"The Detroit 'hate' riots erupted in June 1943 at Belle Island, a popular segregated beach. On June 20, 1943, fights broke out between groups of white and African-American youths. News of the altercation spread, and by that night a full-scale riot had erupted. The Detroit police force was unable to quell the disturbance; Detroit Mayor Edward Jefferies requested assistance, but federal authorities were reluctant to intervene.
"The violence escalated, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered military police and infantry regiments to disperse rioters late on the second night of the riots. Order was restored, but in a day and a half of rioting, 25 African Americans and 9 whites were killed, almost 700 people were injured, and 1,893 people were arrested . . . "
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Culture
English/French actress Jane Birkin puts a jazz twist to a song written by Englishman Eric Maschwitz who was suffering from his break-up with lover, Anna May Wong, a Chinese/American.
There are concerns being expressed by some members of my family that sending my granddaughter, Fiona, to a French language school may separate her from her culture. The worry is that she may miss out on such important cultural milestones as Shakespeare. Some fear she has been removed from her cultural surroundings, cut loose from her English-culture anchor. They may be right.
Still, I was quite excited on learning Fiona's parents were attempting to enroll the little girl in a French language school. I was proud of my granddaughter when I learned she had been accepted; She had to show a strong aptitude for language and she apparently did. She cleared the big hurdle of a face-to-face interview. Impressive. I was so taken with the possibility of her enriching her life with the addition of a second language, a second culture, I totally forgot time spent on French culture is time not spent on English.
I've thought a lot about this 'problem' and I've decided that today it is a non-issue. Culture today is not what it once was — take my grandfather. He was born in Princeton, Ontario, in 1876. This was a time when it was not uncommon to be born, raised, mature and die all within the same little hamlet.
My grandfather was among those that broke the mold; Well, at least he bent it. He went off to university to become a pharmacist. He took a job in Chicago with the then young Cunningham pharmacy chain, but the draw of his own country, of his small town ambitions, of his Southwestern Ontario culture, drew him to Brantford, Ontario, just a short drive from his hometown.
My grandfather spent most of the remainder of his life in Brantford. He traveled little, not even on vacation. He married and remained married to the same woman until his death in his 90s. He raised four children and two remained close to home. One even became a pharmacist and worked for years for and with granddad.
I compared my grandfather's experience with those of many of the kids with whom I went to school back in the '50s and '60s. My best friend in high school was an Armenian girl born in Cairo. Rose was a rich mix of cultures. She spoke English, Armenian, Egyptian Arabic, French and smattering of Italian. Born in Cairo, Egypt, but raised in Windsor, Ontario, she loved to spend summers in Montreal. The French/Anglo metropolis was simply so cosmopolitan, she said. Today I believe she lives in Los Angeles, California, another cosmopolitan city. Rose has lived a life deeply enmeshed in international culture and benefited from the resulting cultural richness.
Today cultures no longer just collide but they also mesh, they butt up to each other and blend, forced together by the great mixing of people on the move, by movies and other forms of entertainment which span the globe, and by business demands . . . Do I hope Fiona will read Shakespeare and watch a Shakespearean play? Yes, of course.
But I also hope that someday she will watch movies like the little French/English film Daddy Nostalgia. Directed by French film director Bertrand Tavernier and co-written by his English-born ex-wife Colo Tavernier O'Hagan. The film features Dirk Bogarde, born in England but who had his ashes skattered in France, Jane Birkin, another actor with strong British/France connections and the French actress and cabaret singer Odette Laure. Both Bogarde and Birkin were fluent in both English and French and it shows in the movie. What isn't so evident is that Bogarde was gay.
The film was beautifully filmed but not by a man but by a woman: Solange Martin. This is important because Martin, a woman, is not only a cinematographer but also a director as well as a screenwriter. In the culture in which I hope Fiona will live, women will tackle whatever interests them. Being a woman will not be an impediment blocking certain avenues of interest.
Daddy Nostalgia was also released under the title These Foolish Things. Roger Ebert wrote in his review: "That (title) refers to the song that haunts the movie, with some of the most bittersweet lyrics ever written, about how these foolish things remind me of you. Bertrand Tavernier’s whole movie is told in the tone of that song, as a fond, elegiac memory."
That song, These Foolish Things, was written around 1935 by Eric Maschwitz with music by Jack Strachey, both were Englishmen. The lingering tone of loss, of heartache, were said to be inspired by the feelings Maschwitz had for Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong. While working in Hollywood, Maschwitz loved Wong but they separated with Maschwitz returning to England. The words to These Foolish Things were a very public expression of his loss. (Adding a little extra to the cultural soup, Maschwitz was the son of a Lithuanian Jew.)
I hope little Fiona grows into big Fiona, culturally rich Fiona, a young woman confident in herself and fully at ease in her world. I do hope she knows a little of Shakespeare, I do, but I also hope she knows a lot more about a lot more.
Monday, November 11, 2013
Bistro dining on a budget
A cottage roll with vegetables done in a slow cooker makes for an inexpensive bistro meal. |
Sometime ago a reporter with the local paper moaned about the prospect of eating pet food in retirement. Stories about the high cost of food are popular in the media and how the unemployed and struggling, retired seniors are forced to eat pet food. What silliness.
My wife watches the food ads carefully. About twice a year she picks up some cottage rolls for about $1 to $1.25 a pound. Three pound cottage rolls can be picked up for as little as $3 and what cannot be used immediately can be frozen for later. I confess that I paid a little more for the one in the picture but it still came with a big discount. It was near its best before date.
I placed the three pound cottage roll in a crock pot, surrounded it with chopped onion (1), chopped celery (2 stalks), chopped carrot (4) and chopped potato (4 peeled). I poured in a litre of vegetable broth and added enough water to just cover all. I didn't salt the cottage roll. It didn't need it. I did pepper the meat and float a dozen pepper corns in the liquid. Six hours on high and the bistro quality meal was ready to serve.
All the vegetables plus the broth were bought on sale. I like to stock up on boxed broth, low sodium version, whenever it is on sale. When stocking up on sale priced food stuffs, all must have a good shelf life, but done with care this can help slash your food budget.
We'll get about ten meals from my slow cooker dinner. I'll bet these meals are costing us less than some popular pet foods. Truth be told, if you want to eat pet food in retirement it will cost you. Pet food is not inexpensive. You will do better learning how to cook.
p.s. If you watch the sales at the LCBO, you can pick up a box of Shiraz containing a mix of Canadian grapes and imported grape concentrate, often South American, and for about a dollar you can enjoy a small glass of wine with dinner. We like the offering from Jackson-Triggs.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Where's Santa? Where's an editor.
The Free Press story claimed for adult Londoners this was a parade that "took them back childhood." |
Years ago I taught photography to students in the MA journalism program at Western, the university in London, Ontario. I stopped teaching because I burned out. Bluntly, the last classes I taught stunk. Yet, even those classes touched on the obvious failings of the Santa Claus parade picture published online by The London Free Press.
Newspaper sales are down. Responding to falling readership numbers chains like Sun Media, owned by Quebecor, have been slashing jobs. Sadly, along with slashing jobs they have been slashing professionalism. But the loss of professionalism starts at the top. The published picture is a snap shot and the story is filled with errors but the responsibility for this debacle should be dumped at the feet of the newspaper chain owners.
With the photo staff in tatters and the editorial staff equally hard hit, people at newspapers are simply too hard pressed. There was a reason why in the past publications insisted that those taking photographs understand photography and halftone production. There were reasons stories were given to story editors and checked by proof readers.
Jonathan Sher is an excellent investigative reporter. He is an award winner and rightly so. But force Jonathan to take the photos, to write the story and to get the whole package up and onto the net ASAP, along with whatever other assignments he had that day, and errors will not creep in but flood in. It will be an embarrassment. And newspaper people from the past, those with years of experience in the business, could have told Quebecor what was in store.
I took a few moments to attempt removing the yellow cast. |
An editor would have cleaned up the prose, adding missing prepositions, etc.
A photographer would have supplied a real picture, something that told a stronger story. And a photographer would have not have handed in an image with a garish, yellow colour cast.
The Sun Media and Quebecor owners should be ashamed.
I shot the Hyde Park parade last year. See what a retired Free Press photographer captures with a small point and shoot when he is out recording memories for his family's photo album.
If The Free Press reporter could have shot RAW with a fast lens, he could have told a lot more of the parade story. He could have shown smiling, excited faces, parade floats, candy tossers and candy catchers; He could have shown us images of the folk in the story; And speaking of those in the story, he could have shown us Santa Claus.
There are reasons for our newspaper's shabby coverage but none of the reasons provide an excuse.
Saturday, November 9, 2013
▶ Alvin Lee, the blues and upcoming heart surgery
▶ Alvin Lee(Ten Years After) - The Bluest Blues - Vidéo Dailymotion
To hear Alvin Lee, click the link and be patient. This loaded slowly on my computer.
I'm going into the hospital in mid-December. I must have ablation surgery to put an end to the arrhythmia that has affected my heart for the past few month. I'm getting a little tired of doctors working on the old ticker. It's beginning to wear on my nerves. I'm looking forward to life without the arrhythmia but I am not looking forward to the ablation, the physical destruction of the electrical pathway that carries the flutter signal.
Trying to take my mind off the upcoming surgery I decided to listen to some old rock artists. I started with Lou Reed, worked into Savoy Brown and continued on to Alvin Lee of Ten Years After fame. I learned that Alvin Lee died this spring in Spain of complications from surgery to correct an arrhythmia.
So much for taking my mind off my upcoming surgery. Oh well . . . best just to listen to Alvin Lee and rejoice in his life. The man played a great blues guitar.
To hear Alvin Lee, click the link and be patient. This loaded slowly on my computer.
I'm going into the hospital in mid-December. I must have ablation surgery to put an end to the arrhythmia that has affected my heart for the past few month. I'm getting a little tired of doctors working on the old ticker. It's beginning to wear on my nerves. I'm looking forward to life without the arrhythmia but I am not looking forward to the ablation, the physical destruction of the electrical pathway that carries the flutter signal.
Trying to take my mind off the upcoming surgery I decided to listen to some old rock artists. I started with Lou Reed, worked into Savoy Brown and continued on to Alvin Lee of Ten Years After fame. I learned that Alvin Lee died this spring in Spain of complications from surgery to correct an arrhythmia.
So much for taking my mind off my upcoming surgery. Oh well . . . best just to listen to Alvin Lee and rejoice in his life. The man played a great blues guitar.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
What do babies think?
A very young Fiona entertaining herself with a book. |
I've been intrigued by the babies that have recently entered my life: Fiona, Eloise and Isla - my three granddaughters. All show signs of doing a lot of thinking long before they are able to share those thoughts with others.
When Fiona was still a little baby, scooting about the house on her little bum, Fiona could communicate, she could make me aware of her desire to go outside.
One day the little girl dragged my heavy, winter coat to where I was working on my computer. She left the coat at my feet, scooted from the room and returned almost immediately with my boots, then my gloves and finally my camera bag. I bundled her up against the cold and off I went with little child held tightly in my arms. I almost never used a stroller -- too impersonal.
When I saw this Ted Talk video I immediately wanted to share it. It isn't overly long. Enjoy.
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
When myths take over
The headline read: "When The Kids Take Over." According to the article in The London Free Press, aging baby boomers will soon lose control of the housing market as their children, the echo boomers or generation Y, become the local real estate market movers and shakers.
This is undoubtedly true. The echo generation is a big one, almost as big as the baby boom. At 9.1 million, it falls just half a million short of equaling the baby boom. Some of those echo "kids" are already 41 years old, so it is no surprise they are buying homes and raising families.
Still, it will be awhile before the old timers are no longer a major market force. According to Stats Canada, "over three quarters of Canadian households own their homes by the age of 65." It is important to remember that the youngest boomers are only 49 today. Many face years of monthly mortgage payments before taking full title to their home.
Despite all the stories about aging empty-nesters moving to retirement communities, the truth is older folk love their family homes. As baby boomers reach 65, these seniors are not going to immediately start contemplating the sale of their fully-paid-for-homes. Mortgage free homes are often inexpensive places to live and so it should come as no surprise that home ownership among seniors doesn't begin declining in any meaningful way until after age 75. There are nine years remaining before the first wave of baby boomers hits that 75 year mark and even then many will hold onto their homes.
I doubt Sean Quigley, executive director of Emerging Leaders, is correct when he says echo boomers are not as likely to buy suburban homes as their parents. Echo boomers will prefer to live in a downtown neighbourhood according to Quigley. I lived in a neighbourhood almost downtown when I was in my twenties and thirties. My home was by Labatt Park, but that didn't stop me from buying a home in Byron when I needed a place suitable for my aging mother and my growing family. A fifteen minute commute was not a deal breaker.
Still, I wish he was right, it would lessen urban sprawl, but I'm sure he is wrong. I can see little to gain by living in the core. Downtown London, like so many downtowns in cities right around the globe, is broken. Millions have been spent in an attempt to fix the core but at this time the money has only succeeded in applying some expensive band-aids to the crippled neighbourhood.
Unlike the downtown, damaged by the passing years and all the accompanying changes, the suburbs were built damaged. If we are going to have a better city, fixing the downtown while ignoring the suburbs is not a complete answer.
I'm lucky. My Byron home is well situated. I can walk to stores and restaurants and parks. If I decide to drive, I can go to the grocery store and be home within five minutes as long as there is no long line-up at the check-out.
Suburbia in London is not the same as suburbia in Toronto or other major cities. By many definitions of suburbia, my Byron home is in the city and not in the suburbs at all.
I agree with The Free Press that echo boomers are buying homes in the core and in Old South, but echo boomers are also buying homes in Byron and the other so-called suburbs. Already, I believe, almost 40 percent of the homes on my court are owned by young couples who are the sons and daughters of baby boomers. These "kids", as the paper calls them, have chosen to raise their families outside the core.
And for me, this is a good thing. The neighbourhood teens shovel the snow from my walk in the winter, rake the leaves and crab apples from my lawn in the fall and cut my grass in the spring and summer. Young people give my neighbourhood a sense of life, of continuity.
And those echo boomer children are making staying in the family home just that much easier for my wife and me.
This is undoubtedly true. The echo generation is a big one, almost as big as the baby boom. At 9.1 million, it falls just half a million short of equaling the baby boom. Some of those echo "kids" are already 41 years old, so it is no surprise they are buying homes and raising families.
Still, it will be awhile before the old timers are no longer a major market force. According to Stats Canada, "over three quarters of Canadian households own their homes by the age of 65." It is important to remember that the youngest boomers are only 49 today. Many face years of monthly mortgage payments before taking full title to their home.
Despite all the stories about aging empty-nesters moving to retirement communities, the truth is older folk love their family homes. As baby boomers reach 65, these seniors are not going to immediately start contemplating the sale of their fully-paid-for-homes. Mortgage free homes are often inexpensive places to live and so it should come as no surprise that home ownership among seniors doesn't begin declining in any meaningful way until after age 75. There are nine years remaining before the first wave of baby boomers hits that 75 year mark and even then many will hold onto their homes.
I doubt Sean Quigley, executive director of Emerging Leaders, is correct when he says echo boomers are not as likely to buy suburban homes as their parents. Echo boomers will prefer to live in a downtown neighbourhood according to Quigley. I lived in a neighbourhood almost downtown when I was in my twenties and thirties. My home was by Labatt Park, but that didn't stop me from buying a home in Byron when I needed a place suitable for my aging mother and my growing family. A fifteen minute commute was not a deal breaker.
Still, I wish he was right, it would lessen urban sprawl, but I'm sure he is wrong. I can see little to gain by living in the core. Downtown London, like so many downtowns in cities right around the globe, is broken. Millions have been spent in an attempt to fix the core but at this time the money has only succeeded in applying some expensive band-aids to the crippled neighbourhood.
Unlike the downtown, damaged by the passing years and all the accompanying changes, the suburbs were built damaged. If we are going to have a better city, fixing the downtown while ignoring the suburbs is not a complete answer.
I'm lucky. My Byron home is well situated. I can walk to stores and restaurants and parks. If I decide to drive, I can go to the grocery store and be home within five minutes as long as there is no long line-up at the check-out.
Suburbia in London is not the same as suburbia in Toronto or other major cities. By many definitions of suburbia, my Byron home is in the city and not in the suburbs at all.
A young boy from next door shovels my walk. |
And for me, this is a good thing. The neighbourhood teens shovel the snow from my walk in the winter, rake the leaves and crab apples from my lawn in the fall and cut my grass in the spring and summer. Young people give my neighbourhood a sense of life, of continuity.
And those echo boomer children are making staying in the family home just that much easier for my wife and me.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
On buying new clothes and L.L.Bean
The yellow window-pane check shirt is a bit brighter than I'm showing. |
I keep my clothes for a long time -- a very long time. For instance, I'm still wearing a cotton shirt purchased from Beaver Canoe more than a decade ago. It simply refuses to die. I'm on the edge of tossing a similar Royal Robbins cotton shirt. Like the Beaver Canoe shirt, it isn't frayed but it has a stain. My wife is soaking it in OxyClean. We'll see how that works. And I have an Eddie Bauer plaid shirt that in my opinion is as good today as when new.
Still, my supply of shirts is getting thin. It is time to go on a buying spree. I wandered the malls, I hit the box stores, I came up almost empty. The style of stuff I buy does not seem to be found in the London stores.
I turned to L.L.Bean -- the American retailer specializing in mail-order. My wife bought a few things from them in the past and that put us on their mailing list. We get catalogs and we get offers. A few weeks back we got a great offer. It promised 20 percent off everything ordered.
I went online. I quickly found six suitable shirts. Nice. I ordered a yellow shirt with a small, window-pane check, three shirts in solid colours -- white, forest green and light blue -- an Oxford cloth shirt with soft blue stripes and a bright red shirt in a cotton twill.
The prices were amazing. Despite some of the shirts being on sale, the catalog discount code was still honoured. The discounts more than paid the duty. And shipping was free . . . as was the guilt.
I prefer buying locally. I used to buy from a small store downtown called Muskox. It's gone. Eatons? Also gone. Eddie Bauer is an American chain but there were two stores in London: One downtown and another in the large mall in the north end of the city. Both stores are now gone.
It is a new world. As a boy I bought from a clothing store just a couple of blocks from my home. A locally owned store named Robert Holmes, as I recall. It carried beautiful stuff with most items made in Canada -- like shirts from Forsyth. The John Forsyth Shirt Company was born in Waterloo, Ontario, in 1903. The company was sold in the '70s and after some more changes of ownership it closed for good earlier this year.
The same story is attached to almost every brand of shirt, sweater or pants that I bought as a boy. If the brand is available at all, the clothing is now made in Bangladesh, China, Pakistan or elsewhere, as long as elsewhere is not in Canada.
I bought my newest shirts from a store in Maine. I got some for less than $30. Some are wrinkle resistant. They are all 100 percent cotton. I feel bad about leaving Canada to buy my clothes but L.L.Bean seems to be a good company. If I can't buy from Robert Holmes, I'll make do buying from L.L.Bean.
One caveat: If you do decide to order from L.L.Bean, don't order a size larger in order to take shrinkage into account. Nothing my wife and I have ordered from L.L.Bean has ever shrunk. The material is good quality and the descriptions in the catalog are dead-on.
I placed my order Sunday night and the shirts were delivered to my London, Ontario, home late Wednesday afternoon. I immediately tried them on. All fit perfectly as expected. I guess those Peruvians make good shirts. That's right, some L.L.Bean shirts are made in Peru --- in South America -- that's a long way from Waterloo, Ontario.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Heritage districts: Often illusions
This Wednesday evening the London public has been invited to a meeting at the Convention Centre: Our Move Forward - Downtown Master Plan Community Consultation. I have mixed feelings about the approach being taken. With ReThink London still on the go, may I be so bold as to suggest that it is time for Londoners to rethink our historical districts and the preservation that such districts demand.
For an interesting take on the North American longing for lost heritage, read Ada Louise Huxtable's The Unreal America: Architecture and Illusion. When I read the posted piece, the first chapter of Huxtable's book, the talk of Colonial Williamsburg brought to mind Lower Town in Old Quebec City. I am old enough to recall when many of the present "heritage" structures were not there. Many of these buildings were not restored but recreated. Much of the area's 18th century ambiance so loved by tourists is faux.
At this point I had planned on blogging about the importance of thinking about cities in their entirety, of the advantage gained by respecting all city neighbourhoods and not just those designated heritage districts. I will get to that blog in time. But I have been sidetracked by a growing interest in the late Ada Louise Huxtable. The woman was amazing and her writing well worth our time.
If you love cities and architecture, click the link: Rereading Ada Louise Huxtable: 5 Essential Pieces.
________________________________________________
Another heritage building was lost in downtown London. The usual folk are mourning the loss. I wish the city planners and the heritage lovers would get with the game -- and the game is not simply saving all the remaining old buildings
The following is a scene from Old Quebec. The top view is a photo from early in the last century. Note the tall hotel on the left. It was relatively new at the time. Older images do not show the large hotel but they do show some of the structure, the bottom two floors, before they were incorporated into the expanded structure.
The lower photo is from Google StreetViews. Note how the upper floors of the old hotel were removed and the streetscape "returned", I use the word loosely, to its proper heritage appearance.
For an interesting take on the North American longing for lost heritage, read Ada Louise Huxtable's The Unreal America: Architecture and Illusion. When I read the posted piece, the first chapter of Huxtable's book, the talk of Colonial Williamsburg brought to mind Lower Town in Old Quebec City. I am old enough to recall when many of the present "heritage" structures were not there. Many of these buildings were not restored but recreated. Much of the area's 18th century ambiance so loved by tourists is faux.
At this point I had planned on blogging about the importance of thinking about cities in their entirety, of the advantage gained by respecting all city neighbourhoods and not just those designated heritage districts. I will get to that blog in time. But I have been sidetracked by a growing interest in the late Ada Louise Huxtable. The woman was amazing and her writing well worth our time.
If you love cities and architecture, click the link: Rereading Ada Louise Huxtable: 5 Essential Pieces.
________________________________________________
Another heritage building was lost in downtown London. The usual folk are mourning the loss. I wish the city planners and the heritage lovers would get with the game -- and the game is not simply saving all the remaining old buildings
The following is a scene from Old Quebec. The top view is a photo from early in the last century. Note the tall hotel on the left. It was relatively new at the time. Older images do not show the large hotel but they do show some of the structure, the bottom two floors, before they were incorporated into the expanded structure.
The lower photo is from Google StreetViews. Note how the upper floors of the old hotel were removed and the streetscape "returned", I use the word loosely, to its proper heritage appearance.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Photos and copyright
Recently Facebook pulled a dating ad featuring the picture of a young Canadian girl who had killed herself after suffering more than a year of online bullying. The online publication of her picture by an online dating site was in all likelihood illegal. Such a use of this young woman's image is prohibited by both Canadian and American copyright laws.
I spent my life working as a staff photographer for a daily newspaper. I was not a lawyer. My understanding of copyright law as it applies to photographs was gained not at work but at art school. The newspapers were run by "word people" whose interests leaned more toward the scalping of images than protecting them. The art school was run by artists, folk whose creative world was financed by the arts. The image-scalping editors at newspapers were the artists' sworn enemies.
At art school in Detroit I was taught all works of art come into this world protected by a copyright angel. An artist does not have to do another thing. Create it and it is yours. Period. Seems simple but as I said I am not a lawyer. Once lawyers enter the picture, the picture grows murky.
First, let me say that I went to art school in the States but I'm Canadian. Copyright law in the U.S. may not be the same as in Canada. Let me say again, "I am not a lawyer." Still, I am sure there's a lot of overlap not only between Canadian and American law but around the world. I refer you to the Universal Copyright Convention to which both Canada and the United States are signatories.
For more info on U.S. law, I refer you to The United States Copyright Office. If you click the link you will learn, among other things, American law automatically protects a work from the moment of its creation. Of course, legal protection can be incredibly weak protection. Think of a bike. It is illegal to steal a bike but that does not stop the theft of hundreds of thousands of bikes annually across North America.
Stealing an image posted on the Web is far easier than stealing a bike. Often a copy of a picture can be simply "drag and dropped" from the Net onto an image pirate's desktop. The ease of this theft frightens a lot of people. They worry, and with some reason, that posted images of themselves and their family can be easily stolen and re-posted on the Web for a myriad of illegal purposes.
I checked more than a dozen of my posted images. Two are being used without my authorization: one a shot of locked out workers at Electromotive Diesel here in London, Ontario, and the other a shot of an abandoned factory in Detroit. I found no posted pictures of family members being reused.
I'm a little disappointed. In fact, I'm downright insulted. Heck, even the image-scrapping robots didn't think my images worth stealing.
What should we learn from the Facebook fiasco? Images can be stolen and those stolen images can get the thief in trouble. The dating service has been banned from Facebook.
What I found interesting in researching this topic is that software developers have created image-scrapping programs to prowl the Net looking for and copying images. While work on the Internet is publicly accessible, it cannot legally be treated as if it were in the public domain. It isn't. These bots are breaking the law.
Also, copyright applies whether or not there is a copyright notice. Posting a © or placing a copyright notice on your work may make you feel better, and may even deter some from stealing your work, but it does not guarantee your work will not be illegally copied and reused.
I spent my life working as a staff photographer for a daily newspaper. I was not a lawyer. My understanding of copyright law as it applies to photographs was gained not at work but at art school. The newspapers were run by "word people" whose interests leaned more toward the scalping of images than protecting them. The art school was run by artists, folk whose creative world was financed by the arts. The image-scalping editors at newspapers were the artists' sworn enemies.
At art school in Detroit I was taught all works of art come into this world protected by a copyright angel. An artist does not have to do another thing. Create it and it is yours. Period. Seems simple but as I said I am not a lawyer. Once lawyers enter the picture, the picture grows murky.
First, let me say that I went to art school in the States but I'm Canadian. Copyright law in the U.S. may not be the same as in Canada. Let me say again, "I am not a lawyer." Still, I am sure there's a lot of overlap not only between Canadian and American law but around the world. I refer you to the Universal Copyright Convention to which both Canada and the United States are signatories.
For more info on U.S. law, I refer you to The United States Copyright Office. If you click the link you will learn, among other things, American law automatically protects a work from the moment of its creation. Of course, legal protection can be incredibly weak protection. Think of a bike. It is illegal to steal a bike but that does not stop the theft of hundreds of thousands of bikes annually across North America.
Stealing an image posted on the Web is far easier than stealing a bike. Often a copy of a picture can be simply "drag and dropped" from the Net onto an image pirate's desktop. The ease of this theft frightens a lot of people. They worry, and with some reason, that posted images of themselves and their family can be easily stolen and re-posted on the Web for a myriad of illegal purposes.
An image reused without authorization. © Ken Wightman |
I'm a little disappointed. In fact, I'm downright insulted. Heck, even the image-scrapping robots didn't think my images worth stealing.
What should we learn from the Facebook fiasco? Images can be stolen and those stolen images can get the thief in trouble. The dating service has been banned from Facebook.
What I found interesting in researching this topic is that software developers have created image-scrapping programs to prowl the Net looking for and copying images. While work on the Internet is publicly accessible, it cannot legally be treated as if it were in the public domain. It isn't. These bots are breaking the law.
Also, copyright applies whether or not there is a copyright notice. Posting a © or placing a copyright notice on your work may make you feel better, and may even deter some from stealing your work, but it does not guarantee your work will not be illegally copied and reused.
I may start putting the 'C' in a circle, along with my name, under my posted pictures. (To type the copyright symbol hold down the Alt key while typing 0169 on the numeric keypad.)
For more info, check out Top Ten Common Copyright Myths. This was posted by the UK Copyright Service but thanks to the universal nature of copyright law, it is still worth a look. The U.S. Library of Congress also hosts a good site: Taking the Mystery Out of Copyright. And if you are Canadian and would like to read an upsetting take on what companies in the image-providing business are doing to enforce their copyright, then read Excess Copyright: Watching Getty Images Watching Canadians.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
French language links
There are exciting developments in the field of education. One of these is the Open Learning Initiative. If you watched the video you know the goal of OLI is not to eliminate teachers, or to render classrooms obsolete, but to enrich out-of-classroom learning. Carnegie Mellon University, an OLI participant, states on their website:
Many college and universities around the world are using our (Carnegie Mellon) courses and unique learning platform—and now you can too! You can access course materials at no cost to you and work at your own pace. Our learning platform gives you targeted feedback as you go, which helps you know if you are mastering a topic or if you need more practice.
Here is a link to two elementary French language sites posted by CMU. I took a quick look and I've decided to set enough time aside to allow me to visit their OLI site everyday until I've completed their posted two section instruction.
An armadillo from Texas teaches French. |
The Carnegie Mellon and the Texas U offerings are two great introductions to up-to-date approaches to Internet instruction.
If you'd like to know more about OLI, check out The Open University website. The link will take you to some of the pages tagged French.
My goal is to be speaking French fluently by the time my granddaughter is finishing her year of kindergarten at her London, Ontario, French-speaking school.
____________________________________________________
I've added one more site to my Internet list of sites offering French instruction. This one is an updated take on flash cards. It is a well thought out site at which one can hear French and thus develop an ear for the language. There are even tests to check your progress. Everything is interactive. Here is a link: Quizlet Language and Vocabulary. The flash cards that convinced me to climb on board were these: Ma ville natale.
Oh, some of these sites accept donations. If you find the info useful, please donate. Nothing in life is truly free. Don't be a slug.
Monday, September 2, 2013
Supporting children as they tackle French
My granddaughter is turning four today, and tomorrow she is starting school. It's a big event made even bigger by the fact that she has been accepted into a French public school. Fiona, a red headed little English speaking child, will soon be immersed in a sea of French.
I confess I was concerned for my granddaughter but at the same time I was elated her mother was giving her an opportunity that I never had. Oh, I took French in high school back in the '60s but I did not graduate bilingual. I doubt that many of my friends did either.
There was something wrong with the old approach to teaching language. The proof was in the failed results. Shortly after I left high school, the Canadian government introduced French immersion. If you can believe the government bumph, French immersion has been a huge success.
Recently it occurred to me that children seem to learn language differently than adults. Babies don't talk nor do we expect them to. What babies do is listen and respond. Babies grow into toddlers who wordlessly carry out complex tasks. When Fiona was only a bum-scooting baby, my wife asked the little girl, "Where are your red spoons, Fiona," the little toddler skooted over to the kitchen island, found her red spoons on the floor and brought them to grandma with nary a word.
When I googled this observation, I learned I had stumbled upon a concept well-known in language-teaching circles: the "silent period" theory. Kids learn to process language before they develop the boldness to attempt speaking. I also stumbled upon lots of other stuff as well. Such as the following list of myths about bilingualism complied by François Grosjean of the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland. (Grosjean is frequently referred to on the Web. He has devoted years to his study of language. He has an excellent blog. If you have the time, check it out.)
I now believe Fiona may be ready for school. I'm the one who isn't prepared. My head is filled with negative ideas and unhelpful myths.
I must get my head around the idea that supporting my granddaughter as she tackles a second language is important. I have to find ways of making French necessary in her everyday life and maybe in mine as well.
___________________________________________________________________
Are you interested in learning French? If you are, here are links to French instruction found on the Web.
If you know some better sites, I'd love to hear from you.
Lastly, I have found that listening to French music is a fine way to train one's ear. Personally, I like the music of the Belgium singer Axelle Red who performs mostly in French but has been known to slip into English now and then.
After my wife listened to The Coffee Song at home, she told her Quebecois boss at work, after he asked her to do something the first thing in the morning: "Laisse-moi boire mon café." He laughed.
Axelle Red is one of the best selling recording artists in France. Some of her other songs you might like are:
The French lyrics and the English translations can be found online if you should find it necessary.
One great trick for introducing French into one's life is watching French television with the hidden captioning for the hearing impaired activated. This makes it much easier to follow the action while attuning one's ear to a new language.
A version of this approach is offered on YouTube for young children being introduced to French. Check out: Animated Stories for Children: BookBox Inc.
Lastly, the Octonauts are very popular with little kids at the moment. French versions of many cartoons can be found on YouTube. I'm hoping I can interest Fiona in watching the French speaking underwater adventurers in action.
I confess I was concerned for my granddaughter but at the same time I was elated her mother was giving her an opportunity that I never had. Oh, I took French in high school back in the '60s but I did not graduate bilingual. I doubt that many of my friends did either.
There was something wrong with the old approach to teaching language. The proof was in the failed results. Shortly after I left high school, the Canadian government introduced French immersion. If you can believe the government bumph, French immersion has been a huge success.
Recently it occurred to me that children seem to learn language differently than adults. Babies don't talk nor do we expect them to. What babies do is listen and respond. Babies grow into toddlers who wordlessly carry out complex tasks. When Fiona was only a bum-scooting baby, my wife asked the little girl, "Where are your red spoons, Fiona," the little toddler skooted over to the kitchen island, found her red spoons on the floor and brought them to grandma with nary a word.
When I googled this observation, I learned I had stumbled upon a concept well-known in language-teaching circles: the "silent period" theory. Kids learn to process language before they develop the boldness to attempt speaking. I also stumbled upon lots of other stuff as well. Such as the following list of myths about bilingualism complied by François Grosjean of the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland. (Grosjean is frequently referred to on the Web. He has devoted years to his study of language. He has an excellent blog. If you have the time, check it out.)
Myths about bilingualism
Bilingualism is a rare phenomenon. WRONG. It has been estimated that more than half the world's population is bilingual, that is lives with two or more languages.
Bilinguals acquire their two or more languages in childhood. WRONG. One can become bilingual in childhood, but also in adolescence and in adulthood. . . . In general, people become bilingual because life requires the use of two or more languages.
Bilinguals have equal and perfect knowledge of their languages. WRONG. Bilinguals know their languages to the level that they need them. (I've noted this when traveling. Taxi drivers or hotel staff may appear to be fluent in English but they actually speak what I call "taxi" or "hotel.")
Real bilinguals have no accent in their different languages. WRONG. Having an accent or not in a language does not make you more or less bilingual.
Children
Bilingualism will delay language acquisition in children. WRONG. This is a myth that was popular back in the middle of the 20th Century. Since then much research has shown that bilingual children are not delayed in their language acquisition.
The language spoken in the home will have a negative effect on the acquisition of the school language, when the latter is different. WRONG. In fact, the home language can be used as a linguistic base for acquiring aspects of the other language. It also gives children a known language to communicate in (with parents, caretakers, and, perhaps, teachers) while acquiring the other.
If parents want their children to grow up bilingual, they should use the one person - one language approach. WRONG. There are many ways of making sure a child grows up bilingual: caretaker 1 speaks one language and caretaker 2 speaks the other; one language is used in the home and the other outside the home; the child acquires his/her second language at school, etc. The critical factor is need. The child must come to realize, most of the time unconsciously, that he/she needs two or more languages in everyday life.
If the bilingual child realizes that the minority language is not really needed, the child may question why keep up the weaker language learning. A better approach is for all family members to use the weaker language at home, if at all possible, so as to increase the child's exposure to it.
I now believe Fiona may be ready for school. I'm the one who isn't prepared. My head is filled with negative ideas and unhelpful myths.
I must get my head around the idea that supporting my granddaughter as she tackles a second language is important. I have to find ways of making French necessary in her everyday life and maybe in mine as well.
___________________________________________________________________
Are you interested in learning French? If you are, here are links to French instruction found on the Web.
- The first site is the RFI Mondoblog. I especially like the section: Journal en francais facile. One bit of advice, I have found Google Chrome better for downloading the audio files than Firefox.
- The next site is hosted by TV5 out of France. It is called "Parlons francais. C'est facile."
- Sadly, what had been another fine French language learning site has been severely cutback. Hosted by the British BBC their Learn French page is now filled with mothballed pages and dead end links. The Ma France interactive videos are still online but the BBC makes no promises to keep even these active in the future.
- A truly fine site for learning French online is offered by the University of Texas out of Austin. Click on the link to Tex's French Grammar and enjoy. This is one cool site for grammar instruction. When last I checked, there was also a textbook available for use in conjunction with the online program. I ordered my copy from Chapters here in London, Ontario. I encourage you to make a donation. Tex has earned it.
- The following is one of my favourite sites for French exposure online. I especially love the tests. Visit: Learn French at About.com.
- For vocabulary, try wordPROF. This site was originally developed to accompany a vocabulary course sold on CD-ROM. The disk is no longer available but the site is still online for those wishing to improve their French vocabulary.
- One of my big problems is pronunciation. This Australian educational site does not have the largest number of phrases but it is still good for getting a handle on how spoken French sounds.
- Another site linked to French speaker audio is the Language Guide page. Just make sure you do not click on the ad for French instruction. It can be confusing but make an effort to stay on the main site and learn for free.
If you know some better sites, I'd love to hear from you.
Lastly, I have found that listening to French music is a fine way to train one's ear. Personally, I like the music of the Belgium singer Axelle Red who performs mostly in French but has been known to slip into English now and then.
After my wife listened to The Coffee Song at home, she told her Quebecois boss at work, after he asked her to do something the first thing in the morning: "Laisse-moi boire mon café." He laughed.
Axelle Red is one of the best selling recording artists in France. Some of her other songs you might like are:
The French lyrics and the English translations can be found online if you should find it necessary.
One great trick for introducing French into one's life is watching French television with the hidden captioning for the hearing impaired activated. This makes it much easier to follow the action while attuning one's ear to a new language.
A version of this approach is offered on YouTube for young children being introduced to French. Check out: Animated Stories for Children: BookBox Inc.
Lastly, the Octonauts are very popular with little kids at the moment. French versions of many cartoons can be found on YouTube. I'm hoping I can interest Fiona in watching the French speaking underwater adventurers in action.
Monday, July 29, 2013
Racism sank the listing City of Detroit
By the mid '60s Detroit's dreams were already disintegrating into rubble. |
The United States, the self-proclaimed greatest nation on earth, has a problem, and that problem is Detroit. American mythology is thrown into question by a city like Detroit: segregated, demoralized, bankrupt. Just a half century ago a mostly white workforce was earning possibly the highest average pay in the nation. In today's black Detroit more than a third of Detroiters are living below the poverty line.
At the core of Detroit's fall is the cancer of racism. Read what Emilio DeGrazia had to say in his piece published in the Twin Cities Daily Planet: Our American nightmare.
"Nobody wants to hear anyone explain Detroit’s problems in terms of race. If black Detroiters fail, it’s all their own fault, and they’re just playing out their victim roles when they ask for help. If they can’t succeed at the American Dream, they’re not good enough.
"The American Dream has a tragic flaw that has made a nightmare of Detroit. Central to this American Dream narrative we are routinely fed at school, at work, and through the media is that America is the land of boundless opportunity. We keep repeating the myth that everyone can succeed here if they work hard enough. That they can do it on their own. That losers are losers because they’re little engines that didn’t try hard enough.
"Tell that silly tale . . . to an unemployed father whose unemployed son wanders the streets, angry and depressed. . . . Tell it to the thousands of Detroiters who don’t go to doctors because they have no health insurance . . .
"Tell them with a straight face that they’ll succeed if they try harder . . . That we all should be hard-working little engines is a nice idea, necessary for teachers and parents to repeat as they try to inspire individuals to live up to their potential . . . But it is not a credible groundwork for public discourse or public policy."
Yes, Detroit is a failed black city. But why is it black and why has it failed?
The answer to the first question is simple: White flight. Whites fled the inner city as blacks burst out of the traditional black ghetto districts.
Black neighbourhoods are blue. Note overlap with Detroit city boundaries. |
Examine the map of the Detroit region done by Eric Fischer. The blue represents black residents. Note how the black neighborhoods stop abruptly at the border between Detroit and its surrounding suburbs. The sharp division along Eight Mile Avenue didn't just happen but reflects a historic separation reminiscent of past South Africa apartheid.
The wall separating black and white neighborhoods still stands. |
The black neighborhoods were redlined, getting a bank mortgage was difficult if not impossible for the residents. A wall was built in north Detroit to make it clear to the banks and others that the suburb was serious about enforcing segregation. This kept the suburb free of blacks and free of redlining.
No one stated the position of white suburbanites better than Orville Hubbard who was the mayor of Dearborn from 1942 until 1978. The rotund bigot said: "Housing the Negroes is Detroit's problem. When you remove garbage from your backyard, you don't dump it in your neighbor's."
"I'm not a racist," Hubbard once protested, "but I just hate those black bastards."
Blacks did not make a decision to "keep to themselves" as some argue. Blacks were refused admittance to suburbia. Blacks were trapped in the Detroit ghettos of Black Bottom and Paradise Valley where they had been kept contained for a hundred years.
Media pundits often refer to the 1967 riot as the fuse that ignited white flight. The riot of 1943 is rarely mentioned. Nor is the riot of 1863. Nor the riots in between. But then the previous riots tended to be white riots, not black ones.
In truth, white flight kicked into high gear in 1950. At that time integration was becoming the goal; de facto segregation was to be the reality.
De facto racial segregation in the U.S.during the '50s and '60s was enforced not by Jim Crow laws as in the past but by tradition and by using market forces to halt the movement of blacks into all white neighborhoods.
Littlefield Street in Detroit. |
White flight is not something new that came into being after the riots in '67. White flight was well underway when I was a young boy in the '50s. At that time Detroit's population peaked at 1.85 million. By 1960, a decade later, the population had fallen to 1.67 million despite, or more likely because, approximately 200,000 blacks had migrated to Detroit from the South. According to a Rutgers website, the percentage of whites in the population fell about 23 percent in those ten years.
I walked by these in the '60s while studying in Detroit. |
After the 1967 riot whites went into full flight mode. 80,000 to 100,000 white residents fled the city annually in the years immediately following the riot.
I saw the results of the race to the city exits unfold on Littlefield St. near Outer Drive. A white, '40s neighborhood flipped from totally white to almost totally black in just a few short years following the '67 riot.
I knew an accountant living on Littlefield. He and his wife bought their home new and it was in this home that they had raised their family. It was a good place to live. When the first blacks moved in housing values dipped. My friends did not move but many of their neighbors were frightened. They rushed to be first to put a "For Sale" sign on their lawns. House prices plummeted.
This was a financial disaster not just for the whites who remained but for the first blacks who had moved into the neighborhood. With home values plummeting, homes became rental units, often divided in order to hold more than one family. Today there are almost no whites in the area and the original block-busting blacks have also deserted the neighborhood. It is a story with no winners.
For more on this, read A House Divided in Washington Monthly by Thomas J. Sugrue. The University of Pennsylvania professor explains why middle-class blacks have far less wealth than whites at the same income level. He finds the answer in real estate and history.
At this point it is important to note that even though racism accentuated Detroit's fall, Detroit was already a city in trouble. Like so many other cities with rich, prosperous pasts, Detroit was taken down by:
- outsourcing
- obsolete technologies
- bad business decisions
- business mergers
- automation
- offshoring
The pundits tell good stories but for one problem; the stories aren't true. The so called bailout of Detroit prevented the closure of numerous auto plants across the United States; It did not save the City of Detroit — nor was that the intention. Car building and Motown have not been close for years. The marriage was dissolved decades ago.
Ford, one of the Big Three, hasn't built a car in Detroit since 1910 when production of the Model T moved to Highland Park to avoid paying Detroit's high city taxes. Interesting fact: It was Highland Park where Ford introduced the moving assembly line — that's right, the moving assembly line was not a Motor City first.
Most of the car companies that gave Detroit its well known moniker, companies like Packard, Hudson, Essex, Hupmobile or even the Abbott Motor Car Company, are gone. The remaining Big Three have dispersed across the States, Canada, Mexico and the world. Very few cars are made today within the border of Detroit.
Consider Packard: When Packard closed its Detroit operation in 1957 it closed an industrial complex occupying 3.5 million square feet of space spread out among 47 buildings. At its peak the plant employed over 40,000 workers on a site spanning 35 acres. That plant, possible the largest abandoned factory in the world, has now stood almost empty for more than half a century.
Detroit may be called the Motor City today but once it was The Stove Capital of the World. The Detroit Stove Works, was the largest stove plant in the world consisting of 23 buildings in 1948. It closed in 1957.
Detroit was once The Stove Capital of the World, not Motor City. |
Detroit could just as well have been known for rail cars. At one point it was the largest maker of rail cars in the country. The first refrigerator car was produced in Detroit, an invention of Detroiter William Davis.
Are you still not convinced Detroit made a lot more than automobiles? Think beer, think Stroh's, Pfeiffer, Goebel, Schmidt. Think of medical research, think Parke-Davis, once America's oldest and largest drug maker. Think tobacco products, think Globe Tobacco, J. Mazer, Central Cigar Co., John J. Bagley & Co. Tobacco, Lilies Cigar Co., General Cigar Co. . . Think soft drinks, think Faygo, Vernor's. Think appliances, think Eureka vacuums. The list just goes on and on.
Back to the list detailing how communities commonly lose employers: outsourcing, obsolete technologies, business mergers, automation, offshoring and just plain bad business decisions. These companies, big Detroit employers, all fell victim to one or more items in that list. Take Parke-Davis, it was acquired by Warner-Lambert in 1970 and soon the move to Ann Arbour was underway. Over time the 26 building medical research campus was but a memory.
Many cities have suffered far less that Detroit from the loss of the communities traditional businesses. The ones that have suffered the most, like Detroit, almost invariably also have race problems. Without white flight and de facto segregation, the Paris of the Midwest might have built on it heritage. Instead, Detroit was forced to desert its past to embrace a questionable future.
A bit of background for those who are interested
The ghetto known as Black Bottom earned its nickname during the early days of Detroit. French farmers staked out the area because of its rich, black, loamy soil, which was excellent for farming. The district became known as Black Bottom. When Blacks migrating North in the 1900s were herded into the neighborhood, the name took on a new connotation.
There were legal restrictions prohibiting Blacks from renting or owning property in all but the accepted Black neighborhoods. In fact, a Black could be tossed in jail if caught west of Woodward Avenue. The result was that over time the Detroit ghettos contained more Black owned businesses than could be found in any other city in the States.
Not to glamorize either Black Bottom or Paradise Valley, it must be said that the black ghettos in Detroit were moderately successful. With many of the residents holding jobs, admittedly menial, in local factories or working as railroad porters or other such jobs, the black businesses were profitable.
At night the ghetto came alive with cocktail lounges, dance halls, show bars and restaurants all featuring sultry singers and jazz and blues artists. Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Fats Waller, Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong among others appeared in Detroit black clubs.
Outside the ghetto, Detroit blacks encountered open discrimination on
the factory floor and even in the union hall. White homeowners formed
citizen groups enforcing invisible residential color lines and in one
case a not so invisible line.
A half mile long concrete wall was built in 1941 to separate black and white neighborhoods on the northern border of Detroit — a concrete color bar.
The wall is just one example of Detroit's historical divisions. In the 1950s and '60s, as more and more employment moved from the actual city of Detroit to the suburbs, the majority of white families followed but discriminatory practices blocked that option for black families. As a result, Detroit got poorer and blacker, while the suburbs got richer and whiter.
If you were black, Detroit could be a downright nasty place. Citizen vigilantes burned crosses on the lawns of blacks, at certain times the Klu Klux Klan found a following and financial and municipal powers redlined entire neighborhoods. Detroit was an example of apartheid in action.
From: The Second Great Migration
A half mile long concrete wall was built in 1941 to separate black and white neighborhoods on the northern border of Detroit — a concrete color bar.
The wall is just one example of Detroit's historical divisions. In the 1950s and '60s, as more and more employment moved from the actual city of Detroit to the suburbs, the majority of white families followed but discriminatory practices blocked that option for black families. As a result, Detroit got poorer and blacker, while the suburbs got richer and whiter.
If you were black, Detroit could be a downright nasty place. Citizen vigilantes burned crosses on the lawns of blacks, at certain times the Klu Klux Klan found a following and financial and municipal powers redlined entire neighborhoods. Detroit was an example of apartheid in action.
"In a very brief time, the now-familiar image of a black inner-city core surrounded by a white suburban ring emerged as the dominant pattern of American life. Thus did the "ghetto" become dominant in scholarly and creative literature by the 1960s. The term "inner city" became a virtual synonym for black people."
Sites consulted in writing this post:
A Life Beyond Imagination
American Axle
Anarchy at the Algiers
At Detroit Net
Automobile in American Life and Society
Autos troubles, race at root of Detroit collapse
Before the Riot
Big Maceo
Blackbottom - great diagram and more
Blackbottom
Black History
Black History in Detroit: Sojourner Truth Housing Project Riots
BluesReviews - best using Google and translating from Italian
Bob-Lo
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Chrysler Corp. Factories
Counter-Planning on the Shop floor
Detroit's Black Bottom and Paradise Valley Neighborhoods
Detroit: Blood that never dried
Defunct Car Companies
Detroit: Creative Economy
Detroit’s History of Housing and Race
Detroit Industrial Sites
Detroit Stories
Detroit: The Left’s Model for Success
Detroit: Disappearing City
Economy - Metro Detroit Area
Economic Undertow
1863 Riot
GM Poletown hiring will bring extra revenue for city
Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record
Historic John R Brownstones
How Did Detroit Become Motor City?
How highways and riots shaped Detroit and Chicago
How the Democrats Destroyed Detroit
Impact of the Detroit Riot of 1967
James D. Griffioen
Jobs aren't there (scientists)
Julie Fournier Site
Kercheval: It will become you
Ladera Heights California
Ladera Heights LA United States of America
Latino Gangs Launch Attacks on Black Families in Compton to Drive Them Out of the City
League of Revolutionary Black Workers: A Historical Study
Mark Bourrie: The beginning of Detroit’s end
Mass Incarceration and Postwar American History
More About Detroit
Motor City is Burning
Motor City Garage
Motor City Revived as Detroit Withers to Motown Shadow
My Hometown: What Detroit's Demise Says About America
Narratives from the riot of 1863
New York NY Age 1943-1945 - Fulton History
1943 - A race riot there will be
1943 Detroit race riots
Not Now Silly: The Detroit Riots
Office and Commercial Space in Detroit
Orville Hubbard -- the ghost who still haunts Dearborn
Our American nightmare: Detroi
Paradise Lost
Paradise Valley
Parke Davis (Detroit)
Race 2 Equity
Regional Economy - Detroit Metro Area
Research Report
Rise and Fall of Jim Crow
Rotary Multiforms Inc.
Russell Industrial Complex
Rutgers: The Detroit Riots of 1967
Second Great Migration
Sojourner Truth Housing Project Detroit
Southern Poverty Law Center
Summer of '43
Sweet Juniper
Today's Detroit Has Little To Do With 1967
Tumblr Detroit Image
Urban Renewal in Detroit
We saved the automakers. How come that didn’t save Detroit?
White Flight and Detroit
Whose Detroit? A City's Upheaval Whose Detroit
World Famous Stonehouse Bar
Lastly I found some interesting comments made by someone going by the online name of DemandSider. The comment was concerning the buyout of the Big Three.
DemandSider
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Vacuum cleaners and sleeping babies
An iPhone running a vacuum cleaner sound app keeps little Isla sleeping. |
Like her mother before her, little Isla finds it tough getting to sleep -- but you'd never know it from this picture. Isla drifts off quickly when there is a low level of white noise humming in the background. Isla's mother when young used to fall asleep to the sound of a vacuum cleaner running for no other reason than to put her to sleep.
Using white noise to quiet a baby is a well known trick. There are even white noise machines sold for this very purpose. But what happens when a traveling mother wants to put the little one to sleep and there is no Hoover nor Electrolux handy? Mom can make all right with a quick visit to the iPhone App Store.
Note the iPhone to the right of Isla. It is playing a vacuum cleaner app. The one Isla is listening to offers three free sounds, one of which is a vacuum -- her favourite. Apparently there are a number of apps emulating different vacuums. If your baby requires white noise to fall asleep, a solution is as close as your iPhone.
For more info, follow this link to the Troublesome Tots post titled Why Babies Love White Noise.
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Germany: The German state (GOVERNMENT) of Lower Saxony owns 20% of the stock (they also own Porsche)
Japan: You don’t think the GOVERNMENT of a city named TOYOTA CITY (yes, corporate headquarters) fights like hell to ensure the company’s survival???
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota,_Aichi
South Korea: There are almost 300 state-run companies, institutions and quasi-sovereign enterprises as of the first half of 2013.” (Including steel and banking)
http://www.asianewsnet.net/S-Korea-to-overhaul-monitoring-of-state-enterprise-48977.html
China: (Get a load of this; Small government my arse! And, yes, ALL major car manufacturers in China are GOVERNMENT owned. Wall Street brands simply “partner” with them)
Home > useful links > Central SOEs
1 China National Nuclear Corporation
2 China Nuclear Engineering Group Corporation
3 China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation
4 China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation
5 Aviation Industry Corporation of China
6 China State Shipbuilding Corporation
7 China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation
8 China North Industries Group Corporation
9 China South Industries Group Corporation
10 China Electronics Technology Group Corporation
11 China National Petroleum Corporation
12 China Petrochemical Corporation
13 China National Offshore Oil Corporation
14 State Grid Corporation of China
15 China Southern Power Grid Co., Ltd.
16 China Huaneng Group
17 China Datang Corporation
18 China Huadian Corporation
19 China Guodian Corporation
20 China Power Investment Corporation
21 China Three Gorges Corporation
22 Shenhua Group Corporation Limited
23 China Telecommunications Corporation
24 China United Network Communications Group Co., Ltd.
25 China Mobile Communications Corporation
26 China Electronics Corporation
27 China FAW Group Corporation
28 Dongfeng Motor Corporation
29 China First Heavy Industries
30 China National Erzhong Group Co.
31 Harbin Electric Corporation
32 Dongfang Electric Corporation
33 Anshan Iron and Steel Group Corporation
34 Baosteel Group Corporation
35 Wuhan Iron and Steel (Group) Corporation
36 Aluminum Corporation of China
37 China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company
38 China Shipping (Group) Company
39 China National Aviation Holding Company
40 China Eastern Air Holding Company
41 China Southern Air Holding Company
42 Sinochem Group
43 COFCO Limited
44 China Minmetals Corporation
45 China General Technology (Group) Holding, Limited
46 China State Construction Engineering Corporation
47 China Grain Reserves Corporation
48 State Development & Investment Corp.
49 China Merchants Group
50 China Resources
51 China National Travel Service (HK) Group Corporation [China Travel Service (Holdings) Hong Kong Limited]
52 State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation Ltd.
53 Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Ltd.
54 China Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Group
55 China International Engineering Consulting Corporation
56 China Huafu Trade & Development Group Corp.
57 China Chengtong Holdings Group Ltd.
58 China National Coal Group Corp.
59 China Coal Technology & Engineering Group Corp.
60 China National Machinery Industry Corporation
61 China Academy of Machinery Science & Technology
62 Sinosteel Corporation
63 China Metallurgical Group Corporation
64 China Iron & Steel Research Institute Group
65 China National Chemical Corporation
66 China National Chemical Engineering Group Corporation
67 Sinolight Corporation
68 China National Arts & Crafts (Group) Corporation
69 China National Salt Industry Corporation
70 Huacheng Investment & Management Co., Ltd.
71 China Hengtian Group Co., Ltd.
72 China National Materials Group Corporation Ltd.
73 China National Building Materials Group Corporation
74 China Nonferrous Metal Mining (Group) Co., Ltd.
75 General Research Institute for Nonferrous Metals
76 Beijing General Research Institute of Mining & Metallurgy
77 China International Intellectech Corporation
78 China Academy of Building Research
79 China North Locomotive and Rolling Stock Industry (Group) Corporation
80 China South Locomotive & Rolling Stock Corporation Limited
81 China Railway Signal & Communication Corporation
82 China Railway Group Limited
83 China Railway Construction Corporation Limited
84 China Communications Construction Company Limited
85 Potevio Company Limited
86 China Academy of Telecommunication and Technology
87 China National Agricultural Development Group Co., Ltd.
88 Chinatex Corporation
89 Sinotrans & CSC Holdings Co., Ltd.
90 China National Silk Import & Export Corporation
91 China Forestry Group Corporation
92 China National Pharmaceutical Group Corporation
93 CITS Group Corporation
94 China Poly Group Corporation
95 Zhuhai ZhenRong Company
96 China Architecture Design & Research Group
97 China Metallurgical Geology Bureau
98 China National Administration of Coal Geology
99 Xinxing Cathay International Group Co., Ltd.
100 China Travelsky Holding Company
101 China National Aviation Fuel Group Corporation
102 China Aviation Supplies Holding Company
103 Power Construction Corporation of China
104 China Energy Engineering Group Co., Ltd
105 China National Gold Group Corporation
106 China National Cotton Reserves Corporation
107 China Printing (Group) Corporation
108 China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Corporation Ltd.
109 China Hualu Group Co., Ltd.
110 Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell Co., Ltd.
111 IRICO Group Corporation
112 Wuhan Research Institute of Post and Telecommunications
113 OCT Group
114 Nam Kwong (Group) Company Limited
115 China XD Group
116 China Railway Materials Commercial Corp.
117 China Reform Holdings Corporation Ltd.
" . . . by the way. What do you think of BMW and Lexus and all Korean cars imported from South Korea? They ALL use union labor. They all also run trade surpluses with China. Weird, huh?"