Rest in Peace, Mr. Layton.

July 18, 1950 – August 22, 2011

August 20, 2011

Toronto, Ontario

Dear Friends,

Tens of thousands of Canadians have written to me in recent weeks to wish me well. I want to thank each and every one of you for your thoughtful, inspiring and often beautiful notes, cards and gifts. Your spirit and love have lit up my home, my spirit, and my determination.

Unfortunately my treatment has not worked out as I hoped. So I am giving this letter to my partner Olivia to share with you in the circumstance in which I cannot continue.

I recommend that Hull-Aylmer MP Nycole Turmel continue her work as our interim leader until a permanent successor is elected.

I recommend the party hold a leadership vote as early as possible in the New Year, on approximately the same timelines as in 2003, so that our new leader has ample time to reconsolidate our team, renew our party and our program, and move forward towards the next election.

A few additional thoughts: To other Canadians who are on journeys to defeat cancer and to live their lives, I say this: please don’t be discouraged that my own journey hasn’t gone as well as I had hoped. You must not lose your own hope. Treatments and therapies have never been better in the face of this disease. You have every reason to be optimistic, determined, and focused on the future. My only other advice is to cherish every moment with those you love at every stage of your journey, as I have done this summer.

To the members of my party: we’ve done remarkable things together in the past eight years. It has been a privilege to lead the New Democratic Party and I am most grateful for your confidence, your support, and the endless hours of volunteer commitment you have devoted to our cause. There will be those who will try to persuade you to give up our cause. But that cause is much bigger than any one leader. Answer them by recommitting with energy and determination to our work. Remember our proud history of social justice, universal health care, public pensions and making sure no one is left behind. Let’s continue to move forward. Let’s demonstrate in everything we do in the four years before us that we are ready to serve our beloved Canada as its next government.

To the members of our parliamentary caucus: I have been privileged to work with each and every one of you. Our caucus meetings were always the highlight of my week. It has been my role to ask a great deal from you. And now I am going to do so again. Canadians will be closely watching you in the months to come. Colleagues, I know you will make the tens of thousands of members of our party proud of you by demonstrating the same seamless teamwork and solidarity that has earned us the confidence of millions of Canadians in the recent election.

To my fellow Quebecers: On May 2nd, you made an historic decision. You decided that the way to replace Canada’s Conservative federal government with something better was by working together in partnership with progressive-minded Canadians across the country. You made the right decision then; it is still the right decision today; and it will be the right decision right through to the next election, when we will succeed, together. You have elected a superb team of New Democrats to Parliament. They are going to be doing remarkable things in the years to come to make this country better for us all.

To young Canadians: All my life I have worked to make things better. Hope and optimism have defined my political career, and I continue to be hopeful and optimistic about Canada. Young people have been a great source of inspiration for me. I have met and talked with so many of you about your dreams, your frustrations, and your ideas for change. More and more, you are engaging in politics because you want to change things for the better. Many of you have placed your trust in our party. As my time in political life draws to a close I want to share with you my belief in your power to change this country and this world. There are great challenges before you, from the overwhelming nature of climate change to the unfairness of an economy that excludes so many from our collective wealth, and the changes necessary to build a more inclusive and generous Canada. I believe in you. Your energy, your vision, your passion for justice are exactly what this country needs today. You need to be at the heart of our economy, our political life, and our plans for the present and the future.

And finally, to all Canadians: Canada is a great country, one of the hopes of the world. We can be a better one – a country of greater equality, justice, and opportunity. We can build a prosperous economy and a society that shares its benefits more fairly. We can look after our seniors. We can offer better futures for our children. We can do our part to save the world’s environment. We can restore our good name in the world. We can do all of these things because we finally have a party system at the national level where there are real choices; where your vote matters; where working for change can actually bring about change. In the months and years to come, New Democrats will put a compelling new alternative to you. My colleagues in our party are an impressive, committed team. Give them a careful hearing; consider the alternatives; and consider that we can be a better, fairer, more equal country by working together. Don’t let them tell you it can’t be done.

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

All my very best,

Jack Layton

These guys rock...

.... because we have the same birthdays!!

Happy birthday, awesome people (me too)!!

Martin Sheen (Apocalypse Now)	Stephen Graham (Snatch)
Tony Bennett (needs no explanation)	James Hetfield (Metallica)
Brent Butt (Corner Gas)	John McGuinley (Office Space)

A follow up... Truly inspiring!!

Taken from the Ottawa Citizen

Face tranplant recipient Dallas Wiens has been having some allergy problems but it is a small discomfort for a man whose face was burned away in an electrical accident less than three years ago.

“I couldn’t breathe through my nose - I didn’t have one,” Wiens told Reuters.

The 26-year-old Fort Worth man received the first full face transplant performed in the United States in March. He is now at home fielding interviews, doing pull-ups and, best of all, kissing his little daughter Scarlette.

A team of 30 doctors, nurses, anesthesiologists and residents led by Dr. Bohdan Pomahac performed the transplant at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, replacing Wiens’ nose, lips, facial skin, muscles of facial animation and nerves.

Three months after the 15-hour surgery, Wiens’ speech is slightly difficult to understand as he rattles off the details of his recovery. He has a full head of hair now, along with a goatee and mustache. He enjoys being able to shave again.

“You’re going to (get) better or you’re going to get bitter, and I have a 4-year-old reason why I need to get better,” he said, referring to his daughter.

He is wearing sunglasses that conceal a missing left eye, and he is blind, which doesn’t seem to faze him.

“Typically, and I was the same way, you would look at someone and see a defining feature, and the judgment begins,” he said, dressed in a plaid shirt and jeans. “I can’t do that, and I like that.”

Instead, Wiens said, he connects with people from the heart. One of his biggest concerns is being able to “maintain that gift” if he is ever able to see again.

HAD TRANSPLANT FOR DAUGHTER

More surgeries are in store for Wiens this year to help correct drooping on one side of his face. Since the accident in November 2008, Wiens has endured more than 20 major surgeries.

That day, he was in a cherry picker painting Ridglea Baptist Church in Fort Worth when his left temple touched a high-voltage line.

He was unconscious for three months at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, his face burned to the skull, his body damaged from a current he said was equivalent to three lightning bolts.

When he realized his face was gone, “it was kind of a shock at first, but it never really was distressful.”

Wiens said he would have been comfortable as he was, but he had the transplant for Scarlette. He wanted to feel her kiss his face and spare her embarrassment at school.

“I don’t want to downplay the functional benefits at all,” he said. “But when it really comes down to it, it wasn’t what I could get back. I wanted to go to her school events and not feel like I was going to offend the other parents. She’s the world to me.”

Wiens said he’d like to attend college when his recovery is more complete. He’s heading to Michigan later this year for training with a guide dog, courtesy of an area Lions Club.

For now, he’s working on a fantasy novel that he started in his teens and spending time with Scarlette in his grandparents’ home in Fort Worth.

The donor, a man between 35 and 50, remains anonymous, although Wiens said he hopes he can one day meet his family.

“It would mean the world to me,” he said. “I would meet with them and hug them and cry.”

Farewell

Rest in peace, Peter Falk! Thank you for your antics as Columbo and for the story telling Grandfather in Princess Bride.

See what happens when I get sacked? BWA HA HA HAAAAA!!

Taken from the Ottawa Citizen

All roads lead out of Rome as earthquake prediction empties Rome

Italians will evacuate Rome on Wednesday over fears that a giant earthquake is coming following a seismologist's 1915 prediction that "the big one" would hit the capital on May 11, 2011.

Businesses have reported requests from one in five people to have time off work and many are also keeping children away from school and heading to the beach or country for the day. Romans are taking it so seriously that local newspapers have even been publishing survival guides with tips of what to do if the ground starts to tremble.

The panic has been fanned by Facebook, Twitter and text messages about the 1915 prediction by Raffaele Bendani, who also forecast other earthquakes that have hit Italy in the past 100 years.

Massimo La Rocca, the headmaster of a school in the Trastevere district, said: "We have had quite a few parents calling in and saying they will not be sending their children in. I've told them the school will remain open and there is nothing to be scared about but they are adamant - although this is not a justifiable absence for a pupil."

Bendandi, who died in 1979, believed the movement of tectonic plates and therefore earthquakes were the result of the combined movements of the planets, the moon and the sun and were perfectly predictable. In 1923 he predicted a quake would hit central Italy on Jan 2 the following year. He was wrong by two days.

He was even honoured by the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini - and ordered not to make any more predictions on pain of exile because officials feared he would cause panic. Modern-day seismologists have been quick to say his theories are without any scientific proof. Alessandro Amato, of Italy's National Geophysical and Volcanology Institute, said: "There is absolutely no evidence to say that an earthquake will hit Rome on 11th May and we have told that to the hundreds of people who have called. There is a possibility that on the day in question the country will have an average of 30 or so tremors but that is normal."

An estimated 20 million people live at risk from earthquakes in Italy. Two main fault lines cut across the country and memories are still vivid of the 2009 earthquake in the city of L'Aquila, north of Rome, which killed 300 people.

Man shows off first U.S. full face transplant

Taken from the Ottawa Citizen

Holy crap that's incredible!

Left: Before, Right: After

BOSTON, Massachusetts — A Texas cherry picker who burned his face off after his head touched an electrical wire showed off his new face on Monday as doctors presented the first U.S. full face transplant recipient.

Wearing black sunglasses and a dark goatee beard, Dallas Wiens, 26, appeared at a press conference alongside doctors who performed the operation at Brigham and Women's Hospital in the northeastern city of Boston.

"To me the face feels natural, as it if has become my own," said Wiens, acknowledging that he still feels numb in some places and needs to continue rehabilitation work to rebuild nerve function.

"I can never express what has been done, what I have been given," he added, thanking the donor family who wished to remain anonymous.

Wiens was injured in November 2008 when his head touched a high voltage electrical wire, causing dramatic facial deformities and burning off his nose and lips.

Plastic surgeon Bohdan Pomahac led the team of physicians, nurses and anesthesiologists for more than 15 hours to replace Wiens's nose, lips, facial skin, nerves and muscles.

The operation was done in March by a 30-strong team at Brigham and Women's Hospital, which said it was "the first full face transplant" performed in the country.

"He was quite literally a man without a face," said Pomahac.

The world's first full face transplant took place in Spain, and was unveiled in July 2010 by doctors at Vall d'Hebron hospital in Barcelona.

The 31-year-old recipient, identified only as Oscar, reportedly suffered injuries in a shooting accident and spoke at a televised news conference with considerable difficulty. He could not close his mouth and his face appeared swollen.

The first successful partial face transplant was performed in France in 2005 on Isabelle Dinoire, a 38-year-old woman who had been mauled by her dog.

Since then face transplants have been carried out in China, the United States and Spain, which carried out its first such operation in August 2009.

Wiens, who lost his eyesight in the accident, also spoke with some difficulty, but said he has already begun to regain his sense of smell.

"The ability to breathe through my nose normally, that in itself was a major gift," he said.

Now he is considering university education and is looking forward to leading a more normal life with his young daughter, who was enamoured by his new look.

"She actually said 'Daddy, you're so handsome,'" he said.

The Power of the Dark Crystal

Wow... a possible sequel to one of the most amazing films made by Jim Henson!!

The Power of the Dark Crystal