As the sun sets it rises as the new year on the other side of the world.... we are all part of this great place.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Thursday, December 29, 2011
People fear those in Wheelchairs
Some evil moments in wheelchair history.
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| James Bond real enemy |
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| Dr Strange Glove |
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| Larry Flynt |
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| An innocent Citroen Car looks menacing with a wheelchaired sidekick |
Just when things got weird in North Korea a 9 foot soldier appears
Dec 29, 2011
KCNA/AFP/Getty Images
This handout picture taken by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on December 28, 2011 shows the funeral procession for North Korea's late leader Kim Jong-Il arriving at the square of the Kumsusan Memorial Palace in Pyongyang.
Among the oddities that have emerged from North Korea Thursday is a giant soldier in the crowd watching Kim Jong-il’s funeral procession.
Out of place as he seems, the soldier can be spotted towering over his fellow mourners from a slightly different angle in a Kyodo photo (below).
REUTERS/Kyodo
Earlier Thursday, editors at the New York Times spotted a group of journalists that had been erased from another funeral scene (below). Immediately after, AFP/Getty Images issued the “photo-kill” advisory to the editors, asking for the photo to be removed.
The 9-foot-tall solider was pointed out on online community Reddit, and has since gone viral on other social media networks.
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AFP/Getty Images via Japanese Kyodo News
A photo released by Kyodo News of Japan shows a group of journalists and tire-marks in the snow behind the mourners on the left.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Move over Spielberg: Retired officer unearths story of Canada's own warhorse
HALIFAX — On a farm in Paradise, N.S., lies the grave of a horse named Fritz — a warhorse, it turns out, that survived the horrors of the First World War and lived out his final days in peace in Canada.
As the fictional tale of the Steven Spielberg film War Horse appears on movie screens across North America, and as a stage version of the novel by the same name opens in Toronto, the real-life saga of a true Canadian warhorse is now emerging out of the past.
The details of Fritz's story have been investigated for several years by retired Toronto brigadier-general Greg Young — an Afghanistan veteran and former reservist with Toronto's 48th Highlanders regiment.
From 1914 to 1918 the regiment fought as part of Canada's 15th Battalion, and Young now heads up the 15th Battalion Memorial Project, which preserves and promotes the unit's wartime history.
For most of the First World War the battalion was led by Lt.-Col. Charles Bent, a Nova Scotian who, despite his slight frame and bookish looks, was in fact a highly competent field commander who was widely respected by his men.
In 1918, as the war was winding down and Allied forces were finally pursuing the German army out of France, Bent and his unit were ordered to assault a German strongpoint called the Crow's Nest.
"They captured the Crow's Nest in the early morning of Sept. 1," says Young. "The Germans did three counter-attacks to take it back, but the Canadians held it. Afterwards, during a lull in the fighting, in rides this German officer on horseback, who obviously wasn't aware what the hell had happened, and that the ground had changed hands.
"He and his aide rode into the middle of the Canadian position and bingo, they were snapped up."
According to the 48th Highlanders' regimental history, written after the war, the German officer "was mounted on a splendid dark bay — a typical cavalry mount, which had been captured from the Russians in the east."
The two Germans were sent to a prison camp and the horse — having survived its service with both the Russian and German armies — was taken by the Canadian soldier who captured it, Capt. Gordon Winnifrith.
Winnifrith was killed in action a few weeks later at the Battle of Canal du Nord, and the horse, renamed Fritz, was adopted by Bent.
"Bringing the dog home was one thing," says Young. "But a horse? I don't know what strings he pulled. The battalion was in Belgium turning in all its heavy stuff including the unit's horses. Somehow, the CO obtained permission to bring Fritz home on the ship."
After the battalion was demobilized in Toronto, Bent returned, with Fritz and Bruno, to his family farm in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley.
Young's research into the story hit a dead end at that point, until this week when he discovered Bent's son — Donald Bent, now 91 — living in Nova Scotia.
"The farm is still there, although it's been divided by a highway since then," said Donald in an interview with Postmedia News on Wednesday. "We lived there for quite a few years after World War I."
He says he remembers, as a four-year-old boy, his father riding Fritz around the apple orchards on the property.
"My father was quite proud of that horse. It had been a German horse, and some German colonel owned him. The German went to a POW camp and Dad took the horse home.
"He loved that horse and the horse loved him. They got along great."
Several years after the war Fritz grew old and sick, and Bent euthanized the animal.
"At that time there were no vets around, so Dad took him and shot him," his son says.
Fritz was buried alongside Bruno on the farm property, where the graves remain today.
Bent, who earned the Distinguished Service Order in the war, died in 1955.
Read more: http://www.canada.com/news/Move+over+Spielberg+Retired+officer+unearths+story+Canada+warhorse/5919801/story.html#ixzz1hsu4CiFz
As the fictional tale of the Steven Spielberg film War Horse appears on movie screens across North America, and as a stage version of the novel by the same name opens in Toronto, the real-life saga of a true Canadian warhorse is now emerging out of the past.
 |
Undated handout photo of Lt. Col. Charles Bent, commander of Canada's 15th Battalion during the First World War. Bent returned home to Nova Scotia after the war with a captured war horse named Fritz.Photograph by: Brigadier general (retired) Greg Young, handout, Postmedia News |
The details of Fritz's story have been investigated for several years by retired Toronto brigadier-general Greg Young — an Afghanistan veteran and former reservist with Toronto's 48th Highlanders regiment.
From 1914 to 1918 the regiment fought as part of Canada's 15th Battalion, and Young now heads up the 15th Battalion Memorial Project, which preserves and promotes the unit's wartime history.
For most of the First World War the battalion was led by Lt.-Col. Charles Bent, a Nova Scotian who, despite his slight frame and bookish looks, was in fact a highly competent field commander who was widely respected by his men.
In 1918, as the war was winding down and Allied forces were finally pursuing the German army out of France, Bent and his unit were ordered to assault a German strongpoint called the Crow's Nest.
"They captured the Crow's Nest in the early morning of Sept. 1," says Young. "The Germans did three counter-attacks to take it back, but the Canadians held it. Afterwards, during a lull in the fighting, in rides this German officer on horseback, who obviously wasn't aware what the hell had happened, and that the ground had changed hands.
"He and his aide rode into the middle of the Canadian position and bingo, they were snapped up."
According to the 48th Highlanders' regimental history, written after the war, the German officer "was mounted on a splendid dark bay — a typical cavalry mount, which had been captured from the Russians in the east."
The two Germans were sent to a prison camp and the horse — having survived its service with both the Russian and German armies — was taken by the Canadian soldier who captured it, Capt. Gordon Winnifrith.
Winnifrith was killed in action a few weeks later at the Battle of Canal du Nord, and the horse, renamed Fritz, was adopted by Bent.
 |
Undated handout photo of Lt. Col. Charles Bent, centre in glasses, commander of Canada's 15th Battalion during the First World War. Bent returned home to Nova Scotia after the war with a captured war horse named Fritz.Photograph by: Brigadier general (retired) Greg Young, handout, Postmedia News |
"Bringing the dog home was one thing," says Young. "But a horse? I don't know what strings he pulled. The battalion was in Belgium turning in all its heavy stuff including the unit's horses. Somehow, the CO obtained permission to bring Fritz home on the ship."
After the battalion was demobilized in Toronto, Bent returned, with Fritz and Bruno, to his family farm in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley.
Young's research into the story hit a dead end at that point, until this week when he discovered Bent's son — Donald Bent, now 91 — living in Nova Scotia.
"The farm is still there, although it's been divided by a highway since then," said Donald in an interview with Postmedia News on Wednesday. "We lived there for quite a few years after World War I."
He says he remembers, as a four-year-old boy, his father riding Fritz around the apple orchards on the property.
"My father was quite proud of that horse. It had been a German horse, and some German colonel owned him. The German went to a POW camp and Dad took the horse home.
"He loved that horse and the horse loved him. They got along great."
Several years after the war Fritz grew old and sick, and Bent euthanized the animal.
"At that time there were no vets around, so Dad took him and shot him," his son says.
Fritz was buried alongside Bruno on the farm property, where the graves remain today.
Bent, who earned the Distinguished Service Order in the war, died in 1955.
© Copyright (c) Postmedia News
Read more: http://www.canada.com/news/Move+over+Spielberg+Retired+officer+unearths+story+Canada+warhorse/5919801/story.html#ixzz1hsu4CiFz
Monday, December 26, 2011
Canadian Tire stores in Calgary step up
Its amazing when the right thing is being done (since April of this year) and it was hardly noticed..... Congrats to all involved.
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As time continues to run out for aging Canadian naval veterans, some in Calgary are receiving a Christmas gift of it. Calgary-area Canadian Tire stores have purchased 62 Canadian Navy centennial wrist watches for one-time marine warriors, many of them residing at Calgary’s Colonel Belcher facility. Calgarian Donald MacMahon, who gained fame at the end of the Second World War for boarding and capturing a German submarine U-889 off Nova Scotia, said the time pieces are quite the catch. “It’s one of the most wonderful things I’ve heard of in a long time,” said MacMahon, 84, who once served as a military padre. “These guys will be absolutely delighted — it’s no small thing.” The vets are to take possession of the watches, produced by Toronto-based Time is Ticking Inc., at a ceremony at the Colonel Belcher Jan. 9. It’s possible there could be fewer recipients by then, said MacMahon, who’s helping organize the event. “I just buried one the other day who would have gotten a watch,” he said. Canadian Tire store owner Rick Arsenault said it was an easy donor decision to make. “These men and women provided a tremendous service for our country and the world and it’s important we look after them in their twilight years,” he said. Such 24-karat gold plated watches, said Time is Ticking President Robin Devine, would normally retail for about $200 but are sold by her company in Alberta for around $70. Retailers like Canadian Tire began donating them to residents of veterans’ hospitals last April, she said. “There are only five veterans’ hospitals across the country and I’ve tried to make arrangements for all the veterans’ hospitals to receive watches,” she said. The 1910-2010 centennial watch presentations, she said, are highly emotional and rewarding. “It’s one of the last big events they can commemorate,” said Devine. It’ll be the second such watch for MacMahon, who received one from his son last year. “My first one will go to him,” he said. bill.kaufmann@sunmedia.ca http://canadianveteransadvocacy.com/board/index.php?topic=1412.0 |
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