"within less than ten years a handful of global companies will own directly or through license the actual genes that make up the evolution of our species."

this is not science ficton but a chilling quote taken from a new documentary now playing in canadian theaters. "the corporation" is from canadian film makers mark achbar, joel bakan and jennifer abbott. mark achbar also directed the film manufacturing consent: noam chomsky and the media, which was the most successful canadian feature documentary ever made. i got this from noam chomsky's book understanding power published in 2002 but I think another film produced by now defunct canadian production house salter street films may have topped it, michael moore's bowling for columbine.

synopsis: THE CORPORATION engages us in a darkly amusing account of the institution’s birth as a legal “person” whose prime directive is to produce ever-increasing profit for it’s shareholders regardless of the cost to anyone, or anything else. this pathological nature wasn’t always written in stone. 150 years ago a corporation was merely an organized way of doing business. today it is a global power. view trailer

kerry vs. the chicken hawks, but what's a chicken hawk you say?

chickenhawk n. a person enthusiastic about war, provided someone else fights it; particularly when that enthusiasm is undimmed by personal experience with war; most emphatically when that lack of experience came in spite of ample opportunity in that person’s youth.

high profile warmongering chickenhawks would include:
George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Newt Gingrich and so on. check the chickenhawk database for a complete listing.

recruit the chickenhawks today!

food for thought
arms spending has accounted for $1 trillion a year world-wide since the end of the cold war. this alone could provide $1,000 a year for every family on the planet.

just 25% of the cost of george w bush's star wars program would provide clean drinking water for the billion people who are currently without it.

source: uk socialist party

i've always had a thing for empty pools, especially abandon forgotten ones. it probably started when i first saw empire of the sun in which the young character jim makes his way back to his parents mansion to find all there belongings taken and an empty pool in the yard collecting leaves and dirty rain water.

this particular pool in the photo seems to be long forgotten on the roof top of my office. plastic molded deck chairs faded to a pale yellow and powder blue, you could put your ear to the concrete and almost hear the slapping of wet feet as they circled the pool long ago.

maybe it's just envy that i grew up without a pool, as did most everyone else in my hometown. no, we weren't poor, just six months of harsh winter doesn't leave much time for outdoor swimming unless you plan on using it for a skating rink for most of the year.

thinking i had something original here in taking photos of empty pools i did an internet search of other photographers that might have published the same type of material and i came across a book by an artist i've already mentioned on vudeja back in october. viggo mortensen's book titled "hole in the sun" described as "a series that documents and abstracts the urban backyard swimming pool as monument"

a few weeks back masako was walking through the station square with frankie on her back when she was aproched by a stranger. she introduced herself as a recruiter for children's modeling agency and wanted frankie to come in for an audition because as she put it "had a face like a doll". masako refused the offer politely and told the head-hunter that we were not interested. she told masako to "talk it over with your husband", they swapped numbers and she gave masako her card and said to expect a call from her office in a few days.

masako and i have discussed this before and both of us are strongly against selling frankie's image to any corporation whether it be for diapers, disney or a tobacco company. i don't believe child modeling is any different in canada but what makes it even worse in japan is way children are "classified" according to race, or is that nationality? well what ever it is they wouldn't list my daughter as either "japanese" nor "international" but "half". half? wtf is that!? half what? calling someone half in canada would result in a can of whoop ass being opened, but here it's thrown around like some sick badge of honour. if we are going to "classify" our children by fractions then let's get it right and do it across the board. children with 100% japanese blood will now be called 1 or whole or we could use the decimal system for a technically correct 01.0 (too bad there is no such thing as a 100% pure race but shhhhh... don't tell anyone) but wait, are we "grouping" by nationality here or by race? oh who cares! many people here seem to think they are one in the same anyway! so kids of 3 different backgrounds will be 1/3rds and so on. how about this, i propose that instead of taking away part of their identify when adding a nationality or race that we add a number like instead of half we would say double. yeah that sounds better! or an even better solution would be to STOP classifying and segregating our children period!

excerpt from "culture jam" by kalle lasn, founder of adbusters magazine

"half of all exotic dancers were once beauty-pageant contestants. that's a surprising statistic when you first hear it. it's hard to bridge the distance between the wholesome, naive, small town cavalcade queen who plays "the volga boatman" on the accordion and wants to be a vet, to the hardened stripper with seen-it-all-eyes grinding in red light on the stage of number five orange."

so sorry mom, you won't see frankie in any sears catalog, diaper ad or switch long distance telephone carrier commercials, at least while i still have a pulse.

lately i've been trying to build confidence by take more photos of people on the street. i've found outside the train station a great place to do this with the abundance of amateur and professional musicians, skateboarders and even old school break dancers all usually willing to have their photo taken.

most exciting for me is the skateboard photography, so if you know where i can find groups of skaters in and around sagamiono or machida sta. willing to be photographed please let me know. thanks.