3/31/2007

Canadian Idol - Sheldon Elter


I seem to be about a year behind catching up with these but here's another home town boy.

CTV.ca Sheldon Elter: "Sheldon Elter
Updated Wed. Jul. 12 2006 11:07 PM ET
Eliminated: July 12

Age: 27
Occupation: Actor/Construction Worker
Hometown: Edmonton, AB
Audition City: Edmonton, AB
Place of Birth: Peace River, AB
Nickname: 'Bingo'
Musical Style: 'Sublime meets Elvis.'
Identifies With: Beck
Canadian Idol: 'My mother.'
Favourite Song: Imagine
Motto: 'What's expected tends to be realized.'
'My family couldn't be happier for me at how far I have made it in this competition. I think that they are a little worried that they might see a lot less of me in the future.'"

Sheldon Elter

3/29/2007

16 twisters sweep through New Mexico

Towns begin cleanup after 16 twisters sweep through New Mexico-Texas border; 2 injured - U.S./ Southwest Region - BostonHerald.com: "Towns begin cleanup after 16 twisters sweep through New Mexico-Texas border; 2 injured
By Associated Press
Sunday, March 25, 2007 - Updated: 06:19 PM EST

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- When she awoke Saturday, Andrea McLaren found that a stretch of the eastern New Mexico city she calls home had been obliterated by a tornado that flattened houses, snapped telephone poles and even heaved a trailer through a bowling alley.

The tornado was one of 16 that moved through communities along the New Mexico-Texas border late Friday and early Saturday, leaving two people critically injured. Residents said Saturday that the cleanup effort could take months.

”Pretty much everything was pushed together like toy cars,” McLaren said by telephone from Clovis, N.M. ”We’ve been picking up debris the whole day. ... Clean up and assess the damage, that’s all we can do.”"

See Video at KTSM channel 9.

3/27/2007

Dog saves owner with modified Heimlich


Dog saves owner with modified Heimlich - Pet Health - MSNBC.com: "CALVERT, Md. - Toby, a 2-year-old golden retriever, saw his owner choking on a piece of fruit and began jumping up and down on the woman's chest. The dog's owner believes the dog was trying to perform the Heimlich maneuver and saved her life.
Debbie Parkhurst, 45, of Calvert told the Cecil Whig newspaper she was eating an apple at her home Friday when a piece lodged in her throat. She attempted to perform the Heimlich maneuver on herself but it didn't work. After she began beating on her chest, she said Toby noticed and got involved.
'The next think I know, Toby's up on his hind feet and he's got his front paws on my shoulders,' she recalled. 'He pushed me to the ground, and once I was on my back, he began jumping up and down on my chest.'
That's when the apple dislodged and Toby started licking her face to keep her from passing out, she said.
"I literally have paw print-shaped bruises on my chest. I'm still a little hoarse, but otherwise, I'm OK," Parkhurst said.
"The doctor said I probably wouldn't be here without Toby," said Parkhurst, a jewelry artist. "I keep looking at him and saying, 'You’re amazing."'

Wild West--The Blog


A trip up the Alaska Highway

Wild West--The Blog: Beavis & Me, Part 1: "In 1965, just minutes after receiving a high school diploma that I most certainly didn't deserve, I jumped into my little red '62 Corvair and headed west. I was not going alone. Riding shotgun was a friend. Although Gene Miller was a year older than me (I was 17), he was a year behind me in school. Gene was without doubt one of the scrawniest kids I had ever known. He was about the size and shape of Barney Fife. The two even looked alike. Gene was an incessant smoker, which probably contributed to his puniness and his troubles in a former school. People like to identify with similar people. Since Hoss Cartwright was out, Gene identified with Frank Sinatra, bought all his records, even though the Beetles and Beach Boys were then in vogue, and even tried to croon like his idol, much to the anguish of my ears. But Gene was a trooper; he loved to travel, he had an upbeat personality, and he was the only person I could find who would go with me."

More...:

3/23/2007

Rat Poison in Pet Food


"Rat poison found in tainted pet food
By MARK JOHNSON
Associated Press Writer


AP Photo/Reed Saxon

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- Rat poison has been found in pet food blamed for the deaths of at least 16 cats and dogs, a spokeswoman for the State Department of Agriculture and Markets said Friday.
Spokeswoman Jessica Chittenden would not identify the chemical or its source beyond saying it was a rodent poison.
The Food and Drug Administration has said the investigation was focusing on wheat gluten in the food. Wheat gluten itself would not cause kidney failure, but the common ingredient could have been contaminated by heavy metals or mold toxins, the FDA said.
State agriculture officials scheduled a news conference Friday afternoon to release laboratory findings from tests on the pet food conducted this week."

More on the Story...

List of recalled products

3/20/2007

Aaron James Sorenson


Challenge North 2006 - Speaker Bios: "Aaron James Sorensen
Aaron James Sorensen is an award winning feature film director from Dixonville Alberta. His first feature, Hank Williams First Nation, was the first Canadian film to ever open in competition at the American Film Institute’s AFIfest in Los Angeles. There it premiered with such films as Hotel Rwanda and Merchant of Venice. The same film has gone on to play several US festivals and recently won the “Best Music in a Feature Film” at the Nashville International Film Festival. The Village Voice in New York City recently cited Sorensen’s film as the Best Undistributed Film of 2004.
As President of Peace Country Films Mr. Sorensen is personally overseeing the Canadian theatrical release of Hank Williams First Nation, which has to-date grossed over $130,000 at the box office in Western Canada. The film was to open in Toronto on five screens in September.
As a musical composer and performer Aaron has traveled much of North America with a variety of ensembles. As an actor he worked with the Loose Moose Theatre Company while studying acting at the University of Calgary under visiting director Keith Johnston.
Sorensen is the former president of CompuTorque Canada Ltd., an oilfield service company, and a former elected municipal councillor. He began his career out of university as a small town school teacher and newspaper reporter in 1989.
Sorensen is currently in development as writer/director and co-producer on a script called Meet Pamela with Paramount Pictures."

Hank Williams First Nation - Dixonville, Alberta


In 2004 first time filmmaker Aaron James Sorensen privately raised enough money to make a feature film from a script he had written, portraying an endearing portrait of life in a remote northern Alberta Cree community, and the colourful characters who call it home. A good-hearted movie about a good-hearted people – sprinkled with
snowmobiles, old-dogs, and good country music.
The film, “Hank Williams First Nation,” became a critically acclaimed audience favourite wherever it played, at festivals throughout
North America and in cities and communities across Canada, becoming the third top grossing English language film of 2005. And now the feature film has done something unheard of in Canada. Unlike “Trailer Park Boys,” “Kids in the Hall” and “Strange Brew,” which were all feature films based on television series, “Hank
William’s First Nation” is the first television series to be based on a Canadian Englishlanguage feature film.


Get the whole story in PDF
n.b. Super big congratulations Aaron. It seems to have taken awhile for local news from Dixonville Alberta to trickle down to Farmington New Mexico but it got here. I can't wait to find a DVD copy of the movie.

3/18/2007

Governor/Presidential Candidate Bill Richardson to Approve Med-Pot in New Mexico


"by Deborah Baker, Associated Press (15 Mar, 2007) New Mexico is poised to become the 12th medical marijuana state in the United States

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson
SANTA FE, New Mexico - Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, poised to sign a bill making New Mexico the 12th state to legalize medical marijuana, said Thursday he realizes his action could become an issue in the presidential race. 'So what if it's risky? It's the right thing to do,' said Richardson, one of the candidates in the crowded 2008 field. 'What we're talking about is 160 people in deep pain. It only affects them.'

The legislation would create a program under which some patients - with a doctor's recommendation - could use marijuana provided by the state health department. Lawmakers approved the bill Wednesday. The governor is expected to sign it in the next few weeks.

Richardson has supported the proposal since he first ran in 2002. But he pushed especially hard for it this year, leaning on some Democrats to change their votes after the bill initially failed. 'Give him credit. It's not something you do because you're going to garner great political support for it. It is a bit controversial,' said Thomas Mann, a political analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington. By the same token, Mann says, it is not likely to hurt him in the Democratic contests.

'If he were to surprise us all and actually win the Democratic nomination, he's got an interesting mix of positions' that would not be undercut by his support of medical marijuana, Mann said."

More...:

3/17/2007

Blue Star Mothers

Rally in farmington, NM 3/17/07




It was a great day and the only negative comment I heard was "He had to choose between a job in the real world and joining the army -- he picked the easy one"
With a comment like that it would seem the commenter has a few hidden issues.

3/10/2007

Forgotten Canadians

This arrived in my email today -- as one of those 'pass in on' emails and I am still trying to find the original newspaper source and date if it exists. Either way, its a very good read.
As a dual citizen I have seen this from both sides. I remember more than one occasion when Dallas was asked why he was going to fight for the US army and not for Canada and his comments were "I am fighting for Canada. If the house falls down the people in the attic usually go with it."


A British news paper salutes Canada . . . this is a good read.
It is funny how it took someone in England to put it into words...

Sunday Telegraph article from today's UK wires: Salute to a brave and modest nation - Kevin Myers,

The Sunday Telegraph LONDON:
Until the deaths of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan , probably almost no one outside their home country had been aware that Canadian troops are deployed in the region. And as always, Canada will bury its dead, just as the rest of the world, as always will forget its sacrifice, just as it always forgets nearly everything Canada ever does.It seems that Canada 's historic mission is to come to the selfless aid both of its friends and of complete strangers, and then, once the crisis is over, to be well and truly ignored. Canada is the perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of the hall, waiting for someone to come and ask her for a dance. A fire breaks out, she risks life and limb to rescue her fellow dance-goers, and suffers serious injuries. But when the hall is repaired and the dancing resumes, there is Canada, the wallflower still, while those she once helped glamorously cavort across the floor, blithely neglecting her yet again.That is the price Canada pays for sharing the North American continent with the United States , and for being a selfless friend of Britain in two global conflicts. For much of the 20th century, Canada was torn in two different directions:It seemed to be a part of the old world, yet had an address in the new one, and that divided identity ensured that it never fully got the gratitude it deserved. Yet its purely voluntary contribution to the cause of freedom in two world wars was perhaps the greatest of any democracy.Almost 10% of Canada 's entire population of seven million people served in the armed forces during the First World War, and nearly 60,000 died. The great Allied victories of 1918 were spearheaded by Canadian troops, perhaps the most capable soldiers in the entire British order of battle.Canada was repaid for its enormous sacrifice by downright neglect, it's unique contribution to victory being absorbed into the popular Memory as somehow or other the work of the "British."
The Second World War provided a re-run. The Canadian navy began the war with a half dozen vessels, and ended up policing nearly half of the Atlantic against U-boat attack. More than 120 Canadian warships participated in the Normandy landings, during which 15,000 Canadian soldiers went ashore on D-Day alone. Canada finished the war with the third-largest navy and the fourth-largest air force in the world.
The world thanked Canada with the same sublime indifference as it had the previous time. Canadian participation in the war was acknowledged in film only if it was necessary to give an American actor a part in a campaign in which the United States had clearly not participated - a touching scrupulousness which, of course, Hollywood has since abandoned, as it has any notion of a separate Canadian identity.
So it is a general rule that actors and filmmakers arriving in Hollywood keep their nationality - unless, that is, they are Canadian. Thus Mary Pickford, Walter Huston, Donald Sutherland, Michael J. Fox, William Shatner, Norman Jewison, David Cronenberg, Alex Trebek, Art Linkletter and Dan Aykroyd have in the popular perception become American, and Christopher Plummer, British.
It is as if, in the very act of becoming famous, a Canadian ceases to be Canadian, unless she is Margaret Atwood, who is as unshakably Canadian as a moose, or Celine Dion, for whom Canada has proved quite unable to find any takers.
Moreover, Canada is every bit as querulously alert to the achievements of it's sons and daughters as the rest of the world is completely unaware of them. The Canadians proudly say of themselves - and are unheard by anyone else - that 1% of the world's population has provided 10% of the world's peacekeeping forces. Canadian soldiers in the past half century have been the greatest peacekeepers on Earth - in 39 missions on UN mandates, and six on non-UN peacekeeping duties, from Vietnam to East Timor, from Sinai to Bosnia.
Yet the only foreign engagement that has entered the popular on-Canadian imagination was the sorry affair in Somalia, in which out-of-control paratroopers murdered two Somali infiltrators. Their regiment was then disbanded in disgrace - a uniquely Canadian act of self-abasement for which, naturally, the Canadians received no international credit.
So who today in the United States knows about the stoic and selfless friendship its northern neighbour has given it in Afghanistan? Rather like Cyrano de Bergerac, Canada repeatedly does honourable things for honourable motives, but instead of being thanked for it, it remains something of a figure of fun.
It is the Canadian way, for which Canadians should be proud, yet such honour comes at a high cost. This past year more grieving Canadian families knew that cost all too tragically well.
*********************
Please pass this on to any of your friends or relatives who served in the Canadian Forces or anyone who is proud to be Canadian; it is a wonderful tribute to those who choose to serve their country and the world in our quiet Canadian way.

3/05/2007

My Valentine



It was a real thrill to open my sharing folders and find a valentine from my granddaughters.