The Garret Tree

The David Lean Anniversary Conference

2008-06-06T22:16:00.008-04:00

This year, 2008, as we've all heard from the superheated publicity, is the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of author Ian Fleming.

The fact that 2008 is also the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of one ot the greatest film directors David Lean, has had less hype.

There have been events in London all year marking the anniversary and one is a conference at Queen Mary University on July 25 and 26, 2008, that "offers an opportunity both to celebrate David Lean's career and to evaluate the nature of his achievement."

You can find out more about the David Lean conference on both the conference website or, if you're on Facebook, by joining the Facebook group David Lean 100th Anniversary Conference QMUL.

Facebook Event page for the conference.

I'll be speaking about "that movie" that it is what many former prisoners called The Bridge on the River Kwai on the afternoon of July 26, officially on "The Reception of The Bridge on the River Kwai among Former Far East Prisoners of War." It was a love hate relationship with that great film for many former POWs.

And I'll tell the conference why.
Hope to see you there.

Technorati tags
writing, London, Burma Thailand Railway, World War II, film,F Force, Prisoner of War,
David Lean, Bridge on the River Kwai, Kwai, book

Garret e-mail box disabled

2008-05-26T20:39:00.001-04:00

The e-mail address for this blog garretATrobinrowland.com has been disabled after it was taken over by spammers. I have received very little legitimate e-mail for this box since the end of the lockout, so it is no real loss.

A River Kwai Story published, available online

2008-04-06T11:39:00.005-04:00

A River Kwai Story: The Sonkrai Tribunal was officially published on April 4, 2008 by Allan and Uwin in Australia. The publisher is distributing the book in Australia, New Zealand and parts of the western Pacific. Allan and Unwin also has non-exclusive rights to distribute the book in Asia.

So far I haven't been able to sell rights in North America, the United Kingdom and Europe.

No matter, in the age of the Internet, the book is available online almost everywhere! (See below)

A River Kwai Story is a project that has taken almost eight years, but I was planning it for almost a decade, if not more, before that.

My father was a prisoner on the railway of death and so I heard his stories at the breakfast table. He also bought any book he could on the railway, most of the POW memoirs that were published following the success of David Lean's movie The Bridge on the River Kwai.

I really began work in the summer of 2000, when I was admitted to the interdisciplinary masters program at York University in Toronto.

Although my father was part of the group known as "H Force," when I was reading the memoirs my father had bought, I had a gut feeling that "F Force," the events at Sonkrai, was the key to understanding what happened on the Railway of Death. My gut feeling was confirmed when, as part of the interdisciplinary program, I began studying international humanitarian law and found out that the story of F Force not only had some of the most fascinating characters of the Second World War, but was also a little known but key case in the concept of command responsiblity for war crimes.

As I entered the second year of the part time program in September 2001 (I worked for CBC throughout the process and I am still working for CBC News) the attacks on September 11, and the subsequent events in Afghanistan, Guantanamo and Iraq made the story all the more relevant. While the Bush administration was denying that there was a strong legal definition of what constituted "inhuman treatment" of detainees, it was clear that every post-war case in the Far East, including the cases tried by the United States, clearly defined "inhuman treatment."

After I graduated from the MA program in the fall of 2003, I turned turning the academic thesis into a book. I thought it would take a year. It took four. There were delays in getting additional material to flesh out the academic thesis, to write the book as world events kept me busy at my job and then there were some delays in the production process at the Australian publisher.

Now it's available for you to read:

International orders for A River Kwai Story The Sonkrai Tribunal
Readers in North America, the United Kingdom and elsewhere can order A River Kwai Story through allbris, an online book store that consolidates orders from both online and "bricks and mortar" chain and independent bookstores.

The Asia Bookroom, in the Canberra suburb Macquarrie is an alibris affiliate, and that means readers can purchase A River Kwai Story through alibris and the Asia Bookroom.

In North America, go to alibris US to order A River Kwai Story.

In the United Kingdom, go to alibris UK to order A River Kwai Story.

The cost of the book as of April 6, 2008 (may vary due to currency fluctuations)

Canadian $49.56
US $46.69
UK £24.58

Alibris says delivery time is about three weeks.
Note despite the flag on the site, you are not ordering a used book. Asia Bookroom sells new books and, of course A River Kwai Story is brand new!

There is also a direct link to the alibris site from Google products.

Robin's other books

You can also get used copies of my earlier books through alibris.

In North America click here

In the United Kingdom click here

Technorati tags
writing, journalism, Burma Thailand Railway, World War II, Iraq,F Force, Prisoner of War,
military tribunal, law, book

John McCain on Japanese waterboarding

2008-03-09T23:27:00.006-04:00

Senator John McCain, the Republican candidate for president of the United States surprised me again tonight when he appeared on 60 Minutes and mentioned to interviewer Scott Pelley about how the Japanese used waterboarding during the Second World War.

In one way, I am not surprised, as the son of Second World War POW, abuse like that is of great interest to all who have that legacy and so it is no surprise that the Senator, who was, of course, a prisoner of the North Vietnamese, would have a strong interest in the subject.

But is, as far as I know, the firs time since the Second World War, that an American politician of McCain's stature has brought up the subject of Japanese waterboarding. It is certainly the first time that a presidential candidate has discussed Japanese waterboarding on a major network news show like 60 Minutes.

Here is the key quote:

Pelley asked him about American interrogation methods today. Asked if water boarding is torture, McCain said, "Sure. Yes. Without a doubt."

"So the United States has been torturing POWs?" Pelley asked.

"Yes. Scott, we prosecuted Japanese war criminals after World War II.
And one of the charges brought against them, for which they were convicted, was that they water-boarded Americans," McCain said.

You can read the complete 60 Minutes interview here

Here is my account of the infamous Double Tenth waterboarding case in Singapore in 1943.
I first blogged about Waterboarding is a War Crime in November 2005.

Despite the claims of U.S. officials, waterboarding is not an effective interrogation technique.
You can read the entire blog entry but here is the bottom line summary. British and Australian commandos raided Singapore harbour and successfully blew up ships. The Japanese secret police believed it was civilian internees who committed the sabotage.
So the Japanese tortured their suspects, who under water boarding, and other tortures confessed to taking part in a commando raid they knew nothing about.

Related link: An account of the waterboarding of American POWs by the Japanese during the Second World can be found here from Georgtown University.

Watch the 60 Minutes interview with Republican presidential candidate, Senator John McCain:

Now that Senator McCain has raised the issue, and raised it as part of the campaign, I hope that more people will take a closer look at how the Japanese decided to ignore the Geneva Convention and how the Far East war crimes trials dealt with the issue.

For me this is probably the most interesting U.S. presidential campaign in my lifetime. All three candidates have admirable qualities. (John McCain has also got good poilcies on climate change)

Technorati tags
writing, journalism, Burma Thailand Railway, World War II, John McCain,F Force, Prisoner of War,military tribunal, torture, law, book, waterboarding, water torture, 60 Minutes, CBS,POW

Kwai, photography updates

2008-03-04T21:48:00.003-05:00

A couple of updates:

Promotion for A River Kwai Story, from my agent Waterside Productions.

Australian publishers Allan and Unwin will reveal the long-held secrets of the River Kwai Story in their April 2008 publication of A River Kwai Story, The Sonkrai Tribunal by Waterside Author Robin Rowland.
According to the author, more prisoners of war died at Sonkrai than any other camp on the infamous River Kwai Railway. The seven thousand Australian and British prisoners of war who comprised F Force were sent by the Japanese to build the toughest section of the railway in the mountains between Thailand and Burma. More than three thousand people died from slave labour, disease, starvation and exposure to the never-ending monsoon rain.

In 1946 seven former guards from the infamous River Kwai camp were put on trial for their lives before a military tribunal in Singapore, charged with the deaths of more than three thousand people. The account of the trial tells for the first time the story of F Force from all sides-Australian, British and Japanese-from the lowest private to the lieutenant colonels in command. The testimony, verdict and the surprise sentence shed new light on what really happened on the Railway of Death.

A River Kwai Story, The Sonkrai Tribunal is much more than a story of the infamous Railway of Death during the Second World War. The book is about the fairness of military tribunals/trials/commissions in cases where there are atrocities and heavy loss of life. As the United States begins trials of alleged terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, the reader discovers that the story of the River Kwai, known best through David Lean’s Oscar winning movie starring Alec Guinness and William Holden, is as relevant as tonight’s evening news, for the events on that railway led to military tribunals with almost the same rules of evidence and the same charges of unfair proceedings as are the trials now on at “Gitmo.”

Photography

Third place, Feature photography, Clips contest for November 2007, from the Eastern division of the News Photographers Association of Canada.

Technorati tags
writing, journalism, Burma Thailand Railway, World War II, F Force, Prisoner of War, military tribunal, photography, book

My microcareer in videogames

2008-02-23T21:43:00.006-05:00

When you've got a book coming out you Google yourself a little more frequently just to see what's happening out there.

That's how I found out today that my very brief career in videogames actually resulted in a game called Maabus. Somehow the reference showed up in the second page of my Google search.

Back in the winter of 1993, I was freelancing, mainly as an underpaid casual writer at CTV News and so I was always on the lookout for other work. And that's how I came to be working for a CD duplicating company in Toronto called MicroForum that wanted to move from manufacturing into actual production.

I was hired to write a scenario for a game, where earth was threatened some mysterious force.

Here is the blurb and it is pretty close (as far as I remember) to what I wrote:

The year is 1999.
A mysterious new form of radiation is threatening life as we know it on Earth.

... On a small tropical island, 1500 miles southwest of Hawaii in the Pacific, something sinister is going on...

Rumors abound: monstrous mutants, alien fiends, and inexplicable phenomena. Is this the malicious plot of a hostile country? Or does the threat originate from some extra-terrestrial power?

Many research teams have gone in... not a living soul has ever come out!

Now as the last hope, the military has turned to you to crack the mystery and save the world from impending devastation. Your mission is to explore the island with the aid of a highly advanced computerized robot and an arsenal of state-of-the-art weapons. You must investigate uncharted tropical terrain, examine and analyze clues to seek out and destroy the source of this Evil. It will take all of your courage, skills and wits. And remember...

EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED!

So I handed in the scenario, got paid and that was the last I heard about it, until today,more than 15 years later.

Now, thanks to Google, I find myself on a game review site called Moby Games, as a game developer!
(There's nothing there right, but I certainly intend to update it)

I never even got a copy of the game. (So I just bought a used copy on EBay.)

When PC Gamer reviewed the final product, it said:" On the box Maabus comes in, Microforum calls it both "the ultimate videogame" and "the ultimate adventure" - and that's a good clue to what's wrong with it. Maabus tries to be two things at once, and it succeeds at neither." The sort of thing you'd expect for a first effort (for both me and the company)

But it appears that the music is quite catchy and that's why the "Maabus Trailer" been posted on YouTube.

From the comments it appears that the song is much more popular than the game itself!

The credits say the music for the game was created by Maurizio Guarini and Steve Convery, but the trailer, according to the YouTube the credit for theTrailer for "Maabus" by Monolith Productions, taken from Softkey's "Game Empire" disc.
(It appears that it was an early effort by the Monolith Productions, now part of the Warner empire.)
So it's unclear where the song came from. I'll update when I get the CDs!

Technorati tags
writing, games, Maabus,

Kwai, Afghanistan links

2008-01-22T21:47:00.000-05:00

A couple of quick links.

Front Line
An audio slideshow for CBC.ca with photographs from a forward operating base in Afghanistan by award winning photographer Louie Palu.

Front Line
Photography and audio by Louie Palu
Reporter/editor James Cudmore
Producer Robin Rowland

Cecil Brett

Cecil Brett is one of the key characters in A River Kwai Story. Brett was the intelligence officer who wrote the official analysis and history of the Burma Thailand Railway at the end of the Second World War. Brett was a Canadian intelligence officer assigned to a special allied unit in South East Asia.

From 1963 to his retirement in 1983, Brett was a professor at Monmouth College in Illinois.
Here is a mention of A River Kwai Story from the Monmouth College faculty Pipeline for Jan. 19-25. The page is not archived so here is what it says:

Cecil Brett featured in new book

A former faculty member's pre-Monmouth College experiences are featured in Robin Rowland's new book, "A River Kwai Story: The Sonkrai Tribunal."

Cecil Brett, who taught government and history at Monmouth from 1963 to 1983 and was director of the East Asian Studies program, also did post-World War II intelligence work on the Burma Thailand Railway, which Rowland says is a "significant part" of his book, which will be released in Australia this April.

In a communication to the college, Rowland thanked MC history professor Stacy Cordery for her help in his research.

A River Kwai Story progress report

2007-12-20T22:02:00.000-05:00

A brief pre-Christmas progress report on A River Kwai Story The Sonkrai Tribunal.
I spent the first couple of weeks of December going through what were once called (and perhaps still are in some ways) "the galleys." In the old days the galleys were the proofs were the long sheets of paper taken off long rows of metal ("hot") type. Later the galleys were the proofs that came out of some sort of electronic typesetting system.

These days it is Adobe's Acrobat system that is the standard, the complete book (all 6.5 megabytes) came to me by e-mail as a pdf attachment for that final check.

So it is now off to the printers (although the book won't be officially out until April, this was a good time to fit into the production schedule.

There is growing pre-publication interest in the book, with my agent looking at an offer for Asian English language rights and United Kingdom rights. Now perhaps an North American publisher will be interested as well.

I appeared live on BBC Radio Five this week (live from a CBC studio in Toronto) at 10:30 pm Toronto time, 3:30 am in the UK, for a 20-odd minute interview with Up All Night's host Rhod Sharp where we explored both the historic aspects of A River Kwai Story and the modern implications.

There is, unfortunately, no podcast of the show, and the onsite "aircheck" expired on Dec. 26.

Technorati tags
writing, journalism, Burma Thailand Railway, World War II, Iraq,F Force, Prisoner of War,
military tribunal, law, book

A big cross border camera rip off

2007-12-01T23:04:00.000-05:00

At this moment the Canadian dollar has fallen back even with the United States dollar.
One US greenback may no longer be worth $1.10 Cdn, as it was when a friend of mine was up from New York a couple of weeks ago but it's at PAR. $1=$1.

So how's this for yet another big cross-border rip off.

I really like my new Sony A700 camera. Not so sure about Sony.

And the one additional feature that most A700 users want is the vertical grip, that is just that a vertical grip --but it also has space for two batteries.

The manufacturers list price has been $399.99 in Canada and $349.99 in the US.

It isn't any more.

Sony US is selling the vertical grip through Sonystyle.com at $249 and giving US customers free shipping up until December 31.

Here's the page from the US Sony style site,

but in Canada it is still $399.99 and no free shipping through the Great White North.

Here's the Canadian URL

And just for the record at the moment $1 Cdn = 111.04 Yen, $1 US =111.11 Yen. Not much of a difference is there???

Technorati tags
photography, Sony, Alpha 700, Canadian dollar

Blackwater:civilian contractors were prosecuted after WWII

2007-10-15T08:00:00.000-04:00

Although many legal experts who have been discussing the case of Blackwater USA, the private contractor now being investigated for a shootout in Baghdad, say private contractors are in legal limbo, accountable to neither government nor laws, there is yet another episode from the Second World War in the Far East that is relevant to the modern world.

The guards in the River Kwai prison camps were gonzoku, private contractors employed by the Imperial Japanese Army. Many were tried as war criminals after war, including two of the defendants in A River Kwai Story.

Link to my story for CBCnews.ca

Private military contractors subject to rule of law
Second World War gonzoku provide precedent

One of the main characters in A River Kwai Story is a Korean gonzoku or civilian contractor named Hong Ki-song, also known by his Japanese name Toyoyama Kisei, who was one of the most hated guards on the Burma Thailand Railway, and was notorious for beating prisoners of war with the shaft of a golf club. Toyoyama, who volunteered for the duty, was sentenced to death by a British military court in Singapore. That sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. This mug shot was taken by the U.S. army in Sugamo Prison in Tokyo. (U.S. National Archives)

Technorati tags
writing, journalism, Burma Thailand Railway, World War II, Iraq,F Force, Prisoner of War,
military tribunal, Blackwater, law, book

A River Kwai story picked up by Doubleday Book Club in Australia

2007-10-14T10:06:00.001-04:00

A River Kwai Story has been picked up by the Doubleday Book Clubs in Australia.

Link to Doubleday Book Clubs in Australia.

Photography: Why I stayed with Minolta (now Sony)

2007-09-10T10:13:00.000-04:00

After I posted my CBC blog entry on the new Sony Alpha 700, a couple of friends asked me why I stuck with Minolta when everyone else was working with Canon or Nikon digital single lens reflex cameras.

CBC technology blog post How about a HDTV with that DSLR?

It begins with my first SLR.

When Minolta made the announcement that it was going out of business, I wrote a longer version of my experiences with Minolta in my blog post The End of the Minolta Era.

Here's a slightly updated summary:

My father gave me my first SLR, a Minolta SRT 101 for my 18th birthday many years ago.

That camera took me right across Canada in the summer of 1969 from Montreal to Victoria, across Canada to Halifax and then back to Montreal. I was part of the first Aventure Canadienne, one of Pierre Trudeau's first experiments in bilingual and bicultural exchange, twenty students, half Anglophone, half Francophone going across Canada in two blue minibuses.

I used the SRT 101 in journalism school and on my first job as a reporter/photographer on the Sudbury Star, and then I took it across Europe a year later. I took the SRT 101 with me for the year I worked in London,where it survived being tossed across a room by a crazy landlady.

In the early 1980s, bought the Minolta X700 just before I moved into broadcasting and used that camera for years...mostly landscapes since I wasn't shooting journalism at that time.

For video I used a Sony Hi8 camera to shoot my documentary for CBC's Pacific Rim report on my trip up the River Kwai and later bought a Sony DV camera).

I bought a Minolta Maxxum 4 around 2000 or so and added a Sigma zoom and a Minolta 50mm.

At the time when Canon and Nikon and other camera companies were going big on high end, professional digital, Minolta stood still--one reason they got into to business trouble.

I probably would have switched to Canon except for the fact that in October 2005, Minolta Canada went out of business before the company's other branches which closed down in January 2006.

That meant the retailers here in Canada wanted to dump their Minolta cameras and lenses (they didn't foresee the deal where Sony bought Konica-Minolta digital camera technology and patents)

So I got the 7D for $1000 instead of $2000, got a better mid range zoom and a wide angle and a flash --all at less than half the price it would normally have cost.

It appears that elsewhere around the world no one dumped Minolta lenses at fire sale prices after the Sony deal was announced-- the retailers knew the lenses were good for the upcoming Sony cameras.

So I have now all this equipment and most of it is compatible with the Sonys--and if, from time to time, I want to shoot film, most of the lens and equipment will work with the Maxxum film camera. So I am going to stick with cameras I know, know how to operate and like using.

I didn't have much time last Thursday for the hands on session with the Alpha 700. You will find a review from Doug Brown on the DPreview forum here.

Among the features that stood out for me in the Alpha 700 were:

The presenters were pushing a function key system that means you don't have to stop and look at the menu in midshoot.

Both in the PR book and the presentation Sony said the in camera image stabilization system is made to work with any lens--in other words all the Minolta lenses out there just waiting for a new digital camera.

Some of the "new" features were on the Minolta 7D which I use such as the auto focus/manual focus button.

One feature I found interesting is a white balance bracketing setting, three frames at different WB settings, could come in handy if you are shooting jpg in an unusual lighting situation.

Offers an optional vertical grip with a second battery with automatic switching to the second battery when the first gets low.

Shoots 5 fps -doesn't match the Mark III's 10 fps.(although Brown was told Sony was working on improving this).

Offers something called cRAW which compresses the RAW setting by 30 per cent.
Continuous shooting capacity is 18 frames RAW, 25 frames cRAW and 16 frames extra fine jpg, looks like the continuous mode is optimized for cRaw.

Doug Brown's review also said the Alpha 700 is the only DSLR on the market at the moment that shoots in the 16:9 aspect ratio. That will be a great advantage for me because broadcasters are now shooting mostly 16:9 as part of the transition to high definition and I am already shooting 16:9 assignments using my Lumix FZ50 point and shoot.

Sony Canada news release.

Technorati tags
photography, journalism, Minolta, Sony, Alpha 700,CBC, 16:9,
photojournalism

Photography: The Sony Alpha 700

2007-09-06T23:16:00.001-04:00

I covered the Canadian launch of the new Sony Alpha 700 digital single lens reflex camera today, Thursday, Sept. 6, 2007.

You can read my story on the CBCnews.ca technology blog. The Sony A700 is not the new pro model some people were expecting. But it can come with a high definition television.

How about an HDTV with that DSLR?

Technorati tags
photography, journalism, CBC, Sony, HDTV,

River Kwai Story podcast on Radio Singapore International

2007-08-25T11:56:00.000-04:00

In late August, I appeared on a history program on Radio Singapore International called Retrospect to discuss with host Mubin Sadat the history of the Burma Thailand Railway and the new information that will appear in the book A River Kwai Story The Sonkrai Tribunal when it appears in April 2008.

You can listen to the podcast here

Note: If the podcast doesn't download or play automatically, in Windows you can right click, save target as (Explorer) or save link as (Firefox) and then play from your hard drive with any player.

A River Kwai Story The Sonkrai Tribunal main page (includes online ordering information)

Technorati tags
writing, journalism, Burma Thailand Railway, World War II, Australia,F Force, Prisoner of War,
military tribunal, Singapore, POW, Retrospect, Radio Singapore International,podcast,book

Update: Blogging guidelines "early draft"

2007-08-07T22:53:00.000-04:00

As reported by Tod Maffin at Inside the CBC:

Blogging guideline document was only a proposed early draft

The best two outside links to come from this issue are

1) Chris MacDonald's exploration of the issue in his Business Ethics Blog, Bloggers Beware.

2)Robert Smith at NPR (US National Public Radio) Blogging May be Hazardous to My Career

Both were written before the clarification issued by CBC.

So let's see how the issue develops over the coming months.

Hemingway's lost "blog"

2007-08-05T10:10:00.000-04:00

This week the CBC issued a set of "guidelines" for employees who blog. The guidelines were immediately controversial and the debate on Tod Maffin's Inside the CBC is still raging at this writing (70 comments as of Aug 5 at 1032 ET). My colleague Paul Gorbould has posted a thoughtful response to the controversy.

Which brings me to Ernest Hemingway's lost blog (or what would have been a blog if there had been a computerized world when "Papa" was writing.)

Most people know about Hemingway's famous lost short stories. In 1923, Hemingway's first wife, Hadley Richardson, was travelling from Paris to Lausanne to meet Hemingway and as she was waiting for a train at the Gare de Lyon, the suitcase with the stories was stolen from the station platform and so the stories were lost to literature and history. (Make a backup Ernest! Use carbon paper!)

The other lost work by Ernest Hemingway is less well known, his resignation letter from the Toronto Star. According to a number of Star histories, when Hemingway got fed up and decided to quit, he wrote a eloquent denunciation of The Star and its management on a long piece of paper taken from a teletype roll. (anticipating Jack Kerouac's method in On the Road by 30 years).

Imagine what it would have been like then if Hemingway had blogged? Now since it was a resignation letter, it wouldn't have broken any employee's blog restrictions, but that work, either on a blog or on teletype paper, would have likely have been the one the great documents in the history of journalism.

Hemingway apparently pinned the long sheet of teletype paper to a Star bulletin board and it remained there for months, and the staff kept reading it, loving it (one wonders what Star management thought) until one day it fall to the floor and was was swept up by the cleaning staff and ended up in a Toronto landfill.

I have had this website since December 26, 1999 (the date I registered robinrowland.com). It was created to promote my books and to put up the course outline and hints for my students when I taught at Ryerson University of School of Journalism. At that time, a few CBC employees had personal sites and when I started the site there was no objection, in fact I was told it was a great idea.

I posted my first blog entry on October 18, 2004, to track and promote the book I was writing at the time now called A River Kwai Story. Again, at the time, I was told it was a great idea.

Except of the time during the lockout, I have kept my blog tightly focused on my book project and on my photography along with occasional personal stuff.

But what do these guidelines say? That I can't talk about the brands of cameras I use, developments in the world of digital photography or the quality of my photo quality ink jet printer? As I do here and here and here and here. Is that endorsing (or not) a product?

A River Kwai Story is based on my academic research for my Master's Degree and it's about the history of war crimes and military tribunals. It could be, in some circles, be considered controversial. Does that mean CBC employees can't write controversial books--even if the work has done completely on their own time and has nothing to do what happens inside the corporation? (And for the record, stories based on my research have been offered to CBC News from time to time)

Which brings me back to Ernest Hemingway. If he was writing today, Hemingway would have to have a blog to promote his books, it is an absolute necessity in the 21st Century. Hemingway would have had to have a blog whether he worked for The Star or was an independent freelancer. I am sure Hemingway would use a blog as an outlet for his talents and ideas that might now, in the modern world of beancounting publishing, have no other outlet, even if the name of the author is Ernest Hemingway.

The problem is that most of the CBC employees who openly blog under their own names have been known from before the lockout. A year ago some of us issued the CBC Blogging Manifesto and signed our names to that document. It would have been easy to call a meeting and discuss these guidelines with the bloggers. I wasn't consulted and as far as I know, no other blogger was either.

Paul has quoted what the late CBC Ombudsman David Bazay said about blogging

If public broadcasters are to become bloggers I would hope that they would exercise their freedom of speech exactly the way they are compelled to exercise it within the CBC: with accuracy, fairness and integrity, with the responsible speech of CBC’s Journalistic Standards and Practices that has helped make this place one of the great places in the world where the citizen can be well informed.

I thought at the time that Bazay was right on and I have followed those guidelines.
If any corporation anywhere, respects its employees, that is all that is needed.

Technorati tags
writing, journalism,book, blog,blogging,

Edits complete, publication postponed

2007-08-01T23:18:00.000-04:00

I finished the last edits of A River Kwai Story The Sonkrai Tribunal on Sunday, July 29, 2007.

At the same time, the Australian publisher, Allen and Unwin, has postponed publication a second time, so instead of 2007, it is now scheduled for late April 2008, to coincide with Australia's ANZAC Day. The book had been scheduled for July 6, 2007, but there were delays in the editing process.

It appears from what I am told, that unlike in North America, where the major selling period for books is around Christmas, publishers Down Under consider Christmas to be one of the worst times to sell books, except, as I was told "children's books and large novels." I am guessing it is maybe the weather, here everyone bundles up and reads through the winter, in Australia, I guess, they all go to the beach.

Also the book will not be available on Amazon, or any other online retailer. I had hoped that I could make up for the total lack of interest by North American and British publishers with sales on the major online retailers. That apparently is not possible, since Allan and Unwin only purchased the Australia and New Zealand rights, they can't put it up on Amazon.

Now, after I get the galleys (early September I hope) perhaps my agent can kindle some interest somewhere.

One online bookstore in Queensland is advertising the book. So you can order it from QBD The Bookshop, an online bookseller in Australia, which does ship internationally. Prices are in Australian dollars.

Link to order A River Kwai Story from QBD The Bookshop

So what are my plans? This project has taken more years than I ever expected. It was in July 2000 that I was admitted to the Interdisciplinary Masters Program at York University and Osgoode Hall Law School. I defended my thesis in September 2003 and graduated in November 2003. It took me six weeks, part time, to write the thesis. But it took more than two and a half years to write the book. It took longer than I expected to turn the academic argument into a narrative. And then, as mentioned earlier in this blog, publication was postponed last year.

So I while I have a few other ideas on my hard drive, I am not going to write a word, outside of work, until the book comes out. It's time to catch up on things I have put on hold for the past seven years. Let's hope that the next seven will be good ones.

Technorati tags
writing, journalism, Burma Thailand Railway, World War II, Australia,F Force, Prisoner of War,
military tribunal,POW, book

Photography: Robin's photo galleries posted

2007-05-26T11:41:00.001-04:00

I have posted photo galleries of my personal work on the site.

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photography

How Alberto Gonzales failed in history

2007-05-25T23:45:00.000-04:00

This just posted on CBC.ca/news

Alberto Gonzales and the Geneva Convention.
Did the president's lawyer misread the Geneva Convention?

Did Alberto Gonzales, the embattled attorney general of the United States, turn a blind eye to legal history when he wrote a memo to President George W. Bush back in 2002 suggesting ways to avoid the Geneva Convention?

Although my book, A River Kwai Story The Sonkrai Tribunal is largely about the Second World War, it is also about the Geneva Convention and the inhuman treatment of prisoners of war.

So when I was doing my research for the book and I read a key phrase in a memo written January 25, 2002, from Gonzales to President George Bush (and leaked when the Abu Ghraib scandal broke) that said.

. . . some of the language of the GPW [Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War] is undefined (it prohibits, for example, ‘outrages against personal dignity’ and ‘inhuman treatment’) . . .

I was, to say the least, surprised, since almost all the Far East war crimes trials for the abuse of prisoner of war, charged or contained the phrase "inhuman treatment."

How could the counsel to the president of the United States ignore the suffering of several hundred thousand Allied prisoners of war, including thousands of American POWs?"

It may take many years of history to answer that question.

The CBC news story outlines what Gonzales should have known when he wrote that memo.

The book, of course, will tell the reader, the exact details of the "inhuman treatment" carried out by the Japanese against the men of F Force.

Technorati tags
CBC, journalism, Burma Thailand Railway, World War II, Australia,F Force, Prisoner of War,
military tribunal, Alberto Gonzales, POW, Geneva Convention

Shooting on the Leslie Street Spit

2007-05-21T13:59:00.000-04:00

I took my annual spring fun photo shoot out along the Leslie St. Spit (also known as Tommy Thompson Park ) in Toronto Sunday.

The spit is 5 kilometres long from entrance to lighthouse. So the trek out can be between 10 kilometres (if you take the main road) and 11 to 12 kilometres (if you use side trails and alternate routes)

All photos are copyright © Robin Rowland 2007 All rights reserved.

Here is my favourite shot (so far) from the shoot.

(Click for larger image)

This year we were lucky, lots of wildlife, as well as the usual seagulls and Canada Geese, there were garter snakes, rabbits and lots of songbirds.

Red-winged blackbird

Warbler

Update
Marc Ferreira's shots from the Spit Shoot

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Toronto, photography, Leslie Street Spit

Facebook group for A River Kwai Story

2007-05-21T10:12:00.000-04:00

I have created a Facebook group for A River Kwai Story.
Facebook members can click on the link. If not, join Facebook and then join the group.

Technorati tags
writing, Facebook Burma Thailand Railway, World War II, Sonkrai,F Force, Prisoner of War,
military tribunal, A River Kwai Story, POW, book

The Alan Johnston rally at Simcoe Park

2007-05-10T21:35:00.000-04:00

Hundreds of journalists and other supporters rallied at Toronto's Simcoe Park on Thursday May 10, 2007, to support kidnapped BBC journalist Alan Johnston, who by that time had been held in Gaza for 60 days.

CBC Chief Correspondent Peter Mansbridge expresses his support for Alan Johnston and his family at the rally.

Host of CBC's The Current, Anna Maria Tremonti, a former Middle East correspondent, spoke about Alan Johnston's reporting from Gaza. Former BBC correspondent Daniel Lak who helped organize the rally is on the left.

CBC News story on the rally at Simcoe Park

CBC Editor-in-chief Tony Burman's letter calling for freedom for Alan Johnston

Sign the BBC Online petition

BBC "How You Can Help"

Toronto Star Canadian media protest kidnapping

Canadian Press story on Canoe

Daniel Lak's blog, Lakwords

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writing, journalism,
BBC,Alan Johnston, Gaza,CBC

Toronto rally May 10 for BBC's Alan Johnston

2007-05-08T20:31:00.000-04:00

Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) and the Canadian Media Guild (CMG) have called on their members and all journalists to mark May 10, 2007, by attending a rally in Toronto in support of British journalist Alan Johnston. BBC Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston was kidnapped by gunmen near his office in Gaza City on March 12, 2007. Thursday, May 10 marks his 60th day in captivity.

In Toronto at

Simcoe Park
200 Front Street West
(beside the CBC building)

Thursday, May 10, 2007
12:00 p.m. - 12:40p.m.

Speakers include:

Peter Mansbridge, CBC Television
Brian Stewart, CBC Television
Anna Maria Tremonti, CBC Radio
Rick MacInnes Rae, CBC Radio
Patrick Martin, The Globe and Mail
Sandro Contenta, Toronto Star

Click in the image link above or go to the BBC Editor's page on Alan Johnston.

Johnston, 44, is a veteran foreign correspondent. Before moving to Gaza in 2004, he ran BBC bureaus in Kabul and Tashkent. He is widely respected and liked by his peers. His reporting on events in Gaza has been widely acclaimed as balanced, insightful and courageous.

The BBC and media workers rights organizations around the world have been calling for Johnston's immediate and safe release from the day of his abduction. These appeals have taken on a new urgency as time goes on. His parents in Scotland, both in their 70s, have appeared on international television and radio to appeal to his kidnappers for their son's freedom.

Johnston is believed to be alive and in good health but there is no sign of his captors releasing him anytime soon. Why he's being held remains a matter for speculation.

A single media worker harmed or kidnapped is one too many. The International Freedom of Expression eXchange (IFEX) reports dozens of instances of journalists taken hostage each year, many of them in Iraq and the Gaza strip. Fourteen journalists have been kidnapped in the Gaza Strip since 2005. Reporters, camera crew and producers need to know they can work safely in troubled areas like Gaza. If journalists are unable to report freely, the world will have lost vital access to information.

CBC News Editor in Chief, Tony Burman's Letter: Why BBC's kidnapped Alan Johnston needs to be freed.

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writing, journalism,
BBC,Alan Johnston, Gaza,CBC

A River Kwai Story The Sonkrai Tribunal

2007-04-30T21:53:00.000-04:00

Here is the cover of A River Kwai Story The Sonkrai Tribunal.

Publication date is Friday, July 6, 2007.

More prisoners of war died at Sonkrai than any other camp on the infamous River Kwai Railway. The seven thousand Australian and British prisoners of war who comprised
F Force were sent by the Japanese to build the toughest section of the railway in the mountains between Thailand and Burma. More than three thousand people died from slave labour, disease, starvation and exposure to the never-ending monsoon rain.

In 1946 seven former guards from the infamous River Kwai camp were put on trial for their lives before a military tribunal in Singapore, charged with the deaths of more than three thousand people. The account of the trial tells for the first time the story of F Force from all sides-Australian, British and Japanese-from the lowest private to the lieutenant colonels in command. The testimony, verdict and the surprise sentence shed new light on what really happened on the Railway of Death.

You can view the Allen and Unwin July books international sales page here.

Technorati tags
writing, journalism, Burma Thailand Railway, World War II, Australia,F Force, Prisoner of War,
military tribunal, Alberto Gonzales, POW, book

Photography: Shooting a volcano

2007-04-29T18:58:00.000-04:00

In late March and April, 2007, I went to Montserrat to shoot the Soufriere Hills volcano. A photo galley is now up on CBC.ca (supplemented with wire pix to tell the back story).

The growing lava dome looms over abandoned homes outside the town of Plymouth.

Most of the pictures were shot from a dive boat 2,000 metres off shore.
Since the dome collapse in January, 2007, you cannot enter the
exclusion zone, even with a police escort. This may change if the
volcano settles down.

I have been interested in volcanoes since I was kid, so these are in
some ways vacation pix.

I met Vicky Hard, the director of the Montserrat Volcano Observatory
and she gave me some good advice which I thought I would pass on in case
anyone ever gets an assignment to shoot a volcano.

Her most important advice was that the fine (sometimes microscopic)
volcanic ash can be deadly to cameras and computer equipment, the
observatory has to replace its equipment frequently because the ash
shortens its working life.

Every morning when I got up, I had to clean a very fine layer of ash
from the top of my (closed) laptop even though the volcano was
relatively quiet.

She said ash can destroy an SLR when changing lens (this has happened
to photographers in the past)

So if you are ever assigned to shoot a volcano, take a high quality
fixed lens camera or an SLR that is at the end of its useful life or be
prepared to pay for a thorough cleaning and overhaul when you get back.

On Vicky’s advice I did not take my SLR on the dive boat for the
shots I took from the west side of Montserrat. I used my Panasonic
Lumix FZ50, which has 450 mm equivalent optical zoom. There was some
chop and a little spray, but not that much, but I had to clean the UV
filter on the camera every few minutes. The tiny grains of ash combined
with the spray meant the UV filter quickly looked as if it had been
sitting uncovered on a shelf for about a decade.

I did use my SLR for the pictures I took on the east side of the island
from Jackboy Hill, the weather was fine, there was little wind and I was
shooting on land, with no danger of sea spray.

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volcano, Montserrat, photography,