Harper’s brand of politics, far from being unique, are precisely why democracy is far from the perfect political system we all think it is. When our government deliberately ignores peer reviewed and accepted studies from experts in their given field, and instead enact policy and law based on the ignorant masses (us) who don’t have a clue in order to gain popular support, we all lose huge.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend that all political parties don’t do this, I’m just saying that knowingly doing the wrong thing in order to remain popular or to get re-elected is a very poor way to run a nation.

As Winston Churchill once famously said, “The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter”

I couldn’t agree more. Unfortunately, I don’t know of another system, off the top of my head, that would work better.

http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/08/09/cracking-eggheads/?sms_ss=facebook

Well, this certainly conjures up grim connotations. This started out as an anti-smoking personal project…and I’ll get that one done eventually, but it just wasn’t working the way I’d hoped. I was having some physical effects issues in that, being a non-smoker, I bought a brand of cigarettes for the shoot that have white filters instead of the more common and iconic orange filters. A small detail, but one that wrecked the effect I was hoping to pull off. Ah well, at least some of my throw away shots as I was fine-tuning my lighting turned out alright.

Some info:
1/ This is not a real gun.
2/ The smoke was created by shoving an incense stick up the barrel
3/ That shell casing is a real 9mm shell with the slug photoshopped off. Incidentally, my great uncle made this shell during WWII while working in a munitions factory in England. I have a small box of other ammo he made during the same time.

This pic could be used for a “don’t play with guns” public service announcement for sure. Or, if you want to inject a little humour here, it could also be a “don’t play with my teenage daughter, or else…” PSA. Yeah, I like that one. I have some friends who might agree with THAT PSA right now…

I have worked with and become friends with both Christine and Jason at Acart Communications and Level Platforms respectively, so when I was asked to photograph the groomsmen getting ready for the wedding, I was honoured to do so.

Congratulations guys. We’re very happy for the both of you.

Here are the pictures I took in the hour before the guys had to leave:

Sully freaked right the hell out when Cindy was having her lesson and swam out and flipped her over in a failed attempt to “save” her. Cindy actually flipped herself over to prevent Sully’s claws from puncturing the Kayaks neoprene skirt. Once she had successfully completed lesson #1 and wet exited the kayak, he proceeded to, again in a some perverse canine attempt to save Cindy’s life, climb on top of her and force her under water. The whole time I’m yelling myself hoarse trying to get the dog back to shore so I can proceed to throttle him. Rob Ross was swimming around heroically trying to extricate the two of them. Cindy was fine and only suffered  a few scratches.  Sully is also still alive; didn’t even hit him (I never do), but, boy-howdy, did he know I was angry. Is there any breed that can look as pathetically chastened as a Golden Retriever? Somehow I didn’t have the presence of mind to take one picture during this ordeal. I’d make a terrible photojournalist.

Anyway, here are a few pics of Cindy and Rob.

These folks are showing how to really make changes. It’s the easiest thing in the world to point fingers and cast blame on any culture’s traditions, but doing that will only cause hard feelings, defensiveness and a complete collapse of dialogue. There’s not much hope of positive change after that. They also make a good point by saying that just banning the import of shark fins is not the way to go about this sensitive issue. The demand will still be there and will create a large black market economy. Education and, in this case, positively targeting young couples who are getting married is the perfect starting point for starting a new tradition.

Read the article and see the CBC press coverage here: http://osocio.org/message/starting_a_new_tradition/

Here are some pictures from the show:

While I was riding I felt great. Here I was riding this kick ass Harley that almost without exception I get comments on whenever I stop somewhere. It was a beautiful, abnormally warm April day; perfect for riding. But, there was just something missing. It took me a kilometer or two, until I realized what I was missing was music. Not just any music, however, but music that defined ME at this particular moment; the soundtrack to the movie that is my life. At that moment I was almost thinking of my ride in editorial cuts, shooting angles of a camera, and, yes, what music would go with this shot. What would look and sound the coolest?

I laughed at myself (again, laughter of the closed-mouth variety), but, at the same time, I was slightly disconcerted. Did I have such low self-esteem, or was I so vain that I needed to fantasize that people would see me in as cool a way as possible? Did my life NEED a soundtrack to hammer home how people should see and feel about me? Last I checked, though, there aren’t giant speakers hovering in the sky above me playing such music.

For example, how often have we disparaged the “punk” kid in his tricked-out Honda Civic pumping 1000 watts through the subwoofers in his trunk? We all have, of course, but to that kid he is the coolest thing rolling at that moment. His music, his ride, his style is unmatched. To him, it’s like he’s in a movie and we’re all just watching him. Little does he know that while the music sounds great in the car completing the illusion, outside his license plate is buzzing like a steroidal hornet from the bass and he is annoying us all as well as the hot chick on the corner he’s trying to get notice him. Some might call this the hubris of youth, and they’d be right, except about the youth part. We often mock such displays as if we were, or are, somehow above it. Let me tell you, we were all like that in one way or another and we continue to exhibit it to greater or lesser degrees. How many of us want a bigger house, a nicer car, a higher definition TV, a fancier wardrobe, etc, etc, etc… Do we want these things because they will help us survive? Of course not. Many of the things in our lives are related to how we perceive ourselves, or, rather, how we want others to perceive us. It’s like a corruption of our survival instinct; somehow our very well-being depends on how we are perceived by others. It’s pervasive these days and few are innocent of its wiles. Society seems to have given up all pretenses of substance and surrendered to what Creem magazine editor, Lester Bangs, in the movie Almost Famous calls the “Industry of Cool”.

For me personally, I will tell anyone who asks that I love my Harley for esthetic and historical reasons, which is true. I definitely find them to be beautiful machines that are the progenitors for every other motorcycle brand that exists. But, also, what I wouldn’t admit until now (but may have been evident anyway), is that I love my motorcycle because of the darker, more sinister connotations Harley has historically manifested as a brand: A sense of unfettering from societal restraints, intimidation, and aggression. It is for the same reasons that I have always listened to heavy metal. I needed the aggression it invoked in me to quell my own insecurities in dealing with life in general. All I can say is thankfully I had a brain in my head, a good grounding in morality from my parents, good friends during my teen years, and healthy outlets for my hormonally enhanced wildness such as sports, because I can completely see how some kids who perhaps don’t have some of these things can take a dark and tragic path through life. I’m sure a psychologist could have a field day with many of us. But, I don’t need a professional to know where all this stems from for me. I have self-analyzed myself to death countless times in my life. I think I have a pretty good grasp of where the current me came from, both good and bad.

The point is, we all have our insecurities and demons that we often compensate for by building a facade of “cool” or “danger” or whatever mitigates that which we feel we lack in ourselves. Perhaps that is why we, as a society, are in such dire straits and why such rampant, detrimental consumerism has thrived. There is always something to buy that will assuage our lack of self-esteem. We seem to be losing, or perhaps have already lost, much of our sense of altruism and fallen too much a slave to our egos. Got a problem? Don’t deal with it. Buy a new suit and hit play on your iPod.

Surely the next scene of this movie, accompanied by a relevant John Mayer song, will redeem you.