Canadian Space Oddity

There has been a major event I watched on TV this week The Canadian Commander of the International Space station, Chris Hadfield invaded space and added a dimension that brought space travel home to earth as he circled the earth in a "tin can". He brought substance to that old David Bowie tune and made even 65 year olds like me want to be astronauts.

I know Americans were watching the aftermath from the insanity of the  latest Muslim horror at the Boston marathon and hockey fans were watching the NHL anointing of the Pittsburgh Penguins as either the Boston Bruins or LA kings try to trump the NHL plan. Don't take my word for it. Incredible stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo
Ground control to Major Tom...

This song will usher in the space age and done by a Canadian Chris Hadfield. Who was David Bowie?
                                                   
                                                             I. S. S.
And then there is the song by Chris Hadfield and Ed Robertson of the Barenaked ladies "Is Somebody Singing"( with the lyrics on the screen.) The lyrics are the neatest summary of the political dramas currently unfolding around the world that herald the introduction of the  space age. The words make me cry every time I hear them. "If you could see our nation from the Internation-al Space Station you'd know why I want to get back soon" "You can't make out borders (or religions for that matter) from up here. Just a spinning ball within a tiny (and I repeat the word tiny) atmosphere." The lyrics are to be read and heard and understood. "Look out my window, there goes home. That ball of shiny blue houses everybody anybody ever knew" This is not King Arthurs birds eye view of Camelot. It is Canadian Chris Hadfield's astronauts view of Earth

And how about the Barenaked ladies adding the first outer space rock and roll....
 So sing your song Im listening
out where stars are glistening
I can hear your voices bouncing off the moon
If you could see out nation
From the Internation-al space station
You'd know why I want to get back soon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ueh-qFGHELA

Pushed back in my seat.
Look out my window , there goes home
That ball of shiny blue houses everybody anybody ever knew

 Floating from my seat
Look out my window
That brilliant ball of blue
Id where I'm from, and also where I'm going to

Pushed back in my seat
Look out my window
Here comes home
What once was fueled by fear
Now has 15 Nations orbiting together here.

 .... you can see our mission.


Chris Hadfield has given me a purpose.

The Blue Buses of Puerto Vallarta

Have you got gall stones? Cholesterol problems? Well, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico has your answer. The Blue Buses! No operations, pills or surgery needed. These buses will shake it, (maybe rattle would be a more active verb) right out of you. Bouncing is a gimme as drivers are doing 60 miles an hour on a “stone missing” filled street. Anyone who has ridden a bus to Centro downtown Vallarta past the Malacon or Romantic zone knows what I mean. The city of Puerto Vallarta has made a deliberate effort to preserve the old fishing village look to PV complete with the pot-holed cobblestone streets; serviced by these ancient blue buses. I don't know where the green buses go yet. This was my blue bus year.

The PV bus maintenance guys have long ago given up on fixing shocks or brakes. And the bus driver’s manoeuvre  like shocks or new brakes don’t matter anyway. Only passengers count. So any ride is complete with smiles and the sounds of metal on metal as frame hits axel and the drivers race one another to pick up passengers. Klang! Clunk! I mean metal on metal. You know the sound. KaKlunk! No shocks. Almost makes you want to say “ouch”.

As well the ride includes the sounds of no brake liners screeching. I know, back home in Vancouver, neighbours for three blocks will tell you, at the slightest whisper of the wheels hitting the brake with no rubber, the sound of metal on metal. KaScreech “You need new brakes!” Not in PV.

When wanting a bus, if you don’t raise your hand and point at the bus; the “point” indicating I’m a passenger in waiting, you can wait for the next bus. No problem as it is right on the bumper of the bus passing you, unless he is speeding pass that bus and therefore can’t see you.  The bus is filled with bobble heads all sporting a nice tan of course as this is Puerto Vallarta. You can always tell when someone is a new arrival to PV when they have no tan or are asking for a bus schedule. With bumper to bumper buses, who needs schedules?

The one thing sure to piss off a Blue Bus driver is a yellow cab driver getting in his way. New York could use Blue Buses as could Toronto or Vancouver. When a Blue Bus driver is pissed off, he speeds up. Nothing can replace the KaKlunks and KaScreeechs of a Blue bus being driven by a kapissed off bus driver.

A very efficient system for 6 and one half pesos (about 35 cents). One zone or three zones matters not. Six and one half pesos for all those KaLunks and KaScreecheechss and kabobbled gall stones is a bargain.

And, if you want to soak up the culture of Mexico and Mexicans, absolutely nothing compares with a bus ride. Try it and you will see. Get off that cruise ship and bus it from the Marina to the Romantic zone and walk up to where Elizabeth Taylor’s house used to be. Soak up that PV sun. To be part of the race to passengers complete with the bobbling and the sounds  is worth more than any picture of a beautiful sunset. Really is incredible stuff and the cost is only 6 and one half pesos.

Take in the scenic Banderas Bay. Get a 4 dollar one hour haircut, a 25 dollar massage that really gets the crap out of your belt line and radishes as big as an apple. And you will ask yourself, “Why am I spending my winters in the rain or snow?”

The #3 bus to El Remance

Truly one of the best, quickest and most efficient bus systems in the world.

Point to stop

Why did Sandy Hook Happen?

The problem confronting the USA is the same one it has been for decades. They are unwilling to change the attitude that creates the problem. Instead they find excuses. Sure they need to ban assault rifles on the streets. But more importantly they need to confront the attitude of the backers of the NRA. not just ban the guns. So long as the attitude is not confronted the wall street fiasco's, the banks needing bail outs, the resulting recession and unemployment,  the Sandy Hook type massacres will go on.

The USA will support shows like Survivor when the people with the wrong attitudes get to be the winners and behaviors that are undesirable are rewarded. So long as back stabbing, dishonest, two faced cons are rewarded in your culture and exalted on your TV it will be the assassin that is promoted and revered not the Lincoln. If you want to know why there was a Sandy Hook massacre, look in the mirror. Like Micheal Jackson sang " if you want to make the world a better place, take  a look at the man in the mirror and make a change". Then and only then will the Sandy Hooks stop.

Banning the assault rifles is great but confronting the attitude behind those that support the NRA is the big  thing needing to be done. You need to tell them to fuck off big time. So long as outfits like Sprint and Ford will spend their advertising dollers on shows like Survivor and be rewarded for doing so you will have Sandy Hooks.. Thats the WHY.

It shows in your face---The Portal of Light

A portal of light has been created to nourish the health of all animals or peoples around the Salish Sea. It is now a sacred place to be blessed. A portal of light has been created to bring angels to the region and all birds rejoice. Eagles and hummingbirds are flying together. The horses run in joyful herds. It is like a ballad I heard about a windwalker that is the wounded healer who comes to share compassion and love. Like those of a child of God himself. Community. To stop being on opposite sides we get to become one with the area that surrounds the Salish Sea as a collective entity, its peoples, its animals, its air, its water. That is a spiritual adventure that has no end. You cant  touch infinity. The only way to experience it is from the eyes of a hummingbird on a 360 end to end. I think of hummingbirds as filled with endurance full of playful energy, happy , joyous and free. I have looked into the face of joyous freedom and it shows in his face.

You don't have to tell how you live each day

You don't have to say if you work or play

However you work it will show in your face

The false, the deceit that you bear in your heart

Will not survive where it first got its start

For sinew and blood is a thin veil of lace

What you wear in your heart, you wear in your face

If your life is unselfish, if for others you live

For not what you get but how much you can give

If you live close to God in his infinite grace

You don't have to tell it. It shows in your face.

Shmoo Report

Ford and 7UP and Sprint support Fraud and Dishonesty

Survivor is a CBS show that rewards two faced, dishonest, back stabbing, underhanded, cheating people who are willing to con you or steal from you while smiling to your face. Basically the kind of weasels that one would never want in his or her life. This is the attitude that led to the collapse of Wall street and needing a tax payer bail out and which started this last recession. FORD and 7 UP support this greedy attitude with their advertising dollars. I will never buy a Ford or 7 UP again. I was about to buy a car but it will definitely not be a Ford. If you support honesty and fair mindedness please forward this blog to all your friends. Lets occupy via our TV's

Volenti Non Fit Injuria

Shanahan needs to hear this loud and clear. The NHL needs to have a few players charged with assault in the USA. This has been made obvious by Shanahan's inability to rein in the assaults taking place on the ice. There is no general exemption granted to the NHL from the provisions of the Criminal Code neither in Canada nor in the USA.

A vicious elbow to any head is an assault. An elbow covered with hard plastic and delivered with forceful muscle to a persons head can cause serious injury. It is not hard to prove that this  is an assault. The defense would be based on consent.When a player consents to a fight he can  not be heard to complain about it if he suffers injury.  This is covered by the Latin maxim known as "Volenti non fit injuria". This maxim has saved the NHL a special place. But but! There are public limits to the amount of injury a player can consent to. These are defined by the courts. And they include any injury that is long lasting or  PERMANENT.  The present day happenings  on the ice exceeds the allowable limits as defined in a criminal court and need a public review in a criminal court.  Not by the NHL.  The NHL has shown itself unable to define this appropriately

The present violence happening on the ice whereby the star players are targeted so as to cause injury and take them out of the game thereby enhancing the offender's teams chances of winning is criminal. The state of Pennsylvania or the Province of BC needs to charge the offenders with assault and send them to jail and seek a sentence of years that will be a serious deterrent to others. THIS needs to happen now and put an end to the violence that has over  taken the NHL.

Danial Sedin got an elbow to the head from Duncan Keith from the Chicago Blackhawks that has taken Sedin, the number 1 scorer with the Canucks, out of the playoffs and thereby affecting Vancouver's chances of winning the Stanley Cup. No player when the agrees to play NHL hockey can consent to that kind of violence. This is dictated by public policy not by social bullies like Don Cherry, Shanahan or some other idiot passing himself off as an analyst on some sports show and saying "oh this is playoff hockey" Fuck you.  There is no hockey that allows an infringement of "Volenti non fit injuria", as dictated by the public interests, as defined by a criminal court.

Additionally the NHL has shown an inability to be consistent. When Duncan Keith delivered his intentional vicious elbow to Danial Sedin's head he got 2 minutes from O'Hallaran. When Byron  Bitz with Vancouver delivered his intentional but less vicious elbow to Kyle Clifford's head he got 5 minutes, and a game misconduct from O'Rourke allowing LA to score a goal and affect the outcome of the game. Why the difference? Unless you are trying to affect the games outcome. Why the inconsistency? The Vancouver Canucks, a Canadian team, always get the short end of this inconsistency. Why?