes. Normal science means anything that falls safely within those boundaries. "Normal" doesn't mean "good" or "better" in any way, just a concept that doesn't rock the boat of general agreement.
For much of my career I've found myself bumping up against the invisible boundaries of that paradigm. In the last few decades I finally decided to blast through it altogether. That's how I know so much about those boundaries: you have to cross the line to find out where it is."
Among the important things that good rationalists must employ when looking at the world, are science literacy (including a working knowledge of statistics) and a healthy degree of skepticism. Skepticism at its root is asking questions. Among the most important questions should always be “Where is the money?” I use that one a lot and it means who paid you to do the research and what are you selling. Another question is "Show us your data,” and this means raw data, but could mean, “What are you leaving out?” Omissions and lies basically, but also skewing data to your own agenda. Like when former Doctor Andrew Wakefield added a few already Autistic diagnosed children at the end of his tiny study which concluded that vaccinations cause Autism. As such I would invite you to read this:
http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/07/07/the-china-study-fact-or-fallac/
Read it. I read it. I also read a brief synopsis of the China Study from a believer. The critic had no axe to grind and looked at Campbell's own data and was favorably inclined toward the conclusions and her independent study of the raw data, also backed up some of the findings.
For those who do not want to spend the hour or so to read the short 9000 word synopsis of her research, I will paraphrase.
1. He picked data that supported his conclusion, he added data that strengthened his claim but did not actually add to its validity.
2. He used people's lack of understanding of statistics to pull the wool over people's eyes; he used non significant numbers to show validation, when they mean almost nothing.
3. He excluded data that detracted from his claim.
4. He ignored previous studies, that HE had completed, because they did not agree with his current claims.
5. He generalized the data from one product to include a category of foods. Specifically he used one dairy food, a type of milk product, to represent all dairy foods, when data for other dairy foods showed opposite results. Casein or milk protein was found to be mildly carcinogenic, but to apply it to all dairy products, indeed to all animal products is disingenuous at best, academically dishonest at worst.
6. In the bid to make his claims valid, Dr. Campbell, ignores other important facts about the cancers he is claiming are caused by eating meat, like the association of schistosomiasis infection, industrial work hazards, increased hepatitis B infection, and other non-nutritional factors with these diseases. When he makes a claim for the benefit of diet, he also fails to list other possible reasons, such as the latitude vs. cancer occurrence. Latitude? How is that important, more sunshine means more vitamin D, lower latitudes are warmer so people spend more time in the sun. Lower latitudes people eat fish more often too. There are many studies showing that vitamins D and omega3 fatty acids in fish reduce cancer.
Scientific journals are of two varieties, peer reviewed and non. In peer reviewed, other people in similar pursuits pick at a researchers findings finding faults allowing the original researcher to tidy up their claims and not to overstate unproven facts. That is why universities require all papers to be peer reviewed and why students are encouraged strongly to base their papers in only peer reviewed journals. A good way to circumvent this process is to publish a book and get Oprah to read it and recommend it. I have no idea if Oprah actually recommended this book by-the-way.
Please tell me what you think. And note, I have been a vegetarian (ovo-lacto) for nearly 20 years and vegetarian (ovo-lacto-pisco) for exactly 21 years and do not plan on changing this based on one or two studies. Although I understand that an omnivorous diet is the more healthy way to go, low starch with vegetables, raw over cooked, and fish.
Monday, 23 April 2012
Living in Smallville
You have to understand it is small and there is nothing to do here and that there is nothing close by. There is a single movie theatre that was split into two screens a long time ago. There is a museum and an art gallery, but funding is scant for both, there is a music hall, but it is too small to turn a profit.
There is a high-school that highlights the issues of this tiny town, there is nothing to do except drink, get high or fuck. The high-school has provincially high rates of drug and pregnancy among students, not to mention suicide. The only thing that Smallville has in abundance is nature. If you have a boat in the Summer or a snowmobile in the Winter, you are set. If you are not inclined, or do not have either you can walk in nature. See high suicide rate. There are other things to do. I think there are other things to do. There must be other things to do, right. Nope. The people who do not leave this town young, get married and start a family right out of high-school, unless they start before they leave.
My problem was always I never liked things with engines, so I walked, biked, or canoed and I was alone. When I went to Big Smoke, I discovered that there were many other people who shared interests that I never knew I had until I left Smallville.
Now I find myself back in Smallville, a place I should never have returned, but a place I have strong roots. It is a place that is killing me. If it had been a hundred years ago I could live here as a farmer, but now I live here to die.
There is a high-school that highlights the issues of this tiny town, there is nothing to do except drink, get high or fuck. The high-school has provincially high rates of drug and pregnancy among students, not to mention suicide. The only thing that Smallville has in abundance is nature. If you have a boat in the Summer or a snowmobile in the Winter, you are set. If you are not inclined, or do not have either you can walk in nature. See high suicide rate. There are other things to do. I think there are other things to do. There must be other things to do, right. Nope. The people who do not leave this town young, get married and start a family right out of high-school, unless they start before they leave.
My problem was always I never liked things with engines, so I walked, biked, or canoed and I was alone. When I went to Big Smoke, I discovered that there were many other people who shared interests that I never knew I had until I left Smallville.
Now I find myself back in Smallville, a place I should never have returned, but a place I have strong roots. It is a place that is killing me. If it had been a hundred years ago I could live here as a farmer, but now I live here to die.
Saturday, 21 April 2012
Legs to her armpits
A few days ago, while at work, a woman and her daughter walk in. The daughter is in her early twenties and is blond wearing a red floral one piece dress with a short skirt. She was a head turner. Her legs, by description were long and visible to the middle thighs; this I can describe due to her short hem line. She had a pretty face. The males that I work with were agog. They were all talking about her legs and how they would love to walk between them, that they were so long that the could walk between them.
I was confused. I looked at her, her long unblemished legs and saw nothing special. Nothing to illicit this reaction that they were all having. I was thinking, even though I thought she was pretty, I wonder what she thinks about, what her personality is like?
I have noticed other times when a woman walks by with a "nice" attribute, that guys make comments about them and her, but while I can recognize that they are "nice" and she is pretty, they do not cause me to make that reaction. Which is odd.
Odd because I have an, at times, overwhelming libido. Lust is my Capitol sin. But knowing a person is more important to me than a nice set of legs.
So I look at the girl in the red dress and think, legs, yup, they are legs, and these guys are gibbering idiots, but what can I say to make them think that I am one of them, because being part of a group is how people survive.
I think of all the people that I like and most of them I know personally. Passing hottie on the street is still hot, but I am not interested in them, in her. I feel that I am the one that does not belong.
I was confused. I looked at her, her long unblemished legs and saw nothing special. Nothing to illicit this reaction that they were all having. I was thinking, even though I thought she was pretty, I wonder what she thinks about, what her personality is like?
I have noticed other times when a woman walks by with a "nice" attribute, that guys make comments about them and her, but while I can recognize that they are "nice" and she is pretty, they do not cause me to make that reaction. Which is odd.
Odd because I have an, at times, overwhelming libido. Lust is my Capitol sin. But knowing a person is more important to me than a nice set of legs.
So I look at the girl in the red dress and think, legs, yup, they are legs, and these guys are gibbering idiots, but what can I say to make them think that I am one of them, because being part of a group is how people survive.
I think of all the people that I like and most of them I know personally. Passing hottie on the street is still hot, but I am not interested in them, in her. I feel that I am the one that does not belong.
Sunday, 15 April 2012
Smooth move
Women are funny people. One woman can love two men equally. One man offers hard work, freedom in all things and the attempt of happiness. The other offers a bigger paycheck and a prison. She took the paycheck that she will never see and the prison.
My second gift to her would have been freedom of movement, my first was freedom of choice. I hope you are happy with your choice, confined to your house with people watching you and reporting on you. I hope you are happy with your scaled back number of acceptable friends. Not allowed to call people. The gifts you receive from now on are links to your chain, coffee makers, blenders, pots and pans; you are so lucky!
My second gift to her would have been freedom of movement, my first was freedom of choice. I hope you are happy with your choice, confined to your house with people watching you and reporting on you. I hope you are happy with your scaled back number of acceptable friends. Not allowed to call people. The gifts you receive from now on are links to your chain, coffee makers, blenders, pots and pans; you are so lucky!
Friday, 13 April 2012
A Single Life Too Far
Single life is ultimately very sucky. First of all you have no one telling you to do things, needing you to do things, wanting for you to do things. You have no one to do things for. There is no one to help you be a full person. There is no one to help you realize your full potential and to exceed it.
Then there is sex. A single person in my experience, me, has a very high libido. My friends never believe me when I say that I can keep it up for a very long time. After being single for a few years at a time, I can outlast any woman. I know that if I were not single almost any woman would outlast me, well probably not, I am special though. The last time I was put to the full test, and the time before that . . . Well that would be bragging, but I outlasted Braveheart. I would not do that again because I injured them, the women. Trust me, I would rather not. I would rather be normal and just have sex once a month or less and not be single.
It is my health. Single people die before non single people. They generally die unhappy too. They can die because they have a mole that develops on their back and there is no one to see it. They can die because they get sick and there is no one telling them to go to the hospital. They can die at forty years of age because they feel lonely and useless and because drugs and alcohol do not mix that way safely.
I have been in a mutually loving caring relationship exactly zero times for zero years and zero seconds; their has always been someone who was holding back. I will never know my full potential, which is a damn shame, because right now, the husk I am, is better than half the people I see. If I came into my full potential I might be able to light a flame in a thousand minds and hearts and send a ripple through humanity. I will die sooner having nothing to live for more than The Hobbit movie. I will die of skin cancer that could have been detected if someone saw my back every morning as I dressed. I will not make a special woman happy with a grin on her face when her friends talk about their monthly aborted sexual romp, her daily grin, twice daily.
Then there is sex. A single person in my experience, me, has a very high libido. My friends never believe me when I say that I can keep it up for a very long time. After being single for a few years at a time, I can outlast any woman. I know that if I were not single almost any woman would outlast me, well probably not, I am special though. The last time I was put to the full test, and the time before that . . . Well that would be bragging, but I outlasted Braveheart. I would not do that again because I injured them, the women. Trust me, I would rather not. I would rather be normal and just have sex once a month or less and not be single.
It is my health. Single people die before non single people. They generally die unhappy too. They can die because they have a mole that develops on their back and there is no one to see it. They can die because they get sick and there is no one telling them to go to the hospital. They can die at forty years of age because they feel lonely and useless and because drugs and alcohol do not mix that way safely.
I have been in a mutually loving caring relationship exactly zero times for zero years and zero seconds; their has always been someone who was holding back. I will never know my full potential, which is a damn shame, because right now, the husk I am, is better than half the people I see. If I came into my full potential I might be able to light a flame in a thousand minds and hearts and send a ripple through humanity. I will die sooner having nothing to live for more than The Hobbit movie. I will die of skin cancer that could have been detected if someone saw my back every morning as I dressed. I will not make a special woman happy with a grin on her face when her friends talk about their monthly aborted sexual romp, her daily grin, twice daily.
Thursday, 5 April 2012
Corpse of Basted Cat
Part of the problem of the curse of a long memory is that I can recall the way things used to be and compare it with how they are now AND be accurate. My only subscriber listens to the same radio station that I do, probably for similar reasons, it was the station that was played at home when we grew up. We did not grow up together, but we did grow up listening to the CBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The difference is that I grew up when it was great and she grew up when it was suffering.
How it has changed can be best expressed by looking at the Sunday Morning program schedule. Today's Sunday morning begins at 6AM with Fresh Air where the host interviews various people from around the province and plays light music. There are news intermissions and for the most part it is all prerecorded. Following this program comes Sunday Report or something, truth being is that I stopped listening to Sunday morning radio for the most part. This broadcast contains thoughtful interviews and interesting people and continues until 11:30 AM when a short twenty five minute prerecorded serial plays. The news updates between 6am and noon every half hour.
Contrasting what I listened to growing up was something that was not very different, but at the same time being totally different. Fresh Air began at 6am, there were two hosts and there was light conversation and light music, shortly after eight o'clock the over nineties birthday list was announced and then the show ended at 8:30. The Food Show would then commence and last until 9am. Not a huge change right? It wasn't and if you shut off your radio then it would not be. But if you kept the radio on, you would be blown away by the next three hours of radio. It was called Sunday Morning, but it was three hours of current news stories with teeth. By teeth I mean large pointy tearing teeth that ripped stories out of the world, and huge grinding teeth that ground it all down to the facts. These were three hours of current documentaries of current news events from out in the field. The kinds of stories that you will not hear anywhere anymore.
I remember listening to the story about the Freedom fighter in Afganistan who dressed only in his robe and wearing flimsy leather sandals walked out into the cold of the Afghanistan Winter and walked five hours out over rocks and uneven terrain just to launch one or two rocket propelled grenades of a small rocket at the Russians and then walk back to his camp another five hour journey. They talked with them and they lived with them and I felt I was talking that walk with them. There were many stories like this, reporters talking with Jesuit priests in El Salvador, where they were being butchered. Interviewing the Sandinistas and the Contras in the bloody civil war in Nicaragua, the famine of East Africa, this time Ethiopia. Where ever news was happening, every Sunday I went there with the CBC and listened to the people that were there, first in their language and then a translator would talk over the conversation. It was a golden age.
The truth of the matter is that the CBC has always been about its investigative reporters, truth finding and lastly about bringing it to the public. It is for this reason that it has suffered in the twenty years since then. Cuts forced many of their foreign correspondents to come home shows that exposed the truth of the world were cut back, because the truth is expensive. Before the CBC was a large fat cat that ate the best of foods but also produced the unique and great value too. Later because of cuts it was a fat cat on the prowel eating mice and dry food, but still producing quality programs. But it seams that some people think that a public broadcaster has not value today. In 2009 it received more cuts the cat was lean with no fat eating the food it could catch plus a very little food from the public purse. The CBC is a shadow of what it was, but they still produce quality programming, even if some of it is repeated at different times of the day and week. The radio has more entertainment news and talks with local people, they rely on other nations for foreign content and talk to people with skype.
2012 there are more cuts to the cat. This time there is no fat. There is very little left to cut that is not needed to keep it alive. The reports in the news try to keep it non partisan, but it is so hard as the government is corrupted by scandal after scandal, the government's solution is to try to kill the messenger, to cut muscle off the cat called CBC, draw blood. The government wil not be happy until the CBC becomes a puppet of the government parroting the news that it tells them to say and do the things it tells them to say.
The CBC was an institution to be proud of, a testament of what a national broadcaster should be about. Was. Now it is about to be gutted and next time decapitated.
How it has changed can be best expressed by looking at the Sunday Morning program schedule. Today's Sunday morning begins at 6AM with Fresh Air where the host interviews various people from around the province and plays light music. There are news intermissions and for the most part it is all prerecorded. Following this program comes Sunday Report or something, truth being is that I stopped listening to Sunday morning radio for the most part. This broadcast contains thoughtful interviews and interesting people and continues until 11:30 AM when a short twenty five minute prerecorded serial plays. The news updates between 6am and noon every half hour.
Contrasting what I listened to growing up was something that was not very different, but at the same time being totally different. Fresh Air began at 6am, there were two hosts and there was light conversation and light music, shortly after eight o'clock the over nineties birthday list was announced and then the show ended at 8:30. The Food Show would then commence and last until 9am. Not a huge change right? It wasn't and if you shut off your radio then it would not be. But if you kept the radio on, you would be blown away by the next three hours of radio. It was called Sunday Morning, but it was three hours of current news stories with teeth. By teeth I mean large pointy tearing teeth that ripped stories out of the world, and huge grinding teeth that ground it all down to the facts. These were three hours of current documentaries of current news events from out in the field. The kinds of stories that you will not hear anywhere anymore.
I remember listening to the story about the Freedom fighter in Afganistan who dressed only in his robe and wearing flimsy leather sandals walked out into the cold of the Afghanistan Winter and walked five hours out over rocks and uneven terrain just to launch one or two rocket propelled grenades of a small rocket at the Russians and then walk back to his camp another five hour journey. They talked with them and they lived with them and I felt I was talking that walk with them. There were many stories like this, reporters talking with Jesuit priests in El Salvador, where they were being butchered. Interviewing the Sandinistas and the Contras in the bloody civil war in Nicaragua, the famine of East Africa, this time Ethiopia. Where ever news was happening, every Sunday I went there with the CBC and listened to the people that were there, first in their language and then a translator would talk over the conversation. It was a golden age.
The truth of the matter is that the CBC has always been about its investigative reporters, truth finding and lastly about bringing it to the public. It is for this reason that it has suffered in the twenty years since then. Cuts forced many of their foreign correspondents to come home shows that exposed the truth of the world were cut back, because the truth is expensive. Before the CBC was a large fat cat that ate the best of foods but also produced the unique and great value too. Later because of cuts it was a fat cat on the prowel eating mice and dry food, but still producing quality programs. But it seams that some people think that a public broadcaster has not value today. In 2009 it received more cuts the cat was lean with no fat eating the food it could catch plus a very little food from the public purse. The CBC is a shadow of what it was, but they still produce quality programming, even if some of it is repeated at different times of the day and week. The radio has more entertainment news and talks with local people, they rely on other nations for foreign content and talk to people with skype.
2012 there are more cuts to the cat. This time there is no fat. There is very little left to cut that is not needed to keep it alive. The reports in the news try to keep it non partisan, but it is so hard as the government is corrupted by scandal after scandal, the government's solution is to try to kill the messenger, to cut muscle off the cat called CBC, draw blood. The government wil not be happy until the CBC becomes a puppet of the government parroting the news that it tells them to say and do the things it tells them to say.
The CBC was an institution to be proud of, a testament of what a national broadcaster should be about. Was. Now it is about to be gutted and next time decapitated.
Tuesday, 3 April 2012
The Hunger Games
I saw the movie, I did not read the books. The books, according to the media, sold over twenty-six million books. But I never heard of them until a week or so before the movie came out. I assumed that was because it was a cult following or because it was a genera that I was not interested in; I was wrong.
The movie was great. I liked it. It is a post-apocalyptic dystopia where the elite of the world reap the benefits of the many, where everyone is doled out just enough food to survive, except for the said elite who have more than enough of everything. But every year each province of the world give up two of their youths for a game to represent the apocalypse everyone survived long ago. The youths, aged 12 to 18, fight for their survival, the winner is lavished with food and wealth for the rest of their lives. Except this is like the TV show Survival, for everything is caught on video and beamed to all parts of the nation live where they can watch the youths die. Oh did I mention that the elite rain their youth from birth to be the best fighters and the rest are trained from birth to be hungry.
The first objectionable feature of this film is that it is PG, Parental Guidance. I object to violence every time; it unnerves me. This is a movie where children are killing children, up close and personal, blood splatters, everything. If you are 10 you can see this movie. If you are 10, you have been encouraged to come see this movie because, the reason why I have not heard of this book is because most of the 26 million books were sold to children through the schools, sold to 10 and 11 year olds.
OMG!!! What is next? See Jack. See Jack Run. See Jack rape and kill Jill. As a friend pointed out to me that Lord of the Flies was a book very disturbing book that was banned in many places, it was studied in grade 12 for years and the movie was only seen in High School. And that was a book where kids go crazy and kill other kids. In the Hunger Games, adults pit children against children to fight for their, the adult's, pleasure.
Next year's hit movie is going to be about a specialty channel where adults can watch children aged 12 to 17 having sex in a high school situation.
The movie was great. I liked it. It is a post-apocalyptic dystopia where the elite of the world reap the benefits of the many, where everyone is doled out just enough food to survive, except for the said elite who have more than enough of everything. But every year each province of the world give up two of their youths for a game to represent the apocalypse everyone survived long ago. The youths, aged 12 to 18, fight for their survival, the winner is lavished with food and wealth for the rest of their lives. Except this is like the TV show Survival, for everything is caught on video and beamed to all parts of the nation live where they can watch the youths die. Oh did I mention that the elite rain their youth from birth to be the best fighters and the rest are trained from birth to be hungry.
The first objectionable feature of this film is that it is PG, Parental Guidance. I object to violence every time; it unnerves me. This is a movie where children are killing children, up close and personal, blood splatters, everything. If you are 10 you can see this movie. If you are 10, you have been encouraged to come see this movie because, the reason why I have not heard of this book is because most of the 26 million books were sold to children through the schools, sold to 10 and 11 year olds.
OMG!!! What is next? See Jack. See Jack Run. See Jack rape and kill Jill. As a friend pointed out to me that Lord of the Flies was a book very disturbing book that was banned in many places, it was studied in grade 12 for years and the movie was only seen in High School. And that was a book where kids go crazy and kill other kids. In the Hunger Games, adults pit children against children to fight for their, the adult's, pleasure.
Next year's hit movie is going to be about a specialty channel where adults can watch children aged 12 to 17 having sex in a high school situation.
Monday, 2 April 2012
Steam punk and zombies?
George Mann another new writer, at least to me. Steam punk. Late Victorian. Zombies. I don't watch zombie movies. I don't do horror movies; great for T&A, but I don't really like violence and gore.
The type set, was more like a newspaper and I suspect it was done more like a Victorian typeface. The prologue involved a zombie, but the main plot seemed to be about a ghost attacking people in the the city of London until the dirigible crashed ala Hindenburg, but the pilot was not found. The pilot was a robot . . ..
Okay, robots, zombies, blimps, ghosts, secret agents and one more thing, a prescient mental patient. All that and a strong female character in a time where women were considered the weaker gender. The age of chivalry is strong in this book, but in this strong male dominated world the monarch is a woman, the strongest monarch in England's history, yet the power of women in their personal life is weak. Still, she pushes against the stereotypes and while they do not break, neither does she.
Overall I liked the book. Steampunk, zombies, the occult, secret agents, a plot to ruin the monarchy and more.
The type set, was more like a newspaper and I suspect it was done more like a Victorian typeface. The prologue involved a zombie, but the main plot seemed to be about a ghost attacking people in the the city of London until the dirigible crashed ala Hindenburg, but the pilot was not found. The pilot was a robot . . ..
Okay, robots, zombies, blimps, ghosts, secret agents and one more thing, a prescient mental patient. All that and a strong female character in a time where women were considered the weaker gender. The age of chivalry is strong in this book, but in this strong male dominated world the monarch is a woman, the strongest monarch in England's history, yet the power of women in their personal life is weak. Still, she pushes against the stereotypes and while they do not break, neither does she.
Overall I liked the book. Steampunk, zombies, the occult, secret agents, a plot to ruin the monarchy and more.
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