Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

  Cue the actor. Eric Peterson to receive Order of Canada - Socka You Knew He Was Important Because Of The Size Of The Camera Crew I knew that the film crew of six had to be from the National Film Board . It was 8am on Saturday at the St Lawrence Market, and the crew members were flush with the knowledge of earning time and half pa y.  They were all men. Of course. They were all in the 30s. They all looked like they had worked for the Peace Corp - a few steak dinners ago. Old jeans, but pressed. And of course, the pre-planned 5 o'clock shadow that requires you to shave at 9 oclock the evening before to look like a real player!   Who else but the National Film Board could afford to go this big, this early? Who else could afford a camera man, a sound man, a director, a man with a monitor around his neck (and a cool hood to let him watch the action in the dark), a model release guy and some other man that looked for suckers to fluff up and interview? Sigh. I w

GEORGE HUNTER, PASSES AT 91 George Hunter,  a  Canadian photography pioneer, has passed away in Mississauga at the age of 91.  Hunter, a long-time National Film Board photographer captured the disappearing nomadic Inuit way of life in Canada's Arctic.   His career spanned 70 years and took pictures all over Canada, the United States and the world.  he considered himself as a visual historian and  "Canada's Location Photographer". Two of his pictures have been used on Canadian paper bills - salmon ($5 bill) and a petro-chemical plant ($10 bill). Hunter took pictures for many news sources and high profile clients including the Winnipeg Tribune, Expo 67, and the Royal Family.  In the fifties after leaving the National Film Board, Hunter learned how to fly, purchased a Piper Cub and soon became an expert at low-level photography.  In the 60s he built a photography bus (complete with a 7 metre ladder on the roof for high-angle shots) and spent ten years traveling a

Best Dive Sites In Canada :  This month's Diver Magazine is completely dedicated to showing divers were the BEST spots to dive in Canada.  I contributed with the best sites in Ontario.  Due to space reason, not all the sites made it into print.  What follows are  all my 5 favourite spots to dive in Ontario - two that you would not have seen if you  read the Diver Magazine article.  Best/Easiest Shore Dive in Ontario What:           The wreck of the twin side-wheeler Rothesay Where:          Shipwreck near the shore. North side of the St Lawrence River. Prescott, Ontario.   Town of Prescott has made it easy for divers to visit the wreck. There is free parking, a port-a-potty and a privacy wall for changing. This park for divers is at the intersection of Highway 2 and Merwyn Lane, west of Prescott. Divers can see the markers for the wreck from the riverside park. Why:                    The 61 metre long Rothesay is a very popular checkout site for divers from Qu

Since when do New Best Friends start the relationship off with a death threat? Enter T he Assassin Scam Much of my working day is spent as a publicist. I phone. I text. And, I send out a lot of emails. I get even more back... every minute of every hour. I stream tweets and Facebook on my I - Pad clock. No time for friends and it does get very lonely, tolling away in my attic office, trying to make other people loved, respected and famous. But that has changed. I just got an email from my NBF. Thiocluse Mark. Funny name. Not so funny friend. And English isn't his strong suit. He emailed me today to say that my life is about to end, because someone close to me has already ordered (and paid for) my murder. He and his team have come up from the Philippines to kill me! Thoicluse has, in his words "ordered 3 (three) of my men to monitor every move of you and and make sure you are not out of site (sic) till the date of your assassination." Think I spotted one

Noreen Taylor and Andrew Preston - photo George Socka   Andrew Preston is named top Canadian non-fiction writer - takes the Taylor Prize! The Winner of The 2013 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction is Andrew Preston (Cambridge, England) for Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy , published by Knopf Canada . Preston teaches American history and international relations history at Cambridge University, where he is a fellow of Clare College . Before Cambridge, he taught history and international studies at Yale University. He has also taught at universities in Canada and Switzerland and has been a fellow at the Cold War Studies Program at the London School of Economics. He was born in Ontario and received his BA from the University of Toronto . Jury Citation: "Fluently written, comprehensively researched, and scrupulously balanced, Andrew Preston's Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith describes how the foreig

WELLAND, ONTARIO HOSTS SHIPWRECK 2013, AND DIVER MAGAZINE WILL BE THERE article for divermag.com The Niagara Divers’ Association will present its 19 th Annual Shipwrecks Symposium on Saturday, April 6, 2013 and Diver Magazine will be there!  The wreck festival, a popular event for Ontario and New York State diverss, will be held in Welland, Ontario. This one-day symposium on shipwrecks features multimedia presentations with internationally renowned speakers from both the United States and Canada.  This year two of the eight speakers are Diver Magazine writer contributors - photographer / journalist Robert Osborne, and longtime freshwater wreck specialist Cris Kohl - will appear on stage. There are  eight primary multimedia presentations on the programme.   Scheduled to give presentations at the Shipwreck Symposium this year are:

. Bass Player f or Barrett Brackin and the Band who performed at the event  Today is Bob Marley Day in both Kingston, Jamaica and Toronto Canada. (The rest of the world is jealous) (article for Diversity Business Network website) Rowan Barrett - Basketball Canada  It was one  One Love in the Toronto City Council chambers this morning as the councillor Michael Thompson proclaimed February 6 th , Bob Marley Day in Toronto. There was  live music and dub poetry in City Hall following the proclamation and the Bob Marley Committee made 8 Bob Marley humanitarian award presentations to eight well-known Torontonians “ This marks the 22nd year that the  City of Toronto has official declared Bob Marley Day (which began with former Mayor Art Eggleton),” said Courtney Betty, Chairperson of the Bob Marley Day Committee . “  Bob Marley said One Love .  So, each year we take time to honour the best of the best, people - acting in the diversity spirit of Bob Marley’s One