To thine own self be true

Hundreds of birds die in tailings ponds now and then. A massive hue and cry.
Millions of birds crashing into wind turbines and skyscrapers and not a boo.

Trying to kill her boy by making him sit on a rail overlooking Niagara Falls! Pure ego and selfishness. Not concerned about her kid in the least. Zero maternal responsibility for her child’s safety. Animals look after their young better than this idiot.

Injured kid will probably always recall the time his mother tried to off him and shouldn’t be blamed if he never trusts or believes her again.

Case is another argument for an old Davies’ proposal to license prospective parents before they conceive.

(visiting Taliesin West, Scottsdale)

‘Think simple,’ as my old master used to say–meaning reduce the whole of its parts into the simplest terms, getting back to first principles.
–Frank Lloyd Wright

“Taking off the days
One by one
Setting them to breathe
In the sun”
–Judy Collins, “Since You Asked”

all over social media on Weinstein and supporting their Hollywood sisters. But strangely, terminally mute about the atrocities and sufferings of women in middle-eastern countries. No protest marches on female mutilation or honor killings, for instance. A resounding hypocrisy that seems to go unnoticed and often uncommented on in these here politically-correct parts. The sisterhood only goes so far apparently.

Well, it keeps you alive and, potentially, helps keep you healthy.
Everybody needs to eat. You do have to ‘eat to live’ for sure.
At 3 meals a day, I estimate I’ve had over 75,000 feeds so far!
This is no small number or fact in the Big Picture.

Every day is often centered around choosing, preparing, making, and consuming 3 meals. There is just no way to get away from this basic fact. Like walking the dog, taking out the trash, or cleaning the loos, it’s got to be done.

And although human freedom is limited somewhat by this fact, there is the freedom to choose what to eat, even if a diet of some kind has been recommended for you. Balance and variety are the other main food/drink choice factors.

And yes, you are what you eat. No question.

“Come forth into the light of things. Let Nature be your teacher.”
–William Wordsworth

who does not get nearly enough attention and credit. (Georg Phillip) Telemann (1681-1767)!

The Brilliant Classics boxset entitled Telemann Edition with 29 CDs and a CD-ROM is an absolute delight, featuring–on the first five discs–Canada’s own adventurous Tafelmusik ensemble who play on original period instruments, and are one the chief prominent interpreters of this composer.

This contains both of Robert Snyder’s fine documentaries on Michelangelo: the first, an effective black-and-white AA winner from 1950; the second his 1989 ‘retake’ in color with a script by Michael Sonnabend script based on Michelangelo’s letters, diaries, and poems. The documentary is also in the artist’s own words, supplemented by biographers’ commentaries.

What an amazing visual document featuring all of the master’s great works including extended coverage of the Sistine Chapel and his other major works! There is so much information in this 85 minute film on the times, the artist’s life, and basic philosophy of art. In short, this and the earlier documentary are the two most beautiful films ever made about Michelangelo. Two thumbs way, way up for these two movies. I suggest you see the 1950 first which lays the groundwork for the second, and which works well without the use of colour.

(The eyes of Dr. Eckleburg looking piteously at the wasteland that is the Downtown District?)

Why not just proclaim the city speed to be 30 km everywhere and bring traffic to a crawl and gridlock?

Yesterday, I watched in horror as 30 km signs were put up beside a fenced-off soccer field on Mill Woods Road, on both sides no less. The empty, 99.99% year-round, non-used bike lanes from several years ago were apparently not enough to limit locals, drivers, and parkers.

No kids ever play in this field by themselves–a fact the city didn’t bother to research. For that matter, most city kids spend the summers and evenings indoors; they’re screen-bound and their parents don’t want them wandering outside the house anyway. The sign hours are absurd; no kid is going to venture out in the evening into the snow several months a year anyway to play on an empty ice-covered soccer field.

Edmonton’s city council fools have become too dictatorial, acting without facts, research, and accurate information for too long now. We need an entirely new council, but are stuck with these bums patting themselves on the backs all the time for their innumerable bad choices and moves that have crippled this city and turned it into a wasteland, right out of F.Scott Fitzgerald’s Valley of Ashes.

Who in hell wants to live beside torn-up roads, empty malls, and LRT tracks in their front and back yards? Who in hell anxiously looks forward to visiting and driving anywhere in Edmonton? These idiots on council have no sense of what it’s like to be ordinary citizens in this ugly, dumpy mess. Who in their right mind wants to drive or go downtown (which has been turned over to myriad imagined cyclists in the snow )anymore?

Edmonton. All hope abandon, ye who enter here. (Dante, The Inferno)