ReThink London suggestions

ReThink London has put the spotlight on London's Prosperity Plan (LPP) and the upcoming June 9th meeting.

From May 9th until June 1st, Londoners are being invited to submit their ideas on ways we can work together to achieve the goal of strengthening our local economy and creating jobs. Click the LPP link, learn how the Investment & Economic Prosperity Committee (IEPC) is developing a 10-year plan to move London's economy forward faster and ensure long term prosperity for the community and make your comments soon. June 1st is fast approaching.
____________________________________________________________________________

My suggestions, not in order of importance:

From the U.S. DOT Buy America webpage.

1. Work with the provincial and federal governments to create a better environment for employers in the province. We need an environment that will attract new businesses to our city while encouraging present employers to stay.

Take the recent exit of Electro-Motive Diesel from London. The "Buy American" movement teamed with the rising value of the Canadian dollar rang the death nell for this once solid London employer. The fact that EMD had recently been purchased by an anti-labour, multi-national, Caterpillar Inc., with a history of union-busting just further complicated an already badly snarled situation.

London's mayor was mainly bluster.

Take a look at the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration website. There were walls going up around the London facility, high walls composed of U.S. regulations which were making the plant difficult to operate profitably.

2. Stop the empty rhetoric. Again looking at EMD. It was a dire situation demanding fast action and great wisdom. Preventing the closure of the locomotive assembler and the loss of as many as 700 local jobs called for a response steeped in a full understanding of the complexities of the fast deteriorating situation. How did London's mayor, Joe Fontana, rally to the moment? He bellowed loudly, "Get your ass down here, Prime Minister Harper!"

The PM didn't appear. No surprise. EMD moved production to the States. Again, no surprise.

Locked out workers were never going to return to EMD.

3. If ever there was a situation calling for proactivity it was EMD. There were numerous, unmistakable signs the London plant was being considered for closure. These signs were brought into sharp focus when the contract talks went into overtime with a six month extension. Yet, city hall did not twig to the looming disastrous job loss. Months before the lockout, London's mayor should have been following the advice he shouted out to the PM.

It was a story of too little, too late.

A lot of  London's water pipeline was buried and forgotten.

4. The City of London has to get its financial house in order. The present zero tax increase approach is not the answer. Cities function because of a complex infrastructure developed over decades. This infrastructure must be maintained. Creating a budget that is kept artificially low by putting maintenance on hold is, as they say, penny wise and pound foolish.

As Gina Barber wrote after the second water pipeline break in as many years:

"It also brought home the importance of well-maintained infrastructure. This is the second time in the last couple of years that there has been a break in this almost half century old system. Just under half of the system has been “twinned”, to allow water distribution to carry on unimpeded in certain areas even when a disruption occurs. The remainder is yet to be twinned, but it’s expensive and the current council has balked at introducing the rate increases that are needed to pay for the infrastructure upgrades. When staff recently recommended introducing a larger flat rate component in the water bill to cover infrastructure costs, the Civic Works Committee was split on the issue. Some, like Councillor VanMeerbergen, insisted that there had to be a better model, one that didn’t cost so much."

Businesses must be able to put their trust in the city's infrastructure. A city that puts off necessary maintenance is a city with one black mark against it.

5. Cities need developers but developers need guidance from cities. It is very clear that developers in London are not given the guidance that they need. This is not good for the city and, in the end, it is not good for the developers.

Affordable housing being constructed on Dundas St., EOA.

Nicolai Ouroussoff wrote in The New York Times, "Even the most majestic cities are pockmarked with horrors." In a city as large as New York or Toronto, there are lots of good buildings to buffer the shock. This is not so in smaller places like London. In small cities, horrible architecture reverberates loudly.

Ouroussoff says the best solution for solving the problems of architectural horrors might be the wrecking ball. I might suggest a little forethought. A little planning. Don't allow the ugly stuff to be built in the first place.

We don't have to look farther than East London for an example of bad architecture.

An EOA century plus building has panache.

The London Free Press calls the construction of 12 one-bedroom apartments above six ground floor commercial units a "rebirth" for a section of Dundas Street that has been in declined for decades.

Sadly, one doesn't have to look farther than the end of the block to see more attractive, but equally dense, architecture. While other communities around the world are demanding more from their developers, demanding beauty along with function, London is failing the grade.

What is really interesting is that the local paper has long been a champion of the ideas of Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company. The local paper has also written approvingly of the actions being taken by the small town of Birmingham, Michigan, at keeping their well respected little burg at the forefront of modern thinking on successful urbanism. Birmingham has an urban plan prepared for the community by DPZ.

Maybe London should consider borrowing some of the ideas of this famous architectural firm. Do a little googling and see what other communities are doing. For instance, Birmingham is looking at form based code.

Form-based code in action in Birmingham, MI.

6. Form-based code

A form-based code is a method of regulating development to achieve a specific urban look. Form-based codes create a predictable public realm by focusing mostly on physical form. Land use controls are secondary. Form-based codes address the relationship between building facades and the public space, the form and mass of buildings is controlled in relation to one another, and the scale and types of streets and blocks.

Click this link to form-based code. If FBC was being used in London, Ontario, it might have prevented the monstrosity going up in EOA.

Walkable. Sorta. Mostly designed for car travel.

7. As we ReThink London, let's not be too intent on belly-button gazing. Let's look outside of the city and see what stuff other folk are doing in other communities.

For instance, London has what is being touted as a new gateway to the city: Wonderland Road South.

The London Free Press writer Randy Richmond tells us: The plan is for this southwest corner of London to become a living and economic gateway to the city, a showcase of London's very best qualities.

Is Richmond really serious? I'm sure he has the plan wording correct, but is this really what is transpiring? I don't think so. This development could be much better. For all the local talk about walkability, the commercial development in the Wonderland and Southdale Road area sports few of the features one would expect if walkability was truly a goal.

Legacy Village, Columbus, Ohio

I advise the city planning folk to get in a car, share the expense, and take a drive to Columbus, Ohio to visit Legacy Village. This is one approach that might have been considered as an alternative to what is continuing to be expanded along Wonderland Road South.

Be aware, I am not suggesting London copy Legacy Village but be inspired by it. With all the residential development in the Wonderland/Southdale area, a walker-friendly shopping area that is also car and bus welcoming, would have been ideal.

Another spot that could have benefited from a little Legacy Village thinking is the shopping area on Southdale Road at Col. Talbot Rd. Sad to say, the original plan for the London intersection promised a new urbanist commercial area. It didn't happen and it leaves one wondering what plans today will not happen. Just being a good plan doesn't seem to be enough. Talk is cheap in London.

Well, that's it for today. May post more tomorrow. I've gotta be prepared for the upcoming ReThink London meeting.

Romney calls U.S. the most prosperous nation. It's not.

I heard Mitt Romney claim that the United States is the most prosperous nation on earth. I thought, "Huh?" I had a vague recollection of a report listing the States well down on the global prosperity ranking. No CNN newsperson questioned Romney's claim

Note the United States is in 10th position.

A quick google found The 2011 Legatum Prosperity Index. The U.S. was rated 10th. Not bad but not No. 1.

To tell the truth, the idea that the world's countries can be neatly ranked according to prosperity is open to question. Let's not get too hung up on the specific numbers but on the general placement.

Clearly there are thoughtful folk who would not rate the U.S. among the very top countries when it comes to prosperity. The index still has the States in the top ten, a drop from its past ranking, but still an excellent placement.

The finding that I found most interesting was how Americans rate their country when it comes meritocracy, the selecting of people to positions of power and influence in government and business, etc. according to merit, according to their ability.

Only 88.5 percent of Americans believe their society is meritocratic. I say only because 93.4 percent in Norway believe their society is meritocratic. Even the Chinese rate their country, China, higher on the meritocracy scale than Americans rate the U.S. On the meritocracy scale, Americans rate the U.S. closer to India than to Norway.

BRT Primer

See the draft London, Ont. Transportation Master Plan at Smart Moves Open House.

Taking the bus in London, Ontario, can be a nasty experience --- or so I've been told. I usually walk, or ride my bike, or drive my car. Like the majority of Londoners, for longer trips I prefer my car to the bus.

One of the few experiences I've had with London Transit was when my car died while downtown and I tried walking home. Not quite halfway home a bus pulled up and stopped. I was taking a breather and just happened to be at a bus stop. I explained I didn't have any change and was just taking a break from a long hike home. The driver looked at the sweating, panting, old geezer standing at the open door to his bus. He ordered me to climb aboard.

I thanked him. My failing, old heart thanked him. I climbed the stairs onto the bus and slumped down in the first seat. The very next day, I dropped off my fare at the bus terminal on Highbury Ave. I may not take the bus regularly but I think London Transit is a fine operation thanks to that driver's kindness.

Now, the London Transit Commission (LTC) is going to try and win not just my respect but my business. The LTC is unveiling the new Transportation Master Plan (TMP) May 16 in the Carousel Room at Western Fair. The promise is to put BRT at the core of  the latest proposal for curing London's mass transit ills.

What is BRT?

BRT stands for Bus Rapid Transit: a bus service providing a level of service comparable to rail when it comes to frequency of service, capacity, quality and reliability. Ideally, BRT accomplishes all this with greater flexibility and lower capital investment costs.

Knowing very little about BRT, I googled the topic and discovered the Valley Transit Authority (VTA) of Santa Clara, California has posted an excellent primer on BRT design, complete with guidelines. If your are going to the May meeting at Western Fair, take a look at the VTA posted report detailing their take on BRT.

An articulated bus used by the VTA, Santa Clara, CA on their valley rapid BRT system.

The BRT idea sounds good but note that valley rapid is still in its infancy. It is still being evaluated. This is an ongoing story as far as Santa Clara, CA. is concerned. We will just have to "stay tuned" to learn the outcome.

There is a BRT system in Ottawa, ON. You may be interested in the post Myth vs. Reality: Has Ottawa "BRT" Provided Light-Rail Service at Much Lower Cost? This article supplies more links if you want to dig even deeper. Keep in mind this info comes from a source that is not wowed by the BRT approach as followed in Ottawa.

A BRT line in Cleveland, Ohio has gotten mixed reviews.

I find it interesting that Cleveland, Ohio has a working BRT route. I believe it was Randy Richmond of The London Free Press who made a derogatory comment about Cleveland in one of the articles in the ongoing LFP series on improving London. I thought his remark was not only unnecessary but unwise. When looking for inspirational ideas for improving one's community, one should never flippantly write off another community.

Of all people, I should think reporters should keep open minds.



Grand Rapids, Michigan is one my favorite Rust Belt cities. It has had a tough go of things over the past few decades but the city has kept its spirit. The Heritage Hill area is quite remarkable and well worth a visit. Check the Internet and find a bed and breakfast in one of the old mansions.

Grand Rapids is giving serious consideration to a BRT route. The above video was done by a chap from Grand Rapids who went to Cleveland to see BRT in use.

Toothpaste for young children is fluoride-free

Toothpaste for young children is fluoride-free: Safe if swallowed.

When the fluoridation debate flared in London some time ago a columnist for the local paper, The London Free Press, told all those opposed to give their collective heads a shake. Even though I would not have counted myself among those opposed, I still gave my head a shake. When all settled, I found myself on the other side of the argument.

I'm not terribly frightened by the prospect of drinking fluoridated water. I used it to make my morning coffee without giving a moment's thought to the fluoride in my brew. So, why do I now side with those demanding the cessation of the fluoridation of London's water?

Well, a lot of folk are very concerned and I don't believe in upsetting folk without a good reason. Fluoridation does not seem to be a good reason. For all the talk about the clear, dental health benefits, it is impossible to track down the multitude of studies which supposedly back up the health claims.

If you want fluoride, and I do, brush with the stuff, slosh it about your mouth in your mouthwash, and when done spit it all out. The brief contact of fluoride with your teeth at these times is most certainly of greater benefit to your teeth than the water ingested over the day.

Read what the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care has posted on the Web in regards to reducing dental caries through the addition of fluoride to drinking water:

"Current studies of the effectiveness of water fluoridation have design weaknesses and methodological flaws . . . The magnitude of the effect [reduction of dental caries in the population] is not large in absolute terms, is often not statistically significant and may not be of clinical significance. . . . Canadian studies do not provide systematic evidence that water fluoridation is effective in reducing decay in contemporary child populations. The few studies of communities where fluoridation has been withdrawn do not suggest significant increases in dental caries as a result."

Right upfront I will admit to editing the above. But the fact remains that we do not have statistically significant evidence backing up the claim, a claim made even by the Ontario Ministry of Health itself, that "dental decay [rates] are lower in fluoridated than [in] non-fluoridated communities."

And a careful reading of the literature contains warnings for even believers in the value of the topical application of fluoride, folk like me. Under the headline, Acute Toxicity, the ministry warns: "Fluoride products such as toothpaste should be kept out of the reach of children since toxic amounts could be ingested via these sources." Adults are told to use just a pea sized amount and spit it all out when done.

When the ministry admits "the optimal level of 1.0 ppm was chosen, largely on an arbitrary basis . . .", one's confidence in the ministry numbers can waiver. It does not help that in the States the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have lowered the recommended level of fluoride in drinking water to 0.7 ppm. This is much lower than the "arbitrary" Ontario number.

Why did the Yanks lower the recommended level? "Water is now one of several sources of fluoride," they tell us. "Other common sources include dental products such as toothpaste and mouth rinses, prescription fluoride supplements, and fluoride applied by dental professionals." They give a lot of the credit for the significant decline in tooth decay in the U.S. over the past several decades to not only fluoridated water but to fluoride in toothpaste.

So why get your neighbour's knickers all in a knot forcing them to drink fluoridated water? Take advantage of all the alternatives and get the stuff out of coffee, tea, soup and everything else made with tap water. This is 2012 and not 1940. The time for adding fluoride to our municipal water may have passed.

No. 14 going on a hundred million (or more)

Thonet chairs in bentwood have their design roots reaching back into the 1830s.

My wife wants a new kitchen. Me? I'd just replace the worn flooring and get on with life. My wife's a fine cook. I doubt a new kitchen will improve her cooking. It certainly won't help the bank account.

The new kitchen is being designed as I write. Graciously throwing in the towel, I jumped on board. I immediately began searching the Internet for a new dining set. My search took me to the Thonet chair company. If you are like me, the name will ring no bells, but one look at the chairs and you will be flooded with memories.

I knew these bentwood chair designs were old but I had no idea how old. Nor did I realize that these chairs were once on the leading edge of innovative furniture design.

I believe this is the original No. 14.

It seems a German-Austrian cabinetmaker by the name of Michael Thonet in the 1830s began experimenting with bent wooden slats and glue for making furniture. After years of trial and error, he produced his No. 1 chair, winning a bronze medal at the 1851 World's Fair in London for his Vienna bentwood chair. He continued to improve his design and at the next World's Fair in Paris in 1855 he took silver.

Thonet was hitting his stride. In 1859 he created chair No. 14, possibly the first chair designed with factory production in mind. His unique chair went on to take the gold medal at the 1867 World Fair. On a roll, by the 1930s some 50 million No. 14 chairs had been produced by the Thonet factories.

If you've ever bought a piece of inexpensive furniture, the low price partially a result of it being delivered in pieces ready for assembly, you can thank the long gone Michael Thonet and his "chair of chairs."

Coat stand, Cafe Daum, Vienna, 1849.

The Thonet factory could cram 36 disassembled chairs into a one cubic meter box for shipping around the world. Each chair required only six pieces of wood, two bolts and a few screws. The design was ingenious.

If you want to move millions of chairs, Thonet made as many as 400 thousand chairs a year, you've got to have more than a neat design; You must be a superb promoter as well. Michael Thonet was both. He demonstrated the strength of his design by throwing No. 14 from the Eiffel Tower during the Paris World Fair.

In the early years of the 20th century, Thonet chairs inspired a number of other designers to create similar shapes in an easier to bend material: metal tubes. These designers included: Le Corbusier, Marcel Breuer, Mart Stamm, Miese van der Rohe, and Czechs Ladislav Žák and Jindřich Halabala.

In 1929 a French subsidiary was created to make the tubular steel furniture designed by Breuer, Mies van der Rohe, and Le Corbusier. The Thonet Bros. company was making furniture history. Pablo Picasso, Lev Tolstoy, Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir and Salvador Dali are among the famous owners of Thonet made furniture.

The back of No. 18 now has two extra supports.

I found Thonet chairs are available from a showroom in Richmond Hill, Ontario north of Toronto. My wife and I made the two hour trip but my wife was not impressed. We're buying a Shaker inspired design made by some Pennsylvania Amish and sold in Birr, Ontario north of London.

 The "modern" Wassily Chair designed by Marcel Breuer in 1925.

My wife is letting me buy two No. 18s to appease me. Both will look good with my Wassily Chair which was long ago banished to our basement.

Is an egg for breakfast worth this?

The New York Times published an opinion piece today entitled: Is an egg for breakfast worth this? The piece brought back memories.

Years ago an egg farmer outside of London, Ontario was in trouble with the egg marketing board if memory serves me right. I wish I could say what the problem was but I can't. I recall so little I'd have a tough time finding the story even if I visited the public library. The London Free Press library could probably help me, if they still had a proper library at the paper, but they don't and so that option is closed.

What I do recall from my visit to the egg producing operation was the condition of the barn. It was hellish. Small cages, crammed with egg-laying hens standing on a coarse wire mesh, slanted so eggs would roll outside the cages for easy retrieval.

I'd been in filthy barns before, so the strong odour of the place did not come as a shock. What did surprise me was the condition of the hen's clawed feet. Forced to stand on a heavy gauge wire, their feet were calloused and misshapen. The farmer told me that sometimes the growths on the bottom of the chicken's feet would grow around the wires and he would have to take a sharp tool to cut the feet free.

When I told the editors what I saw, they told me this wasn't news; this was simply egg production.

I spent time on farms as a young boy. I knew that at one time this wasn't the way egg-laying hens were treated.

It's location, location, location!

This map showing B&Es adds weight to the claims of a senior LFP editor.

Today, The London Free Press crime reporter Scott Taylor told readers they have a one in 60 chance of being burglarized. Taylor tells us that last year there were 2,900 reported break-and-enters in London, a city with roughly 170,000 households and businesses. A little simple math and Taylor calculated his one in 60 number.

Back when I was still working at the newspaper, I used to give a senior editor at the paper a ride home from work. He lived in the southwest end of the city. One night we chatted about home break-ins. He told me his neighbourhood was very quiet and very safe with very few break-ins. He claimed that crooks were lazy and liked to burglarize homes either near where they themselves lived or near a main road. I gathered he thought crooks were so lazy that they didn't even want to drive too far off the crime beaten path. They like easy access.

If the editor was right, where you live in London will modify your chance of being burglarized. Using info and maps posted by Neighbourhood Watch I looked at Southwest London, the editor's neighbourhood. Then I looked at an area east of the core.

I have to admit that what I found didn't leave me all that surprised. When I worked downtown at the newspaper, the cars of employees parked in the company lots were regularly burglarized. For some years I lived just west of the core and break-ins were not uncommon. My one daughter lives in what is known as EOA, the East of Adelaide neighbourhood. She has had her home broken into as have some of her neighbours.

This is not to say there are no break-in in the southwest. There are. But the your chance of being burglarized in the southwest end of town are not as great as for those living in some other parts of the city. If you live beside a pedestrian walkway joining two streets, I believe your chances of being burglarized go up. As the editor said, crooks are lazy and like easy access. It seems both urban planners and urban burglars like walkways.

Some neighbourhoods and some home locations are definitely more at risk than others. When it comes to the burglary game, the dice are loaded.

During the same period as above, the editor's neighbourhood had no B&Es. None!

Newspapers have short memories

Newspapers have always had short memories. When the pressing demand is reporting today's news, it is hard to find the time to report yesterday's news. So the fact that reporter-poet Randy Richmond doesn't recall the city's previous vision for Reg Cooper Square comes as no surprise.

Yet, it is interesting to take a moment to reflect on the forgotten, but rather recent, past. The London, Ontario, downtown is not what it once was. No surprise here. Most downtowns across North America are not what they once were.

London, like hundreds of other communities, desperately wants to revitalize its downtown. The vast majority of Londoners live outside the core, work outside the core and shop outside the core. Why cities devote so much energy to their downtowns to the detriment of their suburbs is a puzzle.

Today's big idea on how to breathe more life into London's core is to take a fully functioning apartment building, along with the aging city hall beside it, and let the University of Western Ontario take over both. The apartment building would become a student residence, while the city hall would become a major component in a university campus growing in the centre of the city.

Centennial Hall, the third important building sitting on the edge of Reg Cooper Square would also fall into university hands.

To hear these plans discussed, one could be forgiven for thinking that no one had ever had any imaginative ideas about the area. But that's not true. The city planning division put forth a Downtown Design Concept some years ago. The study promised to "encourage new development . . . that will accentuate the Downtown's positive aspects and contribute to its functional success."

This plan had depth. It was the result of work done by the consulting firm Wallace, Roberts & Todd. The well known firm prepared the design concept and proposed guidelines for the Downtown. And what has happened since the release of the report? As far as Reg Cooper Square is concerned, nothing? Unless, you count continuing decay.

Was CBC's the fifth estate attack on Oxycontin the whole story?

This is an important additional note posted Feb. 3, 2019. Please read first.

An update on the role of opioids in the management of chronic pain of nonmalignant origin: The fact that opioids can improve the key outcomes in selected patients with chronic nonmalignant pain should not be ignored. A whole range of very serious long-term risks and consequences are, however, beginning to emerge, such as addiction, tolerance, OIH, cognitive disorders, and suppression of the immune and reproductive systems. Much more research is needed regarding the long-term consequences of opioid therapy.
_________________________________________________________________________

The Myth of Drug-Induced Addition. Source: Parliament of Canada

Sunday night the fifth estate looked into addiction problems associated with OxyContin, one of the most popular pain relief medications in Canada. The CBC program had a singular point of view: Oxycontin is a highly addictive, potentially deadly narcotic, over prescribed by doctors influenced by the drug manufacturer's erroneous claims of safety.

No big argument there, but is the fifth estate giving us the whole story? As a simple blogger writing from home, it is impossible for me to say. That said, I'm well into my 60s and worked for more than three decades in the media. I saw a lot of one sided stories and learned that many media stories making it into the top ten list had good hooks and played well at first, but, in the end, had little staying power. A lot of drug related stories fall into this slot: Think of the crack babies scare.

W. Joseph Campbell writes: "As I note in my latest book, Getting It Wrong, the crack baby scare was a media-driven myth based more on anecdote than solid, sustained research." It turned out to be, as the New York Times put it in 2009, “the epidemic that wasn’t.' "

My years spent closely working with reporters have left me suspicious of one sided stories. Canadians, the CBC tells us, will ingest possibly 10 million grams of oxycodone, the active ingredient in OxyContin, for pain relief in 2012. That's a lot of oxycodone. With numbers like these, surely there must be something good to be said.

On the growing Oxycontin problem, Campbell quotes the words of a lawyer-politician, the Florida attorney general, who said: "I’m scared to death this will become the crack-baby epidemic." Which, of course, proved to be mostly an epidemic of media hype.

A little more googling turned up this positive story from Karen L. Simon:

I suffered for 20 years with an arthritic hip while being miss-diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. I finally got a doctor who cared enough to order a plain hip x-ray and I was able to get hip replacement surgery.

After the operation, my surgeon said that the femur head was half gone. Without pain medication there is no way I could have had any, I repeat, any kind of life. I was on pain medication for 20 years and went off with no withdrawal symptoms.

Your continued reports on pain medicine abuse simply make it harder for chronic pain patients to get adequate pain medicine. Believe me that if you suffered from pain 24/7, you would require medication. Please, please report on some other better subject.

Ms. Simon is not alone in singing the praises of Oxycontin. Very little searching will turn up hundreds of positive testimonials. What I found very interesting in Simon's story was she claimed to have used pain medication for 20 years without suffering severe withdrawal. Is this possible? The short answer is: Yes.

Let me quote Richard Pacheco of the Harvard Law School, who as a third year law student he wrote a paper on the use and misuse of OxyContin.

"The physical dependence associated with some drugs can be treated by gradually reducing the dosages of the medication to the point where a patient is drug-free and has no withdrawal symptoms or craving"

You may believe Pacheco or not, but be aware that media scare stories to the contrary there are many who agree with Pacheco. And, of course, many who do not.

Still, there are areas of agreement, right? For instance, OxyContin is highly addictive. Some of my quoted sources claimed OxyContin pills when crushed and then snorted or swallowed resulted in  almost immediate addiction, much like heroin. Crush it, snort it, and be left immediately needing to do it again and again. Bing, bang, boom and the addictive boom engulfs the unsuspecting user.

I've read this claim before and alarm bells went off. Immediate addiction, an interesting concept seeing that addiction involves a recurrent failure of control and a continuation of a behaviour with significant destructive consequences. 

It is a lot like reporting something is the first annual. If something has only been done once, it cannot be annual. Many "annual" events fail to be held again and many folk taking "immediately addicting" drugs do not develop an ongoing pattern of abuse.

I can hear the protests to this line of reasoning already. Fine. But a reporter has an obligation to report the whole story and the whole story is that many do not believe in "immediate addiction."

Terms like addiction, dependence, withdrawal are not the neat, clear cut descriptive words many in the media would like us to believe. Read the following from the American Psychiatric Association (APA) discussion of an entry in the upcoming fifth edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

"The term dependence is misleading, because people confuse it with addiction, when in fact the tolerance and withdrawal patients experience are very normal responses to prescribed medications that affect the central nervous system," said Charles O’Brien, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Substance-Related Disorders Work Group. “On the other hand, addiction is compulsive drug seeking behavior which is quite different. We hope that this new classification will help end this wide-spread misunderstanding."

I don't think the media understand that there is a large group of people who would argue that dependence, tolerance and withdrawal are all very normal responses to oxycodone based pain relievers.

One person, claiming to be a legal user of OxyContin, wrote on the Net:

"To keep this within limits I will not get detailed on the benefits of Oxycontin. As you can read on the other forums it works. I take 80mg 3x a day and it works great. Been on it for 5 years now and liver test done last month was excellent.

I am tired of the bad rap this medicine gets though. There are even sites devoted to its removal by people who have lost loved ones who abused the drug. While I feel for these people, no one told anyone abuse this wonderful drug. When taken properly this medicine works excellent with little to no side effects.

It is said that you become dependent on this medicine but it is meant for long term and a good doctor will bring you down properly. So withdrawals should be minimum. This is a true wonder drug."

Let's give the last words to W. Joseph Campbell writing one of his Media Myth Alert posts.

(There is) a tendency among journalists "to neglect or disregard the tentativeness that characterizes serious scientific and biomedical research, and to reach for certainty and definitiveness that are not often found in preliminary findings."

Journalists pushed too hard on thin, preliminary, and sketchy data, and extrapolated rather extravagantly from small numbers of anecdotes. It’s a pattern that tends to repeat itself, as journalists fail to take lessons from misreported drug scares of the past.

"What reporters need to do,” the inestimable media critic Jack Shafer has written, "is challenge their sources in criminal justice, medicine, drug treatment, legislatures, and the user community when they make assertions of fact."

___________________________________________________________

Some years have passed since writing the above post. I was wrong. This story has legs. In February of this year, 2018, Reuters reported OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP slashed its sales force in half and would stop promoting opioids to physicians. This after widespread criticism of the ways that drug-makers marketed potentially addictive painkillers.

Read: The Promotion and Marketing of OxyContin: Commercial Triumph, Public Health Tragedy. 

I still question the reporting on the opioid crisis but there does seem to be enough blame to go around. Producers, like Purdue, have been forced by the courts to accept some responsibility. Users have always had to shoulder some blame.

But the days of the media slipping by unscathed may be coming to an end. CBC Radio reported, "the media perpetuated the notion that Oxycontin was the problem, the (Canadian) government reacted, Oxycontin was pulled from the market, and the supply was throttled.

"But drug markets are complicated and the notion that a supply line can be simply cut off without something else emerging to take its place is naive." Hence, the appearance of fentanyl and carfentanil. According to Dan Werb, the role of the media is to provide context. The media must dig beneath the surface. Link: Media Coverage Is Making the Opioid Crisis Worse.

Think of Portugal and its unique approach to the universal drug problem. Read: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it? This is an in-depth report from The Guardian. We need more stories like this.

According to the article, one critical change was the shift in language. Junkies became known more broadly, more sympathetically, and more accurately, as "people who use drugs" or "people with addiction disorders". This was crucial. In North America we still brand folk as junkies. Maybe there's a story here for the fifth estate.
___________________________________________________________

Some interesting links:

What Percentage of Chronic Nonmalignant Pain Patients Exposed to Chronic Opioid Analgesic Therapy Develop Abuse/Addiction and/or Aberrant Drug-Related Behaviors? A Structured Evidence-Based Review (Answer: a very small percentage of patients at 3.27%)

Addiction to opioids in chronic pain patients: A literature review (Findings: the prevalence of addiction varied from 0% up to 50% in chronic non‐malignant pain patients, and from 0% to 7.7% in cancer patients depending of the subpopulation studied and the criteria used.)

Most Drug Overdose Deaths from Nonprescription Opioids (This seems to contradict a lot of other posted information but...) The claim is made that the opioid overdose increase had little to do with prescription painkillers such as oxycodone or hydrocodone.
  
Long-term opioid management for chronic noncancer pain. Reviewed 26 studies with 27 treatment groups with a total enrollment of 4893 participants. Serious adverse events, including iatrogenic opioid addiction, were rare. One caveat: This study is almost a decade old.

But all studies are not positive: A Review of Potential Adverse Effects of Long-Term Opioid Therapy: A Practitioner’s Guide.

• Increasing numbers of deaths are due to opioid overdose among patients prescribed long-term opioid therapy to manage chronic pain.
• Opioid therapy can adversely affect respiratory, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, immune, endocrine, and central nervous systems.
• The higher the daily dose of prescribed opioid, the higher the risk of overdose and other significant problems such as fractures, addiction, intestinal blockages, and sedation.
• Physicians and patients are encouraged to weigh the full spectrum of medical risks against a realistic assessment of observed benefits for pain.

Yes, this is a complicated story. It is too bad that, for the most part, the media hates complicated stories.

Soledad O’Brien takes on Joel Pollak

It was a messy bit of television. Soledad O'Brien of CNN's Starting Point interviewed Joel Pollak, Breitbart.com editor-in-chief, and the interview got downright messy. Too much talking over one another. No clear winner. Folk like Tammy Bruce are claiming "CNN’s Soledad O’Brien Crashes Her Clown Car." Those on the other side are claiming O'Brien pinned Pollak and Breitbart.com to the mat.

The fuss was over the release of a video showing President Obama back in his Harvard Law School years introducing Prof. Derrick Bell, the first tenured black professor at the school, well-known for his Critical Race Theory.

After viewing the clip, O'Brien asks Pollak, "What part of that was the bomb shell?" She continues,"I missed it." She accuses Pollak of completely misreading CRT.

O'Brien was right --- connecting Obama, a Harvard law student, to Derrick Bell, a Harvard law professor, is not a bomb shell --- but I felt her point got lost in the ensuing group discussion. This was messy American news programing. This was not a clear BBC style presentation or a multifaceted CBC panel discussion.

O'Brien says, accurately I might add, that a lot of law students read Derrick Bell. It is part of their education, she says. Unfortunately, O'Brien's word were not allowed to stand on the own. The whole discussion gets very confused as other panel members jump into fray. Even Rush Limbaugh gets tossed into the mix. Sheesh.

It is interesting to note the the Harvard Law School Bulletin published a tribute to Derrick Bell after his death. The Bulletin wrote:

(Bell) helped to develop critical race theory, a body of legal scholarship that explores how racism is embedded in laws and legal institutions. And more broadly, over the course of his five-decade career, he worked to expose the persistence of racism.

Dean Martha Minow said: "From his work on the front lines of legal argument in the civil rights movement to his pathbreaking teaching and scholarship on civil rights and racial justice issues, Professor Derrick Bell inspired and challenged generations of colleagues and students with imagination, passion and courage."

"He has left a trail of immeasurable scholarship," said HLS Professor Charles Ogletree ’78 of his former professor, his mentor and his friend.

The New York University School of Law News reported: "The NYU Annual Survey of American Law dedicated its 69th volume to the late Derrick Bell. . . . (Bell spent) two decades at NYU School of Law as a full-time visiting professor"

NYU President John Sexton said, "(Bell) had the capacity that the really great teachers have, to make you think about something completely differently from the way you thought about it before you began to work with him. . . . I’m not sure I’d be here today if it hadn’t been for his pushing me as a scholar."

It seems there are a lot more people than just President Obama who admired Professor Bell and there are also a lot of folk who would support Soledad O'Brien's position. Sadly, panelist Amy Holmes did not come across as one of her defenders.

Amy Holmes wishes more had been made of this video in 2008. This should have been "put into the public square," she argues. Ah yes, if only the MSM had gotten its teeth into this back then as they did with the Jeremiah Wright stuff. This video would have really made for some incredibly messing and uninformed discussions, something CNN and their ilk seem to think makes for good television. Funny. Their rating don't reflect the popularity of their approach.

Rust Belt cities can learn from each other

A few months ago I attended a meeting encouraging the discussion of ways to save downtown London. Why someone would think knocking Detroit, Michigan would add anything to the discussions, I can't fathom. But one person did just that.

I was angered. Detroit was a wonderful city. When I was a boy it was middle class heaven. Its descent into a state of urban hell can only be looked at with great concern. If a city as mighty as Detroit can crumble in not years but months, all cities are at risk. All cities, and that includes London.

With the loss of the Electro-Motive Diesel plant this year, the loss of the local Ford assembly plant last year, and an unemployment number that is among the worst in the entire country, I think London may have strolled through the door to Rust Belt Ville.

Flint thought a mall would bring back their fading downtown.

What measures have many Rust Belt burgs taken to try and stem the decay? Uh, put in an expensive, first-rate downtown mall? Yup! Flint did that.

Hmm. Didn't London do that, too? Yup! Think Galleria, oh, we changed the name to Citi Plaza to attract a tenant. Last I checked, there are signs the tenant may leave but London will have the name to remember them by.

What was the business that was going to turn around the London mall? A call center. Yup, the business model that lots of Rust Belt cities attached their rusting chain to. It didn't work out all that well for many of them, either.

Hmm. Maybe London could get the university to open a downtown campus. That's been a popular strategy throughout the Rust Belt. Sometimes a university will take over an empty building near the new downtown campus, injecting hundreds of students into the dying core. Yup, London is considering this move, too

Oh, there is one difference in the London approach. London is threatening to move residents out of a functioning downtown apartment building, to empty it in order to move student in. Some would see this as a weird twist on an old core renewal scheme.

Which brings me to one of my old complaints. London had a fine downtown theatre that deteriorated from years of neglect. In the end, the auditorium was demolished and a parking lot put in. The facade of the building was sorta saved. But, most would be hard pressed to tell it was ever a theatre. The theatre was torn down over the protests of a group of Londoners who wanted to see it transformed into a performing arts centre.

So what have other Rust Belt cities done? Well, many have not gone quietly, letting a gem slip away. Accepting a parking lot as full replacement. Tonight, I stumbled upon the Utica, New York solution. Gosh, but I hope it works.

LEDs provide the light. A green chandelier.

Utica took a bold approach. They dumped $20 million into renovations to their old theatre to bring the Stanley Theatre for the Arts up to the standard demanded by today's touring companies. And they did things that made news --- like installing the world’s largest LED free-hanging chandelier.

Custom crafted of steel, blown-glass and acrylic, the magnificent chandelier is 35 feet in diameter, 17 feet tall, 7,000 pounds and hand-finished in antique gold and bronze. It was designed to complement the Stanley Theater’s Mexican baroque Moorish theme.

But this is not just another large chandelier, this baby exhibits state-of-the-green-art technology. Using 274 LEDs, the chandelier uses power equivalent to eleven 100-watt incandescent light bulbs – a 98.5% energy savings!

The London solution: Gutted theatre, now office space.

The refurbished theatre has had a rough start. But it is still struggling along and when one considers the present economic climate, this cannot come as a surprise. I like these folks' style but it will be some time before we know for sure whether the Utica approach or the London approach is best.

It is hard to make a comparison between London and Utica. The London theatre is now expensive office space on long term lease to the city. Because of the high leasing costs, the remaining Capitol Theatre facade is an ongoing cost to the city and will be for many years. In Utica the refurbished theatre may also be an ongoing cost to the city. Which will be the bigger drain? Which is the best use of taxpayer money?

The Utica, New York, solution: a refurbished theatre.

Meet Muncie Indiana

Screen grab from The London Free Press video showing scenes from Muncie, Ind.

Every since it became clear Electro-Motive Diesel in London was closing and the operation moving to Muncie, Indiana, I've been interested in knowing more about this small, American city. The London Free Press visited Muncie and shot a short video of the town --- Between the Lines: EMD shut down. Many folk in Muncie who have viewed the piece say it does not mirror the town accurately. The newspaper's video, they say, shows only the poorest parts of town. (I think they are being a little unfair but I won't argue with them.)

Lobby of Roberts Hotel, Muncie, Indiana.

Today I saw some tweets out of Muncie that rekindled my curiosity about the town. It seems the elegant, eight-story, heritage hotel in downtown Muncie, the Roberts Hotel, may evade its date with the wrecking ball.

A Cincinnati developer hopes to turn the old hotel into senior housing. The Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority has approved $1.3 million in rental housing tax credits per year for 10 years toward the cost of the $16 million project.

Roberts Hotel, Muncie, Indiana. Still standing.

It's good news for a hotel that was once the crown-jewel of Muncie. It hosted five presidents and numerous celebrities in its day. In 1982 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. It has been touch and go for the hotel, empty since 2006 but it appears Muncie may save its downtown gem.

Londoners should applaud Muncie's good luck. Old time London folk still talk fondly of Hotel London and its beautiful, oh-so-ornate ballroom. But the Ontario city lost its gem when it was demolished to make way for the future --- a couple of tall, modern towers, the tallest buildings in town at the time.

Hotel London, London, Ontario demolished decades ago.

Gosh, the two old hotels look similar. The big difference seems to be that Muncie is still working to save its old heritage hotel while London said good-bye to its gem some decades ago.

Seeing that the little Indiana burg is working to save its heritage hotel, I wondered what the folks in Muncie have done with their old downtown movie theatre.

London has managed to save the Grand Theatre but lost a real gem in the Capitol Theatre which was allowed to slowly deteriorate to be finally razed for a parking lot. Some of the exterior facade was retained but the auditorium is gone.

Well Muncie has managed to save its Civic Theater. You have to give Muncie credit. For a little place suffering all the economic hardships common to Rust Belt cities, Muncie is still in there fighting to save some of what once made Muncie Muncie.

The Civic Theater in Muncie, Indiana.

Some how the image I was getting of Muncie was not in sync with the little video posted by the local paper. I decided to cruise some Muncie streets using Google StreetViews.

First, I visited the downtown. Yes, lots of it looks sad. But, a sad looking downtown is not news. Gosh, from my travels, I expect a downtown to look sad. Muncie did have some bright little spots. Muncie is clearly struggling but it is still struggling. Many downtowns have given up the battle and are just plain dead.

Heritage buildings in downtown Muncie from Google StreetViews.

Now I turned my attention to Muncie's residential neighbourhoods. They looked pretty bad in the video. After cruising a few neighbourhoods using Google StreetViews I can report that a lot of what I saw reminded me of Northern Ontario.

Cities in Ontario's north that were fine places to live in the '70s, today look sad, rundown, forgotten. Paper mills have closed, logging operations halted, mines closed. With residents stripped of income, towns and cities can look pretty sad pretty quick. But I did see homes that said that Muncie was not always like it is today and held promise that it may yet have a future. Homes like the one below tell me that not everyone has given up on their city.

Muncie could again be a good place to live. If only there were more jobs.

One odd thing: The local London paper failed to show us the heritage neighbourhoods which still survive and thrive in Muncie. There is the Emily Kimbrough Historic District, established in 1976 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 ( the district was expanded in size in 1989) and the Kirby Historic District which was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

Muncie has its high points as well as its low.

Will the move of EMD to Muncie help bring the good times back? I don't know. But the wages being offered by Progress Rail don't seem to be up to the task of enabling workers to maintain good homes and pay the taxes necessary to provide first-rate municipal services. I noticed that a lot of the streets looked like they needed some expensive maintenance. To be honest, a lot of the town looks threadbare, sorta like vast tracts of London. (Sorry London but it would not be hard to shoot a video making the Forest City look Rust Belt sad.)

Promoting a dream

According to my morning paper, London has an opportunity to save a shining jewel. I'd say the paper has a chance to chase a dream and involve their readers in the pursuit.

The shining jewel in question is the former London Normal School on Elmwood Avenue which was opened 112 years ago. The jewel has lost some of its sheen over the intervening years. It hasn't been a school for decades and in 2005 it ceased being the admin building for the London District Catholic School Board.

Now it sits. An old building in search of a new use.

I wondered what developers in other communities have considered doing with old buildings such as this one. A short google search turned up Barat College redevelopment in Lake Forest, Illinois.

Stealing some info from the architect's web site, I learned this once proud religious women's college had fallen into decline. At the heart of the 24-acre campus is the historic Old Main structure with red brick and stone walls and a slate roof crowned with an ornate cupola. The building has been a fixture in Lake Forest for over 100 years.

 

Old Main on the former Barat College campus in Lake Forest, Ill.

Plans are to rehabilitate and develop the building into a 50-unit condominium. Old Main will be the generator of a proposed campus redevelopment, whose proposed plan is based on traditional Beaux Arts principals of axial and interlocking public spaces and parks. The new Georgian Revival-inspired neighborhood will consist of 35 new town homes and 35 new single-family attached dwellings.

Sharing dreams is an art requiring art.

The architects' attention to detail is evident in the overall plan, from the Georgian style buildings and site accoutrements --- bridges, fountains, and street lighting --- to the detailed landscape planning.

A personal dream needs some concrete plans if one is to share the vision. The architects in Lake Forest know how to communicate their dream for the site. Detailed plans have been released with dream-inducing artist conceptions.

What could be done with the grounds surrounding the former Normal School?

The Barat College plans in Lake Forest, Ill., are just that: plans. This is a dream yet to be realized. On the other hand, Union High School in Black River Falls, WI, is a dream realized. This historic school has been successfully converted to apartments.

The school, built in 1871, is on the National Register of Historic Places.

It would be interesting to get a peek at the apartments in the old school. Some, especially those with interesting windows, might be quite remarkable.

The London Normal School could be converted to a spectacular residence.

Do diesels compete with high mileage gasoline burners? Maybe, maybe not.

The oh-so-positive story that VW spins about its clean-diesel technology has been proven to be lies by the EPA. VW diesels built from 2009 on spew far more pollutants out the tailpipe than claimed. Sophisticated software shuts down much of the pollution control system whenever these cars are driven on the road rather than simply being tested. Turning off the pollution control equipment allows these cars to deliver improved power and fuel mileage. There is a recall now in place and sales have been halted in Ontario. Until this software issue is settled, I can no longer advise anyone to buy a VW diesel.

Message sent by a VW salesperson. No TDIs for sale.

For more information, read: VW Is Said to Cheat on Diesel Emissions; U.S. to Order Big Recall
and Volkswagen Chief Apologizes for Breach of Trust After Recall.

______________________________________________________

Recently, I came across an article questioning the value of diesel powered cars in today's auto market. The author pointed out that there are now gasoline powered cars that deliver fuel mileage similar to my VW Jetta but without the additional purchase cost.

Cost and availability or diesel fuel

First, the author discussed the cost of diesel fuel compared to gasoline. In the States, it seems diesel often costs more than gas. I have not found this to be the case in London, Ontario, Canada. When the price of a barrel of oil climbs, the cost of gas soars above $1.30 at the pump. At these times, I have found diesel priced less than gas. 

Sometimes I pay a premium for diesel and other times I don't. For the past few weeks I've been paying almost 20-cents less for diesel that I would have had to pay for regular gasoline. It seems diesel is more in the cold months and less in the warm ones. It's June as I write this. My records show that over the almost five years I've owned the car, it would not have made a meaningful difference if I been buying gasoline rather than diesel.

Has it been difficult finding diesel? In a word: No. Even the local grocery store fuel bar carries diesel and if you buy your fuel from at the gas bar, the grocery stores gives bonus coupons which are good for buying groceries. One of the Costco outlets has a fuel bar with a diesel pump on every lane. There are lots of stations carrying diesel in London.

Cost of a diesel vehicle compared to that of an efficient gasoline engined cars

O.K., here the gasoline powered cars pull ahead, but only if you don't take vehicle size into consideration. This can be a case of comparing apples and oranges. The new, larger Jetta is not playing in the same league as the Kia Rio, Ford Fiesta, Smart ForTwo Coupe, Chevrolet Cruze, Ford Focus or any of the other cars in the article's list.

I carry big people in my Jetta. They need leg room. The Jetta TDI provides it in both the front and the rear. And my trunk is huge. If you need room, lots of room, you may find you need more car than a Fiesta.

Insurance

I haven't done an extensive search of insurance costs as they apply to a variety of cars but I have done a small one. When buying my Jetta, I thought to call my insurance agent and get a quote for each of the cars under consideration. There was a Ford and a Honda on my short list. The Jetta cost less to insure, according to my agent, than both those other cars.

This was not a deciding factor in making my purchase but it did figure into my calculations.

Tailpipe emissions

Even after dieselgate, I feel greener driving my Jetta diesel than when I was driving my natural gas powered Pontiac Grand Prix some years back. Now, there was a polluting monster. (No slight to GM; I had the car switched to NG using a kit purchased from my local natural gas supplier.)

Conclusion

Depending on what you demand from a car, a diesel may offer some benefits. The most obvious benefit is the high mileage, especially when used on the highway. My Jetta TDI has delivered more than 60 mpg (Imp.) on the highway and it averages better than 41 mpg (Imp.) consistently.

This high mileage is delivered by a relatively large car. Check out the new VW Passat TDI. It is a big car. If the big Passat comes with too big a price, there is always the Jetta TDI to consider. A smaller car with a smaller price tag.

New diesels are quite fun to drive, certainly more so than many hybrids, in my opinion. That said, thanks to dieselgate I'm considering a hybrid Audi Sportback e-tron as my next car. Green is important to me.

For more info on owning a new VW Jetta TDI check my other post: Long Term Ownership Review: 2011 VW Jetta TDI.

Or do your own comparison of similar sized cars competing for you dollar. I feel the Ford Fusion competes directly with the new VW Jetta. Its a tough call in some ways, but I believe the Jetta comes out ahead.

With the Internet it is now easy to compare different cars before buying.

Although the Jetta costs more, when I priced a Fusion loan, I was asked to pay $56 more every month for 60 months to drive the compact Ford. This is because with the Jetta payback plan I have a balloon payment waiting at the end of the five year loan period. Win some every month; Lose some at the end.

Thanks to the fuel mileage I have been getting, I believe I would spend at least $500 more every year on fuel with the Ford. (This is based on info gleaned from a friend who owns a Fusion.) I know my insurance would have been more with the Ford. On the downside, I believe my VW has its transmission fluid and filter changed much earlier than even a hard-driven Fusion. This increases ownership costs somewhat.

When all costs are crunched, I figure the VW will probably cost me a little extra money but the longer I drive my Jetta the tighter the numbers. The big determining factor will be the residual value of my Jetta when it comes time to buy a replacement car. This number was supposed to remain a big unknown for many years but thanks to dieselgate I may know the value of aging car come July 2016.

If you have gotten this far, you might also be interested in the article Diesel: The Dark-Horse Contender For Greener, Cleaner Cars.