True artists – people who create something from nothing – are amazing to watch. The ability of a musician to pull notes from the air and combine them into a unique melody is fascinating to me. Marie Digby is one of my favourite artists, and watching her creative process is inspiring.
“I really wanted to put up a video for an original song because I’ve done a few covers for the last videos. Then I thought to myself, I’ve never put up a video as to how I write songs. There’s no magic to it really but I thought some of you may find it kind of interesting to see how it goes. This was one inspired by my incredible grandmother who has been ill but has been fighting to stay alive…This song is actually not a downer! It’s supposed to be inspirational and recognize how strong the human spirit can be…”
This past weekend we had a chance to go to the Calgary Zoo, which would be Logan’s first visit to the zoo, and my first opportunity to really test out my new 70-200mm f/2.8 Nikkor lens. It was a lot of fun!
A couple of days ago we introduced Logan to solid food for the first time, and I snapped some great pictures of the experience. He’s still pretty iffy on this funny tasting stuff, but each day he seems to be swallowing more of it. Check out the full gallery here. I confess I had a hard time culling the set of photos, so some are very similar, but I figure 23 photos isn’t a ridiculous number…
As a person whose faith is extremely important to him, I’m very careful about “faith bashing”. I don’t believe that people should be criticized, mocked, belittled, or attacked for what their spiritual beliefs are. I may not agree with your spiritual viewpoints, and you may not agree with mine, but so long as our respective faiths don’t impede the rights and freedoms of others, we should be allowed to hold them and express them however we wish.
Radical Islam, however, troubles me greatly – I believe it may be the single greatest challenge the world will face over the next 50 years. I loathe fear-mongering, but I really do think that as the power of radical Islamics grows, the Western world will have to respond – and I fear that the conflict will not be one easily resolved. The video above is an eye-opening opinion piece on the very real danger that radical Islam presents to the world. Note that I’ve used the word “radical” preceding “Islam” here, because the Islamic faith as I understand it – and I’m truly no expert – doesn’t promote the same types of things that the radical Islamic extremists do. If your faith means you’re going to wear a head scarf as a woman, that’s fine – but if your faith means you’re not going to treat patients as a dentist unless they’re wearing head scarves – even if they’re not Muslim – then you’re discriminating against that person.
I should note in closing that I’d never heard of this Pat Condell fellow before this video, and based on what I’ve seen of some of his other videos, I’d disagree with him quite severely (I think he’s the “attacking atheist” type), but in the video above, I think he has some very valid points.
“Recently returned CEO Dave Jones played the absent founder; current president Vincenzo De Palma, whom you might recognize from Concrete’s TV ads, drew from a background mostly spent selling lumber out of Prince George, B.C.; 20-something executive Vinnie Aurora’s qualifications included being the son of a colleague of Jones; and, along with experience as an investment industry veteran, office manager Dave Humeniuk bore the albatross of a lifetime ban from selling real estate in the province of Alberta. The result: a corporate environment poisoned by infighting and finger-pointing and which produced no significant financial reporting, a lapsed mortgage, allegations of impropriety and incompetence, no dividends since the start of this year despite purportedly cash-positive properties, and, because of it all, more than 2,000 investors raring for a fight.”
If ever there was a cautionary tale for investors, this is it!
