Nunavut tuberculosis rate decried

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Canada/1227801.html

Government-provided, one-room houses with no bathrooms, or cramped shacks cobbled together from construction debris, provided ideal conditions for the disease to spread.

I thought this was a really interesting article because I thought that tuberculosis was pretty much gone in Canada. At least, I know I've never met anyone or have heard of anyone having it.  I couldn't believe that TB is an issue in Nunavut because it seems like it'd be very preventable and curable. 

"We are a rich, developed nation that has the resources to solve the problem in Nunavut if we choose to employ them," says Dr. Matthew Stanbrook, a respirologist at Toronto Western Hospital. "The fact that we have failed to do so, not just once but over a century, should be an embarrassment to every Canadian."

I felt that the quote above from Dr. Matthew Stanbrook is a good one. It really speaks out to how as a country we've failed to do a lot of things and this is one of them. 

Question of the Week

I know I'm posting these all in a clump but I just have been putting it off. Reading others peoples blogs gave me a better idea of what this really was supposed to be so I feel more comfortable with it now I guess.


Why are such important aspects of life, such as food and nutrition handed over to industries? Food has been so industrialized now, especially meat, it's a sad thing. People have become extremely dis-attached from where their food comes from. I feel like food should be handled personally and should be done better, ensuring healthier, more wholesome food. You shouldn't be eating it if the people making or preparing it had to wear surgical masks in the process.

Question of the Week

Why are the Canada Games not being televised on a more public national scale? Halifax spent tons of money building that new sports facility and thousands of Canadian athletes are there using it and showing off their talents.

Question of the Week

Who decides who is capable of taking care of children ?


I ask this in reference to the article I found on the grandmother who starved her grandson to death by accident. How did she raise her own children if her intellectual level isn't great? Was this taken into consideration when she was given her grandchildren?

Class Reflection: The Constitution

I am finding that I'm starting to get better at taking notes and am improving at using my computer. The last two classes that we've had on the constitution have been pretty interesting. It's making me realize that I don't know a whole lot about our constitution.


Our group discussion I felt went better this week then the last week. We are a week behind everyone though, so maybe as our group warms up to each other it'll be better.

Carrot Mob!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUz0kM1u_jk


I really encourage everyone to watch at least one carrot mob video. It's such a neat concept. The idea is that by making educated or decisive consumer actions, mobs of people can influence stores to change things about how they do things.

Fans of Games unhappy with lack of TV coverage

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Front/1227408.html


I do not watch sporting events myself, but it does seem really odd to me that the Canada Games is not getting more coverage. What decided this? What's this channel that it's on? I've never even heard of it before. For people who's friends and family are involved in the Canada Games, it must be disappointing to not be able to watch it, especially if you're from far away or are physically incapable to attend. What a shame. 

WHO confirms swine flu vaccine child narcolepsy concerns

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-02-swine-flu-vaccine-child-narcolepsy_1.html


For another class I need to read three different articles a week on different things to help shape my idea of environmentalism and to contemplate the effects of world events on how we view the environment. I came across this article and thought it was really interesting so I'm posting it here.


I thought it was really interesting how they are thinking that there might be a link between Narcolepsy, a sleeping disorder, and the swine flu vaccine. I'm personally really against mass vaccination such as what happened last year, especially with a vaccine that isn't hugely tested. Although narcolepsy I guess isn't a huge serious illness, if the vaccine can be linked to that, then what else could it be causing as an unknown side effect ?

Reading What My Classmates Have Posted:

For our research discovery quest this week we were asked to look at classmate's blogs and to leave comments. I found it actually really fun to see what other people have been looking at and read stuff on over half of them. Here is what I left as comments:


Peter LaMarre:


  Hey Peter, After reading this I clicked on the links up at the top of the post and read the articles for myself that you had sourced. I thought this was really interesting because I'd never really thought or wondered about civilian casualties in Iraq before. It brought up some good questions in my mind about the actual amount of casualties and what that might mean to what effect our occupation has had in Iraq.




Brad Tierney:  


The day before they had announced a tuition cap at 3%, this amounts to a max 185$ increase per year and they decided to keep the bursaries that are given each year to students in Nova Scotia. This is a huge difference from the predicted 86%. Do you think that influenced the decision of students to go moreso than weather or laziness?




Aminta Richard: 


 Hey, I actually did a huge paper on this last semester. Did you know that by the time your average woman is done getting ready in the morning she has applied an average of 126 toxic chemicals to her body? Absolutely insane. There are lots of cosmetic companies though along with others that are slowly getting away from it. Things containing phthalates, parabens, triclosan and fragrance (parfum) are all things that should be avoided to limit toxcity exposure from cosmetics. I agree that more should be done to educate people so that wiser consumer choices are made. There are some really good books out there though on the topic. Slow Death by Rubber Duck is probably my favourite.




Daniel Toney:


  I agree with you that this is a ridiculous anti terrorist tactic. Looking at how things like education are getting budget cuts and stuff, spending money on something like this seems rather useless. I would assume that most terrorists don't figure out their attack tactics and plans of terror and scare over social networking sites such as Facebook  


Katrina Katrina: (no last name specified that I could find?)


  There seems to be a lot in the news lately about the treatment of mentally ill people. I can't ever imagine having to keep a child tethered on a line. It really goes to show how mentally ill people are extremely misunderstood and that not enough is done to understand and to try to help them.

Undercover at an Arizona Gun Show

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-bloomberg/undercover-at-an-arizona_b_816381.html


"In that investigation, we found out just how easy it is for criminals and the mentally ill to walk in and buy guns - no questions asked. It called attention to a huge loophole in the law that enables criminals and other dangerous people like drug abusers and the mentally ill to get guns without having to go through a background check."


I thought that this was a really interesting article from the Huffington Post. A group of people went undercover to see how easy it was to buy guns in Arizona. The answer: "As easy as buying fries at McDonalds" was the answer they gave in the article.


The point of this investigation was to show how easy it is for mentally ill people to purchase guns. The death of Gabrielle Gifford is just one example of the harm that mentally ill people can do, especially when given arms. 


I thought that this article was really interesting and that it raised some good points and examples of loopholes in gun laws in the States. I hope that their investigation is something that can be used to help fix these glaring errors in the laws that have been passed. 

Reflection on Class So Far

I feel that class is going well so far. I do find it a bit hard to keep on top on everything just with my course load this semester but I'm trying to keep myself organized and on track. I can at least be thankful that I'm not too much a procrastinator. 


I am a little worried that I'm not right on track with the chapters that we're supposed to be reading out of the Canadian Democracy textbook and that that might mess me up on the quiz that we're supposed to have. I'll just ask about that on Tuesday though. 


I find the lectures a bit hard to write good notes for because I don't always see how things connect and are related as they are presented right away. I just try to write down the notes verbatim though and go through and figure it all out later. 


Our first seminar with Ali was awkward just because people weren't really speaking up and there was a lot of awkward silences. I'm hoping that this week goes a lot smoother though and that people speak up more. 

"I didn’t know grandson would starve" — grandma

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Canada/1226189.html


Jeffrey, who weighed just 21 pounds when he died in November 2002, was treated like a dog. He ate out of a bowl with his fingers and often drank from a toilet when he was thirsty, her trial heard.


I felt that this was a really interesting article in the Chronicle Herald. A grandmother unknowingly starved her 5 year old grandson to death. In the article it says he was semi-comatose for several weeks and died weighing 21 lbs. Later on in the article, it says that the grandmother's IQ is only about 69, which borders on "mental retardation" and makes her less intelligent than around 98% of the Canadian population. 


This raised a lot of questions that weren't answered in the article. How did this grandmother get in charge of her child if this was the case? If she wasn't capable of raising her grandson then how did she ever raise her children and why did they give her their son? At the end they mention that the child was abused by his birth parents but what made the grandmother a better choice? Especially since he was apparently treated like a dog and she unknowingly starved him? 


Very strange indeed.

Dr. Adamson's Lecture

Last Tuesday we were given a lecture by Dr. Adamson about the role the media plays in politics. I wasn't feeling too well though so I kept drifting off and had a really hard time paying attention so I don't think I got as much out of it as I could have.


I did like the last part though when he was answering Peter's question about mental health and how it's dealt with or treated in Canada. I really agreed with Peter that it's something that isn't dealt with property and that it's surprising the lack of proper facilities we have to cope with the amount of mentally ill people that get stuck in the system.

Can You Guess What This Is?

Can you guess what this is?


A closer view:



This is a piece of art done by Chris Jordan. It depicts one million plastic cups, the number used on airline flights in the U.S. every SIX hours. I think that this qualifies as a piece of political art because it puts into one perspective the amount of waste that we generate as a Western society. Anyone should be able to look at this and be wowed, a million of anything is quite a bit, and plastic is a fairly non-renewable resource, especially because it's made from petroleum. We reached peak oil production in the 1970's and it's time to start thinking about things that are more renewable and aren't so wasteful.

Al Jazeera

I actually had never heard of Al Jazeera before, so it was really interesting for me to look up what it is. Firstly I found the actual Al Jazeera website and read some of the articles on it and compared it to what I was reading in some other newspapers. I found it to be pretty in sync with what I was reading elsewhere, especially about what's happening in Egypt. 


I did some more reading on other websites about Al Jazeera and found out that it's considered to be pretty controversial because it lacks a lot of the reporting restrictions that a lot of other newscasting groups have, especially in the Middle East. I thought that this was really interesting because I don't think that I believe in censorship, at least to a certain degree.  I thought it was interesting that other media outlets like CNN and BBC have re-shown interviews and footage that was originally from Al Jazeera. This would led me to believe that it is a solid media outlet, since BBC is one of the finest in our time. This is confirmed again to me by the fact that BBC has signed an agreement with Al Jazeera for sharing information and resources. 

Tuition hikes limited to 3%

http://thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotia/1225264.html


"I’m glad to see they listened to the opposition and they listened to students," Regan said Monday evening.


I was rather relieved to read this article yesterday. Being a student in Nova Scotia I'm obviously very concerned about the price I'm paying for university. The report that Tim O'Neill released was interesting, but I don't think that deregulating university tuitions would do anyone any good. If tuition was going to go up as much as 86%, I, along with many others would have probably ended up at schools like M.U.N, and the enrolment numbers would have plummeted. 


I didn't qualify for a student loan for my first year and so with the help from many members of my family but especially my father who is a painter, we managed to pay for my entire first year in cash. This definitely would not be possible next year or the following years if the tuition drastically increased. 


Nova Scotia is really moving around it's education budgets this year. Increases to tuition fees and that funding cut of about 22% to public school systems. I don't think this funding cut is going to be particularly useful or satisfy Nova Scotians if it isn't done properly, which often it doesn't seem to be. 

"Your Chums Are Fighting, Why Aren't You?"

This is a Canadian propaganda poster from the first World War. I thought it was really interesting because the artwork was rather neat and the message was so direct.


The red and black and blue colours that were used on the poster were rather interesting. I felt that in the colours were in sync with the perceptions people have about war. The black silhouetted soldiers create a sense of anonymity as to who is serving. This could almost allow the person viewing the poster to imagine someone in the silhouette's places. The black ground does this same thing as well. The red colour I thought could serve to add a severeness to it, almost the thoughts of blood, but victory as well. The blue wind added interest and drew in the eye.


The message was really short, crisp and frank. I think it's simplicity would have made it stick to someone's mind, making it a handy tool to guilt people into being soldiers. If I would place a guess as to when about this poster was released I'd said pretty close to before or circonscription was in place.

Mubarak Tells Egypt He Will Not Seek Re-Election

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/01/mubarak-tells-egypt-he-wi_n_817132.html


I think that this whole thing that has been happening in Egypt and other countries is really interesting. I haven't been reading too much on it, but what I have read I've found intriguing. I thought it was interesting how he's staying in power and is staying in Egypt although it's clear that Egypt's citizens don't want him there but isn't running in the re-election. It's probably about time, I think 82 years old is a little old to be running a country.


However, I feel that websites such as Al Jazeera can give a more accurate viewpoint than websites such as The Huffington Post. I feel that a western world viewpoint on things happening in middle eastern countries is largely inaccurate.  This may be because I'm half Lebanese and my father was in the Phalange for 11 years.   I've been raised with a really different viewpoint on Middle Eastern politics because of this I think. I just don't understand how people here can feel like they can go into Middle Eastern countries and feel that they fully understand the conflict when they see it from the viewpoint of being from a rich and privileged country such as Canada or the U.S.A. I really don't feel that we are in a position to occupy these countries and try to tell them how to do things when we really can't appreciate their long and rich histories and culture.

100 Sled Dogs Slaughtered

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Canada/1225190.html


"Tour operator got workers’ comp cash; he was traumatized from shooting them"


I really don't understand how someone can be "forced to kill" like this man claims he was. To kill ONE HUNDRED dogs seems super excessive. I can see how it could be traumatizing, but I really do not understand.  I worked at the S.P.C.A. in Burnside, and I remember once when we went into a puppy mill breeder to take his dogs away, the man killed his dogs so that we couldn't take them. It was horrifying to think someone could do that. What would ever be someone's reasoning to slaughter 100 dogs? I read that he tried to find homes for them, and it would be hard finding homes for 100 plus dogs, but I still find it hard to believe that he was pressured by anyone else but himself to kill those dogs.


Just horrifying

Guernica

This is a picture of Picasso's Guernica, his depiction of the Spanish bombing that happened in 1937. I feel that even though it is a fairly old piece of political art, it is an important one nonetheless. This painting is known worldwide as being a centrepiece for the anti-war movement and helped spread knowledge around the world about the Spanish Civil War. 


I find the mural to be really interesting. It's really open to a lot of interpretation and it is easily seen that Picasso put a lot of thought into the postures and positions of the people portrayed. The twisted bodies of the people and animals show the pain and suffering that they went through after getting bombed. The horse is clearly screaming in pain. On the left hand side we see a mother weeping over a dead child. 


I don't think that this is what was in mind when he was commissioned to do work for the World's Fair in Paris, but it has had significant effects since then.