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Sunday, July 14, 2013

Attractions need attention

Storybook Gardens is an adventure park for young children. My granddaughter loves the place.

Springbank Park has been a place for Londoners to relax on a hot summer day for more than a century. Storybook Gardens has only been around about half as long but both have undergone lots of changes in their lifetimes.

Storybook was originally named for the storybook characters decorating the park. It also had a small, and inadequate by today's standards, zoo. Today all that remains of the zoo are mainly a few farm animals.

Slides are simple but great fun.
Attendance at Storybook has not kept up with the growth of London. Many feel storybook characters and a few goats, donkeys and the like are not much of a draw. They may be right, but if my granddaughter is any indication they may also be wrong. She loves Storybook Gardens.

The city takes a lot of flak for Storybook Gardens. All the criticisms may be not be completely on the mark. There may be more right with the park than many would like to admit. But there is admittedly a lot wrong with park; Stuff that only money and imagination can fix.

This is where it gets interesting. The city planning department is in the middle of the development of the master plan for London and one big piece of the planning picture is a new and improved downtown. A show piece of the new, vibrant core to be is a giant pool with a man-made beach at The Forks of the Thames.

The new water park is patterned after a pool built in Brisbane, Australia, as part of that city's riverfront redevelopment. The city planning department has gone so far as to illustrate their plan with a picture of the Australian pool, a multi-million dollar creation with some very high maintenance costs.

Reportedly the new city urban plan is being put together with a lot of input from city residents. This is a new approach and has been given a new name: ReThink London. Personally, I think ReThink needs a rethink.

Young children love the old carousel in Springbank Park despite its condition.

The city cannot maintain the popular carousel found in Springbank Park at the entrance to Storybook Gardens. How is the city going to maintain a new hugh, expensive pool with a sandy beach that requires the addition of tonnes of new sand every year.

Mirrors are broken or missing, light bulbs are out or gone, many of the merry-go-round horses are in need of a fresh coat of paint and some simple repairs -- many are missing their leather reins. Compared to a giant pool like the one in Brisbane, a carousel should be an easy thing to maintain. If the city cannot keep a merry-go-round presentable, how is the city going to maintain the new pool and beach at The Forks of the Thames?

The reins are missing.
Carousels are relatively safe rides for young children but maintenance is still important. Today I accompanied my granddaughter and her father to the park. While John and Fiona enjoyed the ride, a little girl not far from them got a big surprise: The leather rein she was gripping tightly broke free from her painted steed.

Little Fiona is only three but she knows to check the painted ponies before being lifted into the saddle. Many of the horses are missing their reins, and now I know that some of the remaining reins are not to be trusted. Sad.

I looked at the carousel. Decorative mirrors are missing or broken. As I write this I wonder about the wisdom of not replacing broken glass on a ride for children. Could a chunk of glass come free, fall and strike a child below? And many of the decorative light bulbs on the merry-go-round are missing, leaving open light sockets. Is this even legal?

Note the broken mirror and the missing light bulbs.
Over the past few years the city has spent quite a bit of money upgrading Storybook Gardens and moving it away from its storybook roots. From what I've seen in my visits, the new direction is taking the park in the right direction.

Still, maintenance is an issue. Today, it was very hot and at least one cold drink machine was out of order, a pole that should discharge a gentle, cooling mist refused to work and after buying drinks at a concession we found they were out of straws for my three-year-old granddaughter.

The staff at the park are excellent. I have lots of good stories concerning the young people operating the rides and concessions. The young people care about the little thinks that are oh-so-important to folks visiting the parks. It is too bad that the city doesn't seem to be as wise as their young staff.

Before London unveils a new recreational jewel at The Forks of the Thames, maybe they should be polishing the two jewels that are Springbank Park and Storybook Gardens.


Fiona holds still as she has her face painted by an artist at Storybook Gardens.

Thursday, July 11, 2013

A lamp hot enough to melt polymer banknotes?

Resting on top of my bedside reading lamp, a polymer banknote was unaffected.

A London woman told The London Free Press that she placed an envelope, containing a number of hundred dollars bills, beneath a common table lamp. On returning a few hours later, she discovered the heat from the lamp had shriveled her polymer currency.

The paper missed the story. The shriveled bills are not the story; The bills are the evidence — evidence of a seriously defective and incredibly dangerous table lamp.

What company makes such a monster and how many watts is the light bulb? Is an old incandescent bulb screwed into the brute? This lamp is clearly a fire hazard as polymer bills reportedly require about 140-degrees Centigrade (284-degree Fahrenheit) to suffer heat damage. Don't believe me? Read what the Bank of Canada says about what they call the urban myth concerning melting notes.

Even if the Canadian government is overstating the temperature at which damage occurs, one can suffer a serious burn touching a hot surface at 90-degrees Centigrade for as short a time as half a second.

These bills surely reached a temperature higher than 90-degrees Centigrade to suffer so much damage. This lamp clearly poses a real danger to this woman and her family. In fact, The Bank of England has proven that even a temperature of 100-degrees Centigrade fails to cause any damage even after subjecting notes to this high temperature for a full hour.

This is not the first story about Canada's melting currency. A year ago newspapers across Canada carried a story based partially on anecdotal tales repeated by Brittney Halldorson, a teller at the Interior Savings Credit Union in Kelowna, B.C., claiming the polymer bills were melting and melding together.

When I was a photographer with The London Free Press, I hated stories like this one. I would have wanted to take an oven thermometre with me to take a reading of the temperature below the lamp. (Surely the lady did not sit the bills right on the hot, light bulb. A hundred watt light bulb can reach a temperature in the range of 475 degrees Fahrenheit on the surface of the glass. If you don't believe me, check the book Kirk's Fire Investigation.)

Sadly, stories like this almost write themselves. The reporter could write the lede before even meeting the lady with the crinkled, shrunken currency. The LFP reporter wrote: "This isn’t money burning a hole in your pocket — it’s money simply burning up." I'm sure the angle of the story was set before the reporter, Kate Dubinski, even left the office. I doubt Kate inspected the lamp in question.

Despite the problems the London woman has had with polymer banknotes and an unbelievably hot table lamp, the new Canadian notes should last about four times as long in circulation as the traditional paper bills being removed from daily use. The new $5s and $10s will be released later this year.

The four times figure is based on Australia's experience with plastic bills. In New Zealand, the lifetime factor increase ranged from 4.5 to 7.3 depending on the denomination. The Bank of Canada’s assumption of a 2.5 factor is conservative.

Of course, all bets are off if you leave your plastic money under Super Lamp, a lamp so hot it's the stuff of urban legends.

__________________________________________________________
Two British Standards address hazards of hot, touchable surfaces. The British Standard EN 563 (1994), Safety of machinery – Temperatures of Touchable Surfaces – Ergonomics Data to Establish Temperature Limit Values for Hot Surfaces states that the burn threshold for contacting glass for a time of 0.5 seconds is between 183.2º F and 194º F (84º C to 90º C).

Snopes calls tales of melting Canadian money an urban legend. Their reporter agrees with the Bank of Canada.

For Search Engines: file under Melting Polymer Banknote M

Sunday, July 7, 2013

A post with limited appeal

Eloise, almost two, likes my carved elephant - a gift to me from her aunt Ashley.

I have a few followers who come here looking for pictures of my two grandchildren. These folk are mainly relatives who don't have a Facebook account. Today, for them, I am posting two pictures: One of Fiona and the other of Eloise.

Fiona, 3, performs impromptu dance celebrating her graduation from French pre-school.

For those who are interested, both pictures were taken with a Canon S90. This camera, when used at wide angle, has an f/2.0 lens. This means the glass directs lots of light into the camera making the use of flash arbitrary. I hate on-camera flash and try to never use it. This camera is a godsend for shooters like me.

I believe today's upgraded version of my camera is the Canon S110. I have found my camera to quite durable and assume the new model is equally as rugged. The model before the present one, the S100, is also a good camera with some advantages over the new model, and if one can find the older model one can save a little money and still have a fine camera.

Saturday, July 6, 2013

A meaningless ReThink London survey



Claiming to be an attempt at clarifying what exactly is important to Londoners, the ReThink team created the survey shown above. The resulting five statements are fine examples of how not to conduct a survey.

How many folk would say that they don't want to protect the stuff they cherish? Cherish: hold dear, care for, nurture. What a loaded word.

Or who would want planners to design incompete neighbourhoods or unhealthy neighbourhoods?

My guess is that everyone who participates in the survey becomes one of the 10,000 Londoners said to be deeply involved with the ReThink London process.

Friday, July 5, 2013

Many neighbourhoods have character, not just Wortley Village

Shaded suburban street in south west London. Note garages are to the side.

I'm disappointed in ReThink London. Planning a city is a big task and it is a task best done with big plans. But the plans cannot be divisive but must involve everyone in the community, including local politicians. If the members of city council are not on board, the plans are just so many empty promises.

On a corner lot, Byron home's garage is on the side, out of sight.
I find the ReThink process involves small thinking on a grand scale. I call the thinking small because it seems contained, boxed in, trapped in a maze of clichéd urban planning approaches.

This is not to say that small thinking is wrong. It's not. The ideas are just expected: line some core streets with trees, protect the Wortley Village heritage neighbourhood, adhere to placemaking, smart growth and compact development practices.

If the ideas are good why am I so aggravated? Why? Because all too often the ideas seem to spring from text books and not from an intimate knowledge of London. The ideas do not come from the heart. The ideas have no soul.

What I have found surprising is that the city planners do not seem to be familiar with their own city. When urban planning LFP reporter Randy Richmond interviewed planning director John Fleming, and an urban design expert who was a member of the London placemaking team, Richmond was told, "We have to tame the garage."

Hawthorne Village, Milton: Does London have to copy this?
Ah yes, tame the garage. No need to say snout-nosed neighbourhood. We all know what is being talked about, and we all know the new urbanist solutions, such placing all garages at the back of the lot, hiding them in laneways at the rear of the homes.

Richmond reports that planners say it's easy to turn lots on their sides, as in Hawthorne Village in Milton, making them wide and shallow to allow garages to be built beside homes rather than in front.

Why go to Milton to sample this approach? Just go to Byron, only fifteen minutes from downtown London. This late twentieth century Eadie and Wilcox subdivision has wide lots, narrow streets and in many cases no sidewalks. Most garages are off to the side of the homes and not jutting out in front. The aging Byron subdivision tamed the garage decades ago.

According to city planners, mandatory sidewalks are so yesterday. "Shared space" is the phrase of the day. Cars and pedestrians share the space and this makes those on foot more alert and encourages motorists to reduce speed.

In many ways this Byron neighbourhood is the wave of the future but built yesterday. Again, a tip o' the hat to Eadie and Wilcox.

This rather impressive London suburb garners little interest from city planners, while Wortley Village and Old South rate a discussion paper examining how to best protect these heritage neighbourhoods.

Is this home less significant than my '20s Petersville home?
I'm all in favour of protecting the character of the Old South or the Woodfield Community east of the core but I question why we stop at protecting a few, select heritage neighbourhoods. Decades before a heritage community became a heritage community it was just a collection of new homes, a subdivision outside the city centre.

I used to live in the former Petersville on the west side of the North Branch of the Thames River. I found my 1920s era  home on Wilson Avenue listed by the city as a residence with architectural significance. A small, barn-shaped home, it is an example of a working class home from the days before the Great Depression.

Sadly the stucco has been covered with vinyl siding, the front porch enclosed and the small front yard covered with paving stones. Also, the porch has been notched to allow parking on the front lawn. The notch allows the front of the parked car to slip under the porch. Faux shutters now border the upstairs windows. There is talk of protecting Petersville but that protection will come too late for my former home.

This Byron home has the look my Petersville home once had.
As part of ReThink London I suggest rethinking how we protect neighbourhoods. What's good for Old South is also good for the Woodfield Community or for Byron or Westmount or for the whole city.

I believe the city should have a department that assists homeowners in the upkeep of their homes. These maintenance and reno experts would be able, thanks to computer software, to quickly show homeowners how to best retain the original visual look of their homes. They could point homeowners in the right direction for finding companies capable of doing the required work.

Since moving to Byron I've watch a number of homes undergoing improvements that were anything but improving. If, in 70 years, someone wants to preserve the Eadie and Wilcox Byron subdivision, it may not be possible. With the passing decades the original neighbourhood will be renovated out of existence.

Since suburbs seem to encourage driving rather than walking maybe we should be applying some of the Old South thinking to Byron and other subdivisions.

Note the artist's conception, on the left, showing the finished look.

When a local developer built a new apartment building on a major corner in Wortley Village, stores were located at street level and two levels of luxury apartments were constructed above. This is an old approach, mixing commercial and residential, and very much in tune with the heritage of the Old South neighbourhood.

More and more, box store retailers are being forced to endure having apartments located above in the name of compact development. Why is this not being done in London? At one ReThink event we were told it's being done in Vancouver with great success.

If London is going to grow in a more compact manner, neither Old South nor Byron can be the model. Yet both neighbourhoods deserve respect. Many Londoners see the value of Old South thanks to the patina of age.

If the Eadie and Wilcox development in Byron manages to move into the future intact, it too may gain the heritage patina that comes with time. Maybe then planners will realize that these wide lots complete with large flower gardens and fleshed out with trees and bushes have created an almost park like setting for the residents.

It is a wonderful place to walk and lots of people do. The sidewalks are often filled with folk walking their dogs or simply out for a stroll. Thanks to the pedestrian walkways linking various crescents and courts distances are often shorter on foot than by car.

I have taken this wide path to stroll from my home to the grocery store.
When walking to the grocery store or the bank, I often take a wide path that ends at Colonel Talbot Road. Unfortunately the last 100 yards is just a crude  path. One might say, when it comes to walkability the city planners talk the talk but fail to walk the walk.

Duplex in Hawthorne Village in Milton, Ontario.
Some years back when Randy Richmond wrote a piece entitled: A Tale of Two Suburbs - Placemaking, he wrote the piece with the help of city planner John Fleming. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, the city planner spoke very highly of Hawthorne Village in Milton, Ontario.

Check out the duplex, on the left, found in Hawthorne Village. There are streets lined with these homes.

Now check out the duplex, below, built by Eadie and Wilcox in Byron fully twenty years before the Milton development. In many ways London developers have been very imaginative.

Show London developers a better way of doing things, an approach that others have found profitable, and with the right planning guidance in place the city might become a better place, maybe even a world class mid-sized city.

A duplex in the Byron subdivision in London.
For background on this post, read the Randy Richmond story published some years ago in The London Free Press. (If the link has not been broken. I've noticed that this happens occasionally.)

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Posed photos make one ask, "What is photojournalism?"

File photo? An image by stock shooter Olga Lyubkin and sold by fotolia.

Sometimes you see an image and you just know it isn't journalism. I confess, in the old days posed shots in newspapers were all too common. I can recall when I first became a shooter for a newspaper that the head of the department was a weekend wedding photographer and he let his wedding shooter aesthetic poison his eye for photojournalism.

This was the early '70s and a then teenage reader, the late Paula McLarty of Sault Ste. Marie, made me aware of the pitfalls of managing the images shot for the newspaper. She was very perceptive, many readers are, and she could spot the real from the faux and she could not understand why we bothered. News photographers should bring the world into our homes, not deliver trite, managed advertising images to our doorstep.

I became a member of the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), I attended Flying Short Courses and for more than a decade I ran a photojournalism seminar held annually at Western University in London, Ontario. The London Free Press, then owned by Walter Blackburn, generously supported the local seminar. The paper even sent a dozen or so copy editors to the Saturday portion of the event. Photography was important.

I'd like to say we never faked an image. Now and then, we did. But as a rule we used local people who actually were involved with the story. We just managed the moments, we posed the subjects to create "better" images on the page. Paula would have been quite rightly appalled.

By the time I retired I posed very, very few pictures when illustrating an action. I had learned that reality had its own beauty, its own aesthetic and must be respected.

Sadly, the lessons taught at the locally held seminars have now been forgotten. Images that are far more plastic than anything I ever produced are becoming the norm thanks to the insensitivity of media owners Sun Media / Quebecor.

Almost 60 years have passed and the late Paula McLarty's views on what constitutes photojournalism and deserves to be in a daily paper are still relevant.

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Forks of the Thames surrounded by flood plain

Yellow indicates extent of flooding expected once every 200 years.
When I moved to London back in '76, I lived in the former Petersville situated immediately across the Thames River from the downtown. I loved my 1920s home. I loved the location — near the river. But come the spring of '77, the river rose to within an inch of the top of the West London Dike and the city piled sand-bags on top of the storm sewer grates on my street. I learned from my neighbours that in the past my neighbourhood had been flooded a number of times. After this, I distrusted my home's location — near the river.

Now, I live in Byron on a sloping rise of land known as the Ingersoll Moraine. My home overlooks the western end of the city. I no longer worry about flooding. I like the location — high above the river.

According to the city planning department, the place to accent in London is the land at the Forks of the Thames. I can see that but I can also see exercising caution, showing restraint. As Londoners well know, when one thinks of the forks of the Thames one should also think of flooding.

Look at the satellite view. Note the large neighbourhood on the west bank of the river above the forks. It is built on flood plain. Residents died when serious flooding inundated this area in the past. After the flood of '37 there was talk of London buying all the housing affected, moving the residents out and tearing down the homes. The argument was that this would be cheaper than building all the flood control dams and dikes required for proper protection.

In the end, the municipal and provincial governments went with the dams and dikes. But even with all the protections in place, in 1977 the area came within one rainfall of suffering the fabled one-in-two-hundred-years flood.

Before Londoners can get behind any plans for the forks, the planning department has to assure Londoners that any proposal does not involve building on flood plain. And you don't even have to think Calgary or Winnipeg to understand the threat. Just think London: 1883, 1937, 1947, 1977, 1986, 2000 and April 2008 and again in December of 2008.

Weather patterns are changing. When it comes to buildings and rivers, I personally like to err on the dry side.

Monday, June 24, 2013

She's in her Polka Dot Period.

Polka Dot No. 2


Just a quick post today.

I noticed a new wrinkle to my granddaughter's art. She has taken to putting multiple dots of paint in her work. Curious, I inquired about the dots.

"Not dots, Guga," she told me. "Polka dots."

What I find curious about her work with "polka dots" is that each picture is different. She is not only experimenting with dots but with ways of using dots in a work of art. When it comes to painting, the kid is more sophisticated in some ways at the age of three than I was in my late teens entering art school.


Polka Dot No. 3

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Only an illustration but proves concept works. Really?

Same photo illustrates plans for old Vic Hospital site and Forks of the Thames.


The City of London planning department is creating the city's new 25 year plan and encouraging public participation under the catchy label of ReThink London. The last figure I read said the enterprise is costing at least $300,000 and has attracted the interest of more than 10,000 city residents. It is not a lot of money for a city the size of London. Still one has to wonder what exactly Londoners are getting for their ReThink money.

The recently released report entitled DowntownLDN/Our Move Forward is a case in point. According to The London Free Press, director of planning John Fleming has said a "concrete beach" is in the cards for The Forks of the Thames. To give Londoners an idea what the concrete beach might look like the planning department included an illustration — an illustration showing Streets Beach in the South Bank development in Brisbane, Australia.

The Australian development features one of the largest man-made lagoons in the world complete with a large man-made beach. It took some 4000 cubic meters of sand to create the beach and requires another 70 tonnes of sand annually. Despite Fleming's description reported in the local paper, the beach is not concrete.

When I tweeted my criticism — "Photo NOT proposed Thames beach. It's AU. Mega buck project. Costly upkeep." — I received a quick reply from Citizen Corps saying, "That's correct. stated that it was a photo from AU and proof that this concept can/does work."

Following this line of thought, how well is the concept working out for Brisbane. Actually very well but there is the little matter of the 2011 flood. It caused more than $7 million in damages, necessitating repairs to both the pool liner and the beach.

I once owned a small sailboat. Using the John Fleming, Citizen Corps supported, approach here's a photo showing what my boat was like.

Admittedly it is not actually a photo of  my boat but it does show that the concept of a privately owned sailboat can and does work.


Addendum: Not only does the picture from South Beach in Brisbane work for giving Londoners an idea what The Forks of The Thames will look like in the future. If you can believe The London Free Press, the same picture was used to illustrate the plans for the old Victoria Hospital site upriver from the forks.

Wow! Surely the city planners are not proposing two big pools complete with large, man-made beaches, and so close together. But hey, if one pool works in Brisbane, two will work in London. The planning department is confident the concept can and does work. They've got a picture.

If by chance you don't like either use of the picture from Australia, the city planners will not to be caught off balance. They have another illustration. This time the photo is from Portland, Oregon, and shows the well known Jamison Square interactive fountain. This photo is also proof that a concept can and does work.

Saturday, June 15, 2013

ReThink London: pretty words and hollow promises

London planner: Dir. John Fleming
In my opinion, and in the opinion of others with whom I have talked at ReThink London events, the ReThink London project is falling flat. It is a lot of talk using pretty sounding phrases but that may be about all.

Planning a city is a big job and not one to be done by committee and consensus. What London needs is vision, imagination and knowledgeable leadership. The city planner should be rallying Londoners around his or her brilliant ideas and not asking, no pleading, for ideas from the electorate. This does not mean the city planners should have closed minds but rather they should have firm ideas of their own through which to filter the suggestions from the public.

For instance, ReThink London talks a great deal about wanting to create a compact city, to stop sprawl. And this is what Londoners want, we are told. But take a drive down Wonderland Road South, the new gateway to the city, and look at the long row of box stores popping up.

And what surrounds these stores? Acres and acres of asphalt. This is just unimaginative, bad planning. The planning in London is poor and fine words and pretty phrases won't change that fact for those who open their eyes and look.

Alternative to London box store developments.
Now, check out this picture taken in a chain-store mall development in Ohio. Note the apartments above the stores. Note the wide sidewalks. This is a shopping district that looks very much like commercial areas of North American cities of the past.

This commercial area in Ohio isn't perfect but I am sure our city planners are familiar with it. Take the idea from Ohio, it is also being tried in other communities, and improve upon what the Yanks have done.

I look at the Wonderland Rd. S. box stores and at the outdoor mall going up at the corner of Col. Talbot and Southdale Rd. W. and I am disgusted and disappointed. What I am seeing is NOT what was being promised for these areas a couple of decades ago.

At that time there was talk of new urbanism, of walkable communities and of compact development. The London Free Press had a weekend feature detailing what was planned. Doesn't that all sound oh-so-familiar?

ReThink London invited the fired director of planning for Vancouver, B.C., Brent Toderian to speak at one of the ReThink events. Toderian told the audience how box stores like Home Depot were being encouraged by the west coast city's planning department to build apartments above their urban outlets.

Winners, HomeSense and The Home Depot in Vancouver. Note apartments.
Now that is compact urban thinking.

I'm going to send a link to this blog to ReThink London. I've done this in the past and I have never received more than a computer generated thank you and we'll get back to you soon message. ReThink London is opening doors to communication with the community. Bunkum!

Sunday, June 2, 2013

Romania: An unappreciated tourist destination?

Constantsa Casino, Romania: Photography Blog of Watcher Romano

This is a work in progress. This is not a finished post.
_______________________________________________

I had plans. When I retired I was going to travel: Uzbekistan, Western China, Romania . . . I had a long list. I'm now 65 and my old list isn't getting any shorter. My passport has been shelved, permanently if my wife, supported by some close relatives, have their say. I've been told to drop all thoughts of international travel and I can blame my heart, my ICD. We'll see. I'm keeping my options open.

So, where would I like to go first? At the moment, Romania gets the nod. Bill, my daughter's father-in-law, shakes his head: "No." "What would you do if you suffered a heart event while in Romania," he asked.

"Good question," I reply. And then I recall the words of a travel agent specializing in travel to places once which were once hidden from western eyes behind the now-fallen iron curtain: "We are talking sophisticated Europe here. We are not talking about Kansas." With that attitude in mind, I began my research into Romania, its cities and its towns.

Ljubljana, Slovenia          Creative Commons: Mihael Grmek
I've never been to Romania but I have been to Slovenia, occupying the norther part of the former Yugoslavia. It was an eye-opener. Even my wife, a timid traveller, liked Slovenia. It's a beautiful country filled with friendly people.

The capital of Slovenia, Ljubljana, has a population only 75 percent the size of that of London, Ontario, my hometown, but in many ways the Slovene capital is a much nicer city. I quickly learned the travel agent was right: Ljubljana is sophisticated Europe. Traveling in Kansas, in some respects, is more difficult.

Remember the worry about finding medical help in Romania. It may not be a concern. Romania joined the European Union (EU) in 2007, a move that recognized the great strides made by Romania in distancing the country from the dark days of dictator Ceausescu's rule.

Today Romania is a popular medical tourism destination. Health care is skewed towards the wealthy, according to The World Bank, but clearly quality medical treatment is available. Having an EKG taken should not be a problem.

It seems if I do decide to travel to Romania, I must land at the Bucharest airport.  Bucharest, also known as Little Paris, earned its nickname before the First World War. Although it still clings to its heritage name, many of the heritage buildings that earned it the moniker have now been demolished.

Of course, the passing decades thinned the ranks of heritage buildings but Second World War bombing runs left vast tracts of the heritage urban landscape in ruins. Lastly, according to Wikipedia, Ceausescu demolished much of the Old Town in the core of Bucharest to construct his grandiose presidential palace, one of the world's largest buildings: 19 Orthodox Christian churches, six Jewish synagogues, three Protestant churches (plus eight relocated churches), and 30,000 residences  were all destroyed in a massive state-sanctioned act of vandalism.

For some pictures of Old Town today, check out the 54 pictures posted at last count on the Trip Advisor Internet site. It appears cars are either banned or their use severely curtailed in this heritage district. Google Street Views has covered most of the city but was unable to post anything from Old Town.

If I make it to Bucharest soon, I'll be sure to pick up the in your pocket essential city guide for Bucharest. Here is a link to the section of the guide on Bucharest taxis.

 The in your pocket guides try and reveal a city warts and all, as they say. This makes them good guides for visitors.

This contrasts to the approach of travel guides like travel that way which present a glossed-over image. Click the following link and you'll see what I mean: Bucharest-Winter Fairyland. I should add that I wander about cities and towns wearing rose coloured glasses. I'm sure I'd see the snow blanketed Bucharest as beautiful as pictured. Hey, those photos have made me consider a winter visit.

One thing I've found is that if I say Romania, the listener says poverty. When I get a chance to add more to this post, I'll address the out-of-date idea that Romania is dirt poor. I'll also look at orphanages and how far Romania has left the dark days of the Ceausescu dictatorship and put the orphanage debacle behind it.

This post is a work in progress but as I have posted link to the main picture, the author of the image may want to see how I have used his photo. For that reason, I am posting this post in installments and I will complete this post in the coming days.

Here are some links to travel in Romania to keep you happy for the time being:
Visiting Bucharest
Best of Romania
Spas in Romania


Cheers!





Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Myth making and the news: Crack babies

Drug stories are good stories — prize winners, in fact. In the news business, stories on drug abuse are high grade news ore ready for mining. Although I worked for a newspaper, my background was not in journalism. Unlike the journalists with whom I worked I saw these stories as a mother lode of fool's gold.

Back in my art school days I had known far too many talented people who both took drugs and had exceedingly successful lives. These folk, living drug-fueled lives, were actually far more successful than the media folk peddling the drug abuse scare stories. This is not to say that abusing drugs is smart. Abusing drugs is stupid. Just as abusing alcohol is stupid. The watch word here is "abusing."

When a story is popular, when it's frequently found in both newspapers and television news reports, it is difficult to convince fork that the story is first rate bunkum: Myth making at its finest.

It often takes the passage of time to add clarity. Case in point: The crack baby scare. The New York Times, as part of its Retro Report series, has posted a video examining the now debunked crack baby scare. The NYT is not alone. Heck, exposing the myth has become a new "in" story.

But, let's make one thing clear: Erroneous news stories cause harm. As FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting) points out,

"The saddest part: Early on, researchers recognized that the social stigma attached to being identified as a 'crack baby' could far outweigh any biological impact." In some documented cases, children with easily corrected health problems unrelated to drug abuse were left to suffer, written off as "crack babies."

When I origially posted this story, I was verbally attacked by reporters with whom I once worked. I was the one spreading myths, I was told. Crack babies exist, I was told. Well, read the following. It is from a story in the New York Times in late December 2018. Who is spreading myths?

News organizations shoulder much of the blame for the moral panic that cast mothers with crack addictions as irretrievably depraved and the worst enemies of their children. The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, Newsweek and others further demonized black women “addicts” by wrongly reporting that they were giving birth to a generation of neurologically damaged children who were less than fully human and who would bankrupt the schools and social service agencies once they came of age.

Friday, May 17, 2013

A little art from a little artist with a little help

Fiona: May 2013 by Fiona

I have a deep appreciation for the art of little children. I think it is really cool. And I think some little kids have a grasp of modern art that escapes their elders, and sadly, as they grow older, will slide from their grasp as well.

My granddaughter is driven to draw, to sketch, to doodle. She put the above ink sketch in the back of a book in which I record my automobile expenses. She asked first and I said O.K. I don't want to give the impression she just started filling my book with doodles.

I really liked what I saw. I love the sharp jagged lines in the middle of the work, contrasting with the arcing curves above and below the line dividing the work neatly in two. The little black lines in the bottom half of the work are almost hatchet lines suggesting a lightly toned to the space.

I thought her work called out for colour. Fiona agreed. She picked the colours and we both worked together colouring some of the captured space.

Fiona was proud that she was, for the most part, keeping inside the lines. I thought, that's good but it portends the end of your abstract period. You, little girl, are about to discover reality.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Cool is the key

The headline in The London Free Press read "Cool is the key." The headline writer may have been right. Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, wrote in the Financial Times:

Economists may not say it this way but the truth of the matter is: being cool counts. When people can find inspiration in a community that also offers great parks, safe streets and extensive mass transit, they vote with their feet.

Yet, when I read the NY mayor's list I feel something is missing — something that is assumed to be present: Jobs. With an unemployment rate pushing ten percent, London has more to worry about than park improvement. As long as Londoners insist on tackling the unemployment problem as if it is a unique, local problem and not a problem that is becoming endemic in much of the former manufacturing core of North America, the employment problem may prove intractable.

London planners like to say London is well placed. It is right on one of the busiest highways in North Amercia: 401. It is also linked to the States via 402 to Port Huron. London is surrounded with some of the best farmland in the country.

Still, London appears to be located just outside the positive Toronto sphere of influence. Kitchener-Waterloo seems to grab a little of the Toronto energy but the remaining energy dissipates before reaching London. There is no question that Windsor is out of the Toronto loop and as a result Windsor actually lost population in one recent annual survey. The loss of urban population is a problem many American Midwestern cities are contending with.

London is half way between Toronto and Windsor. This position could be a positive if played correctly, but played poorly London could become more like Windsor to the west and less like Kitchener-Waterloo to the east.

Set-up photo captures real mayor.
There's a reason that London has the highest unemployment numbers among all of Canada's big cities and part of that reason is its location. Another part of the reason may be London's mayor, Joe Fontana, and to the city council.

Fontana has always been a showman. Years ago, at the urging of the local paper, he put on red boxing gloves to pose illegally on some railroad tracks. Joe and the photographer trespassed in order to get the photo. Today, that photo of Fontana posing as something he isn't while breaking the law may be the best photo every taken of the man.

London's industrial sector has taken all the classic hits lately. On paper, London sounds like a classic Midwest city suffering from a serious decline in its manufacturing sector. Jobes are being lost to:

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

When the EMD plant in London closed after some six decades in the city to be reshored back to the States, Fontana fell back on bluster. It was all showmanship, no leadership. That plant was moving toward closure almost from the moment it was sold to Greenbriar Equity Group LLC and Berkshire Partners LLC by the failing General Motors. The closing of the plant came as no surprise to those following such things. Fontana was not among them.

Fontana's shout-out to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, ordering the PM to "get his ass down" to London, was juvenile. Maybe what London needs right now is not more urban planning but more intelligence, more creativity, from the mayor and city council. Heck, I'd settle for a little more maturity and clear thinking.

When it comes to the all important ingredient, clearly neither the mayor nor the city council exhibit much cool.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

An ICD storm and a positive spin to slowly dying in Canada

When I was in California in the summer of 2010, I had a V-tach event. The heart reaches a frighteningly high, but very inefficient, heart rate. I needed medical help within ten minutes to prevent permanent brain damage or death from occurring.

Taken to emerg, the medical staff took my pulse, they got a reading of 300 beats per minute. They immediately placed defibrillator paddles on my chest and hit me with 200 joules of electricity. The jolt put my heart back in normal sinus rhythm.

In emerg in Marin County General in CA.
From the emerg in a hospital in Sonoma, California, I was taken by ambulance to Marin County General. I was kept overnight and given a number of fancy tests. Although no cause was found for my V-tach event, the cost of treatment reached almost $30 thousand U.S.

The battle to save my life was easy compared to the fight to have my insurance company cover the cost of my treatment. It was the better part of a year before the travel insurance provider provided the coverage for which they had been paid.

Yesterday I had another V-tach event at about seven in the evening. My ICD, implantable cardioverter-defibrillator, hit me with an electrical jolt that caused me to tumble from the bed to the floor. Wow! When I regained my composure, it was off to emerg for an EKG.

No heart damage was evident on the graph and the flutter which had plagued my heart for the past few months was gone. I'd had a successful do-it-at-home cardioversion. In no immediate danger, I was sent home with instructions to contact the hospital's cardiac unit as early as possible the next morning.

At midnight I had another V-tach event. I was not knocked out of bed but the jolt left me unnerved. I had a hard time getting back to sleep. Two events in just under five hours. Not good. Just one more jolt and I would be in the midst of a full-blown ICD storm.

At seven thirty the bedroom phone rang. It was the hospital. They wanted me to come in for eight thirty. At the hospital they downloaded the memory records from my ICD. It confirmed my two V-tach events and added a turbo event at three thirty in the morning. In the so-called turbo event, the ICD gained control of my heart without resorting to a full-blown electrical jolt. Once in control, the ICD paced the heart down.

Three events in about eight hours, this was getting serious. I was in the midst of an ICD storm, defined as 3 or more ICD jolts in 24 hours or less.

The doctor and nurse, working together, reprogrammed my ICD and the doctor upped my daily dose of sotalol by fifty percent. Sotalol is the drug I take to keep my runaway heart in check. Clearly it wasn't working at the former dosage.

I am now back home, my heart is again beating at its usual, sluggishly slow, mid 50s bpm and my blood pressure is also down. I seem to be out of danger for the time being. I see a cardiac specialist on the 23rd of this month to discuss my meds and next month I touch base with the ICD department of the London Health Sciences Centre.

I must rest today and tomorrow. I can't do anything strenuous. I have been left with one big question: How much would all this health care cost in the States?

In early 2003, I had robotic surgery to correct a failed mitral heart valve. The DaVinci medical robot used to perform this medical miracle is not cheap. I have a very small scar despite having had open heart surgery. The government health care system has a very big scar from where it must have bled big bucks paying for my excellent state-of-the-art care.

In mid 2010 the search for the cause of my V-tach event in California commenced. The American doctors failed to find a cause but then they had less then thirty hours to search. It took the Canadian doctors months to track down the cause. Eventually it required a high-tech, oh-so-expensive, experimental 7T MRI to suggest the cause and it took genetic testing to pinpoint it. My heart is breaking down because of a relatively rare genetic condition. The disintegration of my heart muscle is disrupting the heart's electrical system.

My ICD is similar to this one.
In early 2011 an ICD was implanted in my chest and a wire screwed into my heart muscle. I understand the ICD, a Medtronic Protecta XT VR, is among the best on the market. It didn't come cheap. The hospital doesn't say what they paid for this baby but I have seen figures indicating it might have set the government back about $26,500.

Since having the implant, I must go to the hospital ICD department every six months. They download the ICD memory and modify my treatment as seems reasonable.

My drugs are expensive. Luckily for me, unluckily for the government, I'm a senior. I pay only $4.11 for my prescriptions, but there is a once a year $100 deductible. The drug benefit is a perk of being old in Ontario. To keep costs down the government has certain restrictions and sometimes one is forced to take a cheaper alternative to what may have been the doctor's drug of choice. I say the government is paying the bill, at least most of it, I'm not going to bad mouth them for trying to get the most bang, or should I say the most drug, for the buck.

One reads a lot of bad stuff about the government health plan in Canada and Ontario. There are problems, no argument. Still, if I lived in the States would I still be alive? Would I have had the ICD implanted or would my insurance have been canceled after the incident in California? If all my recent health expenses had fallen on my shoulders, I could never have afforded the necessary treatment.

In the States, I would have been out of money after the first 24-hours of treatment. Those first doctors in California would have picked my financial bones clean.

Sometimes it is wonderful to be living, and slowing dying, in Canada.

Friday, May 10, 2013

Hey, ReThink London: This is no way to treat our spaceship

Is this sprawl? If it is, are North London and South London also sprawl?

It was 1963 when Buckminster Fuller's Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth hit the bookstores. Fifty years later an updated section on the design of the ships's accommodation is desperately needed. For years the ship's crew have been extending the living quarters into the food production areas. This simply cannot continue. Spaceships have limits and spaceship Earth is no different. Buckminster Fuller wrote:

"Our little Spaceship Earth is only eight thousand miles in diameter, which is almost a negligible dimension in the great vastness of space."

Unfortunately, as Fuller points out, our ship is so well designed that those on board are not even aware they are on board a ship. Their lack of awareness leads to some incredibly foolish conduct. The ship's oxygen generators are being destroyed, the ship's stores of fresh water, called aquifers, are being depleted and the factories that supply the spaceship with food are being demolished to enlarge the living quarters.

Since 1971, in Canada alone, expanding urbanization has built over an area of farmland almost three times the size of Canada's smallest province, Prince Edward Island. About half of Canada's urbanized land was once some of the country's most productive farmland, according to Statistics Canada.

Randy Richmond, in a London Free Press article, refers to London as the "poster child for suburban sprawl." Richmond gives us too much credit. Sprawl is as Canadian as peach pie made with canned peaches from South Africa.

Abandoned orchard. Homes and not fruit soon will grow here.
Actually, it's lucky we can get peaches from South Africa, asparagus from Peru, potatoes from Idaho, and strawberries from California because we're paving over our own farmland and closing our food processing plants.

When it comes to frozen vegetables, some of our Europe's Best brand frozen vegetables come from China. I remember when frozen corn came from fields south of London. Today that London Green Giant plant is closed.

Are there any solutions to sprawl? Yes, but you won't find them in any of the planning suggestions being bandied about by ReThink London. The solutions cloaked in the ReThink mantra are not solutions at all.

The city has put forth three scenarios for future growth in London: The compact scenario, the hybrid scenario and the spread scenario. Only the compact scenario doesn't require more farmland to accommodate the city's population in the near future. City planning director John Fleming calls the compact scenario "extreme."

Extreme is continuing to build on our precious farmland. Extreme is paving over our future food lands. The water table in Peru where they grow our asparagus is dropping. Here is a link: How Peru's wells are being sucked dry. The Washington Post reports, "A 2011 lawsuit against the Whole Foods grocery chain alleges that frozen vegetables sold at its stores are made by prisoners in China and irrigated by a polluted river. . . . "

John Fleming tells us Londoners don't want sprawl. Fleming also warns us that London will need to annex more farmland in the future. He does seem to hold out much hope for the compact scenario that his own planning department put forward.

Fleming insists London needs Smart Growth. What is smart about paving over Canada's best food producing lands? This is no way to treat our spaceship.

Thursday, May 9, 2013

I had another TIA (Transient ischemic attack)

When I have a TIA the vision in my left eye is affected.

If you are here because you have had a serious visual disturbance, if, at anytime, you decide you may have had a TIA, get to emergency. Quit reading and get to the hospital. You must consult a doctor as soon as possible.
____________________________________________________ 

The first time I had a transient ischemic attack (TIA), I watched with a mixture of horror and amazement as the vision in my left eye slowly disappeared. At first, I thought both eyes were affected; I thought I was going blind. But, it was almost immediately obvious that only my left eye was affected.

I closed my right eye and watched a very dark grey curtain with a rather jagged edge slowly rising in my left eye. The curtain was completely opaque. When about 95 percent of my vision was blocked the rising curtain stopped and began to recede.

As the curtain receded, the opaque dark grey turned somewhat translucent in places. The curtain was breaking up. Soon what remained of the tattered curtain had dropped to the bottom of my vision field and disappeared; My vision was restored. The entire episode took a minute -- maybe two. I went to emerg at the local hospital. I felt like no one would believe me when I told them what had happened. I felt like this could be an event fit for an episode of House on TV. It wasn't.

The doctors in emerg diagnosed my problem as a TIA. TIAs can be thought of as mini strokes. They may last a minute or two, sometimes as long as an hour. According to the Mayo Clinic, an extremely long one can last as long as a day but if the disturbance lasts too long, one has most likely suffered a stroke and not a TIA.

The signs and symptoms of both a TIA and a stroke in the early stages are very similar, but a stroke leaves the brain with lasting damage while a TIA doesn't or at least the damage is not immediately evident. Both come on suddenly and hit the victim with dramatic and very frightening affects. The TIA disturbances disappear quickly but one should still go to emerg to be checked out by a doctor.

A TIA is a warning that you are in danger of suffering a serious and debilitating stroke. According to the Mayo Clinic, about 1 in 3 people suffering a transient ischemic attack eventually has a stroke. About half of these strokes occur within a year of the attack. See a doctor!

Some of the signs of a TIA are:

  • Sudden double vision
  • Sudden blindness in one or both eyes
  • Sudden dizziness, loss of balance, loss of coordination
  • Sudden weakness, numbness or paralysis in your face, arm or leg. This often only affects one side of the body.

I have had at least three TIAs. All have been related to a serious heart arrhythmia. Today, my heart is in a constant state of flutter. This increases my chances of suffering a stroke -- a brain crippling stroke. Strokes are blood clots that travel to the brain, blocking off the all-important blood supply to a section of the brain. To prevent this from happening, I take an anticoagulant: Pradax.

It is quite possible that thanks to Pradax my clots break-up quickly, dispersing into my blood stream. The poorly formed clots no sooner block the blood flow in my brain than they begin disintegrating.

Transient ischemic attacks may last less than a minute (like mine) or, according to the Mayo Clinic, as long as a day. Most signs and symptoms disappear within an hour. The signs and symptoms of TIA resemble those found in the early stages of a stroke and may include:
  • Sudden weakness, numbness or paralysis in your face, arm or leg, typically on one side of your body
  • Slurred or garbled speech or difficulty understanding others
  • Sudden blindness in one or both eyes or double vision
  • Dizziness, loss of balance or coordination
After your first attack your condition must be evaluated. This is very important. I had both a CT scan and an MRI performed on my brain. While TIAs themselves are not dangerous, always keep in mind that after an attack one is at increased risk of stroke.

Medline Plus warns:

TIAs are a warning sign that you may have a true stroke in the coming days or months. More than ten percent of people who have a TIA will have a stroke within three months. Half of these strokes happen during the 48 hours after a TIA. The stroke may occur that same day or at a later time.

As I said at the beginning of this post, if you found this because you are seeking information on TIAs, having just suffered a stroke-like event yourself, stop reading and get to a hospital.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

ReThink London: Higher goals get more attention


ReThink London is all about communication, or so they say. As you can see from the image above, I've now communicated and the ReThink computer has replied, very politely I might add. Now I'm waiting for the human contact. Wonder how long I'll have to wait.

Now, to today's post: It is easy to be a critic. I am under no obligation to come up with solutions that can actually be put into place. That said, I do try to find answers with a practical bent. I like to find stuff that is being done, stuff with a proven track record and then reference that stuff. I post links. I do my best to avoid pie-in-the-sky. I try to leave the dreaming mostly to others.

In the '70s I insulated an older home London home. I also had new windows installed that, from a distance, looked like the old '20s windows I replaced. When I was done, these simple and quite obvious upgrades slashed my home heating bills dramatically.

An Eifehaus energy efficient European home
At the time, I watched new houses going up that didn't appear to give a lot of thought to energy use. These homes cleared the bar set by the code and that was it.

If London wants to be known for urban leadership, maybe London could encourage the construction of suburban homes meeting the best of the world's energy efficiency standards. In London, green could be more than just a buzz word.

The passivhaus movement is spreading throughout Europe and has made the leap across the pond. There are passivhaus homes being built, or planned, in a number of communities in Canada.

London's Sifton-built solar heated home fell into disrepair.
There is no point in me rewriting what can already be found online. So, here are some links. The first link is from Great Britain and discusses the passivhaus energy standard. This is a tough standard. It is one even Mike Holmes might respect.

The next question is "What can you tell me about passivhaus homes, or even extreme energy efficient homes, in Canada?" The answer is "Lots." Read the linked article from The Tyee -- Step Inside the Real Home of the Future: Passivhaus.

If London wants to lay claim to the word exceptional, a dream ReThink seems to be chasing, then London has to do more truly exceptional stuff. The present goals being set by the ReThink group don't strike me as too exceptional. Sorry.

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Sprawl: May not be exactly what you think

Reading The London Free Press the other day I came across a story with "Sprawling out" as the headline above the story. It was an article looking at the recent release of the first discussion papers by ReThink London.

I had read the discussion papers and was not impressed. Considering the time spent assembling the information, it was rather poorly presented. So poorly presented, in fact, that report Randy Richmond got some of his figures wrong by a bit more than ten percent. When a professional cannot even decipher the information easily, quickly and accurately, there is a problem.

I found myself thinking about the term "sprawl." I've been to Los Angeles and there is a place that certainly seems to sprawl. Yet, that community is rated the densest urban area in the entire United States.

I don't have time to write a post on this today. My time is spoken for. But here is a link to a University of California article: What Density Doesn't Tell Us About Sprawl, by Eric Eidlin.

Cheers,
Have a good weekend.