Canada ranks last in freedom of information: study – The Globe and Mail.
You knew this, didn’t you? Harper had a lot to say about freedom of information before he was elected. Now that’s it his government’s information, suddenly we have no access compared to other democracies, and we’re the go-to guys on how not to implement freedom of information acts.
It’s embarrassing, that’s what it is. And a little frightening. What is it they don’t want us to know?
The attempts by the Iranian government to “spin” this story become ever more convoluted. This piece in the Guardian brings the news up do date. First of course, she has not been executed, and the prosecutor of her home province has recently suggested that the original sentence of death by stoning may be changed. Change to what, he didn’t say. In recent weeks, she has been taken out of prison, to her home, in order to”confess” on television. The government has arrested two German reporters for trying to interview her son. Now she is said to be suing these two men, a suit that wouldn’t likely be settled until after her execution.
I don’t know if the people of Iran believe these outrageous statements and postures. Certainly I see no reason to believe that anything that is officially allowed is likely to be the truth. The Iranian people have had their revolution subverted, their rights subtracted, and now live in a land of subterfuge. I hope one day they can reclaim their rightful place as heirs to a glorious civilization.
Julian Assange proves some information is still worth paying for – The Globe and Mail.
The Globe and Mail’s editor sees this book deal of Julian Assange as evidence that books still matter, and that people will still pay money for them. It seems to me that this is evidence that notoriety matters, and people are paying for the glimpse into a celebrity’s life, not for the writing.
I write fiction, the daunting task of facing the blank page, whether it’s on the computer or waiting on a desk with accompanying pencil(and eraser), dredging up images and characters from fragments in the brain. Writing non-fiction, or as this book will be, a memoir, requires a different set of skills, but skill it needs, and time, and research, if the facts are to be presented.
Mr. Assange never finished university, studying maths and physics while he was there. I couldn’t find any reference to written work, either fiction or non-fiction although he is called a journalist on Wikipedia.
A 1.7 million book deal for a guy whose claim to fame is cracking computers and releasing information in a lump. The book is supposed to be an autobiography, but perhaps they’re providing him with a ghost-writer. I wonder if the ghost writer’s name will be on the cover, in the spirit of reveal all.
21 Settings, Techniques and Rules All New Camera Owners Should Know.
The Digital Photography School is a terrific resource for photographers, especially those like me who are making the switch from SLR to DSLR. The link above will take you to answers to the many questions I had, everything from white balance to cleaning.
Thanks to Darren Rouse for all the tips and article and links.
It’s been a hectic month with visitors from Florida to Paris to Elora in Ontario. The new year promises to be quieter, except for a visit to the surgeon for a colonoscopy(preventative maintenance).
I have 20,000 words of the new book and hope to finish by Easter.
Happy New Year and best wishes for health and well-being in 2011.
45 gift ideas for gardeners – Fun and fabulous gifts – Gardening Gifts – Garden Gear – Canadian Gardening. This article from Canadian Living offers help to the last-minute gift buyer with a gardener on her list. My favourite, not counting the trip to England to visit fabulous gardens, is a truck-load of triple mix. If that is too much, check out the page at http://www.worldvision.ca/give-a-gift/Pages/GiveaGift.aspx, and donate trees to an African family.
If you’re the person with the camera at the Christmas festivities, read the advice at the Digital Photography School at http://www.digital-photography-school.com/16-christmas-photography-tips?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DigitalPhotographySchool+%28Digital+Photography+School%29&utm_content=Google+International
The Digital Photography School is a terrific site to visit, or, as I do, have on your home page. The e-mailed tips are great too. I like the opportunity to see other people’s work, and to submit some of mine. I’ve been struggling with learning the finer points of my Canon Rebel T1i, and the site has been a great help.
Finches at the Winters' cafe
The report today is that Assange, who is fighting extradition and is in a British jail, without bail as he was deemed a flight risk, has been moved to an isolation facility. Why he was moved is not clear-perhaps for his protection from other inmates? The sexual assault charges, even by Swedish standards are a real stretch. Why is he fighting extradition? Keeps him in the public eye, doesn’t it?
Both Mastercard and Visa have “blacked” wikileaks to prevent the organization from getting donations. In response, hackers flooded both organization with data requests in an attempt to shut them down. Assange has denied any involvement with that plan.
I still fail to see the heroism in what this organization is doing. The information that has been leaked is raw data, unconfirmed, quotes alleged to be from one or another government official, whether true or not, whether gossip, innuendo, malicious lies, etc. Who knows? If the stated purpose is to bring down governments and corporations by preventing communication, how is that different from other forms of terrorism? And I for one don’t want the world to have less communication, and that, I think, will be the result. Less communication, more misunderstanding, more bad decisions based on too little information because no one wants to run the risk of being quoted.
I don’t think this guy is a hero; I think he is a fanatic, who has set himself up as the champion of truth and freedom.
http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/exhibitions/cpm/catalog/cat2104e.shtml#1222124
Beginning in 1908, mail-order homes were advertised in the catalogues on both sides of the US-Canada border. They were wildly successful on the prairies, where sod houses were replaced with houses that came on the train, all materials and plans, to be erected by a carpenter on site. One company, the Canadian Alladin Company, sent the entire house, packed flat, all the pieces numbered, for easy assembly. The T. EAton company began selling houses from its 1910 catalogue, but only in the west. The article at the link above, has more information.
Growing up, I lived in houses built by the Ontario Hydro for its employees. I assumed they were built on site, according to plans form the company. However, one source indicated that the Ontario Hydro was a purchaser of the mail-order houses.
My new book has been online at writewordsinc.com and at amazon.com, but the cover art hasn’t migrated to the initial listing. I thought I would post it here, along with a brief synopsis.
The Facepainter Murders
Anne McPhail, doctor and genealogist, is back visiting friends in Culver’s Mills, Vermont. She finds a murdered, naked man in the lane behind her friend’s home. The corpse is identified as an art thief from Montreal, who has stolen works from the local gallery.
Anne researches the ownership of the paintings back to painter Zedekiah Belknap, a facepainter or itinerant artist of the early nineteenth century, and forward to the actual owner of today.
Someone has killed the thief, and then others in his criminal gang, finally turning his attention to Anne. She escapes the attempts on her life, discovers the identity of the murderer, and the secrets of the painting he has stolen.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11847824
Wikileaks is threatening to reveal millions of confidential diplomatic papers, which they hacked from secure government servers, with the express purpose of holding the US government to account.
I think we should remember that the US, during much of the time covered by these documents, was and remains in a state of war, as we do in Afghanistan. Diplomacy between countries, has never, anywhere, included frank disclosure of all details, in a great lump, to all the people of the world. The folks at Wikileaks seem to think that they are capable of deciding what will be safe to reveal, not putting people at personal risk, or countries at risk of war.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-11047811
The link above leads to a profile of the charismatic founder Julien Assange, a man who is said to go for weeks while eating little and sleeping less. Apparently we are to believe that a sleep-deprived, malnourished fanatic is the best person to filter through diplomatic cables and e-mails, decide they won’t put people in harm’s way or start wars, and release them to a shocked population. Not to forget that this man is stealing the intellectual property of others.
I agree that governments lie to us, ours certainly does, spin after spin, and perhaps I’m like Diogenes, looking for that one honest man in politics who will tell us the facts, put them in context and lead a party of clarity and honesty, but I don’t want vast quantity of so-called facts, filtered by Assange’s acolytes, and released around the world for their shock value.
By the way, what has happened to the diplomatic pouch? Wikileaks can’t hack what isn’t in cyberspace.
Two weeks is a short visit to another country, barely time enough to get a limited sense of the geography, no time at all to get a sense of the people, no time except to feel the otherness of the place.
“How was your vacation?” people always ask.
“Loved Madrid, didn’t like Sevilla, thought the pueblos blancos and the mountains beautiful and overwhelming,” I would say.
But even a brief two weeks, alters perception, preconceived notions of a country, and creates a desire to know what is going on there, how are the people doing, what is preoccupying the nation. Before October, I didn’t care whether the banks were failing, or what was happening to the mortgage market, or how many were unemployed, and what that would mean for the people we met, and the way of life we observed.
Madrid was happy, the plazas full of families, the museums with Spaniards on vacation, the skyline with cranes. Sevilla was sad, the streets, where we were anyway filled with tourists, the clerks in the stores and hotels and bars glum, the pueblos blancos, photo-ops that they all were, closed in and except for the British, oblivious to the visitor.
The news from Spain economically isn’t good, especially for the immigrants from the Spanish-speaking countries of the new world. An article today in the New York Times, and late in October in the Globe and Mail talked about the draconian banking laws that prevent individual bankruptcy proceedings from including a mortgage. The result: the borrower and the guarantor are tied for life to the bank, paying off a debt even though the house is no longer theirs.The banks say this prevented their failure during the economic crisis. The entire sorry tale is available here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/28/world/europe/28spain.html?_r=1&scp=6&sq=spain&st=cse
Spain has beautiful cities, ancient villages where Phoenicians and Romans and Berbers walked before we did, and an unexpected, vast landscape. It’s in Europe, yet partly outside it too. I’m glad we went, even it was only two weeks.
My new book, The Facepainter Murders is available at Amazon.com and at http://www.writewordsinc.com
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