The Corporation is a Psychopath

I watched the first part of the film The Corporation last night.  It likens the modern corporation to a psychopath, which is scary when you consider that corporate interests to a large and ever increasing degree control governments.  It also appears that copyright bills, like SOPA in the US and C-11 in Canada, are really a subset of a corporate power grab that includes the commodification of all kinds of things that might one day include the human DNA. 

But it seems an interesting and important perspective to understand that every organization of note out there is looking out for itself without conscience and without empathy and without kindness.

The Corporation (2003)  imdb page  |  trailer

How To: Put a Pivot Chart in an MS Access Report

When you open an Access.Form in PivotChart view you can use the form's Chartspace.ExportPicture() method to write that chart's image to disk. Then your report can programmatically load that image into an Image control. 
Consider this Report_Open() event handler ...

Private Sub Report_Open(Cancel As Integer)
   Const FN As String = "frmYourChart"
   Dim filespec As String

   filespec = CurrentProject.path & "\ImageName.gif"
  
   DoCmd.OpenForm FN, acFormPivotChart, , , , acHidden
   Forms(FN).ChartSpace.ExportPicture filespec, "gif", 950, 625
   DoCmd.Close acForm, FN

   Me.Image0.Picture = filespec

End Sub

MSDN ExportPicture() Reference

Define Fanatic

Philosopher George Santayana defines fanaticism as...
        "...redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim."

To Winston Churchill...
        "...a fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."

Escaping the Narcissistic Family I

I am working under the hypothesis that I am from a narcissistic family, and that resolution of problems with certain people in that group is impossible.  Certainly this is borne out by my experience so far in life, wondering why it always feels like I'm the one who has to adjust and make accomodations and be concerned that everyone is feeling OK.  Almost to the same degree that I have adopted the role of being flexible in this regard, others seem to have adopted the role of being inflexible. 
Interesting observations I've read about online include, 1) because the narcissist can never take responsibility for errors, therefore the narcissitic family dynamics always get worse. Hurt and unresolved problems always accumulate because there is no mechanism for resolution.  2) 'No Contact,' the thing that I am doing now, is an accepted mechanism to get unhooked from the family pattern.  3) The GoldenChild/Scapegoat dynamic.  Some members can do no wrong while other members can do no right, and to implausible degrees.
I think I am healing in certain ways.  Certainly the feeling of stress I commonly had at family gatherings is not a factor now.  Also, I find I am partipating in other relationships better, so more involved, more prepared to talk about real things, more prepared to laugh, but this is an important feature to me of my disfunction, that I have so few quality relationships outside of my family of origin.
But now that is changing.  More to come...

Bill O'Reilly Amsterdam Fail

Canadian Space Program

Check out the article at Space Daily...

Amazing Cycling Skills

Religions Always Collide

Ritual in Action

The boy in the photo knows the rule: lick your finger and turn the page.  He's seen others abide by it and he emulates them, and he creates for us a beautiful image of how religions fail. The rule, initially an advancement of safety or efficacy, is eventually misunderstood or outdated and then comes to exist for its own sake, divorced from the context of its creation.

If then a religion is a powerful organization of these rules collectively attributed to an almighty and all knowing God, the religion--to itself--can never be in error and therefore can never willingly change.  In this sense religion has a keel, but no rudder. 

This is why religions always collide.

State of the Union

Authoritative oration by Obama.  Vintage, maybe.  I remember watching too many years of Bush rhetoric like his "Axis of Evil" and I don't see why American's don't uniformly realize they have a great president; a far better president than they have any right to expect given how broken the system is down there.  But that's another story.