Stanley Allison “Stan” Rogers (November 29, 1949 – June 2, 1983) was a Canadian folk musician and songwriter.
Rogers was noted for his rich, baritone voice and his finely-crafted, traditional-sounding songs which were frequently inspired by Canadian history and the daily lives of working people, especially those from the fishing villages of the Maritime provinces and, later, the farms of the Canadian prairies and Great Lakes.
Rogers died alongside 22 other passengers (23 fatalities in all) most likely of smoke inhalation on June 2, 1983, while travelling on Air Canada Flight 797 (a McDonnell Douglas DC-9) after performing at the Kerrville Folk Festival. The airliner was flying from Dallas, Texas to Toronto and Montreal when an in-flight fire forced it to make an emergency landing at the Greater Cincinnati Airport.
Smoke was filling the cabin from an unknown source, and once on the ground, the plane’s doors were opened to allow passengers to escape. Halfway through the evacuation of the plane, the oxygen rushing in from outside caused a flash fire. Rogers was one of the passengers still on the plane at the time of the fire. Eyewitness reports published at the time said that a man of Rogers’ height and build escaped the plane, but then turned and went back inside, apparently to assist in the rescue of others.
His remains were cremated and his ashes scattered in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Nova Scotia.
He sang songs that the average person could relate to.
WHITE COLLAR HOLLER
Well, I rise up every morning at a quarter to eight
Some woman who’s my wife tells me not to be late
I kiss the kids goodbye, I can’t remember their names
And week after week, it’s always the same
And it’s Ho, boys, can’t you code it, and program it right
Nothing ever happens in the life of mine
I’m hauling up the data on the Xerox line
Then it’s code in the data, give the keyboard a punch
Then cross-correlate and break for some lunch
Correlate, tabulate, process and screen
Program, printout, regress to the mean
Then it’s home again, eat again, watch some TV
Make love to my woman at ten-fifty-three
I dream the same dream when I’m sleeping at night
I’m soaring over hills like an eagle in flight
Someday I’m gonna give up all the buttons and things
I’ll punch that time clock till it can’t ring
Burn up my necktie and set myself free
Cause no’one’s gonna fold, bend or mutilate me.
Stan’s version of Farewell to Nova Scotia is the best rendition out there.
The sun was setting in the west
The birds were singing on every tree
All nature seemed inclined to rest
But still there was no rest for me
Farewell Nova Scotia
The sea-bound coast
Let your mountains dark and dreary be
For when I am far away
On your briny ocean tossed
Will you ever heave a sigh
Or a wish for me
I grieve to leave my native land
I grieve to leave my comrades all
And my parents whom I held so dear
And the bonny, bonny lassie
That I do adore
The drums they do beat
And the wars do alarm
The Captain calls, I must obey
So farewell, farewell
To my Nova Scotia home
For it’s early in the morning
That I’m far, far away
I had three brothers and they are at rest
Their arms are folded on their chests
But a poor, simple sailor just like me
Must be tossed and driven
On the deep, blue sea
Rider Pride is fried! Don’t get me wrong, I am not mean at heart. But I have absolutely no sympathy for the Rider green scene. I am a Blue Bomber fan from head to toe, and the Riders stole a Grey Cup from us in 2007. They are one of our arch-rivals and I definitely do not want to see them win another Cup. Only Edmonton is hated more in my books, with the B.C. Lions in third. So enjoy the rest of the evening Rider Nation. Ha, ha.
Why one family would need a residence this big boggles the mind. But when you have 2 billion dollars in the bank, creative spending is needed. To build something like this in a city that has hundreds of thousands of homeless people doesn’t seem appropriate. The building has approximately the same floor space as the Richardson Building in Winnipeg. Imagine having the Richardson Building as your private residence.
Antilia is the name of a twenty-seven floor personal home in South Mumbai belonging to India’s richest man, businessman Mukesh Ambani, the billionaire Chairman of Reliance Industries. There will be 600 full-time staff to maintain the residence, which is considered the most expensive home in the world with a price over US$ 1 billion dollars. Its also been described as the “Taj Mahal of 21st century India”.
The home will house Ambani, wife Nita, their three children and Ambani’s mother.
Location
Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Status
Completed
Constructed
2007-2010
Use
Residential
Height
Roof
173 metres (568 ft)
Technical details
Floor count
27 (equivalent to 60 floors tower)
Cost
US$50-70 million est. yearly maintenance
Companies involved
Architect(s)
Perkins & Will
The structure was designed by U.S. architects using principles of Vaastu, Indian traditional geomancy akin to Chinese feng shui, to maximize “positive energy.” No two floor plans are alike, and the materials used in each level vary widely.
The home will include:
400,000 sq feet of living space.
Parking space for 168 cars.
A one-floor vehicle maintenance facility.
9 elevators in the lobby.
3 helipads and an air traffic control facility.
Health spa, yoga studio, small theatre with a seating capacity for 50 on the eighth floor, multiple swimming pools, three floors of hanging gardens, and a ballroom.
An ice room infused with man-made snow flurries.
Some Indians are proud of the “ostentatious house,” while others see it as “shameful in a nation where many children go hungry.” Dipankar Gupta, a sociologist at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, opined that “such wealth can be inconceivable” not only in Mumbai, “home to some of Asia’s worst slums,” but also in a nation with 42 percent of the world’s underweight children younger than five.
Here are some stories from the crime sections of various New York newspapers from November 27th and 28th.
A heartless driver mowed down a woman carrying groceries on the upper West Side, leaving her dead in the street before speeding off.
When a good Samaritan caught up to her about a block away, the driver hopped out of her Dodge Charger and screamed that it wasn’t her fault.
“It was my light!” she hollered. “It was my light!”
Police haven’t released the identities of the 24-year-old driver or the dead woman. The motorist was in custody Friday night. Charges were pending.
“The car was going really fast down 93rd St., much faster than normal,” said Lisette Gomez, 30, who saw the crash as she stood behind the counter of a nearby dry cleaner. “The car hit the lady and she flew up in the air as high as a streetlight. Then she landed between two cars.”
Cops were hunting Thursday for two gunmen who executed a pair of ex-cons during a shootout inside a van parked in a Brooklyn driveway.
Witnesses told cops they saw two men sprint from the blood-splattered Ford Windstar after gunfire erupted about 1 p.m. Wednesday.
“I saw two guys run and jump over a neighbor’s fence to try and get to the next block,” said a witness who saw the violence from the kitchen window of her Flatbush apartment.
The motive for the shooting was not immediately known, but cops speculated it may have been a drug deal gone wrong.
A Bronx family that had just finished their Thanksgiving feast had their holiday shattered when several stray bullets screamed through their kitchen window and struck a young mother.
The slugs slammed into the Soundview apartment’s walls, and one tore through the shoulder of Shatice Johnson as she sat digesting dinner late Thursday night.
“It was a normal family Thanksgiving, and all of a sudden, ‘Bang, bang, bang,’ ” Johnson, 22, recalled Friday after she was discharged from Jacobi Medical Center.
Each day, a dozen or more young men stroll into Queens Supreme Court sporting the Cincinnati Reds’ signature red-and-black cap.
The fashion trend doesn’t mean the borough has stopped rooting for the Mets in favor of this year’s National League Central champions.
Veteran prosecutors say members of the Bloods – the largest and most dangerous gang in Queens – have worked the red “C” into their wardrobe in a direct slap at blue-themed rivals the Crips.
A Queens mom found dead on Rockaway Beach was beaten so severely, cops initially thought she had been shot, police sources said Wednesday.
Althea Lewis and her boyfriend, David Lynch, were arguing during an early morning dip. Prosecutors said Lewis, 45, was beaten, bitten and then suspended by her legs as her beau of only three weeks submerged her in the ocean.
“He loses his mind,” a police source said. “He beat her so bad that at first we thought she was shot – she’s got four holes in her face, indentations.”
Lynch, a member of the National Guard and an Iraq War vet, left the crime scene and police pulled him over on Far Rockaway Blvd. for driving erratically. He led police to his girlfriend’s body a few blocks away, later claiming she committed suicide.
The evidence on her body spoke to the contrary.
An off-duty NYPD cop was busted for driving while intoxicated after he was found passed out behind the wheel of his illegally parked car, police said.
Police Officer Anthony Rodriguez, 27, was suspended from the force following his boozed-up roadside snooze, the NYPD announced Friday night.
He was the second off-duty NYPD officer collared for DWI this week – and the fifth city cop booked on criminal charges during the same period.
A “fearless” mugger is on the loose on Manhattan’s upper East Side, robbing five women in apartment buildings since Wednesday afternoon, cops said.
The balding bandit is running amok in one of Manhattan’s toniest neighborhoods, where he is terrifying women with his devil-may-care daring: four of his five crimes occurred during daylight hours.
“I have a knife and I am not going to hurt you! I just want your money!” he barked at his most recent victim, a 26-year-old woman, cops said.
She was checking her mail about 2:30 p.m. Thursday inside the lobby of a building on E. 78th St. near the FDR Drive when he crept up behind her.
He took her money, iPod and watch – and also kept his word; she was not injured, cops said.
The mugger is in his 30s, about 6-feet-tall and 220 lbs, cops said. He struck twice on Thanksgiving and three times on Wednesday.
Bear Trapp: Not exactly sure what the parents of Sacred Heart Pioneers senior forward Bear Trapp were thinking when they named him. Suppose it was better than calling him Beaver or Rat. Sacred Heart is a university in Connecticut.
Dick Trickle: Considered America’s winningest driver with an estimated 1,200 wins, Dick Trickle tops that record with probably one of America’s most awkward names. Is it a name? Or a medical condition?
World B. Free: Long-time NBAer Lloyd Bernard Free legally changed his name to World B. Free in 1980. As idealistic as the name change sounds, it’s more a result of the nickname, World, he was given on the playgrounds of Brooklyn.
Wacey Rabbit: Junior hockey fans in western Canada know all about forward Wacey Rabbit, currently playing in the KHL. If you don’t think of Elmer Fudd when you hear Rabbit’s name, there’s something wrong with you. Born in Lethbridge, Alberta.
Milton Bradley: Milton Bradley isn’t just the company that gave us Monopoly. He’s also a short-fused outfielder for the Texas Rangers who has plenty of run ins with baseball disciplinarians. Bradley’s name wouldn’t get the same smirks if he went by Milt, would it?
Peerless Price: Some names you’re meant to live up to and Peerless Price’s first name is one of those. Unfortunately for the NFL wide receiver, he hasn’t. Having played for four teams in eight years, he’s got a ways to get to that point. Especially considering his career is currently in limbo following a neck injury.
Kaka: Like many South American soccer players, Ricardo Leite, has adopted a one-name moniker. In this case, he’s commonly know as Kaka. Pronounced exactly as you’d expect, it doesn’t mean the same thing to the Brazilians as it does to anglophones, especially those with young children.
Plaxico Burress: This is one family name that probably should have been converted to a middle name, but Super Bowl XLII hero Plaxico Burress inherited his first name from an uncle.
Stubby Clapp: Stubby Clapp, whose first name is actually Richard, is almost lucky he didn’t get the common nickname ‘Dick’ instead of ‘Stubby’. Granted, both are equally hilarious. Clapp played for a while with the St. Louis Cardinals, and has represented the Canadian baseball team at three international events.
Will Power: Where there’s a will, there’s a way. And Australian champ car driver Will Power has that in spades. Or at least his name does.
Coco Crisp: There is, sadly, no proof that Covelli Loyce Crisp change his name to Coco Crisp to conjure up images of childhood cereal when the Boston Red Sox outfielder steps up to plate.
Picabo Street: The first American to win a downhill or Super G skiing event, Picabo (pronounced peek-a-boo) Street is known for one of two things: A horrific crash in 1998 that required two years of rehabilitation and her odd first name. Turns out her name was taken from a Native American word meaning ‘shining waters’ and not a game people play with babies.
Ron Tugnutt: That’s his name, not a painful injury. Or fetish. Tugnutt saw action with eight NHL teams during his 16-year hockey career, which meant he likely heard the same locker room jokes about his last name in eight different cities. Though, with that sewn onto his jersey, he was likely getting thousands of snickers a night.
Anna Smashnova: It may not be the funniest name on the list, but Russian tennis player Anna Smashnova definitely has a name that stands out in her sport. And it’s actually quite fitting.
The war the United States has been waging in Afgahnistan is approaching 9 years and fifty days. The same length of time that the former Soviet Union, present day Russia, fought an extremely violent anti-insurgency war in that same country. The Soviets invaded to create a socialist country in Afghanistan. The Americans invaded to wipe out Al Qaeda and destroy their Afghan allies, the Taliban.
After initially being pulverized by U.S. bombers which caused the Taliban to flee to Pakistan or melt back into their villages, the Taliban forces have re-grouped and conducted a bloody guerilla war against the U.S. and its allies. However the comparisons of the American and Soviet wars show there are major differences. The Soviets lost just under 15,000 military personnel killed. So far the U.S. has lost 1,404 military personnel killed, the U.K. has lost 345 soldiers and the other NATO members have lost 483. Including 153 Canadians.
When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan on Dec. 27, 1979, its stated goal was to transform Afghanistan into a modern socialist state. The Soviets sought to prop up a communist regime that was facing a popular uprising, but left largely defeated Feb. 15, 1989.
In 1992, the pro-Moscow government of Mohammad Najibullah collapsed and U.S.-backed rebels took power. The Taliban eventually seized Kabul after a violent civil war that killed thousands more. It ruled with a strict interpretation of Islamic law until it was ousted by the U.S.-led invasion.
Nader Nadery, an Afghan analyst who has studied the Soviet and U.S. invasions, said “the time may be the same” for the two conflicts, “but conditions are not similar.”
More than a million civilians died as Soviet forces propping up the government of Babrak Karmal waged a massive war against anti-communist mujahedeen forces.
“There was indiscriminate mass bombardment of villages for the eviction of mujahedeen,” Nadery said. “Civilian casualties are not at all comparable.”
Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and Afghanistan expert, said NATO forces have killed fewer than 10,000 civilians and a comparable number of insurgents.
The allied military presence has also been far smaller and more targeted. Even now, nearly all operations are restricted to the south and east of the country where the insurgency is most active. O’Hanlon points out that at the height of the resistance, there were 250,000 mujahedeen representing all Afghan ethnic groups fighting the Soviets, while “the current insurgency is perhaps one-eighth as large and is only Pashtun.”
“We do have big problems. But there is no comparison between this war and what the Soviets wrought,” he said.
Soviet armoured convoy in Afghanistan in the 1980′s.
Afghan troop map: US and Nato deployments.
Photos of U.S. Army soldiers and Marines operating in the south and east of Afghanistan.
Here is a picture of the Afghan National Army (ANA). If this force can keep the Taliban at bay is anybody’s guess. In this picture they are dragging their weapons on the ground, and some of the soldiers seem to be really struggling with their gear.
Countries contributing troops to Afghan War.
Country name
Number of Troops
% of Total Troops
Troops per one million population
Troops per $1 billion (USD) GDP
United States
100,430
65.64
251.40
5.38
United Kingdom
9,500
7.92
155.20
3.56
Germany
4,350
3.64
52.90
1.19
France
3,750
3.14
58.70
1.31
Italy
3,300
2.76
55.40
1.43
Canada
2,830
2.37
85.00
1.88
Poland
2,500
2.09
65.60
4.74
Turkey
1,710
1.43
23.10
2.31
Australia
1,550
1.30
73.50
1.52
Spain
1,415
1.18
31.80
0.88
Romania
1,140
0.95
53.30
5.61
Georgia
925
0.77
214.60
72.32
Denmark
750
0.63
137.40
2.20
Belgium
590
0.49
55.70
1.17
Bulgaria
525
0.44
69.20
10.52
Czech Republic
525
0.44
51.00
2.42
Norway
500
0.42
104.80
1.11
Sweden
500
0.42
54.30
1.04
Hungary
340
0.29
34.00
2.20
Slovakia
290
0.24
53.70
3.05
Croatia
280
0.23
63.30
4.04
Portugal
265
0.22
24.80
1.09
Albania
250
0.21
79.60
19.05
Lithuania
245
0.21
73.80
5.18
Macedonia [FYROM]
210
0.18
102.90
23.35
Latvia
170
0.14
75.20
5.03
Estonia
160
0.13
119.40
6.90
New Zealand
155
0.13
36.60
1.23
Finland
115
0.10
21.70
0.42
Azerbaijan
90
0.08
10.30
2.01
Slovenia
75
0.06
37.10
1.38
Greece
75
0.06
6.80
0.21
Armenia
40
0.03
24.40
6.29
Mongolia
40
0.03
15.20
7.61
Singapore
40
0.03
8.70
0.22
Montenegro
30
0.03
48.20
6.22
United Arab Emirates
25
0.02
5.60
0.09
Ukraine
15
0.01
0.30
0.08
Luxembourg
9
0.01
18.70
0.17
Bosnia and Herzegovina
10
0.01
2.70
0.54
Ireland
7
0.01
1.60
0.03
Jordan
6
0.01
1.00
0.28
Iceland
3
0.00
9.50
0.18
Austria
3
0.00
0.40
0.01
Some photos of U.S. Army soldiers and Marines operating in the south and east of Afghanistan.
There were players and coaches who wanted to string him up from the rafters of the old Winnipeg Arena. Some sports fans were ready to run him out of town.
Once, defenceman Jim Kyte, the toughest player on the Winnipeg Jets, accosted him in the press box, grabbed his cowboy hat and tossed it down to the ice.
If only they’d known they were dealing with a woman.
“He might have gone and picked up my hat for me,” Patti Dawn Swansson said.
Patti Dawn Swansson used to be Pat Doyle, a straight-shooting, hard-as-nails sports columnist with the Winnipeg Sun and, before that, the Winnipeg Tribune.
If the Jets or Blue Bombers deserved skewering, Doyle was only too happy to provide the sharp sticks. With him, no windmill was too pretty to tip over, no cow too sacred to steer into the slaughterhouse.
Simply put, Doyle told it like it was.
But when it came to his own most personal truth — that he was a woman trapped inside a man’s body — he couldn’t.
“It was suffocating,” is how Patti Dawn described it. “Imagine yourself six feet under, in a casket, and knowing that you’re alive, but nobody else knows you’re alive. They think you’re dead.
“I knew there was a real, live, loving, vibrant person buried underneath the surface.”
Longtime readers of the Winnipeg Sun might recognize the guy on the left as the colourful and opinionated former sports columnist and editor Pat Doyle. You might be surprised to learn the woman on the right is also the same person, more than a decade later.
Strange stuff.
Come to think of it, I have never felt comfortable in my body.
I always knew there was a 6’3″ 230 lb linebacker trapped inside me. Where do I get the operation?
For some nutty politically correct reason the political brain trust in St. Johns, Newfoundland, decided to officially change the province’s name in 2001 from just plain Newfoundland, to Newfoundland and Labrador. In my opinion this double name is way to long to describe the “Rock.” I think the name should be shortened to Newfounbrador. Instead of calling the inhabitants of the windswept easternmost province Newfoundlanders (they hate Newfie), the rest of Canada will call them Newfounbradorians.
Purported Newfounbradorian hot tub.
And Danny Williams was honoured to serve and protect the Newfounbradorians. He has now resigned as premier of Newfounbrador to go back into the private sector and make some real money. One of the main reasons I want this shortened name for the province, was hearing Danny Boy strain his tender heart by always blurting out “Newfoundland and Labrador!” Lets change the name right now! By Tunderin Jesus!
Newfounbradorians do not seem to have an aversion to change. The fellow below has changed quite a lot in the past few years. And he is still the most famous son from the Rock.
This phenomena must really excite the paranormal buffs. It must be invisible Aliens, or power beams from UFOs, or ancient Native spirits. The phenomenon still has scientists puzzled, but there are some theories that bring the mystery back down to earth.
The sailing stones, also known as sliding rocks and moving rocks, are a geological phenomenon where rocks move in long tracks along a smooth valley floor without human or animal intervention. They have been recorded and studied in a number of places around Racetrack Playa, Death Valley California, where the number and length of travel grooves are notable. The force behind their movement is not understood and is the subject of research.
Racetrack stones only move every two or three years and most tracks develop over three or four years. Stones with rough bottoms leave straight striated tracks while those with smooth bottoms wander. Stones sometimes turn over, exposing another edge to the ground and leaving a different track in the stone’s wake.
Sliding rock trails fluctuate in direction and length. Some rocks which start next to each other start out traveling parallel, but one may abruptly change direction to the left, right, or even back the direction it came from. Length also varies because two similarly sized and shaped rocks could travel uniformly, then one could burst ahead or stop dead in its track.
The stones are rarely transported and no one has witnessed their movement, so the speeds at which the rocks travel are unknown.
Most of the so-called gliding stones originate from an 850 foot (260 m) high hillside made of dark dolomite on the south end of the playa, but some are intrusive igneous rock from adjacent slopes (most of those being tan-colored feldspar-rich syenite). Tracks are often tens to hundreds of feet long, a few to 12 inches (8 to 30 cm) wide, and typically much less than an inch (2.54 cm) deep. Some tracks are in a zig-zag form, and have a very straight track left behind.
A balance of specific conditions are thought to be needed for stones to move:
a saturated yet non-flooded surface,
a thin layer of clay,
very strong gusts as initiating force, and
strong sustained wind to keep stones going.
Geologists Jim McAllister and Allen Agnew mapped the bedrock of the area in 1948 and made note of the tracks. Naturalists from the National Park Service later wrote more detailed descriptions and Life magazine featured a set of photographs from the Racetrack. Speculation about how the stones move started at this time. Various and sometimes idiosyncratic possible explanations have been put forward over the years that have ranged from the supernatural to the very complex. Most hypotheses favored by interested geologists posit that strong winds when the mud is wet are at least in part responsible. Some stones weigh as much as a human, which some researchers, such as geologist George M. Stanley, who published a paper on the topic in 1955, feel is too heavy for the area’s wind to move. They maintain that ice sheets around the stones either help to catch the wind or move in ice floes.
Professor John Reid led six research students from Hampshire College and the University of Massachusetts in a follow-up study in 1995. They found highly congruent trails from stones that moved in the late 1980s and during the winter of 1992-1993. At least some stones were proved beyond a reasonable doubt to have been moved in ice floes that may be up to half a mile (800 m) wide. Physical evidence included swaths of lineated areas that could only have been created by moving thin sheets of ice. So wind alone as well as in conjunction with ice floes are thought to be motive forces.
Physicists studying the phenomenon in 1995 found that winds blowing on playa surfaces can be compressed and intensified. They also found that boundary layers (the region just above ground where winds are slower due to ground drag) on these surfaces can be as low as 2 inches (5 cm). This means that stones just a few inches high feel the full force of ambient winds and their gusts, which can reach 90 mph (145 km/h) in winter storms. Such gusts are thought to be the initiating force while momentum and sustained winds keep the stones moving, possibly as fast as a moderate run (only half the force required to start a stone sailing is needed to keep it in motion).
Wind and ice both are the favored hypothesis for these mysterious sliding rocks. Noted in Don J. Easterbrook’s “Surface Processes and Landforms”, he mentioned that because of the lack of parallel paths between some rock paths, this could be caused by the breaking up of ice resulting in alternate routes. Even though the ice breaks up into smaller blocks, it is still necessary for the rocks to slide.
I saw for the first time today the Winnipeg Police Service Cadets patrolling downtown. Nice blue jackets. Tonight there were 2 Cadets and a police officer walking around City Place, they were soon joined by 2 Biz Red Coats. Some reprobate FAS freak must have been up to no good.
So the more the merrier when it comes to security patrols downtown. The streets are filled with all kinds of morally unprincipled degenerates all hours of the day. So more law people will force these miscreants back up north to the CP yards area.
If it wouldn’t be for these security patrols the downtown north of York would have been overrun by drunks, bums, panhandlers and gangers a long time ago.
