The name is Bond, James Bond!

Since I bought the whole collection of the James Bond films, I have been watching them with Mrs. BB every Saturday night. Sure the special effects are rather rudimentary and Bond is more macho than is politically correct in these newer egalitarian times, but the films do have something. Being a rather curious person I decided to look up the order of the films and that of the books. There is certainly a difference... the first shall be last. So the new James Bond film is which came out recently was the first book written. And even though I must say I was somewhat reticent about a blond Bond (Ian Fleming's description of him makes him 6'2" black hair and blue eyes) I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the film. It was a Bond that we hadn't seen in a long time, cold and ruthless, just as he was in the books. After all Commander Bond is an assassin.

Here are the order of the books as they were published:

1. Casino Royale (1953),
2. Live and Let Die (1954),
3. Moonraker (1955),
4. Diamonds Are Forever (1956),
5. From Russia, With Love (1957),
6. Doctor No (1958),
7. Goldfinger (1959),
8. For Your Eyes Only (1960) (short stories: For Your Eyes Only, A View to a Kill, Quantum of Solace, Risico, The Hildebrand Rarity)
   
9. Thunderball (1961),
10. The Spy Who Loved Me (1962),
11. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1963),
12. You Only Live Twice (1964),
13. The Man With the Golden Gun (1965),
14. Octopussy and the Living Daylights (1966)

Here are the films in order that they appeared:

1. Doctor No* (1962)
2. From Russia With Love* (1963)
3. Goldfinger* (1964)
4. Thunderball* (1965)
5. You Only Live Twice* (1967)
6. On Her Majesties Secret Service** (1969)
7. Diamonds are Forever* (1971)
8. Live and Let Die*** (1973)
9. The Man with the Golden Gun *** (1974)
10. The Spy Who Loved Me *** (1977)
11. Moonraker*** (1979)
12. For Your Eyes Only*** (1981)
13. Octopussy*** (1983)
14. A View to a Kill*** (1985)
15. The Living Daylights**** (1987)
16. Licence to Kill**** (1989)
17. Golden Eye ***** (1995)
18. Tomorrow Never Dies***** (1997)
19. The World is Not Enough ***** (1999)
20. Die Another Day***** (2002)
21. Casino Royale****** (2006)

* Sean Connery **George Lazenby *** Roger Moore **** Timothy Dalton ***** Pierce Brosman ****** Daniel Craig Green = not an Ian Fleming story

Here is some trivia about James Bond.

• In the film "You Only Live Twice" the screen play was written by Roald Dahl the famous author who wrote many children's books.
• In the film "From Russia with Love" Ian Fleming has a cameo appearance.
• Jane Seymour, the actress that plays Solitaire in "Live and Let Die", has eyes of different colour, grey and brown.
• Goldeneye (film 17) was the name of a WWII contingency plan in case the Nazi's invaded Spain that Fleming worked on while in the British Secret Service. It was also the name of his home in Jamaica.
• Ian Fleming had the same rank as Bond, Commander RN
• Ian Fleming chose the name James Bond because he thought it was bland and boring.
• Ian Fleming participated in the great deception before D-Day where a body was placed in the water containing documents that led the Germans to believe that the allies would invade Greece instead of Sicily. (see The Man Who Never Was)
• The Bond family motto is "Non Sufficit Orbis" (The World is not Enough) (film 19)
• Favorite weapon is the Walther PPK but before that weapon he used a Beretta which was judged to not have enough stopping power.
• Bond always took his vodka martini, medium dry, shaken not stirred.

* Some of the trivia borrowed thanks to bondtrivia.netfirms.com/

More Trivia

Here is some maritime trivia for Jazz and Ian

• It cost $3 million to build the Titanic and $100 million to make the movie. (Should have spent more on the boat I guess.)
• And keeping to the topic. The Titanic took 2 hours 40 minutes to sink (11:40 pm to 2:20 am) and the film takes 3 hours 14 minutes to watch. (without the previews)
• Again on the same subject: The panel on which Kate Winslet floats after the Titanic sinks actually exists. It is to be found at the Halifax Maritime Museum along with other bits and pieces of debris from the sinking (deck chairs, flotation devices etc)
• And Finally: The tombs of the victims that were not claimed by relatives are to be found in a Halifax cemetery. They are placed in such a way as to reproduce the curve of the bow of the Titanic and two cedars were planted to show the start and end of the gash that sank her. Every few years the coroners and forensic experts take out the effects of the victims that were not identified and using new forensic techniques try to put a name on the bodies. They have been surprisingly successful and there are now tombstones marked "Unknown but to God" that now have a name below. :o)
• One of the tombstones of the victims has the name "Jack Dawson" on it. (He wasn't the same one as the film.)
  
• We have our own maritime disaster on the St. Lawrence River. In 1914 on the St Lawrence near Rimouski, the Empress of Ireland sank . She went down in less than 15 minutes after being holed by the SS Storstad. Out of 1477 people on board 1027 died, and more passengers died on her (840) than on the Titanic (817). Yet she is relatively unknown.
• A Mr. William Clarke, a coal stoker in the boiler rooms, survived the sinking of the Empress of Ireland. He had also survived the sinking of the RMS Titanic 2 years before. (Hope he stayed on dry land after)

RMS Empress of Ireland

RMS Titanic

Hérouxville Redux

Well the bigot does it again. André Drouin, the author of the defamatory declaration from the village council of Hérouxville has opened his mouth on television and proved to everyone that he is the village idiot*. He actually demanded that the prime minister declare a state of emergency, like the one declared in 1970 by Prime Minister Trudeau (the War Measures Act), to protect our** culture, abrogate all accommodations, reasonable or otherwise, and make sure the immigrants toe the line.
Help, help, the big bad immigrants are going to burn our houses and women, stone us and forcibly convert us to Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism or (insert your religion here). Quick, barricade the doors and windows and call out the army. We must absolutely put them back in their place, after all, if they are refugees from a war it has to be because of their culture. (Yes, he did say that.)
This just goes that every village has its moron*. He, unfortunately, was elected and was provided with a public forum. Hopefully the legal proceedings that have been brought against him under the Charter of Human Rights will finally shut him up, cuz I'm very tired of having my good name sullied by his ignorant, bigoted ideas.

* I mean this in a generic way, I, in no way, wish to insult people who are suffering from a handicap. They are way more tolerant and much less mean-spirited than this bozo.

**I say again, his culture sure as H*LL ain't my culture. I'm ashamed to have him as a fellow citizen. Maybe we should deport him.

Just for you little sister (Jazz)

Here are a couple of little tidbits of miscellaneous trivia for Jazz who asked so politely.

1. Oscar the Grouch is based on a rude and grouchy waiter that worked at Oscar's Tavern where Jim Henson and Jon Stone of Sesame Street fame used to eat lunch.
2. On a baby, the belly button is exactly midway from the top of his head to the bottom of his foot.
3. Keeping to the theme of babies, more babies are born in the month of September than any other month.
4. Two dogs were hanged at the Salem witch trials
5. Ketchup was once sold as a medicine
6. According to Guinness the longest bout of hiccups was 65 years (that's got to hurt)
7. 46% of all television violence happens in cartoons. (must be coyote and roadrunner)
   
8. Al Capone's older brother was a policeman in Nebraska
9. 20% of all potatoes in the US will end up as fries
10. Farthest distance a pumpkin has been hurled without the aid of explosives: 3178 feet. Hum just have to wonder about the people that have nothing better to do than hurl pumpkins... must be like us bloggers living in a twilight world of irreality. ;o)
    

Hope that feeds you trivia appetite, Jazz

Tag you're it!

Weird is as weird does. I have been tagged by my lil' sister Jazz. Now don't get me wrong but my sister is the weird one in the family, me, I'm just your everyday normal teaching kind of guy. Oh I can see her staring at me right now with her eyebrows in the air, muttering to herself, Yeah right.

Ok here goes.

1. I have been a teacher for 30 years and I still love teaching. This could be considered weird since the age group that I have always loved teaching are the 13-14 year olds...Yeah that's right right in their adolescent hormonally charged weirdness.
2. I love Gregorian Plain Chant nothing better that driving up to Gatineau with 2 hours of Gregorian Chant echoing full blast in the car. I find it relaxing, a bit like driving in a cathedral.
3. I love to go trekking by myself across mountains, rain or shine, for a couple of days, as long as I am far away from the the bustle of humanity (at least 30km away). I get enough of humanity at school.
4. I love old stones... I teach ESL but if I hadn't been an ESL teacher I would have been a History teacher. I just love to crawl all over ruins, the older the better. Mrs BB and I spent two summers in the UK and Ireland. Paradise, so many ruins to visit.
5. I have no sense of musical rhythm (some people would say I have no sense period, but let's not go there). I couldn't play a musical instrument to save my life. My sisters are both able to play something, one used to play the piano the other a tenor recorder. My daughter can play the violin, my wife plays the classical guitar, and my son could play the recorder. What can I play? Absolutely nothing. One of my friends tried to show me how to play the bass guitar for a song. Not too hard he said, one or two chords and a bit of rhythm... hah he soon gave up. I could finger the chords but the rhythm resembled nothing even close to that of the song.
6. Last but not least, I am a trivia nut. If you could make a living from trivial pursuit I would be rich. I just love reading trivia, the Bathroom Reader series, News from the Weird, anything that contains esotheric, strange and little known facts, of little or no value. I just need to assimulate them. So here I am with thousands ot titbits of totally useless information filling my poor little memory. In the meantime I have trouble remembering my name on Mondays. "What's ma name, and where's my lunch box?"
As for tagging 6 people. Well I can't very well retag Jazz now can I? And I don't know anyone else so very well. So as Jazz said anyone who wants to try it go right ahead... consider yourself tagged.

Apologies for our yokels

Today in the news I was reading about the small village of Hérouxville north of Shawinigan. They set a declaration laying out a code of conduct for imigrants who might wish to come to their village. Here is a small example: since all women are equal, you mustn't stone them or set them on fire. You are not allowerd to wear a veil, unless it's Halloween. Carrying a kirpan is strictly prohibited in schools (even if the highest court in the land has stated otherwise) etc. etc.
I hereby declare and categorically state that these yokels do not represent me, my family, my friends or anyone that I know.
I live in the West Island (western part of the island of Montreal) and there are many immigrants. I have yet to participate in a stoning much less in an auto-da-fé. We all live and let live.
I must say that I find Hérouxville's attitude rather disgusting and more than a little disturbing. Yes there has been some problems with "reasonable accommodation" lately and the media is making a big deal of it, (which is a problem in itself, without the media coverage it would just fizzle out) so it has sometimes escalated, but that is no reason to be so xenophobic. As for "reasonable accommodation" as far as I'm concerned if we can do it without taking away rights from others then why not, but if we can't and it becomes unreasonable then all we need to say is simply no. Maybe that is one of the reasons why we have had problems with "reasonable accommodation" because the people in charge don't have the guts to say no, to say that it is unreasonable. But that is neither here nor there. Even though there have been tensions that is not a reason for labeling immigrants as savages that go around burning and stoning their women. It is also strange that this declaration makes no mention of the good "Québecois de souche" getting piss drunk and beating the crap out of their wives and children, or sexually abusing their children, or driving down the highway drunk as a lord and wiping out a family in a car wreck, or murders, or rapes or the other things that any society has to live with.
This declaration just besmirches the good name of all resonable Québecois and Québecoise and paints us as a gang of ignorant yahoos. The democratically elected representatives of the village that came up with this asnine idea should be impeached. They obviously don't have enough to do if they have time to come up with such bigoted trash. Unfortunately what is really frightening is that they are getting support from like minded bigots. I am ashamed that these are my fellow citizens.
So please ladies and gentlemen do not put us in the same basket as those yahoos, they do not represent the majority of Québecois who are tolerant and open.

Here are some web sites with more information:
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/national/070129/n012979A.html
Municipal Web Site -> http://municipalite.herouxville.qc.ca
Municipal Web Site with documents -> http://municipalite.herouxville.qc.ca/avispublic.htm
PDF of declaration -> http://municipalite.herouxville.qc.ca/Standards.pdf

11 rules for life or how to become a productive member of society

I found this on the internet... it has been going around for a while. This is not from Bill Gates. It's an excerpt from the book " Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good about Themselves, but Can’t Read, Write, or Add (St. Martin’s Press, 1995)" by educator Charles Sykes. It is a list of eleven things that children do not learn in school and is directed at high school and college grads. It talks about how feel-good politically correct teaching (eg: never telling a student that his work is sub-standard, as this might make him feel bad about him/herself) is creating a generation of children with a very small grasp of reality. In French we call this "la pensée magique" (magic thinking) which means that because they want it so, so shall it be. Unfortunately that is not how the world works. Never did, never will.

*Comments in italics are my thoughts

Here are the 11 rules...

Rule 1: Life is not fair-get used to it.

Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone, until you earn both. (no schooling = minimum wage = can't pay for a big apartement, recent model muscle car, clubbing and a girl friend... at most you'll end up living with mom and dad forever!)

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. (or just life in general!)

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity (especially if it is a student job to help pay for your education.). Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping-they called it opportunity. (with no schooling that is about all you'll be doing.)

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them. (taking resposability for your actions can be sooo hard, it's everyone's fault but your own... but whining doesn't get you out of the manure pile!)

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your own room. (unfortunately some parents are stuck with their "Tanguy**" forever, some couldn't leave home even if they wanted to... not that they would want to. )

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life. (How true... wouldn't want them to feel bad, unfortunately when they get to the real world the shock is awful, and who's fault is that? Often we get fragged by parents because they think that we were too hard on their poor little angel, that we just don't understand and won't give them a chance! It's not his/her fault it's our fault for not being more comprehensive.)

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. You have to do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs. (Television and the internet tells them that they'll have the good life, with no effort or hard work, after all they deserve it.... pensée magique)

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one. (Maybe not but the good hard working students (and there are still some out there) are going to be the ones footing the bill for the lazy wastrels.)

** Tanguy is a French movie about a 30 something man who just won't leave his parents' home and the parents end up doing all kinds of things to get him to go,. It's hilarious, but something that many parents have to live with.

Full disclosure: I am a teacher and I can tell you that much of this is perfectly right.

Right brain, left brain, no brain*

I was listening to a report this week about bilingual people. The researchers with the Rotman Research Institute at the Baycrest Research Centre for Aging and the Brain in Toronto (how's that for a mouthful) did the study and found that the onset of dementia symptoms was on average four years later for us bilingual people (71.5 for unilingual and 75.5 for bilingual). What was really interesting was what they found about the language center in the brain. You would think that all languages would be using the same part of the brain but no. For your second language a different part is used so the brain must coordinate the two parts so you can use one or the other language. This exercising of the frontal lobes (your cognitive part.... the part that thinks... the part that is you) builds up cognitive reserve (more brain cells/connections) so when the old brain starts to go you have enough reserve to keep going for a while longer.
Rather interesting... good thing I've always been bilingual. I guess I'll be able to be an irasible old codger and bug people for the longest time. Only in Canada would we find such a good reason for being bilingual.
* I know the title has nothing to do with the blog besides the word brain, but it sounded nice.

13 photographs that changed the world

Came across this site while surfing, 13 photographs that changed the world.
Very interesting photos. I might have included a few more such as the picture of Armstrong on the moon with the earth in the background, a picture of the first atomic blast, but interesting none the less.

Bike paths and ski trails

In Montréal we pride ourselves in being an open cosmopolitain city but when you get right down to it, it is pretty much like any other big american style city, many roads, many cars and not much in the way of safe paths for walking or biking.
Last week I was staying in Gatineau, the little city on the other side of the river from our nations capital, Ottawa. I was amazed by the amount of green space and bike paths that exist in that one small town. The picture on the left is a picture of Parc Gatineau bike path. It's also used as a cross country skiing trail when there is enough snow. This is only one of the many bike paths that crisscross the city, not just a sign saying that cars must share the road with bikes, but real bike trails just for bikes. The bike paths not only crisscross the city but they also join up to each other and to the kilometers of bike paths in Ottawa. In Ottawa the same thing is the case, all along the Ottawa river there is a green space that has a bike path that stretches its whole length.
What do we have in Montreal? An autoroute that cuts off the city from the St. Lawrence River. There are bike paths, the canal Lachine path being one, but it is not joined to any others. To get to the bike path you must go down Lakeshore road with the automobile traffic. Lakeshore road not being in the best of conditions, this sometimes can be quite perilous especially when you share with buses and trucks. Even getting down to Lakeshore road is dangerous since you have to cross over autoroutes, where cars won't give you any chances as they get on or off the autoroute...(cloverleafs)
On the southshore, off the island, there are also many bike paths, but to get to them from the island is to say the least a rather dangerous undertaking since getting across the bridges is almost impossible. The only really safe way to cross is the "Estacade" (a kind of small bridge that is used to break up the ice before it gets to the bigger bridges) but that is kilometers out of the way. In Gatineau-Ottawa the bridges all have a dedicated path for bikes, nice and large not squeezed between the railing and the cars.
We are always talking about how people take their cars to work instead of using their bikes or the transit system. Well if you have an alternate system that works then people will use it. If there are safe paths then people will be more likely to use their bikes. In Ottawa there are there are thousands of workers who bike to work. In fact all the government buildings have bike racks, enough for all the workers who wish to bike in. They also have showers and a place to change. Quite a different mentality.

Thoughts on Christmas and kids

It was the last day of school before the Christmas vacations, so today was very relaxed. We had a basketball tournament between the classes. For the tournament they got themselves organized and even wrote a theme song in English (their second language). My homeroom won the tournament by 2 points. The kids were ecstatic, group hug, cheers, the whole nine yards. It's funny because we were certainely not the favorites, but our team spirit won the day.
Often these days kids get a bad rap, but it's stange that all the kids that I teach (and have taught) are good kids, not perfect, but good hearted and willing to do their best for something they believe in. (I can count on the fingers of my hands the really bad kids and I've been teaching for 30 years.) This year, secondary 2 (grade 8 for the rest of you) wrote over 400 Christmas cards for Amnesty International political prisoners throughout the world. So there is hope for the future, maybe they'll do a better job than my generation and there will finally be "peace on earth and good will amoungst men".
So as that famous poem says, "Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night!"

Joyeux Noël (the film)

Saw a great film on the weekend called Joyeux Noël. This little gem of a film got a nomination for the Oscar for best foreign film and it is really worth seeing. It takes place during the First World War on December 24-25 1914, when the British, French, and German troops declared an unofficial cease fire and crawled out of their trenches to celebrate Christmas. This really happened, it has been well documented. The story really brings out the futility and stupidity of war and shows how the most enthusiastic proponants of "kill the enemy" are all people who stay safely way behind the lines. I won't say anymore because I don't want to ruin the film for you, but if you want to see a great little film rent or buy it at your nearesr DVD place of purchase. I got mine at Costco. It is really worth it.

Montréal winters

Winter has finally come with a vengeance. When I left for school on Thrusday it was raining and the temperature was about +2 degrees C, when I got home the temperature had dropped to -11 degrees C. That's what I hate about winter in Montréal, not the cold, not the snow but the variations from damp, wet to freezing cold.
To the contrary of my sister Jazz, I like winter sports. I like the cold, clear days of winter where the temperatures hovers in the minus teens. The air is like champagne, the snow is dry and squeeks under our boots. I am a great fan of cross country skiing (nordic, not downhill). I love the sensation of flying over the snow on my skis, of the stinging sensation of the wind on my face and the sun in my eyes. There is no sensation like it especially when you have the exact combination of wax, temperature and snow. Unfortunately in the last couple of years we have been having yo-yo weather. We get a nice drop of snow and then the temperature warms up, it rains, sleets and the temperature then drops drastically. What happens to the cross country ski trails? They become ice. It is possible to cross country ski in icy conditions, but it is a pain in the keaster. You have to use klister, a gooey kind of wax that sticks to everything and is a real pain to clean up after.
What I would like is a real winter, nice and cold, with plenty of snow, no sleet, rain, and damp. I can live with the cold, in fact I prefer cold dry weather to overly hot weather, but this type of winter, the kind that can't make up its mind is awful. You can't do warm weather sports, such a bicycling or inline skating and you can't do winter sports cuz there's not enough snow and what there is has turned to ice. :o(

Black Friday

The U.S. Thanksgiving was last Thursday, so now they are free to start their Christmas shopping... Black Friday, the start of the shopping season, is not called that because of the negative connotations of shopping for the Christmas holidays, it is so named because that is when stores go from red ink to black ink and start to turn a profit. In fact some stores make 50% of their profits during the Christmas shopping season... frightening isn't it.
But even more frightening is the fact that stores in the States open their doors at midnight after Thanksgiving to start off Christmas shopping and there are people who line up starting at 7pm on Thanksgiving to be the first through the doors. They actually eat their Thanksgiving turkey sitting in the parking lot of their local mall. This year one man even brought his Glock with a pocket full of bullets in case of trouble. A rather extreme way of dealing with line jumpers!
Tell you the truth some people really, really need to get a life.

SUN, GLORIOUS SUN

Finally after what seems to be years of grey clouds, we finally had sun today. There was a large yellow ball in the blue sky. The light was magnificent. We have had a really wet and gloomy autumn this year. I think it has been weeks since we saw some clear skies. In fact the weathermen were saying that it has been the wettest autumn on record. The dark, gloomy weather just gets us down. This morning when I saw the sun, I felt like a plant. I just felt like standing there, face to the sun drinking in the light. It seems that the weather will be clear for the rest of the week... maybe enough time to pick up a little energy.

Later... went out and actually saw some stars, you know those twinkly things in the night sky. We were discussing the lousy weather this afternoon with my fellow teachers, seems to me that we hadn't had sun for at least 2-3 weeks correct me if I'm wrong.

Thoughts about Thanksgiving, roads and such things

For once we had a really nice Thanksgiving weekend. The weather was superb, warm and sunny. Almost made you think it was summer again. Haven't written in a while cuz I'm just lazy I guess. A lot has happened since the last time I wrote, an overpass fell down in Laval. That is the second one in the last 5-6 years, mind you the last one wasn't the government's fault since it was the construction company that f****d up. Of course, I'm sure that that fact doesn't really matter all that much to the victims. There was also the highway 40 incident where a good chunk of road kind of fell into a huge hole when the culvert collapsed. Who says that driving in Québec can't be an adventure? Makes you wonder where all the gas tax ended up.
So here we are in the automne, where Québec has made it into international news for being a place where crazed killers roam the crumbling infrastructure. (seems almost post-apocalyptic) Not exactly the kind of PR we need. Good thing we have old Kimmy to take the media scrutiny away from us. And yes little sister (that's Jazz to the rest of you) the politicians should be forced to drive wherever they go instead of flying. Then at least they would have an idea about how our roads are. We could even get them to test drive all the overpasses, at least they would be useful. Only wish our roads were half as nice as those I drove on this summer in Britain.

The Dawson Tragedy

Since I am from Montreal I'll put in my 2 cents worth about the tragedy. The first thing that I will say is that the young man (I won't even mention his name, the faster he is consigned to oblivion the better) was a grade "A" loser. He wanted to be someone, thought weapons gave him power, posed with pictures of his weapons as if it was cool, but basically he was a loser. So much so that he should have had "LOSER" tatooed on his forehead. Face it, at 25 still living with mom and dad, wearing a long black coat and combat boots, playing violent first person shooter video games, wanting to go out in a hail of bullets, is not the most mature mindset. More like something you would find amoung adolescents. The reason that he hated those young men and women in Dawson was basically because they were not losers, they were making something of themselves so they would be able to contribute something to society. We must not forget the victims... but the shooter, put the curse of oblivion on him. He wanted to be known, well deny him recognition, make him a non person.
The second point is about the weapons. He had legally bought a semi-automatic rifle (can't even be used for hunting), a 45 caliber pistol and another weapon. He even registered them. What is wrong in this scenario? I really think that ALL semi-automatic weapons should be banned. Don't go tell me about the poor little hunters... if a hunter isn't a good enough marksman to kill his animal with a bolt action rifle he shouldn't be allowed in the woods... he's a menace. The only legitimate use for a pistol is target practice and competition. For that a 22 caliber pistol will do just fine. So all other calibers of pistols should also be banned. As for the target pistols, they should only be used on a range as a member of a shooting club and the pistols locked up in the shooting club's vault after the member has finished using them. Sounds drastic, yes it is but I'm tired of people saying "it's not the gun that kills, it's the person who pulls the trigger" well having no trigger to pull makes it a lot harder to plan a massacre using a baseball bat or a kitchen knife.

On liars and damned liars.

Part two of the US Senate's Intelligence Committee's report (now there is an oxymoron if ever I heard one, linking politicians with intelligence) has come out today. Part one stated that there had never been any weapons of mass destruction in Irak. Part two states that after investigation there is no evidence of any link between Sadam Hussein and al-Qaeda.
I think that the US constitution gives Congress and the Senate the right and the duty to impeach a president who deliberately lies, obstructs justice, goes against the US constitution. I just wonder what they are waiting for. What does he have to do, shoot the justices of the Supreme Court?
Ironic, the Republicans wanted to impeach Clinton about Monica, and here we have a president that has broken just about every US and international law and nothing. There is an old saying that says that we get the government that we deserve... well if that is true, then the Amercicans are in a bad way.
There are however many Americans that are not sitting idle. If you wish to learn more about what they are doing go to http://impeachcentral.com/ maybe with a bit of luck they will succeed.

Back to school

It has been way too long since the last time I posted must be jet lag..;o) Well school started this week and my brain is still insisting that I should still be on vacation. I have realised, as time goes on, that I could easily get used to being a person of leisure. Do you know those people who say, "If ever I won 10 million dollars nothing would change, I'd keep right on working.. " well they are full of it. That is a load of BS. I'd stop working in the next micro-second and leave my job to some deserving young person. This said, I haven't won the lottery so I'm back to school.
This year I am starting my thirtieth year of teaching... that's right 30 years. That's probably longer than some of you have been on this green earth, and to tell the truth, despite all the grumbling, I still love what I do... so that's my confession for the day.
The adolescents of today are often maligned, but the vast majority of them are good people, growing up in a world that can't be easy to grow up in. After all they are the product of their upbringing... and we are the ones who did the upbringing. So if they are so awful, we have only to look in a mirror to see who is to blame. We adults seem to have a selective memory when it comes to our youth... I seem to remember some rather weird and wacky things that I did at that age. ;o)
That said, I met my new batch of students yesterday and they seem to be a good bunch of kids...should be fun.

I'm back from a great vacation

Well our vacation in the UK is over. snif snif... I guess we have to come back someday. It was great fun and we saw and did some fantastic things.
Hiking on Dartmoor and seeing the wild ponies on the other side of a tor. Such a beautiful place.
Seeing Stonehenge, awe inspiring.
Driving around Cornwall and Wales with the ocean cliffs on one side and the hedgerows on the other. Sleeping at a campground in Tewksbury close to Tewksbury abbey. Staying at another canpground beside Castle Howard (the house shown in the film Brideshead Revisted) and realising people still live there. Visiting numerous castles, abbeys, and churches that date back almost 1000 years (I'm rabid amateur historian. I'm facinated by piles of old stones ;o). Visiting neolithique sites such as a flint mine or a copper mine that date back 4000-5000 years (first industrial revolution?). The Batttle of Hastings, Dover Castle, The city of York (just loved it), Stratford on Avon and old William Shakespeare, the British Museum and it goes on and on. There is so much history in that one small island, it is amazing.
The weather was superbe, we only really had 3 days of rain in 5 weeks. The British meterological service said that it was the warmest and sunniest July since they have records. Must have known we were coming.
Was there something we didn't like as much... well to tell the truth London was disappointing. There are some fantastic things to see but we felt that the wild cat developement was ruining what would have otherwise been a very beautiful city. There were beautiful little Wren churches surrounded by huge, ugly, cement and glass buildings. Some of them were truly ugly, like the Modern Tate (looks like what Dartmoor prison should look like), the glass pineapple etc. For once I think that Prince Charles was right and that the developpers are killing the soul of the city. London should have taken a page from Paris and forced the developement outside the city. Oh well that's my gripe for the day. (As you can see I'm not a great fan of big cities)
But we did have loads of fun and we met some really extraordinarily nice people, like the taxi driver in Liverpool, who when we asked him for directions to drive to a certain road, told us to follow him and led us to the address that we needed to go. There were many other people who took the time to explain things when we had questions, who were patient with us when we were lost and searching, and chatted with us when they noticed that we were Canadians. We'll always keep a fond memory of the people of the UK.