Oscar Is Becoming Ridiculous

I usually do not follow the Oscars especially now that I have no TV but it automatically gets followed because at the time it becomes all the newspapers and Internet web-site's headline. The most stupid thing that caught my eyes this year was selection of the dumb and ridiculous movie named Argo as the best picture! Hollywood is getting further and further from its good days on daily basis. The days that excellent movies such as Alien, Total Recall, JFK, Goodfellas, etc were being made seem so far. Nowadays are the days of stupid time-wasting movies like Argo! What a meaningless joke and Ben Affleck what a phony!

I wrote about the movie shortly after I watched it and that was mainly because I live in Tehran for years. I remember those days vaguely but what I know is what was shown in the movie is miles and miles away from the facts. Besides the movie has no are presented in it. Not a significant role, not a very impressive direction, the story sucks and lacks any excitement and cinematography is something around average as someone is filming using a handy-cam!

So why this film is being given the main award could be sending a renewal message to the Americans and the World that Iran and Iranians did that and they are evil and what we have been saying in the last 30 and more year is correct. We have restrict Iran. We have to confine Iran. We have to condemn Iran and in general we have to do everything negative to Iran!

(Photo: This picture taken shortly after the invasion of the university students shows the American diplomats and employees in the US Embassy in Tehran)

Inglewood Bird Sanctuary

We had a chance to see Inglewood Bird Sanctuary today shortly before noon. It is a quite place at the far end side of Downtown Calgary. There is no admission but as usual donations are welcomed. It's basically a park like others which at different seasons become the home of different birds. So basically all of the birds that you might see at the other corners of the city, could be seen here as well: Canada Goose, different types of Ducks, Raven, you name it. But there are other types that the Sanctuary claims that could be seen there, depending on the months you are going but we only saw 3 and one of them on different occasions got to close and that was Black-capped Chickadee. The other two were far up and I couldn't tell what they were.

Anyways we will go again when it will all be green to see if we can find any other species. F. F. tried to get one of the tiny beautiful birds on her palm by extending her arm! The little birdy sat on her palm for a second and that I think was because it expected to find food there but there was nothing! I bet if she had something, the bird would stay longer! I tried to get a shot but it happened as I said in a second!

The weather was not bad but as usual the wind was blowing in to our ears. It's a nice place to spend an hour or more specially if you like photography and nature and own a good telephoto lens.

(Photo: The little beautiful Black-capped Chickadee sat on a branch for a sec. and I quickly took this shot)

The Very Long and Chilly Winter

I still go for my jogging whenever I got a chance but not very regularly. This winter for reasons unknown feels longer and much colder. I had a good jog by Bow River today which took more than 22 min. but yesterday when I went to Nose Hill, it was so windy, foggy and cold that just after going up I walked a bit and headed down right after that. May be it feels longer and colder simply because I have other struggles at life and F. F. nags about the weather too! But I think it's more than that. May be I'm getting older! I have to keep up the exercises or I will be overweight and sick. I started putting on a new pair of pants which is not really comfortable. I actually wear that now because it reminds me of my size and forces me to watch I eat more than ever. For someone like me who spend between 5 and 6 hours at the desk most of the days of a week, a planned and regular exercise is a must. It was not bad going to Talisman every other day but the cost is too high: Gasoline, membership, time on the road, etc. No I simply go to one of the parks of paths and run and soon I will be adding other movements too. You have to use the best of it with the minimum cost possible.

(Photo: I took a shot of this nest when was walking back down the hills of Nose Hill yesterday. Here it is calm and cool because this little number of trees are in a valley-like passage but up the it was so windy and cold!)

In Unity There Is Strength

I was reading this part of the study material for the N. P. P. E. and in the Labour Law chapter, I came across this short story of a Wal-Mart which was going to be unionized and never became!

Apparently what happened was a local union tried to be the Wal-Mart employee's representative and the company immediately announce its closure. This happened in a town in Ontario. While it is against the law for the owner(s) of a business to shut down the operations in case the employees attempt to associate, the company denied any relation between the decsion and the union's representation, claimed poor market and not being profitable! Who believes this bullshit!? I never do! If Wal-Mart does not exist in Canada, a huge population of this country would go hungry and naked! How could a Wal-Mart be not profitable!? These days everywhere you go there is a Wal-Mart, even small towns! These guys sell everything and most of the the cheapest you can get in Canada and many of them the lowest quality. But hey that works for majority of people and they can live their lives. So don't give me this crap that the store was not having a good business!

The strange thing is as soon as the union guys see that happened, they all freaked out and stop their representation at the other locations. The problem with these guys is that they are not working together. What kind of silly union it is that they are afraid of a store closure! Why would you call yourselves a union while there's no unity in between you!? If all of the unions in one province get together and all in one specific day start the process of representation of the Wal-Mart stores all in the province what can the company do!? Close all the stores and go out of business?! There are so much more behind this Wal-Mart story like other big companies but that does not mean that they are untouchable. I have rarely seen any unity between the people of Canada since I moved here. One good example though was the fight with HST in B. C. but I guess they had a good leader. May be lack of leadership is what the unions are suffering the most.

Poor Judgement and Insufficient Punishment

There was this in the news again a week or so ago about people of East Indian, more specifically Punjabis, have caused a domestic issue again. The problem was an old man who had beaten his niece with the help of his kids simply because the girl had refused an arranged marriage. This sort of marriage is very popular in countries like India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and so.

The funny part is the way this family, especially the beater was treated by the advanced judgment system of Canada. The judge sentence the old man to 90 days in jail and then being educated in gender equality! This was funnier than many jokes that I had heard when I read it!

How can you educate somebody at age of 60 and over on such a difficult topic as gender equality!? It appears that this old pad is a leader in his community meaning that many people in his family can not even drink a glass of water without his permission, that's what leadership means in a Punjabi community and the judge think he can be educated at this age to forget what had been told to him for decades and generation and generation. The jail part is not actually bad and I believe the guy will dislike every minute of it but will there be any change in him after he is released? I doubt that.

The fact is Canada loves these guys. These are the people who actually run big parts of Canadian economy by performing any job assigned to them with minimum wage. So the judge should be careful not to harm the big companies by making their workers unable to work for a long time!

(Photo: The Punjabi old man after leaving a Calgary court when he was sentenced to 90 days in prison and reeducated in gender equality(!))

McDonald's Baked Pie

One of the issues here with the food industry is the amount of crap, sorry, chemicals, preservatives, artificial flavours and so on that the producers put in the food. It affects everything from fruit and vegetable to packed snacks and meat or poultry.

May items go passed their expiry date and still do not have much difference. However I noticed something last week that it came as a surprise to me. I was at a McDonald's for a coffee and got myself a baked pie as well. They come 2 for $1.29 but I only got one because I really do not like them. I just wanted to try this new flavor chocolate-raspberry. Anyways I got one and looked at the label on the cartoon: Good until 04:04 PM today! It was really shocked! How could it be good only for the next 3 hours!? Is that preservative and all other harmful stuff-free or what?

(Photo: Hot baked pie is available at McDonald's a pair for $1.29 and it's McDonald's food!)