First 2020 Freedom to Express & Listen art project painting - untitled

Artist log for 'untitled' working on a dream

Artist Log 2020-10-25, 7:27 AM MST: With warmer temperatures in the forecast, I'll be returning back outdoors to Alberta Legislature this week to complete my first Freedom to Express & Listen art project painting that I started on Dec 4th, 2019, 24 hrs after Veteran Ken Chan took his life on the steps of the Alberta Legislature. I was the last to talk with Ken, the first to find his body. This painting is very difficult for me to look at and has been hidden away all year. Most of what I'll be adding to this painting will be on the sides and back of the canvas. I hope to have this completed before Remembrance Day.

Sunday October 25, 2020

7:41 AM MST: "Keep on keeping on the spirit my friend! My hair is getting long. My knees are getting weak. I still look forward to the Sunrise through the week."- friend g.c.

7:42 AM MST: "Been up since 4:30 am, working on a dream." - friend d.b. 

7:43 AM MST "Dreams are possible when not distracted by bullshit. Priority is number 1. Though I was there before????? New dream now. Shuffle the cards again......" -friend g.c. 

7:43 AM MST: "That voice with-in holds the key to (my) creativity." - friend d.b. 

7:47 AM MST: "I can imagine this is difficult to think about again. I hope that you feel that your painting your feelings and honoring the loss of this fellow human being is cathartic for you. Love yo u." sister k.h. 

8:03 AM MST: "The enjoyment of life and sorrow from death I embrace equally, as like the clouds embrace the sunshine."  brother d.b.

8:09 AM MST: "Ya i get it. We breath the same air as the Eagle but cant fly only in our mind" - friend g.c.  

8:11 AM MST: "Enjoy your passion Doug" - friend g.c.

8:12  AM MST: "Connie (wife) not happy with the bullshit." -friend g.c.

8:13 AM MST: "The Eagle just shit on her. very upset" - friend g.c.

8:14 AM MST: "When we were at oxbow... River Brads Wake. A Bald Eagle sat patiently in a tree above us for 4 hours. Everyone there thought it was Brad." friend g.c. 

8:15 AM MST: "Some First Nations believe the eagle is a messenger from the creator. Its a good sign and always a joyful welcome whenever the eagle comes to visit me."- d.b. 

8:16 AM MST: "Please tell me again how Brad died?" friend - d.b. 

8:43 AM MST: "Had Chinese food, not drunk or drugs.

Went to sleep, didn't wake up." - friend g.c.

8:55 AM MST: "Hey Doug is your Dream available for others?" - friend g.c.

9:03 AM MST: "yes, from a poem I wrote years ago that opens with 'Can I share a dream with you, of mountain peaks, sweet smell of dew, tomorrow is gone, the world is used, soon they're be nothing left to use'- friend d.b.

9:06 AM MST: "Sounds good Doug, maybe a painting attached?"- friend g.c.

9:09 AM MST: "indeed, working on it this week, Sarah's awake, talk again soon, my love to Connie"- friend d.b. 

9:13 AM MST: "Interesting. What will you add? This has a window to life and living. As we approach vet. Day. The window of life is there for us all to be reminded, nice choice of symbol. Love you"- mom

 Monday October 26, 2020

6:13 AM MST, light from my laptop determines how the darkness appears. last night, I added red & black paint to the backside of untitled. The last Freedom to Express & Listen project’s painting ends on the backside of the first painting added to the project 2019-12-05 "Light and color are closely linked. The colors can make a crucial change in nature, if you switch from daylight to artificial light or just from strong to weak illumination. In addition, color perception is affected by the material structure. Even if a piece of textile can have the same color as a shiny enamel plate, then they will act completely different."- Verner Panton. Denmark's most influential 20th-century furniture and interior designers.

6:41 AM MST untitled: looking through a darkroom curiously, I try to imagine from my palette of memories what comes next? Beyond the window will there be a heaven, or hell, waiting for me in a garden-like Eden akin to memories stored from this year's collection of COVID19, Alberta Legislature's gardens where I've been painting all year. 'The history of the world is art, manmade' - Virgil Abloh, HOUSE 2020 'how dangerous is that'

6:50 AM, MST. Pallet, brushes & paints laid out in front of untitled, red light... "There is a place where time stands still ...illuminated by only the most feeble red light, for light is diminished to almost nothing at the center of time, its vibrations slowed to echoes in vast canyons, its intensity reduced to the faint glow of fireflies." Alan Lightman

Destiny on the breeze, 1994, by d.b.

Life makes it's toils with me

There's no two ways to this certainty

We are destiny on the breeze

It is who we are and what will be

 

Life can be a riot

or a soft silhouette

We face many dangers

in this earthly arm pit

 

Love, hope, peace

most need and aspire

But others fall wayside

follow other desires

Death will make its foils with me

There's no two ways to this certainty

We are destiny on the breeze

It is who we are and what will be

 

No one knows 

what time of day

When death comes to feed

on our lump of clay

 

The body of life

is like a cornfield in fall,

It grows up in season

til harvest takes all

Doug Brinkman has worked freely as a civil information activist, citizen news reporting from the Alberta Legislature and Edmonton area since 2007. Online Gallery  Enjoy your freedoms, thank a veteran.

Porta-Potty-News Picket - No Legislature public facilities during COVID19

2020-10-17 Doug Brinkman's Porta-Potty-Picket Civil Action begins. Closed for the season, there are no public facilities available anywhere on the Alberta Legislature grounds...

2020-10-24 PORTA POTTY PICKET DURING A COVID19 PANDEDEMIC UPDATE now into the second week, Friday, the City of Edmonton, installed 2 porta-potties with no wheelchair access at Government Transit Center. This is the only facility available servicing 57 acres of Legislature grounds, and surrounding neighborhoods used by Alberta taxpayers after the Government closed public washrooms last week. Pedways to the LRT mainline a kilometer away remain closed. What's interesting about my photo is it shows Premier Jason Kenney luxury high-rise condominium towering over the porta-potties. Camp Pekiwewin is behind the Premier's condo a block away, where hundreds of homeless Albertans currently live in a tent city during frigid cold temperatures. Homeless Albertans who do not want to be part of Camp Pekiwewin's political agenda to defund the police have resorted to setting up camps, closer to the Alberta Legislature grounds but have been evicted by Alberta Sheriffs. Many homeless in the area rely on Alberta Legislature facilities, but like Alberta taxpayers, homeless folks are left to come up with alternative solutions when nature calls. Starbucks is one of several businesses in the area that have reopened their washrooms a kilometer away from the Legislature but most businesses reserve washroom facilities equipped with hot water, soap, and hand cleaner for customers only. Wednesday, the Honourable Prasad Panda, MLA for Calgary-Edgemont and Mrs. Angela Pitt, Deputy Speaker, Chair of Committees, MLA for Airdrie-East told me they will look into the matter. Premier Kenney is currently isolating due to possible COVID19 exposure. 

Doug Brinkman has worked freely as a civil information activist, citizen news reporting from the Alberta Legislature and Edmonton area since 2007. Online Gallery  Enjoy your freedoms, thank a veteran.

Premier Jason Kenney promises NDP, a Citizen Referendum Law this fall

2020-08-23: Citizen Referendum: Alberta Speakers Corner & Placard response to Premier Jason Kenney's late night promise to the official opposition NDP, during spring session for a citizen's referendum law this fall. The results will be shared with Albertans, MLAs, news media, and Government staff through word-of-mouth... 

S.M.Elliott 'A REVIEW OF "OVER A BARREL" (DOCUMENTARY)'

Logo designed by Doug Brinkman for Citizen Free News

Banned from the Alberta Legislature public gallery 2019.

S.M.Elliott THE SKEPTICAL CINEPHILE
Graphics & video by Doug Brinkman

A REVIEW OF "OVER A BARREL" (DOCUMENTARY) 

In September of 2019, Alberta premier Jason Kenney announced the establishment of a public inquiry into the sources of funding behind anti-pipeline activism in the province, as well as the opening of a digital tipline to which citizens can report suspected instances of foreign funding of such activism. 

It was a bizarre and costly decision to open this inquiry, because it is in no way unlawful (or unusual) for environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) to work across borders. They deal with oceans, wetlands, wildlife, and other things that exist all over the planet, so their conservation and education efforts are definitely not going to remain localized. However, a primary mandate of the inquiry is to determine if U.S. money has gone toward disseminating misleading or erroneous information about Alberta's oil industry that would amount to defamation. We'll see where that path leads. 

The inquiry wasn't a surprising move on Kenney's part. For months he had been talking about a conspiracy against Alberta oil. Even his acceptance speech of April 16, 2019, contained a dark warning to environmentalists: "To the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Tides Foundation, Lead Now, the David Suzuki Foundation and all of the others: Your days of pushing around Albertans with impunity just ended." 

 His reference to the Tides Foundation unnerved me, because back in 2010, when Glenn Beck was enjoying the peak of his popularity on Fox News, he devoted a considerable amount of airtime to "exposing" George Soros's funding of the Tides Foundation, which led to one disgruntled viewer heading for Tides Foundation headquarters with a carload of automatic weapons, intending to wipe out as many employees as he could. Thankfully, he was intercepted before he reached San Francisco. 

As it turned out, Soros contributed just 5% of the foundation's annual funding at that time and in no way had control of it, as Beck implied. 

So it made me uneasy to hear similar talk from the mouth of Alberta's freshly elected premier. I was also troubled by the fact that his words were inspired by the work of just one person, Canadian researcher Vivian Krause. For several years, Krause has been compiling evidence that the non-profit organizations Kenney mentioned in his speech – and numerous others – have been pouring money into their Canadian counterparts in order to fight the development of new pipelines in Canada, with the goal of landlocking Alberta's tar sands. 

Over a Barrel is Krause's research in documentary form. I saw the Edmonton premiere of this film and the chaotic Q&A that followed yesterday afternoon. 

It is not a shocking film. There is nothing particularly controversial in Krause's essential findings. No one disputes that Canadian ENGOs receive funding from U.S. ENGOs and charitable organizations. We all know that there has been strident opposition to tar sands development and the construction and expansion of oil pipelines in Canada. 

Where Krause – and perhaps Kenney – seem to go wrong is in where they place the blame for the failure of Alberta oil. 

Krause believes the negative attention being paid to the tar sands is out of all proportion with anti-oil activism in other parts of the world, mainly the U.S. This can come across as a persecution complex when her examples are not timely. For instance, in Over a Barrel, she points to California drilling platforms situated near public beaches. Why is no one opposing that?, she asks. Well, for one thing, many of the companies that own offshore drilling platforms in California are suffering financially. Venoco, the owner of one platform, declared bankruptcy in 2017, and the platform has ceased operations. Rigs like this are going to be re-purposed or dismantled in the near future because no one wants to take them on.  
Over a Barrel takes hard aim at the Tar Sands Campaign, which Krause characterizes as a slick, mostly American operation, the brainchild of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Hewlett Foundation, and the Tides Foundation. That is not the case. The Tar Sands Campaign originated in Canada. 

But that's not the biggest problem with Over a Barrel casting the TSC as one of its supervillains. By all accounts except its own, the TSC has dwindled to insignificance since 2015 and was never a major player in oilsands activism, anyway. Krause and the filmmaker of Over a Barrel are giving the initiative far too much credit. 

Over a Barrel asks another one of Krause's favourite questions: If Canada's greenhouse gas emissions contribute just 1.6% to total global emissions, why is opposition to the tar sands still a thing? She can't comprehend why American oil is booming while Alberta oil is busting, skirting the fact that the bitumen being dredged from Alberta's tar sands is more expensive to refine than any other form of oil and simply isn't as appealing to investors and consumers as regular oil. 

Krause and Kenney both maintain that David Suzuki and other environmental activists have spread lies and misinformation about Canadian oil. None of these alleged lies or factoids are even mentioned in Over a Barrel. 

Krause's work has focused on U.S. funding of Canadian environmental activism because she believes that without that funding and support, Canadians would be mostly (if not totally) okay with pipelines. She frequently points out that Canadians weren't even talking about oil pipelines a decade ago. They were "out of sight, out of mind." We didn't care. 

Photo by Doug Brinkman for Citizen Free News

The truth is, though, that the world is turning away from the troubled industry that is oil. We know that it has a limited future. We want to move on. We want to try other things. The opposition to the tar sands and pipeline projects, both within Canada and in the U.S., merely reflects a larger trend. 

Krause contends that Canada both needs and deserves to stay competitive in the global oil market, free from the tyranny of U.S. oil interests. She presents oil as the only possible solution to poverty in First Nations communities, and Ellis Ross (a British Columbia MLA featured prominently in the film) suggested during the Q&A that oil jobs will somehow magically reduce suicide rates among First Nations youth. 

Krause and Over a Barrel argue that the primary obstacle to pipeline development is environmental activism. In Krause's view, the Alberta government should pursue legal action against the Rockefeller Brothers Fund for providing funds to ENGOs that have played roles in Canadian elections and oil-related policymaking. Yet even Krause admitted, during the Q&A, that the only way forward is to "break the American monopoly." 

Over a Barrel in no way addresses how on Earth this might be accomplished. If Big Oil is still one of the most formidable forces in the world and can still accomplish almost anything, what chance does Alberta stand against it? If the U.S. doesn't want Alberta oil to get to overseas markets, then it won't get there. Period. 

In the end, Krause's foreign-funding research as encapsulated in Over a Barrel is an intriguing distraction from the truth: 

Alberta oil is hooped. 

It is landlocked. It is dirtier and more costly to refine than other oil. The oil industry is in the early stages of its death throes, and people don't want to be clawed back into it with dodgy investments. The world is starting to look forward to (hopefully) cleaner energy. U.S. oil interests have begun to edge away from Canadian oil and are content to buy it up on the cheap. 

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund and David Suzuki didn't create any of these issues, so stifling their concerns with costly litigation isn't going to resolve a single problem that Alberta oil faces. This looks more like a problem of Big Oil (Alberta) vs. Bigger Oil (the U.S.), and Alberta is not going to win that match. 

It is time to prepare ourselves for the end of Alberta oil. We're not there yet. But we'll be there soon.