zipping across H2O

18 Jul 2008 from PEACEWORK's MySpace blog

Current mood: blissful
Category: Dreams and the Supernatural

just when you think, "oh no, that was a split second too late or too early", feel yourself tipping over backwards already calculating whether it's going to save damage if you jump off and where the mast is going to go, you see the horizon tilting and the board turning into an alligator under your too fast and/or slow moves with your greenhorn cut up barefoot soles - THAT is when the sail catches you and the boom pulls so hard in your fists that the chalice in your palms will disguise your formerly fragile hands within two days. Shovels, that's what I have now. "Pull the gas in slowly now", he yells across the water, and my body tells me to step out both feet and lean into the wind to come up with the least against that pulling wind that carries me FOR FREE, while the board divides the gusty river with me on it. I f..g did it. I am wind surfing.

Yeeeeehaaaaa!

And when you're in it, it's fast. No thinking, just feeling it move you, feeling where it wants to be on the sail, moving, tilting, changing, adjusting your position, careful, not to hurt your feet on the router end.

The board so tippy, the possibilities of a freely turnable mast endless, the adrenalin rush under full sail doesn't compare to much other. There is no stable position on that board except under wind. Tip the mast to the front it turns downwind, tilt it back u go into the wind. What a fine line that is, and how little can throw u out of it... it's like dancing, though: don't look at your feet, just never let your sail out of focus. The wind is your friend, just gotta feel out how to ride it... wow, riding the wind. How lucky am I that other people invented all that already??

This whole mast-boom-sail-board-and-router-thing is such a genius cohesion, but actually very simple when you look at it. Brilliant, really. I love it.

Scott showed me how to turn behind the sail in tipping the mast over to the front of the board - in weak winds, but nonetheless - to-tal-ly cool. I haven't tried it yet, but just because of the stupid thunderstorms and the wind dying down yesterday.

Pride or some triumphant feeling in my chest. Standing on shore with the legs straight first since an hour and shaking. Maybe just coming off the a and trying to breathe, too. I knew all along that I wanted to do it and that I would like it. The first time I remember trying it, I was in an English class on Malta, with my mom and brother. We lived in families, they together in one, me in a different one. I remember the really big cockroaches on the streets at night, tea and toast with orange marmalade for breakfast and lots of salty water down my nostrils while trying to cross over to an island with my things over my head - I turned around... back? In any case, I never made it to the island, didn't drown either, though. We had access to some kind of beach club close to the school, where they had some boards. The ones I tried had the mast coming out of the lock while trying to pull the sail up, so I gave up pretty fast, not without wrecking my back. The whole thing was free, but no lessons and pitiful equipment - tasted like a cheap copy of the real thing then, and it makes me so happy to have gone with that instinct and kept on looking for it...

I remember my disappeared dear cousin Elmar inviting me for lessons, he spent a lot of time windsurfing when we were still all living in G... he is blond, so blond, his hair is so fair...

I never went. Now I feel like going to Mexico (where he was last seen) just to try to find him, do something instead of just sitting here. I am debating if a facebook page would help finding him... it's like admitting that he's lost when u start your search. It's like believing that u can still find him at the same time...

The younger sister of my grandmother (my mother's mom's sister) and her husband, my favorite uncle Mietek once taught me some sailing lessons in an optimist - I must have been a kid then, the wall was still up and everybody needed to get through these nasty border controls while traveling to Berlin or Szcezchyn, where the daughters of the couple live. I can still feel the water on my arse, while some blond almost-man pulled me back to shore off some lake, rope-attached to his motor boat, I was silently dying of shame while his stone grey-blue eyes stared into the open. I didn't speak Polish, and I don't remember him saying anything in German to me...

Except for the day when I managed to cut my feet up pretty painfully because I couldn't get it together in that kind of super wind and drifted around more or less wasting myself on trying to pull the sail up in the gusting winds, I caught myself thinking "yeah, aunt Renate and uncle Mietek would be proud of me now if they were still alive", when they were probably feeling really amused at best to watch my total failing which demonstrated sufficiently how I had not grasped any of the sketches on the chalk board concerning wind direction, turn line, tacking and so forth, that they wasted on me during that theory lesson.

It's all behind me now. If only my feet's cuts would stop burning... we used to jam in the morning, now it's more like: "What's the wind like, honey?"

Anybody heard the weather forecast?

After all that summer leisure I'd like to point out two things:

1. Merrickville residents saved so much water that the town is now raising the water fees. That sure is one hell of a policy in terms of motivation. Wrong signal, daddy-oh. Or are you trying to scratch up the lacking six million for the treatment plant? Meanwhile it can only appear decadent to flush your excrements with potable water instead of composting or fermenting to use the remaining energy...

2. I'd like to share Janet Stavinga's invitation to the next Source Protection Report SPC meeting (no idea about this abbreviation) on August 7th, @ 1pm in the Plevna community hall.

Janet is the chair of the Mississippi Rideau Source Protection Region located @

3889 Rideau Valley Drive, Manotick ON K4M 1A5
1-800-267-3504 ext 1147 or 1 613 692 3571

In the add in the Advance Weekender from today is a lot more interesting information and one can probably find out about that here
www.mrsourcewater.ca and here
www.ebr.gov.on.ca (u may wanna comment until deadline Aug 4th on proposed legislation detailing how to prepare technical assessment reports, registry 010-3873) and by emailing her here: janet.stavinga@mrsourcewater.ca,

but attend in any case, because "This meeting will be interesting as we hear from the Province as to whether or not uranium exploration is a significant threat to our municipal drinking water systems" (from Janet's invitation).

I can't wait to see whom they will send to tell those lies...

peace always, my friends, and a good night!

City of Ottawa calls for Uranium-Stop

FEBRUARY 27, 2008: OTTAWA CITY COUNCIL, ALL BUT UNANIMOUSLY, PASSED THE FOLLOWING RESOLUTION TODAY…

BE IT RESOLVED THAT the Community and Protective Services Committee direct City Council to:

1) Petition the Province of Ontario and Premier Dalton McGuinty to initiate an immediate moratorium on uranium mineral prospecting, exploration and mining in Eastern Ontario and the Ottawa River watershed until such a time that all environmental and health issues related to uranium mining and native land claims are resolved;

2) That City of Ottawa petitions the Province of Ontario to undertake an immediate comprehensive public review of the Mining Act, 1990.

Congratulations to those who worked hard to bring this issue to the attention of the council!

Nuclear River or Bad Science?

TALK: NUCLEAR RIVER OR BAD SCIENCE?

This is your chance to come out and ask important questions!!!

THE MISSISSIPPI MILLS RESIDENTS’ ASSOCIATION (MMRA)
TALK: NUCLEAR RIVER OR BAD SCIENCE?
INFO: ARNIE FRANCIS arnie@istar.ca

Date/Time: Friday, October 12, 2007, 7:30 pm
Location: Almonte United Church Social Hall, 106 Elgin Street, Almonte

Here's a link to Google maps.

Cost: No admission charge – Free-will offering gratefully accepted.

This is a moderated information session which will include three perspectives as well as a chance for questions and answers. This uranium mining issue is proving to be a complicated and emotionally-charged debate in which many residents of Mississippi Mills are deeply engaged. The topic has been the subject of several news items of late. This moderated session will allow audience members to clarify their understanding of the issues and pose questions to the speakers.

Speakers:

Mr. John Kittle MSc has 2 years experience in nuclear physics research at Carleton University. As a resident of North Frontenac he will present his understanding about the dangers and consequences of proposed mining operations on the health of the Mississippi Watershed.

Mr. George White, President of Frontenac Ventures Corporation, the company that is seeking to proceed with uranium mining operations, will provide arguments that support FVC’s position that this uranium mining project is a legally- and environmentally-defensible corporate pursuit.

Mr. Paul Lehman, General Manager, Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority will provide the Conservation Authority’s understanding of the proposed mining project and discuss the possible environmental issues.

Prof. Don Wiles, of Carleton University’s Department of Chemistry, will moderate the discussion.

Meeting will address commuter service

More than 8,000 people who live in Lanark County drive to Ottawa to work. Part of their daily commute includes crowded highways, traffic gridlock and frazzled nerves.

Lanark Community Transit, a not-for-profit public-transit system, is planning to provide an alternative to that daily grind by offering an efficient and reliable commuter bus service to Ottawa. It hopes to integrate its service with Ottawa’s public transit system, which would allow Lanark Community Transit’s buses to access OC Transpo’s Hwy. 417 bus lanes, as well as allowing riders to transfer onto city buses at no extra charge.

A public meeting is scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 16 to provide information on Lanark Community Transit’s plans to offer this new service to residents of Lanark County and Smiths Falls. The meeting will be held at the Carleton Place arena at 7 p.m.

The plan is to provide bus service to residents of Lanark Highlands, Mississippi Mills, Drummond/North Elmsley, Perth, Tay Valley, Carleton Place, Montague, Beckwith and Smiths Falls, where the need is shown to exist. During the public meeting, the consultant’s feasibility study will be presented, with discussion to follow.

Cliff Neudorf, president of Lanark Community Transit, says the next step will be to request support from the area councils, which will have to pass a bylaw to regulate community transit within their jurisdictions. Once the bylaws are passed, Lanark Community Transit will move to the request for proposal stage and identify a service provider. The result will be lower commuter costs, less environmental impact with fewer cars on the roads, and possible economic benefits to this region as a result of its improved transportation infrastructure.

Lanark Community Transit has obtained financial support from Valley Heartland Community Futures Development Corporation and the Town of Carleton Place. This has enabled it to hire an Ottawa firm to conduct a feasibility study and to draft a business plan for the self-sustaining commuter service. The study will also consider an option to offer student tickets so young people could continue to live in Lanark County while attending college or university in Ottawa. Lanark Community Transit hopes to start operating by November of this year.

Members of the public are encouraged to attend the meeting, as it affects the future development of the community.

Saying no to uranium mining

Editorial The Perth Courier Aug 1st 2007

By now, most people in the Perth area are aware of the efforts of area native and non-native residents to prevent uranium from being mined in the Snow Road-Robertsville-Elphin area, northwest of Perth.

In the past, we have discussed the frighteningly uncivilized nature of the Mining Act, legislation that allows mining companies to march onto the private properties of rural residents and begin digging for minerals. If landowners don't own the mineral rights, only the surface rights of their properties, this is perfectly legal.

We have published stories about one man's efforts to bring attention to the act by publicizing what happened to his property in Tay Valley Township. Large ditches were dug on his property and when he expressed concern about the open holes and potential danger they posed, he was told that it was illegal for him to fill in these holes. Think about it: someone came onto his property, dug trenches, left them exposed and held outdated mining regulations over his head if he attempted to make his property somewhat safe again.

Out of the threat of such incidents recurring throughout the township, the Citizens' Mining Advisory Group, or CMAG, was formed. Through the efforts of many, a number of mining claims against properties in the rich residential and cottage area surrounding Perth were abandoned. (This group will hold its annual meeting on Aug. 11 at 10 a.m. at the North Burgess Hall on Narrows Lock Road. The public is welcome and will likely find area candidates for this fall's provincial election in attendance.)

Mining has again taken centre stage in this area, and this time, has received national attention. While the threat is not as much toward private properties in this case, it involves a sought-after end product that poses a potential greater risk to the health of those throughout the Ottawa Valley. It's not about gaping holes on private property, but potentially deadly uranium.

Everyone seems to have an opinion on the matter, and now that the price being offered for uranium has rebounded, chances are those who see nothing but dollar signs will put up a strong fight against those who oppose such mining.

Uranium mining companies claim such operations are safe if they are carried out properly. But what happens if an accident happens? Do we simply say "oops" and try not to cry over a little spilled salt? We're not mining salt here. "Oops" is not something anyone wants to hear.

A simple Internet search brings up far too many cases of how such mining has harmed Canadian communities.

Six stories have appeared in the Courier since April about the quest for uranium in the Crotch Lake area and those who are leading the charge to ensure this quest fails. Only the sixth and latest story offered the opinions of someone who came forward in favour of such mining.

Provincial governments on Canada's east and west coasts have imposed moratoriums on uranium mining. When will Ontario and the rest of the provinces follow their lead?

If no such freeze on this type of mining is introduced in Ontario, mining might proceed in the Crotch Lake area, and possibly without incident. But is that a gamble we're all willing to take? This area is all upstream of the City of Ottawa.

If something does happen, who is left to live in the shadow of a mistake?


Added by Maren:
The following links provide more information:

Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility