Blue Mountain!

Well, Shannon and I survived the week at Blue Mountain Resort in Collingwood...

It was a real hardship. It definitely was a bizarre week, it was very extreme.

So, check out the pictures...this is what I'm doing instead of unpacking.

Google Turns Into Blackle

Ok, so this whole 'save the environment' kick that the mainstream has gotten on board with seems a little fishy to me. And the influx of the rich and famous espousing the merits of green power leaves a horrible taste in my mouth. I guess it's the arrogance that accompanies many of the pleas for reducing our collective carbon footprint.

It's a bit difficult to take in Leo, Madge, and Al's suggestions when it seems that they are huge contributors to the problem, and in some cases profiting from environmentally destructive behaviour.

But I do like it when people practice what they preach and at Google, they've done just that.

A few weeks ago some journalist wrote an article about the amount of energy that is drained by a white computer screen compared to a black computer screen.

In response Google has created 'Blackle'. Blackle works the same as Google, except it only drains 58 watts of energy when on the screen.

So next time you need to do a search try out:

www.blackle.com

Here We Go...

Ok, everyone keep your fingers crossed.


The apartment hunting begins in earnest tonight.


Bear in mind I make very little and had to invest in an expensive car for the job...I don't want to live in a hole...but I'm prepared to the fate of a a bachelor if necessary.


If I move into a bachelor I will move to change the name...Bachelor is stupid.

Our Article!

Online survey 'shocking'

Mon, June 4, 2007

More than half of London pupils surveyed have posted information that puts them at risk.
By JENNIFER O'BRIEN, SUN MEDIA

A shocking number of London kids are making themselves easy targets for sexual predators who cruise the Internet, an informal survey has found.

The alarming figures suggest one in four children 11 to 14 have met face-to-face with strangers introduced only online.

Despite years of warnings about stranger-danger, more than half of them have put identifying information such as phone numbers and addresses on public-access websites, youth workers say.

"We were shocked," said Shannon Liddington, outreach worker with RISE for Youth, a project that aims to reduce sexual exploitation.

"The children we talk to are absolutely putting themselves at risk. The level of naivete they have is incredible.

"Every one of these kids knows that if someone drives up to you at a bus stop and asks for your name and school you don't give it to them."

During education seminars, the group has surveyed 600 Grade 6, 7 and 8 London pupils and found 60 per cent have put personal, identifying information on websites such as MySpace and Facebook.

Twenty per cent of the children also admitted posting pictures of themselves online .
But most disturbing is the fact 25 per cent have met people they only knew online.

"That really did blow us away," said project co-ordinator Jessie Rodger. "It is absolutely the most dangerous thing a kid can do."

Compounding that statement is the fact London police have charged seven people with Internet luring in less than two months since the department launched its Cyber Crime Unit in April.

"It's like shooting fish in a barrel to zero in on (predators) out there," said Det. Sgt. Kelly Johnson, head of the Cyber Crime Unit.

In the seven recent local cases, Johnson said officers posing as someone else nabbed predators who thought they would be meeting youths they had befriended online.

There are likely many cases that haven't been intercepted, Johnson said, adding the unit has heard about London girls being sexually assaulted by people they met online.

Like others, Johnson warned against giving out identifying information.

"It is alarming, the number of students that give out personal information," agreed Ray Hughes at UWO's Centre for Prevention Science. "It's like posting up a sign on the (Highway) 401 with all your personal information."

The local numbers are consistent with Canadian findings, according to RISE, but slightly higher than those recorded in the U.S., said Jeff Godlis of iSafe America.

That federal web education group has surveyed more than 100,000 American children and found 20 per cent -- one in five -- met strangers off line.

The findings show that even as kids become savvy about Internet use -- through social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook -- they aren't always being safe.

"Youths don't equate strangers on the Internet with those on the street," Rodger said.
As a result, kids who would balk at giving their names or schools to a stranger on the street are willingly offering details up to online contacts.

"When they start talking to people for months online, they don't feel that is a stranger," Liddington said.

"They are like, 'It's my friend. I know what their favourite food is, I know what movie they like . . .' "

"Now predators don't even have to leave their bedrooms to find out everything they want to know," Liddington said.

Rise for Youth is a 15-month project run by Western Area Youth Services, a London group home agency that offers counselling.

The aim is to educate kids and parents about sexual exploitation. The project focuses on the Internet because that's what has opened the playing field for predators, Rodger said.

"It used to be poverty and homelessness were the biggest risk factors for kids being sexually exploited," she said. "All that has changed because of only one thing -- the Internet."
Dangers are illustrated with horrifying cases such as that of Kacie Woodie, a 13-year-old Arkansas girl murdered in 2002 by a 47-year-old predator who had befriended her while posing as a teenager online.

Liddington and Rodger suggest parents need to know their kids' online activity.
But they've met parents who don't even know how to get on the Internet, she said.

MORE INFORMATION

- www.myspace.com/riseforyouth or call 519-432-2209, ext. 3203.

TIPS FOR PARENTS

- Talk to young kids about Internet activities and Internet safety.
- Learn how to use the Internet by signing up to networking sites.
- Keep computers in a common area, not in a bedroom or secluded basement.
- Remember kids also can get online outside your home.

TIPS FOR YOUNGSTERS

- Don't post identifying information such as telephone numbers, addresses, school information or last names online.
- Don't post pictures of yourself.
- If you're going to meet someone for the first time who you've only talked to online, tell an adult, take friends and meet in a public place.

TOMORROW!

Ok, yours truly is doing something very exciting tomorrow morning.

At 7:15am I will be interviewed on CBC Radio One...On "Ontario Morning".

So set your alarms folks...

The Fumes Are Making A Funny Taste In My Mouth

This is a picture of my office. We recently got our pamphlets re-printed. Now I have 20,000 brochures. And 5,000 posters. And 10,000 postcards.

Let's get some perspective.

My office is about 6 feet by 15 feet.

Now my office smells like cardboard. Ever smell cardboard?

If you're interested just fill a small room with 55 cardboard boxes.

I know I shouldn't feel dizzy in my office.

Trees Do Too Much Work With Breezes

Sorry, Annie.

Remember when we raked the backyard last week and gathered up every freaking pine cone from that stupid fricking tree that Dad should have cut down?

Well, it seems the tree was laughing at us, because when I came back from Sarnia it had crapped all over the backyard.

Pinecones everywhere.

I hate trees.

And that's not even because Oprah said she loved them.

It's My Office!

Here it is!

I just got a new cell phone, and it has a camera so I took a photo-

Here's my office.

That's a huge map on the wall of the area that I cover. Next to it is my laptop, which I got after 5 weeks. And on the left is my filing cabinet that a bunch of UWO students from Saugeen (a.k.a. the Zoo) decorated.

It's nice!

I GOT THE JOB!

W00T!

So the big news is I got a full time grown up job!

Yes!

Starting February 5th I will be the Project Coordinator of the RISE (Reducing Incidents fo Sexual Exploitation) for Youth, the same project I helped create last year when I was a student at WAYS.

My job will include lots of public education surrounding young people in the sex trade (what people mistakingly call "youth prostitution"). And I'll be travelling all over Western Ontario!

As well, I'll be heading up the team creating new posters (the one on the left was what we created last year) and a video game.

Besides that, I get my own office, and I'm in the process of picking out a new laptop.

Best of all, this means (drum roll please) I'm moving out! I love my parents, but trust me, it's time.

Yea!

STAND-ing Was Never So Much Fun

Yesterday The General Romeo Dallaire Genocide Institute went to the Armenian Community Centre in Willowdale.

We hosted 465 students from all over the GTA for a day about Darfur. Side Note: We had 385 students registered but one school decided to come without telling me, and bring 70 STUDENTS.

We screened the "Last Just Man", had Dr. Norman Epstein do a seminar on Darfur and had a panel on student activism.

They were all good high school students. Very interested in helping out in the cause.

Even though the day was incredibly long, it was successful.

However, there was an overarching thread that I saw that irked me. Some of the students came to me and expressed their frustration. They were already doing stuff in their school, so how come they hadn't seen results yet? How much longer? What else could they do? Why wasn't the government doing anything? Why weren't their troops on the ground yet? I felt incredibly frustrated. I wanted to tell them that six months of activism doesn't stop a freaking GENOCIDE, so maybe they could find it in themselves to keep plugging away at it? Could ya? That'd be great.

Newsflash ladies and gentlemen: activism is difficult, annoying, time consuming, and progress takes a long, long time. That's why there are so few activists. It's hard and doesn't pay well, and change is not guaranteed.

But we know one thing for sure, if we don't do anything Darfuris will still be killed, raped and mutilated. But if we do something? Who knows what we can do?