Strictly as a hypothetical:

Would anyone be interested in buying a bio-comic about Edward R. Murrow?

The latest press release from Bluewater Comics about an upcoming installment in their "Female Force" series devoted to Barbara Walters got me thinking about the man again. You may recall my endorsement of the movie Good Night and Good Luck a few years back, dealing with Murrow as well. The idea's been preying on my mind awhile.

Bob Thirsk is back on the ground after setting what I believe a national record.

Details here:

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/12/01/thirsk-space.html

Something james_nicoll pointed out to me today in one of his latest: apparently, there's a small plague of cutbacks hitting the world's libraries again. Part of the outbreak hit John Scalzi's backyard, and he's unhappy about it. You can read about that over here.

I don't understand the idea of libraries being obsolete, because the evidence of my own eyes from visits to assorted branches in recent weeks tells me the idea's full of crap, if you'll pardon my Anglo-Saxon. Not even good crap, either.

Now maybe I just live in and visit charmed neighbourhoods. I dunno. But I tend to think from the arguments in progress that I'm not wrong to think there's still a use for bricks and mortar and paper and glue and cardstock.

Ian Gould, Luke Parsons, Mark Richards and I, we're betting at least part of our future on my being right on this one, I think.

How about you?

To Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov: Спасибо.

You did good that day.

Planning to be at the Parade from City Hall to McNabb Park today! Should be fun!

Just so we're clear about what we've been reading in the Super-books for the last couple of decades...

( Read more... )

Longtime Saskatchewan Roughriders fan am I. And yet, for all I rack my brains, I cannot recall seeing even in 1960's archival footage and still photos a helmet with ye aulde "football, wheat stalks and ribbon" insignia on them such as we see at assorted Riders games this year. The not-so-old Spaulding-logo-derived "S" with laurel wreathing, yes. I remember that very well!

But not this design I've been seeing on TV on the Riders' "retro" suits this year.

How'd that happen? Anyone?

I found it on the front doors of the Maple Leaf Gardens.

I mentioned somewhere that I felt ashamed of showing up late for the ceremony today at the Peacekeepers' Monument. Granted that the event as such is only one year old, but the work was and still is important. 82,000 people from however many nations, including 65 from mine, are doing it in various parts of the world as I type these words. It matters.

I should also have expected the ceremony to start at somewhen between 10:30 and 11:00 AM, given our history of commemorating such things. Planning accordingly would certainly have helped. But I digress.

I've read stories of ongoing derision of peacekeeping over the last few years as the work of wimps. I've also read - today - of people who accuse those who have respect for peacekeeping of basing that respect in some kind of stupid naivete. (Calling Mr. Granatstein...)

I don't think either of those camps really has it right.

It takes a special kind of self-discipline for this work. As special in its way as anything else any nation's soldiers, sailors, aircrew and police can be honourably called upon to do. I believe I know for a certainty that I don't have that self-discipline. I could, perhaps, find out the hard way years from now that I am wrong in such self-criticism. But right now, at this point, I doubt it.

That people sometimes kill and die performing this service? This is understood. I wish that it weren't so, but it still happens, despite the ongoing efforts of many around the world to put an end to it. The wars that are fought these days, I am told, take fewer lives less often than they once did, so I am inclined to suspect that the peacekeepers and the diplomats backing them are having some measure of success at their work.

So Peacekeepers Day has a certain amount of earned respect for itself by virtue of the reasons for its creation. Which leaves me thinking of myself as less than respectful today to those who deserve better.

Much better.

Did you know that August 9th was National Peacekeepers Day in Canada?


http://www.flickr.com/photos/dwight_ew/sets/72157621989525086/

For your amusement:

Flotilla Day in Ottawa

Now to design a "classic Hockey Night"-inspired logo for it...

I just saw the news via cbcnews.ca and Facebook.

I'm sorry, everyone.

And here a bunch of us have been talking him up today re: his Apollo XI coverage...

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/07/17/thirsk-payette-space-history-canada.html

Shutting up now and listening to the music.

Unlike Michael Okuda and many others around the world, I was still too young to remember anything I might have seen that day, somewhere in upper Alberta, two or three time zones away from all the excitement. What I do remember is reading through the Collier's Encyclopedia entry on Space Exploration in the years that followed.

The edition my parents had bought was published at a point where the Apollo program had not yet run the course laid out for it by the Nixon administration in spite of the hopes of many across the world. In fact, the end of it had not yet been written officially when Collier's went to press. The projected mission schedule's forecast still maintained that Apollo flights would number into the 20's before they stopped in favour of the preferred form of space shuttle then expected to succeed Apollo.

I remember the fascination - obsession? - that began with the photography and technical illustrations in that book. It was fed by the Apollo-Soyuz Test Program that ended up being the true last gasp of the first space age. By Space: 1999, by Star Wars, the original Galactica, and eventually Star Trek itself to keep me going until the first of the shuttle launches.

We've been through a lot of flights, good and bad, since then.

And now on this anniversary, we have another first: two Canadians together with eleven others from four nations: the United States, Russia, Belgium, and Japan. One of those is the 500th human to go Up There Into the Black.

From Yuri Gagarin to Christopher Cassidy: only 500 so far.

There should have been much more than this by now. We ought to have done much more than this.

That we've managed this much despite our best and worst instincts is still a miracle when you look at it carefully.

To everyone involved, whether you recognize that involvement for what it is or not: thank you.

Thank you.

FINALLY!

Congratulations to all involved!

This dates me more than I want to admit.

I got a history/memory refresher courtesy of insidethecbc.com a while ago, with a selection of YouTubed "opening titles" sequences used by The National, CBC's main late-night newscast program from over the decades.

This one in particular whacked me over the head with the "Do you remember when...?" vibe:



I cannot yet recall the name of the typeface they used. I've seen the name, probably in some Letraset catalogue or Corel font library booklet. But cannot yet remember it.

Help?

If that link/embed doesn't work, let me know, okay?

But for CBC, I'd almost forgotten...

http://archives.cbc.ca/on_this_day/06/28/

Requiescat in pacem, Terrence. Your Marathon continues.

Don Newman just announced his retirement plans.

The article goes into what detail it can about the background of the decision. I'm sure there's other resources elsewhere covering his career as a whole in better detail than I can here.

I just hope that Politics continues, with as solid a lead newshand as Newman has been over these years so far.

I'm watching Helvetica, the typography documentary movie, at the moment.

It's a learning experience. Recommended.

Does anyone remember whether this was one of the movie theatres in Saskatoon that showed Return of the Jedi? I remember seeing it in that city, but can't recall which theatre?