Vision Vancouver Sycophant Stepan Vdovine and the Great Picture Caper

Some days there is just no shortage of material, and then, to add to the pile–a beauty, a pure nugget, provided by someone who should really know better.

Meet Stepan Vdovine (and I thought Tsakumis was tough to pronounce!).

Mr. Vdovine is a young fellow who voluntarily drinks the Vision Vancouver bathwater, a stadium full at a time. Patti Bacchus is to him what the Virgin Mary is to Catholics (and to me!). Gregor Robertson can do absolutely no wrong; Geoff Meggs is a reasonable, honest, pleasant man; Raymond Louie should be master of the ‘Fun House’ at the PNE because he’s so damn personable; the BCTF should run the province and, of course, the NDP are manna from Heaven….you get it, not-so-brave Stepan is utterly delusional.

Well, about a month or so ago, he took some time out of his busy schedule of polishing Patti Bacchus’ broomstick and de-linting her pointy hat, to send me a note.

Here it is below:

From: Stepan Vdovine

Date: July 24, 2010 8:48:38 PM PDT

To: Alex G. Tsakumis

Subject: unauthorized use of my photos

Alex:

I am writing as it appears that you have used a number of my photographs from

the Stop Education Cuts rally in your July 19 blog post about VSB Chair Patti

Bacchus. These photos have been used without my permission and you do not

credit them to me.

I am assuming that you have accessed these shots through my public Flickr

account which has an explicit note on every page regarding the copyright

license.

I am often contacted by various individuals and organizations with requests to

use my photographs. It is a courtesy I appreciate and extend in the instance I

am seeking to use photographs taken by other individuals. Given that you have

made the decision not to contact me regarding the use of my work, I request

that you remove my photos from your blog.

Thank you,

Stepan Vdovine

Now, in case you’d like to review how I demolished Vancouver School Board Chair Patti Bacchus’ shameful lies through the recent budget fiasco (she hysterically claimed she was impartial and that her glass-shattering squealing and bovine bitching was not politically motivated–pure lies!), you can re-read my post here.

The pictures in the post, of course, are the ones Mr. Vdovine is suggesting I stole.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Those pictures were furnished to me, under separate cover, by a regular commenter to this blog with a fairly lengthy statement, including the names of two people I could call that would authenticate the event and Ms. Bacchus’ participation. NEVER was Mr. Vdovine’s name included as being either part of the event or photographer of the day. In fact, not once was there any concern on my part that they were used “unauthorized” because I’m leaked material all the time.

When Penny Ballem instructs a staff member to write a memo insisting that every department report produced at City Hall must be approved by Dr. Bedlam’s office (to meet the radical Vision Vancouver agenda), do I call the City Manager and ask for permission to use that internal email? Of course not.

But Mr. Vdovine demands that I credit them to him, even though I have no way of knowing they’re his. He also assumes that I stole them from something called Flickr (which I am quite proud to tell you, I have no clue how to use or pilfer from).

Then he demands I remove them from the July 19th post.

Well that’s just not going to happen. I was leaked those photos by a source and neither I nor that source heisted anything.

But this is a relevant matter since Mr. Vdovine, a sitting Director of Vision Vancouver, immediately upon viewing the pictures assumed that I had lifted them.

What does this tell us?

Answer: That Vision Vancouver will do anything and everything to intimidate the media and anyone in general who they don’t like. Those pictures provided proof that Ms. Bacchus is a bald-faced liar, and her shoe-shine boy is upset because it was his pictures (according to him) that did the providing.

The unshakable ties between the far-left of the NDP and Vision Vancouver are, once again, confirmed. What was he doing at an NDP endorsed rally? After all, Mr. Vdovine is a staunch BCTF lie-peddler with respect to all sorts of issues including the standardized tests (which are essential) and the funding of private schools (minor dollars, but a shameful left-wing whipping post, to be sure). He is also one of a growing number of NDP education “reformers”, who are trying desperately to have people believe that the government wants to privatize all schools (total and complete nonsense–just the militants in the BCTF lobby wanting to create something that isn’t there).

Stepan, you’re a real gem of a guy. Nevermind what everybody says…

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