A precious gift for the future

In Jonathan Sher’s November 9th story Movin’ Along – about a city discussion about advancing a light rail transit system – Deputy Mayor Tom Gosnell dismisses the idea the city should consider building a light-rail passenger service to stimulate development along rail corridors. Light rail, he said, is for cities with populations near one million, not smaller cities like London growing at a snail’s pace.

“Light rapid transit — our grandchildren can worry about that,” he said.

The Van Meerbergen Mobile

In Jonathan Sher’s November 9th Free Press story Movin’ Along – about a city discussion about advancing a light rail transit system – Coun. Paul Van Meerbergen said city hall needs to focus more on maintaining and expanding roads already too burdened by traffic. “The belief that most families will use transit is not realistic,” he said.

At the flu shot clinic…

This years pumpkin

Water on the rocks

I think this is done. Again.

Wrestling with rocks

For a time during the last months on this blog there has been a lull. I’ve been doing other things, prepping some houses, tackling the To Do list, and working on a painting. This image is 48 inches by 60 inches, acrylic on canvas. There are some other paintings at my MobileMe site.

After painting a first – previous – version over months, stripping away distracting and facile bits of imagery, greenery, extra rocks and unclear bits of river in the background, painting over this and that, I was so fed up with the picture I stripped it off the stretcher and started again, hopefully with a clearer composition more focused on the bits I found interesting.

So a second start, and after months again, here I was actually audacious and confident enough to sign the thing, thinking I was done. Ha ha.

I can’t count how many times I painted the rocks over. I just couldn’t get the feel I wanted and they remain dead, dead in the water.

By this time I begin to include bits and pieces of the previous canvas for texture and motion in the water, and begin to consider how I can work that technique into the rocks. Carefully I lay down strips of the old rocks to show the striations and repaint again and again to try to bring them alive and wet. Just one more bit of fussing and I know it will be better, just one more bit of fussing, just one more… No, the damned rocks are still dead, like turds.

Repaint, reshape, fuss… And then, and then, I see the problem.

Dynamite. I need dynamite.

They aren’t useful. They aren’t helpful. They stop your eye from seeing the picture. Get that pot of gesso and paint them out. Blow them away. A painting in progress, not finished, started six times, and now in a brand new middle. And I can see where the thing should go now that the boulders are out of the way.

I’m clever enough to know I shouldn’t paint when I’m tired. I screw it up. I should be clever enough to know I can’t – don’t anymore – paint  realistically, and damned certain that I should never pretend to paint something real without a real reference, and I should be aware of the trap I fall into when I get fussy.

Always, I have an image in mind, a feeling, a motion – and it’s much clearer now, when the things I think I need, that I thought I needed for the ’story’, for the content, when I see that they are actually in the way.

I didn’t see the memo

Peter MacKay

Defence Minister Peter MacKay says he never received reports detailing allegations of abuse against Afghanistan detainees. (Adrian Wyld, Canadian Press)

Some paintings

A page of images of some of my paintings.

It’s a secret!

… Cliff Nordal confirmed that no competitive bidding process was followed despite a policy requiring quotes for expenditures of $25,000 or more. Contracts larger than those would have normally had Nordal’s signature.

… For nearly two months, London’s hospital chief didn’t tell regulators about an internal audit that found one of his vice- presidents approved paying the company of a former colleague $3 million without competitive bidding or authorization.

… London’s hospital chief refused to make public this week a study that details the cost to demolish hospital buildings on South Street.

… Through a spokesperson, Nordal said the hospital wouldn’t consider whether to make the study public until a vice-president involved with it returns Oct. 20 from holidays.

“We’re not going to consider releasing the report until (he) returns from his vacation,” said hospital spokesperson Sarah Corrigan. “As far as we know, it’s not a public report.”From various reports

WordPress logo misuse contest :-)

Hospital food

People remain somewhat outraged that Diane Beattie, chief information officer for London hospitals will recieve a $450,000 severence package after being dismissed – only after public outrage – over breaking hospital policies by giving out $3.3 million in untendered contracts.

How about a whale of iPods?

In todays Free Press, Paul Berton complains about the imaginative scope of the English language:

Let’s not say ‘pod’ of whales

Whenever I see the expression “pride of lions” I wonder why editors tolerate it. After all, isn’t “group” or “herd” good enough, and who decided anyway that lions would be referred to collectively as “prides?”

And just how did some of them make it into the language and past newspaper editors, who are trained to always replace complicated words with simpler ones?

The fact is “group” should suffice for every animal on Earth, and if you really want to get musical or fancy or learned you can use “school” for fish, “herds” for large, four-legged furry creatures, and “flocks” for birds.

But that is not what we do. Imagine being new to the English language and being told that goats come in “herds” but sheep come in “flocks.” And that geese also come in “flocks,” which also, if they are not in the air, come in gaggles. And that some birds (swans, wrens) can come not in “flocks” but in “herds.” And I’m not even getting into collective nouns for fish, which apparently (or perhaps not) come in all kinds of descriptions.

What immediately came to mind for me was, “clump of reporters”, and “paucity of writers”, or perhaps a “simpleness of editors” ?

And it seems an oddly libertarian argument, to do away with collective nouns. Is there a collective noun for Libertarians? A “consensus of Libertarians” ?

Random Nexts 9

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http://anglianwriter.wordpress.com/
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Bairdly Hulkerific