Fire, College Street, 1994

Firefighters help elderly man, College Street, Toronto, May 27, 1994, 7.45pm

Small fire over a store

Trip to Newfoundland, 1994

 I drove some people out to Nova Scotia and since I was there, took the ferry to NFLD.

Silent Witness Memorial/ Arrow Air Flight 1285 Crash Site at Gander

There are some coins stuck into the statue - this is a custom to remember fallen comrades.

The Blushing Brides on fire. Literally

April 16, 1994, Kingston/401

 Desmond Leahy of the Blushing Brides rock band holds remains of Les Paul guitar after fire tore through the truck he and Glen Olive were driving to Toronto in. They crammed what was left of their gear into my car and I gave them a ride back home. They did make the show they had scheduled that night! They also got the crowd to give me a round of applause 

At the show later that evening

(posted March 2, 2025)

 

NEW RAPE CHARGES AGAINST CASABLANCA FIVE

New York Attorney-General G. Oliver Koppell speaks to reporters after hearing in Casablanca 5 case, State Supreme Court, Canton, New York, April 15 1994

CANTON, NEW YORK, APRIL 15, 1994 - The chief prosecutor of New York State came in person to a small town in upstate New York to ask that first degree rape charges be reinstated against five men convicted of having sex with an unconscious woman.
    Governor Mario Cuomo made Attorney-General G. Oliver Koppell special prosecutor in the case of the "Casablanca Five" as they have become known, after the original district attorney accepted a plea bargain, where the men plead guilty to the misdemeanor of sexual misconduct, and paid fines or did community service instead of facing trial on the more serious charge of rape.
    The woman was visiting the Casablanca Restaurant in Gouverneur,  New York  in October of 1991 when she became drunk and passed out in the washroom of the establishment. The five men admitted to having sex with her, and she only found out about the acts after gossip reached her at work days later.
    There were protests of about 100 people when the plea bargain was accepted last June outside the courthouse in the small town of Gouverneur about 25 kilometres south of Brockville.
    Koppell argued Friday before a sitting of the State Supreme Court in the county seat of Canton that the District Attorney could not, by statue, agree to such a drastic reductions in charges, and that the Gouverneur Town Court which accepted the plea bargain had no authority to handle the matter since the felony charges were pending against the men in County Court.
    Koppell said this avoided putting the defendants in "Double Jeopardy", being tried twice on the same charge, because the action by the Town Court "was null and void - it was as if they pleaded guilty in an open field or street corner."
    Defense council Mary Fahey said her client didn't "do 200 hours of community work because of a baseball umpire"'s decision, and that the the Town Court "is a duly constituted court of New York State.". Defense also said that there was no forensic evidence against their clients, and that their convictions rest on their statements to the Police, the voluntariness of which they questioned.
    The motion to reinstate the rape charges is being held before acting Supreme Court Judge Eugene  Nicandri, who was the County Court judge in the original trial.
    Nicandri asked Koppell if he felt it was better if it was better to obtain a conviction for a lesser charge in a "partially hypothetical" case than if an accused was to go free on a more serious charge and noted that district attorney had a great deal of discretion in dealing with charges.    The victim, Krista Absalon, who has consented to being identified and interviewed by the media sat in the front row of the court, accompanied by her mother and two sisters, who wore purple ribbons to protest sexual violence against women, and her lawyer Bonnie Strunk, who is suing the defendants for damages. Absalon said after adjournment she "would like to thank the  Attorney-General for coming - he is doing an excellent job."
    None of the defendants appeared in court, on advice of their lawyers. Fahey, representing Mario Pistolesi, said outside the court that she was confident the judge would decide against reinstating charges. "I think this is the end of the line for the charges."
    Nicandri will notify lawyers when to expect his decision, expected in about a month.

UPDATE 2025 - The charges were reinstated - one suspect pleaded guilty to a lesser charge, two have records of being acquitted,  including Mark Hartle, who was subsequently convicted in 2016 of a 2014 rape of a 15 year old girl, and I don't know the outcome for the other two.

CAPPUCCINO FAMILY CHRISTMAS

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Family which has adopted 21 children, some handicapped or mixed race from third world countries from around the world - My Christmas story for 1993 - I couldn't ship my film to Toronto on Christmas the bus but either someone my mom knew or one of the Cappuccino's family or friends  dropped off the film at One Yonge when they were travelling back. I can't remember! I encourage people to contribute to the Cappuccinos at the address given. 

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copyright 1999 Mark Bellis Maxville, Dec 26, 1993 - A 26 pound turkey slides out of an oven in a country kitchen in Eastern Ontario. "Most of us are ethical vegetarians" says the mother, as she stirs a frying pan the size of a manhole cover full of tofu. Even so, less than thirty minutes after the bird hits the table, nothing is left of it but a drumstick being gnawed on by a two year old grandchild that everyone has nick-named "G'Day".
It may be the largest family Christmas dinner in Canada. "We've got fifteen or so of our own kids here so far, and their families - I could be wrong - more are coming in." says the father, Fred Cappuccino, 67, as a throng of about thirty children and adults of all races mill around the two rooms in the log cabin. It could be a cook-out at the UN. Hands of every colour pass plates rapidly to and fro, carrying Indian hot curries and Korean pickled eggplant along with the stuffing and cranberry sauce. A young woman from Hong Kong asks her brother from southern India to put on more coffee. Vera, a Viennese-born friend of the Cappuccinos hands out latkes, potato pancakes, and cuts up a heart-shaped cake as the kettle comes to a boil on one of the three stoves, two of them wood-burning, in the house. "We cut our own wood - we've got a 50 acre wood-lot" says Shan Cappuccino, 25, who drove in from Ottawa. Only two children still live at home. Bonnie Cappuccino, 57, stir fries vegetables on the stove. Born in Illinois, she is wearing a Sari, large brass bangles on each arm that clang like gongs as she stir fries the vegetables, and 20 or so Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and African amulets and medals. The left side of her mouth is supported by a brace. "I had a brain tumor - it just left this side paralyzed - it was on the facial nerve - it wasn't cancer." she says in a tone that says it was no big deal to her. It was removed a little over a year ago. Did it slow her down? "It took a while to recuperate. After about six months I was resuming my trips over to India."
The Cappuccinos have set up three homes for children in India and one in Nepal. "She felt unfulfilled as a mother after raising 21 kids." jokes her husband Fred, who, along with all of their kids, share an oddball sense of humor.
Fred and Bonnie's unorthodox family started after the birth of their first son, which they named Robin Hood. Both of them were inspired by the ideas of Gandhi. "We believed in zero population growth," says Fred, who still works part-time as a Unitarian minister in Beaconsfield, Quebec and in Ottawa. "I wrote to Japan, where I worked after the war as a missionary to ask for a mixed-race orphan - I felt that a lot of the children that were fathered by American GIs, particularly when they were black, would have a hard time integrating into Japanese society." By the time the Cappuccinos had left Chicago for Fred to become pastor at a church in Pointe-Claire, a suburb of Montreal, in 1967, they had given birth to another child and adopted five more from across the world.
Did Robin mind sharing a home with all these children? "I think it was much more fun - it was much more people to be with." he says.
The Cappuccinos inspired other people. "Sandra Simpson lived around the corner from us in Pointe-Claire - when she heard that we were adopting more kids she wanted to get in on it." The Simpsons went on to become known to millions as 'the largest family in Canada' from their TV commercials for a pain reliever and now operate a restaurant near Toronto. Another neighbour who wanted to get in on the act was Naomi Bronstein, who now runs relief missions in Cambodia, Viet Nam and Guatemala. She recently brought two babies that were found abandoned in a trash can in Pnohm Penh back to Canada for medical treatment. All of the families now run their own separate charitable organizations. The Cappuccinos call theirs 'Child Haven International' and run it from an office in their Maxville home. The office was built thanks to a donation from one of Fred's missionary friend's in Japan, who sent him a donation. "He said 'the money was for you, not for Child Haven'," says Fred, "So we used the money to get the office out of Bonnie's kitchen."
The homes in India and Nepal have about 200 children. Bonnie was in India this year to introduce new technology to make a form of milk from soya beans. The small-scale projects are directed at women to help them start their own businesses. "It's a more palatable form of soy milk." Bonnie says they run the homes because "We enjoy it, I guess. We enjoy the countries, the people, and its a nice feeling to know you're doing a little good." The purpose of the homes for children is "Basically to raise them from whenever they come in, till they're self-sufficient."
Bonnie is Buddhist, and Fred describes himself as "about 38.54 percent" Buddhist. Bonnie says " I believe that people are sacred, rather than believing in an external force, and I think people can help other people,"

From Child Haven's website:

    
Child Haven International's address is CHILD HAVEN INTERNATIONAL

19014 Concession 7

Maxville, ON

K0C 1T0

Canada

CHILD HAVEN INTERNATIONAL in the USA

Box 5099,

Massena, NY

13662-5099,

USA

(web: https://childhaven.ca/

As of 2023, both Fred and Bonnie are alive and still in Glengarry County: 

Church of the Universe: Some nudes is good nudes!

 I'm surprised this got in, not because of the content but because it was during the day of the Federal Election. Brother Walter had an amazing depth of legal knowledge and would argue out the smallest point of law.

OCT 26, GUELPH, 1993 - "Should I get naked?". A slender woman with long brown hair turns her head and asks one of the two men standing next to her. The two men are wearing only army surplus blankets and their very long beards to cover their own bodies as they stood on the front steps of the courthouse this Monday in Guelph.

The three, all ministers of the Assembly of the Church of the Universe, are in court this week to defend themselves against charges of trespass arising from an incident in the summer of 1989, when they tried to repossess land south of Guelph that they felt rightfully belonged to them and attempted to hold a nude Olympics at the site.

The two men, Reverend Brother Walter Tucker, 60, and Reverend Brother Michael Baldasaro, 44, removed their clothes during the noon recess to protest Judge Donald August's rejection of a motion for adjournment made by Kim Edwards, the lawyer for Reverend Sister Jo-Anne Tucker, 53, Walter's wife, because she says she had not received information from the crown regarding one of the charges.

"We have been denied the right to full disclosure" said Baldasaro to the judge, as he stood in a reddish orange wool blanket that disclosed a lot of Baldasaro draped around him like a toga.

Sister Tucker was unable to participate in the protest, as they could not find another one of the large brass safety pins that held the blankets together.

Many of the members of the court seemed somewhat distracted, blushing or burying their face in their hands as the trial progressed. One crown witness was nonplused when he was asked to indicate Brother Walter "The man dressed in...um...seated next to Jo-Anne Tucker."

Brother Walter and Brother Michael, as they asked the court to address them, acted as their own defense, and declined the opportunity to cross-examine witnesses called by the crown, as did Sister Tucker's lawyer, under her instructions. Crown Judith MacDonald warned the defendants that this would hamper their defense.

Brother Tucker donned clothes, which were mostly made of hemp fibre, as well as two roach clips attached to his shirt, for his appearance as his own defense witness. He appeared on the stand, from which he wandered after he was sworn in and engaged in a running conversation with the Judge, crown and Baldasaro, which caused the court reporter, who makes up the written transcript of the trial, to throw up her hands in despair and exclaim "Oh, please, please, please, I've got four people talking at once!" Brother Walter spoke at length until court was adjourned about the story of the loss of his land and house, despite Judge August's comment that "what you have just told me is totally irrelevant" because it related to a civil matter that had been settled in another court.

Not guilty pleas were entered by all parties. Tucker has also been charged with resisting arrest after being charged with trespass. Tucker spoke today of his eviction from the property in 1986, and showed videotape of that eviction, in which he left his dwelling in the nude to confront officers.

Tucker was also naked during one trespassing arrest at the site."If any of us had come out of the house in any other condition but stark nude we would have been shot..they would have killed me." Tucker said the arrest reminded him of the siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas "It reminded me of that David Koresh thing - you know, when they broke in and killed them."

Tucker also alleged today that OPP officers mistreated him during another arrest, and tugged him roughly by his 16 inch beard when putting him in a cruiser.

The Church, which stresses nudity and uses Marijuana as a sacrament, was founded in 1969 by Tucker, whose father was a judge and member of parliament. Tucker himself has run for parliament in Guelph and in Hamilton, where he now resides, and Baldasaro has campaigned for mayor of Hamilton. Tucker will give his closing submissions Wednesday in this trial. The three are also facing narcotics charges in Hamilton over possession of cannabis.

Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta 1993

c. Oct 04, 1993, Albuquerque, New Mexico - 

Claudia Schiffer on Otto Magazine balloon

Helium balloon

Me

Danielle Francoeur was the second pilot for the Canadian team in The 37th Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett, a helium balloon race. Unfortunately the Canadians were unable to launch due to a leak.

more random photos

Helium balloon being prepared for launch with hot air balloon in background

Helium truck

Location: Balloon Fiesta Park, located at 4401 Alameda Blvd NE, Albuquerque, NM