In the 3 1/2 months since I added a new category (Photos of Faces), I haven’t seen any faces on inanimate objects. No facial pareidolia for me.
But en route to a planned photo shoot of Parliament Hill at night, I looked up, and there it was. It didn’t quite make up for the -20C wind chill, but it was fun nonetheless.
Now the only question is why I haven’t seen it before. I’ve lived in Ottawa since 2002 . . .
Surprise, surprise
Ka-boom!
Maybe blowing up underwater rock peaks seems like an odd treasure, but it removed a hazard to navigation that had claimed or damaged about 120 vessels and killed at least 114 people. At the time, in 1958, it was the largest non-nuclear explosion ever. It’s a National Historic Event.
It was the first nationally televised live event on CBC, but the magic of the internet means that if you missed it then, you can still see it now.
The explosion itself (2:33)
Some history (27:19)
Or you can check out the page on Ripple Rock from the Museum at Campbell River.
Wings stretched as far as they can go, and maybe a bit farther, the birds lower their flaps. Teetering in the wind, they come in for the landing.
And they’re down, in a sploosh of feet, feathers, and spray.
Once down, they recover their balance and their dignity quickly. Move along: There’s nothing to see here.
Birds as different as seagulls and swans and pelicans have this in common: When completely up or completely down, they look regally unconcerned. It’s only in the transition states that they look like they’re making any effort at all. It’s only then that they look even remotely awkward.
Maybe that’s true for me, too. If I feel as if my arms are stretched to the limit, and maybe a bit father, trying to keep from teetering, maybe it’s because I’m just about to touch down, completing some transition. Not, you know, because I’m awkward by nature.
Note to self: Move along; there’s nothing to see here.
“It’s a complicated logarithm.”
My head snaps up. What did he just say?
Nah, I think, he couldn’t have confused “logarithm” for “algorithm” in describing the process of trying to accommodate multiple, competing objectives in a public committee environment.
But he did, because he did it again, a minute or so further into the interview. Continue reading
About 25 years after they opened the Brooklyn Bridge, they opened the Manhattan Bridge, just a wee way uptown.
It’s also a spectacular suspension bridge, although it lacks the allure of its older sibling. It pays to be first, I guess.
But it is a wonderful old bridge, and the artists living on the Brooklyn side right in its shadow call their area DUMBO, standing for “down under the Manhattan Bridge overpass.”
I don’t know who’s building that tower in the background, but they should stop and reverse course. It’s ruining the sight lines.
You had to know it was coming.
A trip to New York wouldn’t have been complete without me taking, oh, say, 70 to 90 photos of various aspects of the Brooklyn Bridge, and a few had to make their way here. Continue reading
You know that synchronicity thing? Where you hear an idea new to you from a few places in a short period?
Well, I recently read a book by Peter Wohlleben, a German forester, asserting (among other things) that trees communicate with each other.
The documentary film Intelligent Trees features several of Wohlleben’s observations. It portrays him alongside Suzanne Simard, a professor of forest ecology at the University of British Columbia, whose research supports most of Wohlleben’s observations about communication among trees.
And now we come to the point. A recent blog by Jim Taylor referred to Suzanne Simard’s work on tree communication for UBC. Yes, the very same Suzanne Simard mentioned in this Wiki article.
I figure anyone who thinks to ask whether other forms of life have connections not obvious to us is a national treasure, no matter what the answer turns out to be.
When I reached Simard by phone, she described how she and her colleagues track the flow of nutrients and chemical signals through this invisible underground network. They injected fir trees with radioactive carbon isotopes, then followed the spread of the isotopes through the forest community using a variety of sensing methods, including a Geiger counter. Within a few days, stores of radioactive carbon had been routed from tree to tree. Every tree in a plot thirty metres square was connected to the network; the oldest trees functioned as hubs, some with as many as forty-seven connections. The diagram of the forest network resembled an airline route map.
The original: I wrote about having a surplus and what I might do with it.
The follow-up #1: Roy Halladay died this week, and news reports were in equal awe over his baseball career and his philanthropy. I find it’s easy to discount the work that professional athletes do in their (often transient) communities. After all, they lave lots right? What will it hurt them to give some of it away? I can ask the same question of myself.
Here’s a little bit on Roy Halladay, who was a treasure for more than one reason. Continue reading
In November 2014 we visited New Zealand and Australia, and attended a Remembrance Day service in Auckland. Hearing In Flanders Field that far from home put a chill down my back.
Ottawa Memorial to John McCrae
In Melbourne a few weeks later we heard a quintessentially Australian story about WWI, and saw how they keep alive the memory of ANZAC.
This summer, while clearing out the papers and keepsakes accumulated by my mother over her 96 years, we found a newspaper published in Standard AB at the end of WWII.
Today we remember those who sacrificed, fought, and died not just in WWII but in all wars. Theirs be the honour indeed.
But I must do more than remember.
I must do my part to fulfill that prayer, by taking the actions I can, where and as I am, to help build a prosperous, progressive, intelligent and united world.
Posted: 2025 Jun 13
Thanks to John Whitman for this slightly dismayed face from downtown Ottawa.
This space is available for other submissions.
