Manufacturing in London, ON: Lots of reasons for decline

This post has been attracting a lot of attention, but not from Londoners, from people surfing the net searching for information on why Southwest Ontario cities, and others, are fighting stubborn unemployment numbers. Here are the threats to employment noted in the following blog post:

• outsourcing
• obsolete technologies
• business mergers
• automation
• reshoring

For more details, read the rambling post.
Cheers,
Ken
____________________________________________________________________________

There was an interesting article in The London Free Press on the 9.6 percent unemployment rate in my Southwest Ontario city. To understand this distressing number, the article instructs us, "Look at your shoes." I did. Well actually, I looked at my granddaughter's — at her Crocs.

My granddaughter's Crocs cost $36.35. Why can't these be made in Canada?

The collapse of the shoe making industry, both locally and across the region, was being used by the writer to illustrate the implosion of local industry under the continuing pressure of outsourcing, the moving of jobs offshore. "Globalization happens," we're told.

The writer justifies the outsourcing, telling us, "Check out the rows of stitching . . . " Making shoes is labour-intensive piecework requiring workers to cut, stitch and glue materials.

Made in China. Why?

I looked again at my granddaughter's Crocs. I found them to be mainly one piece of molded, soft, pink plastic carrying a Disney fairy tale motif on the toes and a simple, white strap at the heel. Could this shoe not be made in Canada, I wondered.

I found the answer in The Free Press article itself, and the answer is yes. The writer tells us injection-molded footwear is a Canadian success story. Think of Kamik brand boots by Genfoot or the Kodiak brand boots under the control of Williamson-Dickie, Fort Worth, Texas. Some lines of both the Kamik and the Kodiak boot brands are made in Canada.

Made in China, full price of $39.99 only drops to $36.35 online. Incredible!

Did you notice an American company owns the Kodiak brand today? Buy a Canadian made Kodiak boot and support a company in Texas. Makes you think.

I started this post to investigate outsourcing. Globalization may happen but should it? We're told companies outsource to stay competitive. The resulting globalization keeps prices low, making products cheaper to buy by those consumers who still have jobs.

I think of my granddaughter's Crocs again: $40. And I think the argument that outsourcing is done to help the consumer may also be a crock.

There are, of course, more examples of stuff made offshore but still selling at a premium price. I am sure you, the reader, can think of some. We're all familiar with stuff like shirts, pants and sweaters now made in China or Bangladesh or Mauritius which seem to cost just about what they did when they were made in Canada.

I googled the idea that globalization is not all it is cracked up to be. I discovered Yunchuan "Frank" Liu, a professor of business administration at the University of Illinois. Liu says consumers are paying artificially higher prices for many goods thanks to outsourcing. Liu was quoted by the university News Bureau:

"Outsourcing is a topic that affects just about everyone, and the general consensus is that it's bad because American workers will lose jobs because of it," he said. "Most people only focus on the job-displacement angle, but very few people have questioned how it affects consumers and competition in the marketplace."

Liu discovered some firms "are unwilling to pass along the savings they've reaped from outsourcing production and labor . . . " If you want to know more, click the link: Study.

While outsourcing may not always provide the promised benefits, it always delivers the promised pain. And outsourcing does not always mean moving jobs offshore. Sometimes it can mean moving jobs from say London to another place in the province.

For instance, there was a time when a subscriber calling The London Free Press to report a missed paper reached a circulation employee working out of the York St. building. I believe London lost more than a dozen jobs when the paper outsourced that work to a group in Ottawa.

The newspaper graphics department didn't go as far when it was outsourced. The in-house department was closed, the work moved to Woodstock and the staff offered their old jobs back but at a reduced wage with reduced benefits.

Sometimes outsourcing can be done simply by firing staff and finding others willing to perform the same work for less. At one time The London Free Press owned a fleet of trucks for delivering the paper. The drivers were all Free Press staff, the trucks were maintained on site by company mechanics working in The Free Press garage. Today, the trucks and their drivers are outsourced, the company garage is closed and all the mechanics are gone. Again, high paid jobs have been eliminated and the jobs that remain are poorly paid in comparison with the past.

But outsourcing, be it local or global, is not the only thing killing jobs in London. To outsourcing, we can add the following:

• obsolete technologies
• business mergers
• automation
• reshoring

The Free Press can be used to illustrate the next two job killers.

When I started in the newspaper business a huge back shop brimming with staff was required to put out a daily paper. For instance, there were Linotype operators tapping out stories in molten lead. The computer made the Linotype machines obsolete and then, almost overnight, made almost every other job in the back shop obsolete. Today you can count on your fingers the people left working in The Free Press back shop. Dozens of jobs have been lost and they won't be coming back; They're obsolete — gone like the buggy whip.

The next job killer is the company take-over. This merging of businesses, often competitors, is always claimed to offer the benefit of synergies. The Free Press was taken over by Sun Media. The Free Press suffered a layoff. Sun Media was absorbed by Quebecor. The Free Press and Sun Media suffered layoffs. Sometimes I think synergy is just a fancy name for job cutbacks, layoffs.

Then there is automation. More and more robots are showing up on the factory floor. They paint, they weld, they lift, move and mix. These jobs are also gone for good. Some were dangerous, many were tedious, all are done better by machine. A robot now wields the spray-gun in electro-static spray booths and even some old-time painters are glad to see that job taken over by a machine.

Reshoring is the last cause of job loss and it is especially prevalent in London. Electro-Motive Diesel is a prime example of reshoring. EMD moved a lot of jobs from La Grange, Illinois, to London in the about two decades back. To the thousands and thousands of La Grange workers left unemployed by the move, London represented an outsourcing destination. With the U.S. in the midst of a "Buy American" movement, and with the Canadian dollar trading at par with the greenback, the time was right for the reshoring of EMD.

London wants to attract new businesses to the community. To this end, depending upon whose numbers you believe, up to $19 million in taxpayer money has been used to entice Dr. Oetker into setting up shop in London.

Funny, isn't it? Dr. Oetker, with reported revenue of €7.7 billion and with 23,000 employees worldwide, needed $19 million to be coaxed into locating in London. I recall a time when London businesses located in London because the business owners lived here. They didn't have to be paid to build their plant in their hometown; they just did it. It as logical. And they didn't demand to be paid to locate here but they gave, and gave generously, in support of their hometown.

The closed McCormick biscuit and candy factory in London.

Think of Thomas McCormick, founder of McCormick's Biscuits and Cookies. The word philanthropist comes to mind as one recalls the McCormick Home also founded by Thomas McCormick.

Now, think of Marc Leder, the fellow many claim closed the McCormick plant leaving the remaining staff unpaid, their pensions unhonoured. The word philanthropist, at least here in London, does not come to mind.

Many Londoners don't realize McCormicks brand candy is now made in Brazil.

The McCormick plant is closed, damaged by fire a few months ago it may well be demolished. But the McCormick brand of candies is still going; The candies are made in Brazil and imported into Canada by a company in Laval, Quebec. Some bags show a picture of the old London plant and others carry a write-up detailing the McCormick history.

London's biscuit and candy factory died from changes in ownership and the resulting supposed synergies. It died from outsourcing. And there are those who would argue one more cause must be added to the list: greed.

The CBC is right; Canadian hospitals are dirty.

Blood smeared toilet, St. Joe's hospital, London, ON. St. Joe's rated A+ by CBC.

According to the CBC, dirty hospital rooms are a top concern for Canadians. It seems the fifth estate conducted an online survey looking into, among other things, the perceived cleanliness of Canadian hospitals.

"Nearly a third of respondents, who included patients, health care workers and relatives and friends of patients, said hospital rooms and bathrooms were not kept clean."

I'm a big booster of the Canadian health care system. My family and I have benefited greatly from the system but that doesn't mean the system is above criticism. As much as I consider myself lucky to be living in Canada, I must confess that there is a rundown feel to many of our hospitals.

When my youngest daughter gave birth, the room was immaculate and all went smoothing. The doctors and nurses were wonderful, very professional. That said, it is lucky she never had to use the birthing room washroom. It was soiled with blood, both on the floor and the toilet seat. A nurse was informed but nothing was ever done. Without protective gloves, I wasn't eager to clean the room. It was left blood smeared.

Last spring when my wife had to visit the same hospital to receive the results of some medical tests, I went to use the public restroom and found smeared blood on the toilet and the room generally soiled with mystery gunk. I told a nurse about the filthy condition of the restroom but there was no indication anything would be done any time soon.

According to a World Health Organization report, Clean Care is Safer Care, the prevalence of health care-associated infection in Canada is 11.6 percent. I'm sure American Obamacare foes will quickly blame "Canada's socialized health care" for the problem — even though Canada does not have socialized health care. Canada has a single payer system. France, which does have a socialized system, has a rate that is only 38 percent of Canada's — 4.4 percent.

And a country doesn't have to be rich to have a better rate than Canada: Slovenia has a 4.6 percent rate. Heck, the rate in Mongolia is less than half that of Canada's. Mongolia comes in at 5.4 percent.

The rate of health care-associated infection (HCAI) in Canada is one of the highest among high income-countries. The figures used are from 1995 through 2010.

HCAI is an expensive drain on health care systems. According to a report from the ECDC, these infections account for approximately €7 billion per year in direct costs. The story is somewhat similar in the U.S. where $6 billion was expended in 2004. The cost in lost trust in the health care system may be as serious as financial cost.

Champions of the free market may be uncomfortable with one of the CBC findings: privatization of housekeeping may be behind some of the decline in hospital cleanliness. The CBC is not alone in advancing this theory. The Tyee in British Columbia agrees.

"Since the privatization of cleaning services in B.C.'s hospitals, health care workers say they've seen a sharp increase in "health care-associated infections" -- diseases contracted by patients and staff within the hospitals themselves.

"The infections are serious: Methicillin-resistant Staph aureus (MRSA). Norovirus. Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE). Clostridium difficile. Once established in a hospital, they're tough to get rid of. Established in a patient, they can be fatal."

The hospital where I have encountered the most filth was one of the London, Ontario, facilities that was involved in the handing out $4.1 million in payouts and perks to hospital executives in the five year period from 2007 to 2012. According to The London Free Press, even Ontario Health Minister Deb Mathers was offended by these payments.

"I'm outraged . . . How much health care could we have bought for that money?"

 . . . and now much cleaning?

Despite the filth I found there, St. Joe's in London, ON, rated A+ by CBC.

I got a shock when I checked the grades received by the Canadian hospitals which were part of the Rate My Hospital CBC survey. The hospital leading the pack was St. Joseph's Health Care London. This is the hospital where I found blood in a birthing room washroom and some months later in a public restroom.

Shot at St. Joe's in London: A+ facility.

This apparent anomaly agrees with one of the claims made by hospital administrators: Dirty hallways, stairwells, and other public areas does not mean surfaces that patients commonly come in contact with are also dirty. The claim is that hospitals, short of funds, put their money and their cleaning where it does the most good.

There may be some truth to the claim.

Children: Artists not craftsmen

Search for the Real: Hans Hofmann

I love my granddaughter's art. And make no mistake, it is art. It is pure art. Craft is beyond her reach. Art, as the term is used here, is creativity, while craft refers to skill.

Think of Hans Hofmann, the well respected artist and teacher who wrote a small but important book on art: The Search for the Real, or think of R.G. Collingwood, the British philosopher who wrote The Principles of Art — click the links and buy the books.

Hofmann is a quick read. Collingwood is a struggle. Clearly, go with Hofmann first.

At the age of ten I took my first art class at what was then the Willistead Art Gallery in Windsor. The classes were held in the coach house of a former estate designed by Albert Kahn, the famous Detroit, Michigan, architect.

The place had great atmosphere. Art and craft were melded together in the amazing home commissioned by the second son of whisky baron Hiram Walker.

As a student, I was far more craftsman than artist. I had good control for a young boy but I prostituted my skill. I used my skill to make quick sketches of Mickey Mouse to sell for a nickle to other students.

Drawing Mickey is easy. Just think circles. I would have taught the other kids how to draw good Mickeys but the art instructor shut down my budding business. Drawing Mickey was not art, at least he was not my art. I was told to leave Mickey to Walt Disney and his cartoon-making factory.

At that time I understood that drawing Mickey was not art. What I failed to understand was that drawing a real mouse was also not art. As long as I was a slave to reality, I was not an artist but a craftsman.

Hans Hofmann tells us: 

• "Nature’s purpose in relation to the visual arts is to provide stimulus – not imitation. . . . "
• "The creative process lies not in imitating . . . "

The camera has removed the tyranny of imitation from art but not the pressures of reality. Ink on a page is real. If you question this statement, try and wash the inks stains from a kid's clothing.

When a child puts crayon to paper, the result is real. No one should look at a child's work and say dismissively, "It's all scribbles."

Truth be told, a child's scribbles are more "real" than some very popular "art." I'm thinking here of the work of Thomas Kinkade. Although I admit Kinkade was both artist and craftsman, I think of him more as an entertainer than artist, more magician than painter.

The Treachery of Images: This is not a pipe.

Rene Magrite painted a pipe and declared, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe": This is not a pipe. No, it's not; It's a painting of a pipe. No one can take a child's art and declare, "This is not a scribble."

Fiona, 3, dips her largest brush into a pot of purple paint and declares, "This is a large colour. It needs a large space." I watch in amazement as she proceeds to dominate the white paper with broad, wavy strokes of purple.

When she puts a dab of green at the bottom, I ask her why that colour and why there. She tells me her painting needs something right there and a small green circle is "perstick." Fiona's way of saying "perfect."

Scribbles? Yes — thoughtful scribbles. These are real scribbles not like, I must confess, my scribbles. I only paint imitation scribbles. My scribbles are not honest scribbles like those done by little children.

C'est un griffonnage. Vraiment: It is a scribble. Really. And art.

Why is this important? Does any of this having any bearing on the everyday world? As a matter of fact it does.

Recalls Clement Greenberg and the David Smith's sculptures.

I stumbled on a post on the usually excellent blog Couturier Mommy. The author worked out a method of commandeering her children's art and corrupting it with her own preference for straight-edge design. She sticks masking tape to her children's work surfaces before they begin. When they are finished, she peels away the tape and peels away some of their work. "My kids make Real Art!!" she exclaims.

Yes, they do. And mom destroys it. Ceci n'est pas un griffonnage. (The blogger behind Couturier Mommy has commented on my criticism. I've pasted her polite remarks in the comments area below this post.)

"Picasso, Braque, Mondrian, Miro, Kandinsky, Brancusi, even Klee, Matisse and Cézanne derive their chief inspiration from the medium they work in. The excitement of their art seems to lie most of all in its pure preoccupation with the invention and arrangement of spaces, surfaces, shapes, colors, etc. . . . "

— Clement Greenberg

If you must have realism, there are still lots of artists working in the realistic vein, although few artists are slaves to realism today. As Fiona told me, and I am sure Hans Hofmann would have agreed, strawberries may be red in the field but they can be purple in a painting.

Grampa Bill hams it up for Fiona.

For realism, why not get an inexpensive digital camera. Satisfy your craving for realism by making your own art. I'm sure there's lots of stuff to be found in the world to excite your artistic sense.

And don't be too frightened to let a child use your point and shoot. Teach them to keep the camera strap wrapped around a wrist or arm for a little insurance against dropping, and you'll be amazed at their photography. Fiona, 3, regularly borrows my small camera.

I've encouraged a friend, who loves both realism in art and orchids, to blend his two loves and shoot pictures of his beautiful flowers. Doing this is a great way to learn to appreciate colour, form and perspective on a flat surface. It may even open one's eyes to the wonders of abstract art.

Scavenger hunt sweetens Easter

Fiona has found another paper Easter egg clue.

Andrea is a fine aunt. She knows how to entertain her niece. She pulls out all the stops when it comes to three-year-old Fiona. Sunday Andrea staged an Easter egg scavenger hunt that kept the little girl, forgive me, hopping.

Another egg clue: This one under the fish bowl.

The big problem with the more traditional Easter egg hunts are the eggs: All chocolate, sugar and fat. Watching excited children find the treats is fun but watching them munching through that mountain of chocolate, sugar and fat is a horror show.

Andrea had a solution: A scavenger hunt. All the excitement without all the junk food.

Andrea hid a dozen or so brightly coloured, egg-shaped pieces of paper around the home. She placed one on the fireplace mantle and hid another in the guest bedroom, Fiona's when she sleeps over.

Each paper egg carried a clue as to the location of the next paper egg. One egg had a picture of a barbecue pasted to it. One look and Fiona was off to the patio barbecue. Finding an image of a fish had Fiona inspecting the bowl holding Phoebe her pet Guppy.

Finding the paper egg clues takes time and thinking. The scavenger hunt delivers lots of fun and creates wonderful memories to savour in the future. The Easter basket found at the end of the hunt can be a rich mix of stuff and not overly heavy on the chocolate eggs.

It wasn't a room where I'd have hidden a clue but it worked. Glad the egg is paper.

Life never stops giving

"We seem to have reached the age where life stops giving us things and starts taking them away."

- Jim Broadbent as Dean Charles Stanforth in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

I'm not a fan of almost any film that is connected to Steven Spielsberg. I didn't catch the Raiders series with Indiana Jones when it was in the theatres. Today a couple of the films were on cable and I watched one. When I heard the quote that is the lede for this post, I shook my head.

Life is always giving. It is also always taking but I want to focus on the giving with this post.

I have lost my mother, my father, both sets of grandparents, all my aunts and all my uncles. Yet, I am not alone. And new faces keep arriving on the scene.

Eloise loves visiting her grandparents and all her grandparents love seeing her.

My two granddaughters with another on the way are, for me, life's way of saying the giving never stops, nor do the smiles stop coming.

;-)

The art of kids is inspirational: Grab a crayon

Sunshine after a rainfall: water colour on heavy paper by Fiona, abstract artist.

I like her work. I think she's a fair artist. But, I don't know how long she can continue cranking out work of this high calibre. She is, after all, only 3-years-old. She may outgrow her love of the abstract.

Floating: water colour on heavy paper by Fiona, abstract artist

The California hard edge painter Karl Benjamin was an elementary school teacher before he was a famous artist. Required to teach one period of art each week, he told his class to take crayon to paper and "Fill up the space with pretty colours . . ."

Inspired by the work done by the young kids, within a couple of years he was deep into his own experiments with paint and colour. Despite his art world success, Benjamin continued to teach elementary school for 30 years before becoming an art professor in the '80s.

I think I know how Benjamin felt. The work of young kids really is inspirational. Go on, grab some paint or settle for simple crayons: Crayola makes 'em in an absolutely amazing array of colours.

Flower on fridge: A work featuring mixed technique.

Blackfriars Bridge: Hasn't it earned its retirement?

When I moved to London in the '70s, Blackfriars Bridge had a 5 tonnes rating.

Read about London oldest bridge and decide whether or not you agree: Retire the aging structure. Remove it from its present location. Restore it to its original beauty. And re-purpose it as a pedestrian and cyclist only bridge.

Click the link to read the complete story on London Daily Photo.

Globe & Mail apology over Kaetlyn Osmond photo is unacceptable

Globe and Mail front page. Offended?

As a former staff photographer at a daily paper in Ontario, I am not surprised at the kerfuffle over The Globe and Mail front page photo.

The reaction of some readers was to be expected but what is surprising is the oh-so-wimpy collapse of The Globe. They made no attempt what-so-ever to defend their choice of front page picture.

Sylvia Stead, The Globes' public editor, wrote: "The readers and I both thought the photo could be embarrassing to anyone . . . " That's just creepy.

When 17-year-old figure skater Kaetlyn Osmond initially saw the photo large on The Globe front page she tweeted "I really like that picture : p."

Reading this, some reported that the teen tweeted that she liked the shot but others were confused by the emoticon; The "p" represents her tongue hanging out suggesting sarcasm. (Think "Blaaa!")

A few hours later Osmond clarified her take on the image and its play. She tweeted:

O.K. It is now clear. Kaetlyn Osmond may be only 17 but she is an adult. Sadly, the public editor at The Globe and Mail is not.

As a former newspaper photographer, I learned to watch for images that would inflame certain readers but it was impossible to catch all. And I never ceased to be amazed at what some people found offensive. One of the more common approaches taken by these all-too-common attacks was posted as a comment after The Globe apology.

An offended reader wrote: "I just think the use of the picture was calculated and they thought they wud (sic) sell more papers with a picture like that instead of well written and researched stories. That's what bothers me."

I literally cannot tell you how many times I got letters expressing just that sentiment. The first time I got a letter accusing me of picking a picture to "sell more papers", I thought the writer was just a nut. Over the years, and after many letters, I realized a large segment of the population saw all newspapers in the same sad, warped way.

Once, I shot a picture of two girls lying on a large, round, concrete structure catching some late spring sun. They were still in school, this was clear from their uniforms, and they were trying to get a bit of an early start at a suntan. They had their shirt sleeves up and skirts pulled up just above their knees. Their arms and legs touched the arc of the circular concrete form.

I found a vantage point that allowed me to shoot almost straight down. The composition reminded me of the famous Vitruvian Man drawing by Leonardo da Vinci.

I loved the picture of the two girls. It ran on one of the section fronts. Clearly the page editor liked it too. It brought praise from many folk who recognized my inspiration in my image.

It also brought me a very long and nasty letter from a local psychologist, angered by the publication of a picture rich with sexual imagery. The inclusion of the school uniforms clinched the matter in the mind of the good doctor.

I made sure that letter never appeared in the paper. That psychologist took a simple, lovely moment, a celebration of the approach of summer, and made the moment dirty. I kept that letter out of the paper; I did not want to sully the pleasure those kids were enjoying from being featured in the paper.

I wonder if Sylvia Stead is embarrassed. I confess I felt her public reaction to an innocent photo could be embarrassing to anyone . . . "

Flu vaccine myths

The flu vaccine does not always impart immunity to the flu. According to a recent New York Times article the vaccine fails to protect about 44 percent of the people given the shot.

But, I knew this. It is one of the arguments put forth by the anti-flu-vaccine folk. On the surface it looks like one mark against the vaccine and one reason not to bother getting it. The NYT article points out the weakness of this argument.

When more people are immunized, fewer get sick and the chances of keeping everyone else healthy improve, a phenomenon called "herd immunity."

If you'd like to read the entire NYT article, here is a link to: Myths about the flu vaccine.

I have a failing heart. I have an ICD implanted in my chest with an additional pacemaker function. I would never fail to get my annual flu shot. Never!

A majority of North Americans fail to get a flu shot. They have a variety of reasons for failing to act but all their excuses have one thing in common: They are myths.

Here are six of the more common myths about the flu debunked.

1. You can catch the flu from the vaccine: No. This doesn't happen.
   
   
2. Healthy people don't need to be vaccinated: No. Everyone benefits. Think herd immunity.
   
   
3. The flu is just a bad cold: No. Tens of thousands of people die and hundreds of thousands are hospitalized every year suffering from the flu.
   
   
4. You can't spread the flu if you're feeling well: Yes, you can. Up to 30 percent of infected people exhibit no symptoms.
   
   
5. You don't need to get a flu shot every year: Yes, you do. The virus responsible for the flu changes from year to year.
   
   
6. If you have a high fever with the flu that lasts more than a day or two, antibiotics may be necessary: The operative word here is "may". Antibiotics don't work against viral infections but an opportunistic bacterial infection occurring as a complication of the flu, may well mean antibiotics are in order.
   

Separating fact from fiction is getting harder and harder, thanks in part to the Internet. If you disagree with any or all of the above, here are some links supporting my post. Please get a flu shot; If not for yourself, for the benefit of your friends and family.

• 10 flu myths: Harvard Health Publications
• Flu Myths and Legends: Mayo Clinic Dispels Common Flu Misconceptions
• 6 Flu Vaccine Myths: My Health News Daily
• Fight the flu: Public Health Agency of Canada
• Flu Myths and Legends: Science Daily

London Free Press suggests new pope learn from Mennonites

As a former Sunday school teacher I read the headline in The London Free Press with interest: Does the choice of a pope really matter to those who follow Christ? What made this opinion piece of increased interest to me was the author: Larry Cornies.

Larry Cornies is a gracious gentleman. An intelligent, well-respected news reporter, editor and university professor. Cornies is also a Mennonite.

As I read Cornies' piece, I felt I was reading a take on Roman Catholicism as viewed from a Mennonite perspective. Near the end of the article, Cornies quotes words found on a Mennonite Central Committee poster without even once openly referring to the Mennonite connection.

"A Modest Proposal for Peace: Let the Christians of the world agree that they will not kill each other."

Cornies tells his readers: "Somewhere in the bowels of one of the historic peace churches a few decades ago, two church administrators penned what they called a modest proposal for peace."

Cornies suggests the noble sentiment expressed on the poster would make a good jumping off point for the new Roman Catholic pope. "It would be a noble and bold place for a new pontiff to begin — and to eventually extend that mission to other world faiths as well."

What Cornies is of course suggesting, using opaque words and phrases, is that the new pope should embrace Mennonite thinking, support conscientious objectors and consider alternatives to military service.

Dare I go so far as to say Cornies is recommending the new pope become a peace witness?

How many London Free Press readers know that "Historic Peace Churches" refers to three specific church groups: Mennonites, Quakers and Church of the Brethren, according to the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online.

Cornies' writing is brilliant. The inspiration for this piece is only opaque to those who "are unfamiliar with theological terms" or "most people", as the writer points out when he quotes British theologian Stuart Murray.

The writing may be brilliant but it left me uneasy. Shouldn't a professional writer clearly reveal the underlying foundation of his/her position? Cornies does not once directly mention the important role played by the Mennonite Church in his thinking.

Yet, Cornies' wishful thinking may not be all that farfetched.

In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI commended the Mennonites for their long standing witness to peace on receiving the first Mennonite World Conference delegation ever to go to Rome. Benedict said: "Despite centuries of division . . . we hold many convictions in common. We both emphasize that our work for peace is rooted in Jesus Christ . . . "

Viral Video Illustrates U.S. Wealth Inequality

I caught this video on Mashable. It caught the interest of that site's editors because the video is showing signs of going viral. As I write this, this video has been viewed on YouTube almost 50,000 times.

The video is actually a little long and a little wordy. I'm surprised it may go viral. But what really surprised me were the comments the video is drawing. If you graph what most of us, like more than 90 percent of us, see as a truly equitable and expected distribution of wealth, you would find that even the majority of wealthy folk fall below the line.

Yet, there are comments saying stuff like:

" . . . Abundance exists. Study wealthy people. . . . They proceeded to become wealthy by working hard, and intelligently . . . There are people who dream big, work smart, work persistently, and make their dreams come true, and there are people who refuse to do these things, or who are ignorant of how wealth is acquired."

I'm in my mid 60s. I can recall when a rich family was marked by their lavish home; They had a garage: A home for their car!

I have a friend, an engineer, who worked in Detroit in the car industry. I can assure you, he did more positive stuff for the car companies than those millionaire execs who guided the companies into bankruptcy. Today he has retired on a pittance and those worse than useless execs are living in comfort, their hard financial landings cushioned by golden parachutes.

Could VistA solve the eHealth problems in Ontario?

Recently I posted a piece answering the question, "Will boomers bankrupt the medical system?" In that post I fell prey to many of the same demons that haunt those in the main stream media. A reader called me on my position and brought me down with a few politely delivered, well reasoned comments. (That blog has become another example of my need, and the need of all writers, for a good editor. I thank anonymous for his/her comments. Anonymous took on the role of editor.)

My position was that seniors will not bankrupt the system. It will be expensive new technologies and drugs teamed with higher wages for health professionals (physicians in particular) that will drive increasing costs.

Anonymous argued, and quite accurately, "Guess who is using the majority of new expensive drugs... yes you guessed it, seniors." And, seniors are living longer thanks to their expensive medical care. Anonymous told me that health care costs in the last year of life are huge. More seniors means more costs, "simple math really," wrote anonymous.

Now, stepping sideways out of this brouhaha of my own making, I'd like to take a quick look at our eHeath debacle here in Ontario, Canada — possibly an example of the thinking that is running up costs independent of the boomer driven health demands.  

Screen grab of of one take on a VistA electronic health record.

While touring the American Northwest, I met a retired software developer who told me about VistA (Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture) used by the VA in the States.

He called VistA an excellent electronic health record system, and because it was paid for by the American taxpayer, VistA is written in open source code. This means that VistA offers the tantalizing promise of being adaptable to use not only throughout the States but the throughout the world and for very little cost.

When I got home, I googled VistA and confirmed that the chap was right. Although not everyone agrees VistA is the answer to all electronic healthcare record problems, it is being discussed worldwide as one possible solution.

Today, The New York Times ran an article A Digital Shift on Health Data Swells Profits in an Industry. I commented on the article asking, "Whatever happened to the idea of using VistA?" I got a number of replies plus 22 readers giving me the thumbs-up.

Here are the first comments:

The VA program is the best, most intuitive, easiest EMR to use, however, it was supposedly built on an ancient platform and so difficult to adopt. I have used Cerner (crap), Eclipsys (more crap), and the GE one (too awful to remember) and now a college program Pyramed 5. They all have issues. I miss the VA software and want to return to work there -- that's how good it is!
  — bucketomeat - Castleton-on-Hudson, NY

This was my first thought too. I've used the version of this system (CPRS) in research I've done in the VHA, and it is really well designed and already paid for to boot. . . .
  — Alice Olson - Bronxville, NY

What ever happened to the idea of using VistA?

In the US we believe that the government should do NOTHING that, left to the private sector, might turn a profit and a huge salary for some corporation and its CEO.
   — john strass - Delray Beach, FL\

This would be an excellent solution. I'm surprised that a consortium of hospitals has not gone on board with this. . . ?
  — athens area - pennslyvania

Let's give some of the other comments a quick look:

• The scandal is the VA apparently has a very good EMR (hopefully someone from the VA can chime in with their experience) that was available as open source free software. [This got 109 recommendations.]
• A doctor, Jan B. Newman, wrote the VA system is time tested, physician friendly and free . . . [compared to the other systems that] are set up to maximize profits for the IT companies, cost the physicians huge amounts to install, cost the hospitals huge amounts . . . [This got 53 recommendations.]
• The ironic thing is that the government has already paid to create the VA EMR system, allowing all VA providers 24/7 access to patient records as patients travel around the US. . . . [34 recommendations.]
• The government has a great EMR (the VA system). All commercial ones should be forced to be able to export data in a way that is 100% compatible with that. As such, they would then be 100% compatible with each other. [33 recommendations.]

There were more comments but you get the idea. The retired software fellow I met in the American Northwest has a lot of company when it comes to seeing VistA as a relatively inexpensive and very efficient answer to the electronic healthcare boondoggle.

Are there any hospitals, other than VA facilities, using VistA? I learned from an article in Forbes the answer is "yes". It seems the CEO of Oroville Hospital in California needed to digitalize the hospital's patient records. He turned to VistA, which Forbes calls "one of the oldest and most reliable electronic health records, in use at 163 VA hospitals as well as hospitals around the world."

Canadian Press (CP) reported in January that PC Leader Tim Hudak claimed eHealth spent $2 billion “with nothing to show for it." Hudak is championing open source software as the answer to Ontario's EHR mess. The news service quotes Hudak as saying Ontario must stop "reinventing the wheel." Has Hudak heard of VistA?

I fired off an e-mail to eHealth Ontario asking, "Why has eHealth Ontario not considered VistA or (WorldVistA) EHR software with its open source code and solid history going back decades in the U.S.? Thank you."

So far I've heard nothing back.

Chris Hadfield: photographer not amateur shutterbug

I know reporters do not mean to be insulting when they refer to photographs taken from space as "snapshots" or to the astronaut taking the images as an "amateur shutterbug." But, they are mildly insulting, insulting to the profession — the profession of journalism.

I can understand wordsmiths not wanting to repeat the same word over and over. But ink slingers let their fears get the better of them when these scribes cannot use the right word even on the first occurrence in a story. Typing the word photographer seems impossible for these keyboard jockeys.

Astronauts like Chris Hadfield are brilliant, talented individuals — experts in an amazingly wide range of fields. Take photography, astronauts are trained photographers. NASA ensures they are not only competent in the craft but in the art. There are two words scribblers should not use to describe expert shooters like Chris Hadfield, they are "amateur shutterbug."

Maybe, just maybe, if newshounds were kept on shorter leashes by newsroom editors they would not wander so far afield sniffing out stinky synonyms.

Check out the following from Chris Hadfield's space station portfolio. Snapshots or carefully composed art?

Taffy-twisted African rock reminds Hadfield of a dolphin, and Alfred Hitchcock.

Delicate cappuccino frosting decorations are, in fact, endless hummocks of Saharan sand.

Arid fingers of sand-blasted rock are barely holding on against the hot Saharan wind.

Weightless liquids behave oddly: air bubble and pepper oil jockey for position in ball of water.

Invisible cursor in Google search field using FireFox

This morning the cursor and selection box disappeared while I was doing Google searches. My web browser is FireFox.

I wish I could detail exactly all that this bug entailed but I fixed the problem and until it returns I'm unable to say more.

How did I bring the cursor back to visibility? I went to View, left clicked the mouse to bring up a short menu and finally clicked on Full Screen F11. All returned to normal. Simply hitting F11 might be a short cut.

[Simply tapping F11 at the top of the keyboard is an immediate solution. The cursor disappeared again and I got a chance to test the short cut. One tap of the F11 key, the full screen appears and the cursor is immediately visible.]

I understand that pointing at the Firefox icon, found in the top left corner of the monitor, clicking the mouse to activate the drop down menu and then selecting Maximize will also make both the cursor and the selection box visible again in the Google search field.

Hope this helps all who encounter this odd problem.

Pradaxa (dabigatran) degrades on removal from original packaging; do not place in a pill organizer.

Formerly Pradax in Canada, the name is now Pradaxa in both Canada and the U.S.

Note: The following is an UPDATE to a blog originally posted in early 2013. The views are of a patient taking Pradaxa and are NOT the views of a medical expert.
________________________________________________________________________

If you take Pradaxa (dabigatran) rather than coumadin, you must be aware of the following taken from the Pharmacist's Letter of October 2016:

Pradaxa must be protected from moisture.
All capsules must be used within four months of opening the original container.
Pradaxa must be dispensed in the original container. The bottle has a desiccant in lid.

Now, you know the core concerns. Please, read on.
_________________________________________________________________________

I started taking Pradaxa, originally called Pradax in Canada and Pradaxa in the States, more than four years ago. So, I am not addressing a new problem. And yet, this serious problem is still with us. Contrary to an FDA warning, some pharmacists are continuing to dispense Pradaxa capsules repackaged in standard pharmacy vials.

Why is this a problem? According to Boehringer Ingelheim, Canada, "Pradaxa is very sensitive to moisture in the air." For this reason, the drugmaker recommends keeping Pradaxa in its original foil blister pack or in its original special bottle with a drying agent in the lid. The company warns, "Do not put the capsules in pill boxes or pill organizers . . . " The FDA also adds a warning about storing the drug in areas which are subject to temperature extemes, either hot or cold.

Pradaxa is an anticoagulant replacement for Coumadin (warfarin). Both drugs are taken by those in danger of suffering a stroke. Compared to aspiring, Pradaxa poses less danger of causing serious intracranial bleeding. After an MRI, I was diagnosed with micro-bleeding in the brain. I also suffer from TIAs or small strokes. Small strokes can lead to large strokes if an anticoagulant is not taken regularly. I take Pradaxa twice a day.

Without my anti-clotting medication I have a six percent chance of suffering a serious stroke in any given year. That's six strokes in a hundred at risk patients. One of the six will die and the other five will suffer strokes causing differing degrees of debilitation. Strokes are the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S.

If you take Pradaxa, check your prescription bottle. My last one was a palm-and-turn plastic bottle with a lid riddled with holes. Pradaxa is only good for four months after its original bottle with the special desiccant-containing lid has been opened.

How long my three month supply of Pradaxa, dispensed in a bottle with holes in the lid, retained its potency is anyone's guess. There is no question the last capsules would be markedly degraded. That much is certain.

Atrial fibrillation (AF) affects a great many people and according to the Mayo Clinic is increasingly common in seniors. AF is a type of irregular, often rapid, heartbeat that can lead to the formation of blood clots in the heart. These clots can migrate to the brain where they cause a cerebral infarction, a cerebrovascular incident — a stroke in simple terms.

My heart is in constant atrial flutter, similar to, but not quite the same as, atrial fibrillation. My daily low-dose Aspirin is not strong enough to protect me from the increased threat of stroke. My doctors discussed my situation and settled on Pradaxa 110mg as the best option. Pradaxa also comes in two other strengths: 75mg and 150 mg.

Black marker dates Pradaxa still in foil.

Transferring Pradaxa to a pill organizer is a common mistake. Lots of people do it. There is an "Important" instruction on the side of the box but it is at the bottom of a list and in the same type style as the other notes. For a truly important instruction, it does not jump off the package as one might expect it would.

I confess, when I first started taking Pradaxa I missed the warning. I'm an old geezer. My making a mistake is not surprising. It is to be expected. But clearly my pharmacist has also missed the warning. How common is the mistake? Like so many today, pharmacists are overworked. The staffing at my drugstore has been cut and this, I believe, can lead to errors.

I have now had Pradaxa dispensed in both the original bottle and the blister packs. I prefer the blister pack. I'm old. My memory is not good. Unable to continue using a weekly organizer for my Pradaxa, I take a Sharpie permanent marker and write the day and time of day, AM or PM, that each pill must be taken on the blister pack itself.

I believe this is very important. Pradaxa has an extremely short half-life. The concentration in your body drops drastically in just 24 hours. For this reason taking a dose quite late, or completely forgetting a capsule, increases the risk of stroke.

I find it strange that if grapefruit should not be consumed while taking a drug my pharmacist has a sticker for this. The sticker is slapped on the pill bottle at the time the prescription is filled. Pradaxa needs a similar day-glow sticker to warn folk not to expose the capsules to air, to keep the medication in its original container until it is taken.

If a druggist dispenses Pradaxa in anything other than the original packaging, one pharmacist told me the capsules should be immediately returned to the drugstore to be safely discarded. The pharmacist should replace those capsules with new as it is difficult to know how much humidity such capsules have encountered. Were they kept in a bathroom with a steamy shower, or stored in a kitchen near pots of boiling water? The druggist told me not to take a chance. Return the capsules.

One last thing about Pradaxa. There is now a reversal agent available. In an emergency situation where there is a need to reverse Pradaxa’s blood-thinning effect, Praxbind (idarucizumab) is now available. I personally know how important this can be. I had to have emergency bowel surgery a little more than 12 hours after taking my last dose of Pradaxa.

For more info on Pradaxa, check out the Pradaxa website or follow this link to a story in The Globe and Mail: Questions raised about new class of blood thinners.

Read the Globe story and you will realize that Pradaxa has had mixed reviews, especially in the media. A word to the wise, don't rely too heavily on media reports when it comes to medicine. Yes, Pradaxa is a dangerous new drug, but then weakening the blood's ability to clot is clearly a dangerous practice. Warfarin, formerly the drug of choice, is also a dangerous drug.

As I said earlier, I was once on warfarin. I had to have my blood regularly tested to be certain I was getting the maximum benefit from the drug. Warfarin, in some people, can be notoriously difficult to regulate.

It must be noted that the maker of Pradaxa has claimed no regular blood testing was required with the new anticoagulant. MedPage Today and others are reporting that monitoring drug plasma levels could improve the safety of Pradaxa. I have had my blood tested twice and so far Pradaxa is working as promised.

According to the Mayo Clinic, warfarin reduces the risk of stroke by about 64 percent. Unfortunately, ". . . only 50% of patients with atrial fibrillation who would benefit from warfarin therapy receive it, and the discontinuation rates are high. At 1 year, more than 25% of patients stop warfarin . . . " For these reasons, drugs like Pradaxa are very attractive.

My doctors believed Pradaxa to be better at stroke prevention than warfarin and with a lessened chance of major bleeding. Some time ago, I had an MRI that revealed micro-bleeding in my brain. Not enough is known about micro-bleeding for my doctors to feel confident putting me on warfarin. The rate of intracranial bleeding with Pradaxa has been shown to be less than that of warfarin. To lessen my risk of suffering a major bleeding event in my brain, and after consulting with the neurology department, my doctors decided the best alternative for me was Pradaxa110 mg taken twice daily. I continue to take an aspirin daily, the 81mg kind.

There's a lot of which to be aware when taking a drug like Pradaxa. Read the warnings that come with all your meds carefully. Check out the Pradaxa info online. Click on the links that I have supplied. If your doctor advises a drug like Pradaxa don't be too quick to dismiss the suggestion. Doctors go with the best odds. I liked one comment made on another site discussing Pradaxa: "You can transfuse blood, but you can't transfuse brain".

Lastly, here are a couple of websites you might find interesting. The first is a website run by the Harvard Medical School. The article is titled: Is the alternative to warfarin safe and effective? The second is a site dedicated to AF: StopAfib.

Good luck with your meds.

And if you are interested in knowing more about my emergency operation, done before the release of the reversal agent Praxbind, here is a link: 16 hours in the ER; 16 hours well spent.

Film: Humbug.

Digital has eliminated neither art nor craft from photography.

The New York Times has published another in a seemingly unending parade of eulogies to the passing of film: Picturing the End of Analog.

I don't miss film. If I had to use just one word to describe film, I'd say expensive. It was expensive to buy, expensive to use, expensive to process and expensive to store.

And, if you will allow me the luxury of adding just one more word to my description, I'd say difficult. It could be difficult to find when needed, difficult to process and difficult to store.

Close-up, wide angle, telephoto: One digital camera.

One reads all sorts of stories about the artsy qualities of film. Some of the stories are true. But some of the art was the result, not of craft, but of ignorance.

I knew a rather famous photojournalist who was well known for his contrasty colour images. He captured the grittiness of the news, the harshness of those moments with a style unmatched by other shooters. All his pictures weren't rendered with bald, stark highlights, that would have made his approach simply a style gimmick.

Then I met the great man. Working outside the country on assignment for the local paper, I had to have some colour film processed by this famous photojournalist artist. He processed the film by hand, dunking it in stainless steel tanks immersed in a water bath to stabilize the temperature of the processing chemicals.

When the film was dry, I picked an image and stuck the negative into a portable Leaf scanner to transmit three colour separations back to the newspaper. The image I saw on the little Leaf monitor was awful; It was contrasty; The highlights were bald.

See it, shoot it. The power of small, ever-present, digital cameras.

I removed the film from the scanner and examined it under a strong light. The colour film was suffering from silver retention. There was a black and white negative hiding in the colour negative.

At that time, colour film went into a bleach bath before going into the fixing bath. The bleach bath converted metallic silver in the film back into the silver halide it had been before being dipped in the developing tank. Thanks to the bleach bath, the fix bath removed all the silver from the film. Fix only removes silver halide; It does not easily remove metallic silver.

I had learned the reason for the contrasty images this photojournalist was known for. He didn't understand the chemistry involved in processing colour negative film. Most of the time he dumped his bleach before it lost it potency. He used his chemical bath for a set length of time, regularly replacing it with fresh chemistry. But sometimes, if he processed more film than usual, his bleach grew weak and failed to convert all the metallic silver created during development back into silver halide.

At those times he produced art. Film: Humbug.

Digital encourages experimentation. No film, no expense. Just fun.

Will boomers bankrupt the medical system?

This post was knocked off far too quickly and the well-thought out comments appeared to punch holes in my position. I admit, I was far too quick out of the gate. I made the mistake that newspapers make daily. I am now in the process of taking another look at rising health care costs and the part played by the rapidly growing senior segment of the population.

In the meantime, here is an article worth a read despite being a little stale dated: What is driving health care costs? And here is anothe: The Costly Paradox of Health-Care Technology.

The problem appears complex -- this should come as no surprise -- and the media's immediate scapegoat, seniors, may be wrong. For an example of a well written but quite possibly wrong-headed take on seniors and their affect on the healthcare system, read this piece by Larry Cornies which ran in The London Free Press: Boomers duty-bound to reduce health-care footprint. Compare the Cornies article with this one from The Economist with a section titled: Money and mortality: the implications of aging on healthcare costs.
_____________________________________________

According to The London Free Press reporting on a talk by David Foot, the demand for health care in Ontario will ramp up sharply when baby boomers hit their senior years. Foot believes, "We have about a decade to get health care right before it hits the fan."

Many would agree with Foot that there is a growing problem, but many would argue that the health care issue is not driven by the increasing costs associated with health care for the elderly. The Globe and Mail, a competitor to The Free Press in their home market, carried a story with quite a different slant. Globe writer Andre Picard wrote:

"This alarmist view of our aging society is challenged in a thoughtful new report from the Institute for Research on Public Policy.

"Instead of falling prey to ageist fear-mongering, Neena Chappell, the Canada research chair in social gerontology and a professor in the Centre on Aging of the University of Victoria, takes a level-headed look at the data and offers up practical solutions for meeting the health needs of the baby boom generation."

The Globe piece goes on to argue a position that I have seen in print many times. I wondered why The Free Press reporter didn't question Prof. Foot on this point. The Globe accurately reported the following:

"There have been, of late, a number of studies debunking the notion that seniors are principally to blame for spiraling health costs. In fact, it is new technologies, new drugs and higher wages for health professionals (physicians in particular) that are pushing up costs."

 To read the two stories, here are the links:

• Baby boomers blamed for sluggish economic outlook in Ontario
• We need a health plan for boomers now

This is an issue that is very important to me. I am a senior and a baby boomer. I watched as my maternal grandparents aged and finally slipped away. Both lived into their 90s and neither was a big drain on the health care system. They lived in their own home until their mid 80s and then they moved in with my mother and me for their remaining years.

When my mother found herself on her own after the death of my grandparents, she moved in with my sister. After more than a decade living in Oakville, she packed her bags and moved in with me in London. When I got married my mother was part of the package. She lived with me and my new family until she died at 89.

Families taking care of loved ones in their final years are more common than you might think. The government should encourage families and support them in their efforts to take care of aging parents and grandparents.

In one area both The Globe and The Free Press reports agree: We, as a society, need a plan as we prepare for the dramatic growth in the number of seniors. What we don't need are scare stories.