Lean, green security machine!

Tom Ballhatchet has designed this ingenious device!

A Hamster-powered paper shredder.

People are pinheads!

So.... the CBC publishes this story about the Queen's grandson, Peter Phillips, marrying a woman from Montreal, Autumn Kelly, who has converted from Catholicism so he won't lose his place in the line to the throne...

If you read the pin-headed comments from people, you wonder what planet they live on. Firstly, every one knows that any self-respecting prince meets his women at a dance thrown by his father to which he invites all the eligible women in the realm for his son to pick from, not at the Grand Prix... So this woman is OBVIOUSLY a "gold digger".

Secondly, any woman who wears a hat like that has royal blood...

Thirdly, well... thirdly, people are pinheads and the pin-headed comments just prove it.

Personally, I think the CBC should go back to only publishing letters to the editor, not offensive comments from people who think that the ability to poke their fingers on the keyboard, even if they can't spell or make coherent sentences, means that they have have an opinion worth reading.

Take Back the Day!: Mother's Day: Not just an invention of the greeting card makers!

Contrary to general opinion, Mother's Day was not the invention of the greeting card makers or floral industry.

In fact, Mother's Day originates circa American Civil War and was the brainchild of Anna Jarvis, in recognition of her own mother Anna Maria Reeves Jarvis' dream of one day having Mother's Friendship Day a nationally recognised memorial day for mothers.

Anna Marie Reeves Jarvis Anna Jarvis

Anna Maria Reeves Jarvis created the idea of Mother's Friendship Day as a way of bringing together families and communities torn apart by the Civil War, based on a shared love of their mothers.

By 1907, two years after the death of her mother, Anna Jarvis had organized the first memorial dedicated to her mother.

By 1914, she had succeeded in the dream and Mother's Day a national holiday. However, as the day became more widely recognised and celebrated, it became less focussed on peace and friendship and more directly related to celebration mothers.

By 1917, the day had become so commercially successful that the original meaning was lost and Anna Jarvis and her sister, Ellsinore, were actively campaigning to have it stopped. Anna Jarvis even incorporated herself as "Mother’s Day International Association", had been arrested for disturbing the peace during on protest, and had claimed copyright on the second Sunday in May. She and her sister spent their family inheritance fighting against the commercialization of the day, dying in poverty, as a result.

Julia Ward Howe

Julia Ward Howe, anti-war campaigner and author of the words to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" continued the effort to carry the Mother's Day tradition of peace and reconciliation through her "Mother's Day of Peace" campaign. By 1872, she was promoting the day to be celebrated on June 2, honoring peace, motherhood and womanhood.

By 1873, women in 18 cities in America held a Mother's Day for Pace gathering. In Boston, the day was celebrated for about 10 more years. Sadly, however, the tradition didn't last after Howe was no longer paying for them.

While some communities continued the tradition for another 30 years, the commercialized Mother's Day, held on the 2nd Sunday in May held sway.

Inter Pares, a Canada-based organization working with women world-wide to promote peace and justice, is doing their part to revive the day as it was originally envisioned by Anna Jarvis and her mother Anna Maria Reeves Jarvis. They are asking us to "TAKE BACK THE DAY by supporting women around the world working for better futures – for themselves, their communities, and their societies."

Coincidences....

Funny how things seem to coincidentally happen.

The other day, I decided to have yet another search for a book I had read a LONG time ago, 1981 to be precise, and then promptly forgot the title for.

I have done Googles previously and found nothing. This time I was lucky and located it first try!

The book was non-fiction by a wilderness walker who comes across a cave in Nevada which had been inhabited, circa WWI. Intrigued by the mystery-man who had once lived there, he starts a search through records for the man. The title should have been easy to find... book about a man living in a cave.... the title was, as I discovered, "The Man From The Cave" (by the late writer and wilderness walker, Colin Fletcher). However, in the pre-Google days, the book eluded me.

I will be seeking out a copy to re-read.

Fresh from that success, I turned on the TV last night and came across a film called "The Group". This 1966 film is about a group of women who, in 1933, meet at college. They are members of "The Group", a sort of unofficial, exclusive club. Their friendships stand the test of time, more or less, and the film follows them past graduation and into the world and their adult lives.

Despite the time during which the film was made and the time in which it is set, it manages to touch on some serious issues, such as birth control, pre-marital sex, miscarriage, lesbianism, spousal abuse, and mental illness -- even breast-feeding -- in a remarkably forthright manner. There is no moralizing over some of the issues which usually suffer at the hands of Hollywood scriptwriting and the characters rise above the stereotypical social mores one would expect to prevail.

Memorable segments which from the first time I watched the film (some time in the 1980s) were

• the depiction of the heartbreak of Priss (Elizabeth Hartman) in failing over and over to produce a child for her overbearingly critical pediatrician husband (after the second miscarriage he states that it will give him a bad reputation), her joy at finally making it successfully through a pregnancy, only to find that Sloan plans on using the boy for his "radical" theories on child-rearing whether it is good for either mother or child or not. His theories on breastfeeding, while noble and nutritionally accurate, for instance, not only render her so nervous as to be incapable of managing to do it, they endanger the baby and only encourage Priss to fall back on bottlefeeding. Poor Priss is saddled with actually putting into practice the unworkable "experiments" and every failure is seen as hers, not his -- watching weary Priss turning down an invitation for coffee while her son destroys the room behind her is excruciating
  
• the frank heart-to-heart discussion between (cannot recall the character) and her mother over birth control --in the time period of the film it was illegal for unmarried women to obtain birth control-- and her angst over "the appliance" which she managed to obtain at her mother's insistence but left in disgust under a bench in the park. Her mother tells her that it strikes her that she doesn't really love her boyfriend, a revelation she hadn't actually considered
• the discussion over women entering college in order to obtain their Mrs. (in order to find a husband)

The film, based on the Mary McCarthy book of the same name, has been called melodramatic, "shrill", and glossed-over. To my mind, however, as a portrayal of a period in history where women were beginning to break down social, economic, and professional barriers and succeeding, and managing to dare to break a few Hollywood conventions, it is a pretty good film. It may have dispensed with a lot of the political discussion (McCarthy threw in a lot about Republican vs. Democrat political commentary) as well as much of the discussion of Communism, it has not been entirely dispensed with. Perhaps, had the film been made more recently, it might have more astutely dealt with certain issues. However, I would argue that we would have lost some of the Feminist timeliness that the 1960s reflected and I doubt our jaded viewpoint would allow justice to be been done with some of the issues. I highly recommend seeing the film, if only for Feminist historical perspective.

20th anniversaries and rolling stones

Twenty years ago, February 24 and March 24th, Hutch and Dad died.

Despite my intention to mark the anniversaries in some way, they sort of slipped by, what with Mom being sick, my being sick, my fall on the front stairs, and the financial fiasco(s) of the last three months. However, since there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about my fathers (birth and step), I guess the anniversaries are less meaningful as markers.

Still, I feel bad not having acknowledged Dad's death, at least. I use the word "Dad" interchangeably but only because I know who, or rather which, I mean when I am talking about one or the other. Dad, in this case, is my step dad, the real "Dad" in my life.

Hutch died first, in February. I took about a week off school (college) and mourned the man I really didn't know, in a rather perfunctory way, using the time off as a bit of rest from classes. A month to the day later, Dad died.... I was blown out of the water. I hadn't really expected that... being blown out of the water, I mean. I thought it would be "bad" but I didn't think I would be devastated.... wiped out completely. I don't think I am, even yet, really over Dad's loss.

Still, time passes and I am mindful that while I lost Dad back in 1988, Hutch was really gone back in 1959 when he walked away from us. I am also mindful that, had he not reappeared out of the blue in 1982, I wouldn't have realized just how important Dad was to me and what a "Father" really is.

So... there we are the rolling stone (Hutch) and Dad. Still part of my life, despite the passage of time.

Blocked salivary gland....

The last two days, every time I eat, or even sometimes if I just THINK of eating, the side of my face swells up. Apparently, it is a blocked salivary gland. probably the side effect of some medication I have to take. It doesn't necessarily require medical attention unless it remains blocked or is a symptom of something else. It is, however, annoying, not to mention embarrassing if it happens when I am out.

If it remains blocked, you risk an infection and/or surgery to remove the blockage. Thank GOD it always goes down on its own.

This is what it looks like. That is the left and right sides of my face, side-by-side for comparison, You can't even see my ear!

If you've ever blown up a balloon and had the air backfire into your salivary gland, it feels like that only about 25 times worse,

The first time it happened, I thought I was having an allergic reaction.

Just gotta say....

Mmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Since I gave up pop (specifically colas ... I have had the odd citrus fizzy drink) I have found this to be my drink of choice....

OASIS Wild Berries and Pomegranate contains: Grape, Apple, Pomegranate, Cranberry, Blueberry, Elderberry, Blackberry and Lemon juice (from concentrate)... AND! No sugar added...

My next favorite, if I can't find OASIS, is TrueBlue Blueberry Pomegranate. However, it does have sugar added, though the sugar is half way down the list of water and juice.

In regards giving up pop. I was drinking several a day, at least and after seeing the empties pile up on the side of my desk every week before I took them to the recycle bin, I realized just how much sugar I didn't need. Since just after Christmas, 2007, I have had two Pepsis and a bout 8 Limonata, Orangina or Lemon-lime drinks. Not bad for someone who would down them like water. I now find I don't actually LIKE the taste of Pepsi, after 40-odd years of drinking it.

Luckily, when I am out and have alcohol, my drink of choice is Gin and Tonic.

Ah... The games children play....

Lying to create a "pretext" in order to rationalize a state of war is a tactic with a long history. Here is an example....

"Operation Northwoods" was a set of proposals to "justify" US intervention in Cuba, at the time of the "Cuban Missile Crisis.

Written in response to a request from the Chief of the Cuba Project, Col. Edward Lansdale, the Top Secret memorandum describes U.S. plans to covertly engineer various pretexts that would justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba. These proposals - part of a secret anti-Castro program known as Operation Mongoose - included staging the assassinations of Cubans living in the United States, developing a fake “Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington,” including “sink[ing] a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or simulated),” faking a Cuban airforce attack on a civilian jetliner, and concocting a “Remember the Maine” incident by blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and then blaming the incident on Cuban sabotage.

In his exposé of the National Security Agency entitled 'Body of Secrets', author James Bamford states that "Operation Northwoods" “may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government.”

The various declassified memorandums are available on the National Security Archive, an independent non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University.

Fading Art

I have always been fascinated by the fading vestiges of the painted billboards. There are a few, here in Ottawa, which I have been meaning to capture before they disappear completely... Maybe this summer? Every so often I come across this site and love poring through the new additions.

It is run by Frank Jump. Most of his are in the New York City environs but he also has links to other sites and collections, including his Fading Art blog.

Sadly, more disappear every year, either painted over; the buildings supporting them knocked down, or, in some cases accidentally falling down; or simply fading into oblivion.

Easter Egg

This is an Easter egg I decorated a few years ago for a friend's daughter. I scratched the design into the surface of the egg using an Exacto knife.

(Note: The brown is true to the colour of the egg but the green
of the drawing and the background was actually white.)

My favorite method of colouring the eggs is to get brown or red onion skins from the grocery store. They are all too willing to get rid of them but they tend to treat you like you have just escaped from somewhere when they find you rooting through the boxes of oinion and stuffing bags full of the loose skins. These days they remove them from the boxes every day, so invariably I have to ask them if they have any. They may produce three skins and I have to explain... "No! I need as many as I can get.... All you have of them!" ("Surrrre, Lady! You colour your eggs with them....").

I take the skins and wrap them around the eggs (You can soak the skins in water to soften them before you do this step). In the days before pantihose, we used thread to wrap around them to hold the skins on. Now, I wrap them in the skins and drop them into a length of pantihose, making a knot in between each egg, or place them in one of those net bags that come with the oinions. Using thread as well as placing them in the pantihose usually makes interesting lines on them.

For brown and yellow eggs, use brown onion skins, for red use ...errr... Red onions. You can combine the two but I would boil them in a separate pot.

I drop them in a pot of sold water, bring it to a boil and boil them for 7 minutes and then let them soak until the water is cool enough to retreive them.

When you unwrap them, you will find the most amazing stained glass patterns on your egg.

(Not my photos!)

My egg below was simply boiled using Variation 1, below.

To enhance the colour and pattern, wipe with a cloth and a drop of cooking oil.

Variations:

1. You can simply place the loose skins and eggs into a pot of cold water and boil them which gives the egg a more or less flat brown colour (or red, if you use the red skins). Nice, but the results using the other method is what I like. With the solid colour, you can do as I did below and scratch into the surface to make a picture.
2. You can also place flowers, bits of cedar greens, leaves or shaped stickers on the egg before wrapping the egg. This leaves either a stencil effect or a colored impression of the object you used. Just make sure you use leaves and flowers that are edible! (see image immediately below)

(Again, not my photo)

My egg....