Brian Cantin » general

Fonyo Jr. Stripped of Order of Canada – When is it Black’s Turn?

Brian — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:58:19 +0000

This story dates back to December 10th, 2009 but has only just now come to my attention. The Governor General of Canada has stripped Mr. Stephen Fonyo Jr. of his Order of Canada due to his criminal convictions.
You can see the notice on the GG’s website here: http://www.gg.ca/document.aspx?id=13497.

I agree that if someone is a recipient of our highest award in the country and they prove themselves morally unfit of that honor they should not have it. However, if Mr. Fonyo Jr.’s award is being stripped due to his criminal convictions, shouldn’t Mr. Conrad Black also be stripped of his Order of Canada? He’s currently halfway through a 6.5 year sentence in a US Federal prison in Florida for millions of dollars of corporate fraud.

From the Governor General’s website:

According to the Article 3 of the Policy and Procedure for Termination of Appointment to the Order Of Canada, a revocation is considered when:

a) the person has been convicted of a criminal offence; or

b) the conduct of the person

(i) constitutes a significant departure from generally-recognized standards of public behaviour which is seen to undermine the credibility, integrity or relevance of the Order, or detracts from the original grounds upon which the appointment was based; or

(ii) has been subject to official sanction, such as a fine or a reprimand, by an adjudicating body, professional association or other organization.

I do believe that being convicted of fraud, paying a $125,000 fine, 78 months in prison, and $6.1million dollars in reparations to Hollinger International (the company he siphoned the money from) counts for all points of consideration listed above. Strip his Order of Canada too!

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New YouTube Links

Brian — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:08:12 +0000

In January this year I hooked up my WebCam and some recording software and made some test videos for YouTube.
The video quality turned out astoundingly bad due to the low-resolution and cheap CCD in my generic camera. I have not made any further videos, pending some hardware purchases to correct the issue.
I do hope to try to do a few more in black and white to see if that will improve the frame-rate for capturing, but ultimately I need a new camera.

In the collection of test videos there are two covers:

The other three videos are original songs I’ve written:

Please check them out, and rate my videos. You can visit my YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/user/standinwater.
For other (audio only) recordings you can visit my streaming audio site on MySpace at www.myspace.com/standingwaterband.

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Video: Salvation / Tight (Original Song)

Brian — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:49:28 +0000

Uploaded to YouTube in January 2009, this is a test video where I play the song ‘Salvation / Tight’, that I wrote in 2004. In 2008 I changed the key, and in this version I was playing around making it a heavier song instead of acoustic.

Salvation / Tight (Original Song)

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Video: Twitch (Original Song)

Brian — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:44:28 +0000

Uploaded in January 2009, this is a test video where I play ‘Twitch’, a song I wrote somewhere around 1998 or 1999.

Twitch (Original Song)

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Video: Melancholy (Original Song)

Brian — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:20:57 +0000

Uploaded to YouTube in January, 2009, this is a test video where I play the song ‘Melancholy’, that I wrote in 2004.

Melancholy (Original Song)

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Video: Push (Moist)

Brian — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:24:58 +0000

Uploaded to YouTube in January, 2009, this is a test video where I play the song ‘Push’, originally by Moist.

Push (Moist Cover)

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Video: Where Is My Mind (The Pixies)

Brian — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:20:15 +0000

Uploaded to YouTube in January 2009, this is a test video where I play the song ‘Where Is My Mind’, originally by The Pixies.

Where Is My Mind (Pixies Cover)

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New Blog Domain and Platform

Brian — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:49:52 +0000

Hello, and welcome to my Blog version 2.0. After finding the content management on Blogger.com lacking I came to the conclusion I had finally outgrown the software’s capabilities.

I decided I would like to have more control over the site and opted to host my own domain and run WordPress. I had to manually fix a few links and recently had a major issue with my plugins (it is now fixed) everything is finally migrated over.

I will be adding new features and content to the site as well as a new theme hopefully in the coming weeks.

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Random Update

Brian — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 19:40:00 +0000

I’ve painstakingly gone through nearly all of my blog posts and updated the URL for the little icons and images. I canceled their previous hosting domain and rolled them into my main one.
I wish blogger had a search and replace feature that would have let me find the old URL and replace it with the new one automatically. Oh well.

As of late, I’ve been looking into going back to school. It seems the Ottawa region is flooded with support analysts who have been laid off and the demand doesn’t meet those levels. Perhaps I can either supplement my skills, or maybe it’s time to move into a new career. We shall see.

I recently pieced together a new song concept demo, which can be found on my MySpace page – it’s the track labeled ‘Boneyard’. Check it out.

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Excuse Me, Is Your Shirt Glowing?

Brian — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 20:07:00 +0000

LumiGram in France has come up with some pretty cool fiber optic fabrics. Clothes, table cloths, bags and pillows are lit up with battery powered LED’s running through fiber optics woven into the fabric.

Naturally, this means that all their products need to be carefully hand-washed and can only be folded parallel to the optics to prevent damage. I think this explains why the clothing seems to be oriented towards females since most of their clothes requires special care anyways. Still, I really like the light-up table cloth they have.

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