Happy Halloweenie~

LOL....

Bread and Circuses

On the previous two occasions Canada has hosted the Olympics, I was thrilled by the prospect of the Games and filled with a mix of national pride and that “family of man” camaraderie the Olympic movement is supposed to symbolize.  This time not so much.

The official commencement of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games celebration was marked yesterday by the arrival of the Olympic torch in Victoria.

Over the next 45 days the flame will be carried from one end of the country to the other (and presumably back) by 12,000 proud Canadians we’re told are honored to have been chosen to represent their nation and all that the Olympic spirit represents.

Like sponsorship money.

Earlier in the week, CTV, supposedly cash strapped but somehow still able to shell out $90 million for the right to become the official host broadcaster for the Games, (more than double what CBC paid for the far more lucrative, longer and more sports filled 2008 Summer Games) brought us live coverage of the Olympic flame being lit in Panathenian stadium in downtown Athens. 

During this, the commentator referred to “the sacred flame” being prepared for its journey here from its home “in Ancient Greece”. How the Olympic movement became a recognized religion or the method by which such holy fire would travel through time from Ancient Greece to our modern era remained unexplained in the welter of hyperbole already being rolled out by whoever is writing this crap for CTV.

The rest of the network’s crack team of Olympic embedded journalists immediately swung into action from morning show through hard newscasts to gossip mongering magazine hosts to let me know every detail of the flame’s flight and the exciting journey it would take into the hearts of Canadians once it got here.

Here we see the flame enjoying an in-flight meal of Oxygen. I believe the sacred flame has the aisle seat while its backups cope with a lack of leg room. In contrast to recommended Canadian flight safety standards, however, none of the flames appear to be wearing seat belts.

What CTV’s meat puppets glossed over in their excitement was that 2500 of our 12,000 torch bearers would be employees of CTV, the Globe and Mail and other corporate entities who have ponied up the cash to pay for the torch run.

In other words, what has been presented to us for months as a generous corporate contribution to national pride is really little more than a tax-deductable marketing expense.

More than 100,000 Canadians applied for the honor of carrying the torch, agreeing in the process to pay their own expenses to get to whichever 300 metre strip of pavement had been designated as their portion of the route.

But 2500 of them, including eager school children, former Olympic athletes and anybody who worked for a rival media outlet were turned away, so the likes of “e-Talk” hosts Ben Mulroney and Tanya Kim could take their gossip show on the road.

Above, the cast of CTV’s new series “Splash Park Boys” carries the torch.

Speaking on Canada’s foremost sports program, Bob McCown’s “Prime Time Sports”, Globe columnist and torch runner Stephen Brunt defended his journalistic integrity by saying, “This is all part of the machinery of the Olympic Games and the money machine that is the Olympic Games”.

In other words, don’t expect to see Mr. Brunt wade in on the recent revelations by China’s Sports Minister that he got IOC President Jacques Rogge elected on the condition that he land China the 2008 Summer Games or that the IOC head has since been quite vocal in his support of the Chinese crackdown in Tibet.

Or maybe, just don’t expect his column to be featured all that prominently if he does.

Didn’t Mr. Brunt lose as many tax dollars on the failed Toronto 2008 bid to this corruption as the rest of us?

Or is that all just part of the “money machine” that is the Olympics too and forgivable now that some Canadian company (like his own) is finally making a buck off it?

The full text of the discussion can be found here in Prime Time’s Monday podcast. McCown’s website also hosts a column by William Huston stating that Globe editors were so concerned about the negative backlash of all this that they pulled a torch relay section that was supposed to run in today’s paper.

I’ve always been a fan of Mr. Brunt’s writing, particularly his superb books, so it’ll be interesting to see if he skews far from what was offered in today’s G&M by their first torch bearer, Gary Mason. After describing a relay organizer who gets teary eyed just talking about the torch, Mr. Mason offers the following…

“Our group represented a true cross-section of Canadians. There were former Olympians, such as skier Allison Forsyth. There were moms running for daughters who had died. An aboriginal teacher and a diabetes researcher. There was Morgan Tierney, a former UBC goaltender, who spent four years on her hockey team and didn't play a regular season game, though she got into the team's last playoff game of her final season.

Lloyd Robertson, the CTV anchor, also ran with us.”

Gee, let’s not miss a chance to slip in that corporate reminder, huh, Gary? One big happy family doing all we can to tug the national heartstrings for ratings.

Mr. Mason also mentions the many who cheered him along the route, while failing to remind his readers that one of them could have had his place in the spotlight --- if only they’d had his company’s money and connections. His full column is here.

Elsewhere in the paper of record, reporters describe upset children who didn’t get to see the flame pass by because…

“About 400 anti-Olympic demonstrators wound through the downtown core. The zombie-themed march zig-zagged unpredictably through the streets, keeping police on the move to keep rush-hour traffic at bay.”

Interesting journalistic slant isn’t it? Globe and Mail sponsored torch runners “a true cross-section of Canadians”. Anybody opposed --- Zombies.

It’s sad that the values of the Olympic Games have apparently fallen so out of favor that their worth can only be realized through the furthering of somebody else’s corporate agenda. Although this isn’t the first time that’s happened.

 

The original torch relay was conceived by Adolf Hitler as a way of promoting the dominant Aryan race propaganda of the 1936 Berlin Games and carried through the capital cities of European countries he would subjugate not long after, symbolically reminding the world that all roads would soon lead to the home of the true master race.

You don’t hear CTV mentioning that they’re following in Hitler’s footsteps in their import dripping coverage of the torch relay. But by having their staff doing the running their message is much the same. Some of us are more important than the rest of you. Some of us are better than you. Some of us have a rightful place in the spotlight you paid for --- just like we have a right to more of your money through carriage fees to bring you even more of our endless, self-referential, self-aggrandizing drivel.

And those rights don’t just include basking in the warmth of a sacred flame and a snazzy tracksuit and toque.

Although the province of British Columbia has a shortage of H1N1 vaccine, it was revealed that the Torch relay team (including a phalanx of “Zombie-fighting” cops who surround the runners every step of the way) was at the front of the needle line, vaccinated prior to far more at risk groups like pre-school children, pregnant women and those with underlying health conditions that would have made them expendable to the inventor of the original torch relay --- and apparently just as easily shunted aside by those in charge of the current one.

“Bread and Circuses” were a mainstay of the Roman Empire as it crumbled, with one Emperor after another keeping a restless populace placated by free loaves of bread and free admission to their Gladiatorial spectacles. The process continues today --- except for the “free” part. Now we all pay the freight ($6 Billion and rising for Vancouver 2010) so the Emperors can be entertained.

And that process apparently includes co-opting respected journalists, making sure your network stars trot through tiny towns towing a “Support Local TV” banner and otherwise pretending this is all just the way the world works nowadays so you might as well just enjoy it.

Well, you know what I’m going to enjoy most? I’m going to revel in all those scrubbed “wouldn’t say poo if they stepped in it” CTV celebs and jock-sniffers showing off a torch that was clearly designed to represent the host Province’s major export in the form of a giant stylized aluminum BC Bud Marijuana joint.

I can’t wait for Ross Rebagliati to take a final toke off it before handing it to Senator Nancy Greene to light the official Olympic flame in 45 days.

Can a solution to the Nation’s deficit be far behind?

I’m also going to take comfort in the knowledge that people now know that each CTV Celebrity and Globe and Mail columnist running the torch represents one kid in a wheelchair, one Canadian whose father died of Cancer or one past or future Olympic athlete who was denied a chance to express their personal love of their country in the name of Corporate greed.

Way to thank the people who buy your product, guys! 

And then I’m going to root for a Men’s Hockey Final between Russia and Sweden.

Not just because it looks like both those two countries will have a better team in Vancouver than we will. Not just because all that foreign content will more accurately reflect normal prime time programming on CTV. But because it might make the network finally realize that you can’t buy blockbuster ratings, no matter how much you stack the deck in your favor.

Show & Tell~

This week I'm showing my cameo collection. Now, none of these are super old or worth anymore than what I paid for them (about $2 bucks each-- tops) But they sure do look nice when all grouped together in a little bowlie on my bathroom counter. Here are some vintage inspired two sided pin-keeps that I just made. I really like how they turned out. When I had completed one I thought to myself, "These would be great at showcasing an old piece of jewelry"....Soooooooo taaaaaaaaaaa daaaaaaaaaaa now I've got some vintage inspired jewelry holders! The jewelry piece in the center of this one pictured below is a pin-backed piece that is indeed old... I found it in amongst some buttons in a tin that I picked up for $2~ If ever When I open an etsy shop, I'd like to make & sell these.... What do you think I could charge for them.... $10 bucks each? Or do you think thats to much???? Input would be greatly appreciated :-)

You can also see more Show & Tells over at Cindy's blog "My Romantic Home" If you have linked to my blog and wish to view more, just click right here!

W.I.P.

What on earth do you do with those darn baby bumpers that are for baby cribs. Who uses those? Sure, they look cute when placed in a baby crib, but personally I never used them, I think they are dangerous. With that said... I cut apart the bumper that goes with the crib linen set (Brandee Danielle) for the baby crib I have at my house for when my grandbabies come over. Once I had the fabric pulled apart from the batting, I ironed it, sandwiched a piece of white fabric between the layers of pink and blue gingham and cut out 10 triangle shapes with my rotary cutter. Then I stitched around all 3 sides of all 10 shapes leaving about a 1/4 inch edge-- then I snipped all around the edges of each one, then I tossed them in the dryer to fray the edges. So far so gooooooooood! I decided to put "I love you" on the banner~ I had to make my own letters since I didn't have any. I used illustration board for the letters, then painted them all pink... Now, I just need to add some glitter. Here is some of my stash, yes, I am a hoarder~ Well, thats as far as I've gotten on this project. I am also making some mitten ornaments, some vintage inspired pinkeeps... and I'm thinking with some of that left over bumper material to make a cover for the changing table pad :-)

CBC Stops Covering The News

Last week, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper caused a frisson of outrage among the country’s chattering classes by stating that he didn’t watch Canadian television news. Many of these were the same people who had cheered vociferously when American President Barrack Obama declared that he didn’t watch the most popular newscast in his own country.

Interesting comparison that, how one head of state is placing himself out of touch by not getting his news from the same sources as the majority of his constituents while the other is not --- for doing the same thing.

But Mr. Harper’s problem might soon start afflicting more and more of us since, as of last night, CBC Television made it clear that it wasn’t covering the news anymore either.

After months of tinkering and weeks of excited promotional announcements, CBC debuted its revamped and modernized “CBC News Network” on Monday, climaxing in the debut of the new nightly news hour “The National”, hosted by Peter Mansbridge.

The old nightly news hour was also called “The National” and was also hosted by Peter Mansbridge, so it would seem they didn’t revamp and modernize everything.

But it was clear from the opening seconds that they’d gotten rid of the lengthy intros and the big honking news desk. In the hour that followed, it also became clear that they’d also gotten rid of anything that could be construed as news.

Now, I’m all for change. And I totally get that everything needs a fresh coat of paint or a new approach from time to time. But what appeared on Canadian TV screens last night was little more than a white flag, a surrender of anything that could be labelled journalism in favor of offering style over substance.

The opening story, the one old Pete needed to make sure we got before anybody even had a chance to reach for the remote, was the arrival of Swine Flu vaccinations. After a summer of flogging the Federal government for dragging its feet on getting the population immunized, for supplying aboriginal outposts with body bags instead of hand sanitizer and not properly promoting the coming danger, the CBC suddenly didn’t seem to know what spin to put on the story.

We were shown endless lines waiting for hours to be immunized in Calgary. Didn’t these people know that kids and pregnant women were supposed to go first? Then to a Vancouver clinic where there were no lines because they only got 80 doses for their population of hugely at-risk aboriginal women and addicts with HIV. Okay, it turns out they could get a shot if they just walked a couple of blocks to a Public clinic or waited until next week when another shipment arrived, but according to the reporter aboriginal women and folks with HIV won’t do that.

Okay, so I’m getting confused. Is the problem too much demand and not enough shots or…

Never mind.

We move fast on the New National so it’s on to Toronto, where, despite a poll that says half of us don’t think we need a shot, everybody was being urged to line up as soon as possible by the local director of public health, who, although not being a kid or a woman who appeared pregnant or even aboriginal was interviewed while getting a shot that I had just been led to believe could have been better used on some junkie with AIDS in Vancouver.

I think…

Isn’t the News supposed to make you less confused about what’s going on?

Was the CBC’s take that the drug distribution system was messed up? Were a panicked population not co-operating out of fear of the impending pandemic? Was it that the elites were elbowing aboriginal women out of line to make sure they were safe? Do we really need to get a shot or don’t we?

Couldn’t tell you. Because under the new “Let’s get on with it” format we were already moving on to story number two.

No context. Little content. Why? I guess it interrupts throwing all these important stories at you as fast as possible.

All the news that can possibly fit or something like that.

Okay, so…

Story #2 was a poll showing that 80% of Canadians had no interest in next week’s visit of the Prince of Wales.

Really?

That’s important News?

And if 80% of us already don’t give a fuck why is it the CBC’s second lead?

No idea.

But we still got 2 or 3 minutes of some British newspaper editor opining that it was “the worst possible news” for the Royal family.

Seriously?

Do you think it’ll stop them acting like pompous assholes?

Nobody asked.

Toward the end of those three minutes, however, the CBC reporter glossed over one astonishing tidbit, that Canadians pay more per capita to support these inbred aristocrats than the British.

What!?!

But did anybody at the CBC add any more information on that? Nope. Instead, Mansbridge lowered his tone to one of hushed concern and asked “Does the Palace know?”

Does the Palace know?!!!

Dude! your reporter already said 80% of your audience doesn’t fucking care!!! Why would we give a flying fadoo what the Queen thinks?

Could you ask about the money?

No.

Moving on.

Story #3: Frank Stronach wants a weaker dollar.

Why?

Could it be because it might cost him less to borrow money from American Investment Banks to buy Opal from Germany?

Again, and despite having the new host of the flagship business show on the revamped network present in person, Pete didn’t ask. And she didn’t act like she’d have known anyway. Instead they both gushed at how cool it was to stand around doing the news instead of doing it sitting down and moved on.

Oh, and a note here to CBC Production --- if you’re going to shoot Peter Mansbridge standing up instead of sitting behind a desk, could somebody either tailor his cuffs or get him to hitch up his pants during the commercial breaks? I mean, if all’s you got’s style, get it right. Just sayin’.

Story #4: was protestors in Ottawa disrupting the House of Commons. No footage of the incident because the cameras in the House didn’t catch it. No details on the Bill they were yelling about either. Apparently six of them were fined 60 bucks.

Six people fined sixty bucks and it’s story #4.

Other news out of Ottawa yesterday was of a Conservative Senator under investigation for fixing government contracts. Elsewhere in the country, the Mob apparently has a stranglehold on Montreal City Hall and the Quebec construction industry. In world news, massive car bomb attacks killed 155 people and injured more than 500 in Iraq and Fidel Castro’s sister admitted she was a CIA mole.

None of that made the CBC National news on Monday night, let alone was deemed more newsworthy than 6 idiots in Ottawa being fined 60 bucks.

Story #5: Jerry Moyes agrees to sell the Phoenix Coyotes to the NHL. Mansbridge comments that this likely means the team will not end up in the hands of Canadian Hockey wannabe Jim Balsillie.

Duh.

I guess Pete’s been so busy learning how to stand around with one hand in his pocket that neither he nor any of the show’s many producers was aware that an Arizona court had ruled Balsillie was ineligible to get the team and Jim himself had announced he was giving up more than two weeks ago.

But tonight that’s suddenly “new” News.

Mansbridge then got into what appears to be a new rapid fire format that repeated a couple of times, allotting about 10 seconds each to three or four stories in a row, offering absolutely nothing beyond a couple of brief sentences of copy.

Again, no context. No detail. No insight. All those things CBC News with its several hundred million dollar a year budget is supposed to offer that other competitors and the Internet cannot.

We then moved on to a series of what I think are supposed to be feature reports even though they’re really short. In these segments, female correspondents turn up like wet-behind-the-ears cub reporters called into Editor Pete’s office to talk about their awesome day of newsgathering.

First up was “What’s in our drinking water?” Turns out it’s a antibiotic resistant bacteria. Now that’s news!

Except it’s not.

Seems it might be a problem in 20 years, if the scientists we were shown working on a solution don’t find one.

So….this might be news in 20 years.

Not now.

And after Peter goes all Fox News on how “brutal” the bacteria looks in the slide show we got, the reporter buttons her own apparently now complete non-story with --- and I quote --- “Just drinking the water won’t make you sick. But Superbugs, IF they do develop, they CAN BE serious --- especially to the SICK.”

Before the next feature with Wendy Mesley, which has been hyped three or four times now, because she’s like a CBC Star, we get another quick hit story.

Ontario has imposed a cell phone law prohibiting all but hands free systems while driving. I live in Ontario so I’ve already been bombarded with this for weeks. And I doubt many people in the rest of the country care.

But CBC augments this snippet by letting me know the province has also revamped the Amber Alert laws so cops can issue one if they simply “believe” a child has been abducted. And they also don’t have to have a description of the abductor or the kidnap vehicle anymore…

Um, excuse me, Peter, but could somebody let me know how that works? I got Bluetooth, so if I’m driving and see an Amber Alert, I can call. But if I don’t have a description of the Perp or know what kind of car he’s driving, do I just dial 911 if I see any kid in a car?

But Mansbridge has no time for such nonsense. He’s already got a reporter in Winnipeg going “in-depth” on all the stupid things people do in their cars.

Said reporter starts out sitting in a cruiser with a 20 year Winnipeg cop who’s “seen it all” to watch for people doing stupid stuff. And the cop promises that we won’t have to wait long.

But apparently we do, because what follows is a montage of people doing stupid stuff, most of it from Youtube clips that went viral two or three years ago.

This is the new CBC News Network!?! Youtube clips and a reporter describing what he once saw this one time – at band camp…

Anyway, the cop buttons that piece, warning people not to do anything stupid – which apparently they already weren’t because he and the reporter didn’t actually shoot any original footage.

Okay, Peter announces we’re getting to Wendy Mesley’s feature soon – right after a gadget CBC has been “scrutinizing” that doesn’t cure cancer. Only it turns out that this story will be appearing --- uh --- later in the week…

Then ten seconds on the Karadich genocide trial, another ten on people in Pakistan starving, five for the new elections in Afghanistan and about the same for 14 American soldiers and DEA agents killed there.

Um – isn’t all of this more newsworthy than people driving while having sex and drinking water that isn’t really dangerous?

Isn’t this still the respected world news service that all our tax dollars have supposedly paid for?

Apparently not.

Instead, Peter does a stand-up interview with former Canadian General Rick Hillier who’s got a new book out, about things that went on in Afghanistan five years ago and then buttons the interview by letting us know that Gen. Hillier will be interviewed for a much longer time and in far greater depth on “The Hour” which is coming up in, uh, less than fifteen minutes…

So --- why did The National bother? Slow news day? The guy was already in the building, so what the hell?

Geez, aren’t ratings for “The Hour” low enough without cutting them off at the knees like this?

Never mind.

Moving on.

To the weather.

Okay, I’m Canadian. I love weather. What’s coming tomorrow?

Don’t know.

The entire weather report is about a tropical storm bearing down on the Philippines.

I kid you not.

And our trusty meteorologist then throws things back to Mansbridge with “That’s your forecast. Back to you, Peter.”

Lady, it’s not my forecast! I don’t live in Manila. And neither does anybody else who’s watching!

By now, I just want to see this Wendy Mesley story they keep hyping and try to find an actual newscast.

But first, Mansbridge has to pepper me with another flurry of ten second stories. The internet will soon allow non-Latin domain names. Great. Including me, how many people watching this show don’t write in Hindi? NASA animation shows astronauts arriving on the moon in 2015. Good. Still lots of time to plan the party. And somebody pretended a meteor landed in Latvia. Wow, bizarre Baltic hoaxes are now important news stories at the CBC.

But finally, it’s time for Wendy Mesley. And her big feature is about people who are profiting from the Swine flu. Okay. Goddamn opportunist sonsabitches! Let’s have at ‘em!

But it turns out the profiteers are Glaxo, who made the vaccine that was so damn important in the lead story. And Purell, who’ve sold $22 Million in hand sanitizer since the CBC started hyping the importance of hand washing last Spring.

Guys, this isn’t news. And they aren’t profiteers. Where are the scam artists and the cheerleaders of doom?

They don’t name any. Instead, Wendy puts on a Hazmat suit she bought online (probably with your tax dollars) and goes to a bookstore to buy a book on keeping your kids from getting sick.

The National even adds a bouncy whistling theme to all this so you know it’s supposed to be really funny even if it’s not.

Done with her little bookstore prank, Wendy then goes online to show you all the other silly stuff you can buy to keep the flu at bay.

Not only was Wendy’s exposé complete bullshit, I’m sure it cheered up the family of a 13 year old Boy in a Toronto suburb who died of Swine Flu earlier in the day.

I’m certain it must have also offered some insight to the kids on his hockey team and school he went to who are now under quarantine.

Perhaps it will lighten the load of the relatives of a ten year old girl from London, Ontario, also a Swine Flu victim, who will be buried tomorrow.

But then, those kids died far from the centre of CBC news coverage in downtown Toronto, so nobody at The National probably even noticed.

Mansbridge’s response to this utterly insensitive tastelessness --- and I quote --- “Good story. We can expect more of these?”

Wendy: “You bet” chirped out with the glee of somebody who’s just realized that trivializing the news is way more fun than actually reporting it.

Jesus Fucking Christ, Wendy! You’re better than this!

You already divorced this Mansbridge ass clown once! What’re you doing co-signing his bullshit?

You used to be one of the CBC’s best reporters. Why are you suddenly trying to become the next Samantha Bee?

I reached for the remote. But there was only one more story to go, so why not see if the new format could somehow redeem itself.

And this is where we went from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Mansbridge introduced the tale of a Venezuelan Symphony conductor who has apparently set the music world on fire. And he’s about to be interviewed by Jian Gomeshi of CBC radio’s “Q”.

Wait, isn’t that the same radio station that stopped playing Classical music because they said nobody listened to it anymore? And isn’t the CBC the same company that fired all of its classical orchestras for the same reason?

Is somebody having a change of heart? Is Classical music making some kind of profound return to popularity?

Don’t know.

Y’see, first Pete and Jian talk about how astonishing this guy is and Gomeshi goes on at length about what an amazing interview he just did. Then we get the interview.

Or rather, one sentence of the interview.

One single sentence.

Then it’s back to Gomeshi and the news that you can hear the whole thing on CBC radio on “Q” and it’ll be repeated on the National “later in the week”.

WTF?

Guys this is not news. It’s self-promotion and the kind of news omission and trivialization even Fox News doesn’t stoop to presenting.

This is abject, ”We don’t have a fucking clue about what’s important anymore!” and “We also have no idea what we’re doing!”

I finally turn the shit off, having officially watched my last CBC TV newscast.

What’s the point? I can learn more in five minutes surfing the Internet. And it won’t cost me and the rest of the country hundreds of millions in taxes that might be better used --- I don’t know --- maybe getting Swine Flu vaccine distributed in a more timely and organized fashion so 10 and 13 year old kids don’t have to die.

It’s clear that CBC News has completely lost its way. No wonder the journalistic rank and file have already publicly rebelled.

And no wonder the Prime Minister doesn’t bother watching.

Maybe he’s not as out of touch as some at the CBC would have you believe.

Lazy Sunday # 90: Book Porn

When a screenwriter finishes a script, he doesn’t have to go to a lot of trouble making it presentable. # 5 Brads. 20 lb. Hammermill paper. Maybe a cardstock cover (I recommend “Proscript” – they come pre-punched).

Some screenwriters, at the end of a series or later in their careers when they want to remind themselves that they actually had a career, will bind their produced scripts in leather with a gold imprint approximating the final product’s title font.

The unproduced scripts stay in a drawer awaiting the inevitable “Have you got something with a woman in jeopardy that can be shot in Bulgaria?” call from your agent.

But there are people who take the printed page further, pulling you up with inspired awe.

Such is what follows.

For those who love books, who cherish a rainy afternoon exploring musty shelves of long forgotten masterpieces, this is “Book Porn”.

And I have a feeling even those who have traded paper for a Kindle, audiobooks or MP3 downloads may feel a twinge of loss or even a whispered “Really? Daddy wants…”

Only $4600 a copy.

Enjoy your Sunday.

Pictorial Webster's: Inspiration to Completion from John Carrera on Vimeo.

Show & Tell~

This week I'm showing my newly covered mannequin torso that I picked up at a yard sale for the whopping sum of $20~ You can read all about that and more treasures I picked up here. I painted the wooden neck piece and the metal stand with wooden legs with white spray paint. Next, I used spray adhesive and covered the blow mold form with a thin layer of quilt batting. I then made a fabric pattern with 5 sections to cover the torso...I then made a paper pattern out of that.... thennnn I used the pattern on a thrifted Shabby chic curtain panel (I got two for $6) stitched up the entire thing on my trusty sewing machine then placed it on my mannequin. Taaaaaaaa daaaaaaaaaa instant caute! Okokok, not so instant~ but definitely caute!!

Lastly, here is a photo of my birdcage from last weeks "Show & Tell" with a newly made seed catcher and fabric roof. You can read more about that here and here.

Jen is hosting her "Before & After party" on her blog Sanctuary Arts At Home... check it out~ You can also see more Show & Tells over at Cindy's blog "My Romantic Home" If you have linked to my blog and wish to view more, just click right here!

Thrifted treasures~

I had a lot of fun searching for the following treasures that I hauled home, the weather is getting cooler/colder and that of course puts a spring in my step! This Saturday I'll be springing up and down a mile long yard sale! *woot-woot*
I got this basket with six large emu eggs for a $1... I know, what on earth am I going to do with them??? But goodness, a buck? Couldn't pass 'em up!Here is a photo of what I did with the eggs (for now)... very halloweenie!Linens... I love linens! The white coverlet was $2, the old-old quilt top was $1, the crochet white tablecloth was .50cents (crazy!) the doiles were .25cents each. The goldtone rosary box was .50cents.The pumpkin basket was .50cents. Wouldn't this be fabulous filled with pumpkin cookies?Some odds & ends for my studio... all of this on the tray for $3.These dishes were practically free. The saucers were .10cents each, the cup & saucer was .75cents... the two sectioned bowlie thingie was .25cents... the larger plate was .25cents. The three circular doilies were .10cents each~ A box full of flowers & greenery... most of which will be cut off of the stems to be used in some future project/s this stuffed box was $3~

The Balloon Boys

If I could interrupt for a moment…

And now back to “E-Talk Daily”…

What do you get...

when you spend one dollar and one evening sewing? Why you get a fabulous made-over birdcage of course! I picked up a thrifted curtain panel (for one whole buckeroo) that had fabulous crocheted trim along one long edge and across the bottom. Using said panel... I made a fitted seed catcher for the bottom of the birdcage...and a little fabric roof as well...At the point of each crocheted triangle I stitched on a little white pearl bead~ The flowers on top are hot glued to a fabric covered foam core "hat" of sorts that sits on top of the fabric roof. It is easily removeable without any damage to the existing fabric. Now, I am needing to find more crochet panels to fix up some of my other birdcages-- last count I was up to 31-- and thats just the ones inside my house!
Swing on over to Kim's blog to see what other girlies are working on~ Kimba is also hosting a D.I.Y. linky party... stop over there as well! I also linked up to Metamorphosis Monday over at Naps on the Porch nothing like browsing blogs! If you have linked to my blog and wish to view more just click "here."

Not Evil Just Wrong –- Okay, Maybe A Little Evil

There was a little publicized but potentially game-changing event on the Internet last night.

“Big Hollywood”, a site you can link to from my list on the far right – and to some also far right in their own show business outlook, held what they billed as the largest movie premiere in history, streaming Irish documentarians Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney’s “Not Evil Just Wrong”.

McAleer and McElhinney’s film is a response to Vice President Al Gore’s 2006 Oscar winner, “An Inconvenient Truth” and was made after the filmmakers challenged that film’s “facts” in a British court, eventually receiving a High Court ruling that 9 key points in the Gore film were patently false.

“Not Evil Just Wrong” details those falsehoods as it explores what McAleer calls “The true cost of Global Warming hysteria”. And despite what you may think, it is a long way from the work of somebody in the habit of wearing a tinfoil hat.

The film features respected activists such as Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore, now fighting against what he sees as the growing immorality of the environmental movement as well as a long list of legitimate scientists, including the two Canadians who discovered that Gore’s now famous “Hockey Stick” graph of spiking world temperatures was the result of a mathematical error and not actual Global warming.

However you feel about the Climate Change debate, “Not Evil Just Wrong” offers arguments worthy of being discussed. But despite months of trying, its producers had been unable to find an American distributor willing to buck the prevailing Green mood in Hollywood and bring it to your local Cineplex. 

Therefore, Big Hollywood decided to cut through the Big Media blockade and make it available free online. The stream I was watching hit well over 9500 by the film’s end and the overall response for all streams offered was just North of 46,000 good enough for Big Hollywood founder Andrew Breitbart to announce the debut of a sister site “Big Environment” at the Q&A that followed the screening.

And that’s one of the reasons I think this was a game-changing event.

In his book, “Here Comes Everybody”, Internet Guru Clay Shirky predicted that we were at the end of the era where content could be controlled by the gatekeepers of the media, and that day has clearly arrived.

From the struggles of politicians with news outlets they don’t like to broadcasters angling to save their skins by suddenly pretending to care about local television we’ve entered a world where nobody can control who hears what anymore.

Perhaps Al Gore really is a selfless crusader desperately trying to make sure there is a planet for his children and grandchildren to enjoy. But perhaps he’s also somebody making sure his privileged position in the world isn’t undermined by having too many others seeking to enjoy the same lifestyle.

Last night, what was screened for anyone who cared to watch, was a fairly persuasive argument that many in the Green movement either don’t know what they are talking about or are trying to soft sell the enormous world wide problems their agenda may create.

Who knows, next week, somebody might start telling people the truth about the Canadian “Save Local TV” debate that has both broadcasters and Cable companies pitching half-truths and outright lies to what was once, but is no longer, a captive audience with no other alternatives for learning the real facts.

And just maybe that might lead to more people than just the Bloc Quebecois asking where all those Millions Canadians invested in Cinar actually went and why nobody in Ottawa wants to open that scary can of worms.

And perhaps the week after that, some Canadian movie the taxpayer funded and no distributor will spend money to promote will be made available to its investors, who may enjoy it and start asking for the real reasons nobody wanted them to see it.

No financial return in that last prediction? Well, we’ll see. Because last night’s stream of “Not Evil Just Wrong” also marked the launch of a DVD marketing campaign hoping to benefit from word of mouth arising from last night’s presentation.

Y’see, we’ve reached a point where its harder to shut people up, harder to withhold the fruits of their labors or to scare them into doing what you want with predictions of flooded planets, drowning polar bears and swarms of killer bees.

Remember the Killer Bees? Are they still coming? Shouldn’t they have been here by now?

Where all this moves from a free speech and access to information issue to one with a darker shade and larger implications is the major point made in “Not Evil Just Wrong”, a point that makes you realize the title is an outright lie and the filmmakers know it.

It’s a point brought home in a moment featuring environmental spokesman Ed Begley, who chokes up on learning of someone else’s innovative Green project and later in an interview assures the filmmakers that he was truly moved by his colleague’s initiative. After the camera is turned off and the filmmakers have walked away, Begley’s still live microphone picks him up chortling about being an actor and thus able to realistically fake an emotion.

The film then details past environmental initiatives and how their well-meaning intentions resulted in millions of third world deaths and doomed countless others to lives of hopelessness and poverty.

In the process, it becomes patently obvious that many in the Green movement are well aware of what has been done in the name of or resulted from their work and that for a few of them Cap and Trade, emission controls and promoting organic solutions are just one more way they’ll get rich while others suffer.

The Climate Change debate is not over. But control of the media most certainly is. And the parallels between one attempt to dupe the public and others being perpetrated by those who own and control Big Media are impossible to miss.

Like many in the Green movement, there are those in Canadian television who are also well aware of what has been done in the name of or resulted from their work.

And despite the fact that the Canadian Media Fund and others in our government may not have realized that online initiatives and Internet content are no longer merely “experimental” in nature, it’s clear to many of us that they are rapidly becoming the only option for Canadian creatives who seem to have no place in a system run primarily for the enrichment of people who don’t care about much beyond their own wealth and well-being.

The day when we can be easily played on any subject may soon be over.

Mixed Media Monday~

This weeks theme is: Mothers & daughters~ I used a photo of my daughter sitting with her daughter on her lap.The original photo was taken poolside... my daughter was in a swimsuit with a towel wrapped around her waist.... I printed the photo in black & white and it made it look like a black skirt-- perfect! I popped it out of the picture & frame with some sticky backed foam~ It sits with other things I've made on my entry hall "halloween table" Isn't that cauldron fabulous? The "smoke" is just that spider web stuff...I've got little skeletons inside the bowlie~ Anywho, the frame was a .50cents thrifted find. I spray painted it black and rubbed my embossing ink over the raised areas then applied silver embossing powder. Once all that was finished, I added orange glitter. I have sooooooooooo much glitter that in order for me to use it up, I first have to start using it! duh~ lol
You can view more art pieces by checking out the weekly challenge site for mixed media art here---> Mixed Media Blog. If you have linked to my blog and wish to view more you can click on this link right ---> here.

Lazy Sunday # 89: The Sunday Funnies

When I was a kid, Sunday mornings before you had to get ready for church were filled with the Funny Pages.

The Regina Leader-Post, my newspaper of record at the time, actually didn’t publish a Sunday paper. But the Saturday edition came with a thick insert of full color cartoons that my brother and I stashed unread until the next morning.

We’d get up and turn on the radio, where a couple of the local DJ’s would giggle and snicker and read the comics to you. They had theme songs for each section and described every panel in exquisite detail, in case you didn’t have the comic section or you might have missed the hidden visual joke in the bottom right hand corner.

The show filled up an entire hour with nothing but two guys cackling over the adventures of “Pogo”, “Blondie”, “Superman” and whoever else graced the hand drawn pages of newspapers back then. It was an hour that allowed harried parents to sleep in while inventing what may have been the first multi-media entertainment format.

And I just realized that in describing this I’ve handed CanWest or some other low-rent Canadian broadcaster another hour of inexpensive programming they won’t have to pay writers to create…

…although they’ll probably need to find a way to own, synergize and vertically integrate all the cartoons first…

…and not just in their executive offices…Ba-Dump-Bump!

Anyway.

What was great about the combination of that radio show and those funny pages was the way they attracted you to characters and stories you might otherwise have never allowed yourself (or been allowed) to be exposed to and also helped you to appreciate them.

Walt Kelly’s “Pogo”, for example, was not a comic strip for kids. But it lead off the Leader Post comic pages (and therefore the show) and it was obvious by how much fun they had with the stories that the DJ’s liked it a lot. This was political and social satire of the first order and far above my head. But the sense you got was that this was something other people really enjoyed and maybe you should bookmark it for future reference.

Later in life, when I was able to decipher who the Pogo characters really were and what their “swamp talk” meant, I understood why J. Edgar Hoover had gone so far as to have FBI cryptographers search for “hidden messages” in the content.

But additionally crammed into those brightly colored pages were more story variety and differing styles of humor than can be found in any night of prime time television programming.

There was the whimsy of the Disney strips and the Wisdom of “Peanuts”. There was the classy family fun of “Hi and Lois” and slapstick of “Dennis the Menace”. And there were also serial adventures set in the worlds of fantasy and pulp like “Superman” and “Red Ryder”.

There were also a couple of strips the guys on the radio skipped, such as Milt Caniff’s “Terry and the Pirates” probably because it would have taken an entire hour just to get through the dark plots, complex visuals and lengthy dialogue.

As a trivia note, at the time I was exposed to them, many of those strips were inked by Sonny Grosso, a budding New York cartoonist who became the French Connection Cop, then technical advisor on “The Godfather” and later producer of several TV series.

An avid consumer of these strips also couldn’t help noticing over time that the same joke you laughed at one week in “Beetle Bailey” might pop up again later in “Mutt ‘n Jeff”. But each had a completely different approach to the material, a point of view skewed by its inner reality and an alterantive visual style in which to sell the punch line.

In a way, those competing strips were a triumph of style over content, less concerned with what they were saying than how they said it and always aware that they had to engage and excite you in the process.

The color comic sections have either disappeared from today’s newspapers or remain only as a shadow of their former selves. Maybe they’re not cost effective anymore. Maybe the level of creative talent they require has moved to greener pastures.

But what we’ve lost is not just the fleeting enjoyment they offered, but the easy exposure to a story or visual style one audience or another hasn’t previously embraced.

That social aspect of Cartooning is among the many elements of the craft explored in detail by Robert Mankoff, cartoonist, cartoon editor of the New Yorker and creator of The Cartoon Bank in a documentary available online at Big Think and excerpted below.

It’s a wonderful exploration of what’s funny and why and almost as much fun as reading (or listening to) the funny pages themselves.

Enjoy your Sunday.

Yo ho ho~

Its a pirates life for me~ Ahoy, me Hearties! Welcome to the last known pirate ship to fall prey to Davy Jones' Locker (a fabled, mythical place at the bottom of the ocean where the evil spirit of Davy Jones brings sailors and pirates to die) ... Shiver me timbers! it was a sight to behold all the Hornswaggling (cheating you out of money or your belongings) and the Pillage-ing (rob, sack or plunder) going on. Some were Hang 'im from the yardarm, while others were Hempen Halter (hung).. and those less fortunate had to endure the Keelhaul (punishment in which a person was dragged underneath the pirate ship from side to side and was lacerated by the barnacles on the vessel) The Landlubber (big, slow clumsy person who doesn't know how to sail) who was sailing the "Chloe Rose" had a tad to much rum in his belly to command such a mighty vessel....See the empty bottle of rum? See, I'm not fibbing, see the bottle?...Now, just you watch, someone is going to steal that bottle for the 10 cent deposit! Mark my words! Ahhhhhhh the mutiny that goes on hourly on this mighty ship is sheer terror I tell you. Each buccaneer has stolen pieces of eight... nine and ten! Everyone is three sheets to the wind, walking the plank for fun! We are needing to sober up one of the old Salts to get things under control before the ships going to Scuttle (sink)
Down in the bowels of this pirate ship... in the narrow galley the ships cook, Stu Burns has been cooking up a storm. MMMMM my favorite, pumpkin cookies! Such a sweetie.... making them fortified with calcium.... and whats with these needles? B vitamins I image, the dear~Everyone else on this pirate ship has parrots. But not dear ol' Stu... he has these exotic birds that are the color of pitch black night! Okokok, we must leave Stu in all his baking glory as he is giving me the ol' pirate sneer... which you all know is followed swiftly by a kick in the butt~ Aaaarrrrgggghhhh! I was wanting a cookie!!Whats that I hear?.... "Thar she blows!" Oh my goodness... that means there is a whale sighted! Hmmmm which side of the ship.... oh my goodness, the ship is listing to the port side-- Blimey! Avast ye everyone, thats not a whale, thats a storm a brewing! Batten down the hatches! Close all the lids to all the pirate chests! Give me that Cat O'Nine Tails, I'm needing to whip these buckos into action! Well I must sign off for now, I must go store my laptop in one of those pirate chests before someones bottle of rum gets its spot~ Here is a film reel of todays adventures, sorry its blurry and shakey-- but you know, thats how it goes on a pirate ship.

If you would like to see the above slideshow larger & faster... you can click on the "view all images" button under the slideshow~
If your wanting to join in on more Halloween festivities... go say hello to Vanessa and all the lovely party guests she has listed for you to visit~ If you have linked to my blog from the party caravan and wish to view more of my blog, click here to visit.