Tuesday, August 1, 2023
Saturday, July 29, 2023
Friday, July 28, 2023
She eats out of my hand! Glorious White Dove on Burnaby Lake
Paloma, the pure white dove, has been appearing on the dock at Burnaby Lake for months now. We sometimes see domestic birds among the wild flocks (we even saw three white barnyard ducks - then two - then one - then - ). Domestic birds have no street smarts, and though the flock may protect them for a while, sooner or later they're caught by predators and devoured. A pure white bird such as this one is an obvious target. In this video, it appears Paloma has found a mate among the pigeons.
Friday, July 21, 2023
"The F*ck*ing Grifters" STRIKE AGAIN!
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MEGHAN MCCAIN: It tells you everything about Harry and
Meghan's grand American delusion that they thought the Bidens would let
them hitch a ride on Air Force One... What a savage letdown reality must
be!
On Wednesday, DailyMail.com exclusively reported that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex made a very unusual request to the White House after attending Queen Elizabeth II's funeral in September.
The Bidens were in London to express the deep condolences of the nation.
What better time to network!
So, the couple reportedly asked Joe and the First Lady if they could hitch a ride on Air Force One to fly them all back home to the good ole' U.S. of A.
Yes, Harry and Meghan had been excluded from a reception at Buckingham Palace.
There were some reports that crowds were booing them.
And the Sussexes were still public enemy number one in their home county after their infamous tell-all Oprah interview, during which they accused the Royal Family of all manner of horrible behavior – from racist microaggressions to neglecting, a near-suicidal pregnant Meghan.
But onward and upward.
Who were they kidding?
Even the incompetent Biden White House was smart enough to dodge this terrible, awful, very bad idea.
Sources told the DailyMail.com that the wayward royals received an immediate 'no'. It was a 'non-starter'.
If the president's staff had put the commander-in-chief in that position then they would have deserved to be fired on the spot. The president has bigger things to worry about, like America's relationship with its closest ally.
'It would have caused such a commotion,' a source told DailyMail.com. 'It would have strained relations with the Palace and the new King.'
Indeed, it would have.
Just three months later, Netflix streamed their boring, propaganda piece, disguised as a documentary, 'Harry & Meghan.' The six-part series portrayed the Royal Family as collaborators in a racist and archaic system.
A month later, Harry went after nearly every member of his family again when his memoir Spare hit the bookshelves.
No wonder the White House steered clear.
And the fact that the Sussexes, for all their high-paid, politically-connected advisers – one worked for Hillary Clinton and another for Michelle Obama – didn't grasp this reality tells you all you need to know about them.
They're completely, utterly, hopelessly delusional.
Air Force One is not the Biden's private plane. It's the property of the American people. And it's kind of a big deal.
Some of the most significant moments in the history of the country have happened in the fuselages of the aircrafts that carry the president the United States.
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In short, one does not ask to jump on the president's plane. They get invited. Being a passenger is a privilege granted to very few, and it is usually reserved for elected officials, diplomats, and the First Family.
In a show of national pride and respect, my father's casket was transported from Arizona to Washington D.C., by a U.S. government plane, to lay in state in the U.S. Capitol.
And even then, President Trump sent Air Force Two.
But by all means, Harry and Meghan. Here's your presidential peanuts. Enjoy your flight!
Did they really think the White House would be so stupid?
Air Force One is not the Biden's private plane. It's the property of the American people. And it's kind of a big deal.
As the Oprah interview made clear, these two had no qualms about dishing the dirt on private conversations when it accrued to their benefit. And Meghan's nascent political aspirations are no big secret.
Wouldn't an intimate eight-hour flight with the most powerful man in the world be a convenient launching pad for her next career move?
Wouldn't it have been great to plaster a picture of the Sussexes and the Bidens waving from the plane's staircase on a campaign poster?
This was nakedly self-serving. And what did they have to offer the Bidens? Absolutely nothing.
Doesn't this explain everything?
Harry and Meghan seemed to have been convinced that the world owed them. That if only people could see how brilliant, talented and mistreated they were, adoring crowds would lift them on to their shoulders and parade them through the streets.
And you know what? It worked - for a while.
Spotify and Netflix signed them up for $20 million and $100 million contracts, respectively. Then everyone caught on.
'The f***ing grifters. That's the podcast we should have launched with them,' said Bill Simmons, a top Spotify executive last month. 'I'm so tired of this guy. What does he bring to the table? He just whines about s*** and keeps giving interviews.'
Now, instead of being cheered and embraced for stabbing their family members in the back for a paycheck, most have abandoned them.
They're criticized in the once adoring mainstream media and polls show that public's opinion of them – on both sides of the Atlantic – has soured.
Finally, there was one more incredibly revealing piece of information in this new reporting.
The day after spilling the beans on Oprah, Meghan apparently thought she had won an ally in Jill Biden.
The First Lady had wore an Oscar de la Renta dress with a lemon pattern to a State Department event. The outfit was similar to an Oscar de la Renta dress Meghan had worn a month before.
It must have been a subtle nod of support for the embattled Duchess, so said Twitter.
Meghan may have thought so too. She reportedly sent the First Lady a basket of lemons to express her thanks.
So low-key. Because it's their little secret.
Of all the scandals, headlines and missteps that Meghan and Harry have been involved in over the past few years, this one is my favorite, because it perfectly encapsulates the phenomenon.
Their plan to trash their Royal Family and jet off to America to be rich and famous never made sense, because it was irrational. And rationality – apparently – was not their strong suit.
Reality isn't an obstacle – if you don't acknowledge it.
Thursday, July 20, 2023
🌈A Bird in Paradise🌞
My day in Paradise. The song of Swainson's thrush, which I remember from childhood days at the cottage in Muskoka. Years later I wanted to identify it, but only had the sound to go on. I googled "bird whose song spirals upward", and a moment later I had a video that matched.
Thursday, July 13, 2023
SCANDALOUS Pre-Code Betty Boop! (Will this get me a decency strike?)
Admittedly, I cheated a little and slowed this WAY down. It's a tiny excerpt from the infamous Bimbo's Initiation, often called the most bizarre cartoon of the 1930s. It's all about the hapless Bimbo (and nobody quite knows WHAT Bimbo is, kind of like Goofy in Stand by Me) and how he wants to join some sort of lodge or club or Scientology group (which didn't exist back then), or Freemason society or whatever it was supposed to represent - but it involved a bizarre and convoluted series of ordeals/rituals/hazing practices.
Towards the end of it, a pre-Code Betty, wearing her usual teeny tiny dress, does a seductive dance in front of him, explicit enough that I did not dare include it on my video (though it appears on DOZENS of other channels). I once got a "decency" strike for showing a woman taking a shower with a bikini on (along with incomprehensible strikes for showing a puppet in a glass case, a jiggly cheesecake, and a boy throwing a rock at a wall).
If you get three strikes in a 90-day period, your channel and all the videos on it is terminated forever, and in many cases you can't even start a new one - you are banned for showing a preacher dancing joyously in a church (WHY??), among other strikes I can't even remember. And this was a reupload of something I had already posted years before. Yet, racist, sexist and homophobic channels/videos are allowed to stand with the most tasteless, offensive and outrageous material in them.
Some strikes happened two or three years after I posted the original video. So I had to censor a scene from this cartoon showing Betty shimmying like the '20s flapper she is. But it's Betty Boop, for God's sake! I was anxiously waiting (and I am still anxiously waiting) to get a strike because Bimbo taps her bottom, after Betty WHACKS his bottom, as part of the dance. I could well get a decency strike for THIS, too. Pray for me, please.
Saturday, July 8, 2023
Wednesday, July 5, 2023
🌞A Gross Beak? No - it's a GROSBEAK!
I repeatedly tell my husband, "You see how little it takes to make me happy?" It's true. I no longer want for anything. A new bird at the feeder is a simple delight.
Saturday, July 1, 2023
Friday, June 30, 2023
💥Back Yard Bear: Our Fence has been CRASHED!💥
Such excitement in the back yard yesterday, and it was all CAUGHT ON TAPE! This young bear wandered into the back yard, knocked down a bird feeder, then flopped down and munched contentedly on sunflower seeds for 20 minutes or so, while we panicked and called the conservation people. We saw no break in the fence, so we didn't know how he got in or how he'd get out. But finally, after opening the gate (the sound spooked him) and banging on a pot, he leaped up the tall fence as nimbly as a cat, and wandered back and forth on the top of it before wandering away. Now we know bears can get in with no trouble at all, and I won't be able to refill the bird feeder for a while. Or not ever!
Wednesday, June 28, 2023
"Ah, the French" - Orson Welles REMIX
I just rediscovered this work of GENIUS while putting together some crude animations with Orson Welles doing commercial outtakes. I seem to be doing an Orson Welles series now, though I never intended to and now wonder if I should stop. BUT NOT BEFORE THIS. It is genius.
Tuesday, June 27, 2023
💗Beautiful, Beautiful Bentley: my gorgeous, sleepy cat!💗
Bentley has been with us now for seven years, and we can't imagine our lives without him. He is a dignified cat, rarely meows or makes a fuss, but rules in an imperious way, striking magnificent poses (i. e. his British Museum pose, modelling the famous Egyptian bastet sculpture which inspired worship in ancient times). He divides his loyalties evenly between us, but it is always along certain lines which never vary. He sleeps very contentedly on Bill's lap in the Lazy Boy, but his routine with me is different. As I lie reading in bed (something comfortably boring to help me get to sleep), he will steal into the room, jump up, and stare at me with those uncanny eyes for the longest time, before gingerly reaching out a paw to touch me. Then another touch, then a little harder one, then he stretches his paw way up and spreads his toes - the signal for me to give him his treats. Then when he has had a nice face-wash, he settles himself between my ankles, turning around and around and plunking himself down. When I turn out the lights, I often have to turf him off or at least get him to move over a bit. We often think he understands everything we say, to the point we are tempted to spell things out as you would do with a toddler. But he is wise beyond his years, expending his energies only to leap up to the bird feeders installed on our windowpanes. He IS a cat, after all. And a cat's a cat, for a' that.
This is the tribute to Bentley I posted not long after we brought him home. Hard to believe it's been so many years!
When my beloved lovebird Paco died just a short time ago, it was agonizing. She only lived 100 days, and was an absolute delight. I should have spent many years with her. I knew I couldn't get another bird, because if that happened again -
We didn't even have cats on our minds. Oh all right, we did, because my daughter had just adopted Mia, a darling little tabby who stole everybody's heart. I noticed how the whole atmosphere in the house had changed, as if it had been flooded with sunshine.
Bill especially felt that we'd be too old by the time the cat reached that age, if it ever did. But he said something surprising that changed everything. "We could get a cat." I hadn't meant it literally, but suddenly our thinking began to change. And as we all know, that changes everything.
We decided we would "start the process of looking for a cat". Not rush into anything, of course. We weren't even supposed to be getting another pet at this stage. It was too soon, far too soon, wasn't it? But I began to look into it, research adoption web sites. My first experience was with a Vancouver kitten rescue agency called VOKRA. I looked at one cat, a very lovely cat indeed, and as soon as I reached out to pet her, she tore a chunk out of me. We both went home from that "viewing" with bloody scratches.
I think sometimes certain organizations are just too idealistic about whether a cat is truly adoptable or not. That one wasn't.
So we decided to try the SPCA, where most people go. I had been looking on the web site for a while, and saw this snagglepuss-like baby cougar, and just HAD to go see him. Right now. He was in Maple Ridge, so it didn't take too long.
It was just one of those things. He was housed in an enclosure about the size of a large walk-in closet, much more amenable than a cage, but still kind of cramped for a cat. When he saw me he jumped down, ran towards me and wound himself around my leg. I immediately picked him up and held him. He relaxed into my arms. He had a soft, plushy coat, and was purring gently.
"This is the cat," I said to Bill. "Are you sure?" "There are no other cats. This is the one."
It has only been a few days, yet it seems longer, and not because time is dragging. It's another thing entirely. This little guy, about a year old, has an incredible history. Someone found him outside, mangled and bleeding. He had been mauled by a dog and had bite-marks on his shoulders. And yet, he is a sweet and gentle cat who loves to be held. So far his worst habit is drinking out of the toilet.
He has substantial gaps in his coat where the dog bit and probably shook him. They might or they might not fill in with fur, but if they don't, they'll only remind me of his valor in facing down a nasty old dog, and (even more remarkably) not becoming nasty himself.
My daughter-in-law Crystal has a way of summing things up. "After he flew down from heaven, that's where his wings broke off," she said. Amen to that.
Thursday, June 22, 2023
Wednesday, June 14, 2023
🌞A Chocolate Pigeon in the Park🌞
Though I have been unable to locate my Big Fat Brown Duck for weeks now, this lovely chocolate-brown pigeon showed up on the shores of Lake Lafarge. There's always something interesting going on in Birdland.
Sunday, June 11, 2023
Saturday, June 10, 2023
💗The Troll Doll Channel: MAGICAL Trolls on a Carousel!💗
I customized these two trollies for Erica and Lauren, and gifted them after their dance recital. Erica will be getting Trollina, the first troll in my collection, as a grad present.
Did I ever see myself doing this? Well, yes. For years and years, I knitted blankets and made stuffed animals and dolls for the grandkids. To see their renewed interest via my channel was unexpected, but delightful. I'm nearly at 16,000 subscribers now, and over 10 million views (most of them for one VERY dumb video, but never mind).
Sunday, June 4, 2023
Snowing in JUNE?? WHITE STUFF is falling from the sky!
I had thought that the drifting fluff from the cottonwood trees was setting off my allergies. The media had articles about it everywhere, with people claiming to be suffering horribly from it, but in the fine print it said that cottonwood fluff does not set off seasonal allergies. It's grass pollen, and with six-foot-tall grass everywhere with ripe seed pods nodding in the breeze, I am about to pack it in with getting any sort of relief. I have gone through SIX different antihistamines, and nothing has happened. Now an air purifier whispers softly in the background, level as a chinook wind in Alberta (and I ought to know, having lived there for several years). But so far, that hasn't helped either. At least it cools off the room a bit with the air circulation. That's something, but I don't know what. Meantime, hope you enjoy this as much as the geese enjoyed eating the fluff!
Saturday, June 3, 2023
Saturday, May 27, 2023
Tina Turner - River Deep, Mountain High (1966 Phil Spector version)
A tribute to the magnificent Tina Turner. Her head was often bloodied, but unbowed. This song gives me the chills! It was her first solo single, a bold move which did not include her abusive husband Ike. This song was pioneering in that it featured the the famous Phil Spector "wall of sound", which produces ghostly echoes of the instruments and chorus. This was a way to create a stereo sound on tiny little transistor radios. The echoes were recorded, then re-recorded again and again to produce an almost impressionistic effect, a little like being underwater. And oh that voice. THAT VOICE.
Thursday, May 25, 2023
Saturday, May 20, 2023
MEGHAN at the GALA! (Creepy Old Men)
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Meghan and Harry at the Ms. Foundation Awards. It`s bizarre enough that MM gets an award for feminism, but here we see a couple of old white guys in suits with their hands all over her body. To touch a woman's body like that, particularly on bare skin, is just a bit - what? Out of line? They seem to be shepherding or herding her along, or else they just want to sneak a feel. The bottom hand is perilously close to a bum-feel. But MM seems relaxed, as if she is used to this kind of attention. Perhaps she has met these elderly gents before, in some other setting? Note that they are both wearing wedding rings.
"Fatuous, irrelevant, and no sense of purpose": it must be MEGHAN MARKLE!
Fatuous, irrelevant and no sense of purpose - what a fitting backdrop Manhattan's 'Women of Vision' made for the vapid La Markle herself! Fellow guest MAUREEN CALLAHAN's sparkling account of Meghan's word-salad gala appearance
By Maureen Callahan For DailyMail.Com
She so badly wants to be the Queen of Hearts.
But, as she arrived on Tuesday night, making her grand entrance in Midtown Manhattan, sauntering past that rental-car backdrop, it was more like the Queen of Hertz.
Of course, as the world is now all too aware, Meghan Markle capped off winning a meaningless award with what we’re told was a ‘near catastrophic’, ‘two-hour’ car chase through the streets of Manhattan.
Yes, according to a spokesperson, Meghan, along with hapless Harry and mom Doria, were the subjects of a wild, impassioned hunt by the paparazzi.
Some sympathetic commentators have already made the gruesome comparisons to Princess Diana’s tragic final fate.
But to echo the statements made by New York City’s own mayor Eric Adams and the police department: Perhaps it didn’t quite happen the way it was painted.
Recollections may vary.
Of course, as the world is now all too aware, she capped off winning a meaningless award with what we’re told was a ‘near catastrophic’, ‘two-hour’ car chase through the streets of Manhattan.
Naturally, their mouthpiece Omid Scobie is whining that no one from the Palace has yet reached out.
Wonder why?
One also wonders what Gloria Steinem, the 89-year-old feminist icon who chose to honor Meghan as a ‘Woman of Vision’ at Tuesday night’s Ms. Foundation Gala, must be thinking now.
After all, the car ‘chase’ debacle soon stole all the thunder from her event, which I was lucky enough to witness first-hand.
Now, it was hardly the red carpet one might expect. Hardly the pomp and circumstance of, say, a coronation.
Yet Meghan forged ahead as she always does, as if this were her crowning moment, sheathed in gold as if to symbolize a crown.
Or an Oscar statuette.
Same difference, really, if your only goal is fame. That’s our Meghan, none too subtle as ever, literally going for the gold as Harry and Doria took their positions three steps behind.
Harry may be a prince of the blood, but never forget — Meghan is The Star. Her Norma Desmond-ing is among the great spectacles of our modern age.
And this image, our renegade duchess without a palace-worthy advance team to prevent such cheap optics as the Hertz hiccup, set the tone for the evening: Fatuous, irrelevant, high on its own self-regard, all sense of purpose lost.
Gloria Steinem, once the face of women’s rights, reduced to star-f***ery.
It was a bizarre night.
Upon entering the Zeigfeld Ballroom, guests were asked whether they were ‘VIP’ — seems even feminist movements have their echelons — and turfed to the lobby.
My $1,500 entry-level ticket got me a hard seat with a front-row view of coat check.
After ten minutes, circumstances having changed inexplicably, the riff-raff were allowed up to the second floor.
Here were two open bars serving top-shelf liquor and the shock of post-pandemic dress code slovenliness. One unkempt guest was wearing sparkly Birkenstock sandals and a black stretchy minidress under a pink puffer jacket.
These were the VIPs?
The only recognizable person I saw was Peloton instructor Ally Love, and that’s saying something. Where were the stars? Where were the notables of the movement? The Malalas? The Fondas? The Beyoncés?
Perhaps no one was meant to outshine Meghan. Only one feminist icon was going to enter via rental car office!
Down in the ballroom, the plated salads on our banquet tables were ready waiting for us – dry, unsightly, stringy greens that resembled nothing so much as regurgitated hairballs.
Notably, not one person I spoke to nor one speaker or honoree mentioned Meghan.
Not one said how exciting it was to have her there. Not one expressed the slightest curiosity at what she’d have to say.
If anything, as the night dragged on and the event slipped an hour behind schedule – a sudden break announced so we could finally have dinner – the crowd bristled.
It says something when a table of size-6 women tear into their heavily glazed steak and buttery mashed potatoes with abandon.
Yes, the night was pure Meghan Markle: A manufactured build-up of anticipation, a highly dramatic entrance afforded no other actual activist — Meghan climbed on stage to the Alicia Keys she-ro anthem ‘Girl on Fire’ — and then... a whole lot of nothing.
Verbiage and word salad that were content-free, except when speaking on her favorite subject: herself.
Here, in real time, we observed Meghan’s inability to read a room. She thanked the ‘other honorees’ without naming them.
‘Congratulations,’ she said, ‘and frankly, well deserved.’
It was all so smug and supercilious, this glorified podcaster telling these boots-on-the-ground activists — no matter what one thinks of their politics — that they had, in fact, earned their place on the same stage as the great Meghan Markle.
The night was pure Meghan Markle: A manufactured build-up of anticipation, a highly dramatic entrance afforded no other actual activist — Meghan climbed on stage to the Alicia Keys she-ro anthem ‘Girl on Fire’ — and then... a whole lot of nothing.
Notably, not one person I spoke to nor one speaker or honoree mentioned Meghan. Not one said how exciting it was to have her there. Not one expressed the slightest curiosity at what she’d have to say.
That ‘frankly’ was so typical. It was meant to redound to Meghan’s benefit, as the lone wolf daring to speak the unspeakable.
There was the cringe-inducing humblebrag, calling her new friend Gloria ‘Glo’.
It brought to mind the forced intimacy of meeting Kate Middleton barefoot and insisting that the pair share lip gloss.
It's 'Glo' to Meghan, but Meghan is 'Duchess' to us.
‘We all bear witness,’ Meghan continued of her fellow honorees, ‘to you standing in elegance and the power of your strength.’
Huh?
This crowd was not convinced. This crowd was checking their watches. There were trains to catch, children to kiss goodnight. Alas, we were stuck with the vapidity of La Markle.
Her speech didn’t even deliver fresh content! She repeated the story, as told on her podcast, of poor little Meghan coming home from school to her TV dinner, cat collars and copies of Ms. Magazine strewn about courtesy of her mother — even though it’s well-documented that her father primarily raised her.
‘Having these pages in our home,’ she went on, ‘. . . signaled to me that there was so much more than the dolled-up covers and those images that you would see on the grocery store covers. It signaled to me that substance mattered.’
Says the former D-list actress and former briefcase game-show girl who used her looks to get ahead. Who has posed for those very same magazine covers.
This crowd was not convinced. This crowd was checking their watches. There were trains to catch, children to kiss goodnight. Alas, we were stuck with the vapidity of La Markle.
This warmed-over speech, less heated than our steaks, was Meghan’s greatest hits:
‘Change is just one action away.’
‘You can be the visionary of your own life.’
‘Daily acts of service, in kindness, in advocacy, in grace and in fairness.’
‘The imprints that were forged in my mind — I can now connect the dots in a much better way to understand how I became a young feminist and evolved into a grown activist.’
A feminist who, let us not forget, has publicly demonized her famous sister-in-law — ‘Waity Katie’ to Oprah and an audience of millions.
Kate made me cry! WAAAGH!
In truth, Meghan's a self-identified 'grown activist' who has done nothing. The pontification, her sing-song-y cadence as she luxuriated in her own praise, was as insufferable as it was revealing.
‘Ms.’ she said, ‘was formative in [my] cocooning. It piqued my curiosity, and it became the chrysalis for the woman that I would become and that I am today.’
Right: The woman who vilified the institution headed-up by Queen Elizabeth II in her final years. The woman who heavily alleged institutional racism until her husband finally backed away from that terrible smear.
A woman with no substance and no accomplishments as a feminist. A woman who is still trying to one-up the royals, even from a car-park adjacent ballroom with no red carpet.
Meghan is the personification of Ms. as an organization that has lost its way.
Indeed, most of the night was spent advocating not for women but for trans rights and Critical Race Theory.
‘Abortion is racist,’ we were told.
Beware the ‘the white supremacist patriarchal system.’
Yes, even the Ms. Foundation – established for biological women out of a deep, and enduring, necessity – has been subsumed by men who identify as women.
How fitting then that the night was overshadowed by a grasping phony whose empty platitudes on stage failed to make headlines, whose spokesperson told a wild story of a high-stakes car chase.
Pity Meghan, but recognize her strength. Admire her, but never laugh at her. And never, ever question her veracity.
Worldwide Privacy Tour Part 2, it seems, is well underway.
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