Thought I’d take a stab at Toy photography, after taking a long break. This is wallpaper sized, for anyone who is interested in using it as such. (Click it for the full picture)
I found this fantastic album called “Lucidity” by a singer named Beth Quist. Her music sounds incredibly fresh, and best of all, it is free to listen to online. I’m taking a listen to it right now - I might end up buying it too, it sounds great.
For an year my heart has been consumed by a terrible desire to see the Canol Highway. The only highway to ever directly link the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, it was built by Americans in World War 2. The project, which was intended to bring oil from NWT to the Yukon and Alaska, fought minus-40 degree weather, horrible insect infestations, as well as the sheer logistics of buliding a road in the northern-most parts of Canada. However, the Americans were fueled by their desire to see the Japanese humbled, and they completed the 236 mile highway in an year and a half. By 1944, oil was being pumped out in Whitehorse, and it was possible to travel between Norman Wells and Whitehorse in about 8 hours.
Unfortunately, this is no longer possible. After the war, there was no economic impetus to leave the oil fields open, and the entire $108 million dollar project was shut down. ($108 million in 1944 dollars - that is 1.8 billion dollars, going by the consumer price index, or 7.93 billion dollars if you look at the relative GDP which was represented therein). The road was completely ignored by the NWT and Yukon governments, and fell into disrepair until the Yukon re-opened a part of it. Unfortuantely, this road is only partially accessable in the summer, and is utterly impossible to drive past the Macmillian pass - the border between the Yukon Territory and the Northwest Territories.
I wish I was man enough to hike 20 miles a day for 2 weeks, ford 3 hard rivers, and protect myself from the bear attacks. One day… one day…
If you want to know more about the Canol trail, here are a few good sites.
- Canol Heritage Trail Website (Warning, popups)
- Canol by Motorcycle (No, he did not make it the entire way - it isn’t possible on bike or motorcycle)
- Armed to the Teeth - A hiker’s log of his trip.
- Backpacking the Canol Trail - Another hiker’s guide, with a lot of pictures.
- Oil for Victory - A great historical reference.
- Cycling the Canol Road
- CANOL Project - Fantastic historical insight into the entire project’s history.
- Walter Muma’s brief encounter with the Canol - Walter Muma is one of my Canadian Heroes. If I could pick a life to live, other than my own, it would be his.
I almost get teary eyed reading this stuff.
To support the Chinese overthrow of the old feudal theocracy is not to applaud everything about Chinese rule in Tibet. This point is seldom understood by today’s Shangri-La adherents in the West.
The converse is also true. To denounce the Chinese occupation does not mean we have to romanticize the former feudal régime. One common complaint among Buddhist followers in the West is that Tibet’s religious culture is being undermined by the occupation. Indeed this seems to be the case. Many of the monasteries are closed, and the theocracy has passed into history. What I am questioning here is the supposedly admirable and pristinely spiritual nature of that pre-invasion culture. In short, we can advocate religious freedom and independence for Tibet without having to embrace the mythology of a Paradise Lost.
http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html
This was a very interesting article, definitely casts a whole new light on the bullshit self-righteousness that Buddhists throw at the rest of us.
http://www.transience.com.au/pearl.html
This is a great game, and makes me weep for the math that I forgot about 
Basically, you start off with a 5 x 4 x 3 matrix, and can remove items only from one row. How can one remove to make sure one will win? Well just get started and you’ll see. If you need a hint, look here. Thank God for computer science courses which explained to me binary math. :/
Maybe this will not be good for any future political career, but what ever happened to the mob?
I was reading about how Ken Lay somehow died a peaceful death, despite the fact that he bankrupted many thousands of employees. Where were the lone gunmen to take him out? If someone tore my rug from out under my feet through fraud and deception for sheer self-benefit, I would be pretty angry - I can easily imagine someone else being angry enough to put a bullet in Kenny Boy. No one did, despite the fact that they could expect little in the way of justice.
Sure, violence solves nothing - empty words, especially if someone loses everything. In certain situations, violence is unavoidable - at least, if people are honest with their emotions. In the end, it was a mob that carried out the Boston Tea Party, a mob that kicked the corrupt king off the throne of France, and a mob that put a bullet in Romania’s communist dictator.
I don’t pine for the return of the mob - I just wonder what happened to it.
You know, in all honesty, I would apply for this job in a heartbeat. What does that say about my state of mental health?
