Random News Stories

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Goes with the post right above this one. Huge Bird that was stuck inside an 8" exhaust pipe...

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I serviced the movie theater in down town Fallon for quite a few years. This area is fascinating to say the least. Aside from the NAS, there are hidden Indian caves, thousands of petroglyphs, enormous sand dunes, and an atomic test site called Project Shoal. There is also the Churchill County Museum, and a couple small Casinos, and a shuttered drive in. And of course, the fighter jets out doing practice runs and maneuvers over the desert, often at low altitudes... Training at the NAS only went on at certain times of the year, otherwise it was a quiet area in general. Because it was so far from home base, I'd sometimes get stuck over a weekend waiting for a part to arrive on Monday. So I'd spend time exploring. John Eickoff previously serviced the place.
The theater opened in 1920, burned down in the mid 1940's, and was twinned in 1984. It's on the State of Nevada register of historic places, and still open today.
A funny story about servicing the place... The owner called and he was having short lamp life in the balcony theater lamphouse, (Super Lumex) Checked exhaust airflow with my meter, and it was only a tenth of what it normally was. Exhaust blower was fine, so there had to be blockage in the duct. Disassembled some of the duct sections and found a giant Crow wedged in a section of the duct... Said Crow was dead, and had to be forced out of the pipe with a stick. Somewhere I have a picture of it... Normal lamp life resumed after that.

Back around 2015, a new 8 screen theater was constructed near the hospital. Not sure how it survives... there are over 3000 people stationed on the base, and about 9500 in Fallon proper. There is also the usual on- base movie theater. So there are 10 screens in Fallon today feeding off less than 13k people...

Geting back to Top Gun Maverick, parts of it were definately filmed on the base and the surrounding areas, but watching the Movie, there was basically almost nothing recognizable to me as being in Fallon.

[Frank Cox]

With your F-16 you'd be there in just under an hour. (At cruising speed.)

[Leo Enticknap]

Telegraph story about the real "Top Gun" school

The real US Navy Top Gun fighter school is nothing like the movies

You can be the best of the best. But you’d better not use that phrase

There was a gap of nearly four decades between the two Top Gun blockbuster films – but it appears that cinemagoers may have a shorter wait before their next fix of US Navy fast jet shenanigans.

Following the roaring success of ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ in 2022, the script for a potential third instalment is already said to be in production.

Any link between the Paramount Pictures films and the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm appears, at first blush, to be tenuous.

But it’s closer than you might imagine.

Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Glenn Powell and fellow cast members portray the Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor programme as competitive, populated by hefty egos and, well, mavericks.

In the first movie, pilots under instruction at Top Gun have time to go drinking in the evenings, have a stab at karaoke and oil up for a rowdy game of beach volleyball.

While military personnel often watch war films cradling their heads in their hands in despair at the inaccuracies, Top Gun is at least related to what takes place in reality, even if some of the flying scenarios swiftly rocket into the realms of pure fantasy.

Naturally the real students are far more serious and professional, as you might expect when you’re flying a F-18 Super Hornet or F-35C fifth generation stealth fighter, which you borrow from your squadron and fly to Naval Air Station Fallon. Back when the original movie was filmed, the Fighter Weapons School was based at the then Naval Air Station Miramar, close to the beaches of San Diego. In 1996, however, it moved 200 miles from the sea to the Nevada desert, where NAS Fallon sits amid huge aerial tactics ranges.

Top Gun is the very pinnacle of leading-edge naval aviation tactical training.

When its band of chosen students aren’t flying, attending debriefs or lectures, they’re probably going for a stress-relieving run or catching up on some well-deserved rest.

Those who attend are competitive but there is an emphasis on teamwork, and the pilots are given the ultimate education in their art on the understanding that all they’ve garnered is passed on to others. A Top Gun graduate is not merely a better strike fighter pilot, but an expert instructor in tactics and weapons, with a mission to make their fellow pilots better.

Top Gun was hatched during the Vietnam War, when US Navy crews flying the F-4 Phantom found themselves flailing as they fought an adversary flying small, agile MiG-17 and MiG-21s. The first course took place in 1969.

I once visited the carrier USS George H W Bush in the Western Approaches to the English Channel and watched as F-18 after F-18 was catapulted into grey, summer skies. It was a steely, sobering show of pure military might, and brought home just how much power is at the disposal of a carrier strike group. But that power, to be effective, must be directed with great skill. The Top Gun course lasts for 13 weeks, with the highly classified training constantly evolving to maintain up-to-the-minute relevance.

Alongside academic lectures, there is a flight training plan which begins with one-on-one dogfighting, before evolving into more complex missions involving four jets. Air-to-air and air-to-ground attacks are simulated, as pilots fight their way to targets, then extract themselves. After each sortie there’s a lengthy debrief, during which the hour’s flying is unpicked in minute detail and lessons learned.

Instructors playing the enemy, known as ‘red air’, fly F-5, F-16 and F-18 Legacy aircraft, as well as the F-35C.

Those who pass will usually go on to instruct at the two Strike Fighter Weapons Schools on the west and east coasts or at a Fleet replenishment squadron. Others stay on to teach at Top Gun itself.

The Royal Navy and RAF operate a joint force of F-35B jump jets like those of the US Marines. These aircraft are sometimes available for operations from British carriers, as seen aboard HMS Prince of Wales, 20 February 2024 Credit: AS1 Amber Mayall RAF/PA

Those who attend are competitive but there is an emphasis on teamwork, and the pilots are given the ultimate education in their art on the understanding that all they’ve garnered is passed on to others. A Top Gun graduate is not merely a better strike fighter pilot, but an expert instructor in tactics and weapons, with a mission to make their fellow pilots better.

Top Gun was hatched during the Vietnam War, when US Navy crews flying the F-4 Phantom found themselves flailing as they fought an adversary flying small, agile MiG-17 and MiG-21s. The first course took place in 1969.

I once visited the carrier USS George H W Bush in the Western Approaches to the English Channel and watched as F-18 after F-18 was catapulted into grey, summer skies. It was a steely, sobering show of pure military might, and brought home just how much power is at the disposal of a carrier strike group. But that power, to be effective, must be directed with great skill.

The Top Gun course lasts for 13 weeks, with the highly classified training constantly evolving to maintain up-to-the-minute relevance.

Alongside academic lectures, there is a flight training plan which begins with one-on-one dogfighting, before evolving into more complex missions involving four jets. Air-to-air and air-to-ground attacks are simulated, as pilots fight their way to targets, then extract themselves. After each sortie there’s a lengthy debrief, during which the hour’s flying is unpicked in minute detail and lessons learned.

Instructors playing the enemy, known as ‘red air’, fly F-5, F-16 and F-18 Legacy aircraft, as well as the F-35C.

Those who pass will usually go on to instruct at the two Strike Fighter Weapons Schools on the west and east coasts or at a Fleet replenishment squadron. Others stay on to teach at Top Gun itself.

They will then join an operational squadron as the unit’s weapons and tactics expert, infusing its pilots with all they’ve learnt at Fallon.

Top Gun was the highest grossing film of 1986, making $357m. Top Gun: Maverick was the second highest grossing of 2022, with £1.5bn worldwide. It was the most financially successful film Tom Cruise has ever starred in.

Paramount paid £11,000 per hour to the US Navy to use F-18E (single seat) and F-18F (dual seat) piloted jets for filming. The service happily assisted, knowing that the end products are the ultimate recruiting tool.

Which brings us to the British naval fast jet story.

The Royal Navy’s Sea Harrier was withdrawn in 2006. It was the only Harrier variant with a targeting radar – thus the only one which could be used as a fully capable air-to-air fighter. Thereafter only GR7/9 ground attack Harriers were available, with very limited air-to-air capability.

Royal Navy fast jet capability suffered another severe blow when Prime Minister David Cameron controversially decided to axe all remaining Harriers as part of the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review. Fleet Air Arm Harrier pilots were made redundant and all Royal Navy fast jet training halted that morning.

It is said that Cameron regretted his decision to cull carrier strike mere months later. This would not be surprising as by that point Britain was involved in air strike operations over Libya. When Britain wanted to make a strike, RAF jets had to fly in all the way across the sea from Italy or Cyprus – or indeed, in not a few cases, all the way from the UK.

Meanwhile French jets were catapulting off their carrier close by the Libyan coast and arriving over the battlefield in a matter of minutes, spending almost all their expensive flight time doing useful work rather than mostly trundling along above the sea (or France) as Britain’s were. Italian and US Harrier carriers were also in action off the coast.

But Britain did have a plan for new carriers, and they did eventually arrive. The United States Navy agreed to blend British sailors into its own training programme as preparation for this.

The first of our aviators to arrive there was then-Lieutenant Stephen Collins RN. After coming top of his class in his initial training, Collins was sent to fighter attack squadron VFA-14 “Tophatters” at NAS Lemoore, California, then on to learn aggressive dog-fighting tactics.

A seven-month deployment in Nimitz-class supercarrier USS John C Stennis followed, flying close air support sorties over Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. Piloting an F-18 Super Hornet, Collins took part in air strikes in support of troops fighting on the ground. His callsign, awarded by his fellow aviators, was ‘Lothar’ – which stands for Loser Of The American Revolution.

Lothar did so well that he not only was picked to go to Top Gun, he came top of his course there too. Only a small percentage of US Navy pilots graduate the course and wear the Top Gun patch. Coming top, to use a phrase familiar from the films, makes Collins the best of the best indeed. Now a Commander, he is a major asset for the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm.

Over 40 British pilots have now completed flying training in F-18s with the Americans, at about half the cost of conducting it here. Others have done well too, and Top Gun last year suggested that a second Fleet Air Arm pilot would be a suitable candidate for its world-famous course. The Royal Navy confirms that pilot will be attending.

British carrier strike has had its issues, including flood, fire and having to spend millions fixing ships’ propellers.

Yet the Fleet Air Arm, training alongside our friends and allies in the US, has shown that British naval pilots are among the best of the best – and consistently out-perform their RAF and Army colleagues.

So far, so good.

But there’s only so much cosying up that can happen between the military and Hollywood.

Despite its close involvement in the development of both films, there is one boundary that can never be crossed at Top Gun.

Anyone quoting from the movies is immediately awarded an on-the-spot $5 fine.

Interesting, but just one slight nit pick: the story suggests (but does not explicitly state) that Fallon, NV, is 200 miles from San Diego. I know that it isn't, because the Fallon Theatre is one of my service customers: I make the 439-mile drive from Loma Linda to Fallon around once every 18 months. I'd guess that it's around 550 miles from San Diego using the quickest driving route.

[Leo Enticknap]

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This is supposed to be "entertainment" ?!

I remember that Fox News once put an "entertainment" tag on coverage of an execution, too.

[Frank Cox]

https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2024/0...ilt-wrong-lot/

‘Are you kidding me?’: Property owner stunned after $500,000 house built on wrong lot

Anger, accusations, and legal action are firing up on the Big Island after a construction company built a half-million-dollar house on the wrong lot.
By Daryl Huff

Published: Mar. 26, 2024 at 5:10 PM HST|Updated: Mar. 26, 2024 at 5:35 PM HST
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - Anger, accusations and legal action are firing up on the Big Island after a construction company built a half-million-dollar house on the wrong property.
The lot owner doesn’t want the house and has endured problems like higher taxes and squatters. Now, to add insult to injury, she’s being sued over someone else’s mistake.
The still vacant three-bedroom, two-bath house on a one-acre lot in Puna’s Hawaiian Paradise Park is worth about $500,000.
But it could cost a lot of people more than that as they head to court to sort it out.

It all started in 2018, when Annaleine “Anne” Reynolds thought she’d found the perfect, serene parcel in Paradise Park to host her meditative healing women’s retreats.
“There’s a sacredness to it and the one that I chose to buy had all the right qualities,” she said.
The price was also right — available in a county tax auction for about $22,500.
But while she waited in California through the pandemic for the right time to use it, the lot was bulldozed and a house rose on the property. She was unaware of the construction until she got a call last year from a real estate broker who had learned the mistake.

“And then he informed me, ‘oh well, I just sold the house, and it happens to be on your property,’” Reynolds recalled.
“So we need to resolve this. And I’m like, what? Are you kidding me?”
What’s undisputed is that PJ’s Construction was hired by developer Keaau Development Partnership, LLC to build about a dozen homes on properties that the developers bought in the subdivision — where the lots are identified by telephone poles.
An attorney for PJ’s Construction said the developers didn’t want to hire surveyors.

Honolulu attorney James DiPasquale was hired by Reynolds when she was sued along with everyone else associated with the property or construction.
“There’s a lot of fingers being pointed between the developer and the contractor and some subs,” DiPasquale said.
Because it can’t be sold, the house has become a nightmare for Reynolds. A neighbor told Hawaii News Now that squatters were immediately attracted to the brand new vacant house.
“Before they put the fence on this property there was people coming already to this property. I know kind of looking inside,” he said.

When she inspected and saw the bathrooms, Reynolds discovered they’d done more than just look. “Both had poop. The hallway one had poop on the floor. It was so disgusting,” she said.
Along with the cost of fencing, she’s paying property taxes that went from a few hundred to several thousand dollars. The developers tried to settle the issue. Reynold’s attorney said they offered to swap her their lot right next door or sell her the house at a discount.
She refused both offers.
“It would set a dangerous precedent, if you could go on to someone else’s land, build anything you want, and then sue that individual for the value of it,” DiPasquale said.

After trying to resolve the problem, Keaau Development Partnership sued PJ’s Construction, the architect, the prior property owner’s family and the county, which approved the permits.
They also sued Reynolds. “It’s awful. It’s awful,” she said.
Representatives of the developers and construction company and Reynolds all said they are being reasonable and the others aren’t. That’s why the developer says he pulled everyone into the lawsuit — in hopes a judge can help unravel this half-million-dollar mistake.

[Frank Cox]

Her attitude has evidently changed recently.

From 2019:

Every morning, Lena Forsen wakes up beneath a brass-trimmed wooden mantel clock dedicated to “The First Lady of the Internet.”

It was presented to her more than two decades ago by the Society for Imaging Science and Technology, in recognition of the pivotal—and altogether unexpected—role she played in shaping the digital world as we know it.
...
Lena doesn’t harbor any resentment toward Sawchuk and his imitators for how they appropriated her image; the only note of regret she expressed was that she wasn’t better compensated. In her view, the photograph is an immense accomplishment that just happened to take on a life of its own. “I’m really proud of that picture,” she said.

It makes sense that she would feel this way: Unlike so many women in tech, Lena has at least been acknowledged, even feted, for her contribution. “She did that work, and then people started using the photo in this neat new way, and now she kind of has this immortality woven into the design of the machine,” Hicks said. “That’s why others, who are concerned about tech bias, have a problem with it. It’s intentionally designing systems around a particular set of power relationships.”

https://www.wired.com/story/finding-...aint-of-jpegs/

[Leo Enticknap]

I thought initially that this could be the Telegraph's April fool story for this year, but it appears to be genuine. Lena Forsén has a Wikipedia entry that corroborates the biographical info in the story. Terry Benzel also exists, though the Telegraph appears to "misgender" her. What made me suspicious is that they gave no links to external evidence that the IEEE had gone woke and banned the photo from their journals, and, interestingly, I couldn't find any in three pages of Google results, either. But DuckDuckGo came up with this, so it looks like the story is legit. I can't for the life of me find their actual April fool, though, and it's usually not that difficult to spot.

A photograph of a Playboy model that has been used by engineers in image processing tests since the 1970s has been dropped because it is not “inclusive”.

The famous photograph of Swedish former model Lena Forsén - cropped from the Playboy original - has been a staple in image processing research for decades.

However, a leading organisation in the computing field has said that starting from April 1, they will no longer be accepting any research papers which include the 1972 “Lena image”.

Terry Benzel, the vice president of The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a global professional association, said: “New manuscript submissions will no longer be allowed to include the Lena image.”
‘Code of ethics’

He cited a motion passed by the group’s publishing board, which stated: “IEEE’s diversity statement and supporting policies such as the IEEE code of ethics speak to IEEE’s commitment to promoting an inclusive and equitable culture that welcomes all.

“In alignment with this culture and with respect to the wishes of the subject of the image, Lena Forsén, IEEE will no longer accept submitted papers, which include the picture.

The use of the image in the tech world has not been without controversy over the years and as referenced in the motion, Ms Forsén herself has urged the industry to stop using it.

Speaking to WIRED magazine in 2019, she said she was “really proud” of the picture, saying: “I don’t understand but I think I’ve made some good.”

But after the release of a documentary titled Losing Lena, which spearheaded the effort to encourage computer science to move on from the image, she said: “I retired from modelling a long time ago.

“It’s time I retired from tech, too. We can make a simple change today that creates a lasting change for tomorrow. Let’s commit to losing me.”
Pivotal role

Ms Forsén, now 73, is now a retired grandmother living in Sweden.

In 1997, the former model was presented with a wooden mantel clock - dedicated to “The First Lady of the Internet” - by the Society for Imaging Science and Technology in recognition of her pivotal role in shaping the digital world.

The Playboy photograph of her wearing nothing but a feathered sun hat, boots, stockings and a pink boa was taken when she was just 21.

It shot to tech world fame when a copy turned up at the University of Southern California’s Signal and Image Processing Institute, where Alexander Sawchuk was looking for a new picture to test his and his team’s latest compression algorithm.

Ms Forsén’s picture became the perfect candidate with its colours and textures and so the image of the young model became an industry standard which was replicated countless times. The WIRED article refers to Lena as “the patron saint of JPEGs”.

The IEEE’s decision comes after the scientific journal Nature blocked the Lena image in all of its research journals in 2018.

In an unsigned editorial, the publisher explained the reason behind the decision, saying: “We believe that the history of the Lena image clashes with the extensive efforts to promote women undertaking higher education in science and engineering.”

[Frank Cox]

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada...rtel-shootings

'Like a cartel:' Shootings point to turf war over rights to screen South Indian films
Shootings come amid an effort to ensure these films are only shown in a select group of smaller, independent theatres

The day Thomas Sajan was expecting to see a South Indian action epic at a theatre in British Columbia, a spate of shootings thousands of kilometres away disrupted his plans.

Sajan, a self-described South Indian film fanatic, said he had been waiting months to see Malaikottai Vaaliban, a blockbuster Malayalam-language film about an aging warrior who reigns over a vast desert.

Hours before the scheduled showtime in late January, Cineplex sent a message saying the screening had been cancelled and the company would be issuing a refund “due to circumstances outside our control.”

Sajan, who moved to Surrey, B.C., from Kerala in southern India in 2017, said he was “heartbroken.”

“I was really sad and we were never told why,” he said in a phone interview earlier this month.

But the events that forced the cancellation soon became more clear.

Earlier in the day, police in Ontario reported shootings at four theatres in the Greater Toronto Area, which had been planning to show Malaikottai Vaaliban. Windows were shattered in some locations, but no injuries were reported.

York Regional Police said this month that while the drive-by shootings in their area remained under investigation, they believe the incidents were targeted and involved the same suspect.

For Sajan and Saleem Padinharkkara, who distributes South Indian films in Canada, those reports did not come as a shock.

Padinharkkara, who lives in Ontario and is the founder of film distribution company KW Talkies, alleged that there is an ongoing campaign to prevent popular South Indian movies from appearing in major Canadian theatre chains like Cineplex.

He claimed there is a group of distributors trying to ensure that these films are only shown in a select group of smaller, independent theatres, which charge higher ticket prices than large chains like Cineplex or Landmark Cinemas.

This, he alleged, was part of an effort to safeguard higher profits by controlling the market.

For example, he said Cineplex tickets can cost anywhere between $13 to $16 but people can pay up to $30 per ticket to watch a South Indian movie at a smaller theatre.

“It’s like a cartel,” added Padinharkkara, who said he has personally received threats for trying to distribute rights to South Indian movies to certain theatres.

“It’s disheartening. It’s soul destroying. I’ve lost money too. There’s a set of theatres in the GTA that are benefiting from these attacks. For me, it’s very blatant what’s happening but … there’s nobody talking about what’s happening.”

Padinharkkara said that cancellations, like those that affected Malaikottai Vaaliban, result in “a big loss” for the distributor.

“There is no way he is going to recover his money and movies have a shelf life.”

The Movie Theatre Association of Canada wrote in a statement that it “was aware of various incidents that have occurred at member theatre locations” and “it has been tremendously frustrating that criminal activity has prevented theatres from safely playing certain content.”

The association has had “productive meetings with Public Safety Canada” and it “is working closely with both local authorities and the federal government to raise awareness,” the statement added.

Public Safety Canada did not comment on the shootings.

Cineplex’s chief executive Ellis Jacob said in February that the company lost money due to the shootings but it remains determined to offer international programming, which makes up 10 per cent of its annual box office revenues compared with four per cent at many of its counterparts.

“We are working very closely with the authorities,” Jacob said, noting that the most important thing is the safety of staff and moviegoers.

Canadian interest in South Indian cinema has been rising.

Sajan linked that in part to the pandemic, when people were searching for a wider variety of content to stream with theatres shuttered. He also cited the growing numbers of immigrants from southern India.

Padinharkkara said that in 2010 rights to distribute a South Indian movie in Canada cost between $10,000 and $20, 000. Now those rights can cost up to $200,000.

Sajan has started a petition signed by about 500 people urging the federal government, the RCMP, Cineplex, Landmark Cinemas and others to take action.

“These criminal activities not only undermine the cultural diversity represented by South Indian cinema but also limit the choices available to movie lovers in Canada,” his petition states.

“The attacks and intimidation tactics against theatres daring to show South Indian movies demonstrate a blatant disregard for the principles of fair competition and freedom of artistic expression.”

[Frank Cox]

https://canoe.com/news/local-news/pa...9-a6b043bef7e2

Parents file $1.5-million lawsuit after teacher allegedly tried to sell students' artworks online


The lawsuit names St-Lazare art teacher Mario Perron and the Lester B. Pearson School Board.
Author of the article:
René Bruemmer
Published Mar 25, 2024 • Last updated 1 hour ago • 3 minute read

Joel DeBellefeuille says his 13-year-old son told him he found a portrait that a fellow student had painted of him had been posted for sale online. Image courtesy of Joel DeBellefeuille

The parents of 10 students at a Montreal-area junior high school have launched a $1.575-million lawsuit against their school’s art teacher alleging he tried to sell the students’ artwork and merchandise emblazoned with their drawings online without their knowledge.

The lawsuit also names the Lester B. Pearson School Board, arguing that as the teacher’s employer it had a responsibility to check his social media profiles and other professional activities before hiring him and is responsible for wrongful acts carried out while under its employ.

The students in Grades 7 and 8 at Westwood Junior High School in St-Lazare discovered in early February that their art teacher, Mario Perron, was listing for sale thousands of copies of items, including mugs, tote bags, iPhone cases, T-shirts and towels, featuring their artwork, the lawsuit states. The students said they were doing an internet search to look up their teacher’s art and found their own work listed under his profile on websites selling artwork.

The prices of the 2,976 listed items ranged from US$9.50 to US$113, the lawsuit says.

“Perron used the work of 96 of his students and reproduced them on 31 different items to put them on sale and make a personal profit,” the lawsuit reads. “To cap it off, the accused Perron, for commercial purposes, specified the name of the child as the artist, which would easily allow them to be identified on public platforms, especially since the artworks in question are portraits.”

The 10 parents are claiming $5,000 for each of the 31 items they say were put on sale with their children’s drawings, for a total of $155,000 each. They are also asking for $10,000 each in punitive damages on the basis that Perron “clearly planned out his actions and was in a position of authority over minors.”

Under the Canadian Copyright Act, damages of between $500 and $20,000 can be sought if the infringements are for commercial purposes.

The parents are also requesting their children’s artworks be taken down from any websites and that a report of any sales be transmitted, and are asking for a written letter of apology.

“Mr. Perron did not take into consideration the children’s confidentiality when he posted and then attempted to sell their drawings online without the consent of the children, the parents or the school board,” said Joel DeBellefeuille, one of the parents filing the lawsuit. “This is extremely troubling and very concerning.

“Here we are in a digital age, where families and parents are there to scrutinize everything that our children are looking at, but who would have thought that it should have been the parents scrutinizing the teacher?”

Legal letters were sent to Perron and the school board in February and March, requesting $1.75 million in payments. When those went unanswered, parents filed the lawsuit Friday in Quebec Superior Court. The teacher and school board have 15 days to respond to the lawsuit.

The parents’ allegations have not been tested in court.

Edith Liard, who is also among those filing the lawsuit, said the school and its teacher broke their trust.

“My daughter loves art, always has been into art, and this year after everything that happened, she said to me, ‘I don’t think I’ll do art next year,'” she said.

An administrator at Westwood Junior High School said Monday that Perron was not presently at the school. She could not say if he had been let go, referring all questions to the school board. His name has been removed from the school’s staff list online.

Perron did not respond to previous messages seeking comment.

The Lester B. Pearson School Board said Monday it does not comment on internal investigations or human resources issues. In February, it issued a statement saying the board was taking the allegations very seriously and an investigation was underway.

The artworks in question were created by 96 students for their art class with Perron. The works include portraits the students made of themselves in the style of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat for a class project assigned by Perron called Creepy Portrait.

[Geoff Jones]

In Colorado, the local Alamo has actually been advertising that New Mission San Francisco showing on social media, despite the fact that it is a 19 hour drive.

Here, the 245-seat "Big Show" auditorium is always reserved for small crowds watching the current new release.

Any sort of classic showing has to go in small auditorums with tiny fixed-width screens.

I wonder if that happens to be going on today...


image.pngimage.png


image.pngimage.pngimage.png

[Jim Cassedy]

I'm sure this is being done at multiple theaters across the country (and maybe the universe!)

FYI: The $90 tickets for this event were sold out in about an hour.
(The auditorium seats apx 325)

AlamoStarWars.jpg

Star Wars enthusiasts will soon get to truly live a day in the life of their favorite galaxy far, far
away, thanks to Alamo Drafthouse's 21-hour movie marathon spanning all nine movies of The
Skywalker Saga. The ode to the iconic film series will take place May 3 to 4, in conjunction with
the national Star Wars Day, May the Fourth, and in celebration of the 25th anniversary of "The
Phantom Menace," as reported by SFist.

Mark your calendars, because fans are in for a space odyssey that starts at twilight and ends
just before the next sunset, transforming day into an interstellar marathon designed to boldly
wear out even the most resilient of buttocks. Tickets are going at $90 a pop and are still up
for grabs. And for those die-hards who can last the space-time continuum from "The Phantom
Menace" through to "The Rise of Skywalker," Alamo ensures your thirst will be quenched with
unlimited water and coffee, and their full menu available to order from throughout the marathon
— temporary sustenance for the long haul across the cosmic saga.

Special Star Wars-themed eats and exclusive merchandise, including t-shirts and collector's
glassware with custom art, are also on the bill, with our local Alamo Drafthouse in San Francisco
tempting fans to up their game. In an announcement on their Facebook page, they wrote, "You
don’t want to look like a scruffy nerf herder at the show, right?" referring to the limited edition
merchandise designed by their own Chris Bilheimer and Mutant's Cesar Moreno, and available
only with online ticket purchase, the post stated.

But let's get down to brass tacks. If you're planning to embark on this behemoth of a binge-watch,
take note: Alamo is very clear that your seat is yours only so long as you continue to to actively
occupy it. "If you leave the theater to go nap through a couple of the films, they 'reserve the right
to offer your spot to someone else without a refund,'" Sfist reports. With stringent rules against
noise and phone use, one wonders how the force will be with the fans as they strive to keep their
eyes open and the snores at bay through the slower space opera sequences. <end>

LINKS: https://tinyurl.com/yuwkbh5c and https://tinyurl.com/3ytzt4kt

NuMishNite_S.jpg

[Frank Cox]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montr...wish-1.7132622

Dune: Part Two premiered at Quebec palliative care home to fulfil man's dying wish

Man died before watching ending of movie on filmmaker Denis Villeneuve's laptop

CBC News · Posted: Mar 03, 2024 3:17 PM EST | Last Updated: 8 hours ago


Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides in Dune: Part Two, which was released March 1. (Warner Bros. Pictures-Warner Media)
The work of Quebec filmmaker Denis Villeneuve was shown in a room at a palliative care centre to fulfil the end-of-life wish of a long-time film fan in a special world premiere, well ahead of the official launch.
A man from Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, Que., had an almost impossible final wish when he knew he was at the end of his life. The movie buff said he would like to see the film Dune: Part Two, which was set to be released on March 1, before he died.
He expressed this wish to Josée Gagnon, whose job is to accompany people at the end of life through her company L'Avant.
Sébastien Pilote, a director from the Saguenay region, put Gagnon in touch with Villeneuve, the renowned filmmaker, after she put a call-out on Facebook with the man's last wish.
"Denis Villeneuve and his wife Tanya, who is a producer, said, 'OK, we could get him to come to Los Angeles.' I said, 'You don't understand, he's at the end of his life, there's no way to move him. We don't even know if he's going to be here next week,'" said Gagnon in an interview on Radio-Canada's Place publique.

Director Denis Villeneuve, right, and producer Tanya Lapointe attend the premiere of Dune: Part Two in Montreal. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press)
Realizing that the man would not be able to go to the premiere, Villeneuve decided to send the movie directly to the municipality of Saguenay. Villeneuve's assistant flew down to Quebec with the filmmaker's laptop.
"They locked themselves in a room at the Maison de soins palliatifs [...] and this man managed to watch the film on his own," said Gagnon. Everyone had to sign waivers not to reveal anything about the movie.
The screening took place more than a month and a half before its worldwide release.
Too weak, the film buff fell asleep before the end of the movie and died later. Gagnon said Villeneuve and Lapointe were disappointed that the man had not been able to see the end.
"They said, 'He didn't see the ending, you know, the ending of the film is so good.' I said, 'You don't understand, it's extraordinary what this man went through, The end of a film when you're going to die, it doesn't mean anything … it was all there for him," said Gagnon.

Gagnon had to keep this story to herself until the movie hit the big screen. She finally posted a long message on Facebook late Friday, thanking everyone who had made the adventure possible, including her husband and the staff at the Maison de soins palliatifs du Saguenay.
"It's been truly magnificent. The others went through something great, they went off to do the international red carpets, the media, but here there was something," she said.
"[Villeneuve and Lapointe] said, 'It's for him, it's for that man that we make films, it's for the guy who said before he died, I want to see that film,'" she said.

Similar to the last wish that I did a few years ago. The lady who wanted to see that movie lived long enough to see the end of it when she was here, though.

I had it for her a week before it was released.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I literally read that article about 5 min ago and was also wondering why on earth security didn't catch that fish... Aside from that, I also wondered why would someone from the Netherlands be living in Iowa??? Iowa is a pretty boring place unlike say, Amsterdam...

[Leo Enticknap]

I was going to make the obvious reference to snakes on a plane, but a local journalist in Detroit (alongside countless others, I'm sure) beat me to it...

Maggots spill from overhead bin on Detroit-bound Delta flight

Francis X. Donnelly, The Detroit News
February 16, 2024

Pick your poison: Snakes on a plane, or maggots?

A passenger dealt with the smaller version Tuesday while flying from Amsterdam to Detroit.

One moment she was settling in for nine-hour flight on Delta Air Lines. The next, soft-bodied legless larva were falling upon her.

“She was freaking out,” passenger Philip Schotte told Fox 2 Detroit. “She was just trying to... fight off these maggots.”

Schotte, who was sitting across the aisle, counted a dozen of the disgusting creatures. They came from a rotten fish wrapped in a newspaper in the overhead compartment.

The plane, which was an hour into the flight, promptly returned to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.

Delta released a statement saying that a carry-on bag was improperly packed and that passengers were placed on the next available flight from Amsterdam. It said the aircraft was removed from service for cleaning.

“We apologize to the customers of flight 133 AMS-DTW,” the statement read.

Schotte told WXYZ that he first realized something was wrong when the other passenger kept making a repetitive motion on the empty seat beside her. As he continued to watch, he spotted the maggots.

They finally got the attention of the flight attendants, who began searching for the source of the infestation. When they opened the overhead bin, several more maggots dropped out.

The opening of the overhead bin also unleashed an unholy smell that caused several passengers to hold their noses, said Schotte. The attendants took the offending fish to the back of the plane.

“She was very freaked out," Schotte told WXYZ about the other passenger. "Especially when I saw a maggot fall on her, she got especially freaked out.”

He said a male passenger told the attendants he was responsible for the fish but Schotte didn’t know if any action was taken against him.

Schotte said he was surprised such cargo wasn’t noticed by airport security.

He got on another flight after several hours.

After the maggots were discovered, Schotte moved to another seat five rows back but, before the plane had returned to Amsterdam, one of the creatures had slithered all the way to his new seat.

"I can only imagine what it would've been like had we been on that plane for seven more hours,” he told WXYZ.

I'm also surprised that this wasn't caught by security. Between 2008 and 2013, I traveled between the Northern England and Southern California 2-3 times a year for work, and several times more for personal reasons toward the end of that period. I nearly always went MME > AMS > a Delta hub > ONT, and so connected at Amsterdam onto a Delta transatlantic flight many times. Amsterdam Airport operated a kind of "El Al lite" screening process whereby every passenger boarding a US-bound flight was briefly interviewed by a security officer when entering the gate area: where did you start your journey, what is the purpose of travel, did you pack your own bags, etc. etc. On some of these screenings, I was asked to open my carry-on for them to take a quick look.

If they are still doing this, I am astonished that some guy showing up with a carry-on full of rotten fish wasn't caught at the gate.