Ouch. Canadian politics are a scary joke.
Sleeping Betty
A short film by Canadian animator Claude Cloutier.
From the website of the film:
In a sumptuous palace in the basement of a house in a Montreal working-class neighbourhood, Princess Betty sleeps in a narcoleptic stupor. The king is at her bedside. He appeals to Uncle Henri VIII, Aunt Victoria, an emotional alien, a cool witch and, why not, a handsome prince! This worthy Prince Charles lookalike has to leave his royal suburb, confront a Canadian dragon and brave a surreal set of road rules in order to save the princess. But will Betty be wakened with just a kiss?
Sleeping Betty is the Perrault classic done with Claude Cloutier’s sharp pen. His detailed drawings in Indian ink conjure up caricature and Victorian engravings in a disjointed, anachronistic and playful setting.
RMR: Rick’s Rant - Region against Region
If you’re not from the prairie, you can’t know my soul,
You don’t know our blizzards, you’ve not fought our cold.
You can’t know my mind, nor ever my heart,
Unless deep within you, there’s somehow a part…
A part of these things that I’ve said that I know,
The wind, sky and earth, the storms and the snow.
Best say you have - and then we’ll be one,
For we will have shared that same blazing sun.
You don’t know our blizzards, you’ve not fought our cold.
You can’t know my mind, nor ever my heart,
Unless deep within you, there’s somehow a part…
A part of these things that I’ve said that I know,
The wind, sky and earth, the storms and the snow.
Best say you have - and then we’ll be one,
For we will have shared that same blazing sun.
— David Bouchard, If you’re not from the prairie…
RMR: Rick’s Rant for March 17, 2010 - Double Standard
Grizzly Bears Move into Polar Bear Territory, Threatening Polar Cubs
Two of the world’s largest land carnivores are converging on the same territory, according to data recently published in Canadian Field Naturalist. Grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis) are moving into an area that has long been considered prime polar bear habitat in Manitoba, Canada. Although polar bears (Ursus maritimus) are bigger than their grizzly relatives—they are the world’s largest land carnivores—biologists are concerned that grizzlies will kill polar cubs, further threatening the polar bear, which is already thought to be imperiled by ice loss in the Arctic.
Before the sightings, researchers had assumed that grizzlies would be unable to pass the barren landscape north of the Hudson Bay. But now that they have passed that gap, they are in an area sporting caribou, moose, fish, and berries.
“We don’t yet know if they are wandering or staying—the proof will come from an observed den or cubs—these animals will eventually be residents of this national park,” says Rockwell. “The Cree elders we talked to feel that now that grizzly bears have found this food source they will be staying.”
RMR: The Harper Method
Immense Quietude
Copyright © 2009 Gaëtan Bourque
La Vallée des Fantômes, Parc National des Monts-Valins, Québec, Canada
I tried to choose something a little more seasonally correct than what I’ve been posting lately. I was winter-camping/snowshoeing all weekend, and the snow-laden spruces are reminiscent of my wonderful excursion.
