Now THIS...is a COOL Flashmob.

Flashmobs are becoming extremely popular around the world. Usually it's a form of artistic impression and spontaneous performance. Most are the usual popular music tunes but even the classical music world has started putting out these kinds of spontaneous productions. I especially love the baroque music "flash-mobs" - call it a "random act of culture".

Evidently a choir in Ontario put on a flash mob of Handel's Hallelujah Chorus from the oratorio "The Messiah" in a food court.

Meanwhile, over in Great Britain, the Morrison's grocery store...got a flash mob, courtesy of Classic FM (a British Classical Music radio station) who assembled a group of professional musicians to play one of the most famous Handel Coronation Anthems "Zadok The Priest"

Having performed the "Hallelujah Chorus" and "Zadok The Priest" before - I wouldn't be able to resist joining in...

I wish there were more "flashmobs" like this in Vancouver.

I Am A Baroque Music Snob (And Damned Proud Of It)

Yes, the title proclaims it loudly. I AM a baroque music snob. There aren't many pieces that I like after the years 1750. It is one of the most ornate and ornamented of music. The musical offerings of Bach, Handel, Philippe Rameau, Telemann and others are beautiful beyond measure and that period of music appeals to me like no other.

The vocal stylings of Handel's Il Trionfe Del Tempo e Del Disinganno is the epitome of baroque opera.

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Or any arias like Handel's Rodelinda and it's hauntingly beautiful aria

Modern music pales when it comes to matching this. People scream over the Beatles, but the banal "He loves you, yeah yeah yeah..." doesn't compare to Handel's poetic "Return oh dear, my sweet darling, to give comfort and hope to this heart!"

Neither does Motley Crue's "Don't go away mad, just go away." compare to the poetic outrage of "Semplicetto a donna credi!" the Italian equivalent of "faithless woman, piss off! I won't be deceived yet again..." from Handel's Alcina

As far as I'm concerned, music died a screaming agonizing death in the 1900s. Baroque Music was the epitome of music and frankly my opinion (as small as it is) is that music all went downhill after that.

EBOLA...Watch it now...Watch it now!!!

This post isn't politically correct. Nor will I say I'm sorry for it. The CDC and the Obama administration is playing fast and loose with people's lives. That's right. Ebola is in North America. Why? Because nobody paid attention when Thomas Eric Duncan (otherwise known as Patient Zero) got on a plane and came to the United States. But that was because he wasn't symptomatic (showing signs of a fever or vomiting) when he got on the plane but became symptomatic after he reached the United States. But travel inspectors were asleep at the wheel when they didn't bother questioning him about why he was in Liberia. Now we have the CDC not advising a nurse who fell ill after treating Patient Zero flying on a US airline after showing signs of a low-grade fever. Now everybody on that flight is potentially at risk. Is everybody fucking stupid?

The Black Plague is now thought of as a virus plague (much like Ebola) ravaged Europe. The only reason why it didn't jump to North America and decimate the Indians is because it took three months to sail the ocean back then. Now Ebola is only a plane-ride away (not even a day) to reach North American shores.

The CDC keeps hammering the fact that Ebola is non-transmittable by air - that transmission is only possible with contact with the waste and bodily fluids of those who are ill with the virus. I call bullshit on this one. It takes just one mutation to airborne transmission and the rest of us are susceptible to the disease. Ebola will circle the globe if that happens and wipe out a significant percentage of the world's population.

Frankly if someone can be charged with the reckless endangerment of another while driving a vehicle. I think the CDC brass can be charged with attempted murder if there is an outbreak. Because while they are pandering to the uneducated masses about the fact that "there's no danger" of transmission unless you come in contact with bodily fluids of the patient - meanwhile the virus is mutating. If there is an outbreak (and we're seeing the start of one with two people ill from this virus (both nurses) who treated Thomas Eric Duncan) in North America; heads should roll in CDC and criminal charges should be placed against the head of CDC who said that there isn't any danger.

I feel sorry for those who are on the front line in this - the service providers (health care workers) and those who are in constant contact with the public if a pandemic breaks out. The sheer panic of not knowing who is infected or not (21 day incubation period) will cause a lot of psychological wear and tear on an individual. Anyone with a fever coming in for medication will be suspected. Anybody who has stomach pains. And all this because the current administration in the United States didn't see fit to seal the North American borders (nobody in or out - shoot anyone that tries to breach the borders) the second that they knew that Ebola was active on the African continent.

I'd hope Canada would be smarter, but with Harper in government - I'd say Canada's government is just as brutally incompetent as the United States'.

Time To Think About Healthier Living

5.5 hrs of sleep and insomnia kicks in again. Not a good thing. This insomnia has been kicking my ass the past few weeks. Been doing what I can to rest through yet another cold and yet another throat infection. Two days through yet another 10 day round of Biaxin. I really need to give my immune system a kick. Been doing a bit of research on the internet on healthy vitamins and natural supplements to help boost my immune system so that I can fight this thing off next time without the bnefit of anti-biotics. Constant taking of antibiotics probably isn't the healthiest thing for me. I take it my diet probably isn't the best thing for me right now either considering the past few weeks, has been mostly fried food.

Have to ask my wife if we can pick up some bananas and other fruits. I want to start eating healthy so that I have a fighting chance of seeing sixty let alone my dad's seventy-five before he passed away from a heart-attack.

I need to start walking again. With the Impala sitting out in the driveway, it's all too easy to get in the habit of pulling the vehicle out to go places. We bought it for a) groceries, b) shuttling our daughter to daycare, and c) my business - which requires me to go to all sorts of places normally not accessible by transit.

So what I will do is research more what I have to do to get back into shape and try and do that, slowly and surely so that I can last for a few more years or hopefully decades.

OMG The Japanese Are Gonna Get Marines.

Yeah, that's right. The Japanese are going to get Marines. Their very own Japanese Self-Defense Marine Corps although I don't know if that's exactly what they'll call it - Nihon no Jieitai umi heitai. Who the fuck knows. All I know is that there's an article in the Defense News that says Japan To Create Amphibious Force Modeled After US Marine Corps. Well, y'know. If they're going to go all the way, since they've been in bed with the United States for damned near since the end of WWII and sucking each other's "privates". They might as well go all the way.

Why not just copy the entire rank structure of the US Marine Corps (restricting it to the enlisted structure in JMSDF) but using US Marine Corps style insignia. How's that for a waste of money for uniforms etc. But of course, the Marines have to have their own "esprit de corps" or in Japanese "danketsu kokoro" much like their United States counterpart. And frankly what are they going to use as their mascot? Instead of the tough USMC bulldog. May I make a humble suggestion? Use Hello Kitty.

And to start, here's a few insignia they might think about using, just like the copyrats in the Philippines. No need to pay me for the time and effort used to create this, Japan. The amusement I'm finding in the attempt to even come close to the almost 300 years of history that the USMC has, has me in stitches. Thanks Japan, that's payment enough.

The Japanese Self Defense Marine Corps Insignia hat device. Silver & Gold for officers; straight gold for enlisted.

The Japanese Self Defense Marine Corps Insignia hat device - subdued for camo utilities

The JSDMC Gunnery Sergeant or otherwise known in Japanese as Hōjutsu gunsō - the collar devices for utility uniforms (camo, Class B khakis) - the JSDMC has to have a distinct uniform much like the USMC. Might as well copy the United States Marine Corps then. Hey, the Filipinos did.

The crimson and gold for dress uniforms. Hell it wouldn't even really be a far stretch, The Japanese have copied the USAF, US Army and the US Navy for their uniforms substituting the sakura for the eagle and stars on their rank devices.

JSDMC Cover

JSDMC Officer's Tunic (complete with ribbons)

JSDMC Major's Officer Tabs

The more logical method is to just take the existing JGSDF insignia and make it Marine Corps so that they have some connection to the rest of the Self Defense Forces. There would be two OR-8s as in the USMC O7 O8 O9 - distinctly set for staff and regular officers

The three top senior enlisted ranks in the Japanese Self-Defense Marine Corps - OR-8 Line, OR-8 Staff, OR-9 Master Gunnery Sergeant of the Japanese Self-Defense Marine Corps.

Likewise, the collar insignia for fatigues and for Class C khakis

Enlisted Tunic - Japanese Self Defense Marine Corps.

Japanese Self-Defense Marine Corps 8 sided Utility Cover like the USMC except in Jieitai pattern.

Gotta say the idea has some merit (in having a Marine Corps in Japan), but the thought of a distinct fighting force outside of their usual JGSDF, JASDF and JMSDF kind of makes me collapse in laughter.

"In Canada" from two Canadian icons - the Hadfield Brothers.

God Bless the Hadfield Brothers: astronaut, former Royal Canadian Air Force pilot and musician Chris Hadfield and his equally musically talented brother David.

Make no mistake, I love my country. I just hate the politicians who run it. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Canadian who believes in Canadian sovereignty from Confederation unto eternity.

A lyric from the song "I'll stay out of your face, if you'll stay out of mine". Something the United States needs to understand.

This Is Not The Canada I Grew Up In

This is not the Canada that I was born in.

The Canada I remember, was one of Pierre Elliot Trudeau. The very same who stated: “We must now establish the basic principles, the basic values and beliefs which hold us together as Canadians so that beyond our regional loyalties there is a way of life and a system of values which make us proud of the country that has given us such freedom and such immeasurable joy.” when he signed the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms in 1981. Back then we were so proud that we had a Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms to aspire to. That at the very age of eleven, I looked on believing Canada to be the land of the just and upholder of human decency. We were proud of being Canadians; the first to put together such a proclaimed charter that the Queen herself had given Royal Assent and personally signed in a ceremony on Parliament Hill. We truly believed that Canada was at the forefront of civilized nations.

Yet…here I stand not 33 years later angered and bitter at the fact that Canada, under Prime Minister Stephen Harper has signed away those very rights and freedoms that were enshrined to us under the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms by passing an omnibus bill that contained a United States law called the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). That over 1 million Canadians with clinging US indicies were painted as US persons – as delinquent US taxpayers no matter how long they were living in Canada or whether they were born in Canada. With that flourish of a pen and with the passing of the vote in which not one governing party MP deigned to vote against, Canada surrendered its sovereignty to the United States. For such is the foul taint of United States citizenship that anyone who is even the slightest bit connected to any person with clinging US indicies in question is labelled a US person (of interest) to the Internal Revenue Service; even if they were born in Canada, had never set a foot on American soil and has never even thought about taking out US citizenship.

The United States confers US personhood upon each and every single one of them if one of their parents was a United States citizen having spent the requisite amount of time state-side.  These are not tax cheats, they are law-abiding Canadian citizens who pay taxes to Canada who have cast off the US citizenship that fetters them in the past by committing a renouncing act and thought themselves free of the burden only to be told by the United States that they were United States citizens all along regardless of what they did.  With the constant movement of the taxation goal-posts, is there truly any way for a former US citizen to be truly free of the United States?  The United States citizenship is mistakenly thought to be so exceptional that Canadian citizens who are mentally disabled are held hostage by the United States government if they had an American parent, regardless of where they were born.  Those affected in such a way can be truly thought of as tax-hostages to the United States.  They cannot renounce their unwanted US citizenship at all because according to the Department of State, they must understand the reasons for giving up their citizenship and that no-one may renounce on their behalf.  This is a violation of human rights in its most flagrant form.   The only reason for this is the US government wishes to get its hands into the disability trusts that the Canadian government establishes to support their most vulnerable citizens.  And when that fact was pointed out, the Conservative members of parliament stooped so low as to heckle and deride the member of parliament of the NDP who was stating that fact and was calling the government out that they were making a pact with a group of organized criminals: the United States Government; a government who holds themselves above international law, under the guise of "world savior". 




I stand here today a jaded 44 year old who trusts his government much less than that innocent 11 year old of years past. Knowing just how much his government has betrayed his family and his loved ones has brought him to that point. My ancestors were interned in Slocan during WWII, Japanese-Canadians born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia when the Japanese of their father’s homeland bombed Pearl Harbor. Mackenzie King was the architect of that internment and violation of Human Rights. He was also a Liberal, which made me swear that I would never vote Liberal for the rest of my life. The only party that stood up to his violation was the CCF (Co-Operative Commonwealth Federation). The Progressive Conservatives righted the Liberal wrong by making restitution to the Japanese-Canadians for forcibly being removed from their homes and their possessions taken and sold. And that was what prompted me to support the Progressive Conservatives when I began to vote. I am a Canadian citizen first and foremost and only a Canadian citizen.  We have become, from a nation that created a great fighting force against the forces of tyranny and freedom during the Second World War to a nation of apathy, that takes its freedoms for granted and doesn't spare a thought that these freedoms could be taken away with the stroke of a pen.   I realize now that government is for sale to the highest bidder with the betrayal of Canadians to the United States.  That we, as Canadians, if we are not to see our sovereign nation’s rights ceded to a foreign nation, we must stand on guard and protect our sovereignty, under arms if we must.

The blatant subornation of a certain segment of population by the Progressive Conservative government should not pass without reprisal. The US government has labelled those with clinging US indices tax cheats and have thrown the full weight of the IRS at those who they claim “flout their laws” and the Canadian government is a willing accomplice. The Canadian government should be brought to task for the criminalization of the segment of Canadians and all Canadians should be outraged that their citizenship and our nation’s sovereignty should be valued so cheaply. This law does not affect just those with clinging US person-hood, but it affects all of us. We will be forced to pay out of pocket for the rising costs of the bank compliance through higher fees, intrusive interrogation when opening a bank account that normally would be cause for a Human Rights complaint, but because of a flourish of a pen, is made legal to ask. One by one our rights are being eroded and instead of being enraged for the further erosion of this once-great country, we are complying with a whimper. Trudeau would ask about the location of our spine.

The acts of our government would indicate that we have none.

For more information: Contact: Isaac Brock Society
Maple Sandbox
and donate to the following Charter Challenge: at adcs-adsc.ca (Alliance for the Defence of Canadian Sovereignty)

Our freedoms and human rights are at stake