Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Angels of Iran - Video 1
A story of love, courage, and belief in freedom with Reza Fani Yazdi and his wife Soheila Vahdati. Reza never gave in to brutal torture, or years in prison. It's all about your identity, about your dignity, about your existence. He says, "Basically, you think, 'If I break, if I give up, I
have lost my dignity. I have lost my existence. Who am I going to be after that?'"
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: David Hoffman
PRODUCER / DIRECTOR: Jeff Kaufman
EDITOR / FIELD AUDIO: Daniel Kaufman
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Colin Trenbeath
A Single Arrow Productions film
http://www.educationunderfire.com/angels-of-iran/
Please follow the Education Under Fire link to sign a petition to end the persecution in Iran.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Monday, October 24, 2011
Aussies rally for Bahai academics
Students in Wollongong have joined a campaign protesting against educational discrimination in Iran. Video courtesy of World News Australia.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Quo Vadis Habana Notebook Review - new 85g paper vs old 90g paper
Karen Doherty, Vice President of Marketing at Exaclair, Inc. was kind enough to provide two 6x9 Quo Vadis Habana notebooks for my review. This made it exceedingly easy for me to compare the two side by side and take a few photographs with my aging camera. I used my Spirit of Life pen as many of you asked me how larger nibbed pens perform on these notebooks.
Here are the two notebooks side by side. Obviously they are the same size. I'm thrilled to find the pretty green shade available as a lined notebook in the new version. Old Habanas of this color had blank pages. The graphics have changed on the new label to add a diagram showing a fountain pen nib. These notebooks are famous in both versions for being fountain pen friendly. There is also a graphic of the sewn binding. This is a mark of the notebook's quality. They lay flat to write in and the pages will not fall out, an ever present danger with glued pages. Still proudly made in the USA, in spite of the changes to the paper weight so that Habanas will have a consistent weight world wide.
It was the change in paper weight and color that caused the most stir among fountain pen users. The old Habanas have beautiful white paper. The new have a generic ivory or cream color that some find restful to the eyes. Frankly, I prefer the original white. After all, I buy those lovely pens so I can have beautiful shades of ink. And this color paper looks tired to me. Boring and blah and generic.
Since this color of paper is already provided by the Rhodia Webnotebook, affectionately known as the "Webbie," I have to wonder why a wonderful product would copy another product that's competition. But hey, let's not get into global economic discussions and speculation about the corporate decisionmakers. These are the products we'll have from here on out unless consumers make it economically attractive for the company to reissue the beautiful white paper so many of us adore.
Here is the old format Habana with my Spirit of Life pen for size comparison. Yes, that's a BIG pen. Larger than a Montblanc 149. Note the width between the lines. In fact, let me give you a close up.
As you can see, there is plenty of room for both a BB [double broad] nib and an IB [italic broad nib]. The italic is roughly 1.3 mm in width - your standard stock Conway Stewart IB nib. The handwriting is my own. Hey, too many years of fast note taking is not conducive to good handwriting. But it gives a good example of the spacing for larger nibs. Let me add a shot of the back of the page. The old 90g paper is wondrous - even with a darker ink and extreme flow, you can see there is virtually no show through on the back of the page.
Next up are the same verses using the same ink and nibs on the 85g paper. But what a difference! Notice how narrow the ruling is compared to the old Habanas. Also notice the lines on this notebook do not extend to the edge of the page as they did in the old style. Same configuration of picture, but what a change!
Let's get a close up on that! What took nearly a page before takes only half a page now. Whoa!
As you see, someone used to large nibs can still get a BB and IB nib between the lines. BUT, and this is important to me as I use these notebooks for fast note taking and writing, the narrower lines slow me way down. Not so good when I'm trying to put as many words on the page as possible. There's a reason I use these big nibs - SPEED. Take that away and only the paper quality remains as an incentive to use the product.
Let's get another close up on the changed page.
Notice how flat the paper lies, even on the first page with the binding? Most notebooks you'd lose up to an inch of the first page with binding glue, but not these! Once past this page, there will be NO puckering at all and the notebook will lie absolutely flat.
But what about bleed through on the 85g paper as opposed to the 90g? The paper feels the same - perhaps even a hair smoother. If you've handled a Rhodia "Webbie" it feels the same.
Unfortunately there's a slight increase in show through on the back of the page. Not enough to keep you from writing on the back of the page. But enough to cause a little eyestrain if you will be transcribing what you write to your computer at a later date.
I can only put this down to the increased amount of ink being flung onto a more compressed area of the page. The page is noticeably wetter on the back side after turning. I didn't check the drying time, since the inks and nibs are identical, but I wouldn't be in a rush to use saturated inks on these papers using larger nibs.
With the 85g paper [green edging] next to the 90g [blue edging] you can see the difference in paper color, line width, margin vs none, and the amount of the page your writing will take up.
BOTTOM LINE: Will I buy the new Habana? Probably. But only after I use up my stash of the old. I'm very happy that I bought up as many of the 90g paper as I could afford. But only a size differential and prettier covers differentiate it from the Rhodia Webnotebook. If I don't need the pocket or portability added by the elastic, I might buy the Clairefontaine hard bound journals to get the lovely white paper I prefer.
Is it an improvement? Not to this big nib lover. The narrower lines cause me to slow my headlong scrawl. I have to pay more attention where those big nibs are going. And my jewel toned inks have a faint color shift on the cream paper - not so noticeable with these ink colors, but annoying to my eyes when using other shades. Frankly, these pages look...tired.
The company took the perfect product that received rave reviews in the fountain pen community and made it into a clone of the Rhodia. Those who love cream paper are thrilled. As for me...I'll keep an eye out for more of the old format as finances and availability allow. It's a good product. But once it was great. That's hard to forget.
Here are the two notebooks side by side. Obviously they are the same size. I'm thrilled to find the pretty green shade available as a lined notebook in the new version. Old Habanas of this color had blank pages. The graphics have changed on the new label to add a diagram showing a fountain pen nib. These notebooks are famous in both versions for being fountain pen friendly. There is also a graphic of the sewn binding. This is a mark of the notebook's quality. They lay flat to write in and the pages will not fall out, an ever present danger with glued pages. Still proudly made in the USA, in spite of the changes to the paper weight so that Habanas will have a consistent weight world wide.
It was the change in paper weight and color that caused the most stir among fountain pen users. The old Habanas have beautiful white paper. The new have a generic ivory or cream color that some find restful to the eyes. Frankly, I prefer the original white. After all, I buy those lovely pens so I can have beautiful shades of ink. And this color paper looks tired to me. Boring and blah and generic.
Since this color of paper is already provided by the Rhodia Webnotebook, affectionately known as the "Webbie," I have to wonder why a wonderful product would copy another product that's competition. But hey, let's not get into global economic discussions and speculation about the corporate decisionmakers. These are the products we'll have from here on out unless consumers make it economically attractive for the company to reissue the beautiful white paper so many of us adore.
Here is the old format Habana with my Spirit of Life pen for size comparison. Yes, that's a BIG pen. Larger than a Montblanc 149. Note the width between the lines. In fact, let me give you a close up.
As you can see, there is plenty of room for both a BB [double broad] nib and an IB [italic broad nib]. The italic is roughly 1.3 mm in width - your standard stock Conway Stewart IB nib. The handwriting is my own. Hey, too many years of fast note taking is not conducive to good handwriting. But it gives a good example of the spacing for larger nibs. Let me add a shot of the back of the page. The old 90g paper is wondrous - even with a darker ink and extreme flow, you can see there is virtually no show through on the back of the page.
Next up are the same verses using the same ink and nibs on the 85g paper. But what a difference! Notice how narrow the ruling is compared to the old Habanas. Also notice the lines on this notebook do not extend to the edge of the page as they did in the old style. Same configuration of picture, but what a change!
Let's get a close up on that! What took nearly a page before takes only half a page now. Whoa!
As you see, someone used to large nibs can still get a BB and IB nib between the lines. BUT, and this is important to me as I use these notebooks for fast note taking and writing, the narrower lines slow me way down. Not so good when I'm trying to put as many words on the page as possible. There's a reason I use these big nibs - SPEED. Take that away and only the paper quality remains as an incentive to use the product.
Let's get another close up on the changed page.
Notice how flat the paper lies, even on the first page with the binding? Most notebooks you'd lose up to an inch of the first page with binding glue, but not these! Once past this page, there will be NO puckering at all and the notebook will lie absolutely flat.
But what about bleed through on the 85g paper as opposed to the 90g? The paper feels the same - perhaps even a hair smoother. If you've handled a Rhodia "Webbie" it feels the same.
Unfortunately there's a slight increase in show through on the back of the page. Not enough to keep you from writing on the back of the page. But enough to cause a little eyestrain if you will be transcribing what you write to your computer at a later date.
I can only put this down to the increased amount of ink being flung onto a more compressed area of the page. The page is noticeably wetter on the back side after turning. I didn't check the drying time, since the inks and nibs are identical, but I wouldn't be in a rush to use saturated inks on these papers using larger nibs.
With the 85g paper [green edging] next to the 90g [blue edging] you can see the difference in paper color, line width, margin vs none, and the amount of the page your writing will take up.
BOTTOM LINE: Will I buy the new Habana? Probably. But only after I use up my stash of the old. I'm very happy that I bought up as many of the 90g paper as I could afford. But only a size differential and prettier covers differentiate it from the Rhodia Webnotebook. If I don't need the pocket or portability added by the elastic, I might buy the Clairefontaine hard bound journals to get the lovely white paper I prefer.
Is it an improvement? Not to this big nib lover. The narrower lines cause me to slow my headlong scrawl. I have to pay more attention where those big nibs are going. And my jewel toned inks have a faint color shift on the cream paper - not so noticeable with these ink colors, but annoying to my eyes when using other shades. Frankly, these pages look...tired.
The company took the perfect product that received rave reviews in the fountain pen community and made it into a clone of the Rhodia. Those who love cream paper are thrilled. As for me...I'll keep an eye out for more of the old format as finances and availability allow. It's a good product. But once it was great. That's hard to forget.
Monday, June 13, 2011
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