Monday, October 12, 2015

Find charity/ Vietnam vet seeking missed connection on Craigslist…40-plus years later

Oct. 5 Find charity: I was looking for a job and I found this charity:

"Find is a donor - driven social enterprise that offers quality, low cost, gently used furniture for sale to the public. Furniture is also provided to participants in Edmonton's Housing First Program. Proceeds from retail sales support programs for people transitioning out of homeless, and into permanent housing."

www.findedmonton.com 

Oct. 6 Uncles and Aunts at Large: I read about this charity in the Edmonton Journal.  I went to the website:  

"Established in 1967, Uncles & Aunts at Large was among the earliest agencies in the Edmonton area to organize mentor services for children. Through Uncles & Aunts at Large, volunteers offer companionship, mentoring and friendly support to children ages 6 to 18 from single-parent families."


Men are painting their nails:

"You might think it’s odd if one of your male work colleagues rocks up to the office with one of his nails painted blue, or if your housemate suddenly asks to borrow so of your polish, but it’s all for good cause.

It’s a symbolic gesture, to help support and raise awareness of a global movement hoping to stop violence against children."



Nick Carter on DWTS: He's from the Backstreet Boys and he's dancing on Dancing with the Stars.  They showed this interview with him and it showed his real, true self.  He talked about being from a dysfunctional family and there was a lot of fighting, and how he wished he had a movie mom and dad.  He even said: "I don't even know why I'm crying."

They showed the other guys talking about him.

AJ: Most of his friends who he grew up with are either dead or in jail.  He got into performing to not go that route.

He danced to "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" with a hip-hop routine.  I like that kind of dancing.  AJ and Joey Fatone (from Nsync) were in the audience. 


Vietnam vet seeking missed connection on Craigslist…40-plus years later:

Can you imagine being impacted by someone so beautiful and amazing to you that 43 years after meeting them for a coffee, you decide to seek them out on Craigslist? That’s exactly what one former Vietnam veteran did recently, posting an incredibly romantic, hopeful and at the same time heartbreaking message in the Missed Connections section of the website.

The posting describes a man at odds with his own existence, submerged in the guilt of knowing he dropped bombs several times on the country’s capital city Hanoi often wondering how many lives his actions had taken while also feeling conflicted about being honoured as a hero for taking those very same actions.

At one point things had gotten so dark for the man that he planned to take his own life using a Smith & Wesson Model 15 as he describes in the posting. Instead he decides to go for a walk and meets the most incredible woman in a teal ball gown with freckled shoulders that he had ever seen. On her way to a New Year’s Eve celebration, she agrees to sit down with the man for a coffee and informs him of her marriage to a man she doesn’t love. After an hour of chatting with her and opening up about his own guilt, the man leaves for the restroom only to return and realize the woman had left without leaving a note or a phone number.
“When I joined you under the balcony, you looked at me with your big green eyes, and I could tell that you'd been crying. I asked if you were okay. You said you'd been better. I asked if you'd like to have a cup of coffee. You said only if I would join you. Before I could smile, you snatched my hand and led me on a dash through Downtown Crossing and into Neisner's.”
Isn’t it incredible how a person can leave such an amazing impact on a fellow human being during a time of need? Even after going off and getting married, giving birth to a son, seeing them both sadly pass away and living out most of his adult years, this veteran’s heartfelt message gives hope to humanity. That sometimes just taking a few minutes to hear someone out can save their life and that real love stories still do exist.
 
Here’s hoping this story finds its way to the woman in the teal ball gown. Perhaps they’ll reconnect, catch up over coffee, fill each other in on the events of the last 43 years and maybe even spark what could possibly be the most unexpected, amazing, real-life love story of all time.


Yahoo comments:

Cruiser: Several characters in North York, a brother and sister of North Vietnamese decent, a female mental health care nurse decided that a lovely South Vietnamese lady of 46 yrs old ( Mai ) could not go out with a white man that she loved dearly.

 Pre-planning was done, and she was knocked down 1 minute from her work on December 18/12, suffering a fractured skull requiring 2 surgeries to stop the bleeding.

 Constantly harassed in the hospital in her recovery by the x sister in law and her friends, telling the injured woman that she was Crazy, out of her mind, and if she did not sign papers and co-operate, she'd be put in a mental institution and her children taken away.

 The mental health care nurse assaulted and seriously injured this woman for their insurance scam.

 These 2 assailants then isolated her in her home, they hired 3 North Vietnamese women to terrorize, confine, drugged this woman till she gave in and lost everything to the x family.
In 60 days, from Mai being the happiest in her life to the head injury, then unable to defend herself or seek outside help, she was Forced to live in the home of a man she did not like, want to be with, all arranged by a Professional nurse who wanted Mai's 2 daughters, power, control, money.

 All communication was lost between Mai and myself 2.5 years ago, and recently this woman wants to get a hold of me..so Mai. give me a phone call if you read this. Alan 647-521-0543

Sharp: sometimes when we are in need of help there are spirits that arrive and help us...some people call it angels / gardien angels etc. everyone has their own name for it... a lot of times we do not realize that they are with us or when they aid us but they do exist and are with every one of us.. we ourselves have an angel spirit inside us when we help others who are in need of a helping hand.. I am very happy for you that you met your angel when you needed her. she appeared in distress and by you sitting and talking with her it took you away from the negative thoughts you had and got you out of that frame of mind you were in.
 
if she did not appear to be in distress them maybe you would have passed her by and continued with your negative thoughts and did something drastic. thank you for not passing her by. she will reappear in your life when it is meant to be so enjoy your journey in life and hopefully you will meet her again.

My opinion: That's a good story.  It was inspirational.


Oct. 10 Man with special needs comforted by stranger:

A sweet photo taken in Hamilton, Ontario, has now gone viral capturing one man’s act of kindness towards a complete stranger in need. 

A post from Only in Hamilton Facebook page shows Godfrey Cuotto, a 21-year-old student from McMaster University, holding hands with a special needs passenger, named Robert, on a local bus earlier this week.

Cuotto told radio station Kiss 92.5 he was heading home from a burrito place downtown with his friends when he entered a packed bus.

Robert, who was sitting near the front of the bus, instantly grabbed Cuotto’s hand and wouldn’t let go. At first, the 21-year-old thought he was being pranked but soon realized that Robert was overwhelmed by the crowded bus. Cuotto ended up staying with Robert until the very last stop.
 
Throughout the 30-minute bus ride, the man leaned on Cuotto, hugged him and even kissed his hands, according to the Huffington Post.

“I just allowed it, like, what I am going to do?” Cuotto told the Hufffington Post. “Sometimes you just have to be selfless and put someone else’s needs above yours.”

Robert’s family contacted Cuotto through Facebook and revealed that Robert suffers from cerebral palsy and is also deaf. They thanked Cuotto for comforting their uncle during the bus ride, reports the Huffington Post.

But behind Cuotto’s act of kindness is a great mother. 
He told Kiss 92.5 he was “raised by a queen.”   


Sunday, October 4, 2015

One Life to Live/ "His mission: cultivating a Youtube for readers" (Wattpad)

May 15: Here are a few things I have written down on a piece of paper and that I was supposed to write about.  It's kind of random.  I kept it relevant with writing like TV shows and words I learned.

One Life to Live: I never watched this soap opera, but if you read how it got cancelled, then got on the web series, and then cancelled again.  Read this from Wikipedia:

One Life to Live (often abbreviated as OLTL) is an American soap opera broadcast on the ABC television network for more than 43 years, from July 15, 1968, to January 13, 2012, and then on the internet as a web series on Hulu and iTunes via The Online Network from April 29, 2013 to August 19, 2013.[2][3][4] Created by Agnes Nixon, the series was the first daytime drama to primarily feature ethnically and socioeconomically diverse characters and consistently emphasize social issues.[2] One Life to Live was expanded from 30 minutes to 45 minutes on July 26, 1976, and then to an hour on January 16, 1978.

After nearly 43 years on the air, ABC canceled One Life to Live on April 11, 2011.[7][8] On July 7, 2011, production company Prospect Park announced that it would continue the show as a web series after its run on ABC,[9] but later suspended the project.[10] The show taped its final scenes for ABC on November 18, 2011, and its final episode on the network aired on January 13, 2012 with a cliffhanger.

On January 7, 2013, Prospect Park resumed its plan to continue One Life to Live as a daily 30-minute web series on Hulu and iTunes via The Online Network.[11][12] The relaunched series premiered on April 29, 2013.[13] The new series was plagued with several behind-the-scene problems, most notably a litigation between Prospect Park and ABC regarding the misuse of One Life to Live characters on General Hospital.[14] On September 3, 2013, Prospect
Park suspended production of the series until the lawsuit with ABC was resolved.[14]

My opinion: It's like this show is on and off, and on and off.  I know Veronica Mars got cancelled, and years later it became a movie.  It's like Arrested Development got cancelled, and years later it goes on Netflix with new episodes.

I learned some words while reading: Do you know any of these words?

Apocryphal-of doubtful authorship or authenticity.

Détente-a relaxing of tension, especially between nations, as by negotiations or agreements.

Halitosis-a condition of having offensive-smelling breath; bad breath.

May 23:

Joycean- of, relating to, or characteristic of James Joyce or his work.

May 28 "His mission: cultivating a youtube for readers": I cut out this article by Shelley White in the Globe and Mail on Oct. 24, 2013.  It was in the business section of the newspaper, but it's about reading and writing too.  It mentions about how fan fiction is really big on the site.  Well you can go on the internet and type in fan fiction of whatever TV show and movie you like and read it from there.  Here's the article:

When it comes to the future of Wattpad, his innovative story-sharing site, Allen Lau isn’t thinking small. In fact, he wants Wattpad to be the next YouTube.

“When someone is looking to discover new reading content, I want them to think of Wattpad as the No. 1 destination,” says Mr. Lau, 45, of his Toronto-based website.

As it turns out, Mr. Lau is well on his way to reaching his goal. He has 19 million users in 200 countries. They spend 4.5 billion minutes a month on Wattpad, and the numbers continue to grow. The millions of stories on offer run the gamut from fan fiction and sci-fi to romance and poetry, with some of the most popular authors drawing more than 1 million views.

But Mr. Lau and his partner Ivan Yuen haven’t just created a vibrant online community, the median age of which is 18. Wattpad is disrupting the traditional publishing model and changing the way the world reads.

“People don’t just want to pick up a book and read,” Mr. Lau says. “They want to comment on the work, interact with their favourite authors, share it with others and post their own stories. Instead of a few gatekeepers choosing to accept or reject manuscripts, the public is deciding what they want to read.”

Mr. Lau’s keen insight into the future of reading originated a decade ago – before the iPhone, before Kindle – as he sought to solve a problem he faced personally.

“I’m a huge reader, and I wanted to be able to read stories on my mobile phone – a Nokia that displayed five lines of text at a time,” Mr. Lau says. “There wasn’t an easy way to do this, so I set out to build a solution myself.”

It wasn’t until several years later, in 2006, that Mr. Lau found what he was looking for. He received a message from Mr. Yuen, a former workmate living in Vancouver, who wanted feedback on a mobile reading app he was building.

Mr. Yuen had also created a website that allowed users to share and upload stories to their mobile phones easily. Mr. Lau immediately caught a plane to Vancouver to begin planning what would become Wattpad.

“Being the geek that I am, I figured if there was no solution to a problem that I faced, there must be a market opportunity,” Mr. Lau says.

YouTube had just been sold to Google for $1.65-billion, and Mr. Lau envisioned how the concept of mobile, social, user-generated content could be applied to publishing. With Wattpad, people could follow their favourite writers, share with friends and be notified every time a new chapter was added to the story they were reading.

Perhaps the most forward-thinking idea Mr. Lau had was to tailor Wattpad to mobile devices, allowing users to read and write stories whenever and wherever they like.

People don’t really read on their PC, they read on the go and they read when they want to escape into another world and be entertained,” Mr. Lau says. “Today over 85 per cent of time spent on Wattpad is coming from phones and tablets.”

Mr. Lau also bucked the notion that in this era of texting, Twitter and videogames, teens don’t read. A key part of Mr. Lau’s success was to combine reading with two things young people love: mobile phones and social media.
“We’re seeing tons of teens reading and engaging on Wattpad,” he says.

Mr. Lau says another important element of his success has been to let the site grow organically, rather than try to sell users on what’s “hot” or on-trend. “Wattpad is where trends emerge, it’s not a platform that dictates what the trends are,” he says.

As an example, the site’s fastest growing story category is fan fiction. There are 4.7 million such tales on Wattpad, based on characters from TV shows and movies such as The Vampire Diaries and The Hunger Games.
But how does the site make money? As Wattpad’s numbers continue to grow, there has been pressure to monetize.

Mr. Lau says they are experimenting with a “fan funding” program, similar to Kickstarter or Indiegogo, where readers can contribute to their favourite artist’s new work in exchange for rewards such as having a character named after them. The site also recently partnered with the publishing company Sourcebooks, which will be releasing the works of select Wattpad authors in either print or e-book format.

But Mr. Lau says he’s in no rush to attempt full-scale monetization before he feels the community is ready.

“We’ll be trying many different things before deciding on our approach,” Mr. Lau says. “But our No. 1 priority right now is continuing to grow the Wattpad community.”

“I always say that when we have a community of a billion users, there will be a million ways to make money.”

Jun. 18:
Prorogation- to discontinue a session of (the British Parliament or a similar body). 

Jul. 13 Antediluvian-
1. of or belonging to the period before the Flood. Gen. 7, 8.
2. very old, old-fashioned, or out of date; antiquated; primitive:

Aug. 12:
Riesling-1. Horticulture.
  1. a variety of grape.
  2. the vine bearing this grape, grown in Europe and California.
Synecdoche:
1. a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part, the special for the general or the general for the special, as in ten sail for ten ships or a Croesus for a rich man.
Acerbic-sour or astringent in taste:

Circumscribed-1. to draw a line around; encircle:
to circumscribe a city on a map.


“Deadly animation”/ The Imposter

 
Apr. 7 “Deadly animation”: I cut out this movie review by Liam Lacey from the Globe and Mail on Nov. 30, 2012.
 
The animated French film The Suicide Shop is, obviously, not a movie invented in a studio marketing department with a target audience in mind. This alternately macabre and twee comedy from veteran French director Patrice Leconte (The Widow of St. Pierre, Monsieur Hire, Ridicule), about a family business catering to the suicidal, is too grisly for kids, or at least their ticket-buying parents. At the same time, the bouncy musical numbers with their contorted rhymes are unlikely to be embraced by any self-respecting Goth teen.

 
The film is adapted from a 2006 black comic novel by Jean Teulé, who also co-wrote the screenplay. In a grey and brown Paris of oppressive concrete towers and rain-soaked streets, everyone, even the pigeons, is miserable. The one paradoxical ray of hope is a quaint little old-fashioned back-alley boutique known as The Suicide Shop, where the Tuvache family are delighted to help customers end their suffering.

 
The shop sells poisons, nooses, rusty razor blades, seppuku swords and other life-taking paraphernalia, aimed at every budget. For a homeless customer, it’s a simple plastic bag and a piece of tape, compliments of the house.

 
The family member’s names evoke famous historical or celebrity suicides: Dad is Mishima (Bernard Alane); Mom, Lucrèce (Isabelle Spade), their morose teenaged kids, Vincent (Laurent Gendron) and Matilyn (Isabelle Giami). Then, a third child, Alan (Kacey Mottet Klein), is produced and he’s a happy-go-lucky misfit.

 
Mishima tries to do all the wrong things – including teaching his son how to smoke – but can’t stop Alan from being a life-affirming delight to all who meet him. Alan’s influence soon starts to corrupt other members of his family. On Marilyn’s birthday, as she stares at her coffin-shaped cake, Alan presents her with a pretty scarf. Later, he and his friends ogle her as she dances naked at her window.

 
Leconte’s interest here is more about consumer satire than existential gloom, and, in a deviation from the book, he pulls out a disjointed upbeat ending for the film. Otherwise, The Suicide Shop’s interest is its visual style (I saw the 2-D version, though it runs in 3-D in theatres), with designers Florian Thouret and Régis Vidal creating antique charcoal and watercolour urban backdrops, beautifully detailed interiors and insect-like characters, elongated or squat. In a tribute to animation tradition, from Cinderella to Babe, there’s a chorus of red-eyed rodents to sing about the folly of human misery, and provide sardonic encouragement: Life, the less worse alternative.

 
 
The Imposter: I cut out this movie review by Chris Knight in the National Post on Oct. 12, 2012.  I have written about this movie before here on my blog:
 
 
Here’s the whole National Post review:

 
A boy with no future meets a man with no past in this bizarre documentary that falls deep into the hole of truth being stranger than fiction.

 
Director Bart Layton opens the story with the disappearance of 13-year-old Nicholas Barclay from his hometown of San Antonio, Tex., in 1994. Three years later, his family receives a call from Spain saying that Nicholas has been found.

 
It’s the perfect happy ending, except for the fact that it’s completely false. “Nicholas” was in fact Frédéric Bourdin, a 23-year-old French-Algerian drifter who had pretended to be a lost child.

 
Once in the Spanish welfare system, he contacted U.S. police, pretending to be a fellow cop and describing his own features. When he got a match in Nicholas, he ran with it.

 
“I wasn’t pretending any more to have another identity,” says Bourdin, who comes across as supremely creepy in current interviews. “I stole one.”

 
Although he dyed his hair and copied Nicholas’s tattoos, Bourdin couldn’t change the colour of his eyes or his French accent. Amazingly, neither of these details mattered to his sister when she went to collect him, or to his mother at home.

 
Even Bourdin couldn’t believe what was happening. “It’s like I woke up in a place where the lie is even bigger than what I did.”
 
Gamely, he continued his part in the deception, even while less credulous federal officers and a dogged private detective started tailing him, looking for details that could reveal his true identity.

 
The documentary relies too heavily (and sometimes comically) on recreations and re-enactments. When Bourdin is calling police stations in the United States, for instance, Layton cuts to clips of old TV shows, with fictional cops on the phone.

 
But the overall mood is somber, even terrifying. “What if he shows up?” Bourdin remembers thinking about the real Nicholas. “What if he opens the door and says, ‘Hey, I’m back’?”

 
The film ends on an even more outrageous note, with a lot of questions that aren’t likely to be answered any time soon. They do present a compelling theory, however, as to why a family would take in a stranger and treat him as their own. What it says about the extremes of human nature is chilling.

 

 

Herbalife scam/ The Stop: How the Fight for Good Food/ Driving with Selvi

Sept. 27 Herbalife scam: I cut out this article "Want to make thousands at home?" by Jessica Smith Ross in the Metro on Mar. 4, 2014.  This is an in-depth article.  It sure sounds like a pyramid scheme so stay away from it.  Here are some excerpts:

“Then what happens is people go ahead and put some money down to get started, but then when they’re not able to make money selling the Herbalife products they keep asking their mentor what’s going wrong,” he said.

They are encouraged to buy more Herbalife product at a greater volume to increase their profit margin. Some keep putting more money in and spend more money on training and sales aids until they eventually give up, Wilkes said.

There are approximately three million Herbalife distributors in 92 countries across North and South America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

Distributors make money two ways. The first is buying the products at a discount from the suggested retail price and re-selling them at a profit.

The second is payments from the company, which include cuts from the sales of the people they recruit to become Herbalife distributors, and the people they in turn recruit, and so on, who are collectively called their “downline.” The company also issues bonuses and all-expenses paid vacations to certain distributors with high-performing downlines.

When he thought I was going to spend $4,000 on Herbalife products to reach the supervisor level, Rojas had promised to make Herbalife work for me — to put all his time into making sure I sold the products I bought and helping me start a Herbalife downline organization of my own. To his credit, he never forced or bullied me to sign up or to spend excessive money up front, he only made a compelling and convincing pitch that it was a good idea that would help me get rich.

When I showed him the numbers on how rarely that happens in Herbalife, he said he wasn’t really aware of them and made an argument that numbers can convince anyone of anything in the world, but don’t necessarily represent the truth.

Rojas acknowledged his own success hasn’t been as great as he hoped, only as great as he’s worked. However, he also said he works incredibly hard and is devoted to the company, something I’d witnessed first hand.


Man buys ring for dead girlfriend: It's bittersweet.  A man finds out his girlfriend unexpectedly die, and he buys a ring for her and says they're engaged.  Here's an excerpt:

With fate choosing otherwise, he went ahead and purchased the ring and shared a final moment with her, "which I was so grateful for."

"She is my life," he wrote. "Words can not express the love that I have for her, she was the reason I would wake up in the morning."

"Everything we did felt real, she would always be there with a smile on her face, and she could never do enough for me," he continued.

"There was no reason for Abbie to leave us. She had everything to live for."


Sept. 29:

"Newspaper publishes list of the country's '200 top' gays":  I read in the Metro on Feb. 26, 2014 about this.  Pepe Julian Onziema who is Ugandan gay activist says that the people on the list are scared and wants to leave the country.

Islamic militants attack Nigeria school: I read in the Metro on Feb. 26, 2014 about this.  They killed all the teen boys and men.  58 people were killed.  However, they spared the females by telling them to go home, get married, and abandon the Western education.

My opinion: It was kind of mixed.  It's bad that the men were killed, but at least the women survived.

"Bear necessitates": I read in the Metro on Sept. 22,2014 that 800 stuffed animals were donated to the Edmonton Victim Services Unit.  It is for traumatized children working with city police.  You can also donate to the Bissel Centre, Catholic Social Services, and Ronald McDonald House.

"To serve pizza and protect delivery?": I cut out this article in Metro on Sept. 24, 2014.  A pizza delivery driver got into a car accident so the police finished the delivery.

"Steve Huckings tells KOIN that he and his wife were concerned Sept. 1 when the officers Michael Filbert and Royce Curtiss, showed up at their home, but they started laughing when they received the pizza."

Oct. 1 "'Sexist' baby pyjamas miss the Target": I was reading this in the Metro on Oct. 1, 2014.  For boys, there is the Superman logo and the phrase "Man of Steel."  For girls it says: "I only date heroes."

Aimee Morrison, an associate professor of English at the University of Waterloo: "Even for tiny babies, we seem to think of girls as gaining power and worth from whom they're romantically linked to and boys get to become agents of action in their own right." 

"Trying on a new minimum wage": I cut out this article by Jodie Sinnema about the new min. wage is now $11.20/hr starting today.  Liquor servers and waiters are now getting paid $10.50/hr because of tips.

The article profiled Carly Miller who's 18 yrs old and works in retail.  She "has intellectual and developmental delays and needs rote work with some oversight, but loves fashion and complimenting people on their outfits."


"Let's make Poverty an Issue": There was an in the Edmonton Journal today about the food bank usage.  They already published these stats earlier in the newspaper.  19% of children, like 1 in 5 live in poverty in Canada.

The Stop: How the Fight for Good Food Transformed a Community and Inspired a Movement:

Also in the Edmonton Journal today, there was a letter by Evelyn Doberstein and she mentioned this book.

I looked it up on Amazon and it lead to this review:

Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase 
  
The Stop describes key steps along a 14-year unfolding of an effort to feed hungry people in Toronto. Starting from a ratty (literally) small food bank that handed out any cast-off food given to it, The Stop gradually grows into a place where community is cultivated along with fresh food, where people learn to cook and to advocate for their interests, where food in myriad ways supports individual and community well-being.

The perspective on food banks as well-meaning but captive pawns in mega-corporate food industries' profit and public relations schemes was a new one for me, and sobering. The Stop has continued to straddle the worlds of food banks and community development, in some novel ways.

Food can be the basis for so much good. This book helped me see some options our community can consider for growing a food system that benefits all of us.


Oct. 3 Driving with Selvi: I was reading the article "A world of stories at EIFF" by Fish Griwkowsky on Oct. 3, 2015.  I found this film description interesting:

 

Directed by: Elisa Paloschi

Showing: Saturday, Oct. 3 at 4 p.m.

Opening with the shocking statistic that 250 million girls are currently married under the age of 15 — one-third of them in India — Driving with Selvi is an intimate personal documentary that takes on big issues. With footage going back 10 years, the cameras follow charming Selvi, who pondered killing herself rather than stay in an abusive, literally torturous marriage, where her husband pimped her out and her brother called her a whore. Instead, Selvi chose to live, ending up in a residence that empowered her to get her driver’s licence and become South India’s first female taxi driver.

This sets the story in the present, and from here we follow Selvi as she struggle to find a space for herself between leading health seminars for other women and the “responsibility” to make a family of her own, which ironically yet predictably leads her back into rupee-counting poverty. An all-access portrait into workaday India, this film will make you appreciate both what you do have and maybe what you don’t.