A murder, followed by an indignity to the body, featured in the Centennial film Helicopter Canada

Misrepresentation at core of opinion piece.

It’s five a.m. and I can’t sleep. I’m upset, haunted by the horrifying story brought to my attention by my local paper, The London Free Press. 

An “Indian” was murdered, the body desecrated and the local journalist called the nation-shaming incident simply “crude talk.”

Why do I say nation-shaming? Because the incident is a featured vignette in Helicopter Canada, the film released by the National Film Board to celebrate Canada's Centennial.

I watched Helicopter Canada and haven’t been able to get it out of my mind. If you’d like to stop here, go ahead. The following is difficult to write and it will be difficult to read.

At the 40:50 minute mark, while a honky-tonk piano plays in the background, the narrator of the film tells us:

The Canadian West is still pretty well strung out but it's held together by legends. (Here a new voice is heard, that of an aged, Western man, possibly a cowboy or an oil man, relating one of the region-binding tales.)

“And they started to shoot up ‘round the fort, that is, they were shooting all around the fort and raisin’ cane there. And at that time they killed an Indian an’ scalped him. They took seven scalps off the one Indian. Now many people think when you talk about a scalp, it’s the whole thing but it’s not. It’s only about the size of a 25-cent piece with a strand of hair. That’s just about the size of it.”

WHAT THE HELL?!

 

I’m numb. Absolutely numb. And my local newspaper headlines its story on this film with “Lights, camera - misrepresentation!” Misrepresentation? We all wish. And the newspaper story talks about the roundabout, crude terms used in the film. Roundabout? A man was killed. Murdered. The body mutilated, desecrated, scalped. And the entire squalid episode driven by racial bigotry and hatred.

I'd like to say the journalist simply didn't view the film, but he clearly did. He tells his readers “an old-timer explains that a ‘scalp’ taken from a skull was only about the size of a quarter.” It is the local paper that is unable to address the horror in anything but the most roundabout way.

The writer found the film, Helicopter Canada, “now badly dated.” When the Globe and Mail revisited the 50-year-old National Film Board production, that newspaper called the film “cringe worthy.” That's it?

Eugene Boyko, the film's editor/cinematographer, delivered a film that on the surface is pretty light fare: a tongue-in-cheek narrative accompanies often spectacular film footage shot entirely from a helicopter. But this film is clearly not just high-end visual fluff, it is not, and never was, just a light-hearted look at Canada. 

At its core, this film is subversive. One of the hidden messages that slipped past the sponsoring Centennial Commission in 1967 is things are not always what they seem. Here, I could list example after example supporting this contention but let's move on to another clear message: “there are none so blind as those who will not see.”

I am absolutely stunned that so many saw this film on its release and so many more have viewed it over the years but no one, as far as I can tell, has ever gotten passed the honky tonk piano to see, to question, to discuss the horrific way Canada and Canadians treated people of the First Nations.

Eugene Boyko is simply too good a filmmaker to have included this incident simply to entertain us. I believe Boyko is holding a mirror up to Canadians and what they see is not always what they thought they would see. Boyko's film is not ignoble as one opinion writer wrote. It is us, us Canadians, who are ignoble.

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This post could end here but, if it did, it would not be a complete look at the little, aging, documentary film: Helicopter Canada.

Shooting a film entirely from a helicopter is an awesome undertaking, which director-cinematographer Eugene Boyko pulls it off with great skill and style. 

Remember, Boyko worked before most of the technical advances that have made shooting aerials like these easy. He used big, heavy, Panavision equipment to record his inspiring images. Amazing!

Next, the choice of the little vignettes could be seen as simply veering toward the quirky but I see more. Sadly, what opinion column writer Larry Cornies calls “whimsical” is the tone that causes most folk to miss the underlying problems being addressed.

And there are some fine cinematic moments in Helicopter Canada. Moments that slip by journalist-reviewers unnoticed. The little segment featuring the Bluenose is wonderful. The filming and editing is first rate and the music accompanying the episode is provided by The Mountain City Four featuring Kate and Anna McGarrigle. To have included the McGarrigle sisters in a 1967 film was a stroke of genius.

I talked to film buffs about the movie and the criticism claiming it's dated. Of course, it’s dated, I was told. It’s a visual time capsule. It is meant to grow old. It was a look at Canada “warts and all.” It carried the message “we have problems but we can solve them.”

God, I hope so.

Lastly, I could not believe what I was hearing when the honky tonk piano started and the talk of the casual murder and mutilation of a First Nations man began. I contacted the National Film Board and they sent me their transcript of the soundtrack. I believe the transcript has errors but nevertheless it does contain the murder-mutilation story.

I don't hear the name Grayson. I hear "and raisin' cane there."

When will London act on the ReThink promise?

London, ON, endured a time consuming process called ReThink London. It was an urban planning exercise that invited community participation. ReThink was going to put this large, southwest Ontario city on the path to a denser future city.

It was, in my opinion, a lot of smoke with very little fire. Despite the claims of massive community involvement, I believe the participation numbers are quite questionable. But, all that aside, what I find most interesting is that the future envisioned by ReThink is not the future in many places but is reality today.

This is a great improvement on the big-box shopping mall.

Check the posted image on the right and below. Both are screen grabs from Google Streetviews. These images from Georgia are not artist's conceptions. These images show a mixed use development in existence today.

The development, a traditional retail and residential blend, even has a movie theatre in the mix.
  

In compact developments, stores front onto streets rather than parking lots.

Such mixed use developments are springing up throughout the world but not in London. London talks the talk but that's where it stops.

ReThink London promised an end to urban sprawl but unfortunately the ReThink ideas are little more than a gleam in our city planners' eyes.

Lots of parking with a wall separating much of the residential from the commercial.

More than a decade ago, journalist Christine Dirks told readers of The London Free Press about a new urbanist development planned for southwest London. It would be a first for the city. Talbot Village was the name of the new suburban community. Today the development is nearing completion and the only part of the dream that has survived is the name: Talbot Village.

ReThink London? Humbug.

Addendum: And yes, I know the new city plan was not in place when much of Talbot Village was being built. But, mixed use communities are now being built globally by those I would call enlightened. Why? Because mix use creates sensible, profitable developments.

Should you eat eggs? Do you feel lucky?

Where do I stand on eggs? Are they safe to eat or not? The answer is "yes and no." It really is. And that is the difficulty. There is no one-size-fits-all answer to the egg question.

The answer depends on you and your actions depend on how you answer the famous question asked by Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry: "Do I feel lucky?"

You see, eggs are safe to eat if you do not suffer from cardiovascular disease, from a build up of plaque in the arteries which carry blood to your heart, brain and elsewhere. But how does one know if their arteries are clear? Well, until tests show they are plugging up, most of us believe our arteries are clear. Often we believe wrong.

Even though cardiovascular disease afflicts or kills as many as one in two adults in developed countries, we feel lucky. Until, that is, a heart attack or a stroke occurs. Dying from this is not a long shot. This is not a lottery with long odds. It is not even a dice throw. It is more a coin flip.

The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health reports:

A healthy lifestyle pattern may prevent more than 50% of deaths due to ischemic strokes, 80% of sudden cardiac deaths, and 75% of all deaths due to cardiovascular disease. And what exactly is a "healthy lifestyle pattern?"

• Not smoking
• Maintaining a healthy weight
• Staying active
• Choosing a healthy diet

And where do eggs fit in a healthy diet? That depends. Again, from the T.H. Chan school:

People who have difficulty controlling their total and LDL cholesterol may want to be cautious about eating egg yolks and instead choose foods made with egg whites. The same is true for people with diabetes. 

Unfortunately, one year you may test well for cholesterol but move into the danger zone in the future. For many of us, as our age increases so does our cholesterol. I had good readings until I didn't. And I found out that I didn't a little late in the game. I thought I was lucky. I wasn't. I no longer eat eggs, or at least not egg yolks. This is at the urging of my heart and stroke specialist.

If you are young and healthy and at little risk of  cardiovascular disease, you can take solace in the fact that  research has shown eating one egg a day is not associated with increased heart disease risk in healthy individuals. But note those last words: "healthy individuals." Read the fine print.

I believe my heart and stroke doctor would tell you not to flip a coin when it comes to your health. You can never be totally confident that you are "healthy." Don't smoke, maintain a healthy weight, exercise and eat a healthy diet by keeping saturated fat consumption low. And, to further increase your odds of avoiding what is commonly called heart disease, minimize your consumption of eggs.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/03/scientists-fix-errors-controversial-paper-about-saturated-fats

Breitbart/Fox contributor found on Opinion page of The London Free Press

Before getting into this post, I'd like to say that I am a retired newspaper staff photographer. I've had connections to newspapers since I was boy. I love newspapers. And many of the seniors with whom I associate are also newspaper junkies. But, and this is the sad part, The London Free Press as operated by Sun Media, and now by Post Media, has broken some of these people's life-long attachments to a daily paper.

They say the paper is too thin. It doesn't have enough local news. These at-one-time-readers are not interested in what happens in Windsor or in other cities with a Post Media paper. And they feel The London Free Press has veered too far to the right. These seniors miss what isn't there and are often offended by what is.

The opinion piece at the core of this post is an example of what is chasing the folk I know away from the paper. And the sad thing is the folk running the paper don't appear to care. The opinion piece contained phrases that to folks who follow this stuff, and my friends do, say beware of  the hidden right wing agenda.

It is one thing for the local paper to carry a cost-saving right-wing insert. But when the paper itself has its opinion page contaminated with cheap, head-office bumpf, then readers stop reading The London Free Press. All too sad.

Now, on to my post.
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It's tough being a journalist at a small, daily newspaper today. The staff is thin and threatens to get even thinner. The worries concerning job security and even worries about the future of the paper itself are palpable. No one wants to join the ranks of the unemployed. Everyone does their job, no one criticizes and all keep quiet. If I still worked at The London Free Press, even mouthy me might find myself self-muzzling.

With that confession out of the way, I'd like to believe I'd be in Joe Ruscitti's office right now telling him that Peter Morici does not belong on the paper's Opinion page. Ruscitti is the editor in chief at the local paper. Peter Morici is the type of columnist who repels my senior friends.

Recently, the newspaper called for a boycott of L. L. Bean. Why? Because, according to the local journalist behind the call, Morris Dalla Costa, it doesn't support anyone who supports the policies of Donald Trump. I thought a boycott was an action demanding a fair amount of thought and deliberation and not just a quick tweet. He assured me that it was "not a difficult concept." (I say the newspaper called for the boycott because the Twitter username attached to the tweet ended with ...atLFPress. If the paper is going to allow their name to be part of a username, the paper must take some responsibility for the tweet.)

Peter Morici is a vocal supporter of many of Donald Trump's positions. He was identified in the paper as "an economist and business professor at the University of Maryland." All true. But he is also a contributor to Breitbart News and Fox News. This important background  information was not forthcoming.

Should Morici's opinion be in my local paper? Certainly, but not on the local Opinion page. It should be in the Post Media section. And Morici should be clearly identified as also appearing in Breitbart News. Steve Bannon, said to be the strategist behind Trump's travel ban, was the former head of Breitbart News. It should also be mentioned that Morici is a frequent on-air contributor to Fox News. Need I say more?

Now, will Morris Dalla Costa be so bold as to tweet out a call to boycott The London Free Press? I doubt it. And yet, by Dalla Costa's logic, he should be calling out the paper, his employer. As he said, it's "not a difficult concept."

Edward R. Murrow was right. Journalists have thin skins.

I'm a happy guy. I'm retired. Nice home. Fine wife and partner. My health could be better but I am confident I'll celebrate my 70th birthday come summer. I'm doing better than my dad and two of his brothers when it comes to longevity and I figure I can't ask for much more. Plus, I've got three lovely granddaughters. For me, personally, life could not be much better.

Up until 2009, I worked at The London Free Press. At that time there was a layoff/buyout which was leaving a young staff-photographer with a stay-at-home wife caring for two little boys facing the loss of his job.

I decided to take the buyout. I saved his job even though it meant a 25% cut in my company pension along with a big cut to my Canadian Pension Payments. As my wife and I still needed more money to balance our books, my wife also began drawing her CPP and again at a huge discount. I also faced the loss of my drug plan and my dental coverage. But I took the buyout and I never looked back. I have no regrets. It was the right thing to do.

I assist two children in the third world by sending monthly payments plus birthday and Christmas gifts. Speaking of Christmas, this year my wife gave a third world family a selection of farm animals. Also, she paid for the education of a young girl for a year. She did both in my name. Why? She knows that I feel gifts are a waste, at least when given to me. At my age, I have everything I need. So she gives gifts to others in my name. I love that woman. She understands.

That said, I've been surprised at the total lack of understanding shown by many of the professional journalists with whom I once worked. I've learned they have exceedingly thin skins. Do not ask these folk a question. They get their noses painfully out-of-joint.

The other day Morris Dalla Costa posted a tweet on Twitter calling for a boycott of L. L. Bean. I was surprised to see The London Free Press supporting a boycott, especially a boycott that involves not just a distant company in New England but a boycott that also involves a number of chain outlets  here in London, Ontario. I'm sure Mr. Dalla Costa was unaware of the London connection. I cannot see a reporter/columnist at the paper calling for a boycott of businesses advertising in the Free Press.

I asked  Mr. Dalla Costa: "Do you really want us to boycott L. L. Bean? Boycotting L. L. Bean will not punish Trump according to the Bangor Daily News." I included a link to the newspaper article.

But L. L. Bean is not the one supporting right-wing policies. The Trump supporter is a board member, a granddaughter of the founder.

The group Grab Your Wallet decided to boycott L.L. Bean because Linda Bean contributed money to a political action committee (PAC) that supported Trump. It seems odd that GYW, and Mr. Dalla Costa, did not target Linda Bean’s own company Linda Bean’s Perfect Maine. Talk about firing quickly and wildly. If you thought only the Donald abused Twitter in this fashion, now you stand corrected.

The aim of the L. L. Bean boycott is to force the company to remove Linda Bean from its board of directors by financially damaging the company. This is the goal despite the fact that the company under attack does not appear to support Donald Trump and his policies.

As Rebecca Fishbein argues in the gothamist: Linda Bean is very rich and she's not going to be affected by, or learn a lesson from, a boycott. On the other hand, LL Bean's employees are not rich and will suffer if enough people stop shopping there.

Let me finish this post with a couple of paragraphs from the Bangor Daily News:

Before you forgo ever buying another flannel shirt from the retailer, you might first consider that in 2015 L.L. Bean employed more than 5,000 year-round workers, many of them in Maine. During the winter holidays, the employment count reached nearly 10,000. L.L. Bean has manufacturing facilities in Brunswick and Lewiston, where more than 400 employees make their products. Undoubtedly those workers hold views that differ from one company leader and from one another.

More important, L.L. Bean has kept is strong presence in Maine — its distribution facility is also located here — though it would likely be more cost efficient to locate many operations elsewhere.

Contrast L. L. Bean with The London Free Press. Jobs that I would have thought impossible to cut have been eliminated. Why even the press has been silenced and the paper is now printed in Hamilton. I've heard rumours that there are now only eleven reporters at paper which was once one of Canada's finest.

Years ago I thought the paper was heading in the wrong direction. One can ask Paul Berton if I made my unhappiness known. Paul listened politely to my all-too-vocal complaints but he didn't threaten me or try to silence me. Paul was, above all, a gentleman.

I cannot say the same for Mr. Dalla Costa. He tweeted to me "get a life" and then blocked me on Twitter.

Joining a boycott is a serious matter. Such a move demands careful thought.  This boycott is the type of Twitter response I expect from someone like, uh like, Donald Trump.

Add from August 29th, 2018:

Today, Bloomberg and others are reporting that David Pecker, chief executive officer of American Media Inc., has resigned from the board of Postmedia, owner of The London Free Press. American Media publishes the National Enquirer. Pecker and his company were implicated in the scandal involving payments to women who alleged affairs with Donald Trump.

"In 2016, Pecker told the Toronto Star he was asked to join Postmedia’s board by Chatham Asset Management, a New Jersey hedge fund that owns stakes in Postmedia and American Media."

Maybe Dalla Costa, by his standards, was boycotting the wrong company.

Kids Love Crayola Washable Paints and So Do Parents

There's a lot of talk about Hatchables this Christmas. I'm not impressed. One parent told me that it took 20 minutes for the toy to hatch and that was too long for their child. The kid lost interest, left the room and missed seeing the toy begin to hatch. The little tyke cried.

Reminds me of the Furby my oldest granddaughter had. Its voice changed and this frightened her. There was no way to control the damn toy. It had become a toy in need of an exorcist. My granddaughter was terrified. We put the toy in a closet and it has stayed there ever since. It is not forgotten but shunned.

I've found some of the simplest toys are among the best. All my granddaughters love making art. This means washable Crayola paints. They come in a number of formulations and oodles of colours. Shoppers Drug Mart sells these and the Crayola paint brush kit at very reasonable prices

Kaleidoscopes have it a little harder when it comes to holding a kid's interested. But I find if I'm enthused and excited I can get the kids keen on these toys too. I love the kaleidoscope images and the kids love to take pictures of the constantly changing geometric patterns. A kaleidoscope plus a digital camera equals hours of entertainment but those hours will be spread over many weeks.

Hatchables? Humbug.

Individual Angel Food Cakes are Heart Healthy

Mini angle food cake baked in a small ramekin.

I have a bad heart. The problem is a severe arrhythmia and not hardening of the arteries. Still, my doctors have me on a heart healthy diet. One serious heart problem is enough. If the doctors and I can keep my arteries open, we will be somewhat ahead in this game.

Dinner tonight was pasta with fresh, cherry tomatoes, broccoli, hot peppers, sweet green peppers, grilled mushrooms and soft, low-fat, goat cheese. Dinner was healthy.

To follow such a heart healthy dinner,  my wife settled on angel food cake with three kinds of berries: black berries, raspberries and strawberries.

Tip: Keep an eye open for mini angel food cake pans. These hold about 2/3 cup of angel food cake batter. One box of angel food mix will make up to ten mini cakes. The best little pans have the traditional tube in the core. This helps to insure the middle of the cakes are cooked.

That said, the cake pictured was baked in a ramekin and it worked just fine. My wife is a superb cook.
I often hear folk complaining about being forced to eat healthy. They have no imagination. Healthy is fun. Healthy is delicious. Healthy is only way to cook.

The quietness of softly falling snow

I love winter. I like spring, summer and fall as well. Each season has its strong points. But winter are different. It stands proud, beautiful and apart. I'm surprised that such a wonderful time of year attracts so much bad press. Recently, columnist Larry Cornies went on an I-hate-winter rant. The piece was titled: No welcome mat for Old Man Winter.

Cornies has a rather depressing view of winter. It's a slushy-faced, drunken monster casting a dark shadow over all and sundry. He admits he didn't always feel this way but he was not too old when he began turning against one of God's fair seasons.

Cornies ends his rant by reprinting a poem by Thomas Hood, a 19th-­century English poet. I wondered if Cornies associates this poem with winter. If he does, he has attached the wrong poem. The poem is a downer, Larry. Allow me to suggest an more upbeat alternative.

When I was in grade school we memorized a poem with a much different tone. If memory serves me right, the poet was Dame Edith Sitwell who once said: "Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home."

The poem I associate with winter is: "Christmas Snow."

 The night before Christmas
’Twas quiet all around;

’Twas quiet on the hills
And quiet on the ground;

’Twas quiet up above, 

And quiet down below;

And the quiet was the quietness
Of softly falling snow.

Whenever it snows, I recall that poem and smile as I look forward to the unique pleasures of winter.

Real life is filled with surprises

Recently my wife had our granddaughters, Eloise, 5, and Fiona, 7, making chocolate chip cookies. The two kids rallied to the task. They made some of the best tasting chocolate chip cookies I have ever had. The girls did not go light on the chocolate chips and I think that helped.

Now, about the hats. The kids didn't have hair nets and so to keep stray hairs out of the batter the two wore their outdoor winter hats. It worked, I guess. There were no hairs in the cookies.

When I look at this picture, I smile. This is a picture of two young kids making cookies. It is not a posed moment. Today if a newspaper is illustrating a story on kids making cookies, they might run a stock image rather than spend the time and money to shoot their own art. The image would work on the page but it would never show a neat moment like this one.

Stock photos reinforce stereotypical thinking and such thinking should be the antithesis of the thinking of a journalist. Sadly, today this is no longer the case.

Craig Silverman speaking at Western; worth a listen

This coming Monday, Craig Silverman is speaking at Western. He will examine spreading truth in this age of viral misinformation. Silverman, the founding editor of BuzzFeed Canada, has taken a great interest in misinformation and fake news and how the main stream media makes the problem worse.

To decide whether or not to attend this lecture, I googled Silverman's name and found an article by the man himself: How Lies Spread Faster Than Truth: A Study of Viral Content. I was amazed to discover that Silverman lays much of the blame for the spreading of false information on the MSM. A good call, in my book.

Silverman is a bright guy. Most editors I have known are. If I have any criticism of Silverman's work, it is that he does not go far enough. The MSM not only give Internet rumours legs, the MSM are the original source of some of the worst false news. I say worst because a falsehood spread widely by the media can be far more damaging than an erroneous post uploaded to a Blogger site.

When the MSM make a false claim and it gets carried by both papers and television news, the story can quickly take on the patina of Truthiness, to use the Stephen Colbert term. Think UFFI or head lice or even going topless at a Canadian beach.

Medical wait times in Ontario

Some people I know who live in the States tell me my original post was grossly out of date. Thanks to what is being called ObamaCare, the coverage problems being encountered in the States have changed since my last visit to the States.

For instance, the big increase in premiums related to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is big news. According to the Harvard Gazette, some ObamaCare premiums will rise 25 percent in 2017. This sounds scary but it isn't as bad as it sounds. The article reports the premiums going up are for a very specific subset of the insured: only those getting their coverage through the health insurance exchanges. It’s not about the premiums people pay for employer-run plans or for Medicare or Medicaid coverage.

The Gazette points out most people getting health insurance through the exchanges are heavily subsidized, with premium and cost-sharing subsidies. In other words, the cost to the federal government is increasing.

Hmmm. Increasing government health costs. Sounds like a familiar problem. One being faced by governments around the world.

I believe the right approach to solving our health care issues is to keep an open mind. And I am willing to admit that I too am guilty of closed-mind thinking. We must be both creative and willing to learn from others as we tackle the problem of providing health care in a world where the costs are constantly rising.
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The Province of Ontario has a problem and the City of London has the same problem but bigger. The problem? Hospital wait times. The London Free Press has been running an excellent series looking at the lengthy wait times endured by patients waiting for hip replacement surgery.

But as bad as the problem is, and it is bad, I would not be too quick to toss the entire Canadian system and embrace the U.S. model. In 2010 my wife and I crossed the States by car. We stayed in bed and breakfasts and we chatted with a lot of Americans. One lady we met had been waiting more than a year for her joint replacement/repair surgery and she saw no end to the wait time. The boondoggle? Her insurance company.

On that same trip I had a heart event that put me in Marin County General outside San Francisco, California. I was lucky. Marin General is a great hospital serving one of the most affluent areas in the States. Although, I spent less than 48 hours under medical care, I ran up a bill of about $30,000 U.S. And all that money, all the sophisticated tests, didn't find the cause of my heart problem. I was given some pills, metoprolol, and discharged to drive the thousands of miles between me and home in another country on other side of the continent.

Back home, the doctors discovered the cause of my heart problem and an ICD/pacemaker was inserted into my chest. My direct cost in Canada: essentially nothing. My cost for treatment in the States? This too was essentially nothing but it took some eight months, or more, of back and forth with the insurance company and a U.S. based collection agency before all was settled. I had to take some long, difficult phone calls and I had to listen as I heard our retirement security threatened.

If I had been an American, even with insurance, it is possible the source of my heart problem would never have been discovered. I might have fallen through the cracks, as they say. The insurance folk would almost certainly have fought to find a way to drop me from any health plan and with no money there would have been no solution. (Today, with the Affordable Care Act in place, some of this has changed.)

To go full circle, let's return to the problem of wait times and hip replacement surgery. In London, Ontario, the wait time has become indefensible. But as bad as our system is when it comes to this surgery, I wouldn't be too fast to hold the much-faster-on-paper U.S. system up as a gold standard.

Please, follow the link to Free Money for All: A Basic Income Guarantee Solution for the Twenty-First Century by Mark Walker. (If the link fails, google the book and do a search on the word "infinite". You are looking for page 38.)

Walker points out that at the time he wrote his book a sizable percentage of Americans were unable to access the fine U.S. health care system. Being neither rich nor insured, they found themselves unable to pay when it came to elective surgery. They were trapped outside the Amercian health care system to suffer indefinitely. These people were sitting on what I have heard Americans refer to as the infinite wait-list. The wait times endured by these people were not measured in months, the times were not even measured in years. The wait could be infinite.

Has Obama changed the American medical system? Yes, but infinite wait times are still a problem for some Americans and the ranks may grow under a Trump presidency.

 Source of above graph: Commonwealth Fund (Wednesday, November 16, 2016)

Note: The above graph illustrates a complex problem. Use care when interpreting. 

Working on recipe using Bonachia spinach fettuccine

The picture doesn't do tonight's dinner justice. I don't see any walnuts in the picture, and there were lots, and the Bonachia spinach fettuccine can only be seen poking around the tomato and spinach. I'm working on this recipe, fine tuning it you might say, and when I get it right I'll try and take a picture that does it justice.

I'm trying to come up with a relatively inexpensive but very healthy dinner. The Bonachia spinach fettuccine is the most expensive item in the meal. I'm going to try and find some on sale.

The spinach doesn't cost two dollars for two meals. The feta cheese comes from a giant block purchased at Costco. It is mild for a feta made from goat and sheep milk but then it is only Greet style. It comes from Stratford, Ontario. And it when used in small amounts, a few ounces at a time, it is inexpensive. There are not too many tomatoes, nor too many mushrooms, but enough of both to make a tasty, simple sauce.

The next time I'm going to hold some of the feta and some of the pan-roasted walnuts back in order to sprinkle them on the top of each serving. There really are a lot more walnuts and far more feta than it appears in this picture.

The fresh corn was an afterthought. It was only a buck at Remark and may be the last local corn of the year that I buy. It was fresh, sweet and delicious.

Do not tamper with reality.

There was a time when tampering with reality was questionable at papers.

Back when I worked at The London Free Press I was asked to shoot a quick picture of strawberries to illustrate an article on the ripening local crop. I deked out for some berries; they were from California. I told myself that berries are berries. Editor Sue Greer disagreed. Sue rejected my picture. The berries were not from Heeman's, the berry farm mentioned in the story. I drove across town to Heeman's for some berries before reshooting the picture.

In the early days of my career in the newspaper industry, faked and doctored images were always 'questionable'. I use the word questionable carefully. The pictures might make it into the paper or they might not. Such pictures always raised questions. No more.

Today pictures are all too often filler, page art, illustrations. The idea that pictures are simply shims on a  page has never been more true. I have tried to broach this subject with local journalists but have found they completely ignore my comments.

When I got into the newspaper business there was a distrust of those with degrees in journalism. The editors at the first paper at which I worked believed many graduates had picked up bad habits at school along with big egos. It was difficult and time consuming retraining them on the job. A graduate with an English degree was preferred over one with a journalism degree.

The clown image that accompanied a local news story.

Today fake pictures abound in our papers and online and our university trained journalists see no problem with illustrating their stories with stock photography.

Recently in London, Ontario, high schools were threatened with trouble from clowns. The police arrested two kids too young to even attend high school. The paper should have seen this coming; kids, not clowns, are often the source of such threats.

The paper illustrated the story with a cliché image of a horror story clown and my guess is that neither the award-winning, degree carrying, journalist, nor the local university that once granted MAs in journalism saw any problem.

And why is the clown image so wrong? Because it illustrates not just a story but an attitude. And that attitude leads to stuff like the stock art photo used on the left. It's certainly not a news picture. I'd call it soft porn.

And once the ability to question has been blunted the next logical step is faking pictures in-house. When a Sun Media paper couldn't find topless sunbathers at the local beach to illustrate a story, the paper simply hired a couple of models. 

The models took different poses, with one being posed topless, but it was all very tasteful. The topless model was always shown shot from the back. The resulting pictures got wide play. One even ran in The New York Times.

And some at newspapers wonder why more and more readers are questioning the decisions being made by our newsrooms. Heck, if the folk in the media won't ask the questions, some readers will.

Send in the clowns

The news picture depicts a clown, a terrifying clown with a white face streaked with blood and a smile marred by long and pointed teeth. One tooth is blood stained. It would be a great piece of photojournalism if it actually was journalism. But it's not. It's photographic clip art.

Clowns have been in the news lately. Well, at least talk of clowns. It seems clowns, in fact, haven't actually done all that much that's news worthy. It's often kids that are being arrested, if anyone is arrested at all.

For instance, in London, Ontario, after online threats to kill teachers and kidnap students were made, police arrested two kids not yet old enough to be in high school.

So, the London clowns were kids. A picture of a couple of kids laughing and texting on an iPhone would have been a more accurate image than one shown but, as it wouldn't have been the actual kids, it still wouldn't be journalism.

I decided to google this recent clown craze. I found a Slate article titled: The Wave of Evil Clown Sightings Is Nothing to Worry About. It Happens Every Few Years. I learned:

• May 1981, Brookline, Massachusetts: Elementary school children report two clowns driving a black van offering them candy. A rash of  sightings follows but no clowns are found.
• March 1988, Louisville, Kentucky: Across a three-county area, children suddenly begin calling police with stories of a malevolent clown offering rides and, in one case, pursuing a child on foot. No arrests are made. The clown vanishes without a trace.
• Oct. 1991, Chicago: The city police are overwhelmed with reports from  schoolchildren of a man dressed as Homey D. Clown from In Living Color. The clown offers them candy to ride in his van. Children variously report the van to be blue, white, or red, an eighth-grader claims to have punched the clown in the nose and an adult reports seeing a clown abduct a girl. Before the epidemic subsides, clowns are reported in Evanston and Joliet as well as Chicago.  As the panic over clowns drew to a close, not one clown had been placed behind bars.
• Sept. 1992, Rock Hill, South Carolina: A wave of terrifying clown sightings comes to an end when four teenage boys are arrested. The boys aren’t charged; authorities cannot find a law that has been broken.
• Oct. 1992, Galveston, Texas: An evil clown reportedly attempted to kidnap a little girl. The police and media are flooded with sightings. A police investigation leads to no arrests.

Yes, I have been selective. And, yes there have been cases of evil doers dressed as clowns. But, if an evil clown is sighted, I would not bet on its veracity too quickly. I'd let the paper to that.

As Arctic Ocean Ice Disappears, Global Climate Impacts Intensify by Peter Wadhams: Yale Environment 360

As Arctic Ocean Ice Disappears, Global Climate Impacts Intensify by Peter Wadhams: Yale Environment 360

The Courtiers and the Tyrants: Chris Hedges

The Courtiers and the Tyrants: Chris Hedges: We must not confuse the political elites who function as courtiers to corporate power with the tyrannical leaders who actually drive corporatism. Our real enemy, lurking behind the curtain, is usually faceless and anonymous.
- 2016/09/18

My best fruit fly trap.

This trap is easy and quick to make, costs nothing and is easily disposed of. At which point, make another.

I have made a number of fruit fly traps following instructions found on the net. All traps had problems. I was not satisfied. Now, I've made my own and so far it seems to be working very well. I may have a winner.

• I took a 2 litre pop bottle and cut it in two.
• I poked a hole in the attached cap. It was easily done with the point of an open pair of scissors.
• I poured a little cider vinegar into the bottom half and dumped the peel from one apple in as well.
• I flipped the top over and wedged it into the bottom.
• Finally, I used masking tape to secure the top edge to prevent the escape of any small flies or tiny larvae (maggots). Yes, fruit fly eggs hatch and miniature maggots appear. Ugh.

After the pop-bottle-fruit-fly-trap had been in use for only a few minutes, it contained half a dozen fruit flies. When I checked after dinner, I found no sign that the little critters were finding their way out. I may be a little quick on this announcement, but I believe I have a winner in this fruit fly trap design.

Why is this so important to me? Well, I have had it with fruit flies. Thanks to all the fruit sitting on my kitchen counter at this time of year, I have a veritable fruit fly invasion on my hands . . . and on the kitchen counter. Ugh. If the fruit is fresh and firm with unbroken skin, the flies won't burrow into the fruit. But they will lay eggs on the surface of the fruit and on surrounding surfaces. Ugh. This is one reason to wash fruit before eating.

It's all about quality of life

My doctors tell me the reason they are doing all the medical stuff is to give me a better quality of life. It has been made very clear that I should be out enjoying life and not wasting precious time worrying about tomorrow. My doctors will do that for me if I just let them.

Today my granddaughter had a birthday party. Pizza was served. I had two narrow slices. There was also birthday cake. I had a small slice of that too. Too many calories and maybe a little heavy on the animal fat thanks to all the cheese. I excused my conduct by explaining I was simply following doctor's orders and enjoying life.

Dinner provided a time for redemption. I stuck with salad: lots of baby spinach with chunks of a sweet Royal Gala apple, a little, very little, halloumi fried in olive oil with garlic, gently candied pecans (I used maple syrup), pan roasted sunflower seeds, dried cranberries with pumpkin seeds, diced green onions and just a little, about an ounce, of chopped grilled chicken (The chicken was a leftover.). I tossed all with a sweet, raspberry dressing, Rootham Raspberry Razzle, that I buy at Remark. I use it very sparingly. I find too much is too sweet.

I'm sure my heart and stroke doctor would groan at hearing about the pizza, two slices is pushing it, but I believe my dinner would put me back in his good graces. He would even give me a thumbs up when it comes to my four ounces of wine with dinner. A glass of wine a day is both a part of my heart healthy diet and a step towards that fine quality of life I should be pursuing.

Cheers!

Two tips: Fall squash and Paese Mio Bruschetta Calabrese

Locally grown fall squash is ready. Move fast. It isn't on the shelves all that long. I've been buying mine at Thomas Bros. Market on hwy 4 south of the city. They have lots of other fresh, locally grown stuff as well. Their field tomatoes are excellent even if they are a little light on the acidity. I fear milder tomatoes are the flavour of the day.

The picture at the top of this post shows spaghetti squash topped with a homemade sauce of fresh field tomatoes plus locally grown mushrooms, sweet peppers, garlic plus some real Greek feta cheese - the kind that comes swimming in a mix of whey and brine. All vegetables are chopped into large, chunky pieces. Lots of flavour and looks good too.

I fried the garlic for possibly a minute, added the sweet peppers, then the mushrooms and finally the tomatoes. The exact proportion is up to you. With fresh ingredients one can hardly go wrong. The squash was halved and placed peel side up in a baking dish with a quarter-inch of water. It was baked for 20 minutes at 375-degrees. When cooked properly, the spaghetti-like squash is easily scraped from the baked squash with a simple fork. One large squash should feed up to three people.

I have left out one ingredient and, unlike the others, it isn't fresh. It's Paese Mio Bruschetta Calabrese. This is a bottled mix of oodles of stuff, all good, with hot peppers dominating. Use caution when experimenting with this. It can be hot. Very hot. But it is good.

Paese Mio Bruschetta Calabrese can be found in London at Unger's Market on Gainsborough Rd. Unger's is open 8 am to 7 pm Monday through Friday. Saturday the market closes at 6 pm and Sunday Unger's is closed.

While we're talking about hours, I should mention that there isn't even a month left before Thomas Bros. closes for the season. Despite the drought, it has been a good fall for fresh vegetables. I'm going to miss the sweet corn.

Camden Terrace not the only historical structure under threat

Recently I read in The London Free Press that "the city was poised to lose a vital part of its history." A grouping of 140-year-old row houses known as Camden Terrace may be torn down. When I tried to talk to others about the impending loss, all too often I simply got a puzzled response: "Camden Terrace? Where or what is Camden Terrace?" People who didn't get the paper didn't get the question.

The brouhaha surrounding Camden Terrace raises issues the London planning department and others in the city should address. For instance: what is a heritage building? Why is a heritage building important? How many changes can be made before a heritage building stops being a heritage building? And should we be saving single buildings or complete heritage landscapes, areas and districts?

I was surprised that some consider Museum London, despite its relatively recent construction, to be a heritage structure with a "B" ranking. This is a ranking no better than that of Camden Terrace. The London Free Press award-winning writer, Randy Richmond, told readers, "Raymond Moriyama's original design evoked the river, the historical significance of the forks . . . The large arches were painted blue . . . and inside was an airy fan design. . . . "

The dynamic shapes that originally filled the arches are now gone. The fan design disappeared at the same time as blue colour. Today, the museum is dark grey.

If London cannot maintain an architectural treasure for even a few decades, why are we surprised when row houses which have stood relatively unappreciated for more than a century are now facing demolition.

Pay attention when buying salmon fillets

The salmon was tasty but I won't buy it again. I discovered it was most likely farm raised salmon taken from pens off the coast of Norway. Like so many other areas with numerous salmon farming operations, the Norwegian ones have sea lice problems. (If you want to know more about sea lice, go to the bottom of this post.)

That said, the salmon fillets were about an inch thick and were firm but flaky with only about seven minutes of searing in a medium hot pan. I served the salmon topped with a mildly hot gremolata. Gremolata usually contains only lemon rind, garlic and parsley but this recipe added chopped pistachio nuts, chopped onion and a few hot peppers.

For the recipe follow this link: Boston Globe recipe.
________________________________________________

Today I saw an article being distributed on Quartz: The gross reason you’ll be paying a lot more for salmon this year

Click the link above to read the whole story. The following is from the article.

Sea lice are the farmed Atlantic salmon industry’s most expensive problem, costing around $550 million in lost output each year, according to Ian Bricknell, an expert on the parasite at the University of Maine.

Dining in retirement isn't as expensive as newspapers insist

I am always reading how difficult it is to feed oneself on a budget in retirement. Not true, at least that has not been my findings.

Tonight my wife and I had potato gnocchi with green and yellow beans flavoured with a light coating of two tablespoons of tomato sauce spiked with a couple of teaspoons of Paese Mio Bruschetta Calabrese. I added a couple of bottled artichoke hearts as well. The artichoke helped to dilute the heat from the bruschetta Calabrese.

The broccoli served on the side, like all the vegetables, came from a roadside market on Col. Talbot Rd. south of the city. We find Thomas Bros. carries fresh vegetables at a fair price. Perfect. I love late summer in Southwestern Ontario.

As a finishing touch, my wife sprinkled grated Parmesan cheese on top. This cheese can be expensive. We buy ours at Costco. The price is right, the taste is great and one gets enough to last months if kept wrapped in aluminum foil and tucked into a corner of the fridge.

Let's put on a show!

I love the enthusiasm and imagination of kids. Fiona, left, and her three-year-old sister, Isla, decided to stage an active fashion show the other night. they wore different outfits and danced to music supplied by the radio. It was fun and somewhat revealing of their personalities. For instance, I had no idea that they could put as much thought into an outfit as they did.

When I took Fiona to see Pete's Dragon the other day, I left Isla at home with grandma. Strong imaginations and dragons are not known to always co-exist well. I didn't want to risk Isla having nightmares.

Pete's Dragon: Fiona gives it two thumbs up

I took Fiona to see Pete's Dragon Saturday. She loved it. For her it was a feel-good boy and his dragon story. As we watched the movie, more than once she gave me a big grin and the thumbs up gesture.

I liked Pete's Dragon, too, but I saw the story as having roots reaching all the way back to the '50s science fiction film Forbidden Planet. That film featured a monster from the id. Morbius, played by Walter Pidgeon, conjures up the monster from the depths of his subconscious.

My gut feeling is that Pete's dragon is more symbolic, more allegorical, than flesh and blood. How such a creature comes to life is the question.  But like the animated snowman Frosty, only children have any understanding of such magic. In other words, at its very heart, this is a story but a story with a lesson at its core.

Pete names the dragon "Elliott" after the puppy in his favorite book: Elliott Gets Lost. The dragon Elliott is, at least to me, reminiscent of a large, green, oh-so-furry puppy. When the two, the dragon and the boy, splash about in a large, mountain stream, the bounding, frolicking dragon is at its most puppy like.

Early in the movie, Pete's mother tells her young son, "I think you're the bravest boy I've ever met." Near the end of the film Grace, the Forest Ranger who becomes Pete's adoptive mom, tells him, "You may be the bravest boy I’ve ever met." And I believe it is Pete's bravery and determination that conjures up a now-you-see-it-now-you-don't dragon. Pete's dragon has the ability to fade from sight, to become invisible.

The little boy lives alone in the forest for six years, alone but for his dragon and his bravery. He not only survives but flourishes. Living in harmony with nature, Pete has a depth of understanding of the wild world that easily surpasses our book learning approach. He lived where no one could and thanks to his experiences the boy sees and appreciates the magic that is Nature.

Everyone, even the greedy Gavin, who originally only wanted to cut down the forest to sell the lumber, everyone who comes in contact with Pete learns to understand the unseen and to appreciate the immense value of the natural world. And there is a corollary: mess with Nature at your peril.

In the end, it is not only Pete who sees a dragon. His adopted family, Grace, Jack and Natalie, also see the once invisible flying beasts. Once one learns how to look, how to approach the invisible, the world is filled with dragons.

But one must be brave.

Unscrambling the Truth About Eggs

Unscrambling the Truth About Eggs: Articles from Dr. Carney on multiple topics of health.

Egg yolk consumption and carotid plaque

Egg yolk consumption and carotid plaque

The prevailing tendency to ignore dietary cholesterol as a risk factor for coronary heart disease requires reassessment, including the consumption of cholesterol from eggs. . . . findings suggest that regular consumption of egg yolk should be avoided by persons at risk of cardiovascular disease. . . .

Source: Spence JD, et al., Egg yolk consumption and carotid plaque, Atherosclerosis (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.atherosclerosis.2012.07.032

Avoiding Cholesterol Is a No Brainer

Avoiding Cholesterol Is a No Brainer

Egg Cholesterol in the Diet

Egg Cholesterol in the Diet

Whose Health Unaffected by Eggs?

Whose Health Unaffected by Eggs?