A documentary about the Wukan Village’s (烏坎村) Democracy Experiment that happened after the protests is a film that I wish I had the guts, access, ability, and talent to make. Have a watch of the full six-part series playlist on Youtube (more info on Aljazeera) or you can click the episodes below. Also check out Lianain Films’ James and Lynn Facebook and website.
*** Why I think President Trump has made the world a much worse place on Day One of his presidency *** //I respect my FB friend for his professional work but I disagree with him. Here is my comment (with added web links & slight updates).//
XXXX, One day I would love to chat in person. Until then, here is my wordy take of why I think President Trump has made the world a much worse place on Day One. Starting with the least damaging (the mere “monetary” damages). Trump said the following in his Inauguration Speech and he has said all of these during the campaign so they are not new.
2) “Subsidized the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military;”
>>> Forgoing defence of NATO, Japan, etc?? Should they pay? How much? Think like a foreign leader for a moment. Which sovereign leader is stupid enough to be held hostage for a king’s ransom for its defence? This will force the world into an arms race? EU politicians are taking notice and starting to distrust US. Putin’s mission accomplished in Day One of Trump’s presidency. Fantastic!
Some Americans have very short memory. On one sunny 9/11 day years ago, some evil people thought of turning planes into high-tech guided missiles with built-in human collateral protection. In that uncertain time, Canada let ~200 flights fully loaded with people (potential terrorists flown missiles) diverted to our major cities like Vancouver, Halifax, Montreal and Toronto (all with millions of people).
The “Others” we Canadians put “First” happened to be thousands of Americans and people visiting US! I would say the probability of me winning the lottery last night is higher than Trump coming to aid of Canadians if the shoes were swapped.
I’m human but I try to live by the Golden Rule when I can. What kind of horrible world we live in if we always and only put ourselves first?!
Right now, with “America First”, it feels like a great friend has flipped and become a psychopath.
And 1, 2, 3 and many more are the reasons why Trump Day One is the worst day of any US President’s Day One!
20190812 Director new preface re the word “Revolution”:
The title of my debut documentary “Long Hair Revolution 「長毛革命」” was decided in 2004, so 15 years ago. The rationale is similar to “industrial revolution” or “internet revolution”, ideas for improvement. Nothing to do with violence.
It saddens and pains me that Hong Kong today has deteriorated so badly that the word “Revolution” has now been twisted by both the HK and BJ governments to mean violence and the guaranteed and international recognized free speech right is almost gone in HK.
可憐今天的香港, 還是逃不了中國幾千年以來皇帝”以言入罪”, 沒有”言論自由”的悲哀。
=====
Director/producer/independent reporter Kempton Lam has made three full-length documentaries from 2004 – 2015. Kempton’s debut documentary Long Hair Revolution 「長毛革命」 has been collected by the Canadian National Archive since 2009. The three documentaries are collectively known as “Revolution Trilogy” 「革命三部曲」 and are in Cantonese with English subtitles (廣東話、英文字幕). You can watch the three films at this YouTube Playlist (beautifully projected on your big screen HDTV or on your computer). Enjoy!
P.S. For the record, I like to acknowledge Duane Rousselle‘s awesome work by quoting a 2015 Nov 15 Huffington Post Canada article,
“Duane Rousselle, a Peterborough resident, quickly started a FundRazr page on Sunday to encourage those “of all or no faiths” to help the Muslim community rebuild the mosque.
Donations immediately started flooding in, totalling roughly $6,600 in two hours.
“The numbers are in:
Total amount raised before fees = $110,536.35
Total combined FundRazr/WePay fees removed = $9,361.47
Total amount remaining after fees = $101,174.88”
Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan’s 2015 Remembrance Day message
Remembrance
On Remembrance Day, it is customary to honour and show our appreciation of our veterans past and present for their service and sacrifice for Canada. Quoting our new Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan‘s Facebook posting,
On this Remembrance Day, we honour the courage shown, time and again, by our men and women in uniform, past and present. We show our deep appreciation for all they have sacrificed for Canada.
Once a year, we buy our poppy pins and wear them on our clothing to show we remember and we care.
Year round care, vigilance and actions
In 2010, Canada’s first Veteran’s Ombudsman Colonel Pat Stogran, via his passionate/frank words and actions (Ottawa Citizen “Embattled ombudsman Pat Stogran makes his last stand for Canada’s veterans“), got my blood boiled and taught me that as Canadians we could and should do more by speaking up to help our veterans at home by holding our governments in Ottawa accountable to keep our promises to take care of our veterans and their families.
“The Veterans Ombudsman works toward ensuring that the sacrifices of Canada’s Veterans and their families are recognized through the provision of services, benefits, and support in a fair, accessible, and timely manner. The Ombudsman plays an important role in raising awareness of the needs and concerns of Veterans and their families.“
LIKE & SHARE these pages so we Canadians can help the Ombudsman to keep issues important to our veterans in Canadians’ hearts & minds and hold our government accountable to do the right thing for our veterans all year round. When we make noises in social media, call or email our MPs, they listen.
Blood boiled since 2010
In 2010, Rick Mercer talked about Canada’s first Veteran’s Ombudsman Colonel Pat Stogran’s battle with our government to fight for our veterans. My blood boiled and I was changed forever Read the rest of this entry »
Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee, on the CIA and the Separation of Powers. Watching and reading American history in the making (I hope).
First of all, I think former Deputy CIA director Mr. Mike Morell is a consummate professional. The likes of Mr. Morell and former deep cover CIA operative Ms. Valerie Plame command my respect as they are professional spies that have been trained and spent their lives to serve and protect the interest and safety of the United States.
Having declared my respect for Mr. Morell, I have to say I disagree with his view re Mr. Edward Snowden and I consider Mr. Snowden a whistleblower. I shared this in a Facebook status,
“Former CIA Deputy Director Mr. Mike Morell is entitled to his opinion. As a Canadian, I beg to differ. The United States used to stand as a beacon of light and a shining example for countries and citizens around the world. Now, US is no better than second rate countries like China who spy on her own citizens and snoop around the world for military and business gains. In fact, if one day America were to learn Chinese thuggish and lawless behaviours towards her own citizens, then US will become one step closer to being like China, a country that sends her plain cloths police to beat up her own citizens. Thinking about it, the US does send drones to kill her own citizens already, so congrats, the US has officially worst than China in some area already!“
Take this news “NSA’s alleged spying on Merkel may have broken German law” for example. My dear NSA, what the beep were you thinking?? Sure POTUS may have plausible deniability but did you guys think through the full implications? What the beep?!!
My dear NSA, imagine you are married to 10 hot supermodel babes, why the beep would you want to spy on your Germany hot babe?!!
In more serious words, do you remember the War in Afghanistan (2001–present)? Germany along with Canada and eight other countries helped and risked the lives of our soldiers and citizens’ to help you fight that war. You bunch of beeping morons were now found to have spied on German Chancellor Angela Merkel since 2002!!! How dare you?! Enough said for now. It is time for the US to talk to the world, allies and enemies (China, Russia, etc) and rebuild lost trust.
Commentary: HK Chief Executive Mr. CY Leung and the Chinese government may not realize it until it is too late. But the repeated protests on the street and in front of the HKSAR Government HQ for various bad policies may have the unintended consequence of training citizens to voice their views publicly which is required in any healthy democracy.
“The code says that LAC staff, which includes Canada’s leading librarians and archivists, who set foot in classrooms, attend conferences or speak up at public meetings on their own time are engaging in “high risk” activities.
Given the dangers, the code says, the department’s staff must clear such “personal” activities with their managers in advance to ensure there are no conflicts or “other risks to LAC.”
The code is already having a “chilling” effect on federal archivists and librarians, who used to be encouraged to actively engage and interact with groups interested in everything from genealogy to preserving historical documents, says archivist Loryl MacDonald at the University of Toronto.“
Happy belated 102nd Birthday to Nobel Economics Laureate Professor Ronald Coase. Wishing professor Coase good health and all the best in 2013!
In 2009, I took the initiative to spend a few days to download, process, upload, transcribe (small part of), and time-code professor Coase‘s 2003 Coase Lecture (a massive .mov file) to share on YouTube (6 clips in a playlist) to allow interested people from around the world to watch and learn as a way to celebrate professor Coase‘s 99th birthday.
For the last few birthdays of professor Coase, I mainly reshare the above video clips (with a new text interview in 2011). This time around, I’ve taken a new initiative to honour professor Coase‘s 102nd birthday. You see, a few years ago I went to the University of Calgary Law Library to conduct some US patent research for a client. As a bonus/treat for myself, I spent some time to download quite a few academic papers by professor Coase.
To celebrate professor Coase‘s 102nd birthday, I’ve uploaded the following three important papers plus a bonus paper as a special gift to readers of professor Coase‘s ideas.
“The only support I got was from my contemporaries. […] If this tale has any general significance, it is that new ideas are most likely to come from the young who are also the group most likely to recognize the significance of those ideas.”
For me personally, I received these important papers for free from the Law Library. And I see them (Firm, FCC, Lighthouse) deserve to be read by as many people as possible instead of under the messed up limited JSTOR manner. The bottom line, to me, by having these papers available by a single click here is that this save people’s physical travel time to go down to their local university libraries where these papers can be downloaded for free anyway!
It has not escaped my attention and noticed the paradox that The Lighthouse in Economics is a paper that disprove, with facts, the incorrect belief by many people (including my former MBA classmate who has a B.A. degree in Economics) that Lighthouse services cannot be charged thus has to be made freely available by the governments!
*** Concluding thoughts ***
I want to emphasize that I totally agree with the many academics in the #PDFtribute movement and Aaron that it is about time we in Canada and US require academic papers to be made publicly downloadable for FREE in perpetuity if any part (or whole) of their research funding come from any level of government (thus tax payers’ money, our money)!
Alison Klayman, director of Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, was very nice and cool to do her first post-Oscar-shortlist video interview with me on the day after she came back from a Bangkok film festival trip. Here is my video interview with Alison.
I just noticed on the back wall in the following film still, the pictures are the concept drawings that lead to the Remembering (2009), an installation for the Façade of the House of German Art.
Alison and I talked about the middle finger salute in the interview. To me, it is a show of defiance to the powerful, be it the one-party ruled Chinese government or any other governments or powerful institutions.
As I watched the #HK71 massive July 1st, 2012 street protests (on the day of the 15th anniversary of the hangover of HK to Chinese government, and the swearing-in of the new Chief Executive of HK, CY Leung), I can no longer pretend to be just a happy man on #CanadaDay. In fact, as I see massive problems in HK, I have to be honest and admit that I see Canada is full of our own problems as well when I tweeted,
To point out one bright spot. I’ve been searching for **ANY** LIVE broadcast by citizens re the #HK71 street protests, I finally found the following clip(s) in a channel!
P.S. Re Canada – I love you. In Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom, when news anchor Will McAvoy was asked,
“What makes America the greatest country in the world.”
Executive Producer MacKenzie McHale as an audience member (without McAvoy knowing if she was there), wrote on a card and signal to McAvoy on stage, “IT’S NOT” On the next card, McHale wrote “BUT IT CAN BE.“
The same question can be asked of Canada. And I submit the same answer applies.
*******
I am happy that feng37’s solution of using bambuser (which I also used in my AB election report) was much easier to handle (just an app on a mobile phone, iPhone/Android/etc) to film LIVE #HK31 street protests have given us some great footage to watch without Television stations’ filtering.
*******
The following are what I’ve tweeted earlier tonight. And I am happy that they have been superseded by the above broadcasted clips.
*******
Tweeted the following tonight for #hk71 street protest.
Anyone streaming LIVE video of #hk71 street protest? Can someone post links so people can watch? If not, here is a guide how anyone can do it
9 Steps to LIVE broadcast #hk71 street protest Step1:Get 3G wireless USB stick & plug into laptop Step2:From gmail, get free Google+ AC
Step3 to LIVE broadcast #hk71 install G+ Hangout video plugin Step4:Link YouTube account to G+ Step5:Start Hangout On Air Step6:Broadccast
Step7 to LIVE broadcast #hk71 Share YouTube live video link on social media channels:Twitter,FB,G+,etc Bring extra batteries 4 #democracy
After the recent Alberta general election and the universally incorrect polls, I wonder if our polls are broken fundamentally in “Are polls broken?” Feel free to leave your comments over there.
It was quite an experience and experiment in that I was holding not one but TWO cameras! One was myGalaxy Nexus broadcasting live on the WIND Mobile network using my unlimited data plan. In another hand, I was holding my digital camera capturing higher quality video for later use (which I am sharing with you here in this post).
I’ve now used the 2012 Alberta general election as the testing ground of my first LIVE broadcast. I will be doing more LIVE broadcast in the future. For one, I will make sure I link the LIVE broadcast page where readers of my articles can actually watch my video reports LIVE on my channel!
4pm update: On camera LIVE exit poll and why this voter voted the way she did. LIVE interview #1, additional LIVE interview (#1a) as I was told the voter actually sat on former MLA Ron Stevens‘ board of directors.
***
The 2012 Alberta general election is one of the most hotly contested elections in recent years. What voters decide today will have deep impact to Albertans, Alberta-based, and Canadian businesses in general. Do Albertans and Alberta-based businesses want a new government? We will find out tonight.
Chinese original (see below for English translation): “艺术家艾未未在其位于北京草场地258号的办公室、卧室、院子分别安装了4个摄像头,通过weiweicam.com 网站直播日常生活。2012年4月2日19点开始,至4月4日18:09分被迫关闭,进行了47小时9分钟,点击520万次,下载100GB。”
English translation: “Chinese artist Ai Weiwei installed four webcams in his office, bedroom, and yard at his Beijing studio (258 Fake) live-streaming his daily life on http://weiweicam.com The live-streaming started on 19:00 April 2nd, 2012 (one year anniversary of his illegal “disappearance” by Chinese government). The cameras were forced to shutdown on 18:09 on April 4th. The broadcast lasted 47 hours 9 minutes, 5.2 million visits, 100GB data downloaded.
The following are 73 screen captures of the live broadcast.”
When the Beijing Chinese government has 15 video cameras set outside of Ai Weiwei‘s studio/home recording all the comings and goings of Ai and his guests, it is a bit absurd that the four self-surveillance cameras installed by Ai inside his studio/home were ordered to be shutdown. I very much agree with Twitter user’s sentiment.
““It’s fine for them to set up cameras to look at you, but it’s not fine for you to set up cameras to help them look at you,” one Twitter user wrote in Chinese after the cameras went down. “Absurd in the extreme.”” [HT WSJ]
Only in an absurd world you will see any government afraid of its people singing its national anthem! Well, here I’ve set pictures from Ai Weiwei’s 4 Self-Surveillance footage to he People’s Republic of China‘s national anthem “March of the Volunteers 义勇军进行曲“. Feel free to read the attached lyrics.
*** English Translation of “March of the Volunteers” via Wikipedia:
Arise! All those who don’t want to be slaves!
Let our flesh and blood forge our new Great Wall!
As the Chinese people have arrived at their most perilous time.
Every person is forced to expel his very last cry.
Arise! Arise! Arise!
Our million hearts beating as one,
Brave the enemy’s fire, March on!
Brave the enemy’s fire, March on!
March on! March on! On!
*** Chinese Simplified original
起来!不愿做奴隶的人们!
把我们的血肉,筑成我们新的长城!
中华民族到了最危险的时候,
每个人被迫着发出最后的吼声。
起来!起来!起来!
我们万众一心,
冒着敌人的炮火,前进!
冒着敌人的炮火,前进!
前进!前进!进!
In response to CTV reporter question re integrity of the leadership vote, NDP Brad Lavigne (Principal Secretary to the Leader of the Official Opposition) stated “No possible way to get into their process.“
Really, is Brad serious? He should really read the October 2010 Washington Post article “Hacker infiltration ends D.C. online voting trial” for a change and stop the “No possible way” misguided claim at least (or delusional at worst)! Absolute declarative statement like “No possible way” is a sign of NOT understanding the complexity of security matters especially surrounding internet voting.