NOW, FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT...

I'D LOVE TO BE ABLE TO GET AWAY RIGHT NOW...

Away from Iraq, Afghanistan and from Russia, where truth-telling female journalists are slain for doing their jobs too well.

Away from people using their infant babies as baseball bats and swinging them at their spouses.

Away from political systems that are perverse with runaway partisanship and policies and sexual controversies involving pages.

Away from the threat of North Korean nuclear missiles and mass murders of innocent Amish schoolgirls.

And from silly mass media inventions like Terrell Owens and Paris Hilton.

And if I could get away, this is where I would go...

This is the Andean Rainforest, where new species of birds can still be discovered (see below) and where they can still thrive and be alive without the mass interventions of higher life forms.

This is where we DON'T know everything, where we're still the interlopers and where there are not one million messages flying around in a nano-second.

Where life is still about peaceful, natural beauty.

Wonder what these winged creatures would be saying about us from their birds' eye view...

Today, I'm going to try to imagine being there, walking as silently as I can through the forest, hearing their chirps and cries and screams, taking in the quiet, simple wonder of what is still a mostly natural world.

I'll send you all postcards. I'm not bringing my laptop.

From The Associated Press

A colorful bird new to science has been discovered in a previously unexplored Andean cloud forest, spurring efforts to protect the area, conservation groups have announced.
The bright yellow and red-crowned Yariguies brush-finch was named for the indigenous tribe that once inhabited the mountainous area where it was discovered and which committed mass suicide instead of submitting to Spanish colonial rule.
For conservationists the discovery of the species came at a crucial time. Thanks in part to the discovery, the government has decided to set aside 200 hectares of the pristine cloud forest where it lives to create a national park.
"The bird was discovered in what is the last remnants of cloud forest in that region," Camila Gomez, of the Colombia conservation group ProAves, said today. "There are still lots of undiscovered flora and fauna species that live in the area."
The small bird can be distinguished from its closest relative by its solid black back and the lack of white marks on its wings.
"There are about two new birds found in the world every year," Thomas Donegan, the British half of an Anglo-Colombian research duo which discovered the bird, said today. "It's a very rare event."
To access the bird's isolated habitat, Donegan and partner Blanca Huertas regularly hiked 12 hours into the nearly impenetrable jungle, depending on helicopters to drop off supplies at mountain peaks 3,050 metres above sea level.
"We first went to Yariguies about three years ago," Donegan said. "It's a huge patch of isolated forest that no one knew about, not even in Colombia."
The new finch, the size of a fist, is native to Colombia's eastern Andean range and considered by its discoverers to be near threatened and in need of close monitoring to prevent it winding up on a list of about 100 bird species endangered in Colombia.
One of the two birds caught by the team was released unharmed after they took pictures and DNA samples, while the other died in captivity.
Donegan said this is the first time researchers were able to confirm a new bird without having to kill it.
The last new bird discovery in Colombia was a Tapaculos species found in the south last year.
With as many as 1,865 different species, Colombia has long been considered a bird watchers' paradise, albeit a risky one because of the country's four-decade-old civil war and drug trafficking.
In 1998, rebels kidnapped four American bird watchers who were later found unharmed.
AP

THANKSGIVING THEN AND NOW

The gorgeous woman above is my grandmother on my mom's side -- Nanny, we always called her -- and she died almost 20 years ago. She's here because as we Canadians head into our annual Thanksgiving Day weekend, I've been thinking about her a lot.

She moved in with us when I was about 10 years old. I'm the oldest of six kids in my family -- two brothers and three sisters -- and she had a profound impact on all of our lives.

She was a 5-foot-nothing whirling dervish with a French-Canadian accent, a wicked sense of humour, a temper you wouldn't believe and, primarily for the purposes of this post, an incomparable cook.

A diehard fan of hockey's Montreal Canadiens, she and I would sit and watch Hockey Night in Canada every Saturday night -- me cheering for the Toronto Maple Leafs, her for Canada's team based in French-speaking Quebec.

I teased her, incessantly. Pinched her bum. Turned her swivelling rocker chair around so she was facing the corner. Feigned karate and tae kwon do kicks at her, inches from her nose. Mocked her mispronunciation of English words.

She loved it all. Cherished it. Lived for it, truthfully. "Hass-hole!," she'd laugh in her semi-English. "Eh?" She could barely hear for the last 10 years of her life. "Hi'Im Heighty Two year ole! Go to Ell!"

She'd pretend to be mad, but couldn't stop us from making her laugh. "Hass-hole!" And then she'd break out in a grin and shake her head.

As the former head cook at one of Winnipeg's largest hospitals, she took it upon herself, naturally, to become the head cook and cleaning poobah in our nine-member household. And every birthday, every Christmas, every Easter, every Thanksgiving was her time to shine.

And that she did. She'd absolutely insist on buying the biggest Thanksgiving turkey at the Safeway store, and delighted in asking each of us kids what WE wanted. Cranberry sauce. Stuffing. Potatoes with cheese. Almost incalcuable varieties of veggies.

Ham, too. That gross sauerkraut (I love it now). Those inserts for our dining room table would have to come out, and she'd always get me to set the table, just the way she wanted it. By the time I was finished, the table was about 12 feet long. Not nearly big enough.

Because she and my mom would invite 10 or 20 people to come dine with us for Thanksgiving. It was a madhouse, but it was a lot of fun, and that's just the way it was in our three-storey, blue and white house at 196 Kitson Street.

My friends and my siblings' friends and some of my parents' friends and sometimes aunts and uncles would be there, all rubbing shoulders and telling jokes and laughing and eating all this unbelievable food, while Nanny would stand off to the side, contented, wanted, needed.

A smile on her face, waiting for the main course to disappear and for her to bring out the pumpkin pie with whipped cream and the spice cake that she knew was my favourite. I do miss her incredibly but I smile when I think about her.

It's a beautiful memory of beautiful times. And so while things have changed a whole lot since then -- I still drive by that old house whenever I can, it's now grey and white -- this is Thanksgiving 2006.

And for those outside Canada, there's a little Wikipedia thingy on North American Thanksgiving below. The U.S. celebrates its Thanksgiving in November. We celebrate ours on the second Monday of October. Go figure. I don't know about similar celebrations elsewhere.

Thanksgiving is about turkey and stuffing and bounty and just plain old down-home family values of togetherness and gratitude. And those are some of the things I'm going to be thinking about over these next few days. A bit of it is illustrated here:

I've never really figured out whether I thought turkeys were exceptionally ugly or truly breathtaking, really...

Here's my date for the weekend...

Here's what she's going to look like by Monday, however...

I'll be thinking of you all this weekend. Take care.

Thanksgiving in Canada
The first and original Thanksgiving comes from Canada. In Canada, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday in October. Unlike the American tradition of remembering Pilgrims and settling in the New World, Canadians give thanks for a successful harvest.
The history of Thanksgiving in Canada goes back to an English explorer, Martin Frobisher, who had been trying to find a northern passage to the Orient. He did not succeed but he did establish a settlement in Canada.

In the year 1578, he held a formal ceremony, in what is now the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, to give thanks for surviving the long journey. This is considered the first Canadian Thanksgiving, and the first Thanksgiving to have taken place in North America.

Other settlers arrived and continued these ceremonies. He was later knighted and had an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean in northern Canada named after him - Frobisher Bay.
At the same time, French settlers, having crossed the ocean and arrived in Canada with explorer Samuel de Champlain, also held huge feasts of thanks. They even formed 'The Order of Good Cheer' and gladly shared their food with their Native-Canadian neighbours.
After the Seven Year's War ended in 1763 handing over Canada to the British, the citizens of Halifax held a special day of Thanksgiving.
During the American Revolution, American refugees who remained loyal (United Empire Loyalists) to Great Britain were exiled from the United States and came to Canada. They brought the customs and practices of the American Thanksgiving to Canada.
Eventually in 1879, the Canadian Parliament declared Nov. 6 a day of Thanksgiving and a national holiday in Canada. Over the years many dates were used for Thanksgiving, the most popular was the 3rd Monday in October.

After World War I, both Armistice Day and Thanksgiving were celebrated on the Monday of the week in which Nov. 11 occurred. Ten years later, in 1931, the two days became separate holidays and Armistice Day was renamed Remembrance Day.
Finally, on Jan. 31, 1957, the Canadian Parliament proclaimed...
"A Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed ... to be observed on the 2nd Monday in October."
The first Thanksgiving Day in Canada after Confederation was observed on April 5, 1872 to celebrate the recovery of the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) from a serious illness. Before then, thanksgiving days were observed beginning in 1799 but did not occur every year. Starting in 1879 Thanksgiving Day was observed every year but the date was proclaimed annually and changed year to year.

The theme of the Thanksgiving holiday also changed year to year to reflect an important event to be thankful for. In the early years it was for an abundant harvest and occasionally for a special anniversary.

After the First World War it was for Armistice Day and more recently and including today it has been a day of general thanksgiving.

PARIS...PUNCHED OUT??

OK, I SIMPLY CAN'T RESIST.

HERE IS MY SEMI-MONTHLY POST OF SHOCK AND DISMAY ON THE ABSOLUTELY INNANE ADVENTURES OF PARIS HILTON AND WHY WE ACTUALLY CARE.

But first, we need to set the stage and describe the so-called "average North American Family" pictured above.

This family consisted of a former Playboy Playmate and a so-called rock star from Blink 182 who looks more like Pee Wee Herman on a bad hair day than anything else. And doncha just love all those tats?

Anyway, this once-in-a-lifetime couple are now split, apparently (who knows the fate of those kids and how they'll ever grow up "normal").

And today's story, which follows, is likely on Enterpainment Tonight and whatever other sleaze TV shows are out there. By the time you read this, if you do, it will be old news.

In our news meeting today (I work at a daily newspaper), someone actually said, "This will be the most read story in the entire newspaper Thursday." And the sad thing is, that person is probably right.

SAD, I said.

The only laughable thing about this is that Paris Hilton apparently got punched out. And as far as I'm concerned, that's a good thing. But these two kittens were scratching each other over THIS loser?

Paris Hilton vs. Shanna Moakler: Round 1
The Associated Press

Wednesday, October 4, 2006; 1:27 PM
LOS ANGELES -- Can Travis Barker really make women go this crazy? His ex-wife, Shanna Moakler, was involved in a nightclub fracas with Paris Hilton early Wednesday morning.
Barker, the drummer for Blink-182, filed for divorce in August from Moakler, a former beauty queen now appearing on "Dancing With the Stars." In September, Barker was apparently videotaped kissing Hilton, who needs no introduction.
Then Hilton encountered Moakler at the Hyde club in Hollywood last night. The following re-enactment is based on reports by police, publicists for both women, but unfortunately no pugilistic experts:
Hilton says Moakler walked up to her, "used the most vile of language" and then punched her in her jaw.
Moakler contends she exchanged mere profanities with Hilton, at which point Hilton's ex-boyfriend Stavros Niarchos emerged from the entourage, bent Moakler's wrists, poured a drink on her and shoved her down some stairs.
Hilton, 25, and Moakler, 31, both filed police reports alleging battery. Officer Karen Smith said police took pictures of Moakler and Hilton at the station, and that police planned to speak with witnesses at the club as part of their investigation.
Moakler and the tattooed punk rocker Barker were an unlikely pair when they married in 2004, documenting their lavish wedding and life on the MTV reality show "Meet the Barkers." They had two children.

Moakler also has a 7-year-old daughter with boxer Oscar De La Hoya.

All I can say is...ARGHHH!!! Why are we consuming this pap and caring about it when there's so many other things that don't get nearly the attention they deserve from us, which is just the way our so-called leaders want it?

VIDEO: DON'T GIVE UP by Peter Gabriel

BOYS CAN BE BONEHEADS

THIS is what my son used to be...a goofy kid with his hat on crooked holding up a rooster outside the back door of my sister's place.

A beautiful, innocent boy with little awareness of the outside world, struggling a bit in school, concerned with just having fun -- just the way it should be for any eight-or-10-year-old just figuring out what life's all about.

But in the span of what seems to me as if it was about 10 seconds, he has grown into this...a 14-year-old who now is into girlfriends, who is now almost as tall as me...

...Whose voice is changing and is getting near as deep as mine, who is weary about hugging and kissing me any more but who is still willing to let me hug him, whose shoulders are getting wider...

...Who has a zillion friends and is a year away from high school, who is exploring his interests in singing and art and creativity, who is mobile and more independent and whose body is changing at a mile a minute...

And now, inevitably, it has come to this:

And I had TOLD him about this. I WARNED him. He doesn't live with me full-time, so I said to him, as I and he could see the peach fuzz growing beneath his nose and above his lip, do NOT shave before you talk to me and I can show you how.

Because once you START to shave, you won't be able to stop. You'll be doing this for the rest of your life. But what does he do? He shaves. And he shaves over a zit, and it doesn't look that great. But he recovers. Thankfully, with no permanent emotional or physical scarring.

So on the left is my son's face, after he has shaved, apparently no worse for wear.

On the right is my face, after a day's unshaven growth. I'm sure he figures that he has arrived, as a man.

I figure he has just gotten himself into a lifelong activity that is little more than a pain in the ass. Not an unnecessary pain in the ass, and not without its rewards, but still a pain.

Like father like son, I guess.