A better picture

Yesterday I featured an image taken with a long lens to highlight the number of cars parked on driveways in my neighbourhood. Tonight I am posting an image that is a little more indicative of the way the neighbourhood looks to those walking about the area.

Many folk spend lots of time and money landscaping their property. I find my neighbourhood is very much like a park and I enjoy walking here. Now that I am retired, maybe I will start focusing some energy on landscaping my place.

Buses, Cars and New Urbanism

Buses

Recently I had to take a Via train to Toronto and then grab a Go Transit bus to a small town outside T.O. I was the only person on the full-sized city bus that could have carried 60 passengers.

Noticing I was his only fare, the driver called ahead to see if any riders were waiting for the bus at my stop, the second last stop on the run. No one was at the terminal. It was deserted. The driver asked me exactly where I was going and, as he had no more passengers, he left the scheduled route to take me the final three kilometres to my destination. I had planned on walking.

I am not giving many details as I don't want to get this driver in trouble. But think about it. A bus taking a regular, daily run through Canada's biggest city, through dense suburbs to a small, outlying town often makes the trip empty. I was the only passenger the day I rode that bus and I'm from London. Not one resident of Toronto or any of the suburbs through which we drove had any interest in taking that bus.

Whenever I read an article about new urbanism, the claim is made that new urbanist communities have densities that encourage the use of mass transit, read buses. My bus ride calls that belief into question. With tens of thousands of potential riders, if not hundreds of thousands,  there is often not one rider. Not one!

Cars

Neighborhoods today require lots of parking.

I am not blogging as much as I once did; I am now grandparenting almost daily. This is like babysitting but done by a senior for love rather than by a teen for money.

The other day, while taking my granddaughter for a walk, I noticed a picture. I confess that it was taken with a long lens. The street does not actually look like a parking lot but that is not my point.

Most of these homes have two car garages and yet their driveways are filled with cars. Curious, I interviewed a few folk. It seems, that with both the husband and the wife working, two cars are the minimum number in my neighbourhood for each home.

Why don't these folk just take the bus? Hey, read the paragraphs above titled Buses. People, even people who have a bus route just a few feet away, hate riding buses.

Now, these couples often have children and if they are old enough, that explains the cars parked on the driveways. When our daughters are home, we often had five cars parked at our home: a Morgan, a Chevy, a Pontiac, a Ford and a Saturn.

Holiday weekends are worse. Christmas can be a real problem, even for us. I can park six cars on my property and I can use every one of those spaces at Christmas. This is a fact that brings us to new urbanism.

New Urbanism

Parking garages behind new urbanist homes in Oakville.

If  the ideal new urbanist community has lane ways to access the garages, where will the kids park their cars? And at Christmas, where do all the visitors park their cars? With the deep banks of plowed snow, this may present a problem.

I know a couple living in Cornell Village in Markham. It's one of the best known new urbanist communities in Canada. The next time we get together I am going to ask them about these apparent parking problems. And yes this couple has two cars and neither walks to work nor to the store. Why? See Buses and Cars above.

Cardiac imaging breakthrough at the UWO

Monday the University of Western Ontario announced the formation of the Biomedical Imaging Research Centre (BIRC). Thursday Western announced a breakthrough in cardiac imaging. The two announcements are closely linked.

Dr. James White, a cardiologist and core research scientist with BIRC led the team responsible for today's announced breakthrough offering cardiologists and surgeons a new imaging technique producing a single, 3D high-resolution image of the heart.

White successfully visualized the heart's blood vessels and a myocardial scar at the same time. A first!

Dr. S. de Ribaupierre

At the announcement of BIRC, Neurosurgeon Sandrine de Ribaupierre said advances in medical imaging are needed to improve safety. "It needs to be really accurate."

It was pointed out that these technologies are known to occasionally to give false positives or false negatives. Possibly the best known example of this was reported by neuroscientist Craig Bennett, then a graduate student at Dartmouth College, who scanned the brain of a dead salmon and the natural noise inherent in the fMRI data 'revealed' the dead fish was thinking.

This fMRI date 'revealed' the dead fish was thinking. BIRC holds the promise of improved imaging with increased diagnostic accuracy and fewer false positives.

With medical professionals placing more and more reliance on diagnostic imaging, accuracy is paramount - and increased accuracy in cardiac imaging is what Thursday's breakthrough announcement delivers with BIRC promising more to come.

Injuries to the heart from heart attacks or viral inflammation can result in permanent damage or scarring of the heart muscle. Using a 3-Tesla MRI White and his team constructed a three dimensional model of a patient's heart clearly showing the relationship between the heart's blood vessels and a permanent injury. Dr. White said, "This will help direct surgeons and cardiologists to better target the blood vessels that lead to (healthy) muscle . . . " and improve the outlooks for patients requiring pacemakers, bypass surgery or angioplasties.

Dr. A. Fenster

The London research will not be restricted to MRIs. Dr. Aaron Fenster, BIRC director and Robarts Research Institute scientist, said London has all the necessary medical-imaging technologies for extensive research: MRIs, PET scanners, CT equipment, X-ray machines and SPECT imaging.

The Biomedical Imaging Research Centre is about more than scanners it is about people. BIRC brings together researchers from Western's Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, Lawson Health and Research Institute, Robarts Research Institute, the biomedical-engineering graduate program at the UWO and more. 150 graduate students plus 50 associate scientists in basic and clinical research will work with dozens of BIRC core scientists.

Fenster said, "We assembled the centre with the vision to become the most successful integrated biomedical-research program in Canada . . . to become one of the top five in the world . . . "

This is research with almost immediate practical applications. According to de Ribaupierre, there is no point in pushing scanning technology "if you are not going to use it clinically." To this end, the researchers will be working closely with clinicians.

Dr. M. Strong

Dr. Michael Strong, Dean of the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Western Ontario, said, "It does us absolutely no good to bring a group of individuals together and say we are going to call you a centre if it doesn't mean something at the end of the day . . . Otherwise it is just a name . . . "

Today's breakthrough announcement adds weight to Strong's strong words.
 _______________________________________________

As someone who recently had an MRI with another yet to come, two 25 minute trips through a nuclear scanning device, a transesophageal echocardiogram and  looking at the possibility of undergoing a cardiac ablation, I know how important accurate imaging is to the successful outcome of some very serious medical procedures. When I heard about the Biomedical Imaging Research Centre press conference, I just had to attend and report.

Incredible Car Ads

This post has been re-written to reflect the wealth of imaginative, amusing car ads. Some I don't believe are shown in North America. The first ad from Nissan is witty but take car with some of the others --- a few shocked my wife. I wouldn't want to play some of these on a computer at work.

If you liked the Polar Bear ad, check out Kidzilla with a sound track featuring a little rock and roll by the King --- Elvis. Or, this one, Baby, showing how having a family doesn't mean having a boring car.

If you are not a work, and you are in an 18+ environment, these three are good. I do wonder if the first two are real ads. The bouncing breasts ad is reminiscent of the Lucky Airlines ad in Putney Swope by Robert Downey Sr. Is reality really catching up with the mad ad campaigns of old Putney?

Nissan ad - may contain etc.
Toyota ad - I love Air Conditioning - may contain etc.
This Toyota ad is funny and not shocking. It is suitable for all but the really young would only get the slapstick humor.

And if you are wondering how Putney Swope back in the '60s approached airline advertising in a hip world, here is the link:
Lucky Airlines

Who's a photojournalist?

Nineteen years ago a young co-ed named Gwen Jacob strolled topless down the streets of Guelph, Ontario. That hot summer day was destined to become even hotter for Jacob as her simple, impetuous act landed her in hot water for years to come.

The issue of public nudity raised by Jacob's actions, and how it is covered by the media, was revisited in a recent article written by Stephanie Dearing. Dearing posted a story to the Digital Journal, complete with photos, from a recent Guelph celebration honoring Jacob's walk. Some photos from Dearing's report were taken down by DJ editors due to their frontal nudity. Other less revealing images were left to illustrate her story.

Jacob may have run afoul of our prudish laws in 1991 but it was not until 1996 that the charge against Jacob was overturned by the Ontario Court of Appeal ending years of legal wrangling. It was a decision that put the events of 1991 in the proper perspective. It is too bad that all Canadian media didn't handle the story and the verdict with the same maturity as the courts.

When the verdict was announced, excitement rippled through Canadian newsrooms, "Women have the right to go topless!" Photographers, they like to be called photojournalists in the newspaper business, were dispatched to pools and beaches across the province to bring back shots of the hordes of bare breasted Canadian women now released upon the nation.

Even the respected New York Times noted the shock waves reverberating through the far north as Canadian moral standards were reportedly shredded, left in tatters by legions of half-naked women. The caption under their art read:

"In Ottawa, women are allowed to go topless at beaches and outdoor pools. At a beach, Lisa Regimbal walked by a topless Connie Morden. (Canadian Press)"

I have a black and white copy of that picture and Lisa looks properly put off by the chance encounter. The iconic image was shot by an award-winning Ottawa Sun photographer who later moved it to The Canadian Press. It was through the Ottawa Sun photos the world discovered Ottawa women go topless.

A year later the Ottawa Sun ran another shot from the same staff shooter's topless-on-an-Ottawa-beach assignment, but there was one big difference: The blonde woman, so aghast at encountering nudity on a local beach in the first picture, is quite relaxed as she chats with her half naked friend in this second image. Here are the cutlines used by the Ottawa Sun under the second picture:

"Last summer, Lisa Regimbal, left, bear (sic) it all while chatting with Connie Morden."

(Yes, that is the quote. Bares is spelled incorrectly and the young ladies have had their names switched.)

Why the confusion? Why did the women display such different reactions to toplessness as depicted in the two pictures? The answer is simple: The pictures were set-ups. It was so difficult to find naked women on the beach in Ottawa that the Sun used models. I contacted the mother of one of the models and confirmed  the Ottawa Sun topless-at-the-beach pictures were fake and taken at an arranged photo shoot. (At one point in my career, I actually worked with the shooter who took the shots. I got the impression from talking with him that the shots were bogus.)

The Toronto Sun moved a lot of images of topless lasses that summer, mostly to other papers in the Sun Media chain, and I know the editors at The London Free Press were duly thankful -- at least many of the male editors. But, after careful consideration, all these images were rejected for publication. And it was not just for the front nudity.

The London Free Press editors always decided there were enough incongruities among the photos to cast doubt on their veracity. It was decided that these pictures were all illustrations and not news photos.

It is interesting that the Digital Journal pulled the first pictures posted to their online newspaper from the topless event held in Guelph celebrating Gwen Jacob's triumph. Naked breasts may now be seen in public but naked breasts are still not going to be seen on the electronic pages of the Digital Journal.

DJ replaced the offending images with honest, if standard, photos showing naked backs suggesting naked fronts. These pictures still told the story but in in a muted tone. The Digital Journal editors may be conservative but, unlike their Sun Media counterparts from the past, they were honest.

Look at these two pictures running side by side. The young woman on the left was posing for a Sun Media illustration to accompany a news story. The image on the right is from the DJ article.

One picture is definitely honest and the other is highly questionable. Which picture was taken by a photojournalist and which picture was taken by a photographer. I say the image on the right from the Digital Journal was taken by a photojournalist and not the trumped-up one on the left from the Ottawa Sun.

A cool optical illusion

I discovered a couple of interesting blogs that specialize in optical illusions. Click on the above art so that you have only the art, and not my entire blog, on your monitor. Now, stare at the centre black cross. The colour should change to green and even begin to disappear. If it doesn't work try moving closer --- I was about a foot from my monitor when it worked. If you like this, check out some of the other optical illusions on the Mighty Optical Illusions site.

Cheers,
Rockinon

Fleming calls it "placemaking."

John Fleming, Manager of Implementation Planning, City of London, Ontario, was interviewed by The London Free Press reporter Randy Richmond back in 2006. It is interesting to look at a development that was featured in the paper as an example of New Urbanism in London and discover what we find today.

A porch in the New Urbanism development.

First, Fleming does not like the term New Urbanism according to Richmond's story. Fleming prefers "placemaking" as the term for developments where the cookie-cutter approach is out. Where porches wrap around the homes so that the street "gets a view of something architecturally interesting."

Richmond tells us that there are dozens of ways of turning subdivisions into more walkable, pleasant neighbourhoods.

I hate to break this to Fleming and Richmond but my neighbourhood, despite its crescents and cul-de-sacs, has sidewalks teaming with folk. They are out walking their dogs or simply strolling for the sheer pleasure of it. We don't need a special trail for strolling. No one does!

Heck, on my court the strollers don't even need a sidewalk.

And in my neighbourhood we don't need wrap-around porches to enjoy our paper, a coffee, and a chat with a neighbour. All the porches need to be is large enough for a chair or two. That's it.

In fact, the perfect porch may be the simplest porch. With no railings to rot and no roof to maintain, simple porches will not grow old, deteriorate and be demolished rather than repaired.

When I was a photographer with the paper I was surprised to learn how many older homes I visited for the Homes section originally had rather grand porches. Now, those porches only exist in pictures.

Personally, I like the cookie-cutter look. It is too bad that Richmond and Fleming don't. I like the condos that are part of the development The Free Press featured as an example of New Urbanism. I'm not disappointed but I wonder how Richmond and Fleming feel. Betrayed?

One feature of the New Urbanism development that didn't get deep sixed is the walking and jogging trail - an example of placemaking in action. It runs behind some homes and condos. A recent visit showed the trail was well used but not well maintained. The asphalt was cracked and blistered with plants pushing their way up and pushing the asphalt apart. Who is supposed to maintain this trail? The city?

John Fleming calls it "placemaking" rather than smart growth. I now know why. Smart growth could refer to weeds and not to the proposed developments that turn subdivisions into more walkable, pleasant neighbourhoods with the ultimate goal of a little more soul, a sense of place.

You know, I can't even write those words and keep a straight face.

21st Century Suburbia

The London Free Press story had a good lede:

" . . . picture the land rushes of the 1800s, when tens of thousands of people on horseback, wagon train, bicycles, foot, mules and railway cars raced each other to stake claims in the wild American west.

Change the horses to BMWs, and the pioneers to developers . . . and you'll have the London rush."

Randy Richmond is a fine reporter and writer. When I saw his byline on the weekend special report on the changing of southwest London from farmland to an urban landscape, I poured myself a coffee and sat down for a good read. It wasn't much of a read, one page. Nor was it all that good. By the time I had finished my coffee I had finished Randy's piece.

I'll be upfront with my feelings about New Urbanism; It's mostly a crock. If you think large homes jammed tightly together on small lots is an imaginative response to suburban sprawl, I think you should think, and imagine, again. You can be forgiven if you've been fooled, sold a bill of goods, as most of us haven't visited these New Urbanism utopias but only read about them. And New Urbanism gets good spin in the press.

Snout houses, as Randy calls them, are rapidly appearing.

Randy tells us it will be "goodbye snout houses." I guess Randy hasn't visited these New Urbanism utopias either.

The homes on the left are part of a new development going up near Wharncliffe Road South. In this development it is, "Hello, snout houses."

Randy quotes a city councilor: "Everybody wants to be the first to build." The first? As is obvious from my pictures, the building has already begun and it is not all that creative.

The homes, some quite handsome, sit on streets that curve and curl and are joined by short streets called gates in subdivisions of past decades. Suburban crescents are not uncommon in the new subdivisions in the southern part of London but courts are rare, but not as rare as the traditional "grid pattern of streets" mentioned in Randy's piece.

Apparently high density and four car garages go together.

According to Randy, the new housing will achieve "higher densities than in many areas." I believe him. Many of the subdivisions presently being built are composed of attractive homes squeezed tightly together. This does not mean that no homes have suburban-wide frontages. This home in Talbot Village has a large, double-doored garage off to the side. Personally, I like its look but it does not say high density.

One of the hallmarks of New Urbanism is the inclusion of neighbourhood retail space, ideally centrally located and no more than a five minute walk from any residence. This mixing of residential and retail minimizes the reliance on the car and if done correctly adds a sense of place to the new community, or so we are told.

Possibly the closest shopping district to Talbot Village.

I believe it was The London Free Press writer Christine Dirks who wrote the piece on Talbot Village before the earth was even turned for the suburban development off Colonel Talbot Road below Southdale Road.

As I recall, Talbot Village was to be possibly London's first foray into New Urbanism. In the end, it wasn't. It's a suburban development and a good one with many of the homes having pleasant '30s facades. But when it comes to shopping, you can't buy so much as a bottle of Coke and a bag of chips in Talbot Village. For shopping residents must get in their cars. (This has now changed. As of November 2010, a Tim's and a No Frills grocery store are being erected in Talbot Village.)

Appealing? Maybe. Architecturally breathtaking? No.

The folk living in the apartment buildings shown are in London's finest apartments according to the sign posted by the Tricar Group. They live within a short walk of the Wonderland Road shopping district. They're closer to more stores than the folk in the pseudo New Urbanism development.

Now, don't get me wrong, I like apartments. In fact, if I could get an apartment with the floor space of my home and for a similar monthly cost, I might move. But I can't and so I won't.

The wow factor

My main reason for showing these two twin structures is the claim reported by Randy that all structures in the developing southwest, "even commercial and industrial enterprises" will have "appealing architecture." These buildings may be appealing but they are not grabbers. Check out this tower being built in Mississauga. You might not agree, but I think this building is an eye-catcher.

I find it interesting that, according to Randy, Wonderland will be the gateway to the city. The curvaceous Absolute Towers serve the same gateway role in Mississauga. The difference is that the Mississauga buildings are an exciting architectural design. They break with the past and open our eyes and minds to the sculptural possibilities of architecture.

These amazing buildings would look even better in London as they would not have to compete with a lot of other towers. The canvas is still somewhat clean in London but this will not last and there is little sign that anything exciting is on the horizon.

Randy talks of a grid pattern of narrow, tree lined streets with cars in the back of the houses. I read that lane ways were part of the original plan for Talbot Village. The actual subdivision not only has the garages in the front, some roads are widened to allow cars to be parked in front of the homes but off the main part of the street. I think it is actually a good idea but it is not New Urbanism.

A lovely street but why does anyone think that this is not urban sprawl?

Oh well, as I said at the beginning, the lede was good. I googled everything in the story but the best stuff I found was on the American land rushes. Check them out. Randy pointed us in an interesting direction --- even if that direction was not towards southwest London.

These homes present a design approach popular around the world but are they high density housing. I think not.

Nice cars finish last

A best seller in Europe, the Astra was a handsome car.

Nice cars finish last. This is not always true but all too often nice is not enough to earn a profit. For that reason, nice cars come and nice cars go. Think of the Saturn Astra, a car envisioned as the saviour of the Saturn car company but instead became the company's swan song.

Before the Astra even hit North American dealerships there were clear signs of trouble. General Motors predicted no more than 30 to 40,000 in first year sales. These sales numbers were much lower than those achieved by the poorly received Saturn Ion which the Astra replaced.

And even those mediocre numbers were too  high. GM sold about 12,000 Astras in the States in 2008. With a 139-day supply of  '08s, GM didn't even import the 2009 Astra into the U.S. Yes, I said import. Saturn, originally created to battle the imports, was itself an import at the end.

The Astra in a sense delivered on its promise in spades. It was supposed to sell poorly and it did. Now, GM is touting the Chevrolet Volt as a fine car but with predicted sales of possibly 10,000 units in its the first year.

Each Volt sold in the States will cost the American taxpayer $7500 in rebate money or this poorly selling care will cost the American treasury $75 million over the course of a year. Of course, if the Volt proves to be popular and the U.S. government retains the rebate program, the charge to the American taxpayer could grow to more than $337 million or more annually. (Chevy sees sales climbing to possibly 45,000 units by 2012.)

The Chevrolet Volt is a nice car but with a price tag of $41,000 even the $7500 government rebate  will not make it a success. At least, that's my opinion.

Don't do it!

Many pediatricians say young children should not be tossed. Photo by: DEREK RUTTAN The London Free Press. Note: the picture is shown exactly as it is running on the newspaper webpages. The magenta tint was not added by the Rockin' On site. This is a copyrighted image and is being used to make an editorial comment on the image itself. Legally, it cannot be modified.

As anyone who has followed this blog knows, I'm a grandfather. And whenever I see my granddaughter tossed in the air I cringe. Her head seems so big compared to her fragile looking neck. She giggles and clearly loves the roughhousing but I'm not sure tossing a young, small child is safe.

Today was The London Free Press retirees' monthly breakfast. I sat with a couple of former editors and a retired reporter. One topic of conversation that grabbed my interest was the negative talk surrounding today's front page picture. It shows an 18-month-old little girl being tossed high into the air by her dad.

The one editor was absolutely livid that such an image is gracing the front page of the paper. It certainly would have been spiked if he had been running the desk. He saw the image as encouraging behaviour all too common and all too dangerous. He made it very clear he firmly believed small children can be seriously, and totally unintentionally, injured in this type of roughhousing. Never toss a small child; Never!

I came home and did some quick research. The editor was right: Don't toss small children.

Lyuba Konopasek, associate professor of pediatrics at the New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City says, "Being physically playful with your child is a great way to bond and to have fun, but keep it very gentle . . . never include throwing a child or baby into the air in your roughhousing. The potential for a dangerous fall or neck injury isn't worth it."

Rady Children's Hospital, San Diego, a pediatric hospital, advises, "Never shake or toss a baby or a child under age five." Further, this research hospital advises that infants should not be wiggled or bounced.
The children's hospital notes that the heads of babies and young children are heavy, and that the neck muscles are not strong . . . parents, grandparents, and babysitters often don't realize "how easy it is to hurt their baby this way".

Play tossing can injure babies and children.

Not only does Rady advises parents not to toss their baby in the air. The children's hospital states that even though children may laugh and appear to be enjoying the toss, this activity could leave them seriously injured.

As I said at the start of this post, I've seen my 11-month-old granddaughter tossed in the air. I bit my lip every time this was done. No more. I guess I should thank The London Free Press and the former LFP editor. Together they've made my granddaughter's life a little safer.

I hope I may have made life a little safer for the children of those reading this post.

(In the pictured father's defence, my bet is he doesn't just catch his daughter but grabs her and then drops his arms gradually slowing her fall. This would minimize the forces acting on the small child. Still, it is not a good practice.)

I'll be back! That's a promise.

I've got a good reason to regain my health.

Less than two months ago I was healthy. Oh, I've had health problems and serious ones. But teamed with the wonderful medical folk here in London, Ontario, I've surmounted the worst that has occurred.

Then in mid June in Sonoma, California, I suffered a serious V-tach event with my heart racing to 300 bpm. It took an emergency cardioversion (defibrillation) of 200 joules of electricity to shock my heart back into proper rhythm. I was given beta blockers to prevent a re-occurrence.

Then in mid July in London, Ontario, I went blind temporarily in my left eye. I was off to the hospital emerg again. I had suffered a TIA event, often a precursor to a stroke. I was given Plavix, a blood thinner.

Within hours I had an MRI of my head and neck to confirm what the doctors suspected, hardening of the arteries with plaque in my carotid artery. The good news: My arteries are clean. The bad news: I have micro bleeding throughout my brain.

Tuesday I must go to the Cardiac Institute and as the month progresses I have quite the number of medical appointments. What caused the V-tach event? Why is my brain bleeding? Am I reacting poorly to the blood thinner? Should I stop the Plavix? Was the low-dose (81mg) Aspirin I used to take responsible for the bleeding? If I do stop all blood thinners, will I put myself in position to suffer a stroke?

I am beginning to feel as if I am starring in an episode of House.

All of this is taking a great toll on my free time. My blogging has suffered. My photography just isn't happening. And worse, I haven't been able to chase some very good local stories for Digital Journal.

Sorry team. I will be back doing my small bit for citizen journalism. Just give me, and my doctors, a little time. Who knows, maybe there will be a good medical story here. Now, I must go; It's time for my beta blocker.

Cheers!

Why is this not available in Canada?

Would you be interested in a car that gets more than 100 miles to the Imp. gallon? I would.

Recently I read that Suzuki has launched a hybrid powered gas/electric vehicle for sale on the Japanese market that travels an impressive 34 kilometres for every litre of fuel used!

Called the Suzuki Twin, it also features an automatic idling stop system to shut the engine down whenever the car stops at traffic lights or when stationary in heavy traffic, minimizing CO2 emissions and fuel consumption.

Apparently the Suzuki Twin hybrid vehicle is currently only sold in the domestic Japanese market. Too bad.

I find this car is far more interesting than the new Chevrolet Volt.

Global Warming: Have they no grandchildren?

New York Op-Ed columnist Thomas Friedman wrote another piece on global warming. In it he quotes contrarian hedge fund manager Jeremy Grantham writing in his July letter to investors:

“Conspiracy theorists claim  to believe that global warming is a carefully constructed hoax driven  by scientists desperate for ... what? Being needled by nonscientific  newspaper reports, by blogs and by right-wing politicians and think  tanks? I have a much simpler but plausible ‘conspiracy theory’: the  fossil energy companies, driven by the need to protect hundreds of  billions of dollars of profits, encourage obfuscation of the  inconvenient scientific results. I, for one, admire them for their P.R.  skills, while wondering, as always:

‘Have they no grandchildren?’ ”

And when I die . . .

When I was in my twenties I spent an evening listening to Laura Nyro singing on the stage of the Masonic Temple Auditorium in Detroit. It was years later, while working the electronic picture desk at The London Free Press, that I learned of Nyro's death from breast cancer; She left us while still far too young. I sat at my work station and quietly cried.

I closed my eyes and I could see Nyro on stage, sitting at the keys of her grand piano, singing, "And When I Die." And I cried.

The other day I celebrated my birthday. I'm 63. I'm now older than my dad when he died from heart disease. And I'm older, much older, than three of my uncles, my dad's brothers, who all died from heart disease.

Whether or not I'll make 64 is an open question. I feel quite confident that I will but it is certainly no longer the sure thing that it seemed just weeks ago. In the past month or so, I have suffered a bout of V-tach and a TIA event causing temporary blindness in my left eye.

I'm now on a beta-blocker for the heart and Plavix to thin my blood to prevent another TIA event. My blood pressure last night was 89 over 48 with a pulse of 43. My beta seems well blocked.

Now, about that Laura Nyro concert and my lingering connection to that night. I took a young date to the then young singer's concert. We drove to the hall in my then young Morgan roadster. I lost track of that young lady years ago but I still have the aging Morgan. We've grown old together. We've both had valve jobs, we've both had work done on our pumps, and on our electrical systems too. And we both just keep going and going and going.

I don't kid myself, I won't go on forever. But I'm not going to wait to die before recognizing and honouring the "one child born"; I can see that baby and enjoy her right now: Fiona. My little, bubbly granddaughter brings the light of youth into my life. She opens a window into a world where hips don't ache and knees don't buckle, where every day is better than the last, where growth, daily improvement, is the expectation and not the exception.

The words of Nyro's song, written in her youth, didn't seem so poignant when I was young. Yes, I "don't want to die uneasy, just let me go naturally."

And When I Die

And when I die and when I'm dead, dead and gone,
there'll be one child born and a world to carry on, to carry on.

I'm not scared of dying and I don't really care.
If it's peace you find in dying, well, then let the time be near.
If it's peace you find in dying, when dying time is here,
just bundle up my coffin cause it's cold way down there,
I hear that's it's cold way down there, yeah, crazy cold way down there.
And when I die and when I'm gone,
there'll be one child born and a world to carry on, to carry on.

My troubles are many, they're as deep as a well.
I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell.
Swear there ain't no heaven and pray there ain't no hell,
but I'll never know by living, only my dying will tell,
only my dying will tell, yeah, only my dying will tell.
And when I die and when I'm gone,
there'll be one child born and a world to carry on, to carry on. 

Give me my freedom for as long as I be. All I ask of living is to have no chains on me.
All I ask of living is to have no chains on me,
and all I ask of dying is to go naturally, only want to go naturally.
Don't want to go by the devil, don't want to go by the demon,
don't want to go by Satan, don't want to die uneasy, just let me go naturally.
And when I die and when I'm gone, there'll be one child born, there'll be one child born.
When I die, there'll be one child born. When I die, there'll be one child born.
When I die, there'll be one child born. When I die, there'll be one child born.

A companion piece to the above is a post I did last January. It, too, features Fiona. If you have the time and the inclination, check What Is Happiness?

Where are the pictures?

The London Free Press carried no pictures from the Bruce Coburn concert.

Bruce Cockburn was in London Saturday performing at the Home County Folk Festival, a big annual Southwestern Ontario event. And the hometown paper blogged about it. They'd say they reported it and blogged on it, but with the quality of newspapers severely hampered by staffing cutbacks, the difference between their off-the-cuff blog posts and their more in-depth news stories is becoming blurred.

The one story is on a reporter's Free Press blog and carries information supplied gratis by a reader. The other report on Cockburn's appearance is an LFP story. Check them out: Cockburn Captivates,  Me and a Face in the Crowd: Home County/Bruce Cockburn. Note there are no pictures! My guess is no photographer was working Saturday night. No shooter, no shots. It's that simple --- or that cheap.

And you know what else is missing, some information. The newspaper's blogger/reporter asks: "How many of us were there . . . ?" The crowd estimates, supplied by JBNB, range from about 3,000 to 70,000.

If newspapers cannot staff events held a short walk from the paper itself, if the paper cannot supply a crowd estimate with a tighter spread than 3000 to 70,000, why should we continue to think of them as our best source of local information? Are they trying to tell us something when they file reports as blog posts?

Oh wait, a lot of real bloggers would supply pictures. (And maybe better crowd estimates.)

By the way, I did call the paper to offer them my pictures but all I got was an answering machine. The paper has a way of allowing readers to supply images but they want them donated; They do not pay one cent for the rights to a reader's pictures. In this situation the paper seems to be more a charity than profitable business.

If you make a picture donation to this media charity using their "Your Scoop" feature, it is demanded you grant the paper, ". . . worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free and non-exclusive license to use, reproduce, distribute, transmit, broadcast and publish that Material for any purposes, on any material form and in perpetuity."

When I clicked on Photos to find the Your Scoop link, you might be interested to see what picture popped up. It appears there's ample time and staff to post a "supplied" picture of two-time world land-speed record holder Valerie Thompson.

I wonder if anyone noticed her foot is cropped off awkwardly at the ankle? Oh well, lots more of Thompson still shows in the picture --- maybe enough to make up for the missing foot.
_____________________________

James Reaney's LFP blog now has pictures supplied by Christine Newland, the principal cellist with Orchestra London. I think it is safe to say that because of staffing cutbacks, the paper was unable to send a staff photographer to the Bruce Cockburn performance. Now that the local paper is openly partnering with readers for facts and art, the distinction between journalists and citizen journalists is becoming blurred.

A young woman I know studied photojournalism at college. It was her passion. Upon graduation, this U.S. based photographer discovered the local newspapers around her hometown are all relying more and more on readers for pictures. Work in the industry is drying up.

The Vacation Continues

We are now in Thessalon and winding down. This was the shortest drive we have had in quite awhile. Tomorrow we only have to drive three hours to a ferry and then we can relax. After the cruise, we have only a one hour drive.

The next day we drive home!

For more info see my post on the Digital Journal.

The Vacation Continues

The stuff you see driving down the TransCanada highway over Lake Superior.

I'm blogging on my vacation on the Digital Journal.

The Vacation Continues

Sioux Narrows in the Lake of the Woods region of Northwestern Ontario.

 For the whole story, see the post on Digital Journal.

The Vacation Continues

Only a week left and Judy and I will be back in London, Ontario! But now, we are in Kenora in the far northwestern part of the province.

The Vacation Continues

With a loud dramatic crunching sound, the bumper fell from the car and wedged under the roadster.

 If you have been following my posts on Digital Journal, you'd know my Morgan was hit in Gorda by the Bay. Today the fender fell off the roadster and wedged under the car. The whole story has been posted on Digital Journal.

The Vacation Continues

If you are following the Morgan Adventure, there are two more posts on the Digital Journal.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/blog/7636

http://www.digitaljournal.com/blog/7637

The Vacation Continues

A young violinist on the main street of Fort McLeod, Alberta. The street was closed for an arts festival.

We are now in Alberta and today we should end up in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. My heart seems stable as does the Morgan. The old car seems to have rallied to the moment and is on its best behaviour. It only gives us trouble after we stop. Some say this is the elevation or the western gas causing vapour lock but I know this is the car telling us that it just wants to get us home: "Don't stop me. Let me run. I'll get you home," it is saying.

More pictures posted on Digital Journal.

The Vacation Continues

I never expected parts of the state of Washington to look like this. Where are the mountains?

For today's post, see the Digital Journal.

Cheers!

The Vacation Continues

A steep climb and massive wind turbines greeted us entering Washington.

Yesterday we cleared Oregon. It is now checked off our list. We are in Washington and we'll be here again tonight: Spokane. After that it is British Columbia and Canada. It may not be "home of the free and land of the brave" but it is the home of government-run medical care.

When your ticker is losing its mojo, Canada looks better and better. One of the first stops in Canada will be a hospital or medical clinic. I'm going to check on the strength of my heart meds. I'm wondering if I could be taking a little more of this metoprolol. Right now I am on a minimal dosage.

The downside to this stuff is that you must take it regularly. Don't stop! It comes with this warning:

"Do not stop taking metoprolol without talking to your doctor. Suddenly stopping metoprolol may cause chest pain or heart attack. Your doctor will probably decrease your dose gradually."

I think the Morgan is having sympathy pains. Yesterday, on the steep road into Washington state the engine balked, lost power and stopped for no apparent reason. But the little car restarted beautifully and has run fine ever since.

I've got confidence in both my little roadster and my heart. Hey, I've known them both for a very long time.

Cheers!

Oh, I may not post tonight,

I may go to bed early and get a really good night's sleep.