Diamond Travels

I came across this photographic essay a little while ago, and it nicely demonstrates why it is that I hope to never in my life own a diamond. This includes a (hopefully) future engagement ring.

I had never really thought about the diamond industry before I took African history courses with John Laband at Laurier – one a survey course and one dedicated to war and society in Africa. The later was especially interesting, as Laband lectured on civil wars and the thing that often financed them: the diamond industry. His lectures, and one of the books he assigned helped to formulate my negative opinion regarding diamonds.
A small excerpt from the book Into Africa: (de Villiers is instructed to remove his shoes and rub hi foot back and forth in the dirt, and then to lift up his foot)
“As I did so, one of the workers wandered over, and began whisking at my feet. I thought this was a bit much, but stood still as instructed. He brushed away, exposing the sand and gravel I had felt. But then he muttered something, and picked up a small pebble. He spat in his hand, rubbed the pebble back and forth. I stared. It was a muddy yellow colour. It looked like dirty glass.
‘Is that what I think it is?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ Clipboard said. ‘A diamond. Not a very good one, but a good size. Decent stone.’
…
The ‘lockbox boy’ wandered over. He was carrying the lockbox itself, a small metal box the size and shape of a bank safety-deposit box. It was padlocked twice, and bound to his wrist with a steel-reinforced cord. On the upper surface were a series of graduated holes. He pushed my diamond through the appropriate hold and made a notation on a pad. The diamond wasn’t ‘mine,’ not by a long shot. It belonged to the operating company, CDM, a part of De Beers of South Africa, and there were plenty of stories about how rigorously they were prepared to make sure no one walked off with their property – even to giving the miners X-rays and a very thorough enema before they left the diamond fields to go home. De Beers doesn’t have a huge sense of humour about its role in the scheme of things.”*

This passage is certainly ‘mild’ compared to some of the other passages found throughout the book (though many of them are not necessarily diamond related). Despite the ‘mildness’ of it though, the idea that miners are given regular X-rays and enemas is surely not good for their health. Consider what happens when you go to the dentist – a heavy lead shield is placed on your upper body to prevent unnecessary exposure, and yet these miners surely receive weekly, if not daily, X-rays, not to mention the various cavity searches.

The movie Blood Diamond also clearly demonstrates what occurs in the diamond industry – and illustrated quite accurately the information provided by Professor Laband. For anyone who hasn’t seen it, I highly recommend taking a look. It’s graphic, often disgusting, highly disturbing, but incredibly well done. I hesitate to call it a good movie, but it does quite accurately demonstrate the diamond industry, child soldier armies, civil wars, and the West’s indifference/ignorance in relation to it all. Hollywood also did well with Lord of War, which examines the arms trade in numerous areas and focuses mostly on Africa. This movie shows the flow of arms out of the former Soviet Union into Africa, and the flow of diamonds out of Africa and into the West. Both movies are well done and helped to reaffirm my non-desire to own a diamond, as they illustrated the atrocities that occur for this precious stone in ways that my imagination simply never could.




* Marq de Villiers and Sheila Hirtle, Into Africa: A Journey through the Ancient Empires (Toronto: Key Porters Books Limited, 1999), 140.

What's in a name?

I came across a news story this morning, about a couple who were outraged that they were unable to have their son's name iced onto a cake. Apparently this lack of an iced name is more outrageous and offensive than the child's name itself: Adolf Hitler Campbell.

Three year old Adolf has two sisters: JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell, almost 2; and Honsylynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell, almost 1.

I know that everyone has the right to name their child whatever name it is that they choose, but who assigns their child such a jaw-dropping, offends-millions of people, kind of name? What's little Adolf supposed to do as he grows up and kids around him understand the connection to his name? What does the choice of names for all three Campbell children say about their parents? The father insists that he's a welcoming, unracist individual - but I have to wonder.
If he had chosen to name his children Adolf Hilter, JoyceLynn Franklin Roosevelt, and Josephina Stalin at least then he could claim he wanted to have three key leaders from WWII.
At least Honsylynn has a chance, her name is a bit of a stretch to get to the offensive...

Any thoughts? Too soon to choose Nazi themed names, or is this couple completely within their right to saddle their children with such negatively-connected names?

Places of Worship

Some of you know that I spent last summer traveling around much of the 519 area code looking for places of worship - either current or past. I did this as part of the Ontario Heritage Trust’s (OHT) Places of Worship Inventory, which is basically a fancy way of saying that the OHT wanted to know how many places of worship were in the province. In addition, they wanted to document the heritage that these buildings have. Often a place of worship was the first public building established in communities, after private homes. They were often also the first buildings erected with the purpose of permanence in mind. As such, they act as pieces of architectural heritage and provide insight into the wealth and prosperity of the community that built them. Some of these indicators were building materials and the architectural styles employed.

Most of my examples work best with churches, as Christian houses of worship were usually the first established in south-western Ontario, and the most common type that I came across.

Building Material:
Often the first place of worship for a particular congregation was in a private home or barn.
The first purpose built building was often a wood-sided frame church. These often burned, meaning a brick or stone church replaced it. In some cases, I was able to find the wood-sided frame churches still in existence. When the wood-sided church still existed, it offered a glimpse into the wealth of the congregation when the church was first erected. Sometimes it’s a very simple, small church, but other times it’s a large, gothic revival church with a tall bell tower, lancet arched windows, revealing that the congregation was large and wealthy enough to afford such an elaborate church.
When the wood-sided churches burned, they would usually be replaced by brick or stone. Often the region of the church determined which was used. For example, in St. Marys, most of the churches are stone, as that was widely available. Often yellow brick was the popular and widely available brick, so it was used – or if a congregation wanted to demonstrate its wealth, red brick was brought in, to make that church stand out. (There were of course instances of yellow bricked churches being painted red.)
Some of the wealthiest congregations would use exotic stone, not readily accessible in the area, to demonstrate to the larger community just how much money its members had.

Architectural Style:
Churches ranged in style – I found examples of gothic revival, Romanesque revival, those with Orthodox influences, and of course modern. The most common types I came across were by far gothic examples and the ever ‘lovely’ modern examples.
Beyond the overarching styles, there were also smaller details to reveal the wealth and prosperity of the members. On brick churches, there were various instances of bonds used – stretcher (standard) bond, English Common bond, or Flemish bond. The first was the least expensive, and the last the most. Most churches were either in standard, or English Common bond, though there was at least one church that I found that had examples of all three.
This particular church made me laugh, in a nerdly way I suppose, as most people likely wouldn’t notice it (can’t say I blame them, as I wouldn’t have, except I was paid to notice!) It was a relatively small church, built with gothic revival influences. On two faces of the church – essentially the front faces – Flemish bond was used. Let’s people see at first glance that the members had some money. If you examine the other two sides though, you’ll quickly see that they wanted to appear to have money, or else had some, but not enough – these other two sides are done in English Common Bond. The standard bond is found on the additions, on both the front and the back. I wasn’t able to determine when the additions were put on – but it was either at a time when the congregation didn’t have a lot of extra money, or at a time when appearances were no longer necessary. I was impressed when I saw the first face of this particular church, as it was in a small community and I didn’t expect to see the Flemish bond. By the time I walked around it completely though, as I said, I was laughing to myself.

Modern churches, if you didn’t pick up on it, were by far my least favourite. Anything built 1950 or later was usually pretty unexciting. Brick colours were no longer just yellow or red – now they were weird colours like bright baby blue. The shapes were strange as well – from nice rectangular houses of worship to octagons, with strange rooflines. (The rooflines were my nemesis, as I had to draw the church from how it would be viewed from above. As such, the rectangular churches were by far my favourite!)

One of the other things that I was required to do in my assessment of the various places of worship was to determine if the building had ever housed a different denomination. This was most often a cause of concern for United Churches. The United Church was found in 1925, when Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregationalist churches came together to form one congregation. Often a community would have both a Presbyterian and a Methodist church – and building would be taken over by the United congregation. Usually there was a date stone that indicated what the original congregation had been – but sometimes there wasn’t, requiring me to determine the previous congregation based on the architectural styles. I’m proud to say that by the end of the summer I could do this, but I was very intimidated by it at first! Explaining the differences would require an even longer blog and some pictures – so suffice it to say that it was usually the Presbyterian churches that were gothic in style while the Methodist churches tended toward the rounded arched windows of the Romanesque revival tradition.

The last element that I’ll talk about had to do with the present use of the building – whether it was still used for religious purposes, if it had been converted to residential or business use, or if it was simply abandoned. Some churches had been converted to restaurants – so it was very easy for me to see the interior – and I was welcomed into a residence and was pleased to discover that many of the interior architectural elements had been preserved. The OHT publication, Heritage Matters, from September 2008 actually focuses on adaptive reuse of places of worship. For anyone still reading by this point and who’s curious to learn a little more, check it out! I’m proud to say that I took the photo of The Church Restaurant in Stratford, found on page 6.

Random Tidbits

I stumbled across these the other day, thought I would share! The links for each have more neato information, if you're interested, and looking for a distraction!

Who knew the mechanical pencil has been around for so long?
"The mechanical pencil was patented in 1822. The company founded by its British developers prospered until 1941, when the factory was bombed, presumably by pencil-hating Nazis."

Two whole warships! Crickey!
"During World War I, enough metal was salvaged from corset stays to build two warships."

Harper & History

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has recently gone on record stating that in order to avoid economic mistakes of the past, "we must be good students of history - and not just recent history." One has to wonder though, just how are Canadians to be good historians when the Harper government continues to cut cultural and historical programs?
I guess I should be happy just to hear Harper speak positively of history...

Demolition by Fire

Yet another historic building has been claimed by fire.

This past summer I witnessed the Alma College fire in St. Thomas. There were attempts being made to save the building and have it provincially designated, but before that could happen, it was destroyed. Two St. Thomas youths have since been charged with arson. The once prestigious college has now completely disappeared from the St. Thomas streetscape.

The day of the fire, I received a frantic phone call from my supervisor at the Ontario Heritage Trust, telling me that I had to go to St. Thomas and document the damage. Up until that point, I must admit I had never heard of Alma College, and while I could tell the building had certainly been beautiful before the fire, I couldn’t believe just how magnificent it had been. I was shocked when I saw photos like this one.

And now yet another historic building has been claimed by fire. Over the weekend the Brunswick Hotel at Talbot & York in London went up in flames. The cause of the fire is currently under investigation and is considered suspicious. The structural integrity of the building is seriously questioned – a fire truck and police cruiser remain on the scene and sections of York and Talbot streets have been closed.

When looking at the Brunswick Hotel, it was difficult to tell that it was an historic building, especially if the 1853 date stone wasn’t noticed. It wasn’t a grand example of architecture, but its history was important nonetheless. It was a commercial hotel, which provided the working class with a place to lay their heads. It was one of the oldest remaining buildings in the downtown core and I won’t be surprised if a parking lot shows up in its place.

Digitizing Archives

For my archives class, I recently wrote an essay on the challenges that archives face concerning electronic and digital records.
While the digitization of archival records is incredibly important, it also poses unique challenges to the archivists – due mainly to the fact that technology is rapidly evolving. The electronic tapes, floppy disks, and zip drives of yester-year are still largely in working condition, but the machines necessary to retrieve their information have long since failed.
When an archive undertakes a digitization project, they must be aware that their technologies will have to be updated on a regular basis. There is a saying in the archival world that digital records “last forever – or for five years, whichever comes first.”*

I thought of this paper, as I was reading this news article about digitizing First World War records.
An archivist named Gordon Jung at LAC acknowledges problems associated with digital records, but also discusses the immense amount of accessibility that these records allow. No longer does a user interested in WWI need to visit Ottawa and sift through boxes of records. For the most part many of these are available online, from the comfort of one’s home.

Now these records are widely accessible and are hopefully reaching a technological savvy generation, who likely do not have any direct connection to the war. The stories of soldiers are available and these digital copies are allowing their stories to survive indefinitely (should the records be constantly updated by LAC that is). As Jung explains, eventually the physical documents will become too fragile for actual use, and the digital copies will act as a stand in, allowing researchers to better know and understand that tumultuous time.

*Colin Webb, "The Malleability of Fire: Preserving Digital Information," in Managing Preservation for Libraries and Archives, ed. John Feather (Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2004), 31.

91 Hours of Remembrance

Last night at dusk, a vigil for Canada’s 68,000 First World War dead began in locations across Canada and at Canada House in London, England.

Every evening until 11 November 2008, the names of each Canadian man who died in the war will be projected onto a public building or space in various locations.
Each name is projected for 8 seconds, and it will take 91 hours to move through all of those who perished.

For those unable to physically attend the displays, the vigil is available through this website.

The website also helps the user to determine what time a specific individual will be projected – allowing family and community members to know exactly when they should be watching.

The vigil is very simple in design, but incredibly moving – there are no pictures, only names. This certainly is a fantastic use of technology and brings remembrance to the twenty-first century.

A future without books?

I just came across this article, The Future of Reading, and I must say, I'm both incredibly intrigued and a little frightened at the same time.

Some background:
The basic idea behind this story is that books can now be downloaded through Amazon, onto a device, about the size of a ‘normal’ paperback, called a Kindle. The user either downloads a book (costing around ten bucks) directly to the Kindle via wireless signals, or to a home computer and then to the Kindle. Interesting premise. Now, I must say, I’m both incredibly intrigued and a little frightened at the same time.

Now, let's start with the fright:
New books may well disappear from the face of the earth as I know it. Granted this is going to take a while – but I can honestly see a day now when books (at least paperbacks) would no longer be produced. The ideas of Epic 2014 might not be that far off. Truly scary!

And the intrigue:
It would be amazing to carry multiple copies of books at once! And research would be a breeze! Where was this thing five years ago when I started my undergrad? Who needs to actually read a book now when you can just search for a key word!? Arguably the index based searching so beloved in my early undergrad years was more or less the same thing, but this Kindle would make it way easier.
Plus – I’m curious as to the environmental impacts of the Kindle versus the publishing of multiple copies of paperbacks. It might be better to have a chunk of plastic than to cut down all those trees for books. Time will tell I’m sure!

A combination of fright and intrigue:
What about copyright? Would I be able to share a downloaded version of a book with my dad in the same way that we share paperbacks now? The cost of buying a book now is essentially cut in half for me, given that I know it’ll get at least two reads out of it (this rationalization allows me to buy more books – maybe it’s not sound rationalization, but it works for me.) Perhaps instead of sharing the digital copy of a book I’d actually have to lend my dad my Kindle… which raises a whole new set of problems.

Hmm… Much to ponder!

Plagiarism, firings, o my!

It would seem that PM Harper has been up to no good, using other people’s words as his own. First, it was a speech from the then Prime Minister of Australia and now it’s a speech from former Ontario Premier Mike Harris.

In the first case, the Conservatives acknowledged their crime and a speech writer admitted he borrowed the speech. He then resigned. All things acknowledged and seemingly accounted for, I forgot about the plagiarized speech.

Now I read this morning that again Harper has been criticized for using the words of Mike Harris. While this apparently happened in 2003, it’s still very interesting.

Rather than admit to the charge this time, however, the Conservatives accuse their opposition of simply using this as an attempt to divert attention away from their apparent lack of political campaign.

Admittedly, the Conservatives aren’t the only ones doing it… It would seem the Liberals are up to their own brand of plagiarism as well… The story and some of the potential evidence.

In other news, the entire staff of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary has been laid off. Somewhat shocking (even if the staff consisted of four people) and this could be an interesting indication of what’s to come for encyclopedias.

The reasoning behind the dismissal of the dictionary staff was reduced sales, due to the incredible popularity of free online dictionaries.

Canadian English will still be accessible through the subscription based Oxford site and by the sounds of things a physical, book based dictionary will still be published. The only difference now, it would seem, is that Canadians will no longer have an active role in monitoring their lexicon.

I have to seriously wonder, then, what’s in store for book based encyclopedias. Will they too be relegated to the digital world? Will encyclopedias take on a language based tone, rather than a cultural tone? Will we end up with the neutral point of view that plagues Wikipedia and provides it with an ‘Anglo-American’ perspective?

I certainly hope not – but at the same time, dictionaries and encyclopedias are alike in many ways, and it’s unfortunately not a far stretch to expect similar things to happen to the encyclopedic world.

Just what are they up to?

I remembered after reading Terry Cook’s article – “Archival Appraisal and Collection: Issues, Challenges, New Approaches” in which he discusses illegal records destruction – that I had read articles last week about Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney attempting to keep (what arguably should be) public records private.

First, Sarah Palin: The hacker group ‘Anonymous’ reportedly cracked into the VP candidate’s Yahoo email after reports that she had been using this email account for governmental business. Under law, however, any email relating to the “official functions of governor must be archived and not destroyed.” This same law allows that personal messages can be deleted.
One would think then that the Yahoo email was set-up to allow personal emails to be sent and that this account would not be used for governmental business, as it is a personal account, inaccessible through the Freedom of Information Act. It would seem, however, that this assumption may be wrong and Governor Palin may in fact be skirting the FOIA. One has to wonder what sort of business she is attending to…

The other attempt to skirt the FOIA comes from VC Dick Cheney. He has been known to argue for secrecy concerning the President’s energy policy and in the use of torture in terrorist interrogations, and now he is attempting to prevent access to the records created during his tenure in office. A group of historians have sued, arguing that “the records were valuable for future generations to study and understand the events and policies of the Bush administration since 2001.”
Cheney contends that the vice presidency is not covered in the Presidential Records Act, created in the aftermath of Watergate, to ensure presidential AND vice presidential records are saved.
Again, one has to wonder just what Cheney has been up to… The only benefit is that at present, the historians seem to be winning the case.

An infinite archive of crap?

During yesterday’s class discussions, we contemplated the difficulties in creating an infinite, digital archive. Some of our concerns centred on quantity, incompatibility issues, and storage space. All of course are valid concerns, but I was left wondering, what about quality?
Over the course of discussion we determined that should one wish to save all the born-digital material that we are currently producing, we would need countless new & huge libraries, were it all to be saved. Some of the born-digital media we discussed came out of email and Facebook. Let’s focus on Facebook, shall we? Is this the type of material we would really want to save?
Think about some of the ‘debates’ that have occurred on various Facebook groups. Many of them are reminiscent of MC Hammer’s song about big butts. Well, at least the very beginning of that song:
“Oh my god Becky, look at her butt. It is so big… Eugh… she looks like one of those rap guys girlfriends.”
You get the picture.
The sad part is though – The beginning of that song is more grammatically correct and coherent than many of the postings you find on Facebook. Do we really want future historians to look back upon these tidbits and wonder if there was something wrong with the water we were drinking?
I for one do not believe that we need to even consider saving every bit of born-digital media we’re currently creating. As I mentioned in class, there is way too much repetition, and quite frankly, a lot of what’s out there is embarrassing – not just to me, but for my generation.

9/11 and Public History

As I browsed through the morning headlines on msn.com, I came across a photo essay by Newsweek, which commemorates the 9/11 attacks. It is a collection of photos that demonstrates how people around the globe are able to remember and grieve with pieces of steel beams from the towers.
While each memorial site established has an element of public history to it, I found one photo in particular especially oriented towards the involvement of individuals in their history. Number 17 shows a man signing a piece of beam that will be included in the official ground zero memorial. This beam is covered in people’s signatures, messages to lost loved ones, and numerous statements of rest in peace.

I find it hard to believe that this disaster took place seven years ago – in many ways, it seems like just yesterday. Like anyone else alive when it happened, I know exactly what I was doing when I received word. I remember the family members I was concerned about who lived and worked in the area. I remember wondering if immediately the United States would go to war, a war that Canada would find itself embroiled in. Being an American citizen, I worried that perhaps my older brothers would find themselves, while living in Canada and being equally Canadian citizens, drafted and forced to serve in an American war.

I also find it amazing the healing potential that these pieces of steel beam have. Sharing in the grief of that day is far more accessible given the transport of the beams across the world. Individuals with no personal connection can now have one, simply by visiting these various sites, that up until now I had no idea even existed.

The man can't read long passages...

...but he certainly can write them!

I'm speaking, of course, about the web article written by Nicholas Carr in which is discusses the idea that the way in which we think is being altered by our experiences with the internet. He complains that his mind has adapted to the quick series of results provided by search engines like google; small snipets of information easily read and digested.
One would think then, given his newly developed disinterest in reading long passages that perhaps he would have become disinterested in writing long passages. That assumption, unfortunately, is incorrect. His article is only just over 4000 words, but I honestly expected a shorter statement from an author who just told me he glosses over anything more than a couple of paragraphs long.
Once he told me that, I found myself gazing at the scroll bar... which had given away the length of the article well before I had begun reading.

He certainly raised some valid points, but I really did expect a more concise version! Hopefully I'm not the only one!

More Challenging than I thought...

I find it strange how much thought and effort I put into the title and the about me section of this blog. Upon reflection, neither look as though they were given much effort I suppose.
It's odd that I would sit and contemplate both for such a long time, but then, I suppose those first impressions do mean a lot.