Our planet has been orbiting as is it's custom. It's the only planetary orbit that I am familiar with.


In the afternoon of the revolution immediately before this one — yesterday to be precise — we attended an anti-proroguing rally in Centennial Park, Victoria BC — just one of dozens of rallies across the country.














I've finished making an addition to my website, a gallery of the paintings I did in 2009.

Catch you later in the week.

Here's a fine poem by John Wise:

god long gone or never was
only life and endlessness
no reprisal or reward
to suffer or to claim

whatever else there is
than meets the eye and ear
eludes all libraries and laws

parents embrace children
friends converse and fall silent
lovers laugh in amazement

the primordial extends to the furthest outpost

© John Wise 2010

As I have been either too busy or indisposed there hasn't been a new billblog post for some time. Therefore, with permission the billblog reprints an email sent by my amigo, Len Deddo, to Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines of Miami, Florida, a Norwegian-American company. Len's email is self explanatory.



Dear Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines

see link http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/01/18-4

News story reads as follows: "Cruise Ships Still Find a Haitian Berth Luxury liners are still docking at private beaches near Haiti's devastated earthquake zone for holidaymakers to enjoy the water..."

I have read the new story today in amazement. I cannot express how I feel as the images of tourists sun-bathing on Haiti's beaches amid the massive disaster that has stricken Haiti impinge upon my mind. How can a company be so amazingly inappropriate? And what kind of sick person would consider a VACATION to such a place is beyond my thinking. You indicate that all the proceeds are to be given to help the people of haiti. You mean all the money that the tourists have paid you for their vacation? where are your contributions? I expect you to use your many ships to help deliver aid - food water, supplies. perhaps take haitians on board and evacuate them, feed them, care for them. but taking tourists to sun bath and sip cocktails and play water sports? I was planning a trip to Jamaica this year with my family. I will NOT be using your cruse lines. Nor will I ever. I cannot believe this is going on.

Certainly you need to do something, but this is not it.

Stunned in Seattle,
Leonard Deddo

Canadians are pissed about the blow to sacred democracy by the forces of manipulative government. It's a mighty suspicious time to prorogue Parliament, eh.

The affront to democracy is this: PM Harper cancelled Parliament because it was inconvenient. Why was it inconvenient? It was inconvenient because there was a clear and present danger that a House of Commons committee would find that Civil Servant Higher-Ups, and maybe even McKay, Harper and the odd General, knew that Afghan detainees were being knowingly transferred into truly torturous conditions. Even knowing about this kind of thing and doing nothing about it creates liability for prosecution as a war crime. At the very least, the investigation and media focus would cause Harper, Inc. to look unseemly in the eyes of the world when they focus in our pristine land for the Winter Olympics.

Governments do things that aren't right. We all known that is true even though we don't know the details. It's a given. We extrapolate from the world we do know and conclude it to be true. Governments deny that they do nasty, rotten things. They arrange what the spy novels call "plausible deniability". When plausible deniability breaks down, what then? What if it breaks down over something deadly serious, like the question of Canada's complicity in the torture of Afghan citizens?

PM Harper's solution to this problem is to prorogue Parliament, even though it means throwing out dozens of Conservative bills and initiatives. And what of that annoying Afghan detainee inquiry? It gets tossed — one of many government processes, lost in the trash can of Big Government. So sad.

The given reason for the prorogue? To contemplate and to work on the economy. Oh jeez.

I risk messing with my readers' loyalty by reverting to youtube one more time so early in the year, but really, if you haven't yet seen Richard Colvin's testimony, see it below. Remind yourself that subsequently Mr. Colvin was seriously slagged by Harper, McKay and other Higher-Up's. Mr. Richard Colvin. Whistle blower.

That was before Harper, Inc. got into the escape pod and pressed the "Prorogue Now" button. PM Harper knows that made us mad and bruised our fine democratic sensibilities, but he won't care so long as we forget Colvin and the Afghan detainees.

While yelling at the Government about its bashing of democracy, let's resolve to keep yelling about the bashing of Afghan detainees. What is worse for democracy, to have a premature eradication of a session of Parliament or to wonder if we have war criminals hiding in Ottawa?

What is worse for an Afghan detainee, to have a crime against him hidden or revealed?

Okay, posting a youtube vid is a cheap way to write a blog. I get it. But check this one out anyway.

This, the first blog post of 2010, is a story to inspire you. Let's face it, we need inspiration because it's getting pretty weird out there. With that in mind, let me introduce you to Dave Woytuck of Kelowna BC. Dave is a longtime friend and a superb artist. His art is of real things. You can tell right away what his works are about. In short, he does "cats, dogs and homo sapiens" — his tongue in cheek phrase by the way, I wish I'd come up with it.

Dave was born in 1959 in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. Both parents were immigrants to Canada, his mother from Poland and his father from the Ukraine. He has one sibling, a brother.

As with many artists, Dave doodled a lot at school, once even getting a desk thrown at him by a teacher because of it. In search of an art education, Dave enrolled in a correspondence course from an outfit in Minneapolis — he was twelve years old at the time. That's initiative. Unfortunately high school and community did little nourish Dave's artistic interest and obvious talent.

After high school, Dave got married. With a wife and three children to provide for, he made a living for ten years as a heavy equipment operator as did his father and his brother. (Incidentally my father went to high school in North Battleford, about four decades earlier.)

Dave began learning lettering and sign-painting. A move to Dawson Creek BC furthered his skills through a college course in visual, graphic and communication art.

Despite skill and education, it was difficult to earn a living with old school art skills in a period in which graphic art was moving over onto computers. The lean years for Dave and his family continued. Dave and I met and became friends in Dawson Creek — neighbours. It was 1991-2. Eons ago.

After moving south to Kelowna BC life became extremely difficult. Not only were earning opportunities minimal, but Dave's marriage ended and his children grew up and left home.

To top that off Dave became seriously ill — deathly ill in fact.

Working in poorly ventilated sign shops had induced emphysema though Dave was still in his thirties. A genetic disorder amplified the effects of emphysema. One doctor gave him two to ten years to live. At the age of thirty-two Dave was diagnosed with an inherited blood disorder, alpha one antirypsin defficiency — which caused the emphysema. Dave remarked to me, "My lungs were toast. Every career I had was brutal on my lungs."

I'd known Dave and his fine family during his Dawson Creek period. We reconnected during this devastating phase of radical physical deterioration since we lived then a couple of hours away in Kamloops BC. I watched Dave disappear into skin and bones before my eyes. It was a dramatic, scary deterioration.


Dave finally has oxygen.

Before qualifying for oxygen, Dave became so wasted that he could barely dress himself. On one visit I saw him go to the washroom and return completely out of breath and exhausted. Prior to his lungs rapid, radical deterioration, Dave was trying to establish a business as a caricature artist at a local amusement park or at regional fairs in BC. He gave that up once he didn't have the strength to carry a folding table and chair to work on. You get the picture. No fun at all for a relatively young man.

Dave was on oxygen for six years before qualifying for a double lung transplant. The last three years were characterized by isolation, few friends, poverty and extreme debilitation. After fourteen months on the waiting list, he got the urgent message to be ready for transport to Vancouver. That was June28, 2003, approximately a month before the big fire in Kelowna, August 2003. Dave was close to death.

Dave spent five months in Vancouver General Hospital and two months in the GF Strong Rehabilitation Hospital. In all he had five operations, lost count at 500 staples and went home with set of excellent lungs. Yes, there were complications. I saw Dave when he was moved into GF Strong. The sight of him was unnerving though uplifting by virtue of connecting with a class of determination that was new in my experience.


Dave in GF Strong Rehab Hospital


Dave Woytuck, artist and friend, is a success of the organ transplant initiatives. He knows that the lungs he uses are from an individual who lived in Ontario. To say that Dave is grateful is to understate.



One year after transplant



After a lengthy period of adjustment, not an easy one, Dave has renewed his artistic license and is doing portraits by commission —portraits of cats, dogs and homo sapiens. I have put up a gallery of Dave's recent work on my website. You must go there and spend a few minutes. And now you know a bit of the story of the artist. GO HERE NOW.