James Cameron

Academy-award winning director James Cameron reacts with shock and horror as deranged fan Earl J. Woods presents him with a pile of spec scripts. "What the hell is Finger Puppet Star Trek? Generous Nature? Toilet Chase? Uhhh..."

On the way to work this morning, I happened to run into James Cameron, director of some of my favourite films - The Terminator, Terminator 2, The Abyss, Aliens, etc. Seizing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I whipped out my portfolio and forced it into the director's hands as he tried to escape...

Actually, that's not what happened. Cameron is in Alberta to learn about the oil sands and to see what he can do to help First Nations peoples affected by the environmental consequences of oil sands development. The First Nations of Fort Chipewan, grateful to Official Opposition Leader David Swann for his interest and promotion of their issues, arranged for Swann to meet with Cameron this morning.

I went along to shoot some photos, and my boss Neil Mackie, knowing what a huge science fiction and film fan I am, had David introduce me to Cameron. I stammered something or other about loving his work, and the director was very gracious indeed in his response to probably the zillionth fan to say something he's heard many, many times before. "Suck them in with a little action and adventure and sell a good message," he said. That describes the Cameron canon, all right.

Personally, I don't like to bother people, especially famous people who I imagine must have to put up with a tremendous amount of nonsense from fans. But I have to admit that I'm grateful to David and Neil for providing me with what was, in truth, a thrilling moment. And I'm grateful to my coworker Tanara for snapping a candid of the moment!

Laurie Blakeman on Conservation, Land Use and Oil Sands Development

Alberta Liberal MLA and Official Opposition Environment Critic Laurie Blakeman points out that the Alberta government is on the cusp of making some far-reaching decisions about how land in the Lower Athabasca region will be developed in the long term, and how much of that land - currently up to a mere twenty percent - will be conserved, leaving eighty percent open to development. The Alberta government will be holding open public stakeholder meetings at various communites in Alberta throughout September, and you can also leave your thoughts online. Visit http://www.landuse.alberta.ca/ for details.

Full disclosure: as a staff member of the Official Opposition, I did a small amount of work on this video (I took a couple of the still photos).

Edited to add: for some reason, embedding videos doesn't work very well with my blog setup, resulting in some of the image being cut off at the right. Until I solve this problem, you can also view the video here.