This project began many years ago now, and it hasn't wrapped up yet.
The photo on the main page just shows part of the quilt, and it seems enormous already - but it's still only part of it all...
According to the site, AIDS has claimed 21.8 MILLION lives to date, 3 million of them last year alone. Very sobering statistics.
Even though today was already one of sadness and reflection on George Harrison, I wanted to make sure that the day I commemorated last year as part of The Day Without Weblogs was commemorated again:
Above this you'll find links to several sites about AIDS, to help you learn more.
Sir Paul McCartney was wrongly blasted for his seeming blasé attitude when John Lennon died. Really, it was shock when the news was just tossed at him.
No one could accuse him of that now. More tributes to George Harrison.
My Sweet Lord... the writing was very likely on the wall with the report earlier this year, even though it was proclaimed false.
George is the second Beatle lost to the world, after John Lennon in the 1980s...
When we was Fab... George had a major influence on modern music, even if he sometimes didn't seem to. Introducing the sitar to us, tunes after tunes after tunes...
Only 58. Taken from us too young, as John was. We'll miss you George. I have to go on with my life now, While my Guitar Gently Weeps.
I also got to follow a growing movie trend, even though I usually try to avoid trends: I saw the Harry Potter film in theatres.
I actually have yet to read any of the books but I had to say: the film was bloody brilliant. It actually made me want to read the books now.
Previews also reminded me just how much I anticipate the premiere of the first Lord of the Rings movie. This for a trilogy I haven't read in 20 years too!
I'm still blown away by the frenzy for this... still, Harry Potter got people reading again.
Right now, ABC news is pasting the airwaves with news of another plane crash outside of New York City. They've been doing so since early morning.
It might be a terrorist act; it's most definitely a tragedy, as over 200 lives were lost.
By bringing all the lives of TV viewers to a halt again, though, ABC is doing exactly what the terrorists want.
Bourque proved just how dense he could be in his concession speech; on the city merger, he said he might have explained it better, to make it more palatable. Hey, moron: it's an unpopular idea in Montreal, no matter HOW you explained it. As I've said from the beginning: no matter how we phrased it, we still said as one: we don't want it!
Now, the message should be clear - not that he'll understand it.
This is considered the most significant election in years, considering it's for the people in office once the entire city is merged (a forced merger that few people outside of the government want). As a result, it's also the election the highest percentage of citizens have voted in ever.
Even though the current mayor Pierre Bourque is one of the most despised in years, polls give him 35% of the vote. Why he'd have moore than 0.001% of the vote is beyond me. On the 11 o'clock news tonight, I'm hoping to have the results declared, so I can learn them before I wake up tomorrow.
That in itself is fantastic, but even more so was actually seeing him. He doesn't look his age at all! He looks aged, granted, but I've met 70 year-olds who look older than he does.
We should all aspire to achieve that.
This is exciting news: Chic Corea reuniting with two members of his classic sextet Origin.
Bio-warfare is happening now.
I still don't think the anthrax situations are from bin Laden; I think some other sicko is using him as a cover for their own insanities. Still, just the fact that chemical weapons are now being used - and on innocent civilians - is just mind numbing on top of the chilling things that have happened already.
It's bad enough that Peter Jennings at ABC interrupts shows often with 30-minute "Special Reports" that contain nothing as far as actual news... now, thanks to the inept workings of the Canadian media, a Website done for only parody - I'll say it again: PARODY, was pulled from the 'net because the Webmaster had enough harassment.
The site in question was called "Bert is Evil". Said site just played on a joke: that Bert from Sesame Street was actually involved in some of the most heinous actions of the past century.
One photo was an image made a few years ago, of Bert behind Osamu bin Laden. This was after the bombing of a few embassies in Asia. Unfortunately, some scumbags made posters of the image for an anti-America rally in Afghanistan recently. The vultures who used it had no idea who Bert even was.
This led to major media furor, which led to the Canadian press hounding the Webmaster, which in turn led to him saying "Screw it!" and closing the site.
Shame on you, media vultures. Shame. On. You.
Was this the result of terrorist actions? I'm not so sure... but we can't hide under a rock in fear of everything being done by these evil men (and I'm not gender typecasting here; in the extremist beliefs, women are treated as less than 3rd class citizens).
I don't know who's stating the truth about zero civilian casualties or many, but I don't believe a word from Taliban mouths.
Even if he can't be directly linked to the horror of September 11th, he has orchestrated other acts of hate and murder around the world... and the 'peace' he calls for in Palestine would be nothing short of genocide.
Enjoy hell when you get there, bin Laden. You've earned it.
Thing is, they announced a few months ago that the product was becoming shareware. After a month trial, you had to pay for it.
That's what killed Netscape's market share. Why pay for a browser when Internet Explorer's free? They changed their tune, but it was too late.
Now Netcaptor is cutting their throats. Oh well.
Some critics called it too preachy, said that it seemed like a civics class...
Uhm... excuse me? The story was of a politics class, and all the characters spoke to them? Did you critics miss that point?
They used an accurate logic point about Islamic Fundamentalists, who are not to have other followers of Islam lumped in with them:
Islamic Fundamentalists are to Islam like the Klu Klux Klan to Christianity.
I can't think of a more accurate description of this splinter group.
First, they eliminated free GeoPlus for Community Leaders, which meant their pop-up ads now show on any page that doesn't already hold their Geoguide ad banner. This blocks out a lot of my design. You can click twice to turn it off, but it returns on every page right away anyways.
NOW they've eliminated the Geoguide, so the pop-ups appear on every page, hiding much more of my site messages.
I will now move the site, as I suspect a lot of the more net-savvy denizens will. I just have to find a free host that doesn't put pop-ups everywhere. If you know of such a host, please please let me know.
I'm still stunned that a Harry Potter book won the best SF Novel Hugo this year, but it's interesting to see how the books are still increasing literary business.
3 fundamentalists killed is a tragedy? Evil vulture... anything over the number 0 is bad, but zealots killed more than five thousand innocents in New York - and the number is rising daily!
It's alright to murder innocents because they are American? Never!
To say it was emotionally draining would be an understatement - but then, it was supposed to be. The events that led to it were beyond tragic. I still don't have the words to accurately convey the scope of atrocity last Tuesday.
One celebrity deserves mention right here: Jim Carrey.
I've been underwhelmed by him ever since his debut on a special here in Canada many years ago. I don't find him funny in the least.
I do admire him now, however, for donating one million dollars to the relief efforts. He's Canadian, and no celebrity has ever found need to give so much of their own money - yet he didn't hesitate, didn't even blink here. He just saw that it would help a lot, and gave it. I wish more celebrities were as selfless.
With the Taliban actually trying to negotiate terms for the release of Osamu Bin Laden, I don't blame them. Scumbag terrorists took too many human lives (anything over zero is too many); what right would they now have to dictate terms? NONE.
What I'm upset with though is the now-current trend of PC censorship. A list of songs radio stations should now cease playing because of potentially offensive lyrics has now been released. On that list is Imagine by John Lennon.
Excuse me?! A song extolling peace and unity for all mankind is dangerous? What are they smoking? Whatever it is, keep me far away from it!
JIHAD IS NOT "HOLY WAR" NOR IS IT A "PILLAR OF ISLAM" --------------------------- JIHAD: (Striving) Although it is not a pillar of Islam but is a duty in one form or another. The most common media misconception is of calling Jihad a 'Holy War.' The general meaning of the term is "striving for moral and religious perfection." The broader meaning of this term encompasses one's life and community. The constant struggle of striving to remain on the path of Islam by observing the above five pillars of Islam (Witness, Prayer, Alms, Fasting, and Pilgrimage) is Jihad. One who Strives is Mujahid. Being a Mujahid, a striver for moral and religious perfection, involves numerous forms of public and private devotion that charaterizes the 'practice' of islam. This includes respecting the dietry laws against eating pork and drinking alcohol, respecting parents and elders, helping to provide for close relatives and kin, giving to the poor and disadvantaged. On the other side, theft, murder, fornication, adultery, lying, cheating, wrongly accusing or testifying are strictly forbidden by Shari'a (Islamic Law). http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~calmsa/intro.html ------------------------- It is of the utmost importance at this time of justice-seeking and finger-pointing that non-Muslims learn something about the religion of Islam before buying into and passing on dangerous misinformation about Islamic beliefs.(e.g. that jihad is a religious mandate to holy war). Sources of clear information abound on the web, including the FAQ at alt.religion.islam or http://www.faqs.org/faqs/islam-faq/alt-newsgroup/, and the fine longer article "The Spiritual Significance of Jihad" at http://www.al-islam.org/al-serat/jihad-nasr.htm But there are even better sources of information about the Muslim religion: your local Islamic community centers and the Islamic members of your local community. Many American Muslims are currently in deep fear of the reactions of their fellow non-Muslim countrymen; help ease their fears -- and yours. Show them that America is ready to learn about their beliefs and practices from the keepers of those beliefs and not through media-driven misconceptions. Would you expect any less from others if your your own religious tradition were being questioned? America shows her best side when she shows her wisdom as well as her compassion. Let us not add Muslims to the long list of religious and ethnic groups who have suffered due to the ignorance of others or the heinous acts of the few. May the golden lamp of knowledge draw us all together and light our way in the dark days to come. "Without knowledge there is no wisdom" (Sirach 3:25)
- This shows just how evil terrorist fundamentalists are: they perverted the usage of a word signifying peace in their own faith, and convinced people of a lie that it actually represents violence.
How significant was his part of Canadian culture? Mike Myers listed him on his list of Top 5 things he loved about Canada - even higher on his list that hockey... and we all know how fanatical he is about that.
Mr. Dressup was a simple children's show. The central character would draw cartoons, or dress-up to enact stories for the puppet boy Casey and his silent dog Finnegan. No explosions, no action or guns. Just a gentle half hour for kids every day.
I saw him perform live on stage when I was a child. That'll be a memory I'll always cherish.
My friend Pat, a journalism graduate, spoke of the malignancy of the networks in his log, now I've seen it proven: today the tv schedule was supposed to get back to normal, so I tried watching All My Children. After a week of dread, I needed some fluff to lift my spirits. Many people do.
ABC doesn't think so. First they interupted 15 minutes in for a so-called Special Report: the presidential press secretary giving the President's schedule for the day. Considering it was business as usual, did we really need to hear that for 20 minutes?
Then, as they were supposed to go back to the show, they cut in with another Special Report - this time for a briefing by Secretary of State Colin Powell. At this point I turned the set off, but I'm sure nothing he said would be important to know now.
ABC, if grinding life to a standstill was a terrorist goal, you're doing their work for them.
Here's what Falwell had to say - no, dared to say:
"The ACLU's got to take a lot of blame for this. And, I know that I'll hear from them for this. But, throwing God or successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen'."
He realized what damage these words may have done for his business ministry, so he claimed afterwards they were taken out of context. NOT a retraction of these hateful words, but that others quoted him wrong.
Pat Robertson did no better. Also on the 700 Club, his words did the work for the terrorists:
On his website, Pat's doing the hateful, anti-American, seditious act of telling people that the terrorism is going to grow worse. He's doing the terrorists' job for them. And get this quote: "We lie naked before these terrorists who have infiltrated our country. There are probably tens of thousands of them in America right now. They have been raising money and preaching their hate."
(Fair credit time. These words came to me thanks to members of the Compuserve Comics and Animation forum.
Can people now get it through their brains that these scum don't do anything good, that they do nothing but program hate into the masses? I hope they get shut out by all like they deserve!
It was almost comical, as I purchased a cheap disposable lighter that I couldn't make work, ended up using a long match anyways.
I've added a Red Cross donation box somewhere on this site. If you can, please use it. Your donation may help in a small part to combat this tragedy.
Considering how significant this tragedy was, that's not surprising... but it's still emotionally draining.
At least the speech from my Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, was good. Generally, I don't like him... but he said words similar to what I did earlier today: that an ethnic race can't be called to blame for the actions of a few.
Even if they don't read this, I hope this message gets through by osmosis: A race isn't responsible for this, individuals are. Break the cycle of hatred.
This man was there. Fortunately, only on the subways and streets around the WTC, and not in them.
Many of these photos are images burned into our minds already, but the account of someone actually there is very poignant.
Last night, I spoke of my disgust with the words of the leader of the Hesballah.
This morning, Osamu Bin Laden was quoted saying that while he wasn't responsible for this atrocity, he wanted to congratulate those who were. Am I deathly in hatred of him? Yes.
The news all showed the same group of Palestinians rejoicing at this action. Am I deathly in hatred of them? Yes again. Such disregard for innocent life is an abomination
Does this mean I now hate all Palestinians, or Muslims, or Arabs? No.
One group of slime does not an entire race make. I have friends who are practicing Muslims; I don't hate them for their beliefs.
As a Jew, the grandson of Holocaust survivors, a culture and ethnic race attacked and killed just for living a mere 60 years ago, I can't perform similar acts of generalization.
How sad that the nation-state of Israel has forgotten those lessons, and helped to fan the flames of similar hatred now.
Gee... so many people killed, I really care what ideology is taken for the attacks... not.
You've likely been hearing about it on all the news: before 9 am, a plane crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City.
At first, it was thought to be a horrible tragic air accident - but at 9:03 am, as Good Morning America was showing the accident, another plane came into view, colliding with the second tower in a horrific fireball.
Shortly thereafter, another plane crashed into the Pentagon in Washington. Others were then reported over various areas in the US, which may have been intended for strategic targets in the areas.
Before 11 am, the news announced that the Trade Towers were destroyed, and they showed gruesome footage of the buildings imploding.
Other footage was shown of revellers on the West Bank, and Palestinians also rejoicing that the major power (the US) had been shown to be defenseless.
I wanted to reach through my TV to strangle these vultures. Hoow many tens of thousands of innocent lives were ended by this? How can anyone rejoice at such suffering.
I visited the World Trade Center more than 20 years ago. When I think of how I once looked at the city skyline from a building now fallen, I feel like throwing up again.
Here's the deal: For Better or Worse has been a comic strip in newspapers for decades. It's also one of the few strips where the characters have been aging.
The current storyline has the son (Michael) getting married. The storyline has him getting one of his best friends as best man... said friend happening to be gay.
Cartoonist Lynn Johnson has the mother of the bride worried about this - but the Bible Belt seem to be up in arms about it in real life. How dare she have a gay character in her strip, and how dare she put him in this storyline.
My question: how dare you people still be so closed-minded and ignorant? Gay people have been a facet of life since time began - and in the grand scheme of life, it doesn't matter one way or the other.
I'm disgusted that such narrow-minded people still exist.
It was amazing to see Victoria Jackson on Bizarre. It was also a trip to read the copyright notice at the end for 1984 - that reminded me I wasn't yet a high school graduate when the show was still on (I graduated in June of 84).
The funny thing was seeing Victoria - who made her fame on Saturday Night Live... and the very next show was an old (1970s) episode of just that show!
I figured this site merited a plug (even if he's using something other than Blogger), for the simple fact that the writer is one of my best friends... and he's indirectly mentioned me a few times. :)
Sacu Coivu, the captain of the Montreal Canadians, was diagnosed with abdominal cancer.
He's only 26 freakin' years old. Hopefully, that and the fact he's strong will hopefully help him to pull through this... but as I said here about two months ago, I lost an aunt to cancer. She was a few years older at 53, but there's really no age when cancer is okay.
26... sometimes, fate is downright cruel.
I'm not a big fan of the reality shows, but I actually enjoyed this one. The 'Ugly American' frat brothers were funny in their crassness, and it was interesting seeing a contest that involves a lot of thinking.
The only thing that made me very uncomfortable was the bungee jump. I suffer from vertigo, so I'll never try it (the lack of dexterity helps) - but every leap here gave me chills.
I linked a few articles about a young singer's death in here (I won't say her name again, to avoid increasing my search rankings for that term). Since then, I've had a minimum of 21 visits to the site a day, mostly from people searching for news of her in the major engines.
It's bad enough that so many perverts come to my site looking for nude photos of popular models (notes to pervs: THERE ARE NO NUDE PHOTOS OF CYNDY MARGOLIS - ANYWHERE!). Now death has brought me bounty.
I feel so cheap.
Reading through this, one thought came to mind: can you say petty?
TV as a form of birth control? Riiiight.
"Fred Hoyle. An astrophysicist, Hoyle didn't really believe that the "Big Bang" was the start of the universe, but he was the one who coined the term, using it with derision in a lecture. "Every cluster of galaxies, every star, every atom had a beginning, but the universe itself did not," he once said. It was also Hoyle (working with William Fowler, Geoffrey Burbidge and Margaret Burbidge) who realized that all chemical elements heavier than helium were produced by nucleosynthesis (nuclear reactions inside stars). He also led the group that developed radar in World War II. Sir Fred Hoyle died August 20 in Bournemouth, England. He was 86."
Although he didn't believe his own theory, he'll still be remembered as the father of our beliefs of the Universe' origins.
I saw films at this theatre about 11-12 years ago. It's hard to put in words how beautiful the art-deco architexture was, the statues and sculptures that made it something unseen anywhere else in the city.
Sadly, a fire shortly after I saw my last film there gutted the building. It remained as a pile of rubble on St-Catherine (the main street of the downtown core) for a decade since. It was never repaired, and just added to the urban blight of that part of the city.
Now, it was torn down for Concordia University (ironically, my alma mater), which bought the land to build new buildings for the university itself. These new facilities are planned to launch in 2004.
It's a matter of putting some use to territory lain wasted for so long... but still, another part of my cultural memories is now gone.
A younger Clint Eastwood was a startling sight to see. =) The story and look of the film is very dated today, especially considering how the story logic seems nonsensical... but I was also surprised when I recognized the actor who played the antagonist:
I don't remember his name, but he played Garok on Deep Space 9.
Forget the 5 disco songs they performed for Saturday Night Fever - they have a tremendous body of work, with classic songs like It's only words, San Francisco, and Nights on Broadway (that last one has stalker-like lyrics these days, but it's still an incredible song).
Anyway, when this show first aired they were celebrating over 40 years as performers. That's a tremendous record any way you slice it!
Once I got home though... the heat is barely tolerable. This as I have to go out for another meeting too...
I told a friend down in Austin about the heat of the past 9 days... he said it was as if Montreal had become Texas. =)
The fact that the heat is lower finally gave me the drive to update my company site, Thothwares Web Design. I now have branded e-mail, and a lot of information cleared up.
You can visit it at: Thothwares.com
I told a friend down in Austin about the heat of the past 9 days... he said it was as if Montreal had become Texas. =)
The fact that the heat is lower finally gave me the drive to update my company site, Thothwares Web Design. I now have branded e-mail, and a lot of information cleared up.
You can visit it at: Thothwares.com
Remember a few weeks ago when the public was led to believe that George Harrison was dying of cancer? A story denied by George, and former manager George Martin, whom the story was attributed to?
Well, here's an update on it from Salon:
"Anyway, now we hear (via www.salon.com) that one James Desborough has been fired by something called the World Entertainment News Network (WENN) after admitting that he took a reporter's mundane interview with Martin, jazzed it up with invented quotes about Harrison's health, and sold it to a London paper, The Mail on Sunday.
Then, Salon says, the Mail further enhanced (my emphasis) the quotes. "
Anyone who perpetuated such cruelty deserves far worse than just firing, in my opinion.
The heat isn't much less than in Montreal, but a few degrees seems to make a difference.
Plus, my aunt has a DSL Internet connection. Playing with the high speed is very addictive... if I hadn't hoped to get a high speed connection after my move, I would indeed now!
I'm not surprised. I wish the media would learn: if a virus is mentioned everywhere as supposed to strike on a specific date and time, it's already been thwarted, assuming it was anything more than a hoax story to begin with. A real epidemic would strike with no warning.
If you needed any more proof of how these pageants don't celebrate true beauty, this is it!
I heard on the radio this morning that former Beatle George Harrison expects he'll die soon from cancer. He just recently had his third operation to remove a tumor for a third type of cancer too.
He told former producer Sir George Martin that he's made his peace with it... but he's only 5 years older than my aunt Susan was when she died of lung cancer recently.
What a sad world...
Coolboard ended their free discussion board program at the end of June. Since I was the only person who ever used it, I decided to just remove it rather than find a substitute.
Likewise, the link to a music store that never was. In the year I've been blogging, I never set it up, so it's gone.
I'll add more changes over time... and I'll fix the archive soon.
I'll work on a redesign for the Archive section Saturday.
I'll still have to do some major work on the Style Sheet to get it to do what I want too - but if I pull this off, it may look cooler here!
The Freeservers banner at the top of the page would muddy up my design a bit... but I can't afford the paid, banner-free version just yet.
I learned that a science fiction/media convention in Toronto that I used to attend and speak at invited my best friend to be a guest this year, but not me. Maybe they don't consider me so important.
Let's see: I've been a publisher for 13 years, wrote animation screenplays, game adventures, do Website designs, edit and publish my own newsletter... seems pretty big to me.
I was offline to eat, or write, or to do some packing. I also took some time to work on the new site for my ABomanation blog. Overall though, I'd say I've been earning my ISPs keep on Unlimited access. :)
It's always scary when someone so easily breaks codes and gets information like this... but let's face it: anything done to Bill Gates can't be all bad. :)
Let's face it: the band has had nothing but trouble since Roth was originally kicked out. That they're still having trouble is no surprise.
I learned this week that I was 2nd on the Housing list. That may be lowered if someone with a more urgent need for housing comes in, but it's still way better than being lower on the list.
This doesn't mean I won't possibly have a long wait ahead of me; one of my friends was #1 on the list for a year and a half. I likely still have a decent amount of time to pack. Still, on the off chance that something becomes available in the near future, I have to get ready.
Another sad, significant loss.
I first learned of Mordecai Richler from the film version of his novel The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. From there, I often saw him as the voice of Montreal Jewish culture.
In his later years he became the terror of sovereignists, blazing the federalist trail and publicly denouncing the crimes against Anglophone culture.
He will be greatly missed.
I've heard the arguements for awhile now, and I'm still scratching my head.
Correct me if I'm wrong on this, but stem cells are taken after a baby is born. Furthermore, what is taken doesn't affect the child in any way.
If I'm right, then what's the problem?
