Nick Westover

This is a few months old but I’ve been on blog vacation over the summer. And though it’s not photography related it seems important:

Who knew that photocopiers had hard drives that keep an image of every document you copy?! Since 2002 apparently.

Used to be that before travelling I would zip around to the local postal outlet and make copies of all my documents – passport, drivers license, credit & ATM cards, birth certificate, health card, traveller’s cheques serial numbers (back in the old days), immunization card – whatever would have benefitted from copies to make for speedier replacement or assist in ID’ing me should things go missing. Now I just scan these things but only because it’s more convenient. How often have you photocopied your tax return or some other important documentation at Kinko’s or the corner store? Or what about the copier that’s on the network at your office?

A couple of years ago I photographed a web security guy for a story in a technology magazine, someone that consults to the RCMP and FBI on the issue. He said that the only surefire way to keep on top of this stuff is to track your own credit rating through the credit reporting agencies Equifax and TransUnion. He mails in the request for his free credit report to both of them – every month!

It seems like all those little spills of personal information from retailers, your local health authority or whoever are small peanuts compared to the potential for identity theft that photocopiers represent. Check the CBS News report:

I have a few prints in a group exhibit opening tomorrow night at Centre A, downtown at 2 West Hastings St. (at Carrall).

The images were juried and organized by ISSBC, and Centre A, with the aim “to promote an appreciation of the province’s multicultural spirit and hopes to connect both newcomers to the community with long-term residents.”

The photographs that I submitted are several from a larger series of portraits of refugees I’ve been working on.

Opening, Thursday night, 7-9pm.

I find this whole maternal health charade that the Canadian government is currently involved in kind of hard to take. Of course the opposition parties have goaded the Conservatives on the abortion issue, hoping for some – any! – traction. But that doesn’t seem to be the real issue; it’s just a play for votes.

Shouldn’t we, rather than imposing an ideology and complicating already fraught programs, aim to adequately fund health and education systems capable of meeting the needs of all residents of a program’s coverage area? Give developing nations the money and support to implement comprehensive programs but leave the moral decisions to them.

And where did the current government’s interest in maternal health come from anyway? Other than left field, I mean. Even the Globe & Mail’s queen bee conservative columnist today joked, in reference to the Guergis/Jaffer affair, “Few people have less pull than the status of women minister in a Harper government.”

I’m going through some photos from the last few weeks and found this funny one of restaurant staff taking a moment to watch the cliff-hanger of a hockey game between Canada and the United States for the men’s Olympic gold medal. Some tense moments, to put it mildly.

Police in Vancouver are being super vigilant about public alcohol consumption downtown these days – not only that but quickly breaking up any group seen as being a little rowdy in their Olympic celebration.

Downtown liquor stores have kindly complied with a police request to close early, at 7pm, to maintain order in the city’s core. That request would be an interesting conversation to listen in on. I wonder how it’s framed exactly – it would be a tough pill to swallow in some regards, surely early closure is a loss to the shops of many thousands of dollars.

More to come shortly.