Pain with shape and colour...

I saw the brochure, I am Brave, on a shelf at the Arthritis Society. The art on the cover was done by Callah, 5. Intrigued, I picked it up.

The brochure gives a disturbing, intimate view of living with arthritis: the pain of swollen joints, the ache of affected bones; the stomach illness, headaches, kidney and liver problems from the medication; the embarrassment of crawling to breakfast, too stiff to walk; the frustration of not being able to finish more than two innings of baseball. Did I mention the arthritis patients who wrote and illustrated this brochure were all children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis?

One boy, Devin, 13, was diagnosed with the disease when he was only 2-and-a-half-years-old. He lived with pain and stiffness and medicine induced illness for years. But Devin is now on a new drug — a drug that could stop working at any time — but Devin doesn't dwell on that fact; he is too busy living in the present, savouring every day he lives almost pain-free. Did you catch that? Devin celebrates because he is almost, nearly, very close to but not completely, pain-free.

I'm retired but my wife isn't. She works for the Arthritis Society and I've been volunteered to do tele-recruiting to find new volunteer canvassers for the annual door-to-door campaign.

Unfortunately, many of the folk I call do not understand the importance of my calls. I don't fault them. Like them, I'm often rude to cold callers. And, until recently, I had never read the little booklet, I Am Brave.

I fully understand when someone says brusquely, “Don't call again!” And hangs up with a loud CLICK! Having now made hundreds of cold calls, I actually appreciate, “I'm not interested. Thank-you. Good-bye.” I even like, the brief but still polite responses like, “Nuh tanks.” CLICK!

I'm embarrassed and ashamed because I know those people. Those people are me. I've used all those responses to cold callers. The next time my telephone rings, and I don't know the caller, I will at least hear them out. And, if they are looking for a canvasser, I'm retired, I might even say, “O.K.”

It is the least I can do for Callah, 5, Devin, 13, Laurence, 13, Melanie, 10, Elizabeth, 8, Dax, 10, Rebecca, 11, Melissa, 9, Charlee, 7, Madeleine, 6, Tricia, 13, and Bailey, 5, who said, “I think my pain is a big red monster . . . ”

Please, let's help Bailey fight his monster, give this September to the Arthritis Society or, better yet, become a volunteer and canvass your neighbourhood. Click here to make an on-line donation.

Cheers,
Rockinon

The Deforested City

London likes to be known as the Forest City, even though the nickname may have originally been an insult. London, the city deep in the forests of southwestern Ontario — an unimportant, little hick town lost in the middle of nowhere.

The city is looking at how to improve the downtown. Nothing new here. Ever since I moved to London, more than three decades ago, the rallying cry has been, "Downtown revival!"

I remember when paving stones and trees in the sidewalk were part of the answer. Paving stones appeared everywhere downtown. Not only were they more visually interesting than concrete, taxpayers were told that in the long run paving stones would save the city money. Work that in the past would have necessitated the destruction of the sidewalk and the subsequent installation of a new concrete pad would now be completed by lifting out the paving stones, setting them to the side and when the work was completed the stones would be placed back in their original positions. This hasn't happened. The stones are lifted, scrapped and asphalt used to patch over the repair — all very messy.

I also recall when sidewalks lined with shade-giving trees were being promoted. Cuts were crudely made in the concrete sidewalks, steel grates to protect the trees, while allowing ample water to reach their roots, were installed. The trees were planted, sometimes multiple times. It appears now the city has given up, at least along this stretch of York Street shown on the left.

The paving stones have settled and to make walking safer asphalt has been used to eliminate the ridge that could trip walkers. In the centre where there was once a tree, there is now a circular patch of asphalt. The only green is supplied by weeds struggling through the steel grate.

I believe this is a symbol, a sign — a sign of defeat. The ideas were, as they say, half-baked. The dream of a sidewalk beautified by a long, row of green trees is dead. On the right, the grate has been removed, as have the paving stones, and the entire square patch of earth asphalted over. Not even a weed will be allowed to grow.

Why didn't the trees flourish? Possibly, they died because the dream was never healthy. Before we plant trees in the sidewalk, maybe we have to plant trees in people's minds. And before that, maybe we have to plant the desire to create a better, a more beautiful downtown in people's minds. It is clear from the lack of care exercised in the cutting of the original concrete, in the lazy, oh-so-ugly asphalt maintenance, that even the city did not take this beautification program seriously.

Maybe the city had the right idea a few years ago when they opted for brightly painted metal trees, works of art, for the downtown. Oddly enough, some folk are again calling for the real thing. Before we change the trees, we need to change the attitude, the mindset, of Londoners.

Still original, the only change is a new recipe.

It's hard to fault Quaker for their Original Rice Cakes made with 0% trans fat, and no salt (sodium) or added sugar. Yet, it is funny that the original product is, "Now made with NEW RECIPE."


Cheers,
Rockinon

Kodak Kills Kodachrome

Film fades and soon Kodachrome will fade from the scene forever. Yes, I am afraid, mama is goin' take your Kodachrome away. Kodak has announced the end of an era; Kodachrome film is being discontinued. By the end of 2010 the last plant processing this unique film will shut down, the film itself will be gone in months.

Its had a good run — 74 years in production. Today Kodachrome sales are only a fraction of one percent of Kodak's total film sales. For most consumers, amateur and professional, the disappearance of Kodachrome is a non-event. Digital technology dominates the market with the majority of photographers preferring digital to film.

Many will tell you that Kodachrome was the first commercially successful colour film. They have a case. But, since Kodachrome's release back in the mid '30s, there have been major advances in film technology. Chromes will still be available, they just may be better, certainly different, and no longer Kodachrome.

Steve McCurry, the National Geographic/Magnum photojournalist who shot the famous Afghan Girl June 1985 cover had this to say, "While Kodachrome film was very good to me, I have since moved on to other films and digital to create my images. In fact, when I returned to shoot the 'Afghan Girl' 17 years later, I used Kodak's E100VS film to create that image, rather than Kodachrome film as with the original."

McCurry, even though he has been an unfaithful Kodachrome lover, has been chosen by Kodak to be the photographer to shoot the last roll of Kodachrome — 36 frames — with the images to go to the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film.

The main difference between Kodachrome and other slide, or transparency films, is that the dye couplers, the colours so to speak, are embedded in the other film emulsions themselves — not so with Kodachrome. Processing Kodachrome was complicated, expensive, and environmentally challenging. For decades the film could only be processed in Kodak's own labs.

There are those like William Wolfe-Wylie of Sun Media who claim, "The image quality and resolution of a film like Kodachrome still can't be touched (by digital cameras)." As a photojournalist who entered the business shooting chromes and left it shooting digital, I can assure you that digital resolution surpassed film years ago, if by resolution you mean apparent sharpness and measurable detail.

The almost total lack of noise when digital images are exposed at low ISO settings contributes greatly to the perceived clarity of the digital image over film which is inherently noisy or grainy. (But oddly enough, it is in low-light-level situations where digital really shines — basketball in dark, high school gyms, rock performances on underlit stages, soccer games or baseball games under the lights . . . )

Film lovers, and film does have a small but strong following, will argue that digital can never replace film. Well, for many of us it has, but for those still in love with film there are newer, and quite possibly better films still being made. Admittedly, these films will not be Kodachrome. It was unique.

Good-bye Kodachrome. Thanks for the memories.

• For a more detailed overview, visit the ars technica site.
• Kodak has a slide show of 43 famous Kodachrome images. Check it out.
• Or visit Steve McCurry's site. Warning: can be slow to load.

________________________________________________________
This image has very little to do with the above and yet it has everything. I needed a place to put this image, on-line, so that I would have an Internet address. I needed the address in order to post the image to Canadian Geographic. Shot with a simple digital point and shoot, this picture makes the advancements in photography since the invention of Kodachrome very clear.

The Great A&P forgot what made it great.

The A&P sign came down today at our neighbourhood strip mall. Soon the Metro sign will go up. It seems like an excellent time to republish a post looking at the rise and fall of A&P, once the world's food distribution giant.


While cleaning the garage today I uncovered a dusty, forgotten, cardboard box filled with ancient copies of the Reader's Digest. The February 1948 issue had an article, condensed from Fortune, entitled "The Great A&P."

In 1948 the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company was the biggest single buyer, distributor and seller in the world of all but a few food products. A&P accounted for ten percent of the total food store sales in the United States with sales of two billion dollars, just about equal to the combined totals of their five biggest competitors.

Back then A&P owned two huge laundries for keeping their many uniforms clean. They used so many labels, they owned their own printing plant. A&P had their own Alaskan fishing fleet enabling them to deliver, for the first time, vast quantities of fresh and frozen seafood deep into the American Midwest.

A&P operated 37 bakeries in the U.S. and two in Canada. They baked more cakes and fried more doughnuts than anyone else – nearly 2,000,000 a day. And A&P was no slouch when it came to bread either; They baked 1,000,000 loaves a day.

According to the Digest, despite the massive amount of baked goods produced, A&P made allowances for regional preferences: bitter-chocolate icings east of the Mississippi, sweet chocolate west; mostly white bread in the west, 25 different varieties in the east.

Eggs were candled, graded and quickly sold at the peak of freshness. The east got medium-light yolks while those in the west were a deeper colour. Bostonians got premium brownshelled eggs while New Yorkers got the white eggs they demanded.

Attacked under the antitrust laws in the States, even its detractors conceded that A&P's savings on mass buying and inhouse production were being passed on to consumers.

In the early '30s the number of A&P stores peaked at about 16,000 and then the slow decline set in. In the '60s A&P retreated from the west coast, selling their stores to Safeway. In the '90s the shrivelling giant pulled out of Alabama, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia. Today, thanks to "Fresh Thinking Since 1859", A&P operated about 460 stores.

By 2007, A&P, the chain that once bragged that it had an approach to business that "made deserts bloom" had dropped about 21 notches in food store standings and its days of dominance in the food industry were long gone. The few remaining stores were now all centred in the American northeast.

The article ended by saying A&P, the great discounter, was firmly attached to "the one great principle – the selling of more for less..."

I was but an unsteady toddler when the Digest article was written. Today, I am a retired geezer with a fading memory, but A&P’s memory faded long before mine. In 2005 Metro Inc., the successful Quebec food retailer, acquired A&P Canada. Soon all Canadian stores will be rebadged with the Metro name.

Ironically, ten years before their sale to Metro, A&P Canada opened, with great fanfare, its first discount food store, Food Basics, designed to attract customers by offering better value and lower prices.

A&P lost its way, forgetting that it, The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, was the original discount food store dedicated to the "the one great principle – the selling of more for less . . . "

Downtown London (Ont.) Master Plan Session

I'm both impressed and wordless.

I attended the Downtown Master Plan and Public Information and Visioning Session last night, Wednesday, July 29. It was held at Museum London and was well attended, every table rimmed with attendees and more people filling chairs or standing at the back of the room.

I have no time to make any thoughtful comments and so I will simply stay quiet. There will be another public meeting, this one revealing the completed work, to be held in September. The city has posted information on the Downtown Master Plan Study. Blogger Brian Frank has posted a personal view of the night from the perspective of someone who works and lives downtown.

Hope to have a more substantive post before the next meeting,
If not, maybe we'll see you at the next gathering,
Cheers,
Rockinon

Hey Americans! Canadian Health Care Rocks!

I watch a lot of television news and I confess a lot of it is American. I follow the whole Obama health care reform controversy with a smile. I live in Canada.

A little over five years ago the mitral valve in my heart failed. I was sitting at my computer and noticed my heart beating quicker than usual. I don't usually feel my heart pounding but that day I did. I called work and they insisted I go to emergency.

I went to the walk-in clinic near our home and not emerg. A doctor at the clinic listened to my heart and said that there was a definite problem. He wanted to call an ambulance and rush me to emerg. I refused. He said that I may have had a heart attack. I assured him that I hadn't. My dad had a heart condition. I know heart attacks. I did not have a heart attack.

They called my wife and she came to the clinic, picked me up and drove me to the hospital. At emerg they took some blood and soon knew I had not had a heart attack. This was the good news. The bad news was that the hospital doctors all agreed something, possibly a valve, was wrong in my heart. They booked me into the cardiac institute for tests.

Within days I was taking a stress test. I failed.

I was booked into one of the local hospitals for an angiogram. The doctor threads a tube from your crotch up to your heart — I always knew my crotch was directly connected to my heart. The doctor injects a dye and watches how it behaves. A goodly amount of blood backed up and swirled about aimlessly with each heart beat. The doctor had confirmation; my mitral valve leaked "like a sieve."

At the time I was in my late fifties but I had the body of an eighteen-year-old, hey this is my story, and so the doctors hinted that I might be a good prospect for undergoing the first robotic repair of a mitral valve in Canada. Ah, payback for all those years of jogging.

My valve was repaired by Dr. Alan Menkis at the controls of a da Vinci surgical robot. The incision was only a few inches long and the scar is hidden in a chest muscle crease under my right nipple. No split breast bone. No huge scar. And I'm healthy. My valve itself was surgically repaired. No pig valve, no mechanical valve, no life-long drug regimen.

And the cost? It was covered by OHIP, the Ontario Health Insurance Plan, the government medical plan.

I could tell you more stories. I could tell you about my fifty-year-old nephew and how he was diagnosed with testicular cancer in his teens. OHIP took care of his treatment. He wasn't my sister's only child to need expensive and very sophisticated medial treatment. Another child required delicate brain surgery. Both boys were treated successfully and my sister and her husband were not left financially strapped. OHIP covered all.

I could tell even more stories but let's be honest, when I am done you might simply reply, "Well, we heard of a Canadian who...," fill in the blank space with some medical horror story. The problem is that my stories and yours are simply anecdotes. Newspapers and television love 'em; they put a human face to a complex problem. But anecdotal stories are not the whole story, for that we must look to numbers.

According to the latest figures that I could find that the United States spends 1.5 times more money on health care as expressed as a percent of GDP than Canada. I understand that Americans are living longer than ever, but not as long as people in dozens of other countries, including Canada. But, we can even argue about these numbers. Even if they are accurate, what do they actually represent?

A recent poll by CTV in Canada reported that "fifty-five percent of Canadians thought the health care system should be more public, only 12 per cent thought it should be private, and the rest thought Canada had struck the right balance between the two options."

It is all too confusing. All I know is that I am 62, and my heart is still beating thanks to Dr. Menkis, da Vinci and OHIP. I'm happy to be a Canadian.

Addendum: I did a Google search of the Internet and discovered that a lot of brilliant medical stuff developed in the U.S. is used for the first time outside of the States. It is not unheard of for Canada, France or Great Britain to take U.S. medical creativity and use it to chalk up medical firsts.

As for the treatment of older folk, my wife's uncle got a new hip when he was in his eighties and his wife, also in her eighties, got a new knee. She is now in her nineties and looking at having her other knee replaced. OHIP, the government plan, picks up all costs and there is no dispute over age.