Scavenger hunt sweetens Easter

Fiona has found another paper Easter egg clue.

Andrea is a fine aunt. She knows how to entertain her niece. She pulls out all the stops when it comes to three-year-old Fiona. Sunday Andrea staged an Easter egg scavenger hunt that kept the little girl, forgive me, hopping.

Another egg clue: This one under the fish bowl.

The big problem with the more traditional Easter egg hunts are the eggs: All chocolate, sugar and fat. Watching excited children find the treats is fun but watching them munching through that mountain of chocolate, sugar and fat is a horror show.

Andrea had a solution: A scavenger hunt. All the excitement without all the junk food.

Andrea hid a dozen or so brightly coloured, egg-shaped pieces of paper around the home. She placed one on the fireplace mantle and hid another in the guest bedroom, Fiona's when she sleeps over.

Each paper egg carried a clue as to the location of the next paper egg. One egg had a picture of a barbecue pasted to it. One look and Fiona was off to the patio barbecue. Finding an image of a fish had Fiona inspecting the bowl holding Phoebe her pet Guppy.

Finding the paper egg clues takes time and thinking. The scavenger hunt delivers lots of fun and creates wonderful memories to savour in the future. The Easter basket found at the end of the hunt can be a rich mix of stuff and not overly heavy on the chocolate eggs.

It wasn't a room where I'd have hidden a clue but it worked. Glad the egg is paper.

Life never stops giving

"We seem to have reached the age where life stops giving us things and starts taking them away."

- Jim Broadbent as Dean Charles Stanforth in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

I'm not a fan of almost any film that is connected to Steven Spielsberg. I didn't catch the Raiders series with Indiana Jones when it was in the theatres. Today a couple of the films were on cable and I watched one. When I heard the quote that is the lede for this post, I shook my head.

Life is always giving. It is also always taking but I want to focus on the giving with this post.

I have lost my mother, my father, both sets of grandparents, all my aunts and all my uncles. Yet, I am not alone. And new faces keep arriving on the scene.

Eloise loves visiting her grandparents and all her grandparents love seeing her.

My two granddaughters with another on the way are, for me, life's way of saying the giving never stops, nor do the smiles stop coming.

;-)

The art of kids is inspirational: Grab a crayon

Sunshine after a rainfall: water colour on heavy paper by Fiona, abstract artist.

I like her work. I think she's a fair artist. But, I don't know how long she can continue cranking out work of this high calibre. She is, after all, only 3-years-old. She may outgrow her love of the abstract.

Floating: water colour on heavy paper by Fiona, abstract artist

The California hard edge painter Karl Benjamin was an elementary school teacher before he was a famous artist. Required to teach one period of art each week, he told his class to take crayon to paper and "Fill up the space with pretty colours . . ."

Inspired by the work done by the young kids, within a couple of years he was deep into his own experiments with paint and colour. Despite his art world success, Benjamin continued to teach elementary school for 30 years before becoming an art professor in the '80s.

I think I know how Benjamin felt. The work of young kids really is inspirational. Go on, grab some paint or settle for simple crayons: Crayola makes 'em in an absolutely amazing array of colours.

Flower on fridge: A work featuring mixed technique.

Blackfriars Bridge: Hasn't it earned its retirement?

When I moved to London in the '70s, Blackfriars Bridge had a 5 tonnes rating.

Read about London oldest bridge and decide whether or not you agree: Retire the aging structure. Remove it from its present location. Restore it to its original beauty. And re-purpose it as a pedestrian and cyclist only bridge.

Click the link to read the complete story on London Daily Photo.

Globe & Mail apology over Kaetlyn Osmond photo is unacceptable

Globe and Mail front page. Offended?

As a former staff photographer at a daily paper in Ontario, I am not surprised at the kerfuffle over The Globe and Mail front page photo.

The reaction of some readers was to be expected but what is surprising is the oh-so-wimpy collapse of The Globe. They made no attempt what-so-ever to defend their choice of front page picture.

Sylvia Stead, The Globes' public editor, wrote: "The readers and I both thought the photo could be embarrassing to anyone . . . " That's just creepy.

When 17-year-old figure skater Kaetlyn Osmond initially saw the photo large on The Globe front page she tweeted "I really like that picture : p."

Reading this, some reported that the teen tweeted that she liked the shot but others were confused by the emoticon; The "p" represents her tongue hanging out suggesting sarcasm. (Think "Blaaa!")

A few hours later Osmond clarified her take on the image and its play. She tweeted:

O.K. It is now clear. Kaetlyn Osmond may be only 17 but she is an adult. Sadly, the public editor at The Globe and Mail is not.

As a former newspaper photographer, I learned to watch for images that would inflame certain readers but it was impossible to catch all. And I never ceased to be amazed at what some people found offensive. One of the more common approaches taken by these all-too-common attacks was posted as a comment after The Globe apology.

An offended reader wrote: "I just think the use of the picture was calculated and they thought they wud (sic) sell more papers with a picture like that instead of well written and researched stories. That's what bothers me."

I literally cannot tell you how many times I got letters expressing just that sentiment. The first time I got a letter accusing me of picking a picture to "sell more papers", I thought the writer was just a nut. Over the years, and after many letters, I realized a large segment of the population saw all newspapers in the same sad, warped way.

Once, I shot a picture of two girls lying on a large, round, concrete structure catching some late spring sun. They were still in school, this was clear from their uniforms, and they were trying to get a bit of an early start at a suntan. They had their shirt sleeves up and skirts pulled up just above their knees. Their arms and legs touched the arc of the circular concrete form.

I found a vantage point that allowed me to shoot almost straight down. The composition reminded me of the famous Vitruvian Man drawing by Leonardo da Vinci.

I loved the picture of the two girls. It ran on one of the section fronts. Clearly the page editor liked it too. It brought praise from many folk who recognized my inspiration in my image.

It also brought me a very long and nasty letter from a local psychologist, angered by the publication of a picture rich with sexual imagery. The inclusion of the school uniforms clinched the matter in the mind of the good doctor.

I made sure that letter never appeared in the paper. That psychologist took a simple, lovely moment, a celebration of the approach of summer, and made the moment dirty. I kept that letter out of the paper; I did not want to sully the pleasure those kids were enjoying from being featured in the paper.

I wonder if Sylvia Stead is embarrassed. I confess I felt her public reaction to an innocent photo could be embarrassing to anyone . . . "

Flu vaccine myths

The flu vaccine does not always impart immunity to the flu. According to a recent New York Times article the vaccine fails to protect about 44 percent of the people given the shot.

But, I knew this. It is one of the arguments put forth by the anti-flu-vaccine folk. On the surface it looks like one mark against the vaccine and one reason not to bother getting it. The NYT article points out the weakness of this argument.

When more people are immunized, fewer get sick and the chances of keeping everyone else healthy improve, a phenomenon called "herd immunity."

If you'd like to read the entire NYT article, here is a link to: Myths about the flu vaccine.

I have a failing heart. I have an ICD implanted in my chest with an additional pacemaker function. I would never fail to get my annual flu shot. Never!

A majority of North Americans fail to get a flu shot. They have a variety of reasons for failing to act but all their excuses have one thing in common: They are myths.

Here are six of the more common myths about the flu debunked.

1. You can catch the flu from the vaccine: No. This doesn't happen.
   
   
2. Healthy people don't need to be vaccinated: No. Everyone benefits. Think herd immunity.
   
   
3. The flu is just a bad cold: No. Tens of thousands of people die and hundreds of thousands are hospitalized every year suffering from the flu.
   
   
4. You can't spread the flu if you're feeling well: Yes, you can. Up to 30 percent of infected people exhibit no symptoms.
   
   
5. You don't need to get a flu shot every year: Yes, you do. The virus responsible for the flu changes from year to year.
   
   
6. If you have a high fever with the flu that lasts more than a day or two, antibiotics may be necessary: The operative word here is "may". Antibiotics don't work against viral infections but an opportunistic bacterial infection occurring as a complication of the flu, may well mean antibiotics are in order.
   

Separating fact from fiction is getting harder and harder, thanks in part to the Internet. If you disagree with any or all of the above, here are some links supporting my post. Please get a flu shot; If not for yourself, for the benefit of your friends and family.

• 10 flu myths: Harvard Health Publications
• Flu Myths and Legends: Mayo Clinic Dispels Common Flu Misconceptions
• 6 Flu Vaccine Myths: My Health News Daily
• Fight the flu: Public Health Agency of Canada
• Flu Myths and Legends: Science Daily

London Free Press suggests new pope learn from Mennonites

As a former Sunday school teacher I read the headline in The London Free Press with interest: Does the choice of a pope really matter to those who follow Christ? What made this opinion piece of increased interest to me was the author: Larry Cornies.

Larry Cornies is a gracious gentleman. An intelligent, well-respected news reporter, editor and university professor. Cornies is also a Mennonite.

As I read Cornies' piece, I felt I was reading a take on Roman Catholicism as viewed from a Mennonite perspective. Near the end of the article, Cornies quotes words found on a Mennonite Central Committee poster without even once openly referring to the Mennonite connection.

"A Modest Proposal for Peace: Let the Christians of the world agree that they will not kill each other."

Cornies tells his readers: "Somewhere in the bowels of one of the historic peace churches a few decades ago, two church administrators penned what they called a modest proposal for peace."

Cornies suggests the noble sentiment expressed on the poster would make a good jumping off point for the new Roman Catholic pope. "It would be a noble and bold place for a new pontiff to begin — and to eventually extend that mission to other world faiths as well."

What Cornies is of course suggesting, using opaque words and phrases, is that the new pope should embrace Mennonite thinking, support conscientious objectors and consider alternatives to military service.

Dare I go so far as to say Cornies is recommending the new pope become a peace witness?

How many London Free Press readers know that "Historic Peace Churches" refers to three specific church groups: Mennonites, Quakers and Church of the Brethren, according to the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online.

Cornies' writing is brilliant. The inspiration for this piece is only opaque to those who "are unfamiliar with theological terms" or "most people", as the writer points out when he quotes British theologian Stuart Murray.

The writing may be brilliant but it left me uneasy. Shouldn't a professional writer clearly reveal the underlying foundation of his/her position? Cornies does not once directly mention the important role played by the Mennonite Church in his thinking.

Yet, Cornies' wishful thinking may not be all that farfetched.

In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI commended the Mennonites for their long standing witness to peace on receiving the first Mennonite World Conference delegation ever to go to Rome. Benedict said: "Despite centuries of division . . . we hold many convictions in common. We both emphasize that our work for peace is rooted in Jesus Christ . . . "

Viral Video Illustrates U.S. Wealth Inequality

I caught this video on Mashable. It caught the interest of that site's editors because the video is showing signs of going viral. As I write this, this video has been viewed on YouTube almost 50,000 times.

The video is actually a little long and a little wordy. I'm surprised it may go viral. But what really surprised me were the comments the video is drawing. If you graph what most of us, like more than 90 percent of us, see as a truly equitable and expected distribution of wealth, you would find that even the majority of wealthy folk fall below the line.

Yet, there are comments saying stuff like:

" . . . Abundance exists. Study wealthy people. . . . They proceeded to become wealthy by working hard, and intelligently . . . There are people who dream big, work smart, work persistently, and make their dreams come true, and there are people who refuse to do these things, or who are ignorant of how wealth is acquired."

I'm in my mid 60s. I can recall when a rich family was marked by their lavish home; They had a garage: A home for their car!

I have a friend, an engineer, who worked in Detroit in the car industry. I can assure you, he did more positive stuff for the car companies than those millionaire execs who guided the companies into bankruptcy. Today he has retired on a pittance and those worse than useless execs are living in comfort, their hard financial landings cushioned by golden parachutes.

Could VistA solve the eHealth problems in Ontario?

Recently I posted a piece answering the question, "Will boomers bankrupt the medical system?" In that post I fell prey to many of the same demons that haunt those in the main stream media. A reader called me on my position and brought me down with a few politely delivered, well reasoned comments. (That blog has become another example of my need, and the need of all writers, for a good editor. I thank anonymous for his/her comments. Anonymous took on the role of editor.)

My position was that seniors will not bankrupt the system. It will be expensive new technologies and drugs teamed with higher wages for health professionals (physicians in particular) that will drive increasing costs.

Anonymous argued, and quite accurately, "Guess who is using the majority of new expensive drugs... yes you guessed it, seniors." And, seniors are living longer thanks to their expensive medical care. Anonymous told me that health care costs in the last year of life are huge. More seniors means more costs, "simple math really," wrote anonymous.

Now, stepping sideways out of this brouhaha of my own making, I'd like to take a quick look at our eHeath debacle here in Ontario, Canada — possibly an example of the thinking that is running up costs independent of the boomer driven health demands.  

Screen grab of of one take on a VistA electronic health record.

While touring the American Northwest, I met a retired software developer who told me about VistA (Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture) used by the VA in the States.

He called VistA an excellent electronic health record system, and because it was paid for by the American taxpayer, VistA is written in open source code. This means that VistA offers the tantalizing promise of being adaptable to use not only throughout the States but the throughout the world and for very little cost.

When I got home, I googled VistA and confirmed that the chap was right. Although not everyone agrees VistA is the answer to all electronic healthcare record problems, it is being discussed worldwide as one possible solution.

Today, The New York Times ran an article A Digital Shift on Health Data Swells Profits in an Industry. I commented on the article asking, "Whatever happened to the idea of using VistA?" I got a number of replies plus 22 readers giving me the thumbs-up.

Here are the first comments:

The VA program is the best, most intuitive, easiest EMR to use, however, it was supposedly built on an ancient platform and so difficult to adopt. I have used Cerner (crap), Eclipsys (more crap), and the GE one (too awful to remember) and now a college program Pyramed 5. They all have issues. I miss the VA software and want to return to work there -- that's how good it is!
  — bucketomeat - Castleton-on-Hudson, NY

This was my first thought too. I've used the version of this system (CPRS) in research I've done in the VHA, and it is really well designed and already paid for to boot. . . .
  — Alice Olson - Bronxville, NY

What ever happened to the idea of using VistA?

In the US we believe that the government should do NOTHING that, left to the private sector, might turn a profit and a huge salary for some corporation and its CEO.
   — john strass - Delray Beach, FL\

This would be an excellent solution. I'm surprised that a consortium of hospitals has not gone on board with this. . . ?
  — athens area - pennslyvania

Let's give some of the other comments a quick look:

• The scandal is the VA apparently has a very good EMR (hopefully someone from the VA can chime in with their experience) that was available as open source free software. [This got 109 recommendations.]
• A doctor, Jan B. Newman, wrote the VA system is time tested, physician friendly and free . . . [compared to the other systems that] are set up to maximize profits for the IT companies, cost the physicians huge amounts to install, cost the hospitals huge amounts . . . [This got 53 recommendations.]
• The ironic thing is that the government has already paid to create the VA EMR system, allowing all VA providers 24/7 access to patient records as patients travel around the US. . . . [34 recommendations.]
• The government has a great EMR (the VA system). All commercial ones should be forced to be able to export data in a way that is 100% compatible with that. As such, they would then be 100% compatible with each other. [33 recommendations.]

There were more comments but you get the idea. The retired software fellow I met in the American Northwest has a lot of company when it comes to seeing VistA as a relatively inexpensive and very efficient answer to the electronic healthcare boondoggle.

Are there any hospitals, other than VA facilities, using VistA? I learned from an article in Forbes the answer is "yes". It seems the CEO of Oroville Hospital in California needed to digitalize the hospital's patient records. He turned to VistA, which Forbes calls "one of the oldest and most reliable electronic health records, in use at 163 VA hospitals as well as hospitals around the world."

Canadian Press (CP) reported in January that PC Leader Tim Hudak claimed eHealth spent $2 billion “with nothing to show for it." Hudak is championing open source software as the answer to Ontario's EHR mess. The news service quotes Hudak as saying Ontario must stop "reinventing the wheel." Has Hudak heard of VistA?

I fired off an e-mail to eHealth Ontario asking, "Why has eHealth Ontario not considered VistA or (WorldVistA) EHR software with its open source code and solid history going back decades in the U.S.? Thank you."

So far I've heard nothing back.

Chris Hadfield: photographer not amateur shutterbug

I know reporters do not mean to be insulting when they refer to photographs taken from space as "snapshots" or to the astronaut taking the images as an "amateur shutterbug." But, they are mildly insulting, insulting to the profession — the profession of journalism.

I can understand wordsmiths not wanting to repeat the same word over and over. But ink slingers let their fears get the better of them when these scribes cannot use the right word even on the first occurrence in a story. Typing the word photographer seems impossible for these keyboard jockeys.

Astronauts like Chris Hadfield are brilliant, talented individuals — experts in an amazingly wide range of fields. Take photography, astronauts are trained photographers. NASA ensures they are not only competent in the craft but in the art. There are two words scribblers should not use to describe expert shooters like Chris Hadfield, they are "amateur shutterbug."

Maybe, just maybe, if newshounds were kept on shorter leashes by newsroom editors they would not wander so far afield sniffing out stinky synonyms.

Check out the following from Chris Hadfield's space station portfolio. Snapshots or carefully composed art?

Taffy-twisted African rock reminds Hadfield of a dolphin, and Alfred Hitchcock.

Delicate cappuccino frosting decorations are, in fact, endless hummocks of Saharan sand.

Arid fingers of sand-blasted rock are barely holding on against the hot Saharan wind.

Weightless liquids behave oddly: air bubble and pepper oil jockey for position in ball of water.

Invisible cursor in Google search field using FireFox

This morning the cursor and selection box disappeared while I was doing Google searches. My web browser is FireFox.

I wish I could detail exactly all that this bug entailed but I fixed the problem and until it returns I'm unable to say more.

How did I bring the cursor back to visibility? I went to View, left clicked the mouse to bring up a short menu and finally clicked on Full Screen F11. All returned to normal. Simply hitting F11 might be a short cut.

[Simply tapping F11 at the top of the keyboard is an immediate solution. The cursor disappeared again and I got a chance to test the short cut. One tap of the F11 key, the full screen appears and the cursor is immediately visible.]

I understand that pointing at the Firefox icon, found in the top left corner of the monitor, clicking the mouse to activate the drop down menu and then selecting Maximize will also make both the cursor and the selection box visible again in the Google search field.

Hope this helps all who encounter this odd problem.

Pradaxa (dabigatran) degrades on removal from original packaging; do not place in a pill organizer.

Formerly Pradax in Canada, the name is now Pradaxa in both Canada and the U.S.

Note: The following is an UPDATE to a blog originally posted in early 2013. The views are of a patient taking Pradaxa and are NOT the views of a medical expert.
________________________________________________________________________

If you take Pradaxa (dabigatran) rather than coumadin, you must be aware of the following taken from the Pharmacist's Letter of October 2016:

Pradaxa must be protected from moisture.
All capsules must be used within four months of opening the original container.
Pradaxa must be dispensed in the original container. The bottle has a desiccant in lid.

Now, you know the core concerns. Please, read on.
_________________________________________________________________________

I started taking Pradaxa, originally called Pradax in Canada and Pradaxa in the States, more than four years ago. So, I am not addressing a new problem. And yet, this serious problem is still with us. Contrary to an FDA warning, some pharmacists are continuing to dispense Pradaxa capsules repackaged in standard pharmacy vials.

Why is this a problem? According to Boehringer Ingelheim, Canada, "Pradaxa is very sensitive to moisture in the air." For this reason, the drugmaker recommends keeping Pradaxa in its original foil blister pack or in its original special bottle with a drying agent in the lid. The company warns, "Do not put the capsules in pill boxes or pill organizers . . . " The FDA also adds a warning about storing the drug in areas which are subject to temperature extemes, either hot or cold.

Pradaxa is an anticoagulant replacement for Coumadin (warfarin). Both drugs are taken by those in danger of suffering a stroke. Compared to aspiring, Pradaxa poses less danger of causing serious intracranial bleeding. After an MRI, I was diagnosed with micro-bleeding in the brain. I also suffer from TIAs or small strokes. Small strokes can lead to large strokes if an anticoagulant is not taken regularly. I take Pradaxa twice a day.

Without my anti-clotting medication I have a six percent chance of suffering a serious stroke in any given year. That's six strokes in a hundred at risk patients. One of the six will die and the other five will suffer strokes causing differing degrees of debilitation. Strokes are the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S.

If you take Pradaxa, check your prescription bottle. My last one was a palm-and-turn plastic bottle with a lid riddled with holes. Pradaxa is only good for four months after its original bottle with the special desiccant-containing lid has been opened.

How long my three month supply of Pradaxa, dispensed in a bottle with holes in the lid, retained its potency is anyone's guess. There is no question the last capsules would be markedly degraded. That much is certain.

Atrial fibrillation (AF) affects a great many people and according to the Mayo Clinic is increasingly common in seniors. AF is a type of irregular, often rapid, heartbeat that can lead to the formation of blood clots in the heart. These clots can migrate to the brain where they cause a cerebral infarction, a cerebrovascular incident — a stroke in simple terms.

My heart is in constant atrial flutter, similar to, but not quite the same as, atrial fibrillation. My daily low-dose Aspirin is not strong enough to protect me from the increased threat of stroke. My doctors discussed my situation and settled on Pradaxa 110mg as the best option. Pradaxa also comes in two other strengths: 75mg and 150 mg.

Black marker dates Pradaxa still in foil.

Transferring Pradaxa to a pill organizer is a common mistake. Lots of people do it. There is an "Important" instruction on the side of the box but it is at the bottom of a list and in the same type style as the other notes. For a truly important instruction, it does not jump off the package as one might expect it would.

I confess, when I first started taking Pradaxa I missed the warning. I'm an old geezer. My making a mistake is not surprising. It is to be expected. But clearly my pharmacist has also missed the warning. How common is the mistake? Like so many today, pharmacists are overworked. The staffing at my drugstore has been cut and this, I believe, can lead to errors.

I have now had Pradaxa dispensed in both the original bottle and the blister packs. I prefer the blister pack. I'm old. My memory is not good. Unable to continue using a weekly organizer for my Pradaxa, I take a Sharpie permanent marker and write the day and time of day, AM or PM, that each pill must be taken on the blister pack itself.

I believe this is very important. Pradaxa has an extremely short half-life. The concentration in your body drops drastically in just 24 hours. For this reason taking a dose quite late, or completely forgetting a capsule, increases the risk of stroke.

I find it strange that if grapefruit should not be consumed while taking a drug my pharmacist has a sticker for this. The sticker is slapped on the pill bottle at the time the prescription is filled. Pradaxa needs a similar day-glow sticker to warn folk not to expose the capsules to air, to keep the medication in its original container until it is taken.

If a druggist dispenses Pradaxa in anything other than the original packaging, one pharmacist told me the capsules should be immediately returned to the drugstore to be safely discarded. The pharmacist should replace those capsules with new as it is difficult to know how much humidity such capsules have encountered. Were they kept in a bathroom with a steamy shower, or stored in a kitchen near pots of boiling water? The druggist told me not to take a chance. Return the capsules.

One last thing about Pradaxa. There is now a reversal agent available. In an emergency situation where there is a need to reverse Pradaxa’s blood-thinning effect, Praxbind (idarucizumab) is now available. I personally know how important this can be. I had to have emergency bowel surgery a little more than 12 hours after taking my last dose of Pradaxa.

For more info on Pradaxa, check out the Pradaxa website or follow this link to a story in The Globe and Mail: Questions raised about new class of blood thinners.

Read the Globe story and you will realize that Pradaxa has had mixed reviews, especially in the media. A word to the wise, don't rely too heavily on media reports when it comes to medicine. Yes, Pradaxa is a dangerous new drug, but then weakening the blood's ability to clot is clearly a dangerous practice. Warfarin, formerly the drug of choice, is also a dangerous drug.

As I said earlier, I was once on warfarin. I had to have my blood regularly tested to be certain I was getting the maximum benefit from the drug. Warfarin, in some people, can be notoriously difficult to regulate.

It must be noted that the maker of Pradaxa has claimed no regular blood testing was required with the new anticoagulant. MedPage Today and others are reporting that monitoring drug plasma levels could improve the safety of Pradaxa. I have had my blood tested twice and so far Pradaxa is working as promised.

According to the Mayo Clinic, warfarin reduces the risk of stroke by about 64 percent. Unfortunately, ". . . only 50% of patients with atrial fibrillation who would benefit from warfarin therapy receive it, and the discontinuation rates are high. At 1 year, more than 25% of patients stop warfarin . . . " For these reasons, drugs like Pradaxa are very attractive.

My doctors believed Pradaxa to be better at stroke prevention than warfarin and with a lessened chance of major bleeding. Some time ago, I had an MRI that revealed micro-bleeding in my brain. Not enough is known about micro-bleeding for my doctors to feel confident putting me on warfarin. The rate of intracranial bleeding with Pradaxa has been shown to be less than that of warfarin. To lessen my risk of suffering a major bleeding event in my brain, and after consulting with the neurology department, my doctors decided the best alternative for me was Pradaxa110 mg taken twice daily. I continue to take an aspirin daily, the 81mg kind.

There's a lot of which to be aware when taking a drug like Pradaxa. Read the warnings that come with all your meds carefully. Check out the Pradaxa info online. Click on the links that I have supplied. If your doctor advises a drug like Pradaxa don't be too quick to dismiss the suggestion. Doctors go with the best odds. I liked one comment made on another site discussing Pradaxa: "You can transfuse blood, but you can't transfuse brain".

Lastly, here are a couple of websites you might find interesting. The first is a website run by the Harvard Medical School. The article is titled: Is the alternative to warfarin safe and effective? The second is a site dedicated to AF: StopAfib.

Good luck with your meds.

And if you are interested in knowing more about my emergency operation, done before the release of the reversal agent Praxbind, here is a link: 16 hours in the ER; 16 hours well spent.

Film: Humbug.

Digital has eliminated neither art nor craft from photography.

The New York Times has published another in a seemingly unending parade of eulogies to the passing of film: Picturing the End of Analog.

I don't miss film. If I had to use just one word to describe film, I'd say expensive. It was expensive to buy, expensive to use, expensive to process and expensive to store.

And, if you will allow me the luxury of adding just one more word to my description, I'd say difficult. It could be difficult to find when needed, difficult to process and difficult to store.

Close-up, wide angle, telephoto: One digital camera.

One reads all sorts of stories about the artsy qualities of film. Some of the stories are true. But some of the art was the result, not of craft, but of ignorance.

I knew a rather famous photojournalist who was well known for his contrasty colour images. He captured the grittiness of the news, the harshness of those moments with a style unmatched by other shooters. All his pictures weren't rendered with bald, stark highlights, that would have made his approach simply a style gimmick.

Then I met the great man. Working outside the country on assignment for the local paper, I had to have some colour film processed by this famous photojournalist artist. He processed the film by hand, dunking it in stainless steel tanks immersed in a water bath to stabilize the temperature of the processing chemicals.

When the film was dry, I picked an image and stuck the negative into a portable Leaf scanner to transmit three colour separations back to the newspaper. The image I saw on the little Leaf monitor was awful; It was contrasty; The highlights were bald.

See it, shoot it. The power of small, ever-present, digital cameras.

I removed the film from the scanner and examined it under a strong light. The colour film was suffering from silver retention. There was a black and white negative hiding in the colour negative.

At that time, colour film went into a bleach bath before going into the fixing bath. The bleach bath converted metallic silver in the film back into the silver halide it had been before being dipped in the developing tank. Thanks to the bleach bath, the fix bath removed all the silver from the film. Fix only removes silver halide; It does not easily remove metallic silver.

I had learned the reason for the contrasty images this photojournalist was known for. He didn't understand the chemistry involved in processing colour negative film. Most of the time he dumped his bleach before it lost it potency. He used his chemical bath for a set length of time, regularly replacing it with fresh chemistry. But sometimes, if he processed more film than usual, his bleach grew weak and failed to convert all the metallic silver created during development back into silver halide.

At those times he produced art. Film: Humbug.

Digital encourages experimentation. No film, no expense. Just fun.

Will boomers bankrupt the medical system?

This post was knocked off far too quickly and the well-thought out comments appeared to punch holes in my position. I admit, I was far too quick out of the gate. I made the mistake that newspapers make daily. I am now in the process of taking another look at rising health care costs and the part played by the rapidly growing senior segment of the population.

In the meantime, here is an article worth a read despite being a little stale dated: What is driving health care costs? And here is anothe: The Costly Paradox of Health-Care Technology.

The problem appears complex -- this should come as no surprise -- and the media's immediate scapegoat, seniors, may be wrong. For an example of a well written but quite possibly wrong-headed take on seniors and their affect on the healthcare system, read this piece by Larry Cornies which ran in The London Free Press: Boomers duty-bound to reduce health-care footprint. Compare the Cornies article with this one from The Economist with a section titled: Money and mortality: the implications of aging on healthcare costs.
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According to The London Free Press reporting on a talk by David Foot, the demand for health care in Ontario will ramp up sharply when baby boomers hit their senior years. Foot believes, "We have about a decade to get health care right before it hits the fan."

Many would agree with Foot that there is a growing problem, but many would argue that the health care issue is not driven by the increasing costs associated with health care for the elderly. The Globe and Mail, a competitor to The Free Press in their home market, carried a story with quite a different slant. Globe writer Andre Picard wrote:

"This alarmist view of our aging society is challenged in a thoughtful new report from the Institute for Research on Public Policy.

"Instead of falling prey to ageist fear-mongering, Neena Chappell, the Canada research chair in social gerontology and a professor in the Centre on Aging of the University of Victoria, takes a level-headed look at the data and offers up practical solutions for meeting the health needs of the baby boom generation."

The Globe piece goes on to argue a position that I have seen in print many times. I wondered why The Free Press reporter didn't question Prof. Foot on this point. The Globe accurately reported the following:

"There have been, of late, a number of studies debunking the notion that seniors are principally to blame for spiraling health costs. In fact, it is new technologies, new drugs and higher wages for health professionals (physicians in particular) that are pushing up costs."

 To read the two stories, here are the links:

• Baby boomers blamed for sluggish economic outlook in Ontario
• We need a health plan for boomers now

This is an issue that is very important to me. I am a senior and a baby boomer. I watched as my maternal grandparents aged and finally slipped away. Both lived into their 90s and neither was a big drain on the health care system. They lived in their own home until their mid 80s and then they moved in with my mother and me for their remaining years.

When my mother found herself on her own after the death of my grandparents, she moved in with my sister. After more than a decade living in Oakville, she packed her bags and moved in with me in London. When I got married my mother was part of the package. She lived with me and my new family until she died at 89.

Families taking care of loved ones in their final years are more common than you might think. The government should encourage families and support them in their efforts to take care of aging parents and grandparents.

In one area both The Globe and The Free Press reports agree: We, as a society, need a plan as we prepare for the dramatic growth in the number of seniors. What we don't need are scare stories.

London police did excellent job putting injured deer down

A deer was struck recently by a vehicle in London, Ontario. It was left severely injured. It's limbs smashed; Its antlers broken. When police arrived, the fatally injured animal was suffering in a parking lot, unable to walk.

It was a tough situation but the London police made the right call by ending the animal's misery quickly. But many didn't view it that way, and many people did view the shooting of the deer. A Londoner captured the incident on his cell phone and posted the video on YouTube. It has had more than 15,500 viewings.

Deer are common in the city and collisions with vehicles all too frequent.

The London Free Press quotes a police constable: "We have to consider the surroundings. If we used a round that penetrated through the deer, we would have to be prepared for ricochet." The officer used a 12-gauge shotgun to put the injured deer away with three shots in less than half a minute.

The truth is dying is tough. It is not often immediate. I did some research and found what hunters themselves have to say about their kills.

"I shot one whitetail doe there [behind the shoulder, in the heart/lung area] and she ran at least 60 yards before dropping. I shot a fallow doe last Sunday and the shot went through the lungs and out the other side of the deer. She hobbled down off the little hill she was standing on, then down a draw about 150 yards from me. By the time I got to her she was giving up the ghost, but she had lived for a minute or two."

Another hunter listed his kills, saying:

• '05 Shot a big bodied buck, 50cal muzzle loader, thru the heart. Ran 100 yards decent blood trail.
• '07 bigger bodied buck, 7RM ballistic tip center of the shoulder. Dropped dead, three men could not find a bullet hole. NO blood.
• '08 .50 cal thru the center of one shoulder, exit 4" behind other. minimal blood hard tracking approx 100 yards.

I don't hunt but I did once work for the Ministry of Natural Resources. I used to hear the hunters with whom I worked chatting. I learned a quick kill did not mean immediate death. The London police officer was armed with a good weapon for discharging in a built-up urban area. His weapon was less than ideal for killing a deer. He did a good job, weighing his options, and carrying out a difficult duty.

Urban Outfitters: myths surround successful retailer

Urban Outfitters has come to London, Ontario. According to the local paper, this is "the first store it has opened west of Toronto." It isn't. There are already outlets in Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary, and I expect there will be a lot more both east and west of Toronto in the near future. UO is in expansion mode, opening 21 new stores in 2011 and an additional 16 in 2012.

The Philadelphia-based retailer does not "shun malls"; This is a myth. Richard Hayne, the brilliant businessman behind Urban Outfitters, realized years ago that placing stores only in downtowns or urban areas was a dead end approach. He branched out into enclosed malls and lifestyle shopping centers, ensuring that his stores attracted the target market -- those between 18 and 30.

Once ubiquitous; Now, gone.

If you don't agree that Hayne is a brilliant business man. Consider this: He has kept a retail operation going for 43 years. This is no  small feat. Selling stuff, at least selling lots and lots of stuff year after year, decade after decade, is hard. Think of all the chains that once rode the crest of popularity only to fall, fail and fade: Tabi International, Au Coton, Beaver Canoe, Cotton Ginny . . .

Hayne got into retail with his first wife Judy Wicks in 1970, opening the Free People's Store near the University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia. A pair of  old-fashioned men's long johns hung on the front door and during store hours the rear flap would be unbuttoned to display a sign reading "OPEN."

Despite what one often reads, Hayne was not hippie retailer. Reporter Jonathan Valania makes this clear in a story he wrote for Philadelphia Weekly: Clothes Make the Man.  In those early years, Hayne had long hair and he was against the war in Vietnam, but at that time who didn't and who wasn't? He was simply in tune with the era.

As the era ended and the tune changed, so did Hayne and his store -- it was now his store as he and his wife had separated in '71. Free People's Store became Urban Outfitters, stocked with an eclectic mix of merchandise for the chic, young urbanite. Urban Outfitters, under the guidance of Hayne, sold more than just stuff, it sold "cool." But, sometimes selling cool buys problems.

(Zach Klein - courtesy Zach Klein, Flickr)

• The Anti-Defamation League got its dander up in 2005 over a T-shirt sold by Urban Outfitters that said "New Mexico, cleaner than regular Mexico."
• The Navajo Nation sued for trademark infringement after the company sold items labeled as “Navajo,” suggesting the merchandise was made by the tribe when it was not. Under the federal Indian Arts and Crafts Act, making such a false claim is illegal.
• At various times the company has angered the Jewish community, gays and the Ancient Order of Hibernians in America. The Irish group protested a T-shirt saying, "Kiss me. I'm drunk or Irish, or whatever."

UO even managed to offend transgendered folk with a card advertised as "charming" containing the word "tranny." A slang term considered insulting and degrading by the transgendered community.

It isn't always easy being hip. And my guess is the company has had some big failures in the area of cool because at its corporate core it is not cool. It is a business. A successful business.

But don't make the mistake Buzzfeed makes, reporting that Urban Outfitters is run by a bunch of lame old men. Richard Hayne is a senior but he is not lame. His personal politics may be far right, years ago he and his present wife donated money to Rick Santorum, but today he keep his politics and his businesses separate.  Urban Outfitters shows more interest in Twitter, Tumblr, Vimeo, Pinterest, YouTube and the UO Blog than the Republican party and right wing causes.

The London Free Press interviews one young shopper who says, "It's cool, it's trendy and I am just glad I don’t have to go into a mall." --- at least not for the moment.

Let's be honest, Urban Outfitters is not about being cool or being chic but it's about making money. Clearly, UO believes there is more money to be made locating at the far north end of Richmond Row, a location that puts them close to the university crowd.

Despite the claims of the chief executive of Downtown London, the American retailer didn't choose London's core. Nor did it choose one of London's large malls. Yet, for many retailers the malls and big box developments are where the shopping action is in London.

So let's cut to the chase: Urban Outfitters is a global, multi-brand empire encompassing not only Urban Outfitters but Anthropologie, Free People, Terrain Garden Center and BHLDN (a wedding store). It had an increase in annual sales in 2012 of nine percent over the previous year. Since taking back the reins of control in early 2012, the stock under Hayne's leadership has risen 34 percent. 

Will the London store succeed? Maybe. But Urban Outfitters, like other chains, is not adverse to closing a store if the location doesn't deliver. Roots closed their store on Richmond Row. The once popular, locally owned Muskox, selling such iconic brands as Royal Robbins, is gone. The Richmond Row mystic attracted but failed to hold on to these and other stores.

The biggest threat to the future of the London store may simply be the age of  the savvy Richard Hayne. He will not be around to work his retail magic forever.

For an interesting take on what it is like to work, more often than not part-time, for a big chain, read:
A Part-Time Life, as Hours Shrink and Shift by Steve Greenhouse in The New York Times.

How much value is Facebook?

Newspapers, like The London Free Press, see themselves as riding the crest of change. They have a Facebook page and Twitter account.

Only 16 Likes, two Comments.

Ah, the all important social media. I'll bet the department heads at the paper thought the readers would find the Facebook page indispensable. But I checked a page of pictures posted from the Knights vs. Ottawa 67s game and found only 16 likes and two comments.

I checked a few more photo groupings. The post that did best attracted 26 likes and five comments. Another got nothing, nada, zilch. It got absolutely no likes and not even one comment.

Wow! Those numbers are low. Heck, back in December I did a little shoot at a London school of Irish dance and got 201 hits, 19 likes and six comments. Of course, not being as cool as the LFP, I didn't post to Facebook.

Maybe newspapers would do better if they paid more attention to their core business: news. Maybe Quebecor and Sun Media should consider hiring a few more reporters, photographers and copy editors. (For a story on the loss of copy editors, read Copy editors laid off more than other newsroom staffers in the King's Journalism Review.)

A dedicated online copy editor might cut down on errors like this one found on the Free Press Facebook page: National Ballet School audtions (sic) in London

My photo essay attracted more than two hundred hits.

Some of my online posts have attracted nearly 8000 hits on their own and some months I get more than 5000 hits for just one blog. I've got seven blogs!

I use both Facebook and Twitter but I find Google sends me the most readers. And Google is the gift that keeps on giving.

Since the early '90s, at least, I've wondered if newspapers would profit by forming an alliance with Google. Possibly they should consider making it easier for Google to track all of a newspaper's content. Newspapers should negotiate a deal along the lines of Google Adsense. Everyone would benefit.

Maybe Google could show the papers a trick or two on how to make money on the Net.

Journalists: Frontline historians

Dan Brown, an editor at The London Free Press, recently wrote a piece entitled: Journalists are not wannabe historians.

"Every time I hear someone describe journalism as “the first draft of history,” I shudder inwardly.

It’s not a fair definition of what reporters, photographers, columnists and editors do on a daily basis.

Even worse: It’s kind of insulting to the members of my chosen profession. It suggests all we journalists are is second-rate historians."

Dan Brown is right: Journalists are not automatically historians, not even second-rate ones. Furthermore, a good argument can be made that journalism is not automatically a profession. J-Source, the Canadian Journalism Project, delved into this question last January with an article, "Can journalism be a profession?"

Media law specialist Klaus Pohle, an associate professor at Carleton University, is quoted in the J-Source article: "In our system . . . anybody can be a journalist . . . ." Therefore, he argued, journalism is not a profession.

Personally, I have never been enamored with the job titles of journalist and photojournalist. I have always preferred reporter and photographer. I came to the newspaper business straight from three years of art school. My friend, hired at the small Ontario daily at the same time as I, had recently graduated from university with a BA in English. In later years, my friend became the news editor putting out the front page of a large, important Canadian daily.

But, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Dan Brown's is right. Maybe he is a professional journalist. I assume as a professional journalist, he must report serious infractions of his profession's code of conduct. I'm not sure to whom Mr. Brown reports, nor do I know where to find the universally accepted code of conduct, but I am sure Mr. Brown, as a professional journalist, knows these answers.

While working in the newspaper game, I was often shocked by the stuff that masqueraded as news. For instance, I was totally appalled when the Ottawa Sun hired two young models to pose topless for a news story — the young women took turns playing the topless sunbather role with their bare backs kept modestly towards the camera. I wrote about this in a post, Who's a photojournalist?, that has been hit by journalism students and others from around the globe.

Here are the Ottawa Sun cutlines that accompanied the posed photo, left, run when the paper retrieved the archived image to illustrate another story a year after running the first piece: "Last summer, Lisa Regimbal, left, bear (sic) it all while chatting with Connie Morden." (Yes, bares was spelt incorrectly. And I discovered the names of the young ladies were switched from first publication to second.)

After Mr. Brown gets this breach of journalism ethics dealt with by the profession's ruling body, I hope he gets in touch with me. I'll give him a few more iffy items to look into. He tells us, "I take this [journalism] seriously. As a journalism educator, it’s up to people like me to dispel these myths."

I liked it better when journalists, working closely with talented editors and skilled photographers, were proud to put together a rough draft of history on a daily basis. I don't imagine respected journalist Alan Barth meant to insult Mr. Brown when he used the phrase in a book review appearing in the New Republic in 1943. (Yes, the phrase was coined and popularized by journalists.)

Perhaps, Mr. Brown needs to grow a thicker skin. Maybe, just maybe, he is too easily offended. I have hunch that most in the news business would agree with Jack Shafer writing in Slate:

"What makes 'first rough draft of history' so tuneful, at least to the ears of journalists? Well, it flatters them. Journalists hope that one day a historian will uncover their dusty work and celebrate their genius."

Will those historians also sift through blogger posts?

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Addendum: If Dan Brown takes offence at this post, I'm sorry. Like Mr. Brown, I care deeply about journalism and the direction in which it is headed under the guidance of huge companies like Quebecor, owner of Sun Media and The London Free Press.

Since getting into blogging, I've learned that people working in the media have the thinnest of skins when it comes to criticism. This is not to say that Mr. Brown will take offence, but he might.

If I write a harsh piece on financial advisers, I get well thought out, well reasoned and very polite e-mails. But from reporters I get e-mails banged out using the largest of fonts in the boldest typeface. Reporters often earn their income holding others up to intense examination. Being taken to task in a small, inconsequential blog does not compare to being criticized in a daily newspaper.

The invisible Randy Richmond

London

 
Back in May, 2011, when Randy Richmond of The London Free Press was just beginning his long series examining London, Ontario, the journalist asked: "The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and an endearing baseball club aside, who wants to be the Cleveland of Canada?"

Detroit

I found the question irritating and illuminating. Cleveland, like Detroit, is a Midwest American city that has been on the decline for half a century or more. It's a sad and an all-too-common tale in the rust belt. Think: Gary, IN, or St. Louis, MO, or London, ON. London hasn't lost population like the U.S. cities but London has lost a great deal of its manufacturing.

It is now early 2013 and Richmond is still cranking out articles in his seemingly endless series examining London. Because of his interest in London and in urban planning I am always amazed when I attend a ReThink London event and notice that Richmond is not there. Heck, it was Randy Richmond who made me aware of the similarities between Cleveland and London -- but London lacks the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I'd love to thank Randy for this insight.

Today I came across a little piece posted on The London Fog blog: The Invisible Randy Richmond. I thought of Randy and ReThink London and I smiled.

London

Mixing clip art with journalism

To see the photo and story, click link.

As a former newspaper photographer, I prefer photographer to photojournalist, I am amazed at the clip art masquerading as news photography found in papers today. Surfing the Net, I came upon this example of clip art illustrating an opinion piece published in my local paper.

Why do I prefer photographer? Well, much of my life's work was spent shooting pictures to be shims on a page. I shot visual cliches, medical researchers holding petri dishes in front of their faces.

Today, newspapers no longer even pretend that the photo running with a story actually reflects reality. At least back when I was working we tried to run pictures of real people, often those in the story, even if they were posed doing silly stuff. Now, a clip art photo of two models pretending to be students illustrates an opinion piece on journalism and correctness. The clip art agency is given credit under the photo.

You know, when you really think about it, maybe today's clearly faux news images are more honest than yesterday's.

I find this very sad. For years I ran a photojournalism seminar and brought shooters like Edie Adams to London to speak. Adams was a fine photojournalist and I always hoped that the newspaper editors and photographers attending my seminars would return to their newsrooms invigorated. They didn't. They found the seminars entertaining, not enlightening.

This not to say that all newspaper photographs are phony, they aren't, but too many are and it often makes it impossible to tell the real from the faux. A professional plumber always installs a toilet that functions, a professional electrician always installs a light switch that works but a professional photojournalist cannot make the same claims about his/her photojournalism.

And if you do not find anything wrong with using clip art to illustrate news, using pictures shot well before a story was even a glimmer in an assignment editor's eye. Think about this: the same attitude often colours news stories. Reporters bring back stories from the field that confirm the beliefs that they held long before they were given the assignment. Think "crack babies."