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The Cost of an Oil Spill in Burrard Inlet: $40 Billion…For Starters

kate — Mon, 14 May 2012 13:12:46 +0000

The City of Vancouver passed a motion this month demanding that Kinder Morgan pipeline company carry full liability to cover the costs of an oil spill in our Vancouver Harbour. The request is just common sense but demonstrated very uncommon courage in the public political realm.

So, how much liability would Kinder Morgan – the now notorious ex-Enron billionaires from Texas, who bought BC Gas and flipped it for the pipelines – need to carry to indemnify our city from the ravages of an oil spill?

Well, for starters, some $40 billion, as I explain below. But let’s keep in mind:

There is no such thing as “cleaning up” an oil spill. Most “clean ups” get about 10 percent of the oil spilled, like the way a 3-year-old “cleans up” milk spilled on the kitchen floor.
There is no price to cover the soul of this region, the promises of indigenous rights, the food we take from this water, the childhoods on our beaches, the families of creatures and forests of fauna, the identity of this city and region, our heritage, and our dignity. There is no price for that.

Economic costs of an oil spill

The Aframax tankers now using Vancouver Harbour carry up to 700,000 barrels of bitumen, the deadliest crude oil on Earth. To estimate the costs of responding to such a spill, one must examine comparable costs for similar accidents. One method uses the historic “costs/barrel” for responding to oil spills.

The Exxon Valdez spilled 270,000 barrels, about one-third of an Aframax tanker. The Alaska tourism industry lost 26,000 jobs and $2.4 billion immediately – and another $2.8 billion over the next decade. Total loss for tourism alone: $5.2 billion. Ouch.

British Petroleum set aside $20 billion for clean up and compensation in the Gulf of Mexico, but Credit Suisse estimated total BP liabilities of $37 billion, just for cleanup and injury claims.

So, who pays this cost? Exxon has been in and out of court for 23 years over the Exxon Valdez spill, and still hasn’t paid its liability claims. BP is fighting injury claims, but in Vancouver Harbour there may be no such company that would even accept liability. The oil companies – Shell, Syncrude, Sinopec – and pipeline company Kinder Morgan have already indemnified themselves and would decline liability once the oil is on a ship. The ship owner has liability by Canadian marine law, but these days oil tankers are owned by obscure numbered companies with few assets, in slippery jurisdictions, where they can and literally do disappear overnight in the case of serious accidents.

The response costs would fall to Canadians – municipalities, the Province, the Federal government – that is, to the people. Imagine a $40 billion Canadian bill to mop up 10% of a marine and economic disaster, while our schools and social programs disintegrate.

Bitumen’s abrasive personality

Consider a 500,000-barrel bitumen oil spill in Burrard Inlet, 70% of an Aframax tanker. Globally, there has been an oil spill of this size about every 18 months worldwide for the last 40 years.

Bitumen (tar from tar sands) is a particularly dense, toxic version of crude oil. It has to be mixed with some thinner petroleum product to even move th

Enbridge’s burst pipeline spilled 4 million litres of oil into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River in 2010.

In July 2010, a 30-inch bitumen pipeline owned by Enbridge Energy – that other pipeline outfit angling for the BC coast – burst, spilling 20,000 barrels of tar sands bitumen into a tributary of the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. The challenges of dealing with the heavy, sinking bitumen shocked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which Mitchell Anderson wrote about in the Tyee.

Costs of even partial cleanup soared to more than ten times historic crude oil costs. “I don’t think anyone at the state level anticipated that,” said EPA Incident Commander, Ralph Dollhopf. “I don’t think anyone at the EPA anticipated that. I don’t think anyone in industry anticipated that.”

Bitumen, diluted with solvents such as condensate or naphtha, separates in the marine environment. Volatile gases – toluene and the carcinogenic benzene – rise into the air, causing headaches, nausea, dizziness, coughing, and fatigue among the local population. One may fairly assume all other animals that breathe air experience similar symptoms.

After the Kalamazoo River spill, the toxic fumes remained for weeks and could be smelled up to 50 kilometres away. A major Aframax spill in Burrard Inlet – 25-times larger than in Michigan – would likely require evacuations in the lower BC mainland and islands. Clean up crews would battle toxic fumes as they watched the bitumen sink below their skimmers.

Bitumen contains sulphur, paraffins, asphaltics, benzenes, and other toxic compounds. Animals and plants are suffocated and poisoned. The die-off starts at the foundation of the food chain, obliterating the vital mudflat biofilm – the bacteria, diatoms, and mucopolysaccharides that provide a high-energy food source for shorebirds in Burrard Inlet and Georgia Strait. As the bitumen moves with wind and tides, it kills all bottom life, mixes with the intertidal sediments, and kills shellfish, ocean plants, fin fish, and marine mammals.

On top of this, the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (“PAHs”) in bitumen, dissolve in the water. Two years after the Michigan spill, 30 miles of the Kalamazoo River remained closed to fishing, swimming, or even wading in the water.

After a bitumen spill in Burrard Inlet, the toxins would contaminate the entire marine ecosystem from Seattle to Campbell River, and beyond. Most of this damage could not be “cleaned up” at any price

Show me the money

Cleanup: According to the US EPA, historic U.S. crude oil cleanup costs have been about $80/gallon ($3,400 per barrel). The added problems with tar sands bitumen – toxic gas, sinking sludge, and soluble hydrocarbons – push costs up. The Kalamazoo River spill by Enbridge cost 10 times the traditional crude oil clean up costs – about $35,000 per barrel. Comparatively, the cleanup response to a 500,000-barrel bitumen spill in Burrard Inlet would be:

$ 17 billion   

Tourism losses: “Tourism is dead,” said Charlotte Randolph, president of the Lafourche Parish in Louisiana, after the Gulf Oil spill. “We’re dying a slow death.” Oxford Economics estimated the Gulf region’s tourism industry would lose $7.6 to $22.7 billion over 3 years. Tourism dropped by 35 percent in some Gulf regions. Economist Sean Snaith, from the Institute for Economic Competitiveness in Florida, estimated that Florida alone would lose $11 billion in business activity job losses. BC brings in $14 billion annually in tourism, and we could lose half of this for 2-4 years, so added to the clean-up costs would be the tourism loss to BC over several years, on the order of:

$ 20 billion   

Fishing: “I’ve been fishing in BC since 1973,” says B.C. fisherman Ron Fowler, a Pacific Salmon Commissioner and Director of the Area-F Trollers Association. “If we get an oil spill anywhere in these waters, it would wipe out every fishery we have, shellfish, salmon, herring, and the plankton that they feed on. An oil spill would move with the wind and tides and devastate the intertidal zones.”   The BC fishing industry wholesale value is about $1.2 billion per year. An oil spill on the coast could destroy a large portion of this for 3-4 years and some shoreline intertidal fisheries for a decade or more. A 40% fisheries loss in the first year could be expected, with recovery to perhaps 10% loss within five years. The potential fisheries loss over several years is in the range of:

$ 1 billion   

Health costs: Oil companies, public, and private workers during the Exxon Valdez spill described health effects that forced them from the area and into hospitals. Some first responders in Alaska still suffer from the toxic intake. Bitumen is worse. In Michigan, the volatile benzene and toluene caused nausea, dizziness, headaches, coughing, and fatigue to some 60% of the local population for weeks after the spill. The health department encouraged an evacuation within a mile of the river. As with other oil spills, there will be a spike of cancer and other diseases. A 500,000-barrel bitumen spill in Burrard Inlet would likely cause a mass evacuation and severe health impact for over a million people. The costs could easily reach:

$ 1 billion 

 Lost Time: The lost time for families, students, workers, business owners, and others in the lower mainland and up to 50 kilometers way, likely farther up the Fraser River past Fort Langley, and south past Whiterock, would be massive. Given our normal tides and winds, the crude oil would be in Nanaimo, Sechelt, and the Southern Gulf Islands within a few days. The lost time for hundreds of coastal communities would likely reach at least millions of person-hours at a cost of another:

$ 1 billion   

Port losses: An oil spill would disrupt Port of Vancouver shipping business. The Port contributes over $2 billion in direct revenue per year and over $4 billion in direct economic output. The port generates some 30,000 jobs (~ $1 billion annual wages & salaries). Shipping could be virtually stopped for months and disrupted for several years, so the costs would be on the order of:

$ 1 billion 

So there it is, in round figures: a $41 billion price tag for an oil spill, with no one to accept liability except a renegade shipping company in Somalia or the Cayman Islands.

Vancouver and BC brand value: The “Beautiful BC” and “greenest city” reputations would be lost. How much is that worth? Billions more. Stanley Park would be devastated. How do we put a price tag on that? The lost reputation and destroyed ecosystems – if we could even place a dollar-cost on these losses – would double the $40 billion direct costs to make the loss more like $80 billion.

This is the aggregate risk that the Vancouver region must accept if it wants to be the Tar Sands Oil Port in exchange for some tugboat jobs, port fees, consulting gigs, and payoffs.

Normal spillage

All oil ports have oil spills. Most oil spilled into the world’s bays, harbours, and marine environments is “normal spillage,” acknowledged by the industry as a routine “expense,” which they write off as a tax deduction.

Oil terminal workers have admitted that they spill oil virtually every time they load a tanker. Every time. Normal spillage includes routine leaks and spills along pipelines and at refineries, tank farms, and terminals. This constant drain of heavy hydrocarbons into the marine environment kills the intertidal life and other marine species. Try going east of Second Narrows, near Kinder Morgan’s Westridge Terminal and find a healthy clam or crab.

This Inlet once fed the Tsleil-Waututh, Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsawwassen people, who retain rights to this unceded territory. “When the tide is out, our table was set,” recalls Rueben George, Sundance Chief of the Tsleil-Waututh, the indigenous People of the Inlet. Second narrows, the traditional waters of the Tsleil-Waututh, is a sacred place that provided food for many generations. That food resource is already virtually eradicated from the normal spillage from the oil refinery and terminal on Burrard Inlet. “We’ve had enough of seeing our waters destroyed,” says Rueben George. “Second Narrows is sacred to us. Our creation stories go back to this channel of water.”

What price would one place on this? What price for the obliterated natural livelihood of indigenous people, our regional heritage, our marine and intertidal ecosystems, our coastal economy, and our community identity and pride in the sea? There is no way to protect these values and real wealth of this region if Vancouver becomes the tar sands oil port. The only way Kinder Morgan can indemnify the land, water, creatures, plants, and people of Burrard Inlet is to return our pipelines and our public policy to this region and to its people.

As Rueben George said on Earth Day: “We’re doing this for Kinder Morgan’s children too. They deserve a world that is rich and wild and that provides food to people and a place to walk with your children. We’re doing this for their children too. Not just ours.”

Source: TheCanadian.org

ideacity 2012 Speaker Lineup – Third Release

kate — Fri, 11 May 2012 21:31:36 +0000

There’s just over a month left until Moses Znaimer’s 13th Annual ideacity Conference. As each week passes, we’re drawing back the curtain and giving you a peek into the roster of luminous speakers taking the stage at our Festival of Ideas.

Don’t have your ticket yet? Click here to register, and remember that with the purchase of your Full Pass, you’ll get a BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet loaded with the Conference App and a Special Edition ideacity Roots Bag. Get your tickets now to save on the door price and take advantage of over $450 in swag.

Here’s another taste of what’s to come June 13 – 15 2012 at Toronto’s Koerner Hall.

THE SONGSTRESS
After appearing au natural on the cover of Zoomer Magazine, Canada’s Songstress Jann Arden is gracing the ideacity stage with her signature humour and sound; she’ll also be taking in the entire conference, so you’ll get a chance to just hang with her.

THE GLOBETROTTER
Pico Iyer travels the globe, and brings his pen with him. Widely known for his keen travel observations, his return to ideacity also marks a return to one of his favourite cities; Toronto.

THE OYSTERMAN
Brent Petkau is an oyster farmer and afficionado. He believes the oyster is a perfect representation of all that is good, sensual – and above all, tasty – in the world.

THE DIET DOCTOR
Dr. Mark Liponis thinks you need to eat smarter. His latest book, The Hunter/Farmer Diet Solution, seeks to improve health and longevity by determining what’s best for you.

THE SOLO SAILOR
At 16-years-old, Laura Dekker had a passport that would put most adults’ to shame. Amazingly, she circumnavigated the globe – by herself – in her sailboat, The Guppy; and survived!

THE BEETLE MANIAC
Environmental journalist Andrew Nikiforuk has touched on topics ranging from the oil sands to forestry. His latest book, The Empire of the Bark Beetle, examines the devastating effects on forests made by a bug no larger than a match head.

THE CLIENT
You get what you pay for, suggests artist Chester Brown. He details his experiences in hiring love by the hour in the graphic novel Paying For It.

THE HARMONICA GUY
Carlos Del Junco has been described as the Jimi Hendrix of the humble harmonica. As a soloist, he breathes new life into an instrument that usually takes the backseat.

THE CASH CYNIC
David Wolman thinks we’re about to see cash go the way of the dinosaur. In his aptly titled book, The End of Money, he examines the shift to digital currencies.

THE DOOM & GLOOM STORYTELLER
Rychard Syrett hosts the Conspiracy Show on AM740, and delves into cover-ups, coercion and conspiracies. At ideacity 2012, he’s going to fill us in on all the ways the world is coming to an end.

… it truly is a gathering not to be missed. Register now, and get the chance to rub shoulders with the biggest minds and the brightest people at ideacity 2012, June 13 – 15 at Koerner Hall.

ideacity Speaker Lineup: The Second Release

kate — Fri, 04 May 2012 21:22:09 +0000

Last week, we delivered a hint of what’s to come at Moses Znaimer’s 13th Annual ideacity Conference. In ideacity’s Bar Mitzvah year, the gathering of the world’s top thinkers and doers truly is coming of age.

ideacity 2012 features a can’t-miss speaker lineup, incredible attendee bonuses like the BlackBerry 64GB WiFi PlayBook loaded with the ideacity Conference App and Special Edition ideacity Roots Bag (a combined value of over $450), lavish evening parties and an immersive community of thought-leaders, innovators and creators.

With a reputation as Canada’s Premier Meeting of the Minds, ideacity 2012 is not to be missed. Here’s the next sneak peek of speakers and ideas to hit the ideacity stage, June 13 – 15, 2012 at Toronto’s Koerner Hall.

ideacity 2012 Speaker Roster – The Second Release

THE BAY STREET GAME-CHANGER

Roger Martin is the Dean of the Rotman School of Management, but has choice words for the top execs in the corporate world. He’s calling for drastic reform of the financial system.

THE SPIRITUAL SCIENTIST

Physicist and Engineer Daniel Friedmann’s book, The Genesis One Code, seeks to reconcile the creation story laid out by the Bible with the science of creation.

THE HIGH-TECH CHEF

Chris Young is the foodie brain working with former Microsoft techie Nathan Myhrvold in the Modernist Kitchen. Using laboratory techniques and gourmet traditions, he’s pushing the boundaries of gastronomy. Their collaboration has resulted in the six-volume tome, Modernist Cuisine.

THE SERIAL EMPLOYEE

Sean Aiken has an impressive resumé. In a quest to figure out what he wanted to do with his life, he worked 52 different gigs in one year.

THE HEALTHCARE CRITIC

As the healthcare correspondent for The Globe and Mail, André Picard takes a critical look at the challenges faced by Canadian healthcare policy.

THE SHROUD HISTORIAN

In his book, The Sign, art historian Thomas de Wesselow examines the artifact known as the Shroud of Turin. With an analytical approach, he makes compelling arguments that the Shroud is authentic.

THE AFTERLIFE SOOTHSAYER
David Eagleman is a neuroscientist by day, but by night he’s the author of Sum; 40 Tales from the Afterlives. The book of short fiction – Moses’ favourite book of recent memory – details Eagleman’s imaginative hypotheses about what life might be like after death.

THE OCEAN SAVIOR

Andrew Sharpless is the CEO of Oceana, a global network dedicated to caring for the world’s water. His work has protected over 1.2 million square miles of ocean and the creatures that live within.

THE WORKING WOMEN

As the spokespeople for the landmark brothel legalization case, Terri-Jean Bedford, Amy Lebovitch and Val Scott have been fighting to protect Canadian sex workers’ rights and safety.

THE FUNNY GUY

French-Canadian comic Derek Seguin riffs on everything from poutine to fatherhood. We hear he’s going to be giving hogtown a run for its money in his set at ideacity.

Tickets are getting snapped up quickly as ideacity approaches. Register now for a Full Pass and take advantage of the BlackBerry PlayBook offer, Special Edition ideacity Roots bag and the one-of-a-kind experience of being amidst the world’s brightest minds and biggest ideas.

Bruce Cockburn – Pacing the Cage

kate — Fri, 04 May 2012 20:07:44 +0000

From the Globe & Mail’s Five Shows Worth Watching Tonight:

Pacing the Cage at 10pm on VisionTV, Friday May 4th.

One of the greatest Canadian artists who stayed home, singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn is profiled in this new documentary. Directed by music-video veteran Joel Goldberg, the film interviews Cockburn at length and includes perspective on his career from several of his music contemporaries, including Colin Linden, Sarah Harmer and Jackson Browne. There’s also ample footage of Cockburn in performance on his most recent North American tour; the man is still in fine voice and a remarkable musician. A moving portrait of a Canadian original.

Conrad Black released from Florida prison

kate — Fri, 04 May 2012 18:22:31 +0000

Conrad Black, the fallen media titan convicted for fraud and obstruction of justice, was released from a Florida prison Friday and reportedly taken straight to the airport by U.S. immigration officials.

He was picked up at the low-security Federal Correctional Institution near Miami by U.S. immigration officials around 8:30 a.m. Placed in a vehicle with tinted windows, his face wasn’t visible to any cameras.

An immigration detainer had been placed on the former head of Hollinger International. It was expected that he was going to be driven to a detention centre and booked for deportation. But it appears Lord Black was driven straight to the Miami International Airport. A worker with the Krome Detention Center told reporters he was scheduled to take a charter flight. Immigration officials have not confirmed that Lord Black was taken to the airport.

Prison and immigration officials are revealing few other details, citing privacy laws and security policies. If Lord Black is deported, he faces a 10-year ban on returning to the United States.

Lord Black had been housed at the Federal Correctional Institution near Miami since September.

The former media baron had served the first part of his 42-month sentence in another, more remote, Florida prison. But after he exhausted his appeals and was ordered back behind bars last year to complete his sentence, Lord Black was sent to the Miami-area prison instead because two female prison workers at the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex contended they feared for their safety, he told reporters last fall.

The women – a prison unit manager and an education specialist – had in affidavits suggested that Lord Black wasn’t a model prisoner in Coleman, saying he asked for special treatment from staff and had inmates cook, clean and iron clothes for him “like servants.” His lawyers refuted their claims.

It’s believed Lord Black wants to return to Canada, even though he gave up his citizenship more than a decade ago to obtain a British peerage. The Canadian Department of Citizenship and Immigration has granted him a one-year temporary resident permit, valid until early May, 2013.

Lord Black and his wife, Barbara Amiel Black, own a house in Toronto’s exclusive Bridle Path neighbourhood. Many of Lord Black’s friends in Canada are eagerly awaiting his return, but it’s not clear when that will be. U.S. authorities may even choose to deport him to the United Kingdom, the country of his most recent – though expired – passport.

While prison time is now behind him, Lord Black still faces serious troubles that could leave him emotionally and financially depleted, including an ailing wife and a $70-million bill from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

Source: The Globe and Mail

ideacity 2012 Lineup: The First Release

kate — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 19:17:19 +0000

The End of Oil, the End of the Environment, and the End of the World (well, at least the End of Money). Religion without God. Sex on six legs. How to have 52 jobs in one year. The dawn of the Age of Abundance.

These are just a few of the hot topics to be presented at the 13th Annual ideacity Conference, presented by Moses Znaimer, June 13 – 15 2012 at Koerner Hall in Toronto.

“All year long, marketers go to marketing conferences, tech people go to tech conferences, retailers go to retail conferences,” says Moses Znaimer, Founder, Curator and Host. ”ideacity offers the chance to step outside your specialty and stretch your thinking. In three days, you’re exposed to 50 wildly varied speakers who will inform you, provoke you, inspire you. Its a festival of lateral thinking.”

The 13th edition of ideacity is presented by BlackBerry, and each attendee who purchases a Full Access Pass will receive a BlackBerry 64GB PlayBook with Wi-Fi (a $300 value).

“It isn’t just a giveaway,” Znaimer notes. “We’re building the award-winning ideacity Program Book right into the PlayBook, with new interactive components so that attendees can dig deeper into the conference.”

Attendees also get a Special ideacity Edition Roots Conference Bag, a $168 value that comes stocked with exclusive ideacity swag.

Here’s a sampling of some speakers and topics;

THE PESSIMISTS

As the co-founder of Greenpeace, Rex Weyler is deeply embedded in the crusade to protect our planet. He’s delivering an urgent message; when it comes to the Earth’s health, time may have run out.

Jeff Rubin also thinks your world is about to get a lot smaller. He’s keeping watch over the peak oil market, and forecasts major problems with the dwindling supply.

THE OPTIMIST

As the Chairman and CEO of the X-Prize, Peter Diamandis is no stranger to thinking big. He argues that we’re living on the threshold of the most abundant era ever – and that opportunity is ours for the taking.

THE SUNDAY SCHOOL DROPOUT

Jana Riess took the path to spiritual enlightenment and made a few stumbles along the way. In Flunking Sainthood, she details her failures as a student of the faith.

THE KING OF INFIDELITY

Noel Biderman operates the world’s most infamous “married” dating site, yet the President and CEO of AshleyMadison.com is happily married.

THE PERSONAL FINANCE GURU

When David Chilton wrote The Wealthy Barber as a 27-year-old, he broke ground in the personal finance world with the innovative novel. Now, nearly 20 years later, he’s back with sound advice in shaky financial times with The Wealthy Barber Returns.

THE INSECT SEXOLOGIST

Marlene Zuk spends her time peeping into the bedrooms of bugs. Her book, Sex on Six Legs, dishes the details on insect sex lives and what it all means in relation to humans.

THE POLITICO

Preston Manning is a constant fixture in Canadian Politics. His latest venture, the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, seeks to broaden the political interests of Canadian youth.

THE THINKING MAN

The founding father of TED and its offshoots, Richard Saul Wurman, is an architect, graphic designer and idea-generator. He is considered a pioneer in the field of information architecture and democratizing access to information.

THE BODY BIOSPHERE

How often do you wash your belly button? Jiri Hulcr knows it’s infrequently, and collects cultures of creepy crawlies from human navels. The petri-dish communities he posts online are equal parts amazing and disgusting.

… and that’s just a taste! Every year ideacity boasts one-of-a-kind entertainers and performers, and the 2012 conference is no exception. Bear witness to intimate and unique sessions from Liona Boyd and Michael Kaeshammer, and hidden gems like the Lemon Bucket Orkestra and harmonica player Carlos del Junco.

You have to be there to believe it.

Full Access Passes are still available at ideacityonline.com. Register for a Full Pass today, and take advantage of the mind-opening talks, the glamourous parties, theBlackBerry PlayBook and ideacity Roots Bag, and the mixture of minds and ideas that only happens at the ideacity Conference.

Nikki Yanofsky: She’s gotta grow

kate — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:32:46 +0000

Gordon Lightfoot. Bob Dylan. Bob Marley, Neil Young. They’ve all had breakthrough nights at Massey Hall. So have Glenn Gould and Charlie Parker, the great jazz saxophonist. But Nikki Yanofsky has a way to top them all when she walks out on the celebrated stage on April 21.

“Massey Hall is my first solo show officially as an adult,” she says perkily on the phone from her Montréal home sounding all of 10 years old. “And I am aware that so much history has gone on there.”

Her high and perky “real” voice takes some getting used to particularly for anyone familiar with her sultry contralto singing and her unfazed-by-anything professional aplomb. Then again Yanofsky has been zooming along the learning curve, even appearing at Carnegie Hall the day she turned 14, with the crowd singing “Happy Birthday” to her. (By next month, she’ll be joining popera stars Il Divo on their Canadian tour, though she isn’t confirmed for the May 19 date at the Air Canada Centred.)

But being 18 is different, she thinks. “Massey Hall is going to be the start of a new look and new sound for me,” she continues. “I know from being an opening act there how cool it is particularly backstage. But this time the whole point of the Massey Hall concert is to bridge the gap between the jazz I do and contemporary music. The show is going back to how I started, when I was singing Motown before I got into jazz.”

For someone billed as a jazz prodigy, any move beyond jazz must be considered an audaciously risky move by Yanofksy and her manager parents, Elyssa and Richard Yanofsky, himself a jazz musician. Until now Nikki has garnered press worldwide as the era-defying jazz wunderkind who dazzled the Montréal Jazz Festival in 2006 opening for the Neville Brothers, knocked the rest of the jazz world on its ear with the 2008 release of Ella . . . Of Thee I Swing, her tribute to the late Ella Fitzgerald, and who gained international attention with her jazz groove “O Canada” — as well as “I Believe,” which became utterly ubiquitous in Canada — at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

The very idea of channelling Ella in the first place — a 13-year-old Yanofsky is included on Verve Records’ We All Love Ella: Celebrating the First Lady of Song 2007 compilation — was taken as a particularly plucky career move given that Fitzgerald is considered to be the very definition of the jazz singer. Some jazz diehards feel that Yanofsky’s scat-perfect reiteration of “Airmail Special,” Fitzgerald’s signature improvisational wordless solo — her “canny mimicry,” was how one writer discreetly described Yanofsky’s version — may have been a way of showing up Fitzgerald, who wasn’t considered to be precociously talented being all of 17 when she first started singing at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem.

The truth is less complicated. Yanofsky has the benefit of perfect pitch, as did Ray Charles, Glenn Gould and a select group of other musicians who seemed to naturals from the start. So for Yanofsky, having the chance to intellectually absorb the glorious tonal cloudburst that Fitzgerald makes of “Airmail Special” was tantamount to giving a diamond junkie the key to Tiffany’s for a weekend — the time it took Yanofsky to copy Fitzgerald’s riffs.

“I’d always been singing,” Yanofsky says. “To me scat singing and singing are the same thing. But here was a song you had to stick with. And since then ‘Airmail Special’ is the one the crowd likes the most.”

Growing up she had to contend with two older brothers who were forever getting her to listen to the Beatles and the rest of that,”older music” as she calls it. Family talent shows with friends and cousins made Yanofsky stage-smart early on.

“I don’t know if there were any ‘aha’ moments when it came to my singing,” she goes on. “I compare it to a kid growing older. You don’t realize that over the years than the kid is a foot taller.

“I do know that songs definitely change as you grow up with them. When I was younger I had a kind of carelessness in my singing because I was just singing a song that I loved. But I’ve noticed that my voice has changed in the past two years. I am sure it will get a little deeper when I am in my 30s.”

A number of heavyweight reputations are riding on Yanofsky’s chances of becoming the next big thing out of Quebec after Céline Dion. Nikki, her first studio album released in 2010 had Phil Ramone listed among its producers. (Among Ramone’s past clients are Billy Joel and Tony Bennett.) Ramone reportedly saw the need for Yanofsky to find a way beyond being a novelty jazz act.

“The likable Yanofsky has stardom written all over her,” wrote Guardian critic John Fordham in 2010, who added: “The issue for her future will be whether she lets the industry smooth her off into just another jazz-inflected pop star, or she puts all of that formidable talent to more personal use.”

Yanofsky understands the concern. Better, she understands what she doesn’t understand — yet. She jokes that for years she’s been singing “At Last,” the soul-tearing piece defined by Etta James, to her dog. She realizes there are questions about her singing “God Bless the Child,” which when performed by Billie Holiday, its co-writer, takes on the gravitas of a southern gothic novel.

“I’m the most boring teenager in the world,” says Yanofsky. “I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. So maybe I’m lucky not to have a sob story. Maybe I’ve not gone through the things the writer of that song did. But it’s still up for grabs to sing.”

Source: Toronto Star

William Sampson dead: Canadian survived prison, torture in Saudi Arabia

kate — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 18:01:19 +0000

Supporters of a Canadian who said he was mistakenly charged with murder, tortured and held in solitary confinement for close to three years in a Saudi Arabian jail expressed sadness and a hope for “justice” after reports surfaced of his death.

William Sampson, 52, suffered a heart attack in England this week, according to filmmaker David Paperny, who directed a 2007 documentary about Sampson’s ordeal.

Former Liberal MP Dan McTeague, who had worked to help free Sampson and criticized the Canadian government’s response after his arrest overseas in 2000, said he was “shocked” to hear of Sampson’s death.

“His death is not in vain,” he said. “His ordeal taught the Canadian government to be more proactive in the release of Canadians wrongfully tortured and detained overseas.”

Paperny, whose documentary about Sampson was titled Confessions of An Innocent Man, said he received confirmation about Sampson’s death from his family.

Paperny said Sampson was “a brave man who had been put through hell.”

Source: The National Post

“It was sad he was never able to turn a corner (from) his days in Saudi Arabia,” he said.

Sampson was pardoned and released in 2003, along with three Britons who were charged with terrorist bombings and murder.

“It’s a serious loss (of) a man who endured real torture and (was) accused of something he didn’t do,” McTeague said. “He had to spend his life explaining and trying to clear his name because the charge remained, notwithstanding (his) release.”

Sampson was sentenced to public beheading in Saudi Arabia, after a confession that Sampson said was coerced under torture.

Sampson, who was a businessman working in the country, alleged he was suspended upside down for hours, beaten on the soles of his feet, shackled to his door to prevent him from sleeping and assaulted until he admitted to being part of the two bombings.

A campaign for his release was successful, leading to the pardon of all three men. However, he was never cleared of the murder charges.

After his release, Sampson spent almost a decade trying to clear his name; he tried to sue his alleged torturers, but was unsuccessful. In 2006, Britain’s highest court ruled that he couldn’t proceed because foreign government officials are protected by diplomatic immunity.

Paperny said Sampson was seeking justice until his life ended, referring to Sampson’s pending case before the European Court of Human Rights.

Sampson and the three Britons, who all allege torture, were seeking to bring a civil suit against Saudi Arabia and certain officials.

“(Sampson) received no justice in his time,” Paperny said. “Perhaps . . . if the European Court hears his case, justice will finally be done.”

Elon Musk Says Ticket to Mars Will Cost $500,000

kate — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 18:51:34 +0000

Serial entrepreneur Elon Musk says SpaceX is developing a plan for trips to Mars that will eventually cost just $500,000 per seat. Musk founded SpaceX 10 years ago and interplanetary travel has always been one of his goals for the company. Few details were provided about the Martian voyage, but Musk did say we can expect to hear more about the plan in less than a year.

The bargain basement price for a trip to Mars also highlights Musk’s main effort behind SpaceX, to bring down the cost of delivering a payload — human or cargo — into space. In an interview with the BBC, Musk acknowledged the first seats won’t be selling for $500,000. It will take a while to get down to that price. But Musk says the half-million dollar ticket could happen a decade after trips begin.

“Land on Mars, a round-trip ticket — half a million dollars. It can be done,” he told the BBC.

Musk did hint that one of the keys to low-cost trips to the red planet would be the ability to not only refuelthere, but also to reuse the entire spacecraft on the return trip. In the BBC interview Musk said by reusing the spacecraft, you end up with the same sorts of costs airlines face. Musk compared it to flying today where a 747 isn’t simply thrown away after a flight to London. Like the airplane, the cost of the spacecraft could be spread out over numerous flights rather than just a single trip making fuel one of the main expenses rather than the entire ship.

The $500,000 price tag is around one percent of the cost NASA is currently paying to send a person to the space station on a Russian Soyuz rocket. Though it should be mentioned that the $50 million trip with the Russians is a known quantity at this point and so far SpaceX has only had four successful rocket launches.

The talk of Martian travel came on the heels of SpaceX’s most recent development news of its Dragon capsule. As the California company prepares to send an unmanned Dragon to the International Space Station next month, it completed the first crew trial with NASA. The event gave NASA astronauts a chance to test out the 7-seat capsule that is being developed to carry human passengers as well as cargo.

NASA astronauts and SpaceX engineers relaxing inside the Dragon spacecraft. Photo: SpaceX

The day-long test included evaluations of crew interaction with the capsule including visibility and the ability to reach key places inside the spacecraft. Unlike NASA’s original Mercury capsule which limited the height of the first astronauts to 5 feet 11 inches, the Dragon will be able to accommodate passengers all the way up to 6 feet 5 inches.

The inside of the Dragon is much larger than the capsule currently being used for trips to the ISS, a Russian Soyuz. SpaceX says the entire Soyuz reentry capsule could fit inside the 350 cubic-foot pressure vessel of the Dragon where the passengers would sit.

If next month’s scheduled docking with the ISS is successful, the Dragon could begin delivering cargo to the station later this year. SpaceX has a $1.6 billion contract with NASA for 12 flights to the ISS.

Seats inside the Dragon will be custom molded for each passenger. Photo: SpaceX

Source: Wired

Once thought lost, the rock-art images of ancient peoples are seen again

kate — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 14:50:53 +0000

Stones were once canvas for stories. We marked milestones and journeys on rocks, painting vivid images of big hunts, mighty warriors and spiritual quests. Tens of thousands of tales have been told in bright shades of ochre – stories that, under the stress of weather and time, have been fading from our landscape. Lost forever in some cases, or so we thought.

The digital age is breathing new life into ancient rock art around the globe, from Mexican caves to the Sahara Desert to the mountains and foothills of Western Canada. With the help of NASA-inspired software called DStretch, pictographs no longer visible to the naked eye are being revived, giving cultural archivists a fresh look into the past and a vital new preservation tool.

The software has allowed Parks Canada to uncover myriad hidden treasures at aboriginal pictograph sites in British Columbia and Alberta. Forgotten tales are resurfacing.

“It opens an entirely new chapter in rock art analysis and … rock art preservation,” said Parks Canada archeologist Brad Himour. “DStretch has the ability to bring back images and pictographs that we would have thought of as being lost up until just very recently.”

How the software was developed

Rock art had long fascinated Jon Harman. The American mathematician sought out pictographs on vacations, snapping pictures of stones and caves even when all that remained were indecipherable red blotches. Photo-editing programs improved the images, but not by much.

A friend pointed Mr. Harman to an image-enhancement technique known as decorrelation stretch. Developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, it has been used to enhance photos of Mars. Perhaps the technique would work for faded pictographs, his friend suggested.

Mr. Harman took up the challenge and, with a few modifications, DStretch was created in late 2005. He provides the plug-in at no cost through his website. It’s designed to work with the ImageJ program, on PCs and Macs.

He estimates hundreds of professional and amateur archeologists have applied DStretch to digital photos of rock art, bringing the faintest of hues to life. The software has been used in Tassili n’Ajjer, a mountain range in the Sahara Desert of Algeria known for prehistoric pictographs. It has also been tested on paintings in the San Borjita cave of northern Mexico and more recently on aboriginal rock art sites in Western Canada.

“It’s our heritage. It’s the heritage of all of us,” Mr. Harman said. “These are beautiful works of art that need to be preserved.”

The Pictograph Project

Worried about the number of pictographs vanishing from the landscape in B.C. and Alberta, Parks Canada archeologists in the region were looking for ways to record and preserve the rock art and their stories.

They tried cross-polarization photography, but the process was dangerous because it required pictures to be taken in complete darkness, after midnight in remote regions, Mr. Himour said. For Parks Canada, DStretch was a game-changer.

Mr. Himour first used the software in the summer of 2010, applying it to photos taken at Sinclair Creek in British Columbia’s Kootenay National Park. Unlike the cross-polarization technique, pictures could be taken during the day. No special filter or flashes were required.

The parks archeologist knew the site contained five panels of pictographs, although only two are clearly visible today. In 1962, Parks Canada warden Kurt Seel sketched one of the now-faded pictographs in a notebook – the drawing included a line of elk and a human figure.

Through DStretch, these lost images reappeared. Mr. Himour was amazed.

“They showed up almost as clear as they had back in the [1960s],” he said. “Just striking. Absolutely striking.”

Since then, Parks Canada has taken about 2,500 photos at 30 rock art sites in Kootenay and Banff National Parks and in the foothills of Alberta as part of its Pictograph Project. The best images have been presented to native elders for interpretation. Stories of warriors and vision quests are emerging.

A digital window into the past

Harley Bastien often goes on hikes to look for pictographs. He is a member of Piikani First Nation in southern Alberta, and rock art offers a connection to his ancestors, showing him where they lived, fought and hunted for buffalo.

“For me, just to hear about them, it’s not enough. I want to go and stand at the site,” he said. “It’s basically a testament that we’re here, have always been here, and we’re still here.”

Piikani is one of the four native groups participating in the Parks Canada project. Others include Stoney Nakoda from Alberta and Kinbasket and Ktunaxa from B.C.

In parts of the United States, some aboriginals have opposed photographing rock art because they believe the images are sacred, Mr. Harman noted. In Canada, though, it appears the practice has been welcomed as a way to preserve a fading history for future generations. Mr. Himour expects DStretch will spread to other parts of the country.

Photos from the Pictograph Project will rest with both Parks Canada and the aboriginal groups. They’re working to determine how best to protect the rock art identified and share the images and stories uncovered. Recommendations are expected later this month.

Mr. Bastien and Xavier Eugene, a Kinbasket member, hope some of the images will be displayed publicly. Their ancestors’ rock art varied greatly. The Columbia Plateau natives of B.C. tended to paint images depicting vision quests and spiritual ceremonies, while the Piikani were a warrior society. Many of their pictographs include drawings of shield-bearing fighters.

“Those paintings evolved when we had no form of writing,” Mr. Eugene said. “This is how our first nation wrote their history. … We thought a lot of it got lost.”

Source: The Globe & Mail