Haligonian Habitat

Jack Layton, 1950-2011

2011-08-24T22:05:00.000-04:00

My friends, love is better than anger.
Hope is better than fear.
Optimism is better than despair.
So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic.
And we’ll change the world.

The Land Is Strong...

2011-04-28T22:17:00.002-04:00

That, anyway, is the kind of campaign Harper seems to have been running, with the caveat that said land is only strong with him in the PM's chair. All told this didn't really work for Trudeau back in 1972 and Harper's ship has probably now sailed.

I can't say I expected this, not at the outset of the campaign (which if I'd written a book about my thoughts at the time, the title "A Time for Cynicism" would have been apt), not two weeks ago, not when I voted in an advance poll on Good Friday.

At the very least, Jack Layton and Olivia Chow will be moving into Stornoway after Monday and 24 Sussex isn't out of the question either. I wonder if anyone in the country could have anticipated this a month ago. If only I'd made some appropriately wild predictions at the time...

I feel bad for Ignatieff. He's a good guy and I was impressed by his early campaign. On the other hand, his failure to call Harper on his anti-coaltiion BS was beyond disappointing. It will be a shame when he resigns as leader, which almost seems inevitable at this point - unless, perhaps, he were to become a cabinet minister in a Layton-led government? I still can't believe I'm writing that as an actual possibility rather than a vague hypothetical.

Surgery Makes Me Sleepy

2011-03-12T21:09:00.000-05:00

I originally wrote this back in January, but I present it here with additional comment.

And by that I mean the rotations themselves, not the experience of being in OR. Though watching residents close abdominal incisions for the 12th time is not the most stimulating experience. Getting up at 5:30 daily - as I have been now since last Monday thanks to the Friday/Sunday call monster - requires early bedtimes, something I've managed to get used to. Today I zonked out about 9:30/10 in the morning and woke up suddenly at 11:27. Remarkably I was only about 10 minutes late to meet a friend for lunch at 11:30. But such free time is so rare these days.

*****

I'm not sure why I didn't finish this post, but it was - likely - a matter of time. Or lack thereof. I've enjoyed all of my rotations since the new year began. General surgery was a lot of fun and very, very busy. My evaluation went really well and it remains a serious consideration for me. I enjoyed neurosurgery less - some very interesting cases and a couple great times getting to be first assist in the OR - but the lifestyle is probably among the worst of any specialty and the residents are overworked. I enjoyed working with the staff, though.

Emergency medicine was a good rotation. I did it at a smaller regional hospital with much more limited specialist support. Saw a large variety of patients and presentations, practised some useful skills (LP, more IVs, suturing, reduction of fractures, incision and drainage, MSK exam), and generally learned a lot. In the end, though, I didn't really like it. There's no rhythm to each shift. You just see patient after patient, many of whom don't require further tests or treatment, determining their "disposition" and making that crucial admit or discharge decision. Not much follow-up. Not enough complexity. At least for me.

I started plastics this week and I'm impressed daily by how well organized the rotation is. Lots of formal teaching and ample experience working in fast paced clinics. I can't complain about the amount of OR time either, even though I'm not getting a lot of skills practice there. Fair to say that I like everything about the rotation. I have been interested in plastics in the past - not really sure I still am. It's very interesting, of course, but the competition to get a residency spot is pretty intense and I probably would miss the medicine available in something like gen surg or, of course, internal medicine.

I suppose that leads to what kind of career I'm considering. That can be left for another post though.

Winter is coming...

2010-12-10T21:10:00.003-05:00

Or, since it was -6 today, it's already here. No snow to speak of though. I've now finished one-quarter of my mandatory clerkship rotations. Only surgery, emergency medicine, family medicine, psychiatry, and internal medicine to go over the next 40 weeks. Yay. I did really enjoy obs/gyn, though, and there is something remarkably satisfying about being involved during what is generally a very happy time for parents and families.

Otherwise exams are done and I have a bit of a reprieve to contemplate the Big Questions about career choices and such. I've enjoyed peds and obs/gyn, prefer more acuity and more "interesting" cases, and I like patient care. I don't really see myself going into peds - the inpatient work is interesting, but general peds clinics are a lot of reassurance and issues like ADHD and constipation. Obs/gyn is another matter - I hadn't really thought of it as a surgical specialty as such before, but it certainly is. Gyne problems aren't especially interesting - but the oncology is - and obs is attractive for the reasons above. Still, it may be a bit too specialized...

In the end, it's still down to a more "medicine approach" to surgery (i.e. general surgery) or a more "surgical approach" to internal medicine (i.e. GI or cardiology). Neuro gets thrown into the mix too; even though it's historically been one of the least interventional specialties, it's changing rapidly. We shall see. For surgery, the real issue is the extent to which I can manage the early mornings over a long term. It sounds simplistic - I can certainly get up okay - but taking on such a daily schedule is five years of residency is something to consider carefully. Oh well. I managed fine when on gyne, and it will probably be the same come January.

On verra...

One more week of Peds...

2010-10-16T00:48:00.002-04:00

Some things I've learned whilst doing my pediatrics rotation:

You can never write too many notes.
There's always something you will forget to do or ask on history.
The kids *are* cute, but don't go sticking the otoscope in their ears at the beginning of the exam.
++social issues
It's spelled "paediatrics" in New Brunswick.
Lectures via teleconference are of variable usefulness. We like the mute button though.
You will sleep at least a bit while on call.
You get used to taking first call quickly. Just call the staff.
Residents enjoy giving advice.
Late night grilled cheese (on whole wheat of course) is the best part of call shifts.
Clinics are sometimes interesting, but the floor is always better.
Nurses make excellent conversationalists day and night.
Handover is the most important part of the day... especially when you're handing over to yourself, or would be if you weren't post-call.
The "post-call" day can still keep you at the hospital til 5. That's afternoon teaching for you.
Code White announcements occur with alarming frequency. You will have come close to calling one.
The parents range from wonderful and congenial to... not so much. They are stressed and worried, though.
Normal babies spit up a lot.
A baby is always better heard crying than not.
Taking initiative is encouraged and welcome but may not be noticed.
There are lots of constipated kids out there.
Call room beds are extremely uncomfortable.
Scrubs are extremely comfortable. And wearing them all day makes up for having no effective post-call day.
NICU is a weird place. Especially since many of the babies don't have names chosen.
The staff are nice. So is Journal Club.
You may technically work as much as 100 hours one or two weeks of a six week rotation. Usually not nearly that bad.
An online system which includes orders and vitals is sublime. It will be missed.
Lastly, you will never want for homemade baked goods, candy, chocolates, or popcorn while working on the floor.
Oh, and boil water orders are annoying.

Clerkship is great

2010-09-23T21:16:00.005-04:00

We'll see how I feel after Fri/Sun call this weekend. And now a semi-random clip from Scrubs featuring everyone's favourite internist:

Last Post on the "Liberation" Treatment

2010-09-08T22:29:00.003-04:00

Well, hopefully. I'm listening to this, an interview with an MS patient who underwent (I assume) balloon venoplasty in Bulgaria. He notes "gradual improvement", but his own descriptions of his symptoms do not sound entirely dramatic. Or notable at all really. The patient correctly notes that current studies underway aim to determine whether, in the first place, MS patients have "blocked" veins and whether there is an association between such "blockages" and MS. Since the so-called liberation treatment in principle treats such blockages, it seems, a priori, that determining the presence of such blockages and their association with MS is, ya know, paramount. You don't treat a "blockage" that has no clinical consequence and you don't treat someone for a blockage that they don't have. A patient with chest pain doesn't go straight to the cath lab.

I've also noticed something curious about most of the anecdotal reports of symptomatic improvement following (or even during!) the procedure; patients seem to report increased ease of movement, which improves with increased activity to some degree. I even came across a blog a while ago detailing a patient's course while following a physiotherapy regime post-procedure. On one hand, it seems clear that the "liberation" treatment conveys a significant positive placebo effect, to the point that patients report instant improvement on the OR table - which itself is as clear a sign as any that the procedure has no intrinsic therapeutic effect (repair of MS-damaged white matter on such an instant basis isn't just implausible, it's impossible). Conversely, it seems that patients see some improvement with increased activity and/or direct participation in physio, which is not altogether unexpected. If there are to be any trials of the "liberation" treatment, I think it would be prudent to control for such factors or even to include physio as a treatment itself. I'd bet money that patients attending and participating in regular physiotherapy do better on several functional outcomes than those who don't (controlling for MS progression variables), and that any effect attributable to physio would exceed any observed effect of invasive venoplasty (if there is any). Of course, in light of the questionable association between CCSVI and MS (i.e. pending verification from groups NOT associated with Paolo Zamboni), such trials of the "liberation" treatment are premature.

Megacode

2010-09-06T20:09:00.004-04:00

Well, sort of:

One week til being "on service" and getting a call schedule. Clerkship's pending...

Alberta > Saskatchewan

2010-08-12T01:16:00.001-04:00

At least insofar as the MS/CCSVI controversy goes:

Many people hope that CCSVI will prove to be the cause of MS but, at present, this idea is not supported by fact.

Alberta Health Services has compiled an excellent fact sheet about the issue, answering all the canards and faulty bits of reasoning brought up in the debate.

It Begins

2010-08-10T22:42:00.009-04:00

Clerkship, that is. I'm excited to say the least. My rotations, beginning Aug. 30th and finishing mid-September 2011:

Introduction to Clerkship
Pediatrics
Obstetrics and Gynecology
(Exams)
Year 3 Elective
(Christmas)
Surgery and Emergency Medicine:
General Surgery
Neurosurgery
Emergency Medicine
Plastics

And then...
(Exams + OSCE)
(Break)
Family Medicine
Psychiatry
(Exams)
Internal Medicine:
Geriatrics
Neurology
Medical Teaching Unit
(Exams + OSCE)

Exciting! I'd like to do radiology for my elective, but I may have to settle for something else. We don't really get paid for clerkship, but there's a modest stipend ($2800) and $50/week for up to 12 weeks spent outside HRM. Total time off = 3 weeks over 55 weeks. I'm generally really happy with my schedule and rotations; not only did I get almost all my top choices, but I'm looking forward to being able to figure out the Great Surgery Question relatively early on. It's not like I usually see much of the sun in January/February anyhow. On y va!

Hmm

2010-08-05T13:16:00.003-04:00

A small addendum to my last post (picture from here):

You know, it's really quite strange that Dr Zamboni is examining what look to be plain film CT or MRI slices in an old-fashioned radiology viewing room. First, why is he using such antiquated technology? I've never even seen such plain films, and I've looked at many, many head CT/MRIs this summer. Is this some sort of promotional picture for the media's benefit? Second, Dr Zamboni is neither a radiologist nor a neurologist nor a neurosurgeon and his papers concerning both CCSVI and the "liberation treatment" do not actually provide any data about changes in MS lesion distribution before or following treatment. So, what's up with this? It's certainly a nice stock photo of him doing something "doctorly", but I'm unclear. Some of the most recent evidence is not, however:

The first study, out of Germany, involved 56 MS patients and 20 healthy patients. Scientists did ultrasound testing and other imaging exams and found blood flow was normal in all, except for one MS participant. A smaller study out of Sweden that involved 21 MS patients and 20 healthy patients used magnetic resonance imaging to compare blood flow and reached a similar conclusion.

“In this quite small study we find no support for venous vascular surgical treatment and we are not able to confirm the Italian theory,” lead researcher Peter Sundstrom of Umea University in Sweden said.

Dr. Zamboni’s study of the degenerative condition involved 65 patients, who underwent angioplasty to clear blockages. Many in the medical community have been skeptical of his work because it is preliminary, with a small sample size, and has been heavily promoted before going through the rigorous research process.

Yet hundreds of MS patients, including a few Canadians, have travelled to India, Poland, Bulgaria and a few other countries for the surgery. Most say they have increased energy and mobility, but others have described little change. The treatment has led to injury in some cases.

Hmm, indeed.

Head, Meet Wall

2010-07-29T00:13:00.003-04:00

Well, Brad Wall, that is:

Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall bolstered his support for a controversial multiple sclerosis treatment on Monday, predicting clinical trials could launch in the province as early as next year.

“I do believe there will be a solid proposal before the end of the year,” he said, urging other provinces to collaborate. “I think there’s a chance we’ll see potential trials in the new year.”

On Tuesday, Mr. Wall broke ranks with his provincial counterparts, vowing his government would finance liberation therapy, an experimental method of opening veins in the neck and spinal cord to combat the symptoms of the nerve-wasting disease.

While I do find it unseemly that politicians like Premier Wall have seen fit to intervene/interfere in research programs, the "head smashing" element comes more from the way the so-called liberation treatment has been treated in the media.

First, the very term "liberation treatment" itself sounds more like the work of a scam artist or at least a PR hack. Second, many articles or stories on the controversy seem to construct a narrative of desperate, hopeful MS patients set against skeptical neurologists (possibly in collusion with "Big Pharma") and governments. Certainly, most internet commentators seem to follow that pattern, arguing that the treatment (a sort of venous angioplasty) is common place (it isn't), perfectly safe (nope), and warranted even in the absence of symptoms or evidence of any connection to a disease process (definitely not). There is more than a little bit of lay person ignorance on display - conflation of arteries and veins, ignorance of anatomy and hemodynamics, and a lack of understanding of physiology. The general attitude that, since the procedure provides hope, and anecdotal reports have been favourable, we needn't bother with properly conducted clinical trials or research and simply began booking expensive imaging studies and scarce time in the cath lab for patients who may neither need nor benefit from the treatment. I think Colby Cosh at Maclean's has said it better, though:

How could anyone be so pessimistic? Well, even leaving aside the history of MS quackery and hype, there is no shortage of circumstantial reasons. The “liberation therapy” tag is an obvious mark of heavy con-artist and/or halfwit involvement in the publicity effort. Why not go all the way and just call the Zamboni technique “super amazing unicorn magic”? In newspaper accounts (and even in our own exemplary coverage), recipients of the therapy often report renewed energy without necessarily enjoying total relief from symptoms; this may not be a sign of the placebo effect at work, but it is certainly consistent with it. And it is hard to understand how the instantaneous improvements so often described by the “liberated” can possibly be consistent with Zamboni’s actual theory of MS etiology—i.e., that poor drainage of blood from the brain encourages, over a long term, the formation of cerebral iron deposits that then lead to immunological issues and demyelination of the nerves.

He's completely right on the last point, of course - even if the "liberation" treatment worked, the effects would not and could not be seen immediately, let alone within seconds or minutes of angioplasty (as seemed to occur with a woman interviewed on the National last night, who reported instant resolution of numbness in one finger). Hope is a great thing, and the placebo effect is non-trivial in these cases - to say nothing of the impact of individual psychology. However, as one of my colleagues has said in the past, "Hope is not a plan." Brad Wall should stick to politics, but should surely resist political pressure to interfere in things he shouldn't.

Reminding the Globe come election time...

2010-07-21T23:16:00.002-04:00

The Globe and Mail writes in an editorial:

Good government is about leadership – focusing the population on the important challenges of the future, not distracting them with sideshows – and management: inspiring an organization to do the best work of which it is capable.

This was in reference to the news that the chief statistician has resigned due to the government's decision to eliminate the mandatory long-form census.

Now, in each of the past two federal elections the Globe has endorsed the Harper Conservatives when it came down to the wire. Yet I cannot think of a single time when they have shown the kind of leadership that this newspaper describes in the quotation above. I would hope that they remember this when writing their electoral endorsement prior to the next vote. The Liberals may be listing without a rudder, but I'd sooner have bland competence over the kind of authoritarian "vision" on display in the Harper government.

Further to that whole census thing...

2010-07-17T21:38:00.003-04:00

If Jeffrey Simpson is to be believed, I should have given Tony Clement a little less grief the other day:

Last fall, Prime Minister Stephen Harper decided his government would oppose the mandatory long-form census. Since then, nothing has changed his mind. His right-wing ideology and political instinct combined to make a policy that’s being denounced by almost every leading institution and commentator in Canada.

His decision was also opposed inside the government by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and by Industry Minister Tony Clement, who’s responsible for Statistics Canada, the agency that administers the census.

Both wrote to the Prime Minister, underscoring the importance of the mandatory long-form census to compile the most accurate statistics on which so much public policy and private-sector decision-making depends. The issue went back and forth inside the government, but, as with everything in Mr. Harper’s Ottawa, the Prime Minister decides.

His is a government in which most ministers are reduced to silence, except for those kept on short leashes, and in which everything, down to astonishingly small details, are decided by the Prime Minister, and only by him. His mind can be changed, but only occasionally and usually only after the passage of time between his initial decision and a new one. In this instance, despite internal discussion, his initial decision has stuck.

So, as ever, I can assign the blame to Harper himself. Yet it seems plain to me that a cabinet minister in this position ought to have the courage of his convictions and resign. Flaherty too. Would that damage the Harper government? Absolutely - and so it should. Where are the conservatives who favour good policy over this asinine autocratic nonsense? Is it just about ideology?

Clement’s statistical illiteracy is so profound it gives one vertigo. The notion that simply making the sample bigger can’t fix a skewed sample is something undergraduates learn in first-year classes, yet is somehow beyond the mental grasp of a senior minister of a G8 country. And the comedic benefit of watching Clement fail first-year economics is undermined by the cold realization that he fundamentally does not understand the intellectual foundations of the files that he controls. When he is cornered by his intellectual betters, moreover, Clement’s instinct is to reach for the debating-hall comforts of cheap populism.

[...]

There are libertarians and there are libertarians. When it comes to Tony Clement and James Moore, theirs is not the principled and defensible small-government ideology of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. It’s more like the sweaty-palmed fanboy libertarianism forged by too many late nights in high school spent switching between the anti-feminist Nietszcheanism of Ayn Rand and the corporatist space fantasies of sci-fi writer Robert Heinlein.

I consider it a gross failure of the uttermost negligence by the press and - ahem - the Official Opposition that this cabal of morons remains ensconced in power.

A few changes for health care

2010-07-15T20:23:00.002-04:00

Briefly:

Eliminate pagers (replacement value: $375) in favour of secure hospital-issued mobile phones.
Move to electronic medical records integrating primary and hospital/specialist-based care. Family physicians don't need to be sent entire inpatient charts, but they need to have access to them when relevant. The reverse goes for hospital-based physicians and other health care workers.
How about handheld devices instead of print-outs of patient lists? What is not lacking is the technology so much as the integration of technology.
More long-term care beds and rehab facilities (community and hospital-based). Far too many patients waiting for ALC or rehab languish in acute care wards that do not provide an ideal environment for them. And it's wasteful.
Centralize referrals/wait lists to expedite investigations and follow-up. Triage these to determine who is waiting and why.

These's more, of course, but these are just random thoughts that've come up on my elective in the past few weeks. It's probably a good idea to hire more nurses too.

About that long form census...

2010-07-15T19:47:00.006-04:00

It goes without saying that the Harper government's decision to eliminate the mandatory long-form census, replacing it with a voluntary survey, is beyond stupid. They claim that the mandatory survey is "coercive" and an invasion of privacy. Or something:

In a written statement Tuesday, Clement said the short-form census, which is still mandatory, will provide a sufficient demographic picture of the country.

"The government does not think it is necessary for Canadians to provide Statistics Canada with the number of bedrooms in their home, or what time of day they leave for work or how long it takes them to get there," Clement said. "The government does not believe it is appropriate to force Canadians to divulge detailed personal information under threat of prosecution."

Garneau argued Clement does not understand how scientific data is gathered or used, and that the census has to be mandatory to get responses from a wide variety of people. He said that information from the long-form census is essential for the development of sound government policies.

I'll leave aside the fundamental reasons why this is a stupid idea and address Clement's comments directly. First, it's worth noting that nothing in the census data will, in the end, reflect any individual information. Second, Clement's own examples seem rather important to me - commuting time, for example, is a rather good proxy for the likes of traffic congestion and patterns of daily movement. The question of where people work vs. where they live, and how far they must travel daily, is of pretty obvious relevance to urban planning, highway construction, public transit, and a host of social policy issues. I'm not sure what about such questions is overly "personal" either.

So what's the real problem? Well, while it's nice to think that a voluntary survey would achieve a sufficiently high response rate, this strikes me as doubtful. Currently the mandatory survey is sent to 20% of Canadian households (I presume these households are chosen randomly). The line from the government seems to be that a voluntary survey might reach a larger number of Canadians, and that this would be superior to the mandatory survey of 20%. This is, however, wrong. Any kind of survey of a population contains some element of sampling error. You can actually predict the size of this error by choosing an appropriate sample size. Now, 20% of Canadian households is a big sample. REALLY big. The sampling error implied by such a large sample is very small, so small in fact that increasing its size to 25% or even 50% of households will not make a significant difference. Happily, because this survey is mandatory, there is minimal non-response and so the results of the sampling are said to be "unbiased".

Unfortunately, a voluntary survey leads to an unpredictable degree of non-response bias in the results. Bias is a form of structural error in a statistic that cannot be eliminated by increasing the sample size (which is not important in this case anyhow). We can imagine that poor people (or wealthy ones) or anarchists or libertarians or contrarians or any other sort of socioeconomic or political group might be more or less likely to respond to a voluntary survey. That's bias. And it means that the results of the survey may not - and almost certainly will not - be representative or generalizable to the Canadian population. That's a demonstrably inferior survey sample - less reliable, less accurate, and in ways that are difficult to quantify. We can estimate sampling error fairly readily, but that does not hold for sampling bias, since it requires a great deal of information about the sources of bias. Of course, without the mandatory long-form survey, it seems unlikely we'd know why particular people failed to respond to a voluntary survey. Quite the catch 22.

So, Tony Clement, with respect to this:

“I am not saying it's every Canadian, but I am saying there are Canadians [who complained] and we should try to accommodate their concerns in a balanced way,” he said.

He added that he took the privacy concerns to Statistics Canada and asked they be incorporated into the next census. “They gave me options and we chose one of those options,” he said.

“This is a methodology that Statistics Canada offered to us and if it's good enough for Statistics Canada, it should be good enough for some of our critics.”

As I happen to know a number of statisticians, I'm rather skeptical that Statcan thinks this change is "good enough". At this point, I should note that indeed have some kind of degree: MMath (Statistics-Biostatistics) from Waterloo. I think that beats Tony's poli sci undergrad (I have one too) and law degree - at least insofar as these things go.

Random Things...

2010-06-12T22:34:00.005-04:00

I haven't posted in a while, though the time since my last entry has gone by swiftly (briefly: conference in Mexico, an OSCE, population health project, and final exam for the year). I've been following a few issues lately with a fair degree of attention, though. Starting off, there's the matter of the 2010 Toronto mayoral race:

Outspoken councillor Rob Ford leads a new poll that evinces a splintered electoral race with two clear front-runners and an indecisive electorate.

A new Globeandmail/CTV/CP24/Nanos poll puts Mr. Ford in first place – but just barely, and well within the margin of error.

The poll shows that 17.8 per cent of 1,000 Torontonians said they would vote for Mr. Ford if the election was held immediately, giving him a tiny lead over former deputy premier and energy and infrastructure minister George Smitherman, with 15.9 per cent.

Almost 40 per cent of those would-be voters are still undecided – but this poll cements a two-horse race between Mr. Ford and Mr. Smitherman, a long-time front-runner after he left his provincial post to run.

Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone garnered a 10.1 per cent result; 9 per cent of those polled said they’d vote for Rocco Rossi if the vote were held immediately. Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti got 2.5 per cent; Women’s Post publisher Sarah Thomson earned 5.8 per cent of votes.

I'm going to say right off that I hope to hell that Rob Ford doesn't win. I don't think he will, of course, as this poll probably represents the ceiling not the floor of his support. Other than riding a wave of discontent over the usual "waste and overspending" talking points, he doesn't seem to have any particular plans or vision for the city, at least, none that I can find on his laughably amateurish website. He apparently wants to scrap Transit City in favour of subways, i.e. replace a less costly more comprehensive plan with one that is an order of magnitude more expensive and much slower to construct. How he expects that to be paid for is anyone's guess.

The rest of the field is not altogether inspiring - Smitherman seems okay, but his plans are a bit fuzzy - and since I don't live in TO, it doesn't really impact me directly, but the success of our largest city ought to matter to Canadians. Halifax's transit issues, for example, are a microcosm of what faces Toronto. Traffic is ever worsening and most of the plans to remedy it are not sufficiently ambitious. It's too early to predict the outcome of the mayoral election; it remains to be seen where the large number of undecided voters ends up.

People in Toronto are Crazy

2010-04-04T10:29:00.002-04:00

That's the only conclusion I can reach after reading this:

In his 29 years of ferrying people to Toronto Island, boat crew member Frank Corbin never saw passengers as agitated as they were this weekend. There was pushing, profanity and even punches thrown; at one point on Friday, the police had to be called in to help regulate the crowd.

Just blame it on the potent combination of unseasonably warm weather, a holiday weekend and thousands of Torontonians trying to get to Toronto Island.

That, and the fact that just one puny, puttering ferry was available to haul everyone across.

"It was very busy, much busier than normal," said Corbin, the first mate of Ongiara, the 220-passenger ferry. "We were not really prepared for the crowd, basically."

Lineups at the ferry docks stretched past the ticket gates as people waited for up to three hours before leaving dry land.

People became so frustrated they were rushing onto the boat or jumping queues.

At least one fist fight broke out Friday, Corbin said.

"(People were) very impatient," he said. "Rude to me, rude to the captain. They were swearing at the deckhand, calling him a lazy bum and using the f-word."

I don't blame people for being frustrated but... it's April 4th. They didn't plan on the temperature being 25 degrees and weren't ready for these crowds. That doesn't excuse the behaviour described above. And while they should finally build at least a pedestrian bridge (or two) to the Islands for precisely this reason, I can't imagine why so many people would be so set on going to Centre Island. It's not *that* great. I suppose people in TO are just starved for any contact with the lake... which doesn't really explain why Harbourfront is so underused half the time. In any case, ocean >>> lake.

Bad Ideas and Health Care Reform

2010-04-02T20:16:00.002-04:00

Nope, I'm not going to be writing about Obama's recent success in passing health insurance reform. I'm cautiously optimistic about its impact, but those events have predictably brought up the subject of health care reform in Canada once again. As a general rule, newspaper columnists and pundits are not experts about anything and will typically provide - at best - some sort of conventional wisdom that doesn't bear scrutiny. David Olive's column about "five bright ideas to save the Liberal Party" is no exception. He posits, indeed, a health care "renaissance" as one such idea:

Skyrocketing health-care costs are a fixation of governments from Japan to France, all facing the same demographic challenge of an aging population as we do, but not content as we are in passively watching health-care costs gobble up 40 per cent of our economy by mid-century, likely sooner. Health care is perhaps the one major field most stubbornly resistant to reform in both quality (medical errors are rampant) and cost-efficiency. At least in its big cities, China is far ahead of North America in electronic medical records, which cut down on errors and costly duplication, and make “distance care” more practical.

As to the breadth of coverage, our imagined comprehensive Medicare coverage is anything but. It lacks the universal dental care of Britain and state-funded prescription-drug provision of France and Japan.

Just as caregivers have little incentive to rethink treatment, patients have little reason to adopt a healthier lifestyle of proper diet and fitness. A reinvented Medicare would impose means-testing and co-pays to provide that incentive. As part of that overhaul, universal care would be made truly comprehensive by embracing dental health and pharmacare extending beyond the seniors now receiving it.

Setting aside the general vagueness and lack of specifics in this "idea", it betrays both all-too-common simplistic thinking about these issues. Medical errors are rampant? I'd say they happen and are to a small extent unavoidable. As I wrote in the fall, there are numerous approaches to improve communication and cut down on errors, such as the addition of universal checklists to the OR. I'd hazard a guess that electronic medical records would play - at best - a small role in "cutting down" errors. We have many computer-based records systems as it stands, but in my admittedly limited experience paper charts are easier to flip through to find what you're looking for. I'm not sure where the duplication comes in either; if the past, oh, 30 years or so have shown anything, it's that computer infrastructure is expensive, high maintenance, and certainly not cheaper than paper.

Olive is quite right that we lack universal dental coverage (which I understand the UK doesn't have to the extent he implies) or prescription-drug provision... though drugs for certain chronic conditions and cancers are. He probably should have discussed drug costs in more detail, however, as if there's anything "unsustainable" (a common media refrain) about our system, it's drug costs - most of which are privately paid.

His last point is simply morally unjustifiable. On one hand, I'd say that good health is its own reward, and while there's no shortage of people who make bad choices (e.g. NEVER start smoking), there are many more whose jobs facilitate a sedentary lifestyle and it is a simple effect that people with low incomes and limited educations have the worst health outcomes. Another sizeable group of "frequent flyers" for health care suffer from genetic predispositions to different diseases. In short, Olive is advocating that sick people be punished for their poor health status, under the supposition that this will give them an "incentive"... not to be sick. I guess. I'm sure those with type 1 diabetes or rheumatoid arthritis would be happy to pay nominal co-pays if it would rid them of their conditions once and for all, but that's not how things work. I'm not aware that such incentives actually work anyhow, apart from having the documented effect of driving people with low incomes away from seeking health care. And that's a bad thing.

Toronto vs. Vancouver

2010-01-31T21:14:00.002-05:00

Well, not really. Nothing seems to generate vapid columns about common Canadian stereotypes than Globe and Mail columnists writing about any larger city - usually one of Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, or Montreal. But usually Vancouver, I tend to think. Unsurprisingly, these never fail to generate lots of snarky comments from online readers. But first the offending article:

Please do not misunderstand me: I am not about to do the eastern-Canadian, passive-aggressive, Toronto thing that Vancouverites hate, which is to decry Vancouver as a beautiful but empty-headed woman you long to sleep with and then can't wait to ditch so that you can talk about something other than the muscle tone of her thighs.

Vancouver has always been unspeakably beautiful, but the Olympics stand to launch it into the global stratosphere.

At that point the city will completely replace Toronto and Montreal and (really?) Ottawa, which actually has more residents than Vancouver, as the go-to city in the mind of the world, when the mind of the world thinks of Canada – especially the mind of Asia, which is going to control most of the money on the planet for the next 200 years.

Yes, Vancouver will be the go-to city in the "mind of the world". I wish I could make such a turn of phrase up myself. The author goes on to describe a code of etiquette for city employees which apparently caused something of an uproar (I guess Vancouverites react badly to the implication that they're clueless and socially awkward), but that doesn't really bear mentioning here. The amusing thing is that the online comments invariably take one of three forms - people slagging Toronto, others slagging Vancouver, and a third smaller group of people calling for peace in our time.

This post reflects none of those positions. However, I did find this comment rather amusing:

By the way, an anecdote about Toronto subways to balance things up. I worked there for 5 years and, forgive me, but I don't remember everyone chatting to each other on the subway. Being thoroughly miserable in public was the order of the day - every day.

This, of course, is entirely accurate. Toronto is a big anonymous city. Vancouver is not nearly as big, but just as anonymous. I have come to realize lately that I'm not a "big city" person. Not anymore at least. I really enjoy visiting for days or weeks at a time, but that's about all I can manage. Everything's too spread out, too big, and there are too many people everywhere all the time. For all the enjoyment I get hanging out in downtown TO, most of the city consists of strip malls, character-less, cookie-cutter suburbs, and big box outlets. Oh, and lots of new condos. That all look kinda the same.

Vancouver is generally prettier, up to and including its suburbs like Burnaby and Richmond, but it's an appallingly expensive place to live and the stark class divisions between different areas of the city persists. Lovely place to visit, but I already live near the ocean, less than a 5-10 minute walk to the harbour or to Point Pleasant Park. I live within a 20 minute walk of almost everything I need, and most things are closer: several grocery stores, most buildings at Dal, the hospitals, my bank, drug stores, an excellent selection of restaurants, and, of course, an HMV. Not that I buy much there lately. If I need to go a bit further afield, I've learned that the buses are certainly adequate, and there are always lots of cabs - not that walking is usually a problem, as even downtown is only 20 minutes away at most.

So, yes, I love Hali. But there is a cultural element to this too. I hadn't fully appreciated it until I spent a year in Waterloo, but Ontario is... different. Smaller cities there are friendlier, certainly, but I didn't find K-W to be appreciably less anonymous. If Nova Scotia is friendlier - and I think it is - it's also somewhat less open, and there is a vastly stronger sense of history than most places in Ontario (I think!). Vancouver is even more ephemeral. If Toronto feels like it's in a constant process of reinventing itself (to varying degrees of success), Vancouver seems ever focussed on its natural beauty, "lifestyle", and - currently - the all important Olympics. Nothing too substantive there, and little more than handwringing over some of the worst social problems in the country.

Now, Halifax is far from perfect. Traffic problems are ever worsening, parking and living on the peninsula are fairly expensive (fortunately I only do the latter), and the less said about the sewage treatment fiasco the better. But it's almost the perfect size for a city. We just need some way of getting people on and off the peninsula more efficiently and without having to use their own cars. One day perhaps. One day soon I'll go home to the Valley too. Rural (or small town) living is perhaps a topic for another post, though.

King Tut in TO

2009-11-22T14:28:00.002-05:00

I've just noticed that an exhibition of King "Golden Pharaoh" Tutankamen artifacts is coming to the AGO this month and will be sticking around until April. Anyone else want to go? :)

Surgery is a Lifestyle

2009-11-17T16:56:00.001-05:00

Or so says my elective preceptor, a general surgeon/surgical oncologist. Life is something you fit in around it. Things for me to ponder, to be sure, over the next two years or so. In the meantime, I'm loving my elective; in the new year I'll get some exposure to ENT/head and neck surgery.

At some point I need to write about non-medical topics, though. Before that point, I did notice something curious about some of the heart murmurs we've been learning about over the past few weeks. Last Tuesday I examined a patient with a very loud systolic murmur, indicating aortic valve stenosis. Every time this patient's left ventricle contracted, there would be a loud, transient whoosh as blood passed through his narrowed aortic valve. After listening for a bit, it suddenly dawned on me that the murmur sounded almost exactly like the alien signal from Contact.

Still a very cool movie - and now it provides a handy way of recognizing certain types of valvular disease.

Le mois d'Octobre

2009-10-04T22:58:00.002-04:00

It's been a rather nice fall so far in Halifax. Nice, generally sunny weather (today's being a notable exception), and I've been enjoying Med 2 a lot so far. I've finally scrubbed into surgery and it's been great. Really great. I'll have to write more soon, but this appears to be the direction in which OR procedures are going:

Next time you go in for surgery, don't be surprised if the surgeon and staff introduce themselves before you go under the scalpel.

It's just one of the 26 tasks on a surgical safety checklist that hospitals across the province will be required to implement starting in January, because it has been proven to reduce patient complications and death.

[...]

The checklist includes common items such as requiring doctors and staff to check equipment, review patient information and resuscitation plans, and even identify themselves by name and role before they make their first cut.

The checklist will be mandatory for all surgeries in the province, and hospitals will be required to report twice a year on compliance.

The list is divided into three parts: tasks that must be completed before the anesthesia, before the first incision and before the patient leaves the operating room.

In case there's any concern that this sort of thing wasn't done previously, I can say that it's just a more systematic, formal way of approaching normal practice. But don't take my word for it:

"Everything on the checklist is a well-known standard of care," said Dr. Michael Baker, head of patient safety for the province, at a media briefing Thursday.

"There are no new ideas in the checklist," he said.

"The new idea is that the team needs to communicate and be obsessive-compulsive about the surgical process."

The video accompanying the article even has an example of a typical anesthesia monitor alarm. It helps remind me of the OR, and that I was taught (in Austria anyway) that the appropriate response to such alarms is to turn them off (I think it's an apnea alarm).

Bodyworlds Returns!

2009-09-19T20:54:00.002-04:00

The Bodyworlds exhibit is coming back to the Science Centre:

Four years after BODY WORLDS 2 brought record crowds to the Science Centre, the new blockbuster exhibition, BODY WORLDS & The Story of the Heart, will open to the public on October 9, 2009 for a limited engagement.

See through the lenses of anatomy, cardiology, psychology and culture how the heart nourishes, regulates and sustains life. The exhibition will give you a profound insight into the human body, health and disease, and the intricate world of the cardiovascular system with over 200 human specimens including whole-body plastinates, organs and translucent body slices.

From the sound of it, tickets should be bought in advance. As usual, I expect to be in TO around Christmas time, and I think it would be fun to organize a group trip. It's not altogether cheap, but it's cool and it must not be forgotten that it featured prominently in Casino Royale. What more do you need?

Austrian Observations

2009-07-18T12:42:00.002-04:00

Generally speaking, Austria is quite similar to what I'm used to in Canada, but, of course, different, and not just because all the signs are in German. A few brief notes:

Smoking: Everywhere, that is. I don't know if there exists the concept of a "no smoking" section in Austria, but I have yet to discover it. Sure, you can't smoke on trains or on buses, but it's been only a year or so since smoking was banned in most areas of hospitals. It's possible that the Landeskrankenhaus Innsbruck is behind larger centres. Of course, since many on the surgical floor still smoke, the compromise was to put smoking lounges just off the OR hallway (I had forgotten just how awful smoke is in very confined spaces). It's not really airtight, though, so the scent of smoke tends to waft down the hallway.

Shopping hours: Sunday shopping? Evening shopping? Like, after 7pm? Forget about it! Not possible, and even the local video store near me closes at 10pm weeknights. I'm sure some of the more touristy places in the Innsbruck Altstadt are open Sundays, but they sure aren't open in the evening. This would be a lot more inconvenient if my schedule was tighter, but fortunately I'm pretty much always done by mid-afternoon.

Free lunches: Self-explanatory, and applies both on the OR floor and in the main hospital cafeteria. The food isn't great, but it gets the job done, so to speak.

Coffee machines: Coffee vending machines, I should say. It tends to be expensive to buy coffee from bakeries, bars, restaurants, or coffee shops, as a small cup (about the same size as a Tim's small) will run you about 2 euros. Despair not, however, as you can get a cup of about the same size and quantity from a vending machine for 50 or 75 euro cents. Very reasonable, not to mention fast!

Trains, trams, and buses: Fast, convenient, everywhere. Even Innsbruck, population just under 120,000, has an efficient bus and tram network (good for me since I take the bus at least once daily). I seldom wait more than about five minutes; the outside might be ten. There are night buses too, though I haven't taken any as of yet. Vienna similarly has an extensive public transit network: U-bahn, tram, bus. Innsbruck makes the buses in Halifax seem slow and inconvenient... which they are. Rail is the other issue here; you can take the train everywhere and it's reliable and comfortable. They'll even apologize if it's 15 minutes late (the norm for Via Rail!). While the train can be a bit on the pricey side, it makes day tripping very easy. (Concerning Italian trains, while they are not remotely pricey, let's just reiterate that one should never trust a bargain too much...)

Language: In light of my less than stellar German skills, I've had an okay time managing here, primarily because most people seem to have some command of English. I'm working on improving, but it's slow-going, despite being surrounded by the language all the time. Arguably just as challenging is the local Tiroler accent, considered "quite strange" by some Viennese. I can probably get by simply by knowing "bitte schön", "genau", and "past".

I suppose that's all for now. Pictures to come later. Bis später!

Mwahaha

2009-07-14T14:56:00.002-04:00

So, it seems that Tim Hortons has now come to New York City:

The Canadian doughnut invasion has begun.

Over the weekend, 12 Dunkin’ Donuts restaurants in Manhattan and Brooklyn underwent a transformation, emerging Monday morning as the first New York City locations of Tim Hortons, a Canadian chain that sells coffee and baked goods.

It's so nice that New Yorkers will now be part of an exclusive set of locations that includes the two locations in New Minas, NS (not to mention the 24 hour Wolfville outlet), Hamilton, Finch subway station, and the Sir Charles Tupper Medical Building, along with every mall, airport, suburb, and indeed many gas stations in Canada. At least one New Yorker is just as excited:

Mr. Weprin said the arrival of Tim Hortons "shows New York City is on the move, we’re a desirable market," adding that he was "so excited to have Tim Hortons here." (emphasis mine)

Evidently this Weprin character is a city councillor, but surely he is simply a creation of The Onion and this is not actually a legitimate article in the NY Times.

Of course, it is exactly that. I wonder how long it will take for the novelty to wear off.

(Disclaimer: I probably go to Tim's at least a hundred times a year, if not more. It's the price I pay of not wanting to go outside for food/coffee/whatever when it's really cold out.)

Change of Venue

2009-07-02T15:45:00.002-04:00

I started this blog while in Waterloo ("wintering" there), and in September I returned to Nova Scotia where I may just stay forever. Except, of course, for my current travels, which have brought me to a hostel in Vienna. On Sunday I'll go to Innsbruck for a month-long clinical elective; this is pretty much the farthest and longest time that I've been away from home. Last year in Waterloo might sort of count as being "away", but being less than an hour's drive from friends and family doesn't quite count. The closest thing previously was way back in 2003 when I went for a 5 week French immersion program in Trois-Rivières. At that time, we were actually forced to speak French exclusively (or, well, as much as possible); now I *should* be speaking (some) German, but my vocabulary and grammar is pretty rudimentry not to mention very rusty.

Now, I'd planned to spend time studying and reviewing some German prior to departing, but... well, it was always hard to that during school, of course, and I was fairly busy and then travelling during the three weeks immediately after it was over. I do actually remember a surprising amount considering it's been *six* years since I've really practised it at all. Currently when I try to think of a German word for something, French inevitably comes up first as my "default" non-mother tongue. A bit frustrating. C'est la vie... (again with the français!)

Otherwise, I think travelling alone can be - unsurprisingly - a bit on the lonely side, but I'm grateful for some personal private space after 12 or so hours of planes and airports. It felt a lot longer than that, though, and how the Zurich airport can justify charging $10 for a coffee and donut is utterly beyond my comprehension. The Berliner was rather short on jelly at that.

Anyway, that's about all for now. Ideally I'll be posting more on this trip (especially to make up for not posting at all in June!).

Useless Products

2009-05-12T19:51:00.002-04:00

Most commercials tend to make little impression on me, but one I saw just now convinced me that a confiscatory useless product tax at point of manufacture is in order:

Aqua Globes™ watering bulbs are an attractive solution for automatic houseplant watering. Fill the hand blown stained glass bulbs as the plant needs it. Aqua Globes™ watering bulbs are a great alternative to the daily chore of watering plants and an excellent choice for automatic watering while on vacation.

Now, I don't know about anyone else, but I haven't found watering plants to be much of a chore lately or ever. For only $14.99, though, I could purchase an Aqua Globe which would save this daily chore. Keeping in mind that you still need to fill the globe with water and stick it into the soil. And that I seldom actually need to water my plants *daily*.

How much time do you think one would save with an Aqua Globe? 30 seconds per plant? I'll grant that they look kinda... interesting - and they could serve as a conversation starter for guests:

Guest no. 1: Ohhh, what's that glass sphere in that pot?
You: It's an Aqua Globe (TM).
Guest no. 1: ...
You: It waters my plant for me.
Guest no. 2: You still have to put water in it, right?
You: Yup.
Guest no. 2: So what's the advantage?
You: Oh, it automatically releases water when the soil's dry, so it waters the plant better.
Guest no. 1: You know, your soil feels kinda dry...
You: Ohh!! My Aqua Globe (TM) is empty!

Anyway. This is a good example of a product designed to create a demand that, really, does not exist.

Conflicts of Interest

2009-04-29T22:37:00.003-04:00

The ongoing inquiry into the events leading to Robert Dziekanski's death following tasering by the RCMP has provided a classic conflict of interest scenario:

A cardiology expert paid by the company that makes Tasers told a public inquiry Tuesday he doesn't think Robert Dziekanski's death was at all related to the controversial stun guns.

Dziekanski died on the floor of Vancouver's airport in the early morning of Oct. 14, 2007, minutes after four RCMP officers confronted him and stunned him several times with a Taser.

Dr. Charles Swerdlow, a cardiac electrophysiologist who receives compensation for sitting on Taser International's medical advisory board, appeared at the inquiry by video conference from California.

Swerdlow said if the Taser negatively affected Dziekanski's heart, it would happen almost immediately after he was stunned.

But he noted that an airport security guard has testified that he checked Dziekanski's pulse three times before firefighters arrived more than 10 minutes after his collapse. Trevor Enchelmaier told the inquiry that each time he checked, Dziekanski had a heartbeat.

"In Mr. Dziekanski's death, we know his [heart stopping] was not immediate, we know he had an adequate cardiac rhythm for a number of minutes following exposure to Taser," said Swerdlow, who works at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles and also teaches at the University of California.

"So nothing here fits with direct cardiac electrical stimulation."

Swerdlow also said that if the heart is affected by electrical current, the resulting heartbeat would be either too fast or irregular. The first time anyone noticed anything wrong with Dziekanski's heart was when firefighters arrived and found he had no pulse at all.

I gather that cross-examination of Dr Swerdlow has yet to occur, but I might ask him the following questions:

An airport security guard has testified that he was able to find Mr Dziekanski's pulse "three times" in the approximately ten minutes following his collapse prior to the arrival of the firefighters. Does evidence of a pulse in and of itself rule out arrhythmia or any other adverse effect potentially caused by multiple Taser "stuns"?
Did the security guard have adequate training or equipment (e.g. stethoscope, ECG leads) to ascertain Mr Dziekanski's condition?
What is the appropriate means of diagnosing an arrhythmia?
What level of electrical current would be sufficient adverse cardiac events or death? What are the causes of such results?
How do you know that Mr Dziekanski's cardiac rhythm was "adequate" in the period prior to his death and following the tasering? Were you present at the scene? If not, on what basis can you testify that his rhythm was "adequate"?
How much compensation do you receive from Taser International annually? Have you ever noted any examples of adverse cardiac events resulting from Taser use? Do you feel there is any conflict of interest in testifying in favour of the safety of a product whose manfacturer compensates you? Did you receive any additional compensation to appear at this inquiry? How often do you testify in Taser-related cases? Have you ever testified that the use of a Taser contributed to death or other adverse cardiac events?

I think that about covers it. I'd be very interested in the responses.

Interview Time

2009-04-18T00:50:00.003-04:00

Interview Weekend is once again upon us at Dal. Therefore, I present a music video that's almost as old as I am. For whatever reason, "Africa" by Toto has become some kind of thing song here. Enjoy.

Quacks in BC

2009-04-10T22:06:00.002-04:00

"The regular docs treat the symptoms, whereas the naturopath tries to find the CAUSE."

So, they've done it. So-called naturopathic physicians will now be able to do the following:

prescribe non-controlled medications (eg. they can prescribe Tylenol #3, all antibiotics, all mood altering medications - antidepressants, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers including lithium, immune suppressants such as prednisone, methotrexate), "after completing a certification training". A list of medications they cannot prescribe is attached at the end of the legislation (seems to be mainly narcotics / sedatives / chemotherapy agents)
order Xrays / Ultrasounds (but no CTs)
perform minor surgeries at or below dermis
perform allergy challenge testing and desensitization
insert finger/instrument/device into any body cavity, whether natural or artificially-created

Now, do naturopaths have the training for any of this, particularly minor surgery? For all their self-serving rhetoric, they do not have any hospital experience in their training, nor any mainstream medical exposure. No clerkship. No call. No residency. No OSCEs. Just dodgy self-regulation. And homeopathy.

Of course, I will not and cannot deny that many treatments in use today derive from natural sources. Digoxin, a very old drug used in heart failure, was isolated from Digitalis purpurea, a poisonous flowering plant also known as foxglove. That doesn't make homeopathy - a practice without any kind of rational pharmacological basis - a valid form of treatment, however, nor does it excuse the sort of rhetoric that seeks to set naturopathy apart from "allopathic" (i.e. mainstream) medicine:

Vis medicatrix naturae: the body has the inherent capacity to heal in the proper therapeutic environment. NDs believe in the recuperative power of the organism, given the correct climate for healing. Determining the correct individualized therapeutic environment is at the core of naturopathic medicine.
Tollum causum: remove the cause. Instead of treating the symptoms of disease the ND tries to cure the cause of the disease.
Prima non nocere: do no harm. The ND is trained to use therapies that will not cause adverse side effects or cause secondary problems (i.e., iatrogenic disease) as serious or more serious than the original disease.

Regarding Vis medicatrix naturae, it's certainly true that the body has an inherent capacity to heal itself, but that "proper therapeutic environment" is absolutely key. For example, penicillin for a pharyngeal infection caused by Strep pyogenes is necessary to prevent secondary glomerulonephritis, the cause of which is related to the body's natural immune response to the bacteria. Untreated strep throat can also lead to rheumatic fever; proper treatment is certainly required. One wonders, then, what naturopaths think is unique about this principle.

The second principle is a frequent canard offered in support of naturopathy; that naturopaths treat the cause of disease rather than the symptoms, something that is supposedly the opposite of an MD's approach. This, of course, is simply non sequitur, which is not to say that purely symptomatic treatment is never warranted. On the other hand, naturopaths have a habit of inventing causes to explain a wide variety of non-specific symptoms:

Of course, Candida is everywhere and on you all the time. Most of the time it does nothing. To see what an actual bought of candidiasis looks like, simply Google "oral thrush". To see whether you might suffer from Candida "overgrowth", watch this video.

As for their last principle, "do no harm", it's nice to know that naturopaths have discovered the Hippocratic Oath. It's unfortunate, however, that they are under the delusion that adverse effects and problems secondary to treatments can be avoided. Since they seem mainly to cater to the worried well, however, most of their "treatments" are comparatively benign (if not entirely ineffective). I hope they behave responsibly enough to avoid going beyond their limited training and so avoid the aforementioned iatrogenic disease.

Reflections on a Consult Service

2009-04-08T22:05:00.001-04:00

Since October I've been doing a first-year elective in Infectious Diseases. Mostly this entailed observing in the HIV clinic and on in-patient rounds in the QEII. Occasionally I'll get to listen to heart/lung/bowel sounds or help with history taking, though the latter typically only ever occurs in clinic. Initially, the plan had been to split my time equally between clinic and in-patient rounds, but the latter has ended up taking the lion's share of my time, something that I've liked.

Clinic is fairly non-threatening and low-key, and from the start I could appreciate the sorts of issues HIV patients face - side effects, compliance to meds, and all the psychosocial aspects unique to their situation. When I first went on in-patient rounds, I had to go meet the ID resident in Emerg where he was reviewing a consult. At this point, I could scarcely find my way around the hospital much less understand most of what I was hearing. As the afternoon progressed, I'd ask the odd question, but mostly I just listened, writing things down to look up later. I wrote down a lot.

As time went on, I met new residents coming onto the ID service more or less monthly. Everyone rotates through ID, and while most of the residents I've met have been in internal medicine, there have been others in physiatry, general surgery, neurosurgery, and ENT, along with a few actual ID fellows. I've really appreciated being able to meet so many people, to say nothing of the extremely varied patient exposure. I've been nearly everywhere at both sites of the QEII; ICUs, IMCU, Haem/Onc, CCU, MTU, Emerg, ENT, Ortho, Urology, various other clinics, and the dark, patient-less unit commonly known as Radiology. Even so, I still have only a vague sense of where many things are.

I'd say also that I've learned a lot about charts, how residents summarize patients for staff, and how a consult service works. I'm not sure whether I want necessarily to work on a service like ID in the end, but that's perhaps a topic for another post. In the end, I've enjoyed myself progressively more since January, both as I've learned more in class and as I've been lucky enough to end up with residents and staff who have been more open to teaching and having me listen and/or feel things for myself. This has really made all the difference. At this point, I can pretty much understand most of what the residents and staff are staying, and when I don't, I feel more confident and comfortable peppering them with questions. I know way more than I did in October, but the amount I don't know and have yet to learn always seems somewhat insurmountable.

I guess I'll get to that stuff eventually. My little assignment from today was to look up these:

Non-anion gap acidosis
Tumour lysis syndrome

BSG at the UN

2009-03-20T23:19:00.002-04:00

Since BSG ends tonight (or, I should say, ended, as I've already watched it), I present Edward James Olmos and Mary MacDonnell at some sort of UN-hosted event on racism:

I can't really tell whether Olmos is in character or not.

Cells Are Awesome

2009-03-11T20:08:00.002-04:00

As evidenced by the video below:

CaRMS is Scary

2009-03-10T19:48:00.003-04:00

And kind of exciting. Yesterday was match day for Canadian med students graduating in 2009. That will be my match day in three years, and I'm realising that that time will go by quickly, and that on the day I'll have my future career determined to a great extent.

Best to focus on the present, though. I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do. Surgery is interesting, areas of internal could be good. What do I want in terms of lifestyle, practice, and location? What *can* I get? It's hard to say. Fortunately I have lots of opportunities to try things out. But that CaRMS match day, though seemingly far off, requires preparation and lots of thought. Maybe it's best not to think about it too much, but I still seem to be (it's a decent enough way to avoid studying at least!).

Update: Ahem. CaRMS = Canadian Resident Matching Service.

Google Lies

2009-02-23T16:55:00.003-05:00

Well, probably not intentionally. But don't trust Google Maps implicitly, for you might end up with something like this:

View Larger Map

Note the portion of Dalhousie University located at right, and you'll notice something called the Halifax Infirmary. Sounds like a hospital, right? Well, it was, until it was replaced and later demolished... in 2005. In fact, the original building has been vacant since 1998, as the "New" Halifax Infirmary opened in 1996. What's notable about this? Well, Google didn't exist until Sept. 1998, and Google Maps didn't appear until Feb. 2005, admittedly a few months before the old Infirmary was torn down. Though it had been vacant for some seven years before that.

The question remains - why is the HI still appearing on Google Maps in a location which for three-and-half years has existed as a vacant patch of gravel next to a pay parking lot?

Naturopathy in BC?

2009-02-17T17:38:00.004-05:00

I'm not surprised this is happening in British Columbia:

Naturopathic doctors in B.C. could soon be allowed to prescribe medications if the provincial government goes ahead with plans to change its health profession regulations.

The changes would make B.C. the first province in Canada to grant naturopathic doctors the authority to prescribe drugs such as antibiotics, painkillers, and antidepressants.

But the B.C. Medical Association is concerned about the potential move, arguing patient safety will be put at risk if the changes are allowed.

In a letter written last month to the province's medical doctors, BCMA president Bill Mackie said the association "is significantly concerned with the expansion of scope proposed for naturopaths... "

Thoughts on this? The College of Physicans and Surgeons of BC is very opposed, mainly on the grounds of patient safety (which are quite well founded - to start with, naturopaths don't have remotely equivalent training to physicians of any kind, much less nurses or pharmacists, when it comes to prescribing drugs, ordering diagnostic tests, or, well, making diagnoses of any kind.

And isn't it kinda ironic that naturopaths - who disdain pharmaceuticals as part of their MO - want to be able to prescribe them? (I'm not into the whole "holistic" versus "reductionist" argument either. There is a way based on evidence and science and another based on an odd mix of traditional/folk techniques (some with actual benefits) and wonky homeopathy.)

Plus, when I think of naturopathic "medicine", I am always reminded of this:

TOR: No. You know, I am not a business man. I'm a holistic healer. It's a calling, it's a gift. You see, it's in the best interest of the medical profession that you remain sick. You see, that insures good business. You're not a patient. You're a customer.

JERRY: (He thinks this, the audience can hear his thoughts) And you're not a doctor, but you play one in real life.

Just because naturopaths call themselves doctors and stick "ND" after their name like it's a university degree (it isn't, at least not in Canada) doesn't make them such or qualified to pretend that they are.

Rick Mercer Explains Politics

2009-02-06T19:20:00.001-05:00

And it's not really that complicated: Canada Explained

Endoscopy is Cool

2009-01-20T20:51:00.006-05:00

Gastroenterology is very procedure-based. I saw one of these today.

Down the esophagus, through the lower esophageal sphincter, through the body of the stomach, down the antrum, and out through the pylorus into the duodenum.

New name!

2009-01-12T23:06:00.003-05:00

I think it's about time I rechristened this blog, particularly since I'm no longer living in Waterloo and unlikely to return there that soon (and certainly not to live). It is very wintry in Halifax, though, so I might consider going with "Habitating in Halifax" - nice and alliterative. That's perhaps a bit silly, though, so I might have to think of something else. I might change the template too. We shall see! I'm welcome to any suggestions of course.

Concerning winter air travel...

2009-01-09T17:14:00.003-05:00

It's not too fun. In December, flying from Halifax to Toronto necessitated waiting from 8:30am to 3:30pm to find out that our flight was cancelled, and subsequently waiting until after midnight to depart on our rebooked flight. This rebooked flight routed us through Montreal, so we sought and found a quiet area in the departure lounge at Dorval to "sleep" for a bit before our 6:30am flight to YYZ. All in all, we spent about 24 hours from arriving at the Halifax airport to arriving at Pearson. It wasn't *that* bad, and I can't blame the airlines for the weather or icy runways (and unlike WestJet, Air Canada has many more flights on more routes, along with a "secret" reservations line for relatively quick re-bookings), but I'd sooner fly in the summer or, well, at any time of year apart from Dec/Jan.

The trip back was a dream in comparison. I had a brief stopover in Ottawa, whereupon I was called to the gate as I evidently needed to change seats. They put me in executive class and, as ever, the Seinfeld depiction is almost wholly accurate (though my meal was just a light lunch).

Random Stuff

2009-01-09T16:37:00.000-05:00

I've been quiet of late, primarily because of being away from the internet (or else focussing on physiology). Next week we delve into the workings of the gastrointestinal system. Exciting, eh? Interestingly, Dr Des Leddin, the head of GI at the QEII here in Halifax (and our intial GI lecturer), appears in this CBC story concerning a study concerning the effectiveness of colonoscopies at detecting cancerous growths. That's suitably random, I think.

Otherwise, the next exam approaches, comprising 80 multiple choice questions with 8 for each week of this unit. I think I have just enough time to study, but we shall see. The other big news is that I have two opportunities for an international elective in the summer - (possibly) Thailand or Austria. I'm really not sure which I prefer at this point, though Thailand might be more of once-in-a-lifetime thing. How often do you get a chance to learn about rural community medicine in Southeast Asia? I'm open to any suggestions there!

On the Grand Coalition

2008-11-29T22:52:00.002-05:00

James Bow writes eloquently about why we should throw out the Conservatives:

In two and a half years, we have seen how Stephen Harper governs. He is not pragmatic; he is an opportunist. He believes in openness and accountability only when it suits him. Most importantly, he refuses to respect the democratic will of the Canadian people; twice denied a mandate to govern with majority power in the House of Commons, he has consistently refused to reach out to any party in the opposition to govern cooperatively. Government has been a battle for him, and his opponents, be they on the opposition benches or standing in the streets, are not Canadians with legitimate points of view of their own, but enemies to be crushed and humiliated.

That, of course, describes the problem only in the broadest way; James provides a thorough list of examples of Conservative hypocrisy, mismanagement, and general immaturity. I look forward to seeing Harper on the opposition benches and urge the Liberals, NDP, and Bloc not to back down.

May you live in interesting times...

2008-11-28T19:26:00.004-05:00

Well, PM Stephen Harper certainly excels at setting traps for himself. I'd never have guessed that we'd be on the brink of a Liberal/NDP/Bloc coalition government this weekend, but we may well have one in time for Christmas:

Negotiations by Opposition parties to form a coalition began hours after the Harper government failed to introduce an economic stimulus package in its annual economic and fiscal update yesterday.

Instead, Harper proposed billions in spending cuts, the suspension of the right of public servants to strike, pay equity changes, and a small but significant reduction of public funding for political parties.

I think there are lots of good reasons here to bring down the government, but the public funding for political parties issue is probably the spark that lit this fire. (Each party annually receives $1.95 for each vote it received in the last election, which was implemented to lessen the impact of wealthy donors being able to disproportionately influence political parties, along with corporations and unions. The much larger indirect subsidy comes in the form of tax credits for people who donate directly to the parties.)

This proposal concerning party funding was bizarrely attached to the Harper government's otherwise Harrisite "fiscal update" (spending cuts? compounding a recession?), in what can only be seen as a naked attempt to harm the finances of the opposition parties, if not cause their outright bankruptcy. That this comes during an unprecedented global economic crisis when compromise and consensus are warranted in Parliament is despiscable. I don't think Canadians are terribly interested in Harper's game, but are at least a bit concerned with the tanking stockmarket and the looming collapse of the auto sector, to name only two things. In this regard, I do think the opposition is more in tune with "average" Canadians (i.e., though who aren't political junkie who live for Harper's games of chess). Instead, Harper's playing chicken with the fate of his own government:

Angered over the lack of an overarching spending package to kickstart the sluggish economy, the Opposition parties cried foul.

Now the Liberals say they will introduce a motion of non-confidence in the government.

NDP Leader Jack Layton and Stephane Dion have discussed "roles and responsibilities” in a new coalition, an NDP official confirmed.

It is expected that Layton would have a place in the new cabinet, and “various players would play different roles,” the official said.

Liberal finance critic John McCallum said a new government would roll out a stimulus package that was "a whole lot faster and a whole lot bigger than anything they would provide.”

Anyway, I'm not sure whether Dion would be the leader of this still-hypothetical coalition. It's a possibility, but since the confidence vote has been postponed (by Harper, a sure sign that he's attempting to buy time for some sort of last ditch attempt to save his government), I expect the Liberals will have sufficient time to figure out their leadership issues, at least temporarily, so that we'll soon be treated to the spectacle of a joint Liberal-NDP cabinet with tacit Bloc support. Interesting times, to be sure!

Still here

2008-11-10T01:04:00.001-05:00

I've been remiss in posting lately, but I'm glad to say that I survived my anatomy exams (at least, I'm pretty sure I did - we don't get the actual results til later this month). After a brief respite, I'm back into the thick of it - and feeling very glad that I've taken genetics and biochem in the past. I find it a bit difficult to get out of the studying mentality and I feel I'm becoming mildly obsessed with being in the hospital - my elective is really just that interesting and fun. To maintain this feeling, I'm watching (and, sometimes, criticizing) House, though it's not really very good this season, and I've even tuned into the pre-emininent "medical" soap opera, namely Grey's Anatomy.

But how bad is Grey's Anatomy? Bad. The characters don't strike me as being anything approaching real people and, worse, they get away with things that even Gregory House would probably find unthinkable. Last week, in fact, several characters were dissecting cadavers in a storage room (for surgery "practice" I guess), unbeknownst to the senior resident. Where did they get them? Well, it turns out these bodies were simply unclaimed, so that the interns (shouldn't they have finished their residencies by now?) decided, hell, why not cut them up? Usually, of course, most cadavers used for dissection are expressly donated to science for that purpose, and otherwise there must be express authorization from the relevant authorities under laws like this. Setting aside the questionable ethics and the fact that they casually eat and drink in the same room (absolutely disgusting), the consequences consist entirely in a Stern Lecture from the senior resident about Why What They Did Was Wrong and Bad, Bad, Bad. To compare, at Dal, letting someone into the lab who's not unauthorized or otherwise removing *anything* from it would have "serious consequences" - expulsion quite probably. I guess we can say that they at least weren't experimenting on live patients.

Nitpicking...

2008-10-19T14:29:00.002-04:00

So, I was just watching Homer's Triple Bypass for about the 50th time and I noticed an error in the final scene. After the operation, Homer's heart is beating away strongly, and we get a nice internal view of it. Except, the vena cava are red in colour while the aorta is blue, suggesting that Homer's heart is pumping in the opposite direction! That's what you get with Dr. Nick, I suppose.

Anyway, I'm less than two months into this and I'm already finding the more questionable things on "serious" dramas like House intolerable. It's most distressing. :\

Studying, Studying, Studying

2008-10-03T19:56:00.001-04:00

Unsurprisingly, success in medical school requires a great deal of conscientious studying and work. And then some more studying. I am definitely learning a lot, but I'm never quite sure how much of it is sticking at a given time. I guess that just means I need to study more. I sure wish I'd taken some bio above the cellular level, even histology would've been a great asset. In truth, though, I've been distracted the past week and a half by having to do some final edits on my research paper from Waterloo - I'm relieved to say that it's all done now and submitted, and could easily turn into an actual publication.

So all's well - I'm really happy where I am, and aside from my great program, I love Halifax and I really did miss Nova Scotia in my year away. However, I feel the need to make a few complaints as well:

The Chinese cuisine available in Halifax, while good, is on the expensive side and lacks the sort of selection I am spoiled with whilst in the GTA. The prices for comparable dishes are half again as much and the portions about half as small - the result, it's about twice as expensive.
Was it really necessary that humans have not one, not two, but three circulatory systems? I mean, can't lymph notes just attach right to veins? Whoever came up with that never had to study this stuff. (Of course, I'll admit that the lymphatic system is relatively straightforward, that it follows the venous system, and eventually drains into the junction of the left subclavian and left internal jugular veins. Yes, I'm writing that so I remember it.)
Formaldehyde (by itself) is not really the worst smell in the anatomy lab.
The lines at Tim Horton's in the morning are totally out of proportion with the quality of their coffee.
The nervous system is too complicated. Fortunately we don't need to know all the details just yet.
Learning about the limbs is fun, and thorax and (to a lesser extent) abdomen are fairly straightforward. The pelvis is convoluted.
I wish I'd taken Latin. Or Greek. Or, better yet, both!
I frequently receive upwards of 30 (non-junk) emails per day.
South End Halifax is really a very pretty place to live. I suppose that's not really a complaint.

Unhappy

2008-09-10T14:07:00.002-04:00

The new Radio 2 sounds like CHFI without commercials and more indie-ness.

...

Wasn't it supposed to showcase music that don't currently get played on the radio? I should add that the "Radio 2 Drive" program now ensures that I cannot hear any classical or jazz musicians (much less classical or contemporary composers!) after 3pm weekdays.

This sucks.

Now I'm be off to buy a selection of textbooks. More later maybe.

Sesame Street: Viewer Discretion is Advised

2008-08-31T12:55:00.002-04:00

Apparently the earlier episodes of Sesame Street are suitable for mature audiences only:

Just don’t bring the children. According to an earnest warning on Volumes 1 and 2, “Sesame Street: Old School” is adults-only: “These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”

Say what? At a recent all-ages home screening, a hush fell over the room. “What did they do to us?” asked one Gen-X mother of two, finally. The show rolled, and the sweet trauma came flooding back. What they did to us was hard-core. Man, was that scene rough. The masonry on the dingy brownstone at 123 Sesame Street, where the closeted Ernie and Bert shared a dismal basement apartment, was deteriorating. Cookie Monster was on a fast track to diabetes. Oscar’s depression was untreated. Prozacky Elmo didn’t exist.

Sounds pretty intense - from the miserable misanthropy of Oscar to the food addiction of Cookie Monster. I'm only glad that I didn't sustain irreparable emotional damage watching such inappropriate programming. Of course, one wonders how I managed watching something like Today's Special, which featured a store mannequin who would come to life when wearing a magic hat, a far more disturbing depiction of the fragility of existence than is appropriate for five-year-olds.

A Sad Day

2008-08-30T01:18:00.000-04:00

My favourite Radio 2 program had its last show today. After 23 years of mellow afternoons with Jurgen Goethe, DiscDrive ended today. It was a good show, with excerpts from past ones, but I was definitely more than a bit sad to hear the "Fanfarinette" theme for the last time on air. The CD is available here; I just ordered it.

As for DiscDrive's replacement, well, I'm not all that enthusiastic:

Radio 2 Drive, hosted by Rich Terfry. Airing weekdays from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., Radio 2 Drive, is hosted by innovative Canadian funk/hip hop artist and passionate music fan Rich Terfry (he performs as Buck 65). The country’s premier destination for new music and emerging Canadian talent, Radio 2 Drive boasts 75 per cent Canadian content from a range of contemporary musical genres with a focus on singer-songwriters. From time to time, Rich will be joined in-studio by artists for interviews and live performances.

Given that I pretty much hate or am at best indifferent toward "funk/hip hop", I can't say this description appeals to me. A focus on singer-songwriters? Like who? I guess we'll see soon enough.

Tony Clement has Jumped the Shark

2008-08-19T16:53:00.003-04:00

I said a while back that our erstwhile federal Minister of Health, Tony Clement, should resign. I stand by that statement, particular in light of this and this. In fact, I'd say Tony has simply jumped the shark, and like a TV series that undergoes major cast changes to ill effect, it's time that he was cancelled. In fact, it may be necessary to disband the whole network. Exhibit A:

MONTREAL - Health professionals who support Vancouver's safe injection site are unethical and immoral, federal Health Minister Tony Clement suggested on Monday.

"The supervised injection site undercuts the ethic of medical practice and sets a debilitating example for all physicians and nurses, both present and future in Canada," he scolded in an address to the Canadian Medical Association general council meeting in Montreal.

He called providing a safe injection site to drug addicts tantamount to offering palliative care to a patient with a treatable form of cancer.

So, we have the spectacle of health minister calling some 79% of Canadian physicians (and, one would presume, nurses too) "unethical" and "immoral" since they are doing the equivalent of witholding treatment from cancer patients.

Or so he claims - it is, of course, quite right that witholding care from patients for spurious ideological reasons would be profounding unethical, but that is exactly what Clement is calling for. The entire purpose of a supervised injection site is to prevent deaths due to overdose, limit the spread of blood-borne diseases through the sharing of needles, and provide access to treatment programs and counselling... and that's exactly what Vancouver's InSite does. In fact, Clement's position is all the more ridiculous since he supports needle exchange programs, in which intravenous drug users are provided with clean needles, with the aim of - wait for it - limiting or even preventing ths spread of blood-borne diseases through the sharing of used needles. A supervised injection site does exactly the same thing, except that there are nurses around to prevent fatal overdoses. Oh, and such a site provides an access point for referrals toward drug treatment, something that Clement putatively wants to see happen more.

And that's great - we absolutely should support expanded drug treatment programs - so when is Minister Clement and his government going to start funding them properly? Clement asks:

Is it true that supervised injections offer 'positive health outcomes?' I would not put it this way. Insite [Vancouver's safe injection site] may slow the death spiral of a deadly drug habit, but it does not reverse it. I do not regard this as a positive health outcome.

It's rather important to point out that intravenous drug users - assuming they don't contract and die from AIDS or Hepatitis - often die following a fatal overdose. Of course, Insite exists explicitly to prevent fatal overdoses.

Which is better, preventing a heroin user from overdosing, shooting up on the street, and subsequently referring him to treatment, or letting him OD and die in an alley?

In short, Clement's position is nonsensical and, at worst, downright unethical. The real motivation is clear enough, though:

The new Conservative ad campaign picks up where Mr. Clement's message leaves off with its call to "keep junkies in rehab and off the streets." It includes pictures of the party leaders and asks which of them is on track to fight crime.

The text reads: "Thugs, drug pushers and others involved in the drug trade are writing their own rules. For too long, lax Liberal governments left gangs and drug pushers to make their own rules and set their own criminal agenda. Those days are over."

My head is spinning from such dazzling rhetoric! Anyway, I don't know about anyone else, but I tend to agree that "junkies" ought to be off the streets. Rehab is an excellent alternative, but the facilities are not currently sufficient to the task, and since all "junkies" will not be able or willing to enter treatment immediately, it's better that they use clean needles and, say, not die due to an overdose. I'd think that's pretty obvious.

Unless you're a federal Conservative, that is.

Time Passes Quickly

2008-08-05T17:52:00.002-04:00

I'm rather amazed that this year in Waterloo is nearly over. It's really flown by, especially since April. I suppose that shouldn't be surprising - the summer always flies by (though it's not quite over yet!). In exactly one month I'll have my first classes of med school at Dalhousie, with orientation beginning a few days before that. I think that's a bit surreal, not least because of how much stuff I still have yet to do (coursework is done; research paper and marking, not so much). Aside from work, there's the small matter of moving to Halifax.

I expect to keep this blog, but the title might become somewhat problematic. As much as I have complained about Waterloo in the past, the summer has been nice, and I can point to at least a few things I like, most especially the park-like area where I live, the ready availability of bike and walking trails, and some areas like Uptown which make for pleasant daily excursions. While I can't say that the selection of restaurants is all that great, the variety of different fast food outlets in the Plaza is pretty nice. And I like the Williams coffee shops, though they are admittedly not unique to Kitchener-Waterloo.

I've also really enjoyed taking the train to travel back and forth between here and Toronto. Via Rail is not anywhere near as unreliable as it's made out to be, and the trains themselves are comfortable and spacious. With my ISIC card, it's no more expensive than the bus, but much more comfortable. It's unfortunate that I won't be taking the train much come September, but that speaks to the inadequacy of the passenger rail system across the country. Ah well.

This is Funny

2008-07-31T15:10:00.002-04:00

Concerning the idea of mandatory minimum sentences for certain crimes, I rather liked the scenario offered by a letter in the Star today:

Bill: Let's rob the local corner store. I'm short on cash.

Joe: Great idea. Let's go after 8, as that's when they have the most cash ... wait a minute, didn't you read the paper, there are new minimum mandatory sentences brought in by the Tories and they're tough.

Bill: You're right, it certainly dissuades me from this criminal activity. I'm going home to start applying for college.

Ah, the fallacy that is rational choice theory. Anyway, I'll have a report on my latest Tanglewood escapades later tonight, hopefully.

Annoying Trends

2008-07-08T16:48:00.002-04:00

The sheer randomness of Judy's latest post has inspired me. I'm coming to be annoyed by several related trends, as regards things that are trendy. In no particular order, current "trendiness" requires that one first of all purchase a white Macbook with corresponding iPod. Next, one must spend the afternoon/early evening at the local Starbucks/Second Cup/Timothy's or, better yet, an independent fair trade coffee shop. Ordering black coffee is not permitted; instead an elaborate latte with shavings of cinnamon atop the non-fat milk foam concoction must be obtained for no less than $5.95, accompanied by biscotti, of course. At this point, one must appear to be working or, even better, writing, creatively, for it is surely necessary not just to be creative, but to be seen to be creative (with apologies to Family Guy). Of course, such writing must be done via Macbook, and checking the news on www.nytimes.com or Le Monde is a perfectly acceptable as an alternative - one needs inspiration after all! (Note that being able to read Le Monde in French is not really required - if you can't, you're simply learning.) A further essential past-time is the keeping an "artistic" photo blog.

Finally, in order to be as trendy as possible, one must pack the Macbook away and jet off to Vancouver - somewhere in the West End, False Creek, or, even better, Kitsilano. Repeat the above, and make Vancity your home, except now you'll spend 70% of your after tax income to live in a 600 square foot condo (hopefully not a leaky one) and spend an equal amount of your time complaining about it.

*****

Okay, I admit I don't know where I was going with that, but it was fun to write. Please note that it was not intended on impugning the motives of all Mac users (just a sizable number of them... ahem) or, for that matter, the veritably creative among us. Actually, there is someone I have in mind who fits this profile or at least soon will (though I'm not sure about the Macbook part). In order to reach his level, however, you'd need to start posting videos of yourself (badly) playing (bad) songs on YouTube. Links available upon request. ;)

Tony Clement Should Resign

2008-05-05T20:53:00.004-04:00

As an addendum to my previous post, consider this excerpt from the Globe's editorial today:

[...] Researchers from the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS detail what appears to be a deliberate attempt to suppress positive reviews of Insite from being released while its future is being decided.

Rather than extend federal funding for continuing research into the (InSite) facility, which had produced 22 (overwhelmingly positive) peer-reviewed studies over the preceding three years, Mr. Clement reportedly rejected his own department's advice and abruptly changed course in 2006. Further research, the authors write, would be focused on whether Insite complied with international drug control treaties - presumably in hope of demonstrating that failure to do so justified its closure. And researchers had to agree to delay the release of their findings until after the facility's current legal exemption had expired - a requirement that prompted University of British Columbia researchers to decline participation on the grounds that it was ethically unacceptable.

Mr. Clement, by all appearances, does not want more research. He wants research that conforms to the current government's antipathy toward supervised injection facilities, and provides the impetus to shut down Insite or at least reject applications for similar facilities elsewhere. In the absence of that research, he would prefer to have no research at all. Oblivious to the plight of addicts who may needlessly lose their lives as a result, Mr. Clement is keeping his blinders firmly attached.

Clement claims that he's open-minded on the safe injection side; one wonders why anyone not blinkered by morally bankrupt ideology would conclude that InSite is anything but a positive development for the Downtown Eastside. Whatever Clement's actual motivations - whether he is simply incompetent (a sure thing, in any case) or if he is also misguided thanks to a juvenile "Just Say No!" philosophy - his waffling on this issue does not merit the confidence of Parliament much less anyone concerned about public health. He should resign, though a better solution would be the removal of his boss as well.

Update: I suppose a more inflammatory headline would be something along the lines of "Conservatives Oppose Reducing AIDS Transmission" or, more succinctly, "Conservatives Support AIDS; Oppose Access to Addiction Services". That would be par for the course given past claims by Harper that the Liberals and NDP support child pornography.

Harm Reduction and Politics

2008-05-05T17:17:00.004-04:00

Intravenous drug use has long been recognized as contributing to the spread of blood-borne diseases like HIV and Hepatitis - this results, of course, from the sharing of needles by drug users. The public health response to this specific problem - that is, infectious disease transmission via drug use - has been to set up needle exchanges where users can obtain clean needles. These have been in operation for some time, but the next logical step was to provide an environment where people can inject drugs safely and also access health and addiction services. The first such "safe injection site" in North America began operating in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside in Sept. 2003. According to Neil Boyd, a criminologist at SFU, it's been a resounding success:

"There is no doubt that InSite has made a positive impact for the individuals who use InSite, the residents, service providers and business operators in the neighbourhood, and for the greater public health of the community," said Professor Boyd.

Boyd's research, compiled for an advisory committee specifically selected by the Stephen Harper Government, highlighted many positive impacts of InSite's work, including:

InSite is strongly supported by business operators, service providers and residents in the neighbourhood surrounding the facility.

An intentionally conservative cost-benefit analysis demonstrated that there are significant savings to tax-payers as a result of InSite's work.

InSite has proven to have a positive impact in reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS, and the consequent costs of its treatment.
InSite prevents drug overdose deaths.

There have been no adverse effects from InSite on drug use patterns, crime, or public disorder.

"The research presented re-confirms the kinds of results obtained from the other Health Canada funded evaluation," said Professor Boyd. "Mr. Harper should respect science and its principles -- the findings are demonstrated consistently in independently peer-reviewed scientific journals."

So, it seems clear enough that InSite is working: reducing the spread of disease and providing addiction and health services, i.e. reducing harm due to intravenous drug use. However, since heroin, to take one example, remains an illegal drug, InSite can only operate subject to an exemption from a section of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, an exemption which must be granted by Health Canada. One would think that a federal government which supports sound public health policies would have no problem with that. Well,

The federal Conservative government has allowed the clinic to operate under an exemption to the Narcotics Control Act, but Health Minister Tony Clement has refused to make the exemption permanent.

Clement has granted two temporary extensions to the permit, the latest of which expires at the end of June, but has not said whether he will grant a further extension.

In other words, Clement (who, in his previous incarnation as Ontario Health Minister, incompetently presided over the SARS crisis) evidently has some doubts about InSite, despite the rather obvious and substantive benefits. As his parliamentary secretary states:

Winnipeg MP Steven Fletcher, secretary to the health minister, has said science alone will not be the only factor in the Tory government's decision whether to extend Insite funding.

Mr. Fletcher said the science is conflicting, so Mr. Clement will have to assess what Mr. Fletcher calls the “realities of the situation.”

Mr. Clement himself said Monday that a decision on the fate of Insite will be made by the end of June. However, he rejected suggestions that the government has already made up its mind to say no.

“We're the government that actually wants more research . . . because we want to make sure that this decision is the right decision for Canada, the right decision for addicts the right decision for the community in Vancouver,” he told the Commons.

More research? It doesn't seem that way:

(BC) Provincial Health Officer Dr. Perry Kendall said ongoing research at the clinic is being jeopardized by the unstable situation.

"Closing down Insite would immediately put a stop to the research. Allowing Insite to continue would allow more valuable research to be done," said Kendall.

And just what will these other non-scientific factors be? Why, political ones, of course! As to Clement's putative support for research:

An article published in the International Journal of Drug Policy charges that the Conservative government interfered in the work of independent scientific bodies, attempted to muzzle scientists and deliberately misrepresented research findings because it is ideologically opposed to harm-reduction programs.

"From a scientific perspective, it's despicable," said Evan Wood, a research scientist at the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and lead author of the study. "Governments should not hand-pick grants based on ideology."

[...]

Since (2003), Dr. Wood said, there have been 22 peer-reviewed papers published on the program and they have all shown a positive benefit to users, such as reduced rates of transmission of HIV-AIDS and greater use of rehabilitation services.

An independent scientific review led Health Canada in the spring of 2006 to recommend that funding for the project be extended and that similar programs be tried in other cities.

But federal Health Minister Tony Clement intervened, saying there were too many unanswered questions and placed a moratorium on this type of research. The journal article says that was done at the behest of police organizations and based on political concerns, not sound public health policy.

Rita Smith, a spokeswoman for Mr. Clement, told The Globe and Mail yesterday this claim is "completely inaccurate." [Actually, it's entirely accurate.]

[...]

Ottawa subsequently offered money for additional research, but with the proviso that investigators refrain from disseminating their findings until after the exemption for the safe injection site expires. [In other words, they'll only fund further research (that will almost certainly reconfirm the public health benefit of InSite) if it's released after the centre is forced to close.]

Dr. Wood said this amounts to "muzzling researchers." The University of British Columbia deemed that condition ethically unacceptable and so its researchers did not apply for the grants.

Now, Clement says that the government "cares about addicts and cares about those who would otherwise be twisted on to these very dangerous drugs", but I think Neil Boyd puts their ideological waffling on this issue in perspective:

The alternative is that they shoot up beside dumpsters. The alternative is that they cost us all more because there are higher rates of HIV, Hepatitis C, violence.

While it's true that InSite does not specifically combat drug addiction, it's not actually meant to do that; it does, however, provide a safe environment where people can inject drugs, so as to reduce disease transmission, overdoses, and, yes, even provide access to addiction services so that they might break the habit. As it stands, there is ample research that InSite is doing exactly that.

A Dream of Spring

2008-04-16T00:14:00.002-04:00

Winter ended almost without notice. One week it was hovering near zero everyday, the ground was still snow-covered, and the sun had yet to warm the chilly winds that are omnipresent in Kitchener-Waterloo. The next week, well, the sun felt warm on my face, I could hear birds chirping, and the damnable Canada geese were more active than they've been in months. Spring has come at last.

Arguably, I should change the name of my blog accordingly, but it shall remain for the time being. In the meantime, I'm in the midst of exams (two down, one to go), and I have ample projects of various sorts to attend to as well. Sigh. This will also mark the first time that I've had a summer academic term: two courses + reseach + TA. I plan to do much of my work at home rather than in the office, so that I might benefit from (a) natural light, (b) fresh air from my window, (c) CBC Radio 2 while it remains (during the day at least) reasonably intact.

Yes, the bafflingly unresponsive and out-of-touch-with-their-listeners radio executives are planning to cut in half the current amount of classical programming on Radio 2, so that we might have more jazz and Joni Mitchell. This will entail, among other things, the cancellation of Disc Drive (a show which has for some two decades provided a mix of classical... and jazz, pop, and folk), along with the demise of Music and Company (what will I wake up to now??), Sound Advice, and the current incarnations of request show Here's To You and the ever intelligent Studio Sparks (which, also, frequently features jazz and other quality music). These changes follow up on the introduction of the syrupy mediocre pop jazz of Tonic from 6-8pm weekdays, the cancellation of the excellent jazz program After Hours, and the removal of In Performance in favour of the concert program Canada Live, the latter of which seems to feature largely torturous world music.

So, no, I'm not happy about these changes one bit. Nor are over 14,000 Facebook users. Oh, and the CBC Radio Orchestra is to be disbanded, with its current funding supposedly going to commissions.

Supposedly, those of us who are against these changes are elitists who cling to music which, though admittedly well-established, is simply old and, certainly, not altogether accessible for the great unwashed, who are assumed to be incapable of appreciating Sibelius and can't take anything more challenging than the best known Beethoven symphonies and Diana Krall. And Feist. Of course, I'm a good example of someone who was only exposed to many less "accessible" pieces via Radio 2, and the question must be asked whether the less "accessible" music which will now be downplayed is less "accessible" primarily because it's not played all that often.

I'll grant that much new "serious" music from the 20th Century and beyond has eschewed melody for abstract atonal structures and, of course, heaps of dissonance, but that doesn't explain why only "the most popular and accessible classical music, including Mozart, Beethoven and other favourites" should be emphasized. This would turn Radio 2 into nothing more than a commercial-free version of Classical 96, a station which plays little more than "classical pops" (and far, far too much Mendelssohn).

Supposedly, "the more challenging classical music — the new composers, etc. — will still be there on The Signal and on the Sunday afternoon program where we're playing pieces live with a lot of discussion". Now, I listen to The Signal, and 95% of it consists of new electroacoustic music and, for lack of a better way to put it, weird stuff. It's good. But it falls far short of exploring new concert music, much less new Canadian concert music. Indeed, will the new 10am-3pm classical show play anything by Christos Hatzis, whose music is arguably more immediate and accessible than any austere Handel symphony? Somehow I have my doubts - the new policy would evidently banish anything "challenging" or new to the abyss of the 10pm-1am slot or, worse, Sunday afternoon. It's bad enough that I can't listen to concert music (or decent jazz!) in the evening - now they'll take it away in the morning and afternoon as well.

Possibly the worst part of these changes (and the previous ones) is that most of the new shows play highly consistent styles and musical genres - Canada Live is particularly bad in this regard, as we may be treated either to an evening of traditional Persian music, Maritime folk, folk-rock/pop from Victoria, or Saint-Saëns. It really doesn't work. And neither will these new shows. With any luck, the highly grassroots movement against these changes will have some success - at the very least, when Radio 2 suffers another precipitous drop in listenership, the CBC big-wigs might have a change of heart. It's *possible* at least.

The ROM in Review: Epilogue

2008-03-15T20:07:00.003-04:00

In my last two posts, I spend some time criticizing the ROM's recent renovations, with regard both to their form and their function. I was, suffice it to say, unimpressed. That being said, I was not against renovations and other changes in principle; as ever, though, it's all in the execution. It's also nice to see a major cultural institution benefit from private philanthropy without the cost of a big Scotiabank or Shoppers Drug Mart logo plastered on the side of the building.

However, what troubles me is a seeming shift in the ROM's purpose, particularly with respect to who it is evidently meant to serve. In the late 1990s, the public subsidies to the museum were cut (by the Ontario government under Mike Harris, among others). This had one immediate consequence in the closure of the McLaughlin Planetarium. In the meantime, adult admission has since risen to $20, and while memberships still offer notable savings, such costs are rather exhorbitant for what is still, ostensibly, a public institution.

I'm not sure the ROM's current management believes this, however, and this is amply demonstrated by their continuing push to tear down the empty planetarium and replace it with nothing less than a luxury condo tower. Yes, that's right - public space was to be literally privatized for the use of those wealthy enough to live in "luxury" in Yorkville. Unsurprisingly, this was opposed by many local groups, notably the Faculty of Music at UofT, which is located directly behind the planetarium. Considering how the project was introduced, the opposition was not surprising:

Architect Brian Brisbin introduced the project. The tower will feature 42 storeys of residential condominiums atop a four-storey podium and provide for underground parking for 160 cars with access from Queen’s Park.

“The tower tells a story,” he said. “It’s like an obelisk, marking the skyline from the top to the bottom. It symbolizes the area and district, creating a significant identity for the ROM and the museum district.”

Of course, the condo tower (at 42 stories, no less) would clash with the surrounding area in both height and scale generally. And when I think of what symbolizes the ROM, I think of the rotunda (to be turned into a cafe, apparently), the totem poles, and the exhibits themselves. I don't follow how condos "tell a story", much less symbolize the area (unless the idea is to symbolize Yorkville... because what we really need is for a public institution to build a monument to signify conspicuous consumption and snobby restaurants and shops).

When I was growing up, never for a second did I doubt that the ROM's mission was to make natural and global history accessible and fascinating to the general public, while also providing support for scholarship and research. In light of funding cuts, it's not altogether surprising that the mission seems to have shifted. Yet I can't say I'm not offended by the ROM's evident orientation toward those over on Bloor who complained that, when Winners opened in the old Bloor Chapters location, it was the "wrong sort" of store for the area (yes, one person interviewed on the news actually said this... I suppose if one cannot afford Holt Renfrew or Cartier, one shouldn't expect to be able to shop on Bloor West?). It is, after all, still our museum, and with any luck, it will start to feel that way again some day.

*****

For the record, the ROM's self-described mission is as follows:

The ROM will be a world leader in communicating its research and collections to increase understanding of the interdependent domains of cultural and natural diversity, their relationships, significance, preservation, and conservation.

And, yes, the ROM remains an agency of the Government of Ontario. It should probably start acting like one.

The ROM in Review: The Galleries

2008-03-06T21:28:00.006-05:00

In my previous post, I criticized the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal addition to the Royal Ontario Museum. It is neither impressive as an example of contemporary architecture nor well suited for the galleries it is meant to house. Although several notable galleries have remained essentially unchanged since the renovations, many others - such as the dinosaur and pre-historic mammal collections - have been entirely redone. But does this represent an improvement over the old galleries?

The Galleries: The new exhibitions are frankly a mixed bag. Some I like... some I really didn't. The new galleries include revamped dinosaur and mammal exhibits, several redesigned galleries of world culture, including China, Korea, Japan, South Asia, and the Middle East, and galleries devoted to Canadian historical artifacts and art and to Canada's First Peoples.

I'll start with the good. The new style of most of the ROM's exhibitions is one of minimalism. Dramatic dioramas have generally been eliminated in favour of bright, open galleries with most items mounted on walls or in glass cases. While this has mixed results, it serves to brighten up some previously easily overlooked galleries. This is especially the case with the Canadiana and First Peoples galleries, both of which were previously looked in the ROM's first basement, literally below the radar of most visitors. While the First Peoples gallery cannot compete with the scale of a recreation of a West Coast native villiage, it's well done and informative. For the most part, I didn't spend much time inspecting either of these Canada-centric galleries closely, their presentation is vastly improved. Thumbs up.

The ROM's galleries of Chinese culture, including stunning collections of temple art and sculpture, have always been highlights, and I'm pleased to say that the revamped galleries are quite successful. The Gallery of Temple Art especially is a vast improvement - previously, the impressive murals had been housed in a large but dimly lit hall, hardly the right showcase. Thanks to the minimalist (and, certainly, brighter) presentation, the collections feel more accessible. They are still grouped according to their respective dynasty, and the brighter lighting is appreciated - the previous incarnation of the exhibit could be rather gloomy. A further kudos should be given to the new arrangement of the Ming Tomb, which is now housed in an interior atrium and lit dramatically by indirect flood lights. All in all, I was impressed. Note that the similarly mounted galleries of Korea and Japan are essentially unchanged from before.

So far I have not actually described any new galleries in the Crystal. So here goes. The new galleries of Middle Eastern and South Asian culture, on the Crystal's third level. I didn't spend much time looking at these exhibitions; their presentation is minimalist, much like the galleries mentioned above, but the bizarre angles of the Crystal are simply distracting and only serve to reduce the amount and flexibility of interior spaces.

Now... what about the dinosaurs? The best I can say is that they now have more skeletons and fossils on display. However, as we all know, quantity is not quality. The picture below shows how one of the allosaurus fossils was previously mounted. Note the dramatic background; in this display, two allosaurs were depicted attacking a stegosaurus. I loved it. Indeed, the philosophy of the previous dinosaur (and mammal) gallery was to present the fossils in dramatic poses in colourful dioramas.

Things have changed, though. The new philosophy of the exhibit is to eliminate dioramas entirely. We are given the fossils simply as they are, which is admittedly in keeping with evidently minimalist presentation of the other new exhibits. The picture below shows a fearsome T-Rex. Note the white drywall in the background.

It goes without saying that I don't like the new galleries at all. Thanks to the Crystal's design, they are disjointed, cramped, and oddly shaped. Whereas visitors previously journeyed first through the age of prehistoric mammals and then into separate halls depicting massive (and scary, as they were mounted to give the impression of still being underwater) aquatic reptiles, hadrosaurs mounted as if only recently unearthed in the Badlands, a scene of mostly herbivorous dinosaurs from the Jurassic, and, finally, the aforementioned (Cretaceous) scene of a stegosaurus menaced by a pair of allosaurs. Along the way, there were smaller exhibits concerning the La Brea Tar Pits, the evolution of the horse, and, of course, our own species and our recent ancestors.

The new galleries lose any sense of a "journey through time"; everything is a mish-mash, and the minimalist presentation and brighter lighting actually detract from the experience. While I'll grant that, with some imagination, the dramatic scenes characteristic of the previous galleries can be brought out in one's mind's eye, that frankly doesn't cut it. Simply put, kids will always be the most enthusiastic visitors to a gallery of dinosaurs, and the dramatic and visceral the gallery, the more captivated the children will be. If the old gallery was akin to Jurassic Park, the new one is rather like a collection of photo stills from a paleontologist's catalogue; still quite interesting (and I'm sure kids will still like it quite a bit), but not as exciting.

That's more or less all I have to say on the new galleries. I should note, though, that exhibits relating to human evolution (or evolution in general) are conspicuously lacking in the new galleries. The cynic in me wonders whether such subjects are deemed too controversial, as the old evolution gallery itself often seemed to be neglected too. It's unconscionable that a musuem purporting to emphasize natural history would neglect such a unifying biological concept. A few other things bothered me:

The Gallery of Reptiles would do well with some freshening, or at least some new signage. It's a perfectly serviceable exhibit, but it doesn't appear to have been maintained with sufficient care during the renovations.
The entrance of the Bat Cave has been changed. In fact, it's been shortened, as the foyer, painted and decorated like a South American jungle, has been eliminated. This sadden me, especially since the change has no evident purpose.
The insect (well, arthropod) gallery is gone entirely. It had better be restored at some point, unless the ROM's management believes that the largest phylum of animals should be ignored by a museum putatively concerned with educating visitors about the natural world.
The corridor displaying various stuffed mammals is gone as well. It was kind of interesting (there were anteaters along with more traditional lions and wolves), and again I cannot figure out why it was removed, as nothing has replaced it.

I should mention, though, that much of the natural history galleries are currently unfinished - doubtlessly, some of the above changes and disappearances will doubtlessly be incorporated into the new biodiversity gallery, which won't actually open for a year (this may mean that the reptile gallery is simply awaiting some more profound changes). Likewise, an earth sciences gallery is upcoming, as is a temporary exhibit about Darwin (which, frankly, still doesn't make up for the evident lack of a dedicated evolution gallery).

All in all, the galleries new and old still prove that the ROM's collections are remarkably impressive. It's simply unfortunate that the Crystal's design is unsuited to giving these magnificent collections the best possible environment in which to experience them. I'll have an epilogue on the new ROM tomorrow or early next week.

The ROM in Review: The Building

2008-03-05T18:23:00.011-05:00

About two weeks ago I visited the Royal Ontario Museum for the first time in a year or more. It marked the first time I'd visited since the completion of the Michael Lee-Chin "Crystal" (shown above), among other major renovations. I'll admit - I was skeptical about these renovations from the very start. Previously, the ROM had undergone a major renovation in the 1970s and 1980s; the space between the original neo-Romanesque wings had been enclosed, giving rise to grand halls lit by natural light as well as terraced galleries on the Bloor St. elevation. That's the ROM I grew up with; with only small exceptions, it remained pretty much the same from the late 80s until the current renovations began.

I won't lie and say that nothing should have changed, but I remain very attached to the ROM as it once was; growing up my grandparents frequently took me, my brother, and my cousins there on Saturday mornings, and it goes without saying that those visits made a strong impression on me. So, my review of the "new" ROM should be read in light of this, but I will say that my feelings on the renovations (and changes to some of the galleries in particular) are based on a more objective assessment. The ROM I knew is gone; so how does the new ROM stack up?

Well, first I should point out that not everything has changed. The Galleries of Birds, Reptiles, Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Bronze Age Aegean Art are all exactly as they were, as are the Samuel European Galleries, which continues to house arms and armour as well as a history of European decorative arts from the Middle Ages to the present day. The totem poles haven't moved, and the rotunda is as beautiful as ever. Additionally, since the original Crystal renovation plans were considerably scaled down, due to a variety of engineering and cost considerations (evidently, large amounts of glass to form such a Crystal are not just structurally unsound, but nightmarish for heating and cooling and, of course, the protection of fragile artifacts), the southern half of the 1984 renovation is completely intact. I daresay that even the washrooms haven't warranted an upgrade.

What's gone? Well, every single other gallery has been redone and moved. The Crystal structure has taken over the northern half of the building, and, bizarrely for a building with no fewer than five levels open to the public, the escalators appear to be gone permanently. For reasons I cannot fathom, the long-standing entrance on Queen's Park Crescent, which welcomed visitors into the stunning rotunda, has been abandoned in favour of a Bloor entrance, which provides visitors with an excellent view of a lot of white drywall. I may as well discuss the Crystal itself first.

The Building: I think the best I can say about the Crystal is that it's not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. The design has been considerably scaled down, as I noted above. Originally, the Crystal would've stretched nearly all the way back to the Planetarium; now, it just looms over Bloor, giving the impression that a Goa'uld mothership has landed on a mission to enslave Yorkville.

The idea behind the Crystal was to make the ROM into a "distinctive new symbol of Toronto for the 21st century" by embarking upon "one of the most important architectural projects of our time". Thus the dawn of the "Crystal Age" would make the stately old museum into the country's "premier cultural and social destination". Yes, they actually used this language to describe the renovation. The "new age" was to be ushered in by "starchitect" Daniel Libeskind, most of whose buildings display decidedly unconventional ideas, with all manner of strange sight lines and angular ceilings and walls. Of course, it would be more unconvential if this sort of post-modern architecture weren't so excessively trendy.

Inside the Crystal, you will indeed find all the hallmarks of Libeskind's angular designs. However, since the amount of glass had to be drastically scaled down (too much natural light in a museum is a bad thing), the interior consists of large swaths of white drywall. In fact, from some of the open spaces inside, it looks as though an iceberg has lodged itself into the side of the building, sort of like a Lawren Harris painting brought to life (only with less colour). The drywall is rather boring, though, and I cannot figure out why new escalators were not put in. There is at most one new elevator and, of course, a new staircase, but it seems ludicrous that crucial issues of accessibility were evidently overlooked. It's not just a matter of helping out the disabled or those with arthritis - carting around a bunch of kids is easier, I think, when they don't have to be crammed into elevators frequently.

Indeed, much about the new design veers far in the direction of "form" as opposed to "function". The angular walls are problematic for the efficient use of space in the second and third floor galleries of the Crystal especially; not only are the galleries cramped and disjointed, but the large amounts of angular white drywall create lots of useless open space that detracts from the exhibits aesthetically. At the same time, different sections of the upper levels of the Crystal are connected by walkways and short staircases, the surfaces of which are actually metal gratings that feel only slightly more stable than those that run over subway vents. The gratings are noisy and, to be blunt, ugly. I don't know what they were thinking, though I'm hoping that they're just temporary. In any case, one of those runs incongruously right into the arms and armour exhibit, so that the Crystal connects to some of the older sections of the building. This comes at the cost of an entire section of the exhibit (the antique firearms to be precise).

So, in sum, I don't much like the Crystal addition. It's definitely not very practical, but I could somewhat forgive that if it were actually impressive on the inside. It isn't, and I can conclude that Libeskind is tremendously overrated as an architect. That's not to say that I dislike contemporary modern architecture - just the opposite - but the new ROM is completely lacking in the seamless unity of form and function that is present in, say, the Canadian Museum of Civilization or the National Gallery. Now those are magnificent buildings. So, incidentally, is much of the existing ROM (as were the terraced galleries razed to make way for the Crystal), but the Crystal neither works with the original structures nor is it adequate taken by itself. The work is not done yet, though, so perhaps it will yet improve.

Since this post is already very long, I'll write a second post entirely about the galleries tomorrow.

A Brief Foray into Politics...

2008-03-03T00:48:00.002-05:00

Generally speaking, I've preferred to steer clear of matters political on this blog, but this merits an exception to that rule. In a word, the Conservative Party, with the knowledge of then-Leader of the Opposition Stephen Harper, is alleged to have attempted to bribe the late independent MP Chuck Cadman into voting against the government on a crucial budget vote in May 2005. Had this occurred, the government would have fallen. The allegation surfaced via a soon to be published biography of Cadman, and is attested to by Cadman's widow as well as his daughter and her husband. The "financial incentive" offered was, according to Cadman, a "million-dollar life insurance policy", though it's not absolutely clear that that's what it was. Still, something was offered and the evidence comes from none other than Harper himself.

Now, we might ask whether this sort of thing is commonplace, whether this is "business as usual". And perhaps it is. But a bribe is a bribe, and justifying it along the lines of "but everyone else does it!" is hardly acceptable. Plus, offering "financial incentives" in exchange for votes is illegal, pure and simple. While it's debatable whether there is enough evidence for making a criminal case out of this, trial by election does not require proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and it seems amply clear that a financial offer of some sort was made. That's enough for me.

A Few Quick Reviews

2008-02-18T23:48:00.003-05:00

With the Oscars coming up on Sunday, I feel that some capsule reviews are in order:

Juno

This is a sweet little movie about a controversial subject, namely teenage pregnancy. Juno, a 16-year-old played with verve and confidence by Halifax's Ellen Page, finds herself pregnant after a night of somewhat random intimacy with her best friend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera). She decides to have the baby, but give it up for adoption to a well-off couple, Vanessa and Mark (played by Jennifer Garner - who gives an emphathetic and moving performance - and Jason Bateman). I've read some criticisms of the film to the effect that it's not a realistic portrayal of teenage pregnancy - Juno's amusingly quirky parents (J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney) are too accepting and helpful or some such - but this is thankfully not an "issue" movie. But Juno is a very entertaining and light-hearted film, which brings a certain wry humour to a touchy subject and nonetheless manages to portray multifaceted characters and, crucially, genuine emotion. Now, while some of the hipster dialogue is a bit over-the-top (particularly in the beginning) and the indie folk soundtrack is a bit too... indie, I can find few real faults with Juno. I'm not sure it deserves the best picture Oscar, but since it's the only nominee which I've actually seen, I suppose I'll be rooting for it nonetheless.

Beowulf

What can be said about Beowulf... well, first, it was an entertaining ride, though I didn't actually see it in 3D as was available. Second, this represents the first computer animated film I've seen which attempts to create "realistic" human characters and largely succeeds in avoiding their looking creepy or distracting. Third, though the story departs significantly in a number of ways from the original epic poem on which it is based, I think, as an adaptation, the writers did a quite decent job in turning a somewhat scattered text into a coherent film. A brief note on the story: Beowulf (Ray Winstone) of the Geats arrives at Heorot, the great hall of King Hrothgar (an amusing Anthony Hopkins) of the Spear Danes, which is being menaced by the grotesque, vicious, and ultimately rather pitiable monster, Grendel (Crispin Glover, not that you'd ever recognize him). There's more to it than that, as Grendel's mother (Angelina Jolie) becomes involved. The story is not altogether complex, but it's fun enough, and there's a climactic sequence with a dragon that's quite something. Among the supporting players are Robin Wright Penn as Hrothgar's queen Wealthow, the always dependable Brendan Gleeson as Beowulf's comrade-in-arms Wiglaf, and John Malkovich, exhibiting one of his more bizarre and distracting (for him) speaking styles, as Hrothgar's Wormtongue-esque advisor Unferth. Something of a mixed bag then. Still, it's enjoyable enough, though it's not what one would call a "thinking movie".

(There are some nice touches, though, such as the gradual introduction of a syncretic Christianity into Norse culture over the years of the story, but I'm not sure most viewers will care. It's a nice detail for those of us who had to read the poem in its rambling entirety in university.)

Tales from Earthsea

Ursula Le Guin's first Earthsea book was not exactly my favourite read back in Grade 9, but reading some of her other books has forced my to reconsider my reaction way back then. Tales from Earthsea is a loose adaptation of some of the later books in her series, and is directed by Miyazaki's son, Goro. There is reportedly some degree of tension between them, and however much that might have affected the movie, it shows all the signs of having been rushed through production, which was apparently the case. The plot is simple enough - Prince Arren, after committing a horrible crime in his home country, goes into self-imposed exile, eventually gaining a travel companion in "Sparrowhawk" aka Ged, who is the Archmage and a wizard of some repute. Over the course of the film, Arren is literally forced to confront his inner demons, while meeting a seemingly unremarkable girl named Therru and the evil sorceror Cob along the way. Unfortunately, there is one major plot hole that plagues the film's resolution, and the script feels underwritten in other respects as well. But it does look breathtakingly gorgeous, with cityscapes clearly inspired by Rome, and the production and voice acting are excellent, as we should expect from Studio Ghibli. Tales from Earthsea is definitely a very pretty film, and while it's good overall, it's also seriously flawed. Le Guin herself has rather mixed feelings, but I'd say it's still worth seeing (assuming you can find it - it has yet to be released in North America... I obtained my copy from, shall we say, unofficial sources).

Application Anxiety Disorder

2008-02-18T20:56:00.002-05:00

Now, I will state first that I am not currently suffering from Application Anxiety Disorder (AAD), but the same cannot be said of many of the people here who, aside from being keeners in the extreme, are highly concerned with email interview invites, admission statistics, personal "stats" (read: GPA, MCAT scores, extracurriculars, etc.), and, of course, the variable and seemingly illogical admissions policies of Canadian medical schools.

As an applicant myself, I've avoided most of this anxiety by, well, staying away from such forums and similar websites. For the moment, I lurk at this "premed" forum now and then, but I figure that avoiding registering there much less posting is a very healthy way of adding to my own stress levels. Admittedly, since I have at least two more interviews (for a current total of three chances to win), I'm well past the greater part of the uncertainty, but this forum is a testament to the overwhelmingly stressful and, well, excessive admissions process.

There are essentially a few givens for getting to the interview stage, at which point your "personal characteristics" (and subjective judgements thereof) start to matter a lot more. You'll need reasonably high marks and an MCAT score that's "high enough" and also balanced among the four categories; if you ace the science portions of the MCAT, but screw up the verbal reasoning or writing sections, your chances of getting an interview fall precipitously. Naturally, though schools like Queen's and UofT post "cutoffs" for admission, the rules are not as hard or fast as they might seem, and the process is by any reckoning opaque. However, since schools have varying cutoffs for students from different regions or backgrounds, an applicant might have an excellent chance at one school within her region and no chance at one in another province. Of course, if the justification for high academic standards for admissions is that people with high marks would make better physicians, then all this regional favouritism seems more than a little odd.

In any case, the process used to be much simpler - my dad, whose information is over thirty years out of date, doesn't recall having an interview at all to get into UofT. However, admissions appear to have become considerably more competitive over the years with the result being that academics are no longer enough - you need a certain array of community involvement (e.g. volunteering in hospitals or with sick/disabled people), extracurriculars, good references, and, often, research experience. Moreover, you need to sell yourself effectively in essays and, of course, at the all-important interview, where must demonstrate an ethical sense, critical thinking skills, strong communication skills, and "knowledge of the Canadian health care system". In short, you must pour yourself into the process, sell yourself in your essays, spend several years working away at getting lots of A's and A-'s, all while being well-rounded with some degree of community involvement and evidence that your life does not entirely revolve around schoolwork. And if you don't want to severely limit your application choices, you need to write the MCAT too, an ordeal which generally deserves its reputation as the most grueling of all standardized tests.

And so, after answering all manner of vaguely invasive personal questions in the essays and spending literally hundreds of dollars in application fees and transportation and hotel costs, you must remember that you still stand a better-than-even chance of being rejected. Most schools, at least, won't leave you hanging too long, and they'll send you a polite but firm email informing you that you didn't quite make the cut for an interview. At least one school, which shall remain nameless, won't have the courtesy to tell you anything, even after the interview dates have passed.

As for me, well, I'm not letting myself worry too much. I'm old enough to feel a bit more laidback about the whole process, but then I'm also lucky that I feel fairly confident of getting in somewhere. I don't think this confidence is misplaced, but this is far from a sure thing. In any case, Dal remains my best bet - the interview went well enough, I thought - but I won't find out until at least the end of this month and maybe much later. I could easily know the answer before either my Queen's or McMaster interviews, so I'm hoping it's the "right" answer. We shall see. I'm still waiting on UofT, and while I should be able to get an interview there, it's possible that a certain technicality will cause problems.

So, I'm not suffering from AAD, thankfully, but the process makes me wonder why that's not the case. It's certainly not fun!

Chinese Movies Without Martial Arts

2008-01-22T22:21:00.000-05:00

I decided a few days ago that I want to start writing movie reviews again. I wrote a couple at Lion's Den some ways back, and I've been itching to do it again. In the future, I'll review the Vengeance Trilogy, recent films like Juno and Beowulf, and, eventually, Miyazaki's complete works for film. For now, though, I'll be giving my attention to a pair of Chinese films: Raise the Red Lantern and The Emperor and the Assassin.

In Raise the Red Lantern, Gong Li plays Songlian, a young university student in the 1920s. Her father's untimely death leaves her family without any income, forcing her to abandon her studies and leaving her with little choice but to become the fourth wife of a wealthy landowner, who we know in the film only as the Master (Ma Jingwu). Each of his four wives has her own house and servants, and each night the Master indicates which wife he wishes to spend the night with by lighting a red lantern above her door.

By family custom, the four wives are meant to eat together every night and interact harmoniously, though it would be more accurate to characterize their relationships as civil, at best. First Mistress (Jin Shuyuan) is indifferent to Songlian; she is old and has an adult son, but the Master is only interested in his younger wives. Second Mistress (Cao Cuifen), Zhuoyan, has a young daughter; she immediately befriends Songlian and warns her about Meishan (He Caifei), the Third Mistress, a former opera singer and the mother of the Master's younger son. Immediately upon arrival, then, Songlian enters an insular world of subtle competition for the favour of the Master. Meanwhile, Songlian's servant Yan'er (Kong Lin) is not without her own motives.

Perhaps not surprisingly, all is not what it seems in the house. Songlian uncovers dark secrets and betrayals, affairs and hopeless dreams. In describing the film, it almost sounds languid and talky, yet director Zhang Yimou crafts each scene with such care and eye to detail that a superficially simple scene can take on harrowing drama. After Songlian's arrival at the Master's house, the entire film takes place within its many courtyards and walls. Throughout the camera looks down from the roof into the courtyards, lending a claustrophobic feel to the setting. Of particular note is how Zhang depicts the Master; he is seen only in wide shots, his voice heard, but his face left unseen. His presence is always noted, yet he is deliberately remote, someone whose favour is sought by the four women as an end in itself. There is no love here, just the competition. Without spoiling the twists of the plot, the film's ending is at least doubly tragic, but the greater tragedy is the situation itself.

The performances, not just by the incomparable Gong Li but by the other actors as well, are note-perfect and subtle. It's no wonder that Raise the Red Lantern is often hailed as Zhang Yimou's finest work. His distinctive visual style is evident throughout; the camera work is eye-catching but not distracting, with wide, medium, and close shots chosen carefully for each scene, lending the film a sumptuous visual appeal. It's simply riveting. It's unfortunate, then, that Zhang Yimou has spent much of the past several years making a martial arts "trilogy" of sorts: the decent Hero, the uneven but serviceable House of Flying Daggers, and the simply abominable Curse of the Golden Flower. While each of these films allowed Zhang to paint within increasingly colourful backdrops of costumes and sets, none made use of his strengths as a filmmaker, namely the bringing together of brilliant craftsmanship and authentic drama that is so exemplified by Raise the Red Lantern.

*****

I had meant to review The Emperor and the Assassin in this post as well, but I believe I'll save that for another day, either tomorrow or later in the week.

The Return

2008-01-10T23:59:00.000-05:00

I'm back in Waterloo after a very welcome and needed respite in Toronto, Ottawa, and Halifax. Thus far I have little work to do, which has given me time for much needed cleaning around the apartment. But that's fairly boring to read about it, isn't it? There's been much in the news in the meantime. First, regarding Acadia, there is much good news:

The president of Acadia University is calling it quits, more than a year earlier than expected.

Gail Dinter-Gottlieb announced Friday she was resigning from the Wolfville school’s top job effective Feb. 29. The university had expected Ms. Dinter- Gottlieb, who receives an annual salary of $244,377, to stay until the end of her term, in June 2009.

"It has been a genuine privilege to lead Acadia University through a time of tremendous change in the post-secondary education sector," Ms. Dinter-Gottlieb said.

"I believe Acadia’s reputation is well-deserved and I have enjoyed working with our wonderful students and alumni, our faculty and staff and our network of supporters."

"I’d say it’s a surprise for the Acadia community at large," university spokesman Scott Roberts said Friday

Ms. Dinter-Gottlieb, who has been president since 2003, told the university’s board of governors at its August meeting that she did not want to have her contract renewed.

At the time, she said she was tired of commuting to see her husband, a researcher and faculty member at the University of Buffalo.

Mr. Roberts said Friday her early departure has to do mainly with "family and other personal reasons."

A while ago I started a Facebook group calling for Dr. Dinter-Gottlieb's resignation, so I'm pleased to see her leave well ahead of the end of her term. Her time at Acadia has been marked by two acrimonious faculty strikes, administrative upheaval and disarray, the departure of most of the senior administration, and significant declines of enrolment. To whatever extent she can be held directly responsible for these events, they did happen under her watch, and my hope is that Acadia will soon have a new president who can set a sound direction for the future in conjunction with faculty.

Meanwhile, plans for high-speed rail between Windsor and Quebec City are being made:

Ontario and Quebec are reviving old plans to run high-speed trains between Quebec City and Windsor, Ont., the premiers of both provinces announced Thursday.

Dalton McGuinty of Ontario and Jean Charest of Quebec said they will spend $2 million to study the project and expect to have a report ready in a year. It will focus on the development of a high-speed rail system linking major cities such as Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.

The federal government has agreed to participate in the study, the premiers said, speaking at a joint news conference in Ottawa.

As a frequent rail traveller, this is most welcome news. Assuming this project goes forward, however, it would be years and years before it was complete. The cost, pegged at $23 billion, might seem steep, but as a point of comparison the subway extension planned in Toronto to York University and beyond to Vaughan will cost $3.5 billion. In any case, I'm starting to love train travel - the more (and the faster), the better!

*****

I can add yet another politician to my previous list of those I've seen while travelling: former NS premier John Hamm. He's pretty tall in person.

This is the End

2007-12-21T00:25:00.000-05:00

That is, the end of my first term at the University of Waterloo. So how was it? On balance, not bad, not at all. It was not, as I might have feared, overly intense in terms of work or other commitments. Coursework is, well, coursework and I've long since gotten used to the regular routine of assignments and exams. My TA duties weren't overly onerous, either, though they did entail some seven hours of proctoring and marking on Monday - a great thrill, let me tell you. All that aside, most people in the department are friendly, especially my many officemates.

Otherwise, I'm quite happy - ecstatic, really - to be off to Toronto tomorrow at last for my vacation. My blog updates will hopefully continue while I'm away from Waterloo, though my internet access will likely be sporadic.

*****

As it turns out, my wintry name for this blog has been prescient. It's been a relentlessly cold prelude to winter, with temperatures typically just below freezing during the day, cold winds, and, above all, lots and lots of snow. This past weekend, a great storm blanketed the eastern half of the country in snow. I stayed inside, feeling very thankful that I wasn't travelling by air just then.

Unrelatedly, the trees next to my apartment building appear to be a magnet for crows. I see literally hundreds of them flying overhead sometimes, or else roosting in the big elms and oaks nearby. Insofar as common birds go, I quite like crows. They're smart, for one thing, in contrast to pigeons, and they aren't anywhere near as dirty or aggressive as the Canada geese which infest the UW campus (and some of whom stubbornly refuse to migrate, even with all the cold, snowy weather in the past month).

Anyhow, need to go finish packing... Merry Christmas, Happy New Year!

Yoda: The Puppet

2007-12-08T00:41:00.001-05:00

One of the nice things about having a blog is that you can post whatever you feel like. So, without further delay, I give you Yoda as he was meant to be - as a puppet:

Praised Be Air Canada

2007-12-05T23:39:00.001-05:00

That's right. I like Air Canada. Although it is something of a national past-time to complain about the beleaguered airline, I've never found their service anything less than professional and helpful. Typically I fly at least several times a year, though mainly on the Halifax-Toronto route. Since June, however, I've been on at least 20 different flights, most of which have been on AC (the others on KLM and Porter). In that time, my baggage has been lost twice (something of an inevitability when you arrive at the airport with 40 minutes to spare or less), and I've experienced a number of weather-related delays and, as of yesterday, a cancellation.

What happened? Well, my initial flight from Halifax to Toronto early in the afternoon was cancelled due to the storms that have been passing through much of the country in the past few days. This was rebooked automatically due a flight later in the afternoon connecting through Ottawa. No problem there, this simply made my afternoon more relaxed. Of course, that flight was delayed by around 30 minutes, but upon boarding I discovered that I'd been rebooked with free food on the plane. Yay! So I watched two episodes of The Office on the vastly expanded on-demand entertainment system and the beginning of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles - certainly a pertinent movie for my day! Of course, the delay meant that I missed my connection in Ottawa, but it simply resulted in being booked on a slightly later flight.

At this point, this is starting to sound like a commercial for Air Canada, but I really don't understand all the bile directed at it. Air travel is hectic at the best of times, and delays due to adverse weather events tend to be handled fairly well all told. Otherwise, I like AC's entertainment system and the selection of food-for-purchase isn't bad at all.

As for WestJet? Never flown with them - primarily because they have only a fraction of the flights of AC (and hence a fraction of the scheduling flexibility) and because their prices aren't any better. Porter was neat, though, particularly the view of the Toronto skyline at take-off and landing.

*****

As an aside, I've seen more than a few Canadian politicians and quasi-celebrities on flights or in airports. Yesterday I saw Bob Rae at Pearson Terminal 1. On my Porter flight from Ottawa to Toronto in October, I noted that Rona Ambrose, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Ex-Minister of the Environment, was among the passengers. On a flight from (I think) Edmonton to Montreal in June, Roméo Dallaire was sitting in business class - and a woman went over to commend him! Otherwise, I once saw Don Cherry and Ron McLean at the old Terminal 2 at Pearson, and I once noted CTV reporter Mike Duffy bounding about through the Ottawa terminal.

I don't know what it says about me that I had no trouble recognizing any of these people immediately.

Stir-fry from Scratch

2007-11-25T22:04:00.001-05:00

Tonight I made a stir-fry. I use pretty much the same recipe every time; it's based on directions from Vickey, so I can't really claim originality, but it works well. Onward...

The main distinction of this stir-fry is that the meat is not cooked in the wok itself. Rather, I always boil it first with slices of ginger, soy sauce, and, usually, some powdered garlic. Fresh garlic would work too, but the ginger is more important - I use fresh ginger roots. Previously, I've cooked sliced pork, stir-fry pre-sliced beef, and stew beef. The latter I won't use again, since it was both too tough and too fatty. Tonight I used chicken thighs - it worked marvellously. After a solid half hour of boiling, the chicken is soft, tender, and, crucially, fully cooked. Boiling it with sliced ginger and soy sauce gives it a subtle flavour.

After the chicken has been thoroughly boiled, I stir-fried it for a few minutes with cooking oil, some more garlic powder, soy, and shredded ginger. Next I removed the chicken from the wok, and started stir-frying the vegetables. In this case, I used cucumber, green pepper, Shiitake mushrooms, tomatoes, broccoli, and diced green onion. I added more shredded ginger, soy, oil, and water, in roughly that order, and let them cook, stirring regularly. I then readded the chicken. After about 15 minutes (and once the rice had finished cooking), it was done, with enough leftovers for lunch or dinner tomorrow.

Winter Has Come

2007-11-24T01:14:00.000-05:00

As evidenced by the picture below. It's cold. But not too windy, and, frankly, there really isn't that much snow. It hasn't even merited the use of my boots. The great concrete edifice visible behind the trees is the Math and Computer Science Building, colloquially referred to as "MC".

Actually, every single building at UW is referred to be its acronym: SLC, DC, RCH, ALL, CIF, and it goes on. You also often hear terms like "2B" or "3A" thrown around. Eventually I figured out that these refer to the class year and respective term (A for fall, B for winter, C for spring... I think - maybe it's just sequential without reference to the specific term.) I still haven't quite gotten used to the jargon.

In fact, I haven't gotten used to the city in general. It's maddeningly spread out and, lacking a car or (currently) a bike, I haven't been able to explore farther than Sobey's or the Valumart (Loblaws substitute) in what passes for a downtown here. (They call it "uptown Waterloo" so as not to give the impression that it's a particularly lively or interesting place.)

Fortunately, Toronto is but a short train/bus ride away...

Potter's Field

2007-11-14T23:36:00.000-05:00

Apparently J.K. Rowling is lacking in money, and so is helping Time Warner quash a Harry Potter "lexicon" by a third-party author:

J.K. Rowling is suing the publisher of the Harry Potter Lexicon, which began life as a popular Potter blog, and wants a court to rule that she has the sole right to profit from the "descriptions, character details, and plot points" of the Potter tales. Now, a federal judge has issued an injunction against RDR Books to prevent them from completing the typesetting, selling the books, or even marketing it on Amazon.com.

Sounds pretty money-grubbing and petty for a woman who has amassed a billion dollar fortune by writing a single book series of questionable literary value. Of course, it's not that simple:

"There is a big difference between the innumerable Harry Potter fan sites' latitude to discuss the Harry Potter Works in the context of free, ephemeral web sites and unilaterally repackaging those sites for sale in an effort to cash and monetarily on Ms. Rowling's creative works in contravention of her wishes and rights," says the federal complaint, filed late last month in New York. Rowling, it turns out, has long wanted to produce her own companion book to the popular children's series and donate the money to charity. She believes that the Lexicon would eliminate much of the demand for her product (because past titles with "J.K. Rowling" on the cover have sold so poorly).

No doubt it would eliminate much of the demand for her product. Who fucking cares. If she wishes to donate money to charity, she could surely part with some of her existing and undeniably vast fortune. It's not as if she's not making money from officially licensed merchandise, movie residuals, and God-knows-what-else.

The complaint repeatedly stresses that Rowling has not "authorized" such a work, though whether such authorization is even necessary will certainly be one of the key points in the case. The Lexicon is stuffed with plot summaries, maps, and the sort of minutely detailed timelines you'd expect from such an endeavor. It's a huge treasure trove of information of Harry Potter characters and the world they inhabit.

In other words, Rowling wants to deny the publisher of the aforementioned blog the right to profit from his own work in putting together plot summaries, maps, timelines, etc. A pertinent further quote:

I think she should be thankful that her amusing hackery is even getting the same recognition as LOTR or Narnia.

Thank you Judy. I like reading the Potter series. They're entertaining, despite Rowling's often hackneyed plotting (does every book need to end with one character explaining the big mystery in one dialogue or flashback scene? She even does this in Deathly Hallows.) and the increasingly annoying behaviour of one Mr. Harry Potter.

But as literary works they certainly fall short, and they are far from the best fantasy around, even among youth-oriented fantasy (I haven't read Susan Cooper's Dark Is Rising series for well over a decade, but the images and characters have amazing staying power. Wonderful books - just avoid the recent movie adaptation.)

So what's next for Rowling? Suing authors who want to use the Philosopher's Stone as a MacGuffin in their stories? Ludicrous.

*****

As I may have mentioned, I am taking Chinese (Mandarin) classes. In the spirit of Judy's Korean posts, I will attempt to review what I have learned here. With any luck, I'll be able to figure out the pinyin (the formal romanization) rendering in HTML, but we'll see. For now, it suffices to know that there are four emphasized tones in Chinese, a high even tone (1), a rising tone (2), a "reverse" tone which drops and then goes back up even higher (3), and a falling tone (4). There is also a "neutral" tone which takes no emphasis. It takes some time to get used to these tones, but fortunately I'm past having to recite the pinyin table repeatedly (think reciting syllables repeatedly at each tone - boring). So, here's a quick lesson of how to say hello to someone:

Ni(3) hao(3).
你好。

This simply means "hello" or "hi". It literally means, "you are well", but the appropriate way to respond would be simply to repeat the phrase. On the other hand, if you say,

Ni(3) hao(3) ma?
你好吗？

Literally, "how are you?". When someone says this, you should actually respond. If you're doing well, you'd say, "I'm well", or

Wo(3) hao(3).
我好。

Or you've doing very well, you'd say,

Wo(3) hen(3) hao(3).
我很好。

At this point, you should ask how the other person is doing,

Ni(3) ne?
你呢？

In this case, "ne" is simply a question particle which means that you're asking the same question to the other person. If the first person isn't feeling so well, he might say,

Wo(3) bu(4) hao(3).
我不好。

"Bu(4)" is simply the negation adverb and functions much the same way as "not" in English. And I think that's about it for now.

Unsocial Apartments and More

2007-10-21T00:03:00.000-04:00

I live in what can only be one of the most unsocial university residences on the planet. Granted, they are not dormitory-style, but actual apartments, but we have an exercise room, several lounges, and other common spaces like the laundry room. There's also a nice games room down the hall from my apartment whic has pool and ping-pong tables. Occasionally, I might see some people in there, but it's rare.

Now, you might wonder, why don't I set an example and go make use of these quality facilities? Well, I do use the exercise room, but otherwise I'm not much inclined to play pool by myself. Solo ping-pong would present an interesting challenge though. Of course, I do have two apartment-mates, at least I think I do. I don't really see them all that much, unfortunately.

But it strikes me... we have some great facilities in this building! Arguably, grad students are simply so tired, overworked, or else suffering from mind-numbing procrastination that they are not in the right mood to enjoy a nice game of pool regularly. Seems reasonable enough. But it would be nice if I lived in a residence community, which seems to be the intent.

*****

However, since I don't want to write a post where I do nothing but complain, I will report some brighter news. My soccer team won* both games today! I didn't make it to the victorious 10am game, but the second ended 1-0 in our favour. Of course, it was technically a forfeit in our favour, since the other team lacked sufficient players, such that we just played a "fun game" wherein some of our team members played on their team. 'Twas good fun all the same.

In my next post, I'll document some of my cooking experiments. In the meantime, here's some Seinfeld. Why, you ask? Because I can!

A New Beginning

2007-10-16T23:31:00.000-04:00

And a new blog!

Moving to Waterloo has been something of an adventure for me; this blog will document the continuing saga of my journey as a grad student among the strip malls and subdivisions of Waterloo, Ontario. Topics will include but certainly not limited to the following, in no particular order:

The travails of graduate statistics courses

My attempts to learn Mandarin Chinese

Experiments in cooking

Travelling

Whatever else that may come to mind... even politics

Since I'm intending this post to be short-ish, I won't say much more. The blog's title refers to the fact that I'll be living here all winter... and the coming spring and summer too, but I'll worry about that later. I can definitely feel that Winter is Coming, though, as it's starting to get rather chilly not just in the mornings but during the day too. Well, it IS mid-October.

So, since I'm getting pretty tired, that will be all for now. I'll post again soon, though.