Fizzies are back! ...uh, why?

When my wife and I tried living on a tight food budget some months ago, it brought back childhood memories of a weird product that seemed to be part Kool-aid, part Alka-seltzer and part soda pop; the product was Fizzies. Back in the '60s we were a financially challenged family (poor) and real soda pop was not to be found in our fridge, not in our budget. But, we did have Fizzies tablets on a kitchen shelf — a treat. Drop a tablet in a glass of ice water and you had instant pop, complete with bubbles.

Well, the other day I caught a program on television featuring Fizzies. They're back! But why? In truth, they were not that good. When cyclamates were banned, Fizzies disappeared along with the sweetener. I didn't think anyone missed them.

In the mid '90s they briefly reappeared, this time sweetened with Nutrasweet. They fizzled out again. Today, making a third trip to the plate, Fizzies are now sweetened with Sucralose and reportedly taste much better. Talk about damning with faint praise.

Yet, I confess, when I think of Fizzies I smile. My mother knew how to budget and in truth there was no money for Fizzies in her budget. She found the money, somehow, and I knew those foil wrapped tablets were valuable. It was a real treat to be given a Fizzie. Orange was my favourite but root beer was O.K.

When I think of Fizzies, I do not think of an off-sweet drink, cyclamates did not taste like sugar, but I think of love. That orange soda magically appearing where only a moment ago there had been a glass of water was a small miracle — the small miracle being that my mother could not afford it and yet there it was. :-)

They say Fizzies taste better today. The flavours are fruitier and the sweetener sweeter. They're now fortified with vitamin C and they are, of course, calorie free. And for me, they come complete with an all important ingredient — memories of my mother's love.

I confess. I ordered a package, a six-pack package. I have young nieces and nephews and I bet they'd be delighted with Fizzies. Give 'em a Fizzie and give 'em a memory. (Hey, go rent some Leave It To Beaver videos and make it a full-fledged '60s moment. Welcome to my world.)

And me? I'm going to drink a bubbling glass of orange Fizzie in memory of a grand and very wonderful lady, my late mother.

The right response to a head injury

When Natasha Richardson died from a head injury sustained in a minor skiing accident at Mount Tremblant in Quebec, many in the media immediately spent hours examining and, in many cases, attacking the Canadian health care system and the quality of the health care available in Quebec in particular.

The big story in the media seemed to be the lack of a helicopter to transport Richardson to a hospital in Montreal. "Helicopter transport is common practice in the United States," CNN bragged.

To promote a segment on Natasha Richardson's death on America's Newsroom, Fox News ran an on-screen grabber: "Did Canadian-Style Health Care Hasten Richardson's Death?"

Now, the Johns Hopkins Medical Letter, Health After 50, has waded into the issue with an adult view of the event. There is no mention of Canada in their take; not a one. Why? I imagine it is because the issue is - what is the right response to a blow on the head?

Many bloggers correctly pointed out that a number of deaths from the type of injury incurred by Richardson occur annually throughout the United States and not only as a result of a skiing accident. Health After 50 quotes Vani Rao, M.D., director of the Brain Injury Program at Johns Hopkins, "A person can trip over a carpet, end up with a minor bump, and not think anything of it." But, one may have unknowingly sustained a serious, life-threatening, brain injury.

Brain injury symptoms vary depending upon the seriousness and the type of damage. If you have had a traumatic brain injury (TBI) where the brain has smashed against the hard bone of the skull, incurring injury, you will most likely have immediate symptoms: confusion, dizziness, disorientation, or with more serious injury, headache, vomiting, seizures and even loss of consciousness.

A head blow can also result in subdural hematoma, bleeding in the layers of tissue surrounding the brain. If this bleeding continues, blood trapped between the skull and the brain will cause pressure to build, leading to possible brain damage and death.

If you strike your head and then suffer headaches, nausea, double vision, speech difficulties, confusion, memory loss, weakness or difficulty walking or with balance, get to the hospital. These symptoms may not appear for hours - be alert.

If there is a loss of consciousness, even momentarily, get hospital attention.

"Most head injuries are going to be mild to moderate," according to Dr. William Stiers with the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Johns Hopkins. Because moderate to severe head injuries can have lasting effects, even causing death, do not be quick to refuse care.

Natasha Richardson's death made it clear to everyone how important it is to seek immediate treatment - with brain trauma minutes count.

And what is the best defense against brain injury? Obviously, wearing a well-fitted helmet when skiing helps. But, these injuries are not just encountered on the slopes. Remember the loose carpet example?

Health After 50 says avoiding a fall in the first place is the best response. Exercise often and regularly as this will improve your strength, reduce your risk of falling and improve your balance.

Have your vision checked regularly and fall-proof your home. Tape down that loose carpet. And limit your alcohol consumption. But then I didn't have to tell you not to drink until you are falling down drunk, did I?
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Health After 50
12 issues $28 in U.S. or $36 + 7% GST in Canada (Can. funds)
1-800-829-0422

This is not an ad. I am posting this because I like the health letter.

London considers the Mosquito

In London, Ontario, the city's Environment and Transportation committee has asked for a report on the possible use of a high-pitched sound repellent aimed at the young. Used in Great Britain, British Columbia, and other places, it is claimed that the annoying ultrasonic squeal can only be heard by folk under 25. A walkway between Victoria Street and Leroy Avenue in east London has been suggested for the initial test.

The device in question is the Mosquito Teenage Deterrent and is made by Compound Security Systems Ltd. (CSS), Great Britain. They claim to have sold more than 6,000 Mosquito systems world-wide.

Today Kate Dubinski on her Thirty Below blog, hosted by The London Free Press, had an online discussion concerning the device. It was a good discussion and I decided to do a little googling. Lfpress.com senior online editor Dan Brown wrote, "I'm not sure I even buy this thing would work. A tone that only the young can hear? That sounds bogus to me." My wife and I wondered the same thing when we read the Jonathan Sher story in the paper.

Listen to this BBC sound clip and see what you think. I cannot hear the annoying squeal, I'm 62, but I understand that some people who are decades out of their teens still can hear it. Can you? If the BBC sound clip fails, try the Teenager Audio Test posted below.

Created by Train Horns

If you have listened to the teen-bothering hum and now would like to know how other folk have reacted, or didn't react, go to Polldaddy for the answer. I believe this poll was designed and set-up by The London Free Press. This is a fine example of the polling abilities offered by the Internet.

I was worried that the BBC sound file did not contain an annoying sound as I couldn't hear it. I was concerned that I was being pranked by the BBC. Well, not to worry as Kelly Pedro, a reporter at The London Free Press, can hear the sound and, yes, she was annoyed. Kate Dubinski even tested Pedro by playing the sound file near Pedro but without her knowledge; she still reacted. "Stop it! It sounds like it's in my ear!"

CSS states that the sound is not damaging, even with long term use. The sound is heard by dogs but they are not bothered. And the units are very robust, having a die-cast alloy and steel vandal-proof housing. Young children will not cry in pain from the units; it takes up to 10 minutes for the sound to become annoying and can often take another 10 minutes before teens move away. For more information check out the CSS FAQS or the BBC report.

If it were possible to protect walkways with these devices, they might be O.K., but only if the area was posted with "No loitering" signs. The high-pitched sound itself is not annoying, at least not in the short term, but the thinking behind the sound is more than annoying. It's digusting and more than a bit frightening. (This is a blanket assault on an entire segment of society in response to a problem caused by a few. If you cannot see this is wrong, we have more serious problems than loitering and grafitti.)

When used outside a store, the Mosquito does not discourage teens from entering, it just discourages them from loitering. Teens would still use the test site walkway, they just would not feel inclined to linger. (Teen vandals might find it possible to squeeze in a little time for tagging and other grafitti in the twenty minute grace period. Teen vandals are fast and efficient, if nothing else. Who knows, they might get a buzz from the Mosquito and feel inspired.)

But, and it is a big but, the units have a range of from 30 to 40 metres. Any home bordering the test site walkway would be within easy hearing distance of the annoying ultrasonic sound. Knowing this, this sound sounds like a problem.

Rockin' On: Photography

I am testing a new blog, Rockin' On: Photography. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Cheers,
Rockinon

Our heritage includes tomatoes.

One of the best things about London, Ontario, is how easy it is to leave it. Being centrally located in southwestern Ontario is a great location. A glance at the map and one immediately sees London is close to both Lake Erie and Lake Huron and that a visit to the the Stratford Festival requires but a very short drive.

What may not be so obvious is how close London is to both Toronto and points beyond. Even when traffic is hindered by construction, as it seems to be every summer, the 401 is one heck of a highway. One can go from London to Prince Edward County, a very special place, in less than four hours. My wife, Judy, and I did this just that this past weekend.

I was in blogger's heaven. Everywhere I looked there were pictures to be taken and ideas to confront or digest — and I really mean digest — like the heritage tomatoes we found at a roadside stand deep in the county. Some were a deep purple colour, others the expected red but streaked with orange bands and still others were neither red nor round; they were green and oblong, like a smooth cucumber.

We picked up a mixed bag of tomatoes and headed back to the cottage where we were staying. Our hosts were a couple of real food nuts — they appreciate the taste of food. Uh, maybe the food nuts are the rest of us, consuming foods, such as the modern tomato, grown more for shipping success than taste.

At dinner that night a platter was prepared presenting our prized finds. A sprinkling of freshly chopped basil and a sprinkling of balsamic vinegar adorned the sliced tomatoes. I thought a little ground sea salt would have been nice, too, adding those little, but intense, bursts of salt.

Home, it is time to do a little research discover a little of the background of these little reminders of our food past, of what has been forgotten and of what has been lost, and of what is being rediscovered.

The Covent Garden Market in London, Ontario, like many markets, carries heritage or heirloom tomatoes. But, what is really nice to find are the field grown beefsteak tomatoes — big, juicy, with a nice light acidic bite. These are not the usual, wimpy, rockhard, tasteless, shipping tomatoes out of Florida, California or Mexico.

Cheers,
Rockinon

Newspapers must evolve

The post for today is a wee bit long. If it was a wine, I think it would be described as being a bit dull on the palette, but it develops nicely and has a good, clean finish. Enjoy.
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I often think of newspapers as I knew them: the newspapers I grew up with, the newspaper from which I retired early after being given a buyout. I believe papers are on their last legs. They are tottering dinosaurs. Some say a changing environment doomed those prehistoric Goliaths. I think the environment is changing for newspapers, too.

Some argue dinosaurs are still with us. They say the descendants of the dinosaurs are today's birds. Maybe newspapers will do as well and take flight unburdened by huge printing presses, large fleets of trucks, tonnes of newsprint and tanker loads of ink.

Of course, in the end, birds are birds. It doesn't matter what came before. That was then and this is now. The Internet is not a newspaper. Period. Newspapers are the news gathering organizations of the past. The Internet is the new paradigm.

It's a new paradigm to some but in truth it has been a long time coming. You often read that the generation raised on the Internet is now coming of age. Young people are the savviest of the tech-savvy, we are told. How silly.

How old is Steve Jobs? Early-fifties, I believe. When it comes to being tech-savvy, old Steve is the king of savvy hill. If Steve sneezes, Apple stock tumbles. This is a company filled with imaginative, creative young people, but it is the aging boomer (oh how I hate that word) who drives the company. Many argue, he is the company.

There are many people who grew up with the Internet and many more who grew old with it. I'm 62 and when I was 39 I was a GEnie subscriber. Sitting at a 128K Mac I could talk with the world using a 300 baud modem and a dial-up connection. GEnie was, to be generous, a precursor of the Internet run by General Electric.

GE didn't grasp what they had. They structured GEnie to take advantage of the time available on their numerous GE Mark III time-sharing mainframes. To ensure that GEnie subscribers used the system during slow periods,the charge for going online with GEnie at night, the off-hours for those mainframes, was far cheaper than the comparable time during the day. GE treated their service as a mainframe load filler. Bad move. GE was handed the Internet ball early but dropped it, letting others pick it up and run away with the prize.

GEnie was a text-based service. This sounds terrible and it was but moving letters about is not CPU intensive, nor does it eat a lot of bandwidth. My typing at the time was slow and so my 300 baud modem could easily keep up with my hunt-and-peck style of typing.

I did research using GEnie and visited the GEnie forums, called RoundTables. There I chatted with people who shared my interests. I used to come to work and bend the ear of Sue Bradnam, now the chief photographer at the paper, and I would babble on about the coming computer driven wave of change. Sue can be very patient and very polite. She ignored me with great class and style but I am sure she thought, "Nut!" (Computers aside, she may have been right.)

Then the newspaper discovered computers and set up a graphics department in the former Alcovia. This was a small recessed area in the newsroom with windows facing York Street. The reporters working there named it Alcovia and hoisted the Alcovian flag over their oh-so-independent territory. When management displaced the Alcovians there was a small insurrection, quickly quelled.

The new graphics department used Fat Macs and dozens and dozens of Macintosh plastic-encased floppies. When they started talking about getting a hard drive I tried to convince them to look at an 80 MB La Cie. Management looked at me like I was crazy. I told them that that was what I had at home. Overkill, I was told. Way more storage space than you will ever need. They bought a 20 MB Apple external hard drive. It was soon replaced -- too small.

And that has been the story of newspapers and computers and the Internet. Always a step behind. To be fair, it is hard to fault them. Visionaries are rare and with a change as extreme as the computer invasion and the Internet, not seeing it coming can be forgiven.

I think a great symbol of the newspaper industry's approach to computer innovation can be seen in the Atex system used by newspapers around the world two, and even three, decades ago. Huge keyboards, thick and clunky. Not designed for typing but for style. The monitors were huge grey cubes mounted on tall, grey cylinders. Clearly the designers of the Atex system were influenced by Star Trek. Captain Kirk would have been very comfortable with the futuristic look of the Atex terminal.

But newsroom editors and reporters were not comfortable. Atex and its parent, Eastman Kodak Co., were dragged into court by claims that the clunky keyboards caused serious repetitive strain injuries to users. Roughly a dozen New York Times employees alone took Atex to court for the perceived ergonomic design flaws.

As Macs displaced the Atex terminals, itself a revolution of a sort, another revolution was taking place. The control of the newspaper industry was passing from the hands of families to big business. This had been a trend for years but it was now in the endgame. It was said newspapers were a licence to print money and big business wanted those presses.

Just as the information revolution, powered by the Internet, was freeing news from its economic constraints, newspapers were evolving into dinosaurs. Papers were becoming big lumbering beasts.

One of my favourite stories, it may not be completely true, but no one in charge is going to fill in the blanks for me.

Quebecor and Sun Media had a bulletin board set-up to share pictures between their many papers. Staff at some papers knew about the bulletin board and posted to it regularly. If an important OHL game was held in London, it was posted to the bulletin board as soon as possible. The bulletin board system was a kludge, you could not see the images. An editor had to chose a photograph based on the name and often the name did not reveal much about the picture.

The London Free Press used a system for naming its pictures that made finding them easy, even when using a text-based system. All picture files originating in London started LDN and this was followed by the date. It was not hard to find the OHL pictures from London. In most cases we included the Knights' name in the photo caption.

Still the London paper would get calls from other Sun Media papers seeking hockey pictures, pictures posted hours earlier. The editors on the other end of the line were often desperate; they were facing deadline. No one had thought to tell these other papers about the bulletin board. Whenever I was on EPD, I would walk these callers through the system. They were always amazed that the bulletin board existed and that you didn't even need a code to access its pictures.

I thought this lack of an entry code could be a potential problem and raised the issue. I made some calls. Eventually, a code was put in place. Unfortunately, the code was not given out to all the papers. The London Free Press was missed. The Free Press could still file to the bulletin board but the paper could no longer access pictures from it. This went on for months and, to the best of my knowledge, was never fixed. In the end the bulletin board was simply replaced with a much better system and all became right with the world.

It is foolishness like this that threats newspapers and not the coming of the Internet. The best and the brightest at the newspapers will survive. It is just the giant newspaper companies, buying and merging and running up an ever growing debt with every takeover, that may disappear.

When the newspaper suffered a strike a few years back, it quickly became clear that it was the staff that was the true paper and not the building carrying the name. About five days after walking out the door, the staff of The London Free Press had an alternative paper on the street.

I know reporters at the paper who can write code. Joe Matyas has taken courses and puts together a web site for his church, complete with videos. I know a photographer, Morris Lamont, who puts out an Internet newsletter for his son's baseball team and it's a fine publication. Very professional

Talented reporters and photographers may not realize it but in the future they will not need the paper. Truth be told, it is the paper that needs them. Big business, big media, has been tossing their most valuable asset, their staff, out the door at a frightening pace.

The other day I saw the phrase "begs the question" rather than "raises the question" used in the news pages. Seeing that phrase in print brought to mind an editor who left the paper after one of the reoccurring rounds of layoffs. On his last day, walking toward the door, he stopped at my desk and handed me a sheet of paper. It was a list of his pet peeves as an editor. Near the top was the incorrect use of "begs the question." That editor, given a buy-out, was a lover of the English language. The newspaper misses him.

Factory farming, too often large dirty pig sties

The following post has been hit many times by folk from all around the world. Tonight, Oct. 13, 2009, I am adding a link to a story in the Huffington Post, "What Can Danish Hogs Teach Us About Antibiotics?" (Sunday, January 3, 2009, I'm adding another link: Where swine flu began by Thane Burnett of Sun Media.). And another link was added Mar. 8, 2010 from the New York Times: The Spread of Superbugs. And on Sept. 15, 2010, I added yet another NYT link: U.S. Meat Farmers Brace for Limits on Antibiotics.)

According to the Huffington Post article: "American agribusiness often has criticized Denmark's 1998 ban on antibiotics, calling it an outright failure. But compelling new research presented by a Danish scientist earlier this year showed the opposite, revealing that antibiotic use on industrial farms has dropped by half while productivity has increased by 47 percent since 1992."

Maybe their is hope for our pig farmers after all.
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Pig farms — I hate to write about pig farms. I would bet that pig farms in Canada employ thousands and that hundreds, if not thousands, of Canadian families have their wealth completely tied up in the family business, a large pig farm operation. But the recent announcement of $75 million of Canadian taxpayer money for the pig industry plus $17 million to assist in the marketing of pork thrust pig farmers into my morning thoughts.

Why do I hate to write about them — because they are a disgrace. How pig farming got to its present state would be a whole, exceedingly long blog. Done properly, such a story would fill pages in a monthly magazine and would be a good, interesting read.

Yesterday The London Free Press reported that the pork industry was reeling from too many financial hits. One nasty hit was the labelling of H1N1 as "swine flu". The association of pig farming with a potential pandemic influenza virus has unfairly tarnished the industry, the producers complain.

This talk makes pig farms sound like the dirty, disease prone operations which they are. They just don't spread "swine flu," or do they?

I quote from the blog Beyond Factory Farming: "In order to prevent disease outbreaks caused by unsanitary, confined conditions, factory farms routinely use antibiotics as an ingredient in feed.

The systemic overuse of antibiotics in agriculture is encouraging the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria or “superbugs” such as Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) that threaten the efficacy of antibiotics used to treat humans.

The World Health Organization (WHO) calls for an end to the use of antibiotics in livestock that compromise human medical care. Nevertheless, the use of antibiotics in livestock production in Canada continues."

Before I left the paper, one of my last assignments was to get a picture at a local pig farm. It was a small, family operation under fierce financial pressures. This family farm had thousands of pigs — thousands!

When I got out of my car on arriving at the farm the pig farm smell was strong. One immediately knew why pig farms were not wanted as neighbours, even in the country. The farmer greeted me and took me into the nearest barn.

A wall, a solid wall, of stench hit me as we entered. I have lung problems, asthma, and immediately I began to struggle to breathe. The farmer led me down a long hallway which opened into a large room holding hundreds of pigs. A white, wooden, fencelike barrier prevented the pigs from entering the hall. I shot quickly and in moments I had my picture and we left.

When I got back to the paper, Mike Hensen, another staff photographer and who shared the alcove where we both downloaded our pictures, asked me to move. He could not take the smell and worse I was going to make him smell if I stayed. I stayed. He moved.

Soon I was getting complaints from all over the newsroom. File your pictures and go home, I was told. My clothing reeked, my camera gear reeked. Only moments exposed to the air in a pig barn had done this.

I went home, showered, threw my cloths immediately into the washing machine — including my photographer's vest. I even carefully washed my camera gear and wiped down the inside of my car. It was winter and it wasn't possible to do a first-rate job. My wife could smell the lingering odour in my car for months. We used her car whenever possible.

I'm not an expert and I don't profess to have all the answers but I do have some questions. If the air in a pig barn is that foul, that potent, how is it possible to raise healthy animals in that environment? Uh, would the answer be putting antibiotics in the feed?

O.K. Let's agree that it's unfair to associate "swine flu" with pigs just because the genetic make-up of the virus is of a type that normally affects pigs. Some say it started in pigs and then mutated, making the jump to people.

Some even say that the recent "swine flu" outbreak started in Mexico and that ground zero was Carroll Ranches, opened by Virginia-based Smithfield Foods in 1994. This pig farm, they say, was the cause of the epidemic. Maybe, just maybe, "swine flu" is a more information dense name for this type of influenza than H1N1. (I first heard this connection on the all news network CNN from the States.)

Allow me to quote from the Narco News Bulletin. (The whole report is actually worth a read. The story is shocking and nicely substantiated. The writer did his homework.)

"La Jornada columnist Julio Hernández López connects the corporate dots to explain how the Virginia-based Smithfield Foods came to Mexico: In 1985, Smithfield Foods received what was, at the time, the most expensive fine in history – $12.6 million – for violating the US Clean Water Act at its pig facilities near the Pagan River in Smithfield, Virginia, a tributary that flows into the Chesapeake Bay. The company, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) dumped hog waste into the river.

It was a case in which US environmental law succeeded in forcing a polluter, Smithfield Foods, to construct a sewage treatment plant at that facility after decades of using the river as a mega-toilet. But “free trade” opened a path for Smithfield Foods to simply move its harmful practices next door into Mexico so that it could evade the tougher US regulators.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into effect on January 1, 1994. That very same year Smithfield Foods opened the “Carroll Ranches” in the Mexican state of Veracruz through a new subsidiary corporation, “Agroindustrias de México.”

Consider what happens when such forms of massive pork production move to unregulated territory where Mexican authorities allow wealthy interests to do business without adequate oversight, abusing workers and the environment both. And there it is: The violence wrought by NAFTA in clear and understandable human terms.

The so-called “swine flu” exploded because an environmental disaster simply moved (and with it, took jobs from US workers) to Mexico where environmental and worker safety laws, if they exist, are not enforced against powerful multinational corporations."

Now, the Canadian Ministry of Agriculture has announced that swine producers will be able to share in a $75 million money pot being made available to assist producers to get out of the business. MP Gary Schellenberger (Conservative: Perth-Wellington) is quoted in The London Free Press as saying, "What this will do is help people get out of the business if they can't prove their business can be viable."

Viable. The word worries me. Does this translate into bigger, more efficient factory farm operations. Does this mean more pigs in fewer pig barns and all demanding more antibiotics to maintain good health?

My father raised hogs when he had a farm eighty years ago in eastern Ontario. He told me that the stories about pigs were mostly myths. Pigs, he said, were clean if given a chance. Look to the pig farmer as the reason for the filth, not the pig. Hell, he said, pigs don't smell; they don't even sweat.

Cheers,
Rockinon.

For another view, if you have the time, the CBC took a look at pig farming in Canada. It's long, but worth it.

Or for an MSM take read the article in the Toronto Star, Blame NAFTA for swine flu, expert say.

It is not just large pig farms that are causing problems. The New York Times has a continuing series Toxic Waters. Read how other massive farming operations are causing problems.

If you have read this far, you may be interested in a later post: What is in Canadian ground beef?