talk talk talk

Seeing a Politician Live, in Action: Mike Colle at BIST

2012-01-25T09:30:00.000-05:00

It isn't often I get to see a real, live Ontario MPP -- or any politician -- live, in working mode, speaking to the community (as opposed to campaigning for my vote). But Monday I attended the BIST meeting to celebrate the awarding of a $72,300 grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, an agency of the Government of Ontario, and MPPs Kathleen Wynne and Mike Colle were scheduled to attend.

Only Colle showed up.

Having only seen politicians speak to the camera and being edited into sound bites and knowing this was in a way a political event, I expected a boring, glib speech. Instead, Colle got up and grabbed the crowd's attention with his compelling no-notes speech on how brain injury is entering the public consciousness, how survivors are breaking the social taboo chains, and how important it is to celebrate success whether little or big. He then presented BIST's president with a celebratory plaque.

"When you recognize success, you make people feel stronger ... and you go on to another success."

Holding a distraction-prone large crowd of people with brain injuries is not easy. I've seen speakers stumble and drown under interruptions from a BIST crowd many a time. But Colle had no problem -- only one yell-out during his entire speech. It helped that it both made the crowd feel good and was the right length. I see now why long-term politicians stay in power!

The very first benefit of the grant is the hiring of social worker Michelle Ratcliff. The grant will also allow BIST (Brain Injury Society of Toronto) to expand its programs to provide support groups for those with brain injuries and their caregivers; workshops; and community meetings in two locations, not just the current one.

Quitting Squidoo for Violating my Terms of Service

2012-01-23T09:30:00.000-05:00

The Error message reads: "Whoops! No publishing allowed. This lens is currently locked for a violation of our Terms of Service, as per the email we sent you. You're welcome to a) Grab your content and take it elsewhere, if you'd rather not continue with Squidoo or b) Review your content and make edits here in the Workshop to improve the lens. But you won't be able to Publish the lens live until you can demonstrate that the violation has been addressed. Thanks."

I wrote this how-to lens on autographing books for authors almost four years ago. Squidoo decided three days before Christmas 2011 (when book sales spike) that my article was -- pick one, your guess, they won't tell, shhhh -- pornographic; contained profanity; spammy (guess too many copies of Lifeliner in my pic); something they couldn't support cause, you know, authors autographing books for readers is so ... well, words fail me; a "doorway" lens to affiliate programs like promoting authors autographing their own books; unoriginal (all those hours I spent writing and polishing was just, well, meh); article spinning (whatever the heck that is, but if I don't know what it means then I must've done it, eh?); and plagiarism.

I've been down the false accusation of plagiarism road with Squidoo before.

They sent a nice note saying sorry, it was a "false positive" after I found the plagiarist of my article that they blocked last May. They wrote that they would greenlight it so it wouldn't happen again, but they didn't think to greenlight the author, namely me. They seem to have a default stance that Squidoo authors plagiarize and so no point telling Squidoo authors when their work is plagiarized, just cut out the articles. Some site.

Squidoo also wrote in their email to me dated 22 December 2011: "We aim to support high-quality, original and useful lifestyle content that real readers will be glad to land on."

Yes I can see how comments like these most recent ones would mean readers were not glad to land on it:

"i like this.." Oct 24, 2010 5:14 pm

"I will release my first book and it is all about my experiences as a mystery shopper. I found this site very informative and I am so excited to sign my book to someone who will really appreciate it. Thanks for the signing guides and more power" MysterySh0pper, Dec 11, 2010 6:32 am

"Thanks for the ideas....my first book signing is coming up in a few days!! http://map-thenovel.com" nitronarc, Feb 21, 2011 9:23 pm

"A lens about how to autograph a book: now I've seen it all! I am impressed with the research you did! (I've never had to autograph a book, but I have had to autograph the CD copy of an ebook!)" TravelingRae, Jun 18, 2011 12:16 am

This week, after I finished revising my novel and finally had the energy to deal with this company and do their work for them, I searched for plagiarized words from my autographing article, and it looks like it was copied elsewhere then possibly taken down or made invisible. Although Google shows other sites as having plagiarized my article, the sites themselves no longer show it, as far as I can tell.

Violations of my copyright are the only thing important to me.

But I can't be bothered yelling at this stupid company again. If it doesn't have the ability to know which writers are original and to see that it had screwed up before with the same writer, it's not worth the effort to tell them. I know I said I was going to take down my Squidoo account last time they blasted me with their spraying figure-out-which-term-you-violated-then-maybe-we'll-talk gun. But didn't. This time I am.

Last time, they only made nice because I blasted them back and reprimanded my copyright violator -- thanks for the help Squidoo in telling me about them and helping me demand they take the plagiarized copy down, not -- but I was mollified. This time, I don't see why again I have to be treated as guilty until innocent. If they default to that position, then they have a problem with their contributors. From telecoms to Squidoo, I've had enough of behemoth companies banging their weight around. I quit. Writers looking for autographing advice -- and my other former Squidoo essays -- can come straight to my own website, thank you very much.

"We're lucky to have you around."

Scrutinizing CBC Marketplace’s Theory on COLD-FX

2012-01-16T09:30:00.000-05:00

Bad science: have a pet theory, manipulate the results to suit it.

Marketplace mimicked bad science well this past week. Their theory: COLD-FX does not work. Their results: don’t fit.

A little manipulation was in order using panning camerawork, fun quizzes, people-on-the-street interviews journalists are addicted to, jerky camerawork as they follow some poor target, lowered voice, clever camera cuts, grainy footage, undercover-type footage, selective submission of papers for scientific analysis (truly, have doctors and researchers not yet cottoned on to how journalists manipulate them?), highlight preferred statements over blasphemous one, present conclusions as mind-blowing, etc., etc.

Well, I don’t like it when my health is threatened, and so it’s time for a little fun. After all Marketplace can't hog it all.

But first: I take COLD-FX, have done for several years, as a preventative measure. I started because since my brain injury, I’ve become quite susceptible to colds; worse it takes me a month to recover from one. Going from cold to cold while trying to cope with the fallout of brain injury is extremely unpleasant. I took Flonase for awhile, but the side effects aren’t great. COLD-FX allowed me to stop the Flonase and for the first time in ages, I went a whole year last year without one respiratory infection. Hallelujah! I take COLD-FX as a preventative or prophylaxis because if I took it immediately in response to a scratchy throat, my body would still take weeks to recover no matter how efficacious COLD-FX is because that’s how it rolls these days with any illness I contract. I figure not getting one in the first place is better.

And so in the cause of health, I brave watching Marketplace. I haven’t watched it in years, ever since it went from trustworthy straightforward journalism to the gotcha kind. The old Marketplace may’ve been staid, but I trusted and respected it. New Marketplace makes me roll my eyes and switch the channel.

Anywhoo...

I sit back and watch ... a mom-child convention. Huh? I don't know what a COLD-FX luncheon for hockey moms has to do with a market report on a product. But it sure looks suspicious! Marketplace has set the mood and begins to reel us in with choice words.

"Brilliant marketing idea" -- sounds like COLD-FX was all about marketing, not about helping people fight the bane of our lives: colds. (Let rolling eyes commence.)

"take a natural product, ginseng and get some science behind it." -- tsk, tsk, imagine makers of a natural health product standardizing their product and using the scientific method. What will they do next? Conduct and publish more than one study?

"just like a pharmaceutical drug" -- the nerve!

"research pays off" -- damn, it sounds dirty, having solid research backing their product.

Marketplace then capitalizes on something no lay person is going to know, that Health Canada takes years -- and years and years -- to approve new products, and it isn't always for kosher reasons either. Imagine a company that decides it's had enough of Health Canada’s notorious foot dragging and, gasp, puts on political pressure to light a fire under the bureaucrats to actually work on it. Tut, tut. Bet all companies wish they could do that. What would be better though is if the politicians reformed Health Canada to approve -- or reject -- new products in a timely manner based solely on science.

Oh look, now we have the person-on-the-street interviews. It’s interactive, snazzy, and provides a we're-here-for-you backdrop to the "expert" interview. And here's where the manipulations get awesome.
Erica Johnson asks their chosen expert from a prestigious Toronto hospital about the claim for immediate relief for colds and flu. Erica asks Dr. Andreas Laupacis, a general internal medicine specialist: "Is there any research that's been done showing that Cold-FX helps stop colds in their tracks?"

He answers, the camera moving and panning, weaving and zooming on him, on her, on both: "Certainly all the [camera cut to Andreas only] clinical trials I've looked at there's no such [camera cut to Erica only] evidence. They've studied patients with [camera cut to Andreas only] Cold-FX to prevent flus. I didn't see any studies to show whether Cold-FX works or not in people that notice a flu coming and then take Cold-FX.”

Erica: "That's right. The pitch: to stop a cold in its tracks."

Uh, no, not right, he said "flu." You Erica said "cold." Two different viruses; two different topics. Just like the flu vaccine has zero effect on a cold and some effect in preventing flu, any product that can prevent a cold may not necessarily prevent the flu. Your expert, Marketplace, did not say COLD-FX does not prevent colds. He said flu, and only flu. (That’s probably why there were separate studies for colds and flu, more below.)

But a little repetition by Erica nicely masks that distinction. Gotta admire the manipulation.

What the heck did the Health Canada letter to Marketplace actually say? A few words pulled out say nothing and cannot be relied upon. I mean if movie companies can pull out glowing excerpts from bad reviews... If you want to know, check out their website for Health Canada’s statements (more below).

On to the "undercover" work! The better to make COLD-FX look like a big, fat fraud. Jerky camera work. Blurred faces. Closed captioning of what pharmacists say. The pitch: "Remember: there's no published evidence for [taking COLD-FX for immediate relief]."

For some reason, I keep hearing the Twilight Zone theme.

More experts! This time Marketplace sends a select list of published articles on COLD-FX for analysis by Andrew Lane Ilersich, MSc, BScPhm, RPh at the University of Toronto. But it's kind of boring just saying what they said. Quiz time! Grand revelation after each question and answer session! But did the analysis really say what Marketplace asserts it said?

As Syd Baumel wrote on the Marketplace website: "To begin with, the scientist didn't do an independent search of the literature in case there were other studies of Cold FX out there. He only analyzed the four submitted to him by Marketplace."

Andrew Lane Ilersich, MSc, BScPhm, RPh did put in his short summary headline of the meta-analysis "limited scope." (More below.)

COLD-FX has ten citations and it looks like about eight clinical trials listed on its website. Cherry picking is sweet.

Baumel again: "Cold FX enjoyed a 15% reduction in cold frequency compared to those who took a placebo. Very modest effect, but statistically significant. To the individual user, this suggests that if you take Cold FX, it'll spare you from getting a cold about one time out of 7."

I personally didn't understand this whole "once in seventeen years" of taking COLD-FX assertion on Marketplace. I've never heard statistics interpreted that way before, not in stats classes or research I participated in or studies I've read. Fifteen percent is one in seven and would be a standard way of putting it.

Anyway, how many people would bother reading the entire meta-analysis (PDF) to get the correct picture? Don't your eyes glaze over at the very thought? So it's pretty safe for Marketplace to reproduce only one paragraph from the plain-language summary and not the paragraph that states clearly that the studies "demonstrated a reduction in the risk of getting a cold." It's that old pull out one statement, ignore the other trick to make it sound like it's saying what you want to. Here's the entire summary:

"COLD-FX is effective for preventing colds in adults. Research findings from 4 experimental studies (randomized controlled trials) that compared COLD-FX to a placebo (dummy treatment) including over 1000 adults demonstrated a reduction in the risk of getting a cold. In all studies, the COLD-FX was used in a dose of 400mg/day. The duration of treatment ranged from between 2 months and 6 months.

Relative to placebo, the risk of getting a cold was reduced by about 15% when COLD-FX was used. The absolute risk reduction was about 6% (this means that if the overall chance of getting a cold is, for example, 50%, then taking COLD-FX reduces it to 44%). Altogether, 17 people need to be treated to prevent 1 person from getting a cold.

For those who contracted a cold, there was insufficient evidence that the duration or severity was reduced.

This analysis did not explore the effects of age, dose and/or duration of therapy on the effectiveness of COLD-FX, nor the cost-effectiveness of COLD-FX."

How interesting: the analysis did not explore effects of duration of therapy or dosage taken, one or both of which would have large effects on COLD-FX's efficacy, one would surmise.

Onto the gotcha journalism CBC enjoys. It makes their target look like they're up to no good, even when s/he has a clear, legal reason for not answering their in-their-face questions (I mean, what journalist doesn't know how lawyers make people shut up, even for the silliest of reasons? The buy-out seems to be the reason here. Oh, but perhaps journalists figure most people wouldn't know how effective lawyers are at silencing people? I feel for target Shan, caught between a lawyer and a journalist. Gak.).

So Erica asks the big question. And Jacqueline Shan answers: "[I was just talking about Cold-FX inside.]"

Erica: "We didn't hear you talk inside." Really? They were able to track her down but were unable to make it in time for her talk?

Shan: "Our company was bought by Valeant. So I'm not allowed to make any public statement... You need to contact the company." Pretty clear to me. It must suck for a journalist to be stonewalled by a large company, so take it out on an individual instead, eh?

Onward!

Oh hey, the lowered voice method! A lowered voice hints at nefarious doings, hints there was a bacteria cover-up even though Health Canada said there is no health risk in its last statement to Marketplace.

Marketplace quotes: “Based on currently available information, the presence of E. hermannii in a finished natural health product would be unacceptable.” Health Canada clarifies:

“Our earlier language was perhaps too black and white and did not accurately convey the science behind acceptable levels

After laboratory assessments were conducted by Health Canada scientists of the product on the Canadian marketplace, a low level of the bacteria Escherichia hermannii was found. Following a thorough assessment by Health Canada Scientists, it was determined that the level found presented the lowest risk to health and safety of Canadians [my emphasis] and, as such, no recall was initiated.

It is important to note that all health products have benefits and risks. When health products are found on the market that pose an unacceptable level of risk to health, Health Canada takes appropriate steps to mitigate and manage these risks.”

To be sure, I don't recall any mass deaths or hospitalizations from COLD-FX-related E. coli contamination back in 2008 or 2009. Do you? But who needs to prove a dangerous bacteria contamination when all you have to say is "bacteria" to spring suspicion and fear into every viewer's breast?

I feel for Marketplace. They really had to work hard to prove their theory about this product, going here and there, running all over the planet, from city to city, from expert to expert, using cameras that produced grainy pictures in China while using excellent ones for the scenes in which Erica appears.

On to the good stuff: an interview with Don Cherry.

Love the Don Cherry interview: one science-illiterate person talking to another, talking about two totally different things. One about immediate relief, the other about prevention. Neither notices. You don't see this in the Markeplace piece, but in the extended Cherry piece I’ve embedded above.

Cherry begins by saying he doesn't work for them anymore and he's a little ticked off with COLD-FX, the company. Yet, get this, he still takes four COLD-FX capsules a day and ten a day, like the hockey players, if he feels a cold coming on. He relates in the extended Cherry piece that after a lifetime of being plagued by colds, after he began taking COLD-FX, he's had just three colds in eight years. I don't think anyone, least of all, Marketplace, or anything, like being fired, is going to pry the product out of his hands. He likes being cold-free too much. Me too, actually.

In all the hoo-hah, Marketplace forgot to mention an important point: "in the United States alone at least 1 billion colds per year have been reported" (from Predy et al, 2005 CMAJ article) with each person catching on average two to six colds. We know each cold costs several days of lost work or reduced productivity, never mind that it makes one feel lousier than hell. This is not peanuts. Dissing an effective remedy for colds harms public health.

The meta-analysis they had done listed four studies. I took a gander at them. (Note: in the meta-analysis, they were not identified in proper reference format, but I’m pretty sure I found the ones looked at as there can’t be more than one in the same year by the same authors on the same topic.)

2004 study: Elderly nursing home residents, 90 percent of whom had received the flu vaccine, had fewer cases of flu when taking COLD-FX for 8 weeks and 12, that is, 1 of 97 versus 7 of 101 who took a placebo. Taking COLD-FX reduced the risk of a fragile, elderly person from catching flu by 89 percent. By the way, flu kills the elderly.

2005 peer-reviewed study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal): Healthy adults who took the same dose as in the 2004 study but for 4 months caught 0.68 colds versus 0.95 for placebo and also only 10 percent caught more than one cold while 22.8 percent in the placebo group got multiple colds.

"These results are similar to those reported for zanamivir and oseltamivir therapy. These antiviral agents have been reported to reduce the severity and duration of illness by 1.5-2.5 days. In comparison, the ginseng extract treatment was found to reduce the duration of a cold by 2.4 days."

2006 study: A variation of the 2004 study, in which after two months of use, COLD-FX reduced the risk of contracting a respiratory infection by almost half (48 percent) and the duration by 55 percent. I assume the infections were colds because they state that there was no influenza in the community during the study.

2011 study: A larger version of the 2005 study.

"data indicate that CVT-E002 at a dose of 400 mg/day or 800 mg/day is safe and well tolerated and results in a reduction in the number, severity, and duration of Jackson-confirmed URIs (upper respiratory tract infections) when taken as seasonal prophylaxis by healthy, community-dwelling older adults. Further studies with larger sample size are warranted to determine possible dose-related effects of CVT-E002."

Ilersich concluded: "In summary, these results support the effectiveness of COLD-FX for preventing colds. There is insufficient evidence of a reduction in severity or duration of colds." Insufficient evidence is science-speak for do more work, we don't know one way or the other yet.

By the end of the twenty-two-odd minutes, Marketplace's entire piece, when read between the lines and engendering Herculean effort not to be distracted by the bells and whistles, boils down to COLD-FX prevents colds. The claim it provides immediate relief needs further study; the China connection is no different than every other product we buy (have you checked where your frozen veggies are grown lately?), thus is not COLD-FX specific and is a separate topic; the bacterial contamination is old news and a non-starter. In other words, Marketplace told its alert viewers to take COLD-FX daily if you want to prevent colds.

Perhaps that’s why it ends its piece in the bathroom -- with a shot of Erica and another expert washing their hands with soap, claiming that it's more effective than COLD-FX. Washing hands with soap is effective in reducing colds. But what's their published evidence proving their theory right? Where’s the double-blind randomized trial that compares the two methods side-by-side in reducing severity, duration, and frequency of infections, one for colds, one for flu?

-------------------
References:

McElhaney JE, Gravenstein S, Cole SK, Davidson E, O'neill D, Petitjean S, Rumble B, Shan JJ. “A placebo-controlled trial of a proprietary extract of North American ginseng (CVT-E002) to prevent acute respiratory illness in institutionalized older adults.” J Am Geriatr Soc. 2004 Jan;52(1):13-9. Erratum in: J Am Geriatr Soc. 2004 May;52(5):following 856.

Gerald N. Predy, Vinti Goel, Ray Lovlin, Allan Donner, Larry Stitt, Tapan K. Basu. “Efficacy of an extract of North American ginseng containing poly-furanosyl-pyranosyl-saccharides for preventing upper respiratory tract infections: a randomized controlled trial.” CMAJ October 25, 2005 vol. 173 no. 9.

McElhaney JE, Goel V, Toane B, Hooten J, Shan JJ. “Efficacy of COLD-fX in the prevention of respiratory symptoms in community-dwelling adults: a randomized, double-blinded, placebo controlled trial.” J Altern Complement Med. 2006 Mar;12(2):153-7.

Janet E. McElhaney, Andrew E. Simor, Shelly McNeil, and Gerald N. Predy, “Efficacy and Safety of CVT-E002, a Proprietary Extract of Panax quinquefolius in the Prevention of Respiratory Infections in Influenza-Vaccinated Community-Dwelling Adults: A Multicenter, Randomized, Double-Blind, and Placebo-Controlled Trial,” Influenza Research and Treatment, vol. 2011, Article ID 759051, 8 pages, 2011. doi:10.1155/2011/759051

Announcing my Affiliation with Iguana Books

2012-01-12T09:30:00.000-05:00

I'm pleased to announce that I'm now affiliated with Iguana Books and that they will be working with me on my next two novels. Writing is not so solitary!

Greg Ioannou has been my editor since the day I walked into his Colborne Communications office with my in-progress manuscript for Lifeliner. This was in 1999, just before my brain injury. I went to him seeking a structural editor and, perhaps, a copy editor. I'd worked as a copy editor and didn't think I'd need much help in that area; however, structuring a book was new to me. We hit it off, and he set me a writing schedule. I dug into it enthusiastically. And then two cars hit my stopped car and stopped my writing. But a most amazing thing happened: through all the years of recovery, Greg waited patiently. When I was able to return to writing Lifeliner in 2006, he happily met with me and worked with my new abilities (limited at that time). He has provided sage advice and guidance for my novels ever since. You cannot pay for guidance and support like that.

This past Fall, when I made my annual trek to his office for novel advice, he stunned me by offering to publish my next novels, but not in the traditional way, in a new way, focussing mostly on ebooks. He offered fair and attractive terms. My work would be edited professionally by an editing house I knew and trusted. I would no longer have to work on the publishing aspect alone. My answer was a slam dunk: yes.

I submitted Aban's Accension to him for editing, and until it's released, he has listed me on his website as an affiliate author along with my already published books and a blog to boot. More blogs! This brings me up to three blogs -- four if you count Google+ posts -- and four websites I have to keep an eye on. There shall be some duplication, my energy being a tad limited.

In addition to my books and blog, you will also find on my Iguana Books page an exclusive excerpt of one of my short stories, free for you to read.

In the coming months, Iguana Books will be offering pre-sales for Aban's Accension. And once I've completed Time and Space, I will be submitting it to them for editing. Keep an eye on my website or my Iguana blog for upcoming publication announcements.

Scary Writing Goals

2012-01-03T09:30:00.000-05:00

“Now listen, you who say, ’Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’

Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” (NIV James 4:13)

When you’ve had a brain injury and life has been turned upside down and inside out and over-hard, you tend not to think about life goals. And long-term goals are about what to do next week, for next month is barely perceptible, and anything farther away than that is incomprehensible. It isn’t just because time and how I perceive it has strangely changed, it’s also because twice already I’ve had my dreams severely disrupted because of car crashes. I don’t feel like tempting fate again.

But my therapist, the one who helps organize me and keeps me on track, decided in our last session that we were going to set writing goals for me, real honest-to-goodness goals like other people, like normal people who don’t expect life to go into the dumpster without warning, making one’s goals a joke. Today, on the first working day of 2012, I’m thinking “you gotta name em to claim em.” And so here they are. But first, an introductory word:

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) provides the motivation and initiation I lack to put what’s in my head into action. A novel or book is a big undertaking, and computers and iDevices aren’t up to the task of making that kind of writing happen. An AI would. But since that technology isn’t in my realm yet, NaNoWriMo works plus I’d rather be part of a community, it’s more fun. (Yes, I wrote that, me the one who loves her artificial thinking machines!)

Knowing this, my therapist suggested we plan around NaNoWriMo:

NaNoWriMo has three events throughout the year: the big one in November (NaNoWriMo) where the goal is to write a 50,000-word novel; Script Frenzy in April where the goal is to write a 100-page screenplay, play, graphic novel, or similar; and Camp NaNo in June or August. I’ve done the first two but not the last one. I will write my main novels in November during NaNoWriMo. I will then spend the following four months revising, getting feedback, having it edited, and finishing final revisions before April. Gulp. In April, I will write a play or work on one I’ve already done, the idea being it’s for fun, to hone my skills, and maybe down the road, for publication. But mostly in the total spirit of NaNoWriMo, which is to create for creation’s sake. In June or August (I think we said August...), I will write another novel, but something easier, lighter that will take less time to revise.

I usually use the summer months to outline and prep for my November writing, so this might be a squeeze. On the other hand, it seems that each year, my outlining gets moved closer and closer to November. I’m feeling quite nebulous about this goal, but as it gets closer, I should, with support, be able to grasp it and make it work for me.

So there you have it: writing goals. Scary.

Sweet Happy New Year!!

2011-12-31T19:34:00.001-05:00

Sweet Happy New Year, originally uploaded by Points North.

Friends:

May your end-of-year
Be happy
And 2012
Be blessed.

To the TTC: Being Nice Isn't Working to Reinstate Fair Share. Be Outrageous!

2011-12-12T09:30:00.000-05:00

I unwittingly began a conversation with the TTC. On 9 December 2011, I tweeted:

"Why is @TTCchair & @TOMayorFord not calling for Ontario to restore pre-1997 funding too? Not doing so fails riders."

That same day, TTC Chair Karen Stintz replied in a series of four tweets:

1. "We have, repeatedly," she tweeted back and linked to the city's most recent motion:

"City Council call on all three Ontario Political Parties to make public commitments to reinstate the "fair share" funding arrangement for the Toronto Transit Commission." (from Toronto City Council Item MM10.3)

2. "In 2010 Miller made 2011budget promises based on ASSUMPTION Prov would finally do FairShare. Didn't happen" (see status update)

"Anyone who tells you that they can freeze or cut your taxes and provide the vital services we all rely on, including ... Public transit ... is simply not telling you the whole story.

We face structural financial challenges - such as the need for a return to shared funding for the operation of the TTC - that need to be addressed for the City's long term financial stability. And I am pleased at the Premiers agreement to begin those discussions, ones that we at the City would like to resolve by December of this year." (from Remarks my [sic] David Miller on the City's 2010 and 2011 Budget)

3. "14 years of #Toronto asking for #TTC Fair Share,during Ont's good fiscal years,hasn't worked. Fiscal times aren't better now."

4. "#TTC isn't only transit system in Ontario. If they fund us more they must fund others more. We need $$ but must work together."

I shall now rebut. But first I'd like to say thank you to TTC Chair Stintz for talking with me on Twitter about the TTC, and to Twitter for making such a conversation possible. And I'd like to start with a little video I began shooting while spending a relatively unaggravating ride on the Bathurst streetcar, which just means that being late was not a problem as I wasn't on my way to a medical appointment or coffee with a friend. Reliability seems to be a thing of the past for this streetcar route. Sigh. All the clips and most of the photos are outside of rush hour or on a weekend.

1. I remember the motion and how Mayor Rob Ford and the city made an effort to get the party leaders to commit to helping Toronto. As I recall, it was a fairly typical Toronto effort: the Mayor met with each of the three leaders, a polite scrum came after, everyone went back to the usual business of ignoring the TTC. Totally ineffective.

2. Former Mayor David Miller is right about public transit and how the province must step up to the plate not only to get Toronto's fiscal house stable again, but also to move all the people of Toronto from home to work to doctors to games to plays and back home again. Too bad Premier Dalton McGuinty reneged. An unsurprising failure of leadership. It's been going on for thirty years.

3. The TTC is in a crisis. Toronto is in a commuting crisis. Ridership is rising in spite of the inadequacy of the system because people are flocking to live and work here. Over a hundred condos are being built, and more people will clog our roads and subways. The piper is coming home, and the fiscal situation no longer matters. When the roof falls down, you have to fix it whether or not there is money in the bank.

4. Why? This is not the first time the province of Ontario has singled out Toronto for shafting. Premier Mike Harris swept into power, partly on the presumption that Toronto was a fat pig that snorted up everyone else's taxes while lazing on overstuffed couches. He cancelled a subway plan that would've met today's needs, but no one squealed if you do it to Toronto, you must do it to us. How come it doesn't work the other way? How is it the 905 area was relieved of funding social services but Toronto was not? Toronto has transit needs that no other municipality has in Ontario. We're the biggest city in Canada. We are competing with New York, London, Tokyo, Hong Kong. They have robust transit systems and continue to build on to them. We do not and are not. We are falling behind, so far behind that Mom!-he-has-the-bigger-slice-of-cake fight is jealousy unfit for a mature people and serves us and the Ontario economy not at all.

Apathy plagues Toronto. I remember learning in school that Toronto's leaders in the mid-20th century pledged to build two miles of subway track every year. Back in the 1980s, former Mayor Art Eggleton, seemingly comfy after the opening of the Spadina subway, didn't see any need to push the province or the city to continue honouring that sensible pledge. That was the beginning of the slide.

Between Toronto the apathetic and polite and Ontario the taking-Toronto's-engine-for-granted (and how's that working for you Ontario with your 21st century have-not status that arose at the same time Toronto declined because of governmental neglect?), we have one east-west subway -- yes one; I don't count the Sheppard runt -- and two north-south lines. And the east-west subway comes to a screeching halt at the Scarborough border. The huge eastern section of Toronto has zero subway service. Apparently, cosy downtowners and Toronto leaders think it's perfectly okay Scarberians must hustle and jostle to transfer from dinky RT to subway, slowing down their commute further on probably their second transfer of their trip to work. The rest of the city squishes onto streetcars and god-awful badly-designed buses that seem to have no acquaintance with the schedules posted at timed stops -- except for those that exit from subway stations -- when not stamping feet to warm up in winter or seeking shade from the sauna heat in summer while waiting for (infrequent) transit.

As the person said in my video, quoting one of our esteemed leaders who ordered the cuts, "We did this [made cuts], but we didn't realise how it would affect people."

Excuse me a moment while I pick up my jaw from the floor.

How can the people running our public transit system who make the decisions that affect every TTC's user's life, not know how it moves people?

No wonder they're so friggin' polite when they ask the province, "please sir, may we have our funding back?"

Subways cost billions. Toronto cannot do it alone, and whether or not we partner with the private sector, we still need the province to restore its pre-Harris funding and to partner with us because the subway and service deficit is now ginormous, gargantuan, gaggling-huge. For that reason, we need the Federal government too. All three levels of government must co-operate, for investing in Toronto's public transit will restore maximum productivity in a dominant chunk of Canada's workforce. The Feds should like that. Sitting in traffic or on the streetcar is not exactly productive time and not only doesn't generate taxes but combusts them too -- you would think our politicians could make that simple connection.

As TTC Chair Stintz pointed out, the city has gone to the province many a time to ask nicely for our money back.

However, being nice is getting us diddley squat.

We need to persist not quit -- and certainly not cancel badly needed buses and cut service on command. And that calls for a different approach.

We need to be outrageous.

We need to be so outrageous, early Mel Lastman outrageous, that the decision makers finally understand that funding the TTC properly is an economic and social necessity.

I don't think Toronto leaders get how much of a crisis the TTC is in. If they did, they wouldn't be making cuts, and they would join the Torontonians who are screaming from the station rooftops.

The Mayor made a huge mistake in declaring the TTC an essential service, for he gave up a negotiating ploy by doing so. York Regional Transit has been on strike for almost two months. Apparently, people have barely noticed -- except the poor folk who have no alternatives. The TTC goes on strike for one day, and the entire city grinds to a halt. If Mayor Ford had not declared it an essential service, then the inevitable strike would've happened and the drivers would've walked off the job. At that point, instead of Ford going to the province to demand back-to-work legislation, he could've demanded funding restoration else the strike continues.

OMG, I can hear you say, you can't do that! Provincial politicians wouldn't get to their Pink Palace offices! People would be in big trouble! How would anyone get around?! I have news for you, people are struggling to get to work already. I'm having to find alternative routes in the middle of the day to get to my medical appointments on time. Toronto has the worst commute times in the country. We're already in big trouble. We are in crisis, people! The problem is the purse-string holders aren't noticing. A totally clogged city might bring it to their attention though.

But we don't have that. So what other outrageous thing could our Toronto politicians do?

We can start with signage. Education campaigns on the TTC seem to be as fleeting as snow on a tar roof; we need something with the oomph of permanence. How about a years-long campaign of signs on every streetcar, bus, and subway train that states

This slow service brought to you by McGuinty
This garbage-strewn car brought to you by your fellow passengers (whoops, I'm supposed to be talking funding)
This un-air-conditioned, inaccessible streetcar brought to you by Harper
Sorry, no transfer here to the Downtown Relief Line (DRL) courtesy of Harris, Eves, and McGuinty
Prepare for the Pan Am TTC Crush!

You get the picture. At the bottom of every sign, provide email, address, and phone number of the purse-string holders. Make it easier and provide prepared ready-to-sign letters TTC users can mail off to their MPPs and MPs (Torontonians grumble but lack initiation).

Get a petition going, with Councillors emailing all their constituents on their lists to sign.

Tie Ontario's economic slide into have-not status with slashing subway building, the resultant rise of commute times, and the drop in productivity. Yell from the rooftops how many billions Toronto citizens send to Ontario and Canada -- billions we need but go into other coffers -- so it's now time we get our Fair Share.

Make TTC users your partners; entice car drivers to join with the vision of clearer roads as more subways are built. The customer service intiative is a good start, as is talking to people like me on Twitter. Go whole hog and inspire and use the collective political power of the people. Inspire the TTC and people with this map:

Since many say fare hikes are no biggie and Toronto should be able to support the TTC through the fare box and the private sector, I suggest we go all the way.

Triple the fares.

I can't afford the fare now, so ten cents, three dollars, all the same to me: unaffordable. However, to offset the disastrous effect of such a fare hike on the poor and disabled, the city can provide low-income constituents with Metropasses, similar to what Calgary provides. Meanwhile, those who feel smug and like to pay taxes and exorbitant fares for 30-years-behind-the-times service can really show how committed they are to that ideal.

But I bet the screeching will be heard all the way to the Pink Palace. In that case, to make things all better for Premier McGuinty, Toronto will agree to dial back fare hikes to zero if -- and only if -- the province restores funding immediately to full pre-Harris levels and agrees to build the DRL. And for good measure extend the Bloor-Danforth line into Scarborough, starting now.

That's just a couple of ideas off the top of my head after a long week of too-many medical appointments. I hope this will at least get the TTC Chair and TTC management to stop thinking in motions and meetings and start thinking creatively and flamboyantly about how to resolve this crisis.

City politicians need to learn to play hardball against the big guys. It's easy to play it against people with no power, but the true measure of a leader is when they can do it against those who seem to hold all the cards and win.

Blogging on the iPad

2011-12-05T20:09:00.001-05:00

I've been blogging for awhile. I began on my computer, tried writing posts on my iPod -- didn't work so well -- and then the iPad came along. I found a nifty app called "iA Writer" for writing my posts and another one called "BlogPress" for adding links, labelling, tweaking, and publishing them. I just about stopped using my computer for blogging.

Until iOS 5.

That upgrade broke BlogPress. I hadn't realised how much easier it had made posting to my blogs until it began crashing. For whatever reason, it didn't occur to me to delete and reinstall it, maybe because I had had to manually add back all my third-party apps from iCloud after the iOS 5 upgrade.

Well, this evening, after another aggravating session with Blogger on the iPad and a clunky session with WordPress on the computer, I deleted and reinstalled BlogPress. I've set up my blogs again. I'm writing this post in it, and God willing, it will let me do this again on another day because I really can't take going back to blogging on my computer or using Blogger on my iPad.

Christmas Shopping, the Show Way, in Toronto

2011-12-05T09:30:00.000-05:00

One of the perks of living in Toronto is the shows. I don’t mean Broadway musicals, I mean shows where you can scan, learn, and shop, shows like the Home Show, the Outdoors Show, and in November and December Christmas Shows. They’re ideal for Christmas shopping, for finding affordable to hugely expensive gifts all under one roof or, in the case of the Distillery Toronto Christmas Market, under one sky in the frigid December air.

I was discouraged from going to the One of a Kind Christmas Show and Sale because it’s huge, and that’s a bit of an understatement, and it’s all same old, same old, and there’s nothing in the affordable department. Wrong. Well, it is huge, and I do have to plan for rest day afterwards, but if you’re methodical and keep your eyes open, you’ll see among the same old, same old, lots of new stuff. And sometimes the same old is just what Santa ordered for a certain person on your list for this year. As for price: tons of affordable stuff! Of course, I did covet that portrait of Ian Millar riding behind a hedge...

The keys to enjoying these shows are three: 1) be methodical. In the case of the One of a Kind Christmas Show and Sale, start at one end and wend your way to the other, stopping for free coffee or capp at the Dolce Gusto counter in the centre aisle or free food samples in the food area (which is always crowded, full of gluttonous people like me). Or check out the website before and plan your route. I prefer my eyes to see the possibilities in real life so that my brain can know, yes, that’s the right gift for Suzy (or whoever). 2) Go in the early afternoon, not the evening or the weekend, else you’ll be fighting crowds and lineups at each booth. And instead of enjoying finding that unique and perfect gift, you’ll be frazzled and ticked and will grab the first one you can get to just so’s you can get out of there already like a cork out of an exploding wine bottle. 3) Be prepared to spend hours, and dress lightly if it’s indoors, although the One of a Kind Show has a coat check-in for a toonie and a place to put your parcels. But: I don’t know why, but their parcel place this year is way at one end instead of being sort of central. Totally unhelpful. You need a place to put your gifts when midway through your shopping and gawking, not when practically finished or just started. For the Distillery Toronto Christmas Market, wear your warmest boots and a hat and warm gloves. I was a frozen block last year because the wind so close to the lake can be brutal. On the other hand, Balzac’s and Soma are wonderful to warm up in with coffee and hot chocolate.

Bonus tip: take cash. Not all artisans or artists take VISA, plus you’ll spend less if your budget is in physical dollars in your wallet.

If you’ve never been Christmas shopping at one of these shows or the market, skip the mall this year and go for it. Unfortunately, the One of a Kind is over this year, but make a plan to go next year (or check out the smaller Spring one first) and meanwhile visit the one at the Distillery: it’s on until the 18th. Happy shopping!

November Greys

2011-11-28T09:30:00.000-05:00

The political news is depressing. Cat fights abound, cats screaming and scratching to make the best impression upon us, for our votes, with nary a wisp of good humour to be seen. The cats are incompetent, boastful, and naïve, and their shiny coats are rapidly losing their gloss and floss. Let’s talk about the weather instead.

Where is it anyway?

Oh sure, in other parts of Canada, winter has come as always, but here in Toronto, winter is sulking in the north and west, leaving us with warm temps and cold rains from the south. Once upon a time, you could count on November for being grey with endless cloudy skies, getting cold and colder until one morn, around about the time of the Santa Claus parade, about mid-month, fat snowflakes would float down nestling with each other on the cold ground, building layer upon layer a beautiful white blanket that covered gum-littered old concrete, peeling roof tiles, and grieving bare trees.

Now we have the sun peering out, usually not when forecast, the snow staying away, and the city resplendent in all its ugliness. Every piece of litter, every bullying David Miller garbage bin, every eyesore is revealed under the naked trees while we wait between the time of lush leaves and the time of sparkling blankets. In-between time is the hardest. It’s neither what was or what is to come. The past is over; the future unknown; and the present in a holding pattern. What is one to do?

Go shopping for Christmas before winter ruins it.

Although I have new boots -- and will no longer have to struggle and swear over my old ones -- or that’s the theory anyway -- I rather like not having to shop for presents buried in a winter coat, scarf, hat, mitts, boots, slowly burning up, steam rising from my head, until I finally stumble out of the stores laden and pissed off. Shopping in a light coat definitely beats shopping in winter gear. But once I’ve shopped, I would like winter to arrive -- and to stay until it is time for Spring to move in, until it is time for brisk blazing days out in the snow, cosy fires, and quiet reading moments under a blanket to give way to melting ice, the smell of new earth, and pretty blossoms. Every moment has its season; when its season doesn’t come as anticipated, entropy rules, chaos erupts, and the bugs proliferate in summer. Whither winter?

A Good Review is a Good Start to the Week!

2011-11-16T09:30:00.000-05:00

“I found this novel very difficult to put down.”

Another review of my novel She has hit the web! ReaderViews, an American company that specializes in book reviews, just published a review of She on their website.

Their reviewer Paige Lovitt wrote:

“What if you are traveling down a dark road one night and suddenly a gust of wind tremendously impacts your car, and all of a sudden your life as you have known it and loved it is over? What if you feel like your body is suddenly weak, in constant pain, and you have difficulties remembering anything? What if you career as a songwriter is instantaneously ended because the music has died within you? How tragic it would be to have your fiancé and friends leave you because they believe you are faking your symptoms and don’t believe the truth about your condition. What is the condition? While the symptoms sound like something that would be caused by a traumatic brain injury and depression, there is no disease. Instead there is a possession by an entity known to a few as Akaesman.

Akaesman seeks out individuals to inhabit and control. He feeds off of their life energy. For some people, he just invades them for a brief period of time, like for one week. For others such as the woman in this story, he inhabits her body for almost seven years. Having lost almost everyone dear to her, except her beloved cat, this woman must fight to evict Akaesman. Desperately fighting constant malaise and confusion, she searches outside of herself for others who understand this possession and for those who know how to treat it. Discovering that there are a few doctors, lawyers and a Shadow Court designed to deal with this entity helps her know that this is for real. Having friends and other professionals scoff at her diagnosis weakens her and strengthens him.
She has to do everything she can to fight from giving in to the weakness that invades her. Trying out different medical strategies helps to some degree, but within the darkness that she finds within there is also a light. In this light is a higher being whose light becomes brighter as she seeks out spiritual help, and therapies based upon illumination. Growing spiritually she becomes stronger, and she also seems to be led to the right people who can help her. Shedding herself of this being also sheds much of who she used to be, but in some ways now she is a better person, because she is a survivor. The real test will come when she knows that her music has returned.

“She” is an incredibly well written novel that made me feel like I had stepped into the main character’s shoes and was able to physically feel her struggling to survive. Because of this, I found this novel very difficult to put down. I felt like if I put it down, then I wasn’t helping her to recover. So I had to keep reading! There were also times were I found myself covered in goose bumps. Because of the intensity of her condition, it seemed so real. The thought of having an unwelcome entity take over your body and your life is terrifying! It is those fears and the emotional rollercoaster that this novel takes you on that makes it such a wonderful book to read.”

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If you’ve read She, may I invite you to post your own review, a sentence or five, at Amazon or the website of the store you bought it at? Thanks so much!

Week Two of NaNoWriMo

2011-11-15T09:00:00.000-05:00

I can't believe I'm still going strong this National Novel Writing Month. Some days are harder than others, tis true, but haven't yet hit the mid-month slump as you can see on my brand-new NaNoWriMo Word Count Widget on the right sidebar. The Office of Letters and Light was a tad slow in getting the widgets out this year, but they're here! I decided to use the month one for a change. You can now see how I do every day in just one glance. Red is for no writing (tsk); yellow for being below daily word target; and green for yay, she hit and exceeded the daily word count goal! So without further ado, here's week two as I blogged it on Google+.

November 8
More difficult going today for NaNoWriMo. I had to go back and forth between the Index Card app on my iPad, to remind me what today's chapter was about, and Penultimate app, to look and look again at the sketches of the new setting and new characters. As a result, I didn't stray too far from what I'd planned. Sometimes whole new angles crop up as I write. Not today. Though I did make a decision on the dog character, something I'd been waffling over. Not anymore!

Still, I was not happy to be interrupted early in the writing process by a call from my case manager, saying she couldn't come today. And of course she was only available on days that didn't work for me when we tried to reschedule. Crap. I was sputtering along till she called. Maybe being annoyed by once again having my schedule dictated by others helped. After that, I sped up, and soon I was typing along. My fingers hurt. But that's OK by me! I got 2028 words written this morn.

November 9
I took Classical Civilizations in Grade 9. My teacher: Mr Payne, a florid man with well-worn skin who kept a 40-ouncer in his office desk drawer and gave incredibly fascinating lessons on ancient Greek and Roman societies, philosophers, and literature. I have never forgotten his lesson on Plato's realism or forms, particularly the day he shook a desk and told us in a loud voice that this was a copy.

I thought of him when I was devising my transporter for my NaNoWriMo novel "Time and Space" (http://nanowrimo.org/en/participants/shireenj/novels/time-and-space) but not for long. Today though, Payne and Plato came back into my head as I wondered what one of my character's ought to read aloud. Suddenly, I knew. I didn't have the requisite books in my own library -- we used school textbooks or translations back in grade 9 -- but Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page) and Calibre (http://calibre-ebook.com) ebook reading software came to the rescue.
2092 words for today's NaNoWriMo writing marathon. Snack time!

November 10
I watched The Illusion of Time on PBS's NOVA last night. I was hoping to learn something new about time and time travel. I did learn one thing, but most of it cemented what I had already learnt. Seeing the same information presented in a different way means the knowledge sticks a little better in the memory banks anyway. A good thing.

So having learnt everything I can about time and time travel, it was time to write my how-to-build-a-time-machine chapter. A lot more stuff came into the chapter as I wrote. I think I was procrastinating getting to the time of the matter. But I finally got there. Wrote it out. Looked at it. Checked my notes. Fleshed it out. And I think enough of the bones and details are there for me to know what I was thinking when it comes time to revise the novel.

I was going to add some details to previous chapters that had flitted in and out of my head yesterday and today. But I've run out of time, energy time that is, and my head needs chocolate! Perhaps tonight I will be able to focus and think. 2519 words today.

November 12
It's a procrastinating, vascillating, restless kind of writing day. I read the paper and Zite on my iPad, drank hot chocolate, made coffee, anything to avoid writing. I read the NaNoWriMo pep talk of the week and finally felt initiated enough to sit down at the computer. The chapter doesn't go exactly as planned. Right off the top, my writing starts to go off on a bit of a tangent from my outline. Eventually I finish, but it doesn't feel right. I'm restless, I head for the fridge, I'm not hungry, I head back to the computer. I work again on some of the dialogue. Details appear I hadn't expected. Cool. I'm still not entirely happy as in I-feel-something's-missing unhappy. But the brain isn't producing, so time for lunch. Maybe this aft, I'll find it, whatever "it" is.

2279 words today. I'm 700 short of the halfway point. I can't believe that! But I can't believe how far we're into November either!

November 13
One should not write about French Toast on a weekend morning at brunch time. And one definitely shouldn't write an entire scene during which the characters are eating said French Toast with puddles of maple syrup and heaps of berries. I am starving! Although after interspersing dialogue with descriptions of the diminishing French Toast on their plates, it's not so bad as at the beginning. I guess OD'ing on an image does have its rewards.

2129 words for today's NaNoWriMo session. Best of all, I'm well past the halfway mark now. NaNoWriMo says I'll be done by November 23rd. I wish. Hopefully, if I keep my word count up -- not always a sure thing during the saggy middle -- I'll get to the 50k mark then, but I wont' be done my novel. Onwards!

November 14
So I had to do some thinking this morning. I had done a lot in the last few months, but not enough apparently! It's amazing how much knowledge we store in our heads about our environment, how things work, things like infrastructure and language and names and classes and races and genders. My Toronto of the future is not like today's, and where things are the same, there's a reason for that. But I got tired of thinking and just decided to write and see what comes out. Of course, this means lots of inconsistency can pop up, which means needing an eagle eye during revisions or revising for one aspect of life in the future at a time. I'll probably do the latter. It's how I did it for my previous two novels, given I can't hold a lot of different details in my head at the same time.

Fewer words today although more pages. That's dialogue and short paragraphs for you. 1995.

Occupy Toronto: What To Do?

2011-11-15T08:00:00.000-05:00

My mind has been consumed with novel writing, and unfortunately my blogging has taken a back seat. But I've been thinking about Occupy Toronto, how it reminds me of the On-to-Ottawa Trek (sans its violence), and how different it has been (so far) from most other places. The violence that was so-not-Toronto-like during the G20 has not yet marred our Occupy movement, unlike other cities in the US, Europe, and even Canada. Our Mayor has not done a sneaky end-run round the Occupy protestors like Halifax's did. And the church that owns half of the park tells reporters that they are talking with the city and the protestors both to end the occupation and to respect the movement at the same time. In other words, people are trying to respect each other and all the different viewpoints in order to end the occupation of St. James Park peacefully.

I heard something interesting on CBC Radio 1 Monday morning. A business spokesperson said that there are 500 protestors in that park who have energy and interest in political matters and want to make a difference. We always complain about the young not participating in the electoral process, but here we have an opportunity to engage them.

Imagine if Toronto not only didn't devolve the protest into violence and a fight between the complacent against the hurting, but also did something radical: listen to the protestors and create a forum for change that included politicians, leaders, business people, and protestors. That way the protestors would no longer have to occupy the park, and it would no longer just be about a bunch of people living in tents while the rest of us struggle along.

Yes, I know, I hear the bleatings already: How can we listen when the message seems to be all over the place? Well, Occupy Toronto has a democratic method of hearing everyone. Why not tell them as part of the negotiations to use that method to whittle their issues down to three key issues, with one of those issues specifically reflecting the 99% slogan. In other words, define that in concrete terms that people can act on (as well as understand). Then we would set up some sort of forum with a set date to start and a set schedule during which solutions would be hashed out for those three issues.

I don't really see the point of dispersing the occupiers when we are doing nothing about their fundamental message of the fracturing of our society into 1% and 99%, as if dispersing them will end the issue. In Toronto, we lament the disappearing middle class, but there's no point wringing our hands over that if we're unprepared to do anything about it. The protestors have put a boot in our rear. It's up to us as to whether we whine about the boot and rub our offended rears, or whether we turn around and talk about it so as to effect change, as Canadians have always done very well since Confederation.

NaNoWriMo Time and A Sale To Celebrate

2011-11-09T09:30:00.000-05:00

I'm a novelling Wrimo, one of tens and tens of thousands of people around planet Earth writing 50,000-word novels in the month of November as part of National Novel Writing Month. It's my third time.

I'm doing something different this year. Nope, not with my novel writing, but with my NaNo blogging. I joined Google+ a little while ago and have found it most excellent for quick and dirty blogging. And so I'm recording my daily writing efforts on G+ (well, on the days that I actually write, which so far has been every day but one ... so far), and then once a week, I'm gathering those posts together and copying them onto my website for those who like to read updates in one weekly swoop.

I invite you to follow me on Google+, read up about this year's NaNoWriMo novel Time and Space -- a time travelling Sci Fi story -- or follow my progress on my website, Twitter, or Facebook Page.

In honour of my third NaNoWriMo, I'm putting the ebook and Kindle versions of my highly rated and very first NaNoWriMo novel She on sale on Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Smashwords (with coupon code PZ44G) for only 99¢. Read a sample and download it today before November is over!

From iWant to iWow: Upgrading to iPod Touch 4 2011 Edition

2011-10-27T09:30:00.000-04:00

I talked about iWant a couple of days ago on this blog. Well, I succumbed. To be fair, it wasn’t a total iWant. My iPod Touch 2nd generation was rapidly losing its power, both figuratively and literally. I hadn’t realised how much of the latter until I didn’t use it for a couple of days. I had left it fully charged on Sunday. When I went to turn it on on Tuesday, its charge was gone. So much for my theory that Bejeweled was stealing its battery life.

Apple has not upgraded the iPod Touch 2nd gen for awhile now. The most up-to-date iOS on it is 4.2.1. Recently, I was unable to update some apps on it that I use regularly, although my critical ones were thankfully backwards compatible. This is how Apple gets people to upgrade its hardware. If my iPod Touch was just a fun little device which I use for social media, email, and games, I would probably not upgrade it. Sure, it’s slow; sure, it’s “old” like all of 2.5 years old; sure, it needs recharging; but it still works fine. And frankly, if you don’t know what you’re missing, other being part of the cool, trendy crowd, then it’s no big deal.

Even though I did a Pro/Con comparison of my iPod Touch with the latest iPod Touch 4th gen, and even though from using iOS 5 on my iPad, I truly didn’t realise how essential this upgrade would be for my productivity until I began using my new 32GB iPod Touch 4.

First off, it’s not only thinner and lighter, it’s slimmer too. It feels like almost nothing in the palm of your hand. That makes for shaky picture taking; otherwise it fits better in pockets and purses. And for a person for whom weight is a big thing, smaller and lighter is good.

The brightness setting is different too. To read my 2nd gen iPod Touch in low light early in the morning when my eyes were not adjusted to daylight, I had to turn the brightness setting down to the bottom. On this one, I don’t when I have it set about midway, my default setting. However, in low light after my eyes have adjusted to daylight, this setting is too low. I prefer a lower default setting so that the iDevice will consume less battery power. Guess Apple wants to me to slurp up more though. The lock screen on the 4th gen one is very bright no matter what, unlike the 2nd gen one. Not sure Apple has improved the brightness control or made it worse.

The screen is instantly noticeably better. However, it’s when I began reading web pages, tweets in Echofon, and my Pocket Informant Calendar that I really noticed how much easier on the eyes this iPod Touch is. Retina Display for the win!

The notifications improvements with iOS 5 are superb. Previously, notifications came one at a time and always covered up previous ones. Now if I miss one, I can swipe my finger down from the top and see them. Also the way they display is much more useful. They’re both unobtrusive and informative. With one glance, I can see if I need to open up my Mail app or not when a new email comes in. And if my screen is locked, I can swipe the notification I want to follow up on to unlock the screen and be taken directly to the corresponding app. Fewer steps, less energy needed (from me or the device). Another nice feature is that for some apps, I can choose the sound I want associated with their notifications. Simply by its distinct sound, I know which app is notifying me about something. It has worked for every app I’ve enabled notifications for, including my all-important calendar app Pocket Informant.

Reminders is another iOS5 improvement. They’re synced with my iPad, which could be annoying having the same alarm go off on two different devices at the same time, but so far for me it’s useful. Plus I can put all those itty bitty tasks, like turn down the thermostat at night, in Reminders that I don’t want to clutter up my schedule with.

Safari and Echofon, under iOS 5, have both improved the readability of websites, of which way too many do not provide a mobile interface. Reader in Safari, and Enable Readability in Echofon, allow me to read just the text, undistracted by ads, and at a text size my eyes can see. Even when I expanded the page on my old iPod Touch to get the text to the size I could read, the page would inevitably expand off past the iPod’s screen edges. Very annoying. I had begun reading links less and less as a result. I also like the Read Later feature of the new Safari. Too often, I see something I’d like to read but simply cannot at that moment. Read Later is an easy way for me to do so. I know, I know, there are other services that let you do that, but for me it was too much work to sign up. One more registration to remember, one more password to store somewhere in my grey matter. Apple understood this at last.

Unfortunately, reading HTML emails is more difficult on my new iDevice. There is no Reader button in the Mail app to make the text bigger and clearer. Apple has added Flags and an option to mark emails as unread, but it’s still a pretty primitive mail program. We should be able to tag, sort, and easily find important emails.

I had not previously read many ebooks on my iPod Touch and, when I did, had preferred the Stanza app for its readability. With iBooks and kobo now syncing ebooks with the iPad, those ebooks will now be available on my iPod Touch, and with the Retina Display it will be easier on my eyes to read them in those apps. I may end up reading ebooks on this device.

I don’t have Siri on my new iPod Touch, but it looks like she’s less useful in Canada than in the US anyway. And at this point I cannot see getting much use out of her. She’s too young. Give her a year to mature, I figure. But at least the iPod Touch 4 has a microphone and cameras. So now I can use Voice Memo or Vlingo or Dragon Dictation if I want to. I can also take photos, albeit not at a quality that even matches my Coolpix S2 or the iPhone 4/4s. And I can take HD video apparently. I haven’t had a chance to try out the video to see how good it is. I figure the cameras are good for FaceTime – if I ever use it, and given the ads are a long way from reality in terms of how a person actually looks on screen, not happening any time soon – and for slice of life shots, like when a driver does something nutty on the roads, but not photography per se. It’ll also make sharing photos easier, now that I’ve figured out how Photo Stream works and syncs with my iPad.

Voice Control is Siri’s forebear and is available on the iPod Touch. It allows you to control your music and FaceTime. That’s it. You can also use only set phrases, but it is good at speech recognition. Apple doesn’t tell you about this feature in an obvious place; I stumbled upon it when I was reading reviews of iOS 5. And Apple doesn’t tell you how to use it properly. You gotta download the manual. Anyway, press and hold down the Home button no matter where you are -- on the home screen, in an app -- and speak one of the set phrases to start/stop music playing or start a FaceTime call.

Vlingo and Dragon Dictation are two apps that let you voice your emails, notes, or social media posts. DD has better speech recognition out of the box; Vlingo lets you actually see what you’re speaking into after your initial dictation. Whether you use them or not will depend on whether you’re faster or better at typing than at dictation.

Other improvements: Apps that had taken minutes even to start and often crashed at first startup on my old iPod Touch, now they work quickly and seamlessly. I can lock the iPod Touch to portrait orientation, very handy. My devices are fully connected through iCloud and syncing options. I will be able to message people I know who have iDevices. I can print from my iPod Touch. If I had Apple TV, I could control it with my iPod Touch. Keyboard shortcuts are possible once I program them in.

All in all, this was a worthwhile upgrade.

Keeping up with the Apple's

2011-10-24T09:30:00.000-04:00

The Wealthy Barber aka Dave Chilton writes about the dangers to your pocketbook of keeping up with the Joneses. Choose your friends wisely, he advises, ensure they are in your income bracket so that you don’t pine for what they can afford and you don’t have.
But in today’s Apple-verse, this is just about impossible.
It doesn’t matter if you have the poorest friends, for it seems like everyone has at least one iDevice. Steve Jobs has created such a culture of iWant and cunningly built obsolescence into Apple products that as soon as he and Apple announce a new iDevice, present it as the coolest thing ever, you, along with the rest of the world, start counting the days to release. He was like a modern-day mass-market Pavlov, but instead of holding out treats for dogs, he dangled gadgets for people. And there was no app to counter his conditioning of us. I suspect even an empty bank account was no impediment for many to get the latest, coolest iDevice. After all, how can you keep up with the hip and modern with an iPhone two generations old or the original iPad?
It is rather amazing that quite a few of us did not jump at Jobs’s call. And the question is will more become resistant to Apple’s call with Jobs no longer presenting? Will we jump at the next iDevice, as we have for every one before, or will our fickle attention now move on to the next trendy gadget to come along? Apple has been down this road before, of being the thing to have and then fading away into niche territory.
The iPod began Apple’s rise out of that territory; the iPhone and iPad cemented it as the maker of must-have products. But Jobs’s charismatic presentations was a big reason for that rise. With his death, it may seem like Apple’s dominance is over. But the iWant culture of Apple products masks a more mundane truth: iDevices have changed the lives of many vulnerable and disabled for the better in a way no other company has done so. They have become such an essential part of many lives that as Apple improves and creates new products, people will probably continue to pay attention and to buy...unless and until other manufacturers beat Apple on its own turf. Then, sans Jobs’s charismatic, must-attend presentations to keep inducing iWant in the masses, people will switch.

Physiotherapy is Important for Injured Regular People Too

2011-10-20T09:30:00.000-04:00

I know I talk about my brain injury as if it was the only injury I got from two drivers slamming into the back of the car I was in, but I got others too. That bowling ball on my neck, pulled that stalk one way then the other, straining and spraining it. The seat belt grabbed my right shoulder and held it against the seat while the left went forward and back. CDs flew like bullets out of the open shelf into my knee, thankfully covered and protected by a thick coat, but not quite enough. Those kinetic forces from cars are strong man!

I received physiotherapy, massage therapy, and acupuncture for those injuries. But, you know, automobile accident benefits last only so long. I fought for every dollar: they trying to deny, deny, deny; me standing firm in saying I’m injured and you’re paying and you can’t make me not go (you’re supposed to get their permission before commencing physio, f*** that). But it doesn’t matter how stubborn you are, it’s rare to receive payment for as much physio, or any kind of therapy, as you need. Eventually, the lawyers will guess how much all your medical expenses will cost, they’ll usually guess too low, and you’ll lose, I mean, you’ll get a settlement on the claim.

That money bought me my gizmos for my brain injury, two (insufficient) years of brain biofeedback, a robotic massage chair since muscle pain screams up when the massage therapist is not around and besides a massage a day is a wonderful thing, and sessions of physio and massage therapy. But after two car crashes, one of which involved three impacts, my need for physio exceeded the cash the insurance company so generously gave me for all medical expenses. My physiotherapist semi-retiring didn’t help.

For years, I yearned for neck traction. I hear that sounds painful to those not in the know. So let me explain. When the shit drivers stretched and sprained my neck through their car weapons, they caused the muscles to spasm and pull my neck vertebrae out of alignment. On the X-ray, my neck was dead straight. Then I developed a bump in the alignment at the base of my neck. Fairly common from what my physiotherapist said. It’s like what happens with old ladies who start to have a better view of the floor than the road ahead. My neck turtled into itself; the muscles became “stuck,” and it became hard to stand straight, beyond postural problems. Exercise to strengthen the muscles and massage therapy can only do so much. The best antidote is, while you’re lying down, for the therapist to hold the neck gently but firmly with fingers placed carefully on the sides or back of the neck and then to gently but firmly pull. As the patient, I can feel the stuckness being released (a bit) and the relief. The therapist can feel how my muscles are reacting and can ease up or increase the pull accordingly. Some physio clinics use machines. Spare me. I’ve heard people have worse pain after physio on the neck, especially when machines are used. I never have. Traction ought to bring sweet relief and, over time, a more natural alignment and an added centimetre in height.

I want that centimetre back, darn it!

Over the years I asked people from CCAC (Community Care Access Centres, through which Ontario government pays for home medical care) and my GP for medicare-covered physio (which is very limited as the Ontario government thinks untreated chronic injuries are less costly on the coffers than paying for physio, not!) or for very inexpensive physio. The former clinics are packed to the rafters and use machines. No thanks. The latter are nonexistent, apparently.

So the other day I go in to my GP with a painful foot, probably plantar fasciitis. He refers me to a podiatrist at some clinic on Richmond. Never heard of it. I call and ask if the podiatrist is covered by OHIP (medicare). Yes, but I could also see the physiotherapist or certified athletic therapist, to receive care for my neck and back too, and here are the prices for those sans insurance. What the --? My GP referred me to a place where I could get neck traction for such a low cost (by certified athletic therapist) that even I can afford it? Why now?!! Why not years ago when I first asked?!!! Why do I have to get something wrong in a different place to get help for what is truly bothering me, like my skin last winter for my brain and today my foot for my neck and back?

I wasn’t sure if therapy from the athletic therapist would be as good as my neck specialist physiotherapist, but yesterday after the assessment I received my longed-for neck traction plus leg traction plus laser on right shoulder. Not as good as my former therapist but -- relief! And boy am I “stuck.” That should change with repeated tractions, and that laser is very nice. Next time I must remember to ask for it on both shoulders. My left is not happy compared to right.

If I was a professional or amateur athlete, I would’ve received proper physio for as long as needed and would’ve been fine years ago. What kind of stupid society do we live in that they think only athletes need to have muscle injuries properly addressed? I can understand why insurance companies don’t wanna pay, but for government to be complicit is just dumb. Don’t they know untended injuries lead to chronic pain and reduced abilities, which lead to unemployment, higher government-covered medical expenses since lack of physio leads to needing way more expensive things like surgery or home care, and worst of all, fewer taxes in the coffers?

Apparently not.

Moral: keep at your insurance company and your lawyer to max out insurance coverage, then keep at GP and all health care workers till they finally cough up where to get low-cost physio. Then get that traction and laser and ultrasound, whatever works, to get those muscles happy, strong, and working again.

Hudak's Ontarians are Stingy Bigots. Are They the Majority?

2011-10-18T09:30:00.000-04:00

Who are we as a people that Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak thought that his tactics would work -- and that they did? Hudak's PCs received almost as much of the popular vote as Premier Dalton McGuinty's Liberals. If not for first past the post, the PCs would have had close to the same number of seats as the Liberals. And they did it by appealing to the racist and bigot in Ontarians. Hudak began his us-them campaign by vilifying the university scholarships McGuinty proposed to offer foreign university students. These scholarships are a drop in the bucket compared to what the Ontario government offers Ontario students, but that was neither here nor there. The point was that Ontario tax dollars were going to foreigners -- to benefit us, but who cares about that? The operative word was “foreigners.” Hudak continued his us-them campaign by calling new Canadians “foreign workers” and decrying a tax credit to encourage employers to overlook lack of “Canadian experience” and to hire them. The key word for Hudak was “foreign.” Not us. Hudak completed his hat trick of bigotry by completely misrepresenting the Toronto School Board’s sex ed policy and distributing a poster in a certain neighbourhood that was unmasked gay bashing. Those people are not us. And “they” want to make our kids like “them,” was his message. Canadians like to image themselves as a tolerant, peace-loving people, people who accept all comers to Canada, who accept fellow humans of all types and inclinations. Yet Hudak and his campaign team clearly believed the opposite. Their campaign and his statements showed they thought Canadians, specifically Ontarians, are a bigoted lot, fearful and resentful of immigrants, of people from foreign lands, of their fellow humans different from the mainstream. They also seemed to believe that Ontarians are a stingy lot who resent sharing their resources with anyone. Former Premier Mike Harris capitalized on this kind of resentment and focused it on Toronto. We won’t let Toronto waste our tax dollars anymore, was the message he used successfully to sweep into power, never mind the fact that Toronto citizens raise more tax dollars than any other Ontario municipality and so supports them, not the other way around. Clearly Hudak thought that latent resentment to Toronto still existed and had now spread to others. Or perhaps the latter had always existed, but in the 21st century, it was politically okay to voice resentment to and fear of the foreigner and the sexually different. Whatever the case may be, Hudak’s campaign clearly marks Ontarians as hypocrites who are not tolerant, not accepting of “the other” despite the fine words they spout about being multicultural and welcoming to all. Or perhaps his campaign reveals the opposite. Ontarians were fed up with the Liberals, wanted to chuck them out, were prepared to sweep the Tories into power -- as evidenced by Hudak’s huge lead going into the election -- but were so revolted by his campaign to build resentment in us against new Canadians, foreigners, and people “not like us” that they swung back to the Liberals and some to the NDP. Still, it is troubling that quite a few agreed with him -- over a third of the Ontario population.

#OccupyBoston Arrests Belie US Freedoms

2011-10-11T09:30:00.000-04:00

I know I’m stating the obvious here. But... The United States of America is all for free speech in the form of peaceful protests and of assemblies without a state-issued permit -- when it occurs in other countries. I’m not sure Canada is much different.

The media too pick and choose which protests they will cover, essentially using their clout negatively. Not reporting or burying a story negates the existence of protests the state and/or corporations don’t want people to know about. If it’s unknown in the public eye, it did not happen. And free speech drops dead.

And then social media came along. Twitter became the cri de couer of human beings with voices long suppressed that wraps the world in protest songs. The media must follow else look too obviously like the rubes they are.

Now when police break up protests, there is no delay in everyone knowing, whether it’s the locals or a yak on the other side of the world as a kid reads out the live-breaking Twitter feed. Sleep though is a powerful aid to the police. To sleep is not to Tweet. Or so the Boston PD must’ve thought. They were wrong. But nice try.

After midnight, under cover of darkness, dressed in black, but from the video not terribly protected or acting afraid of the protestors, the Boston PD moved in, ripped an American flag from a US veteran, and began hauling veterans and fellow protestors into the modern equivalent of paddy wagons. From the video, the police had no fear of the mob -- just as soldiers yesterday in Cairo had no fear of protesting Christians -- for they knew they had the weapons and the protestors none.

Yet cameras scare them. And it soon hit the #OccupyBoston Twitter feed that the police had banned them and that the media had obeyed orders and gone home. I hope the latter is not true, and if so in that one crucial regard, Canada's media is different.

What value is free speech and freedom of assembly if the state controls it? How strong is the US Constitution really if police can break up free speech in the form of protests or occupying assemblies just because? How sincere are they in defending freedom of assembly to redress grievances when the state demands permits first? Will the powerful direct the police in the same way when the protests come to Canada? The whole point of freedom is the state doesn’t decide when and where. The people do.

But that’s anarchy. You can’t have lazy, good for-nothings deciding to occupy our parks and streets, disrupting the flow of traffic, the flow of my comfortable life, whenever they feel like it. Get a job! Get a shower! Don’t rock the boat! Be thankful you live here! -- So say complacent, fearful people everywhere.

It takes an awful lot of desperation to move people, to get them to physically put their bodies in the line of a police truncheon, especially in the pampered West where most are “all right Jack.” When people are happy, when they see they live in a just society, they don’t protest. But when the state oppresses and corporations exploit and the rich fill their shoe closets on the backs of workers who are paid less and less and the state taxes the poor more than the wealthy, people pick up their flags, get off their comfy couches, and march alongside others.

“Anarchy” exists in that Boston park only because the complacent waited too long to protest and the leaders remained deaf to the cries of the exploited and jobless while sipping champagne and nibbling canapés with the rich exploiters.

And when power and justice have been rebalanced -- or the police and army have viciously beaten their citizens into submission -- the people will return to their jobs and couches. Anarchy is self-limiting. Too bad hunger for power is not.

Voting the Rejecting Way

2011-10-06T08:30:00.000-04:00

I don’t want to vote. The First Past the Post system means if I want to vote for a particular party but don’t like the candidate, I have to vote for the candidate to register a vote for the party. And if I like a particular candidate out of all of them but not the party they represent, I have to choose between candidate and my preferred party. It’s nuts.

To make matters worse, our Parliament and Legislatures are becoming more and more about The Leader and the MPs or MPPs are simply seals that bark to command. And so voting for candidates because of who they are and their background is becoming meaningless. You’re simply voting for a human to keep a seat warm in their party’s section of Parliament or the Legislature. It’s disheartening.

But then I’m reminded that people died to keep Canada a democracy, to keep it free from fascism and totalitarianism. I’m reminded that we have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, with teeth, that came about because we’re a democracy. And a key way to keep Canada a democracy is to vote. I’m reminded that it’s the people’s voice that keeps the police and politicians from blanketing our highways and cities in CCTVs, which allow tracking of our every move and strip us of anonymity, a hallmark of democracy. Autocracies need to, and like to, track its citizens wherever they are. I’m reminded that it’s our voice expressed through votes that decide how much of our privacy will be stripped from us, whether we approve the arbitrary use of police force okayed by Premier Dalton McGuinty and the Liberal government during the 2010 G20 in Toronto.

But what to do when the First Past the Post system disenfranchises you, when you don’t like the three big parties, when you don’t like the candidates in your riding?

Remember first that if you don’t want your democracy usurped by something else -- by an autocracy, by one man deciding your fate -- then use your vote.

If you don’t like the three main parties, check out the Greens. They may surprise you as reflecting you and your political wishes. And perhaps see a vote for a smaller party as sticking it to the big guys.

And most importantly remember you can reject your ballot. It’s a protest at the ballot box.

If everyone who sat home on voting day went to their polling station instead to reject their ballot and have that rejection registered, then the politicians -- and the media -- would have to take notice. And maybe then our leaders would seriously bend their minds and actions to improving our democracy.

So go and reject your ballot! I am.

Public Transit in Ontario: MIA

2011-10-04T09:30:00.000-04:00

Honk. The car ahead rolls forward. Two centimetres. Drum the fingers, fiddle with the music, dying to use the smart phone. Move another centimetre. Or if you don’t have a car, you stand in the packed streetcar, no pole nearby to hold, sweat trickling down your back, practicing your public transit balance as the streetcar jerks forward and lurches to a stop. Or maybe you’re stuffed in a bus wondering how to get past the stroller to the doorway when you do eventually get to your stop. Or perhaps the subway is your route of choice, with people fighting and jostling to get off against the tide of rude people pushing prematurely to get on, the trains so far apart, many have to wait for the next anyway (and if you’re a regular, you know to wait for the third in a row when you’ll have a chance to get on and maybe even get a seat), then squeeze your way on and hope you don’t hang out in a tunnel because of smoke at track level before your stop.

This is Toronto’s commute, the longest in Canada, a drain on productivity, a negative on the economy, never mind our mental health.

Toronto has gone thirty years --. Let’s pause a moment and think about that timeframe. Thirty years. Three decades. Longer than a generation. Over a timespan so great we’ve seen Trudeau in power, resigned, dead; we’ve seen the old Ontario Big Blue Machine die, and a Liberal government come to majority twice.

And in all that time, Ontario built half a subway line to nowhere, Toronto sped up two routes, TTC service went into the crapper, while fares went up and up and Ontario crushed support.

We have not gone this long with no subway building since before the 1950s; with how long it’s taken just to begin extending the Spadina line north a few stops and with the addictive nature of talking, not spending, it’ll be fifty years before we see another rump of a line built.

Meanwhile Toronto’s commute grows every year. We get to work more tired, energy sapped from the angry commute and frustrating hours forced to do nada; we arrive home more fatigued than ten or twenty and definitely thirty years ago. With more time and energy spent on commuting, there’s less time for work and thinking and with family. And it shows in our slipping economy, our mental health, our move from a have province to a have not. Sure, sure recessions played a part, but this has been a slowly worsening problem that’s finally gotten so bad, the media and a few politicians are taking notice. But not enough.

Mayor Rob Ford came to power partly on his promise to build subways. The pent-up desperation for faster commutes showed in his victory. He understands that Torontonians and commuters from outside the city don’t want to spend half their day in a stuffed streetcar or bus stuck in gridlock and construction. He understands that our public transit is simply not big enough to carry our current population. And only subways are big enough and fast enough to meet the needs of working families.

When population grows, public transit must grow.

Everywhere.

Including and especially downtown where there’s huge worker density.

I don’t know why this is such a difficult concept to grasp, why starting with Art Eggleton in the 1980s, doing nothing but resting on our long-gone TTC accolades has been the preferred route. But if politicians don’t get a grip, we might as well give up and agree Toronto will and is becoming a place where only the wealthy and poor live while the middle class move to cities that work, cities where they don’t have to spend so much time commuting and spend it instead on earning an income, part of which goes into taxes. The government loses too by not spending on public transit.

Of course, it’s frightening to politicians to have to spend catch-up money not just build-for-the-future money. We’re talking billions and mega billions on subway expansion, technological improvements, new and accessible cars and buses, expanding routes, and operating and maintenance expenses. But the longer they stall, the bigger the final hit. The Federal government must chip in. Their downloading back in the 1990s created part of the problem. And yes, it’s too bad the Conservatives squandered the surplus, but even US President George Bush understood how important subways are to the economy of a city and the US. People not moving fast to work = people not earning for themselves and for their country.

So what are the parties doing about it? Dalton McGuinty and the Liberals have said they’re spending big bucks already. It’s going to the Spadina Line extension and maybe the Sheppard line and Eglinton LRT, which should be a subway. Scarborough still has no subway line and so is disconnected from the rest of Toronto. As long as Scarborough remains disconnected and Scarberians have to fight through a bottleneck to get into the rest of the city, there can be no real infill growth there where there’s space, though the population influx demands it. McGuinty’s plans aren’t even on a par with the NDP’s of the 1990s. Totally inadequate to the needs of today’s working families and definitely don’t meet future needs.

That pretty much sums up the other parties too except that Andrea Horwath and the NDP have also pledged to return to 50/50 cost sharing for operating expenses. That should help Toronto’s budget and is a drip better than the PCs and Liberals. But where is the expansion money? The courage to do the necessary?

Under all Ontario parties, commute times will continue to lengthen. And we will continue to sit not work.

Who is the Progressive Province? Ontario?

2011-10-03T09:30:00.000-04:00

Alberta just got itself a woman Premier. Unelected by the general public, true, but with one of their other provincial parties also led by a woman, the odds of a woman elected to lead the province has just shot up.

We like to think of Alberta as moribund, staid, very right-wing with abortion nuts and prison fans. But Calgary elected an energetic Mayor full of interesting ideas and love of talking directly to Calgarians via Twitter. Alberta does spend big on green power development, even though their oil sands are what hogs the press. Calgary and Alberta are spending on public transit and expanding it. And now their PC party has elected a woman to lead them.

It is the shame of Canada that though we spout words about supporting gender parity, in reality our politics are as patriarchal as a medieval society. But apparently Alberta is starting to add a little feminine to its politics. Not Ontario, with the exception of Andrea Horwath who leads the NDP, the smallest of the three main Ontario parties.

Ontario is also the province that sends former provincial PC cabinet ministers to Ottawa, the ones who like the pork barrels and do bizarre things like delete “Canada” from their business cards. These ministers specialize in mean and resentment, especially resentment of the other party being in power. And their leader hates talking to the media and directly to the citizens. The Prime Minister might represent an Alberta riding, but his mean and controlling streak is straight from Ontario politics.

But Ontario isn’t done with breeding these kinds of politicians. Our PC party played briefly with politics of respect and debating ideas, and then that old wave of sourness and resentment rose up and they tossed out John Tory as leader, went for Tim Hudak, and are once again into meanness, us-them politics, dissing the Canadian value of co-operation and forming effective coalition governments, and attack ads -- cause who wants to educate the voting public when it’s so much easier to put them into a bad mood and persuade them on emotions and lies.

So of the heavyweight provinces in Canada, who exactly is the progressive one?

The Big Ontario TV Debate

2011-09-28T09:30:00.000-04:00

And the winner is ... Horwath! No, Hudak! No McGuinty! -- depending on which partisan declares it.

The Ontario leaders’ debate last night went 90 minutes long, featured six questions out of 1,000 submitted, began each segment with about a five-minute one on one then finished with all three leaders debating. The moderator was Steve Paikin.

My butt was numb by the end.

But Twitter, as it always does, made the debate fun.

The first person the camera revealed was PC Leader Tim Hudak. The problem with television is it shows off the superficial first, and so politicial leaders spend hours prepping and grooming and practicing and practicing. Still, you never know how that first moment will go. Hudak was groomed to an inch of his skin but they forgot the bags under his eyes. And his presentation was so polished, there was no life. That was true for Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty too, at first. But he has had so much experience, that he did relax fairly soon into the debate.

The first one on one was between McGuinty and Hudak, and it was five minutes before we got our first gander at NDP Leader Andrea Horwath.

I was stunned.

She’d chosen an outfit that suited the set and made her stand out yet look eminently professional. Being a woman, looking polished and groomed comes standard, that is, she didn’t look odd like Hudak’s hair. And she spoke assertively, confidently -- with life. When the men tried to steamroller over her -- which is what men do with women in any setting you can name -- she held her own. She persisted and prevailed without the usual effect of a woman’s naturally higher voice sounding screechy, probably because she was determined to make her point without being desperate to try and squeeze a word in. She is the first woman leader I’ve seen that looks and sounds like a real leader of a major party, like someone who’ll fit in the Premier’s chair, not an academic or some folksy person who knows they’ll never be in power.

Horwath and Hudak spouted campaign-trail anecdotes and family stories like an unleashed fire hose. McGuinty, natch, relied on his government’s record for his personal touch. The only time McGuinty’s body language changed noticeably, his gestures becoming almost frantic, was when Hudak brought up eHealth. It made me wonder what is going on there that McGuinty felt so vulnerable at its mention. McGuinty in turn quoted Bill Davis to Hudak -- “It’s unbecoming to run down our province.” -- reminding everyone how great the PCs used to be and how they are not that party anymore. Also co-opting another party’s venerated leader is cheeky. Horwath got the first zinger in of the night when she said it was nice to know McGuinty has managed to go up to Thunder Bay and told him where a small northern town is; later she reminded the audience that Stephen Harper is Hudak’s leader.

Hydro and its rising unaffordability was the big topic of the evening and on Twitter too.

Despite all the stories and smugness, no leader had swayed me to or from their party until Hudak opened his mouth and said how McGuinty was taking money away from Ontario students and giving it to foreigners. He also used the equality word to blanket his distasteful us-them language over the employer tax credit to hire immigrants with no “Canadian experience.” Hudak’s xenophobic stance is repulsive. I was prepared to forgive and forget his previous remarks on these issues, but he repeated them last night and denied what everyone knows, that he called immigrants “foreign workers” in previous statements. He seems to think that because he’s descended from immigrants that makes his statements okay. As an actual immigrant, I say no it does not.

I’m not sure there’s a winner, but Horwath was a pleasant surprise. I can easily see her as Premier, which before the debate I could not have.

Brain Injury: the Government Ignores, the People Remain in the Dark

2011-09-27T09:30:00.000-04:00

BIST (Brain Injury Society of Toronto) was founded in 2004 and has grown to 469 members, as of this week’s Annual General Meeting (AGM). I looked around at the 50? 40? 70? or so members in attendance and was rather surprised. But as the AGM progressed I thought about those growing numbers and BIST’s new focus this past year on fundraising and awareness, as reported by the various committees and 11-member board.

But from the abysmal brain injury care in Ontario, you wouldn't know there is an epidemic out there.

When I first joined, I had no idea who was on the Board and who volunteered, even though I had a good sense of who were the active members with brain injuries from falls, meningitis, crashes, tumours (no hockey). Today, members of the Board are making a concerted effort to get out to the meetings and making known who they are. And by the end of the evening, it struck me that like the Board, putting ourselves out there where we live and engaging is what we people with brain injuries need to do.

Everyone knows about cancer; breast cancer is the charity du jour. Half the population suffer from heart disease, and the other half know someone who’s had a heart problem. Rick Hansen has done a stellar job of bringing attention to spinal cord damage, and people in wheelchairs are visible representatives (even if that is not the reason why they must use a wheelchair). But unfortunately brain injuries are invisible, though plentiful.

The Brain Injury Association of Canada says “thousands of Canadians incur a traumatic brain injury each year the majority being young adults.”

And so, as usual, we Canadians must look to the US for detailed stats (and that was true even before Prime Minister Stephen Harper nixed the scientifically sound and comprehensive look at our population, the long-form census). Every year, 1.7 million Americans sustain a traumatic brain injury. Using the ten percent rule, that means 170,000 Canadians have their brains damaged each and every year. And like Americans, twice as many men as women.

As I listened to the reports at the AGM, I thought how daunting the task and how needed to make people aware of brain injury and its devastating effects on the injured. Hockey fans are becoming aware, but only as it applies to hockey players and with incomplete understanding of its lifelong effects.

Sidney Crosby appeared recently with his doctors to talk about his concussion and their expert opinion that when he is one hundred percent better, it will be like he hadn’t had a concussion, that his risk of another concussion will be back to what it was before his two.

Hahahahaha!

How can they know that? There is no technology that can look at the brain in such detail so as to know the brain matter is one hundred percent healed and regrown, that there are zero changes in neuronal metabolism and structure.

The science is so new and still in the dark ages, relative to heart disease or cancer treatment, that to say we know with certainty the future and the risk is full of hubris. But then I’ve discovered too many doctors, particularly neurologists, are like that -- think they know it all in the face of great ignorance, think they recognize brain injuries when the cognitive ones zip right over their heads -- and so why would the population be any more knowledgeable?

Researchers are finding that people who have traumatic brain injury have a higher risk of Alzheimer’s, Parkinsons, and so on. Yet they cannot say if the long-term effects of brain injuries are different in people like me who’ve had active treatment for cognitive deficits. But to assume not is a dreamy, potentially dangerous assumption.

I’ve met people who’ve experienced bad bangs to the head but with no broken skull, maybe only temporary unconsciousness, which they’d shrugged off and if they saw a doc, told it’s just a concussion, watch for a couple of days, then should be fine. Yet when they hear about some of my difficuties, they go, “hey, I have that too.” They always thought whatever “that” was was normal. It isn’t. I never had these injury-related issues pre-car crash. Most people don’t. Yet they had an impact on these people’s lives, and because they never made the connection, they didn’t understand the problem, never mind how to heal it and improve their lives.

It doesn't help that even if you recognize you need to see someone about it, you can't in Ontario because of lack of funding for neuropsychiatrists, no funding for psychologists who are on the forefront of active treatments, and severe cutbacks to community care. When no one knows about brain injuries, except as hockey concussions, why would the government fund adequate care?

Crosby and his docs have presented his concussion as healable as a simple broken leg, just takes longer. Even when concussions are recognized as real injuries with bad effects on the brain, they’re still represented as happening only to hockey players and having no lasting effects, thus no big deal.

Yes, the AGM theme is right: we need more awareness to stop injuries, to have access to good treatment, and to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of the walking wounded.

Preventative Health Care in Ontario: All Lips, no Hips

2011-09-26T09:00:00.000-04:00

Preventative health care sounds groovy, like a gorgeous, different-tasting brownie -- if only we had some, we’d all feel better. But GPs don’t want to educate themselves, medical schools don’t teach it, the government doesn’t want to pay, and judging by my GP’s and other medical pros’ reactions, most people exercise a collective yawn in the face of diet and exercise suggestions.

The problem with preventative health care begins in medical school where lip service is paid to nutrition and exercise. It reminds me of what I learnt in psychology: psychology teaches you about healthy minds, not just unhealthy, so you can recognize good health and help those with poor mental health. Psychiatry looks only at unhealthy.

Governments refuse to pay GPs for the time required to look after those of us with chronic illnesses. The Ontario government figures twenty bucks ought to cover the hour needed to discuss the multiplicity of problems, test results, emotional fallout, and how to continue on. And so many GPs don’t spend the time, and patients suffer. And as much as the government doesn’t support chronic care, they definitely don’t pay GPs for the time needed to explain and persuade people why they need to stop smoking, eat better, exercise, stop drinking, or get help for drug addiction, to name a few preventative steps. Five minutes comprising “lose weight and come back in six months” or “sorry, you’ll have to wait a year to get help for that drug addiction problem” don’t cut it.

Governments don’t seem to like paying upfront for these sorts of things though. It’s hard on the bottom line and because the payoff isn’t easily quantified in the ledger -- eg, $100 for GP to explain cholesterol test results and teach diet, exercise, and drug solutions, then $100 back in work no longer being lost, 100 hours extra time spent volunteering or playing with kids, $1000 saved in not spending future taxes on cardiac care (these numbers are purely representative) -- it’s easier for short-term thinking governments not to program for long-term savings.

But just paying GPs properly is insufficient. You still have the whole issue of GP education and people being able to afford healthy food, never mind taking courses on how to cook better or learning how to exercise. Then there’s the conundrum of how do you motivate and keep people motivated?

Neil Seeman has an intriguing idea. Heathy living vouchers.

“We know that in this age of cheap, plentiful food, one way of reducing obesity is to strip away personal responsibility entirely. The only country that publicly boasts a total absence of obesity among the general population is North Korea, likely the result of gross malnutrition under the stranglehold of dictatorship and communism. Those sentenced to controlled environments — long prison terms, for instance — tend to lose weight, too. But that’s obviously not a path down which freedom-loving Canadians likely want to go.” (Neil Seeman, Director of The Health Strategy Innovation Cell at Massey College, University of Toronto in The National Post, 27 January 2011)

Yet the way governments and people go about it here in the free world, there is a sort of finger-waggish, there’s only one way to do it feeling about it. There’s little acknowledgement of the individual obstacles people face. Sometimes it’s emotional eating, and so the person needs mental health care first. Sometimes it’s a slow metabolism, so they need much encouragement to exercise a lot. And sometimes, like with me, brain injury created exercise intolerance and so that has to be managed at the very least and improved upon before any weight loss strategy will work.

“An HLV is an annual sum of money for every person 16 years and older — probably about $5,000 in Canada — to spend on healthy-living options that are agreed to by the person and his or her primary care provider. The money comes from a 2-4% slice off the provincial budget. The money can be applied only to options approved by a self-governing (non-state) regulatory college representing all members of qualified health professionals.

To use the voucher, the patient would need to satisfy certain conditions, including close co-operation with a primary care provider to make sure the HLV is working. Through specialized billing codes, the primary care provider (in a public, private, or semi-private funding system) would be rewarded for participating in healthy-living counselling. Through online and face-to-face interactions, the patient is held accountable; otherwise he or she loses the voucher.

Vouchers can be highly varied in their offerings, including private nutrition counsellors, or personal digital assistants for diabetes self-monitoring. This is very different from small-scale tax credits that can only be narrowly applied for things such as sports activities.” (Neil Seeman, The National Post, 27 January 2011, the full article is worth reading)

Innovative approaches with much thought and research behind it are what the four parties ought to be looking at in this election. There’s lots of talk about the importance of health care from them but nothing that’s going to change Ontario and Canada’s obesity epidemic. So we shall all truck along as before with the very wealthy buying their preventative health care and the very poor buying their only affordable food: Big Macs.