April 8, 2007
Spotted: iceclimbers on global warming
Awash as I am with admiration for anyone who climbs anything, having recently climbed a little something myself, I was initially curious about this story. Not sure you need to really be climbing to see effects of global warming; a quick peek out the window or at the barometer should suffice. Also, I’m sure they didn’t hop to Kenya or any of those mountains. I wish those 7 day ships between New York and Liverpool like the Queen Elizabeth with deck class would make a comeback.
Iceclimbers give eyewitness accounts of global warming
The Associated Press
Mountaineers are bringing back first-hand accounts of vanishing glaciers, melting ice routes, crumbling rock formations and flood-prone lakes where glaciers once rose.
The observations are transforming a growing number of alpine and ice climbers, some of whom have scientific training, into witnesses of global warming. Increasingly, they are deciding not to leave it to scientists to tell the entire story.
“I personally have done a bunch of ice climbs around the world that no longer exist,” said Yvon Chouinard, a renowned climber and surfer, and founder of Patagonia, Inc., an outdoor clothing and gear company that champions the environment.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/04/07/climbers-warming.html
February 20, 2007
Take it to the source
Here’s a man who took his feelings to the source (Dick Cheney) and said what many people may have rehearsed to deliver to any number of gobshite politicians. This, however, was the bullseye of all possible recipients.
this clip features the part of the movie where Ben Marble, M.D. says “Go F*ck Yourself Mr. Cheney”
This clip is from Spike Lee’s When the levees broke — a four part requiem. If there was any justice a great deal of the people in that documentary would actually be elected representatives for you’d be hard pressed to find a more articulate and dignified group of people. When you see the indifference these people have suffered it would make you wonder if “to have known some kind of real suffering” should be a prerequisite before you can stand up and represent anybody. Just the way you can’t operate a blood pressure cuff without showing you’ve grasped biology. There’s a great soliloquy in one of the final acts from an activist Fred Johnson (?) where he points out who these politicians work for. It’s bang on because even now in the aftermath there’s next to nothing being done to help these people and throughout the film you get little sense of the people through the politicians. You hear the words: business, resources, state guard, federal, city, you even get the mayor describing taking a shower in Air Force 1, (verging on blasphemous in the context of what’s happening outside in the streets), yet very little reference to their people.
February 2, 2007
O’Yikes.
Seismic scientists say there is a greater probability of a major earthquake on B.C.’s South Coast in the next week, following a series of minor quakes that have worked their way up from Washington.
Books become all powerful in the event of the shakes as they rain down from the shelves. Put on the bicycle helmets.
January 22, 2007
Peg’s ma
Here’s a link to a Writers and Co interview with Margaret Atwood, http://www.cbc.ca/writersandcompany/audio.html in which she describes her mother taking up figure skating (ice dancing) at 45 and retiring at 75. I’m assuming she didn’t have the comfortable benefit of hockey skates, which made my second painfully uncomfortable attempt at ice skating a little more optimistic but not yet convincing over Christmas. The assumption can also be drawn that the Atwood gene is one that includes sensible behaviour by the inner ear. All very important literary insights of course, the sort you’ve come to expect from this blog.
January 12, 2007
Candidates
So wind chill and minus 16 turned out to be quite anti climactic. Small Puffin and myself dressed to the top of the hill, exit the building. Small Puffin exclaims in view of my front bite warning that’s it’s a bit steamy inside this get-up. Seconds later declares he’s blinded with the heat. I look across the road and see a bloke wandering along with his jacket wide open and no hat nor gloves. I have to declare the whole episode an over reaction as we fling off the face wrapping. Further confirmed later when I spot a woman working as a flag person (traffic director?) stood in this wind chill doing a crossword. I stop for a chat with her and we discuss roadworks. Do you know, she says eventually, I should have had my ex evicted out of the house we shared when we split because I’ll never be able to own another house. I wonder can it be possible to have this much clarity, if it really is -16 in the wind. Then note there is no wind which makes it only -6.
In the soiree we get enthused about the sledging potential. On the road I think small Puffin looks strange: why’s he got two thick hoods on back of his head? Closer examination reveals he’s accidentally placed two big winter coats on. I must have forgot he says mystified. I cannot fathom how he physically managed to get them on, not least because one is two sizes too small for him.
The park is strangely empty, except for two snowboarders. When pulling Puffin from one side to other to reach some semblance of a hill I finally understand what it is to be a horse travelling the roads of Derbyshire in some Jane Austen tome. It’s beautifully quiet though, snow shifting away from the wellies like flour. It’s not that dreadful slushy snow. Powder, I think they call it.
Since this blog has largely turned into tales of the Puffin and I walking along the road, due to the uneventful nature of anything literary, the use of the ‘s’ word in first paragraph will cause all kinds of problems, as sometimes people arrive at this blog with the most alarming search terms. It’s like a form of censorship. Have had to remove an article to try to divert the owners of that group of brain cells to some other corner of the web. (i.e the corner they are actually trying to reach!) Certain adjectives have me on edge. I am faint hearted. I’m sure people would say that’s the nature of blogging. Indeed there are far better candidates for it.