Amal Hussain | dies of starvation age-7

Most Canadians know very little about Yemen.

I’ve been there and left very discouraged. The Houthi rebels are terrible. The vastly stronger Saudi military brutal.

Little Amal Hussain was born into this disaster. She died a few days after this photo was taken.

She’s only one of about nearly two million children suffering from severe malnutrition in Yemen.

The only upside – U.N. sponsored peace talks.

Certainly Saudi Arabia and Yemen need to work this out. The USA should QUIT Saudi Arabia. All Americans are complicit in the role their government has in this war.

Listen to an interview with the photographer:

In the three years that Saudi Arabia, supported by the United States, has been at war with the Houthis in Yemen, very few journalists have been allowed into the country to document what’s happening there. The New York Times journalist Tyler Hicks is one. This is the story of how he came to take a photograph of Amal Hussain that drew international attention to the country’s plight.

The Daily podcast

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Amie – Pure Prairie League

The 1972 classic.

Amie what you want to do?
I think I could stay with you
For a while, maybe longer if I do …

Click PLAY or watch it LIVE on YouTube.

Click PLAY or watch a cover on YouTube.

Thanks Ron.

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

I highly recommend the 2011 biography. Even if you have no interest in Apple or Jobs. It’s a fascinating and very well written book.

Surprisingly, Jobs cooperated with this book. He admired Isaacson.

It was published 19 days after Jobs’ death.

Steve asked for no control over what was written nor even the right to read it before it was published. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against.

His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted.

The 2015 film was based on this book but really doesn’t have much of a connection to it. Personally I did like the film as did Rotten Tomatoes, but it did lousy box-office

my NEW rolling backpack carry-on

I’m super happy with my new MEC 40L Rolling Continent Carry-On which fits the overhead compartment of even the crappiest Bombardier jets.

Click PLAY or watch a video on the same pack in 60L on YouTube.

My last two similar bags were both Samsonite MVS Spinners. Durability was poor, especially the wheels.

my Uncle Murray died

Passed away peacefully on Friday November 30, 2018 at the age of 78.

He was born July 16, 1940, in Timmins, Ontario and later moved to Toronto in 1968.

Murray of Wasaga Beach, loving husband of 43 years to Norma (nee Lacson) and father to sons Eric (Jim) and Jamie (Erica).

Murray will be dearly remembered by his brother Eric, extended family and friends.

Obituary

 

my plan to bikepack the Carretera Austral, Chile in 2019

During my two months in Patagonia 2018 I did a fair bit of research on a future cycle hiking trip.

I arrive Santiago Jan 11th and might rent a bike in the big city. They’d transport it to and from both trailheads.

The Carretera Austral is far more popular now than when I did it 15 years ago by bus / hitchhiking.

The Carretera Austral runs about 1,240 kilometers (770 mi) from Puerto Montt to Villa O’Higgins through (sparsely populated) rural Patagonia. …

This area is characterized by thick forests, fjords, glaciers, canals and steep mountains. …

Among the world’s finest road trips, the Carretera Austral – or “Southern Highway” – is a 1240km route through Chile that’s mostly about half unpaved. Winding through millennia-old forests, it visits dusty Andean hamlets and turquoise rivers spawned from landlocked glaciers. …

Cyclists should have the skills and materials to repair their own gear, and should plan on taking a solid month for the entire endeavor. According to Italian cyclist Tomas Balzk, the hardest part was not pedaling the terrain, but ingesting enough calories. …

Lonely Planet

Cyclists-on-the-Carretera-Austral

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Ransom Riggs‘ first book.

Published 2011.

Teenage Jacob Portman is the lead character. And the book seems written for teenage boys.

I didn’t see the 2016 film, but the trailer gives you a quick look at the plot.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Director Tim Burton changed / improved details in the book, I’d say.

Movie reviews are mixed / average. I don’t plan to see it.

This young adult book was originally intended to be a picture book featuring photographs Riggs had collected, but on the advice of an editor at Quirk Books, he used the photographs as a guide from which to put together a narrative. …

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is a story about a boy who follows clues from his grandfather’s old photographs, tales, and his grandfather’s last words which lead him on an adventure that takes him to a large abandoned orphanage on Cairnholm, a fictional Welsh island.

I’ve no particular interest in reading any of the sequels.